A few years ago I had this idea to have a weekly Indigenous business networking event – free and informal but value driven by the serendipity of new and unexpected faces. Fast forward a few years and 15 odd coffee events, and I (representing the SEQICC) have teamed up with Keith Williams and Thomas Hudson from TRIBN (Townsville), and Terri Waller (Townsville) to host a face-to-face/digital monthly event.

How it works?

All four venues (Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Townsville and Palm Island) agree on a date (this month – 27th April) and a time (7am – 9am) and we all run our own coffee morning. We then connect up and share stories.

The tools I anticipate we’re going to use

• MacAir: I will be taking my 2014 (?) MacAir.
• Huawei dongle: to connect at the venue
• Zoom: a video conferencing service I have a professional account with to connect with the other venues. I’m going to set up a meeting, send everyone the log-in email, and then record the event.
• Facebook Live: I will Livestream parts of the event straight onto the Black Coffee Facebook page using Facebook Live.
• iPhone 7+: will be used to capture images and perhaps some of the Facebook Livestreaming.
• YouTube: I will download the videos I capture and upload them to my IM YouTube account.
• Facebook Albums: I will post all the Brisbane images into an Album on the Black Coffee Page which I’ll then share onto the SEQICC page.
• Twitter: I will post updates on the morning. Our March event was cancelled due to Tropical Cyclone Debbie so it’s important to have a way to get messages out to the community.

I’ll update the list of tools after the event.

I hope that our 4 participating networks will be joined by many more over the coming twelve months.