Month: August 2007

It'll be alright.

This recent post on how attempts to create shared online platforms for community groups often founder has received quite a few comments. In it I argued that being open and generous are key principles for success online. David Brazeal has helped me identify another: optimism. Part of what I was driving at is how risk averse public bodies tend to over moderate and control their online efforts, to the extent that they suck out the openness and freedom which makes collaboration work (see also today’s story about whether companies should ban Facebook). David sums it up:

Here’s the secret to this — the negatives almost never happen. And when they do, they’re not a catastrophe — they’re no different than the bad things that happen to you in your everyday work life already. But the positives — those things you can’t even imagine yet — they happen all the time for people who simply make a commitment to participate in this online space. And with patience, those positives start spinning at them faster and faster, so that they can’t imagine having done their work without that resource.

And one more thing. Those people and organizations who are successful in the online space — who have thriving blogs or podcasts, or who use social networks to help their work — they are not any different from you in talent or time or personality. The difference is that they’ve jumped in when the negatives seemed daunting, trusting that the positives would follow.

See Uwe’ blog for the image which got David thinking.

Facebook is a time waster – so why not ban it TUC?

I know Facebook is a timewaster. I could have used many hours more productively over the last couple of months, but instead I install apps, answer facile quizzes, and then uninstall apps. Using Facebook can smack of that guilt you get when you start smoking after a week of quitting: the guilt of futility.
facebook-logoIn theory then this post should be all about telling the TUC to shut up with this intervention to encourage employers to allow Facebook at work. But that’s not what I think.

If you run a business you need to ask yourself a couple of simple questions:

  1. Do well connected staff help my business thrive? – If yes then find ways to embrace social networking as part of your work. After all you wouldn’t want to stop a sales team using LinkedIn would you?
  2. Which is more interesting the work or Facebook? Please try and make sure the work is more stimulating than hours of guilty futility

That’s business – what if you you run something as substantial as a local authority. Kent has blocked facebook for its staff? For public sector organisations I’d still point them to the two questions above and ask them to consider two more:

  1. Do we have a responsibility to bring out neighbourhoods into the 21st Century? If so any policy which is built on constraining internet use should be challenged. Most local authorities are major employers – their attitude to the possibilities of the web influence how households, schools, parents and children flourish or fail online.
  2. How good are we at managing our people? Time wasting at working is often more about poor management than it is about distractions on the desk top.

Nevill Hobson as written two or three post about this (check the links at the bottom of this post). To his thoughts (and these at Mashable) I would add don’t go all King Canute. When a wave as powerful as Facebook hits your organisation work out how to ride it because the price of stopping it to be higher than you think.

TUC Guide to Online Social Networks.

 

Better Schools for Birmingham? A new podcast on the Grassroots Channel

Naseem Akhtar is angry – quietly, productively, but all the same angry. She believes the families of Birmingham deserve better schools, schools which have greater aspirations for their pupils, schools which aim to do more than achieve an average outcome for children.

Last month she launched a city wide campaign on the quality of education in Birmingham. She wants to apply pressure from parents and professionals to help teachers, heads, school governors and politicians raise their game.

To find out more about Naseem and what motivates here, listen to the latest programme from the Grassroots Channel. Use the link to download notes from the launch of campaign group which set out problems and potential solutions.

 

Birmingham Regurgitated

One of my favourite new blogs in Brum is Strategy – The Digested Read.  No – stop it, don’t yawn.

Dave Harte wittily strips out the essence of turgid reports on the city, the region and the creative industries.   This is him on  Advantage West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy:

Our vision: now we used to think we could be a world-beater at making everybody wealthy but we were a bit hasty and now we just want to be “successful” at making people wealthy since the stats show we’ve not been particularly successful at it so far (although don’t forget we only influence about a fifth of total spend in the region – it’s not all our fault). But if we can pull it off you too could be drinking cappuccino by the canal like our friends on the cover. Those canals are in Birmingham by the way – our beating cultural heart, did I mention that already? (59 times).

This Youtube Film (created from the images of the marvellous Birmingham Group on flickr) is his take on the the Birmingham City Centre Masterplan:

[youtube]xyihjZYBrF0[/youtube]