Yesterday we made a breakfast presentation at the Motherwell College Knowledge Transfer Hub and what a pleasure it was. Packed house, engaged participants, intelligent questions, fabulous facilities. Loved it and loved giving them a great insight into the Social Media mindset and how understanding it is of such greater value if you want to extract real (and sustainable) business potential from the use of SM, in contrast with the transient and dubious value of just learning how to tweet.
What was particularly fantastic about being at the College is that it presents a shining example of regeneration at work. Set on the site of the former Ravenscraig steelworks, it is close by the striking Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility. The College itself has more than 20,000 students all learning rich and valuable professional and personal skills and doing so in a practical and applied way in what I can only describe as an entrepreneurial and uplifting environment. I compared it, in conversation with some of the College’s senior team, to the technical college I attended many years ago where they taught me to weld for a living, and how it and Borstal didn’t seem particularly different. But enough of my misspent youth.
The ideas around regeneration, the community of the College and the sense of reducing barriers to allow people to follow their ambition had much in common with the ensuing discussion of Social Media mindset. The sense of possibility and potential in the college is exactly what is on offer to organisations that understand and embrace the social media ethos. New business models, new value sets, new hope of change.
Later in the day we met with one of the many people who simply “get” the opportunity that Social Media Week Glasgow presents and are just bursting with ideas as to how to make it a sensational international star burst.
It’s days like this that make me reflect that our work in broadening people’s understanding of how social media mindset can truly make a difference in economy, culture and importantly society – means that I probably have one of the best jobs in the world.
A really engaging session at the college and delivered in a really interesting way. It is hard to see how to avoid this as a future core skill. What could be viewed as a very complex area was well explained and has encouraged me to think of future benefits to social media.