Columbus + WOSU + COSI = Social Media Cafe

Note: This thread is not about COSI Toledo's financial situation nor about saving COSI Toledo.

On Oct 29, 2007, jdmsbyrd asked : "Anyone want to plan an Open Space conference like this in Toledo? I will be glad to help plan an event."

This idea in Columbus looks like an interesting method for community activism.

Via seriouslymedia, a Nov 28, 2007 Bivings Report blog posting titled The Columbus Social Media Cafe :

Public broadcaster WOSU and COSI, an area science museum, in Columbus are now hosting the Columbus Social Media Cafe group in their WOSU@COSI center.

According to the Columbus Social Media Cafe blog, the mission of this group centers around the following question that WOSU and COSI asked themselves :

What if we — your local public broadcaster and science museum — and those of you who are the local blogging experts got together and learned how to use Social Media to bring back that great American tradition of the community taking charge of its own problems?

What I find interesting about this group is how much they're using social media. They have a blog, a mini social network (ning based), and use Twitter. However, they rely [on] these tools to complement interaction in the real world. We'll see if this collaboration between a traditional news organization, museum, and area residents will indeed usher in a better community through the help of social media.

They used the Open Space Unconference meeting format like BarCamp type gatherings, which uses a self-structuring agenda.

Nov 16, 2007 Columbus Social Media Cafe blog posting

WOSU and COSI hosted its first blogger meet-up this evening at WOSU@COSI. It truly was a fascinating evening.

Using the Open Space meeting format, this community of very passionate people discussed a wide range of topics addressing the Question: What can we do together that we cannot do alone to change this community using social media tools?

For a headline summary of the topics, you can visit our Twitter page. See some additional photos in our Flickr group.

We also took video that we’ll have posted on You Tube and Facebook as well as this blog.

A few of the many YouTube videos related to the Columbus Social Media Cafe :

Tuesday describes Open Space

Using Social Tech

Bloggers share thoughts on the Columbus Social Media Cafe

Embedding the Columbus Social Media Cafe's Twitter feed, so you can get an idea of what issues they're thinking about.

At the top of this page, I said this had nothing to do with preserving COSI Toledo. Well, what if some kind of social media cafe was created in Toledo/Lucas County, and the first activist project was to create a plan to make private funding a sustainable way to keep a hands-on science museum in the Toledo area? The feeble-minded way to solve a problem is to run to the taxpayers, begging for money with a levy. Surely, metro Toledo has more intellectual talent than that.

created by jr on Nov 28, 2007 at 08:25:45 pm
updated by jr on Nov 28, 2007 at 09:46:41 pm