Join in: Transitions Online bridgecamp, Riga 5th & 6th February

1. Social media can be navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual boosheet.
2. Social media can also enable significant REAL change in the world.

Most of us spend too much doing too much #1.
But here is a brilliant, interesting, international opportunity to have a crack at #2.

The following is written by the excellent Dan McQuillan who is the lead digital guy at The Make Your Mark Campaign (a NixonMcInnes client) and who spends his spare time doing cool stuff like Social Innovation Camp.

If I didn't already have of worky time away from home already booked for Feb and March, I'd be on this quicker than you can say 'oh, look there's another celebrity broadcasting himself through Twitter'.

Over to Dan:

i'm helping organise a bridgecamp (a techs + NGOs
barcamp) in riga on 5th + 6th Feb, run by Transitions Online
(http://www.tol.cz/) and i'm looking for a few folk who'd like to come
& contribute. It'd be on a voluntary basis, but Transitions Online
would cover travel and accomodation.

It's a wrap-up for a 12 month project to boost web tools and
strategies for NGOs in the new member states of the EU, especially
around transparency, anti-corruption etc.

i did a session at their seminar in prague last year (the blog post
has some details:
http://www.internetartizans.co.uk/crowdsourcing_for_transparency) and
it was an inspiring experience. some of these folk are really on the
frontline. On the other hand, they're not that savvy about how to make
the most impact with digital.

part of the feb event will be trying to accelerate some of the project
ideas generated from last year (http://techtools.tol.org/marketplace).
four of the projects have had some developer time over the last couple
of months but i'm not too sure how much has been achieved.

but basically they've left it up to me to propose the shape of the two
days and i'm keen to expose them to some experienced developers,
digital marketers and social media campaigners. i'm sure that if they can 'get' a few key ideas, they could make a real difference in their countries.

i'm especially interested in social media marketing / buzz monitoring / user experience types.

people can contact me via http://www.internetartizans.co.uk/contact or
dm me @danmcquillan

So if you'd like to kick up a level from navel-gazing and selling handbags to spending a weekend in Riga (cool, cool city) helping real people make a real difference to their real world, get involved :)