Every Repository Fringe has been a real conversation with the repository community. As this year’s event approaches we wanted to share some of our tips to being a part of this.
Like any good event we want you to connect, chat and network in person – see our post on networking for more on why you should bring some particularly spiffing business cards this year. But we also want to encourage you to build connections online that can continue the conversation long beyond Repository Fringe and out to the wider repositories community.
We’ll be using several different tools during Repository Fringe 2013 and we want to make sure that everyone’s familiar with them so you’ll find a guide here to using Twitter (we also have a Lanyrd page); Crowdvine; Flickr; and Live blogging – click “Read More” below to browse through all of our tips or click on the one you are most interested in.
Once you’ve had a change to try these out – or if you’re already an expert – then do consider helping us “amplify” the event via some of these tools. Many of you have already volunteered to do this – huge thank yous to all of you – but if you haven’t yet just leave us a comment here or email us: repofringe@gmail.com. And whether you’ve already volunteered or will be using your own blog we think that, alongside this page, you may also want to have a look at these useful Social Media Guidelines created by EDINA.
Over the past couple of years Twitter has become the major channel for conference networking – and we know the Repository Fringe community include some very keen Twitter users. However, for those who are still yet to give it a try, Twitter is a microblogging platform that lets people share what’s on their minds in 140 characters or less.
This video, describing Twitter in plain English is a great place to start. By keeping updates bite-sized, you can go through a lot of information in a short period of time. To get started head over to http://twitter.com/ and log in or put in your name, email address, and create a password. Then click sign up.
In order to start using Twitter, you’ll have to find some people or a conversation going on. Click in the search bar and type in a friend’s name or a topic. Let’s start with a search for Repository Fringe (1). Once you find us, click on our name or username to view our profile (2).
Clicking on the username will bring up a view of the user’s profile. Click the Follow button (3) to follow that user:
Now any posts we share will show up in your timeline – a collection of updates, or ‘tweets’, from people you follow.
You might notice a hashtag in our updates. Hashtags are used to label tweets as part of a broader conversation that’s going on. While you’re at the conference, if you put #rfringe13 (as shown in the image below) in your tweets the other people will be able to find them when they look for conference chat. Be sure to join in so we know how things are getting on and what you think some of the best talks are about.
To sharpen your Twitter skills a little bit more, head over to Mashable’s guide.
Lanyrd is a social conference directory which lets you use your Twitter profile to track or indicate that you are attending an event and to find others who are also attending the event. We have set up a Lanyrd for Repository Fringe 2013 here: http://lanyrd.com/2013/rfringe13/. You’ll need a Twitter account to sign up, and once you do you’ll be able to show your attendance and see other attendees. Lanyrd is not a tool we’ll be using terribly heavily this year but it’s useful to know about and track the event through.
The best place to find additional conference materials however is here on the Repository Fringe website.
Crowdvine is our own social network just for this event. Last year the Repository Fringe team were part of the organising team for OR2012 and after seeing Crowdvine work well there, we thought we’d try it again for Repository Fringe.
Crowdvine will let you see who else is attending, make some early contacts, get some preliminary chat and plan your knitting, socialising, etc. Signing up is pretty easy, just head over to http://rfringe13.crowdvine.com/ and click on ‘create an account’.
Fill in your name, email address and create a password. Once you’ve done that, if you click on account (right where ‘create an account’ was before), then ‘My Profile’ (1 or 2), you can get to filling in introductory information.
On Crowdvine, you can share your organisation and which topics you know best. You can also submit a photo so people recognise you when you run into each other at the conference.
Once all that’s out of the way you can browse attendees, see what what’s going on, or start your own discussion.
We love pictures! So, as in previous years, we’ve also got a Flickr group going. Flickr lets users share photos and, in our case, put them all together so everyone can see what’s going on. Is that speaker performing their Pecha Kucha through the medium of interpretive dance? We need documentation!
We’ve got a group started at http://www.flickr.com/groups/repofringe13/.
If this is your first time using Flickr, you’ll need to either sign in with a Facebook account, a Google account, or create a Yahoo! ID.
Once you’re signed in and you click join, just type us a quick message letting us know that you’re coming and we’ll send you an invite. Very exclusive.
If you are contributing images (photos or your drawings around the event or video) to our group please do try and ensure that you have indicated the ownership of those images. We try to make ours Creative Commons licensed so that you can reuse, reblog, and enjoy them. If yours are similarly licensed then we may well use them here on the Repository Fringe website and we will be particularly grateful (but we also delight in images that you retain under your own copyright, we just won’t reproduce these without permission).
Last, but certainly not least, we will be trying to live blog all of the key sessions at Repository Fringe 2013 and we thought you might like to know how to join in – we’d love to see lots of blogging and live blogging from all over the conference.
Live bloggers type up what’s going on at an event as it happens, keeping track of what people are saying and showing as things go on. If we get a lot of live blogging participation then it will be like every attendee gets to go to every workshop, round table, developer challenge session, etc – je ne repository regret rien!
If you’d like to help us update the Repository Fringe blog that would be brilliant! Or if you are blogging the event on your own site then we’ll link to your blog or live blog posts right next to ours. If you’ve already indicated your willingness to blog on the registration form we either have been or will be in touch. Otherwise comment here or email us (repofringe@gmail.com) so that we can get you all set up in time for the end of July.
And remember that if you blog about the event, share your slides, etc. then just let us know where to find your take on the conference and we’ll link to them and help get word out.
Finally…
Any Other Questions About Social Media?
If you have any comments or questions not covered here, if you want to let us know about your blog or social media activity around the conference, or if there’s another beginners guide you’d like to see added here then leave a comment below or email Nicola, our Repository Fringe 2013 Chair but also our resident Social Media expert! Leave her a comment below or email the Repository Fringe address (repofringe@gmail.com), and she’ll be very happy to help!
For a reminder of all of our social media presences, our hashtags, etc. just click on the “Contact” link on our menu above.
I am Digital Education Manager and Service Manager at EDINA, a role I share with my colleague Lorna Campbell. I was previously Social Media Officer for EDINA working across all projects and services. I am interested in the opportunities within teaching and learning for film, video, sound and all forms of multimedia, as well as social media, crowdsourcing and related new technologies.
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