5 simple things a council should do to make a website work better for social media

I’ve just presented at Building Perfect Council Websites 2010 on a panel shared with Dr James Munro and his brilliant Patient Opinion and Jane Postlethwaite – and her experience of  being the social media officer for Brighton and Hove Council.

I talked, as I often do, about online civic activists, social media surgeries and the nurturing of neighbourhood level civic activity online.  The presentation is below but the 5 key points are:

  • Permanent links to everything
  • RSS feeds – lots of them by place and service
  • Commentable pages
  • Embeddable content
  • Share your data openly – complete with its flaws

The film that appears on slide 3 is here (yes it does make me look like a git. The viseo was shot the morning after the power had coned our street in the small hours (because of a sports match) then started slapping tickets on cars – we went to bed legally parked and woke up illegaly parked, without warning).

Parking Attendant’s illegally parked whilst ticketing cars during the Ashes at Edgbaston from Podnosh on Vimeo.

8 comments

  1. John Popham says:

    Isn’t it the same rule that says the police can break the speed limit while chasing bad guys (or trying to get home before their tea gets cold). Or, perhaps not….

  2. Peter Barton says:

    A few years back I lived in Coventry. One morning, in my street, residents only white lines were painted, without warning. All the cars within those boxes were then ticketed by a warden. Income generation the local government way. :-))
    From a Brummie in exile in rural Lincolnshire.

  3. chris says:

    Hi Nick, I know it’s stupid and very annoying, we once sent a pic of traffic wardens parked illegally to the mail, the Council replyed ” Our Traffic Enforcement Team do have the right to park on double yellow lines whilst carrying out their duties” On my street they have about 10 traffic cars and also motobikes! They pounce like eagles on one car!

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