Jon Bounds

Jon Bounds is a blogger, freelance social media and multimedia consultant and humorist from Birmingham, England.

Raised in the City’s Perry Barr district, he attended King Edward VI Grammar School, Aston, and now lives in the suburb of Moseley.

After working as a Technical and Commissioning Editor for Friends of Ed, he spent nearly four years working for the BBC as technical co-ordinator of the Public Space at BBC Birmingham, and studied Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. He was Online Editor for the Big Picture project (www.inthebigpicture.co.uk).

He is perhaps best known for creating the cult website “Birmingham: It’s Not Shit” (B:iNS)

On 11 November 2008 (starting at 11am), he spent eleven hours on Birmingham’s number 11 bus route, the outer circle, documenting his journey online, using Twitter, Facebook and a blog, elevenbus.co.uk The next month, he organised TwitPanto, a pantomime on Twitter, which featured a cast that included Government Minister Tom Watson MP and Guardian writer Jemima Kiss. A further TwitPanto, on 18 December 2009, in which Watson – by then a back-bench MP – again had a part, was named as an Official Honouree by the Webby Awards. The event ran again on 20 December 2010.

He has written professionally for a number of publications, including the Birmingham Post and The Guardian. With his partner Julia Gilbert, he presents a Saturday-morning radio show on Rhubarb Radio.

He was said to be the “14^th Most Influential Person in the West Midlands” in the Birmingham Post’s “Power 50” (a list of people they considered the most influential, in the Birmingham area) in 2008 and was considered for inclusion again in 2009.