Who would be a teacher? I mean, really. They have a tough time of it. Parents expect them to be day babysitters without letting them do it right, if a pupil fails it’s not the pupil’s fault, it’s the teacher – it’s a no-win job. You give too much attention to someone, you get labelled. Give too little, you get labelled. All the power is in the hands of the child and not the adult – something many a child exploits.

In days gone by, you would have pupils trawl through the phonebook to get your details and phone you up, annoying you – now they do it on social media instead, forcing teachers to use locked accounts or not be on platforms for fear of what is said if they engage with pupils.

And now, along comes this idea that teachers should provide out of hours support via social media to pupils – and the NASUWT union, along with Dumfries and Galloway Council want to stop this from happening.

Which is wrong, because you know what? It’s a bloody brilliant idea. For everyone concerned – teachers, pupils, the country.

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There’s been a few instances recently (including one where I was giving a quick Twitter masterclass to some police at 2am but that’s a story for another day) where it’s been clear that for many in the Scottish emergency services – regardless of it being the police, ambulance service, coastguard or fire and rescue services – social media is still something that’s viewed with a range of emotions from suspicion to hostility or ignorance. Recent events down south have done nothing to help get rid of that viewpoint either.

Now I believe social media could be a fantastic tool for the 999 services – from building grassroots community relations to helping prevent crime and get results on crime – and I’d like to do my bit to help.

I’m willing to offer free one-day training course/presentation on social media which will be backed up by the courses being made available as podcasts – video and audio – for others in the forces to view/listen to at their leisure.

The courses will cover:

• Why people use social media
• How the service could use social media/ideas for engagement
• A look at the most popular platforms – Twitter, Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn, GeoLocation services, online video, podcasts
• What costs are involved – financial and time and how to minimise them
• IT and HR issues around social media and how to overcome them
• How to engage
• Crowdsourcing
• How to measure effectiveness

As stated above, there’s no charge for the course (though travelling expenses may be incurred depending on location). If anyone is interested all they have do is get in touch via the email address or phone number at the top right of the page.

I do a fair chunk of speaking and social media workshops and while I enjoy them, I’ve noticed lately that I’m relying too much on PowerPoint and Keynote and being a bit lazy. On top of that, in Scotland – a country where for many in the media ‘digital’ (never mind ‘customer engagement’) is still a dirty word – could do with raising its game a bit, so this is my efforts at trying to raise the baseline.

To that end, below there’s a link to a series of social media presentations I’ve done – free to you – over the last year or so, covering social media successes, social media in a crisis, social media basic advice and some semi-advanced (for Scotland) social media advice. There’s versions for iPods and computers as well as the plain PDFs. (And yes, some parts may be a little out of date, but the general material is sound.)

If you’ve ever been curious about social media, wondered about how authors, lawyers, accountant, hotels, bars, general businesses can make social media/digital engagement work, then these are the podcasts for you.

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UPDATE 2 (27 APRIL): Weber Shandwick Scotland are looking for a digital/social media ace. I’ve worked with them and they are a good bunch – and well known digitally in the rest of the UK – so it’s a great opportunity.

Having said that – and this is a question I get asked a lot – how do you get a job in social media?
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The BIG Partnership are looking for someone to join their digital and social media team and given the size of BIG and the fact that out of the large PR agencies in Scotland they are leaps ahead of most, if you are based in Scotland (Glasgow ideally) and interested in the future of PR communications – or want a career in said industry, you’d be nuts not to go for it.

UPDATE: Ketchum and the very talented Kate Matlock are looking for someone similar in London.

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Going to spend the rest of this week talking about social media myths because as more companies in Scotland ramp up involvement and interest in social media, it amazes me that some of the old lies are still out there – and being peddled by businesses who should really know better.
And the first of these is the classic “social media makes it a level playing field”
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