Sarah Lay » Blog Archive » Social networking for councils – "Carl Haggerty of Devon County Council had re-branded social networking as business networking in order to get chief officers to look past what they thought they knew toward the potential of such a system."
Changing the acoustics for citizens’ voices – Neighbourhoods – initiatives imply significant changes to the acoustics for citizens' voices. Organised community action – in meetings around the town as in Castleford or (especially) online as in some of William's examples – is starting to bring about a far more audible articulation of local people's views and experience than we have had before. And don't be fooled by the rhetoric from above, which to use Alison's phrase tends to mean 'big people not listening': much of it is in spite of, not because of, official action.
A Manifesto for the Social Organization | The Idea Hive – "We are entering the era of the social organization, because, like a school of fish, or a swarm of bees, a social organization fluidly dances with the ever changing music that engulfs it, rather than trying to control it. For, as shown by the story of King Canute trying to hold back the tide, attempted control over elemental forces is ultimately futile. Change is on the way."
The focus of the November Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery was to try and get those who had been to previous surgeries to come back and build on their skills. As ever these free surgeries are for community and voluntary groups in Birmingham.
On a blustery Friday night at Fazeley Studios, a number of people returned to the surgery with questions, ideas and ways they wanted to develop their organisation using the web.
Peter and Jean Rookes had attended a surgery a while ago and had set up a blog. But time constraints and forgotten passwords meant it had been left dormant and they were eager to get it up and going again to continue their work. Their main objective was to find a way of uploading documents to the blog so colleagues could easily view reports. I spoke to them before and after the surgery to find out if they’d got what they came for.
We also welcomed back Audrey Miller who brought along her husband Duncan. Audrey came along to one of the first Social Media Surgeries and set up her blog www.jdcbirmingham.wordpress.com for Jubilee Debt Campaign Birmingham. This time, the couple were interested in posting up photos from those involved in the organisation World Friends, so friends and families form their home countries to see them. They set up the blog worldfriendsuk.wordpress.com. Here Audrey explains:
There were also those who hadn’t attended a surgery before – such as Lee McLaughlan from Moseley Round Table. Sometimes it’s just about sitting down with someone who has a mind full of ideas which may help you with your problem. Turns out when he went home he set up the blog http://maccalad.wordpress.com/.
I notcied John Newsom from Balsall Heath is our Planet had returned to the surgery to build on his blog, which you can see here. He has changed the theme and added a number of pages with contact details, links to other sites and information for anyone wanting to know more about the charity.
Although this surgery was particularly focused on those who had encountered social media and now wanted to improve and deepen their knowledge and understanding, all of the surgeries encourage people to come back and learn more. Many from last week’s surgery said they would like to return every month to build on what they know, and sit with new surgeons who may offer different advice.
Ordnance Survey maps to go free online | Technology | guardian.co.uk – "Brown's announcement comes after Ordnance Survey said, earlier this year, that moving to a free model would cost between £500m and £1bn over the next five years. But a separate study, by a team at Cambridge University, commissioned by the Treasury, found that making all OS data free would cost the government £12m and bring a net gain of £156m."
Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? — Times Labs Blog – "This is the graph the record industry doesn’t want you to see. It shows the fate of the three main pillars of music industry revenue – recorded music, live music, and PRS revenues (royalties collected on behalf of artists when their music is played in public) over the last 5 years."
Start | AWMist – Advantage West Midlands uses open street map to bring together different businesses. "AWMist has information about several thousand ICT and electronics businesses, research institutions, and other organisations in the West Midlands. It fosters collaboration by helping businesses to find partners in the area."
These are my links for November 9th through November 14th:
Building the “Local” website, not a council website « Carl’s Notepad – Shouldn’t we take the same approach as we do in the “real” world and position our information and services as part of the community and not expect people (and i include myself here) to have to visit a local council website to access information or perform a transaction.
WTop Ten Things a Brand Must Be to Go Social | Simon Mainwaring – "Brands live or die on the good grace of their pro-active, connected customers. They can be your greatest allies or quickest destroyers. It is a privilege for a brand to enter their lives and any attitude short of that is a fast track to self-absorbtion and self destruction."
Stephen Hale at fco.gov.uk – Stephen Hale at the Foreign Office writes a great post on the web and government. He belives you have to a clear clear web strategy but above all: "make sure it's ambitious." Well worth a read.
There’s too much kick-boxing « Audit Commission newsroom blog – The Audit Commission (a customer) finding it's voice: "We say there’s too much kick-boxing going on. That was just in case you were already yawning. In fact, there’s too much tick-boxing going on."
It is the first day of the Association for Managers in Student Unions and a number of leading heads from universities across the UK came to together to discuss problems facing student unions.
