The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, make good short films, really short films. Well researched and executed hard hitting short films to educate kids and parents on taboo subjects. Their website is pretty cool too.
Their latest drama ‘Exposed’ is aimed at 14-18 year olds and is focused on ‘sexting’ and the forwarding of ‘naughty’ pictures and video’s and the related consequences of the youth for both. Below is the promotional drama for the actual video, I can’t show you the actual video yet as it’s only available for teachers and youth workers and I hope CEOP release the drama shortly on YouTube and Facebook as this needs to be easily shared online between teens, not just played in the classroom.
When you get the chance, watch it. Get parents to watch it and get young people to watch it.
Gawker is an amazing piece of software for Mac OS that I have just discovered. With very little effort it allows you to put together a short movie of still imagines to track a day of work or an event.
Take back the city for yourself tonight, I’ll take back the city for me.
When I was a young boy my mother used to say to me ‘grow up!’ her father always retorted with ‘Don’t be silly, boys never grow up, they just get more expensive toys’
On this basis I wanted to see if we could take the simple childhood game of Hide and Seek and make it expensive and that is exactly what was acheived ! Read the rest of this entry »
The traveling public have had a bit of a wake up call this year with regard to air travel. Between strikes, bankrupcy’s and that bloody volcano people have began to slowly learn just how fickle the industry is and just how much we actually rely on it for everyday life.
The complete shut down of UK airspace has knocked the world out of sync, planes dispatched in far corners, mail not arriving, friends and family stuck dear know’s where.
Personally I think Michael O’Leary has done the industry a massive injustice last month when he agreed to pay out passengers for responsible expresses after claimed he would rather go to court than hand over the readies. Legally bound to pay yes however a court case would have highlighted just how tight a rope these companies walk on and that you really do get what you pay for. He had a opportunity to change the game going forward. After all someone has to pay for this so we are going to feel it in flight prices for years to come. You can’t really expect to pay £10 for a flight and then be put up in a hotel for 5 days when the flight can’t go through no fault of the airline can you ? Read the rest of this entry »
I have been holding off writing this for quite some time, partly because I was so fuming with rage, partly because I was waiting to see how it played out and partly because it take’s more time than one might realise to write these things.
That said, the dust has settled and my boiling blood has reduced to a low simmer so here goes………
In February. I along with my fellow Network Scouters embarked on another Top Gear Adventure. This time the plan was to race from Edinburgh Castle to Buckingham Palace. Car vs Public Transport. The date and time was set, as was the accommodation now it was just time to figure out how to get our vehicle from Northern Ireland to the UK Mainland for the race and back again after-wards. Scouts being Scouts, we always try to go for the most cost effective solution after all we do favor sleeping in tents rather than the ritz ! So it was clear from the outset than renting a car was going to work out much cheaper than booking a ferry. * Read the rest of this entry »
I met Stephen just over a year ago when he followed me on Twitter. We quickly began exchanging tweets, Facebook messages and texts until we finally met in person some months later and have bumped into each other several times since at various networking events.
As a scouter, his business fascinated me from day one as he basically gets paid to do all the fun stuff we do at scouts…. and he does it full time.
I booked him for a black tie event last year to do some pre-dinner games which turned out to be very novel, great sport and people are still talking about it today!
So what does this have to do with Social Media, well its simple. Stephen started his business (The Adventure Team) just over 12 months ago with virtually no money and absolutely no money for marketing or sales. What Stephen did have though was a computer and he quickly was able to build a large following on Facebook and Twitter. I look forward to Stephen’s daily Facebook update where he talks about what he is going to get up to that day. Read the rest of this entry »
After months of debating the best type of transport in Ireland and of
course chatting about the legendary show that is Top Gear, we (Lagan
Valley Explorer Scouts) decided to take the debate one step further
and run our own version of one of Top Gear’s races across a country.
The challenge was set; we would meet at McDonalds Sprucefield at 5am
on Saturday 27th June and see who would be the first team to arrive at
Cafe Hi, Merchants Quay Shopping Centre in Cork 250 miles away.
We had three teams:
Team 1, made up of Harriot, Alison and Mark went for the public
transport option, taking the bus to Dublin (no trains at 5am, shame!)
and then catching a train to Cork.
Team 2, made up of Warren, Clare and Pudz decided to fly however the
only flight they could get left from Dublin at 9 – so they to would
need to grab the bus to get that far.
Team 3, made up of myself, James, Stu and Hylands took 2 cars and
would drive the full way.
We then had three weeks of excitement, doubt, double checking routes
and talking big talk of who was going to lose.
It very quickly became 5am on 27th June and the race began, and this
is what happened.
I was in the Car Team.
Too much talking and eating of burgers meant we did not actually
realise 5am had passed and we set off, all be it 5 minutes late.
Straight away we had an advantage as we were rolling whereas the other
teams would have to wait 15 minutes on the bus, zero traffic at 5am
meant the drive was the most pleasurable I have ever taken added to
that the banter between the other car over the CB radio and the
banging tunes on the CD player I cannot think of a better way to
travel.
At 6am we had made great progress, I received a call from the two
teams on the bus who had just came past Newry but we had just zipped
through the toll road at Drogeda.
