This Week Team Scotland Found Me

You might remember that in a previous post about Scotland and the Diaspora, I mentioned that if you wanted to play for "Team Scotland" you would have to find them, "Team Scotland" would not find you. Apparently, I was mistaken, because a little tiny part of Team Scotland (aka the Scottish Government) did find me earlier this week.

I was contacted by a member of the International Development and Diaspora Team who had seen my blog and asked me to join their website, Scotland Exchange, which had "been set up with the express purpose of connecting communities across the globe that have Scottish links or interests and inspiring conversations between them." In truth, I need to join another social media site like I need a hole in my head, but she asked nicely, so I did.

While as I write this there were under 400 members on the site, membership does seem to be increasing steadily. I have not explored it in depth yet, but at first glance it appears to be cross between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It's for connecting people, promoting your business or what have you, but you can also chat about all things Scottish, and everything is open to everybody.

Once you sign up, you can create a "my page," add a photo of yourself (the default is the lion rampant), join groups, add posts to Scotland the Blog, and add photos of Scotland. I joined four groups: Culture, Ancestry, History, and Introduce Yourself. They seem to operate just like groups on LinkedIn. It seems that you can also send comments from Scotland Exchange to Twitter. I've not tried it, but it could be a useful feature.

I think Scotland Exchange has potential, particularly if you want to reach a target audience or find Twitter and Facebook a bit too big and scary. For anyone with a Scottish themed business or blog, it would be one more place to promote yourself. I might be able to pick up a few more subscribers, maybe someone else could sell one more Tartan thingamajig. If you are searching for Scottish forebears, then the Ancestry group is for you, although at present it only has 22 members.

So visit Scotland Exchange and see if it is for you. Look to see if any one you know is already on the site: just click on view all members, then go through each page or search for a name. Billie Kay, the presenter of the Scottish Intellect, is a member. I'm there, obviously, and currently my photo is of my great-grandfather, David Hood, born in Ayrshire in 1868.