The group divided up into four teams to tackle the following major issues student unions face, and how best to solve them using social media:
Membership
Democracy
Brand
Reach
The blue team looked at the problem of reaching students:
How can student unions use social media to help what they do?
This is the question those who run student unions up and down the country have gathered at Fazeley Studios, Birmingham to discuss.
General managers, marketing officers, heads of communications, events coordinators and web developers have gathered to put their heads together with a couple of social media experts in the form of Nick Booth from Podnosh and Jon Bounds.
The two-day conference began with delegates voicing the points and problems which they want to discuss and talk about solving some of these issues using social media.
Some suggestions posted at the beginning of the session
Some of the problems were:
Getting students to tell us what they want their student union to look like
Drawing out students’ stories
Knowing which social media to use for certain situations
How to do more with less resources
Getting the message across about what we do
How can we keep our finger on the pulse
How can we increase our membership using social media?
How can we continue to engage using social media with students bored with Facebook?
If you’ve never seen a social media surgery before then John Popham’s video above is just about what you might expect. He shot it last night at the first such surgery in Leeds, which he started after visiting our first anniversary surgery last month.
Folk in Leeds are using a similar model to the central Birmingham surgery, you get some idea from this video at the most recent Birmingham social media surgery
It focuses on the informal and matching volunteer webby types to volunteer community types. As we found when we began these here in Birmingham, there seems to be a a great deal of enthusiasm in the digital community in West Yorkshire to get on and make things happen. Simon Duncan thought it a “great success”.
These are my links for November 7th through November 9th:
October Wrap-Up « Blog « WordPress.com – Last month 467,107 new blogs were created on wordpress.com. For more mind numbing statistics click on the link.
Let me take you by the hand… « Beanbags and Bullsh!t – Really intersting thoughts on social enterprise: "Whether or not their activities are described as ‘trading’ for tax purposes, it’s hard to see how those social enterprises that just provide an outsourced public service in a specific area – and would go bust if the council (or other agency) cut their biggest contract – are businesses in any meaningful sense. Either way, Curley’s point is that these kinds of organisations – that make up a worrying large chunk of the social enterprise sector – are not sustainable unless state funders choose to sustain them."
What do you think about the way that technology can empower young people? | The Youth of Today – "The Youth of Today programme is conducting a survey of 13-25 year olds around the world to better understand how young people use information and communication technologies (ICTs). We are conducting the survey as part of our work on a publication on the subject (coming March 2010)."
UNB Student Union | Blog | Our Dirty Linen, Part 1: Communications – I will be working with some student unons this montha dn found this wonderful idea – admitting fault: "Welcome to Part 1 of a blog series that we’ll be calling “Our Dirty Linen.” The idea is simple: we admit to areas we haven’t been doing so well in in the past, we talk about some of the ideas we have for moving forward, and you give us feedback to guide this process."
These are my links for November 4th through November 5th:
The Big Debate – Ten more ideas – Birmingham Post – Business Blog – "Be ambitious and aim… low. It sounds mad, but I think some people were discussing the problem with large projects / initiatives having lots of money attached, largely that they're often then crippled / stifled by paperwork and a need to 'report' on outcomes. "
Developers are great but… « Emma Mulqueeny – "when they do open it all up, please take time to look through what has been done, and see what clues you can find to making your own businesses better – in and outside of government."
SI Web and New Media Strategy – Executive Summary and Moving Forward – "This Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy was created through a fast and transparent process that directly involved, and continues to involve, hundreds of stakeholders inside and outside the Institution. This strategy feeds into the Smithsonian’s comprehensive strategic plan."
Innovation Exchange » Innovation for Personalisation: A call for ideas (West Midlands) – “We need to work together with passion and commitment to help everyone lead fulfilling, independent lives. This is an important event for the JIP in helping us to find high-potential innovation projects that are making personalisation a reality”.
Eric Robinson, Lead on Personalisation, ADASS and Corporate Director of Social Care and Health, Staffordshire County Council
Personalisation depends upon our ability to innovate in social care – to develop new services, relationships and organisational approaches. Across the West Midlands, people in the public and third sectors are already using their passion and ingenuity to deliver personalisation. But no one person has all the answers and we can always do better.
Another point of discussion at C&binet conference ‘09 was the law. There was general consensus libel laws in the UK need to be changed to accommodate for the migration of news online and to make sure the law is clear. On a board of suggestions as to what the government should do to encourage hyperlocal, one post-it note read: “Get rid of draconian libel laws”. There are two main issues regarding libel and the internet - the law is unclear, which makes citizens uneasy about publishing online, and secondly the law is too strict and should look more like our American counterpart. Read the rest of this entry »