At 7am we had shot round the M50 in great time and where on the road
to cork, The other two teams had got off the bus and split up at the
airport with the Plane team checking in for their 9.00 flight and the
train team grabbing a cab across Dublin for their 8am train, this is
where (for them) the fun began !!
At around 7.10am I received a call from Warren, my brother in the
Plane team who informed me that Clare had forgot to print her boarding
card all was not lost though as the lovely girl at the check in desk
of (lets call them) Bryanair offered to reprint it for her for a mere
€40, what a lovely company to fly with!
Things were not running smoothly for the train team either, the bus
had came into Dublin 10 minutes late making it incredibly tight to get
the 8am train, the taxi agreed to zip across Dublin for them, getting
them into the station 6 minutes before the train was due to leave.
That however was not the end of their problems, their tickets had been
pre-booked and the reservation machine was not finding the tickets
against the credit card they had booked with, a long queue meant they
could miss the train. They got sorted though with minutes to spare
and boarded the train just as it was about to leave.
With everyone now south of Dublin, adrenalin was starting to pump and
everyone was getting excited and concerned that the other teams would
arrive first. At this time we spotted a sign by the side of the road
– CORK – 39KM, What? Really? Fantastic, we where defiantly going to
win.
The phone call’s pretty much stopped at this stage, the plane team
were through security, the train team had boarded and we where very
close to Cork – the race was on big time.
We entered Cork city at around, 8.15 and began looking for the
shopping centre. We parked up to asked a taxi driver who informed us
it was right behind us, a quick lap of the one way system we parked
and began to laugh hysterically (knowing the plane has not taken off
yet!) At 8.35 we arrived at the cafe and won the race.
The next hour and a bit was pretty boring, we were waiting on the
plane team landing and checking in…… not wanting to let people
know we had won – I decided to update my facebook with ‘ flat tyre,
this could cost us the race!’ straight away Harriet texted me to laugh
(the joke is on you now Harry) at around 10.15 the Plane team checked
in again to say they had landed and were on route to the meeting
point, the race (or so they thought) was on again.
Sat in the Coffee store, two of my party had gone to cash machine and
I began to panic – the rules stated that all the team had to be
present when the 2nd team arrived to count as a victory, oh noes ! I
quickly rounded them up and we sat quietly in the corner waiting, I
could hear Pudsey from the plane team coming around the corner saying
(I think we have won ……….. oh f&*^$£^%£)
That was it, the car won, the plane came second and later the train
team came running in and lunch was on them !
The world could very easily be split into two groups. Those of us that ‘get’ social networking and those of us that ‘don’t get’ social networking, and just because you might be on twitter and facebook doesn’t mean you ‘get it’
Twitter
These are the common complaints I get about twitter,
1. Whats the point
2. Know-one ever replies to me
3. I signed up for it, but then nothing happened.
Facebook
And these are the common complaints I get about facebook.
1. You update to much
2. I don’t want to upload photo’s of my dog
3. Its hard to find people.
OK so here is how it works with both sites, its a simple rule and applies to most things in life……… You get out what you put it, its that simple. Do not sign up for any of these sites and expect to get hundreds of replies or friends because that will not happen, it takes time to build your network of friends and followers, granted it can be quicker on Facebook to connect with people you know because of the handy email import tool but twitter takes time for it to build and work for you. 50% of users on twitter have never used their account or have only updated once, the best way to build a twitter network is to use search.twitter.com and begin to add a few like minded people from there you can see who they are having conversation with and choose to add them and so forth and so on.
On to Facebook, and my biggest annoyance is people telling me that I update to much. I don’t the problem lies with the fact that the people complaining do not know how to use it correctly, or they do not have many friends and/or those friends do not update enough. In my network I have a mixture of Friends, business associates and scouters some of which update alot and some not so often, I got onto facebook about once an hour for 5 minutes, update and read about 25 – 40 new updates that have been left by people whilst I have been offline.
Facebook and Twitter for me, are a fantasitc way to keep in touch with a wide circle of people that span the globe, promote scouting events, and provide a healthly distraction from my wee office where I work alone.
The best thing of course is that if you don’t like what someone is saying – you can simply delete the connection. So if you still don’t get it, then that is fine – My Mother can’t work the TV but please just don’t complain about it !
I received a few phone calls and a couple of emails late last week to tell me that, Bear Grylls had been appointed as the new Chief Scout, and that the press release would be live this week.
Peter Duncan’s 5 year appointment as Chief Scout comes to an end this year. Peter has brought the movement from the dark ages, when he took over the post 5 years ago pledged to drive recruitment and it worked, our UK numbers and in fact globally the numbers are up for the 4th year running. Peter was also responsible to officially welcoming girls into the movement, a great step forward, he worked hard to tackle race and religion challenges and will be missed in the movement, I have been assured and hope he will stay involved. Peter was the first person of ‘celebrity’ status to take on the role, all other Chief Scouts came through the ranks up until then.
The race was long to find his replacement, and in the end came down to Richard Hammond – a keen scouter who came right through the movement from a boy and Bear Grylls who eventually won the race. The post is for 5 years and completely on a voluntary basis.
