A good lunch at an event can save a dull day or lift a good day as one to be remembered. Family bonding is often centred around food. On Sunday a family meal convened to celebrate a mass of Birthdays which fall in August. Two birds, one stone and all that! Making memories in the old way, taking photos was carried out. The media devise for capture may have changed but the sentiment motivation remains the same. A snapshot moment. I favour Vine at the moment for adding to context to the traditionally snapshot, frozen moments. (You need to turn the sound on to get the full effect!)

Family Cafe is a Secret Kitchen Cafe project I've been involved in helping Marsha Smith realise the digital archive and story telling of her journey. It is a social food initiative. Marsha cooks a meal (centre right in photo below) anyone can turn up, eat and pay in to the donations bucket. Sharing the pictures of food Marsha's message of social conscience in the community has moved beyond a local project. This photo below is a Marsha with a group called Snap Development from South Normanton. Their visit to Sneinton was to talk to Marsha about how they can set up a Family Cafe in their local area.

As part of Sneinton Festival which has run an annual International Food Evening for several years became part of Family Cafe this year taking the ethos of social eating and cultural sharing producing a "Bring, Make and Share" night where around 180 feasted on food from around the globe.

Audience Participation is what makes social media an exciting proposition for business. Engagement the people who love your product or service and encouraging them to communally share experiences. Its easy to forget that its the activity featured in the media that is the content and not the inclusion of video, audio or photos that is key to engagement. Does anyone actually want to watch it? Who is going to watch, listen or view it? What is the intended response from the audience having watched, listened or looked at the media? These are key considerations for web based media. But what about creating the content?

I see this time and time again an interactive installation expecting interaction but with no one to guide the participant. With crowd based engagement people will go with the flow in the right environment but modern digital media pieces expect a lone viewer to contribute or passively observe.

Food has been a great medium for engagement. After all, we all have to eat.