Reading launches with first Tuttle

Yesterday, armed with trusty Sat Nav, I headed from Oxford to Reading for the first Thames Valley Social Media Café event.

Taking the back roads and ignoring trusty Sat Nav for the first 10 minutes, I enjoyed the short drive, smiling at the field of a thousand piglets, distracted by the thought that my seven month old would love to come and visit these little pink trottered, squeeking little piggies.

I arrived, at the wrong end of the road, and after chat with exceptionally helpful and friendly traffic warden found Workhouse Coffee and proceeded to unintentionally queue jump, thinking selfishly of a good cup of tea – having found the jar empty at home earlier that morning.

So, my first introduction to a fellow Tuttle attendee was with Steve Lamb, who very kindly let me proceed with my tea ordering. He even continued to talk to me after I got his name wrong, asking if he was another Steve I’d met on Twitter (sorry, and thanks Steve!!!).

For those who couldn’t be there, and are interested in what a Tuttle is, and how the group came to be, stay with me for a little of the history.

Started in London by Lloyd Davis, and named after Harry Tuttle, a character Davis admired in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil, new groups are beginning across the UK, including Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle and Manchester. And, unbeknown to me, right on my doorstep in Oxford. Must investigate (and record voice note to do so on new Blackberry. This is so making my life A LOT easier).

The groups are made up of people with a common interest in social media, and I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of really interesting, and very welcoming people.

Steve, told filled me about his role at Microsoft, as did his colleague Saqib. Was interested to hear about South by Southwest, a festival in Austin Texas which has grown from a tiny music event to a music, film and media gathering attracting people in their thousands. Thanks Steve also for the list of Twitter apps, I’ll be investigating Dabr, TweetIE, NatsuLion and Twhirl.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Neville Hobson, who along with Drew Benvie, Matt Brady and Benjamin Ellis arranged the first Reading meet. Thanks Neville for the tip about Philip Schofield being an interesting person to follow on Twitter, and for arranging a very successful first get together.

Andy Piper, another Tuttler (can I say that?!), was really helpful and spent time chatting with me about his job at IBM, the social media guidelines they issue, which are readily available on their site (will be taking a look), gave me some great advice for the website a Client of mine is about to launch, and talked to me about how he manages all his social media activities. I was happy to admit that I find the vast amount of options available somewhat overwhelming, so Andy is going to give me some of his time over the phone to have a chat about making the process more streamlined, so I can get the best out of the applications I’m using (Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and so on). Thanks Andy, hopefully I’m forgiven for putting your cards down and letting them be poached!

Another important point actually, Andy and I also talked about my plans to rebrand, and made a good point when I mentioned the mammoth task of updating all online accounts from my old, to new company name. Anyone going through a similar process – keep your existing domain name for a cross over period if you can, and point the old domain to your new site once live, so that people can still find you.

I managed to chat with most people there, some more briefly than others, but hopefully there will be opportunity and the next get together – no date yet, but planned for April. I enjoyed talking with Nicky who with a business partner runs a B2B PR company in Reading called EvokedSet. We’ll hopefully stay in contact and pass opportunities between us, with Nicky specialising in B2B and myself B2C.

Before leaving I managed to chat with Matt Brady for five minutes who writes a local Reading blog. It was also Matt who mentioned that Oxford already has a Tweetup which I’ll be looking up.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable morning and great to network with people with so much knowledge about social media, as well as being thoroughly nice, welcoming people. For someone like me who has only been using Twitter for a short while, but is keen to learn and promises to be a hardworking student, having the opportunity to meet a chat with people who have so much advice to share is invaluable.

I’ll be there next time…till then.

Oh, and not so trusty Sat Nav will not be invited for the journey next time. There were certainly no nice views, or fields of pigs to smile at on the M4 route home.