Is Twitter saving Bletchley Park?
Things are really starting to take off now, it's getting very exciting! I've been speaking to people about Bletchley Park since last July when I went on a tour there, and if you read all my blog posts below, you will see how, gradually, the campaign has picked up. There are so many things going on and offers from so many people to do things that what I write about here is only the tip of the iceberg :)
In the last couple of weeks I have had a piece in the Telegraph entitled "Save Bletchley Park: Why I am ashamed to be British" which has had 135 comments from the public added, really great to see so much public support :) I have carried on sending the occasional tweet on Twitter to raise awareness and ask people to sign the petition, which is climbing higher and higher on the number 10 website. Will it reach number one? I hope so.
People on Twitter have been absolutely fabulous and extremely supportive of the campaign, I actually think that Twitter in a way will save Bletchley Park. If you would like to follow Bletchley Park themselves on Twitter you can do that here: http://twitter.com/bletchleypark
Since starting to campaign on Twitter in January many wonderful people are spreading the word by retweeting and getting involved themselves. See below for my blog post about the visit to Bletchley Park with Mike Atherton, Christian Payne and Jamillah Knowles, three great people who have really helped take the campaign forward. Some tweeters are happy to carry forward the campaign message on their own, for example Lewis Shepherd CTO at the Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments at Microsoft who very kindly said that he would talk about the campaign to save Bletchley Park at last month's Microsoft's Techfest. How cool is that?!
In the last few weeks I've spoken about Bletchley Park at events and conferences like Amplified09, Extreme Tuesday, the Tuttle Club, Twestival and Software Craftsmanship 2009 where Jason Gorman the conference organiser implored everyone to help save Bletchley Park. Thanks Jason!
Amplified09 #40 Bletchley Park - Dr Sue Black will be with us to chat around the Save Bletchley Park campaign. Something close to the heart of all geeks.
Thanks very much to Clive Flint for the photo, another great supporter of Bletchley Park from Twitter :)
I've also had meetings with some great guys from BT that I met on Twitter, I'm hoping to hear from them again soon ;)
Captain Jerry Roberts is giving a talk about his experiences at Bletchley Park at UCL next week. After sending a tweet out about, it all seats were booked and the waiting list filled up too. I'm really looking forward to that, it is great that Jerry is getting the recognition that he deserves, he is a great man :) He in turn is very keen to get recognition for Tommy Flowers and Bill Tutte who worked at Bletchley Park. I'm sure he will be talking about them next week.
Ooh, just remembered: I also set up a Save Bletchley Park group on Linkedin three weeks ago and invited all of my 560 Linkedin contacts to join! So far there are 217 members and several people contributing to some interesting discussion.
So, you see, things are really happening....even PR people have started to notice the campaign! ;) Here is Steve Taylor, Director of Media and Marketing at Sue Ryder Care guest blogging about engaging an audience and online marketing:
Does it work? Just take a look at the trail of excellent support generated on Twitter by Bletchley Park for instance to see how you can engage a large group for no cost. That’s another ‘code’ they’ve cracked.
Hehe, very good.
Thanks so much to the hundreds or maybe thousands (now :)) of people who are talking to their friends, relatives and colleagues about Bletchley Park and coming up with their own ideas for projects that will help with the campaign. Please encourage everyone you know to join the campaign by: signing the petition, writing to their MP (draft letter for you to use coming soon), joining twitter and following @Dr_Black and @BletchleyPark for updates and talking to everyone about it. It is a crucial/significant/fundamental part of our heritage. Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes:
BLETCHLEY PARK MUST BE SAVED!
Please do what you can. Thanks :)