A note for sharing

In my day, you were lucky if someone knew what you were talking about when you said "telephone". In the next few days, magical digital events are going to be coming faster than tweets during a student demonstration.

There are two major festivals, DATfest and Stoke Your Fires, with packed programmes involving pixels and bytes, about which more information is below.

If you'd like to share your super social media skills with people who've never had the opportunity, please come along to help at any point of the Social Media Cafes in Hanley library, details below on the DATfest website. You'll be very much thanked and rewarded with cake.

And on Wednesday 2nd, one of the ideas from the last Tweetup is going to be planned in more depth at a mini-tweetup meeting. Stoke Twestival is just over three weeks away and we've missed all the deadlines so nearly everything has yet to be organised. If you'd like to come and watch the world's fastest moving fundraising party take shape before your very eyes, leave a comment to this post with "Yes I'm free on Wednesday night" and I'll email you final details.

Over the next few days please can you do your bit as a digital citizen to talk about DATfest to all the people you know who aren't online. There are lots of great opportunities to get hands-on and learn all about technology in ways that aren't scary at all and the organisers have worked really hard to put together a pioneering digital programme right here in the Potteries, so please support it as much as you can.

THIS WEEKEND: Datfest: http://www.datfest.org.uk/

Stoke-on-Trent’s first ever digital arts and social media festival takes over venues and streets across the city centre for a weekend of events. Almost all of it will be free, with some events being ticketed and many drop-in.

The festival kicks off on Friday night with a multi-media electro-acoustic concert event at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery performed by musicians from Keele University Music Technology Group.

On Saturday we take to the streets with B Arts’ 100 Stories – a unique walking tour around the city centre looking at Stoke’s hidden histories that blends live performance, projection and digital soundscapes.

On Sunday we end with a special bITjAM performance #mediafail. The digital discards we all have cluttering up our hard drives – out of focus photos, phone messages and video of the sky – will be transformed live into magical sounds and images.

As well as performance events there’s a full workshop programme that encourages all ages to join in and get creative. At the Central Library there’s social media surgeries for the over-fifties that will have you Flickering and Facebooking in no time; Lego animation workshops that will create brickfilms from your minifigure collection; and Mediafail workshops that provide a final resting place for your digital mistakes.

If you’ve got a suggestion for an event or would like to know more do get in touch at bitjam@me.com

Keep up with all the DATFEST news at www.datfest.org.uk

NOW TO MARCH 4th: Stoke your Fires http://www.stokeyourfires.co.uk/

Stoke Your Fires festival aims to be the creative heart of the West Midlands region for film and digital media in the eyes of artists, designers, producers and other industry professionals, critics, and of course the public.

Stoke Your Fires is a place to celebrate, innovate and stimulate exciting new work and creativity through these dynamic media but also provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, founding of new partnerships across commercial & public productions and a nurturing catalyst for career development.

The festival started in 2008, and has rapidly built an internationally recognised programme in animation and hopes to continue this across all genres of the moving image.

If you have any questions or would like to get involved please email info@stokeyourfires.co.uk