Anti-Social Media Cafe

Following on from an earlier blog on Manchester's Social Media Cafe, I thought it might be instructive - not to say constructive - to compare it with the model on which they are based.  London's Tuttle Club ticks all the right boxes for me and I'm going to try to ascertain why that might be, and why the Manchester version seems to have mislaid a key element that makes Tuttle work.

I do not think that missing key element is 'fun', although it's true Tuttle seems like a lot more fun.  I don't think it is necessarily the more professional feel to Tuttle's on-line presence, although it's equally true that they - and, for instance, Birmingham - have had much better quality 'associated media' - like photographs - whereas Manchester has had some truly awful cameraphone pix and video.

No, I think the true missing ingredient might be defined as "that which makes one less pretentious".  Tuttle's founder Lloyd Davies is both witty and eloquent but somehow manages to remain down-to-earth and approachable even when talking or writing about the minutae of some techie chat he's just had.  (Perhaps it's the ukelele).  He also seems a genuinely creative person who knows a lot of other truly creative people.

Here in Manchester there appears to be a dearth of real creative talent attending the SMC meetings, but plenty of mediocre and terribly earnest I.T.-based Marketeers.  Obviously they would turn puce with rage at being called merely 'I.T.-based Marketeers', preferring perhaps 'Social Media Consultants' or 'Creative Digerati' or 'Thought Leaders'.  In fact I'm sure they'd prefer that because these are the terms they use when describing themselves, and it comes across as unbelievably pretentious.

No doubt there would be some who would say that Manchester's SMC is not trying to be like Tuttle.  Not the authors of MancSMC's original homepage though...

And now we've soiled this page with the hideous MancSMC logo in all it's garish luridness, let's take a look at the homeblogs for the two entities.

It's worth noting that - other than the actual blog entries themselves - Tuttle only have two 'true' RSS feeds to their homepage - recent comments & recent photos.  Two generic boxes state simply what Tuttle is and where to find them, and there's a tasteful header pic and simple typographic design solution for their name.  It looks smart and cool.

Now let's take a trip up north to see how (obstensibly) the same sort of people have laid out their homeblog:

MancSMC has feeds for Blogposts (sitting in the top centre and displaying on May 26th 2011 the last blogpost dated April 12th), Forum (seemingly hijacked by job vacancy ads), Facebook, Events, Twitter, Members, Groups, Latest Activity, and even a downloadable big badge saying 'I'M A MEMBER OF SOCIAL MEDIA MANCHESTER'.  Also prominent top-right is the Sign Up box with links to Facebook, Google and Yahoo.  In contrast Tuttle makes a point of stating in their generic description box that "there is no need to sign up".

Other than the horrible aesthetic mess all these streams make, and the fact that they are vulnerable to the ebb and flow of user content (more ebb than actual flow it seems), they suggest an unappealing desperation.  "Please join us. Oh, please join us. Go on. Look how popular we are. Do you want a badge? Go on, have a badge..."

You may also have noticed that instead of Tuttle's cool photograph of people chatting we get a dull, low contrast city nightscape.  And the title reads 'Social Media Manchester'.  What happened to the cafe?  And where's the logo gone?  Perhaps they've changed their name?  Not so, because if you click on the Facebook link you arrive here:

And there's the old #smc logo but the page is called Social Media Manchester.  It's not an actual Facebook Group page you understand, but the app page.  Under each heading we read: "No content could be found for this item."  Well, ain't that the truth.

Clicking through the 'Find Out More' on 'About Us' takes you to this:

So we're back to calling it the Social Media Cafe again now and the dull description makes it sound like some sort of Community Support Group.  But for me the highlight has to be the photograph.  Was this really the best one available?  Two empty chairs and lot of people's backs?

In conclusion I think the net result of all this shoddy pretentiousness is that MancSMC continually fails to attract creatives into their midst.  And unless something changes, they never will.  And if they never will, then the group will remain small-minded, unimaginative, mediocre and dull.

Social Mediocrity Café

Are you happy with your blogging?  I mean does it inspire you?  Do you feel your deathless prose is not getting the attention it so richly deserves?  Do you remember when you had to actually physically leave the flat if you wanted to argue about the merits of the last episode of 'Life On Mars' with your mates?  Do you remember when you had friends?  You did have friends once, right?

Well, a new venture attempts to conjure a solution for people like you.  It's for those who enter the world through their laptops, PDAs or other electronic, non-tactile ways and have slowly realised they've forgotten what stale cigarette smoke smells like.  Aping a same-name organisation in London, Manchester's very own Social Media Café corralled up to around seventy (allegedly) Digital Misfits - sorry, I mean Creative Digerati - enabling them to have some 'face time'.

Only thing was is this:

1)  If you already have a reasonably healthy social life you would never be drawn to such an event as this, because...  2) ...it is only ever going to attract people who've spent the last few years interacting in their bedrooms with their PC's.   Therefore, you know, they're not going to necessarily be people who are comfortable talking to other real people.  Now imagine the horror of a whole room full of people like this;  released from literally years of smiling fixedly at their 'puter screens - all of a sudden at large in Our World.

It was indeed a curious sociological phenomenon to regard at first hand (and I did, albeit briefly, before running toward the exit, my half-drunk pint forgotten on a table, my half-drunk self fighting panic).  Judging from the facial expressions on many of the attendees this was the first time in a very long time they had spoken to living, breathing sentient beings.  Their eyes stared in wonder and you could almost hear them thinking: "Wow, the skin texture and hair on this one is incredibly real...".

The 'Oh My God I've Forgotten All The Rules Regarding How To Communicate' frisson that underscored the evening was brilliantly highlighted by the Chairperson 'streaming' ill-lit, pixellated-to-shit live random moments from her Nokia to those who had wanted to attend but had found they no longer remembered how to leave their flat.

And the Tweets..!  I swear to God there were people in the midst of this first inaugural SMC - designed as I say, to get people actually speaking together - who found they simply had to Tweet about this being the first inaugural SMC, and then other people standing right next to them began excitedly reading those same Tweets from their own phones.   From the relative safety of outdoors I Tweeted back my simple goodbye to them:

"Gotta go - 2 Kafka-esque 4 me x".

As I strolled purposefully away I heard the beep of up to around seventy (allegedly) mobile phones.

...If this sounds like your cup of tea the next one is scheduled very soon.