Strolled into Y Fuwch Goch (or the Red Cow as it’s also known) to join a random bunch of people the other night for Cardiff’s first Tweetup of 2010. A what? A Tweetup. It’s where people who are on twitter, meet up and have a chat about whatever they like. Might sound crazy, but it works.
We had IT managers, web designers, technicians, PR people, journalists, lawyers, politics students, university admin people, photographers and a hairdresser sat round the table chatting about random stuff. People who had only met moments ago were quickly engaging in conversations about diverse subjects, swapping contact details and coming up with ideas.
The power of social media was being put to good use in Cardiff, bringing people together to talk and connect. There was a good turnout to the Tweetup but the number of people who tweeted to say “sorry, can’t make it” shows that there is a growing community out there who are happy to leave their mobiles/laptops to one side and enjoy meeting random people.
The only criticisms of the event are that it’s on a Friday night, not the best of times to try and persuade people to come to a Tweetup – they are going away, already on a birthday night out, knackered after a week of work or various other excuses. Also, a topic could be nice. The Tweetups that I held in Preston had a civic topic up for discussion in the first part of the event and then it moved onto more socialising – but the topic helped as at least you got to meet people, share ideas straightaway and then had a subject to chat with random people about afterwards.
It’s great to see Tweetups happening in Cardiff and here’s to many more happening, along with all the other hyperlocal/social media stuff that’s happening in Cardiff at the moment.
So next time you see a Tweetup advertised, don’t be shy, get off Twitter for a while (if you’re not on Twitter, you can still come along) and you’ll be surprised who you’ll meet.
Image credit to markallinson
This post was originally featured on yourCardiff
Ed Walker 