I think I’ve decided to do my research for my masters on the use of social media in church-based youth work in Scotland.  I could of course change my mind again but on reflection this seems to be something that would be both interesting and worth doing.

I’d still like to have a go at ‘does youth work work?’ but think that might make a better large scale project for me and my lovely colleagues at the URC.

So, If you’re reading this and are involved in church-based youth work in Scotland let me know so I can come and interview you and your young people some time in the new year.

Anyone with any ideas and/or suggestions, please feel free to contribute said ideas anytime you like.

And I’ll try not to bore you all.  Honest.

Over the weekend at NYA2008 we spoke about the power of social media to bring people together for good.  I wish I’d checked all my RSS feeds because Ypulse have a great article linking to 10 youth activism sites.  All great examples of how the web can be used to organise people and bring them together around an issue.

So, 24 hours until NYA2008 begins.  How am I feeling?  Well I’m just beginning to get excited after a day of not really caring much.  I guess that happens when you’ve been working on something for a while and it eventually comes around!

This event is a bit of an technology experiment.  We’re using multiple platforms to enable people to read, write, tweet, comment and generally say stuff about the topics up for discussion and it would be great if you wanted to get involved in that.

You can see the topics we’ll be talking about and when through the links in the blog.  The blog should be pretty interesting with a range of people sharing their thoughts.  Your comments would be very welcome!

Hopefully you will be able to see some of the comments and questions on the twitter feed.  Feel free to follow NYA2008 on twitter too and send us some messages!

Finally, there will be photos on the NYA2008 flickr group or search for nya2008 tags.

So, I’m off to pack soon.  My sessions are about as done as they are getting for now.  I’m hoping they will evolve with the conversation over the weekend too.

So what does one need to make all this happen?  Well, a laptop, a camera and a phone.  Seriously, that’s all.  You could even do without the camera if your phone has a decent camera.

Where has the time gone!?!?!  I’ve known about NYA2008 for ages and been working on it for months and I’m still not done!  How come?

I got the programme information today and it looks amazing!  Some really good stuff happening about mental health and the human library sounds fascinating.

My sessions?  Well, Authenticity, Information, Privacy and Participation are our headings for an adventure in Social Media.  Sound interesting?  I hope so.

I’ll be blogging as we go along and posting on the wiki.  If you’re not coming you can follow the back-channel chat (or just backchat) on twitter.  Follow us over the weekend, or say hi!, using NYA2008 in your tweet.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about last night’s thoughts and I think my obsession with this event is about making a difference and seeing the value it has.  If not then it really is an obsession and I need help!

Now, no more of this procrastination.  Back to work!!!

Sometimes it takes me ages to get something to the point where I know what it is and where it’s going.  My preparation for NYA2008 has been a bit like that.

The Church of Scotland’s Youth Assembly is in 3 weeks.  It already seems to have consumed much more time than it really should have.  I’m leading a team who are facilitating 3 two hour discussion sessions about Social Media.  I think part of the problem is that the topic is too interesting for me.  I’ve found myself off on all kinds of tangents but I think the main problem is I haven’t been able to see where it’s going.  Not so much the presentations.  I think the information about Social Media is is fine.

I know what I want to say, but we started with 4 topics which have kind of merged into 2.  Now I’m not sure how to manage that!  Oh well, more thought required.  I think if we can nail the discussion points the rest will follow.

So, why is Social Media relevant to the church?  Answers please…

John has blogged his thoughts HERE.  Well worth a look as usual!