Month: June 2009

Things I've spotted June 8th from 19:24 to 23:25

Here are some o the things I’ve been reading June 8th from 19:24 to 23:25:

  • Trading my 2G iPhone for cake | Pete Ashton – All bids must be a cake or combination of cakes. No biscuits. No other forms of pudding. Just cake.
  • Site and Sounds – mac / Cannon Hill Park | Created in Birmingham – This time, artists Kate Chapman and Charlotte Goodwin are exploring the mapping theme by inviting people who live, work or play close to mac to re-discover familiar places and explore places they have never visited before, sharing their thoughts and observations to create an audio map of the changing landscape. All of these recordings will feed into an audio map – a web of downloadable audio tracks focusing on different locations in a mile radius of Cannon Hill Park.
  • Open Government Brainstorm: Collaboration in Action « OSTP Blog – By generating word clouds and doing some analysis of the metadata in the dialogue, they found that people on the outside of government are focused on transparency and making data more available to the public, and on the inside, government officials want to build collaborative and participatory tools.
  • Snapshot of UK govnt use of social tools – and Press Office involvement « Emma Mulqueeny – It is literally a snapshot and I sincerely hope it will be taken and used by anyone who needs it.
  • Your Right To Know » Blog Archive » Transparency of politicians’ expenses goes global – "What’s amazing isn’t just the interest in the story but the way journalists and citizens of those countries immediately start to wonder: ‘What about our politicians? What are they doing with our money?’ And so the campaign for transparency and direct accountability goes global! Even while our House of Commons continues to work behind the scenes to block future disclosures (more on this soon), other countries are moving to greater openness.

    Two political parties in New Zealand have announced proactive disclosure regimes for their politicians. Apparently, our scandal has a ring of familiarity for New Zealanders as explained in this article"

Stuff I've seen June 4th through June 8th

These are my links for June 4th through June 8th:

New Birmingham Social Media Surgery June 17th 2009

Nine months on from the very first Birmingham Social Media Surgery and Fazeley Studios hosts another session of free help and advice for Birmingham based voluntary and community groups wanting to get to grips with social media.
Chris Ivens and Mary Horesh at the last socila medis surgery

When & Where

Next Surgery: Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 drop in anytime between 5.30pm to 7.00pm at Fazeley Studios, 191 Fazeley Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 6DR,  link to map. (not BVSC) It’s opposite the Bond and a go kart track. Push the large pale blue door with the silver door knob.

To sign up please go here.

What are they all about?

Volunteers from the Birmingham bloggers group are offering to show voluntary and community groups in the city how you can make best use of social media. It doesn’t matter if you are the head of communications at a major charity or an active citizen in your neighbourhood, if you’re at all curious come along.

More about what has gone on over the past nine months and what you can expect at a surgery here.

The surgeries have been nominated for the Digital Press Awards People’s Choice along with brilliant local activity like Rhubarb Radio, the Big City Talk site and the 4amproject.

In mean time, if you want to come along or know someone thatcould use the free help get them to sign up here so we have an idea of numbers.

Social Media and Local Government: What’s Working?

A year ago I delivered a presentation at the Local Government Communications annual conference called Naked in a Goldfish Bowl. It was an evangelising rant, a wake up call for an audience that was, to a degree, still getting used to “new media” an unaware of possibilities and implications of social media.  I wanted them to understand that whilst they concentrated their efforts on relating to the media they were left “exposed” by the conversations about their work going on on the net.

Naked in a Goldfish bowl Podnosh on social media in government

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Last month I was back again and a great deal has changed in that time. As Liz demonstrates with her research, local government  has rushed to understand social web tools.  So this this time I tried something much more modest. A  few examples of what might be working, all on a very modest scale, and a chance for people to talk about them. These were my slides:

Social Media in Local Government What Works

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