Bear Grylls will bring a wealth of ‘outdoor’ and ‘survival’ skills and go a long way to promoting Scouts as an outdoor, adventure organisation. He is the 8th Chief Scout to have served time in the armed forces and the 10th Chief Scout to take on the role since Lord Powell created the movement in 1907. Bear is the youngest Cheif Scout to have ever been offered the role.
The splitting of roles,
Up until now the Cheif Scout has been responsible to all UK Scouting and all Overseas scouting with the appointment of various head of movements around the globe, This appointment of Bear Grylls is different though, whilst his title is still Chief Scout for UK and all overseas territories, announced today is also the appointment for the 1st time of a UK Chief Commissioner responsible for leading the volunteers and programing in the UK.
This position goes to Wayne Bulpitt, a scouter from almost birth, he began as a Cub Scout at the age of 8, and worked his way up the movement with roles including, Cheif Commissioner for Southern England and Chairman of the board of trustees since 2001.
This means that whilst Bear’s appointment is fantastic and will go along way to shaking our boring image, the movement obviously thinks the job is bigger than one person, Bear’s role in my mind will be more of a figure head and leader whilst Wayne will be moving through the movement day by day, looking after the more mundane side of the business.
Which ever way you cut it, today is a great day to be a scout !
On Friday 13th at around 3pm, I was thinking about how to best get it through to my scouts about the dangers of the internet and that people on there are not always who they say they are. As I thought more about how to begin to educate them I began to think that the education should begin with Adults and infant the parents of said Children.
Numerous things went through my head as I looked through bebo profiles, twitter accounts and facebook profiles of people aged 14-18. I began to wonder if the parents of the kids pages I was looking at knew that their children were on these sites, and knew about the content on these pages. Such detailed information about themselves, addresses, phone numbers, photos, when their parents where on holidays and when they would next have a free house. All of this information completely innocent and very dangerous in the wrong hands.
I looked to twitter, and blog articles of fake celebs on twitter, how people had believed them to be the real people and had been interacting with complete strangers. I had an idea to set myself up as a fake Richard Hammond and see if I could make adults unknowingly interact with a complete strangers.
At 3.30 on Friday 13th – I became Richard Hammond and almost straight away, I received a following and became a massive buzz on twitter. Almost straight away people began to interact.
Here are some of the 182 personal tweets I received.
Actually, you might be recording that new show on BBC1. Sorry i can’t remember what it is, but you must be rolling in it!
Did you keep your little Opel from Africa?
when is top gear comeing backi need my top gear fix please bring it back soon please a most grateful top gear fann ally x
typed in your name and there you were.Quite simple really.x
hi richard! you may be small but nice things are easy to find! x
hey richard, hope u, mindy and the girls are having a nice relaxed weekend. :) your book bout oliver n co is ace :) x x
Hi Richard, Saw the ads for your new BBC show, look good. Braniac by any other name ?!!? lol
Happy valentine sweety you can follow me when or whereever you wish
wow! gotta love the guy – a true inspiration to us all. people used to say i was a legend -but richard really IS legend:-)
I even received a DM from @stephenfry.
but by around 3pm on Saturday 14, the gig was up, @realjamesmay and @stephenfry had outed me as the fake celeb scoundrel that I am. The backlash started – well most people were fine about it, a few threatened to hunt me down and kill me but really they should have been annoyed at themselves for believing that Richard Hammond was on twitter talking about cooking dinner for his wife when a quick look at the top gear live website would confirm that he was actually in New Zealand doing a show.
So Why did I do it ?
Well like I said before, to prove a point to my scouts, and mostly to the parents of those scouts that the Internet whilst a great asset and the best research tool around is full of fake celebs and people a lot worse than that can speak directly to their kids and have them believe things that just are not true.
This is the story of Claire, I have put this video on my blog before and It really hits home, watch it (now is good)
This is serious folks, You are allowing your Children to go online, unsupervised and do ‘whatever’ just because you don’t understand what is going on and what the internet is all about. Its no excuse – get with the program before it is too late. In my home town last year we had 4 teenage suicides, all put down to online bullying.
I urge you to right now, get your kids, get online with them and go through together their profiles on social networking sites. What message are they sending to the world and themselves, I’m not talking about a heavy handed scolding session but rather parents and kids working together to make it right. Look at their profiles – put yourself in the shoes of someone that would want to look at this stuff for the wrong reasons and come to a conclusion together about what should remain on there and what should change.
If my impersonating of Richard Hammond offended you, then I apologise but hopefully some good will come of it.
The traveling public have had a bit of a wake up call this year with regard to air travel. Between strikes, bankrupcy’s and that bloody volcano people have began to slowly learn just how fickle the industry is and just how much we actually rely on it for everyday life.
I have been holding off writing this for quite some time, partly because I was so fuming with rage, partly because I was waiting to see how it played out and partly because it take’s more time than one might realise to write these things.
I met Stephen just over a year ago when he followed me on Twitter. We quickly began exchanging tweets, Facebook messages and texts until we finally met in person some months later and have bumped into each other several times since at various networking events.
Russell McQuillan 