Thursday 31 March 2011

LJMU Tweetup

For a while now (since last May to be exact) I've been thinking about the value of tweetups (read Twitter meetups) in the local community, and how I might transfer that to my work setting.

With 3000 staff across 50 buildings, and 25000 students Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) has a community all of its own.

As a new member of staff last year, I found it incredibly difficult to meet colleagues outside of my range of 'normal' business, and having come from a campus based University I struggled with the nature of the multi-site beast.

Tweetups are an opportunity for people who are interested in, or engaged with Twitter to get together and have a chat. They are very informal events, some have entertainment and a bar, some don't. Some happen over a picnic, others in coffee shops - they are driven by the twitter community, for the twitter community (or those interested in getting involved). There is a very real value in taking virtual conversations into the real life world, and connections made online are strengthened by meeting face to face. There is no agenda.

I've noticed in the past year that there are many LJMU twitter accounts sprouting up, some personal, some professional, some used in teaching, some for marketing, and I've tried to follow anyone with LJMU in their bio so I can learn more about our place of work.

At a recent twitter training event run by Alex Spiers (@alextronic), there was a genuine feeling among participants that they wanted to know more from people who were already doing it, add that to the disparate nature of staff all over the City and I think we've got a demand.

So - LJMU Tweetup 1 (#LJMUTWUP) is born:

Where: Parr St Studio 2

When: Thursday April 7th, 4pm onwards

Who: Anyone who wants to come.
If you're on Twitter, great. If you're not, great.

RSVP here: http://twtvite.com/ljmutwup

Come and have a chat, meet like-minded souls and leave better connected.

I'll be there, will you?

Mandy AKA @m8nd1

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