Tag: blogging

Different ways to encourage people to blog and use social media – or why Jane Slowey does her homework.

We have been working with the Foyer Federation, helping them make better use of social media to tell their story and also capture the effect their work has on the ground.  They’re concentrating on building a network to develop and support the approaches they call Open Talent – and Advantaged Thinking  (emphasising the assets and qualities in people and communities).

The works means staff sharing more of what they are learning, experienceing, finding and thinking – but online in public.

Jane Slowey of the foyer federation
Jane Slowey

One of the problems we often have to try and solve is how to give people incentives to do something that can seem un-natural even risky.  Normally we’ll aim to provide reassurance within the management structure and make it fun to do – turn what could be a chore into something that’s an enjoyable port of the work.

Oddly though Jane Slowey – chief exec at the Foyer Federation – is motivated by something else altogether – something deep in her personality … listen to this audioboo to understand more

Jane’s own audioboo’s can be found here: http://audioboo.fm/JaneSlowey

PLACES: Social Media and Science Communications – What science communicators think of social media

Social reporter training from Podnosh - the social media game

Over the last 2 days the Podnosh team hosted 24 science communicators from across Europe. They were in Birmingham as part of the Open Places project which is looking at bringing together 69 science communication institutions and other stakeholders in European cities to partner with local policy makers to tackle socio-economic issues such as employment; education; climate change and poverty from a scientific perspective.We met with them to discuss social media and the ways in which it can be useful to them in their workplaces or on this and other specific projects.

We looked at different platforms such as blogs, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. Gave presentations on networking, sharing and listening and had brilliant guest speakers Shane McCraken of Read more

Community building through social media – how police building relationships online can get you support when it really matters

Screenshot: PC Stanley's Twitter page

Recently I was having a conversation with Nick about the value of social media, the community links you can build using Twitter and blogs and the value this has in the real world, when I remembered the story of PC Richard Stanley’s blog.

PC Stanley is a blogging police officer and Twitter user from Walsall. He uses these platforms to talk to the “locals” about his job and help give plain English examples of how the police work and why things are done in a certain way sometimes. I read his blog, follow him on Twitter and have personally never found him to be anything less than factual and informative with some nice humorous banter, creme eggs, #foxwatch and competitions thrown into the mix.

A couple of months ago he wrote a piece in response to a news article in the national press where a suspected burglar was shot during an incident and the property owner who had shot him was arrested.

It was a factual piece that explained, from a policing point of view, why sometimes the “victim” of the burglary can also end up being arrested along with the burglar in cases like this. It was written so that it would be easy for the public to digest – and I felt it was. It was informative without being patronising and a good insight into how a decision to arrest someone could be made.

However, what wasn’t easy for regular readers to digest was what happened next. His blog’s comment section exploded with anonymous commentators condescending and, in some cases, outright insulting PC Stanley. It wasn’t an argument about the accuracy of any details in the blog but an inference he was doing something wrong by engaging in this way and “toeing the party line.”

Read more