Following up from my previous post on the Adhere blog out a live digital mind map event, I’ve been working on some further ideas for the event, as has Pete Ashton. I’m posting these thoughts separate to what Pete might have come up with since I am keen to see what we might have thought of in common, or more importantly, what me might have thought of independently so we can converge ideas to take the concept further.

Anyway, introduction out of the way here are some of might thoughts:

Overview:

The purpose is to run a large interactive event to highlight the benefits of a social media community and how it can cross over from a virtual world to the physical world. Two ways of developing ideas are face to face in a room: here ideas happen quicker and action points are usually agreed in good time - or on a larger scale opening a forum to a larger audience, most likely online: here ideas are far more varied due to the larger amount of people who can get involved. Can we harness the benefits of both to spark a series of innovative and ground breaking project concepts..?

Steps, the process:

1. The Physical Event - an interactive session with a large mind map wall, contributed to in person and online
2. Further Discussion - post event consideration and input
3. Refining the actions and getting on with it
4. Report on successes and failures - using traditional media to inform a different audience

An example

It should be free flowing, open to all, fun and conceptual. Lets say for example the event had the central theme - ‘Convincing my Gran social media is a good thing’ - or something along those lines. The event would take the format of an interactive session, with one whole large white wall as the drawing board. The central theme would be illustrated in the centre of the wall, with words and illustrations provided by involved illustrators. The wall would be broadcast live as a video on the internet on a chosen web address that would be promoted well in advance. Progress of the wall/mind map would also be ‘live blogged’ onto the same website where people could also interact with the session on the site and on twitter. Nominated people at the event would be responsible for adding online submissions onto the mind map as they come in.

To start the mind map off 4 speakers should each do a 5-10 minute presentation off the main central theme, drawing and writing on the mind map as they talk. The floor would be completely open for discussion and feedback as this process is happening and as the mind map begins to flow the results should provide interaction from the website AND the audience involved at the event. Between each speaker the illustrators, and indeed anyone attending the event will be able to add to the mind map themselves for a set period of time, then on to the next speaker. Once the four speakers have finished the mind map should be well under way and it should develop and evolve naturally from the interactive audience.

Once the physical event is over the mind map should be left open for people to add to in person for a set period of time, say for example 10 days, and contribute to online. After this period there should be some obvious ideas or actions available to come out of the mind map, these should be documented in further detail and an action plan created to achieve the ideas. This will the be put into motion. For example, say from the mind map an idea came out to run a workshop for local students to collaborate on a video mashup around the theme of, for example - ‘Why I would join a city Gang’ - using donated media (video, music, photo, illustrations etc…) then a process will be put in place for this to happen.

Finally once the actions have been done, a follow up feature - be it an event or VT - should evaluate the impact of the concepts created in the mind map event and how they have migrated from simple online social media roots to tangible outcomes. This should be reported in traditional media as well as the usual blogs and discussion groups such as radio, tv and print.

Anyway, that’s it for now. It’s easter and I want some chocolate.

Finally, some tools that could be used along the way are:

www.bubbl.us
www.twitter.com
www.facebook.com
www.vimeo.com
www.youtube.com
and so on