Podnosh

Remove the cause of mistrust – is what Lawrence Lessig thinks will drive the transparent economy.  He also believes government need to learn humility and we need to take care to avoid laws which criminalise our children because of how they use the net. He’s right….Worth listening to:

Let me introduce you to two new blogs about neighbourhoods in Birmingham, both run by public servants

Hands on Handsworth is written by Tracey Thorne – the neighbourhood manager for Handsworth in Birmingham;  Be Heard in Birchfield is being nurtured by Yvonne Wager – the neighbourhood manager for that particular part of the city. (Click here to see Tracey’s explanation of neighbourhood management)

Both Yvonne and Tracey are in jobs funded by Be Birmingham – the local strategic partnership.  They were inspired to start a neighbourhood blog by their colleague Kate Foley who had been running Life in Lozells – a site set up originally to address the problem of all the bad news you find when googling Lozells. Kate explains in more detail in this video made by the Chamberlain Forum.

What do they do?

They talked to us about helping them develop these sites during the Social Media Surgeries we ran in Lozells last year.  Both are built on WordPress with some changes to the back end that make it a little easier to blog and listen to what the web is saying about your neighbourhood.  There’s also a simple events system with mapping, plus the sites include a facility to easily turn plans into commentable  consultation docs.  We also provide a service that ensures the software stays updated, plugins don’t clash etc, plus training and support on using it well.

Tracey is a natural – she really enjoys writing for the site and is on a roll. Yvonne is equally enthusiastic but needs a different sort of support, so it is taking a little longer.

Why Bother

The sites are the neighbourhood managers’ home in a wider web conversation. It’s only fledgling at this stage.  The point is that over time they help the neighbourhood managers share information, ask questions, pool expertise and begin to collabroate in new ways with their community.  I’m not convinced they should attempt to become THE site for their neighbourhood.

Such an idea concerns me, because if THE site gets switched off or someone begins using it to be self serving that’s a problems for the whole neighbourhood. Instead I’m interested in how we can nurture a range of online resources and voices in a place. These blogs form  part of that process – providing a tool that can also help neighbourhood managers link to and encourage the wider conversation.

What do you think?

It will take time and patience for these sites to bed in – but what do you think? Could you encourage them by commenting a post or do you have any advice for Yvonne or Tracey?

Things sound different in the fog. (Image Beardy Git on Flickr. Click on the Picture to go to his flickr page)

The core piece of advice for any public service on how to make good use of social media is “learn to listen”.  It’s the one part of the conversation that sometimes gets lost in the rush to publish.

That’s why I was pleased to find West Midlands Police considering recruiting someone who’s job it is to help them do just that.  I’ve already done a little work with WM Police and genuinely admire their determination to value social media for how it connects them to the public through conversation.

Big Brother Watch (a sister organisation to Tax Payers Alliance – very adept users of the social web) raised a number of concerns about this, including:

that this role is designed to prevent criticism of the police from taking place online. Those with understandable grievances should be free to air them in a democratic forum without fear of reprisal. We would appreciate the West Midlands police giving assurances that there will be no black-list created as a result of the web cop’s work.

Chief Inspector Mark Payne, head of comms for the force, responded to this on his own blog:

I can say with absolute certainty that this is not about jumping on people who are criticising us. We sometimes get things wrong, even when we are trying to do the right thing. Policing is a hugely complex business, and it is inevitable, that we will upset some people. If this is the case, we want to hear about it, warts and all. At least if we know, we will have opportunity to put it right, or do better next time.

As I said at the top, listening is the core skill in using social media well.

Having somebody who has an in depth understanding of how to to do that, is experienced in how to respond to what they find and can help others understand the social web is a good idea for an organisation the size of WM Police.

What was curious about the Big Brother Watch piece was the apparent assumption that police listening to the web is automatically a menacing thing.  That in turn got me thinking about listening itself. Can it ever be a neutral process?

I think not.

Any professional organisation does have to listen with intent and how you do that depends on a number of factors:

• Partly it’s a question of where you stand to listen.  If I chose to stand on the balcony I’ll hear one version of a party.  On the dance floor I’ll hear another. That can also be true of the net – how you filter what you’re listening to is a conscious decision.  My feed reader has some feeds in folders I happily ignore – others get my early attention.
• What are you listening for?  There are officers who are very skilled at listening to the the net to detect crime.  Comms teams listen for reputation.  The social web type can also be listening for public feedback or practical neighbourhood problems.  They may use similar techniques but with different intentions.
• Familiarity matters.  We tend to hear what we are used to. In a crowded room I’ll tune out your child but hear mine. I’ll not notice someone use your name but my head will turn at the slightest mention of mine.
• We are sensitive to criticism.  Sometimes we hear it when it isn’t there.  The web is full of good advice for public services, often this is heard as criticism rather than constructive help.
• We always filter everything we hear through our own prejudices.  Some professions (I presume including detectives and Judges) should have experience/training  in listening in a more open fashion, helping them see a truth rather than the patterns which reinforce their assumptions. For most of us though listening is a wholly subjective process.

So listening with a purpose is exactly what this person should be doing, otherwise they would be wasting public money. It doesn’t follow that this will be a malign purpose.  Listening to the social web can help  the police improve the way they spend public money rather than waste it.

Beth Speaking from elstudio on Flickr (click on the picture to go to the original)

Beth Kanter is the social media expert for non profit organisations. Last year I made this promise to pay more attention to her prolific blog output.

Today is her 53rd birthday, and in keeping with a small tradition built up over the last 3 years, she is again using her birthday as an excuse to show how social media and trusted networks can combine to help charities. She is raising funds for her favourite charity, the Sharing Foundation.

I first met Beth almost exactly 3 years ago when she visited Birmingham from her home in Boston, New England. She was  working with David Wilcox to deliver a presentation at a conference for people who provide IT support for charities and the like.  It was a time when social media had not become the generic term it is now. I was mostly thought of as a podcaster, one of the one’s who’s job it was to help with telling the story. So naturally enough I interviewed her for the Grassroots Channel podcast.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Here are 5 things things that I know a number of people have helped me understand, but I can confidently say that Beth Kanter repeatedly showed me these ways:

1. Lead by example. Beth experiments all the time.  Just (F) Do It is ingrained in her personality.  The more I’ve done the same the more confidence it’s given me to keep on going.
2. Don’t hog your content. Share it and move on. You should always build your expertise on the next new thing you’re going to learn, rather than worry about others getting good at one you already know. The faster you share the faster you learn that new thing.
3. Respond. Beth has 305,000 followers on Twitter. She still gets back to you!  How does she manage it?  Discipline.
4. Blogging isn’t a vain thing to do. It can be but, the way Beth does it, it isn’t.  She writes a great deal about the people she meets, she is very generous in describing what she is learning from them. She also puts huge amounts of effort in doing thinking for us and sharing it when it’s incomplete.  These are things Beth (and others) taught me about content.
5. It’s about bringing people together. As David Wilcox said it 3 years ago:    “The other delight at the event was a chance to meet up with fellow UK enthusiasts for social media including Steve Bridger, Miles Maier, Paul Henderson and Nick Booth. We can’t rival Beth’s US fellow social media bloggers yet, but I think a little blog community is emerging here around social media and social network where the focus is nonprofits and civil society. Drop a comment in here if you are interested in linking up – we hope to have a get together fairly soon. Beth suggested we start tagging social media posts with nptechuk … the standard US tag is nptech.”

There is so much more I learn from Beth but these are the basics. That’s why at least once a year I donate something to the Sharing Foundation.  Not because I’m especially connected to the work of the foundation, simply because I’m am especially connected to Beth.

Thanks to Amy and Stacey for encouraging me to write this post.

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:

Click here to watch the video.

The red team – Brand:

The Yellow team – Membership:

See the video here

The green team – Democracy:

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?

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 »

Steven Barratt and Matthew Ebo

Here’s the story of Matthew Ebo, the Handsworth minister whose work for the community until now, has gone unnoticed. Now Matthew has been shortlisted for the active citizen category of Birmingham’s Local Hearts award, nominated by his friend and co-worker, Steven Barratt.

A lot of his work centres around the National Black Boys Can Association, a group for 9-16-year-olds which meets every fornight to help them with schoolwork and teach them good citizenship. Previously a Special Constable, he also works for the Central and West Victim Support Scheme – helping victims rebuild their lives.

Matthew was inspired by his baptist minister and mother, and he is now the pastor of the Church of God and Prophesy – he said his religious upbringing helped him and without his wife’s support now he could not spend so much time doing voluntary work. Here’s his story.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

Shirley Malone, Gemma O'Neill and Aimee Coakley of the Hawkesley Young Volunteers in Kings Norton - Birmingham.

Aimee Coakley first came across the Hawksley “young vols” as a small child.  She watched them working in her neighbourhood in Kings Norton in Birmingham and wanted to be one.

Thanks to that experience she has traveled as far afield as France and India, cleaned streets, helped people keep their gardens tidy and supporting friends and neighbours.  Now she has a job because of her volunteer experience. Hers is just one of dozens of stories which explain why the Hawksley Young Volunteers were shortlisted for a Local Hearts Awards in October 2009.  For more, listen to the podcast below.

Click below to listen to the podcast

Click here to download the podcast

To subscribe to more Grassroots Channel podcast in iTunes click here – which will open iTunes on the right page. Here is our RSS feed: http://podnosh.com/channels/channel_grassroots_feed.php

Whitehall by Rick Lewis on Flickr - click to see original

Will Perrin has a knack of helping people understand how the web is changing government. Today he publishes what was until now a private paper on how Whitehall can be transformed.

In Transforming the way we work – from Whitehall to Blackhall he writes about an alternative Whitehall, one that embraces how the web can accelerate change:

The leaders of Blackhall have changed a predominantly ‘need to know’ culture to one underpinned by a ‘need to share’.  They have begun to change the business model from a paper process base to a knowledge based model.   There is far more permeability in Blackhall between government Departments, the wider public sector, the third sector, stakeholders, citizens and business. Policy formation in Blackhall takes weeks or months, rather than months or years, involving more people to create better outcomes with less effort. Officials share knowledge with others across government and with those outside government such as the third sector, font line workers and managers. This is enabled by a pervasive Blackhall electronic working environment. Officials publish information from their screens that can be read by anyone connected to the GSI and selected people outside it, without using email.  The majority of work in Blackhall is published internally so that colleagues can find it using search in the same way they google for information on the internet. A Blackhall working environment would be electronic, pervasive, accessible from wherever you are in the UK and in many cases overseas.  Implicit in this is a standard ability to work on the move with any laptop, blackberry or internet connection.

He continues with what needs to change.

The difference between Whitehall and Blackhall is a managerial determination to make it happen. It might sound difficult to get a multi-hundred year old monopoly to change.  But the civil servants themselves are changing outside the workplace as they use Easyjet, Gmail, Facebook and instant messaging in their private lives.  When they get to work they slip back into an earlier era because the tools aren’t there.

These are his slides from the presentation he gave of these ideas a year ago.

They include compelling illustrations of how little Whitehall has changed communication conventions, regardless of changes in technology. How much is this like the place where you work?  How easy will it be to change from Whitehall to Blackhall.