Year: 2009

Stuff I've seen July 17th through July 22nd

These are my links for July 17th through July 22nd:

  • Liam Byrne on how innovators from around the world can teach the UK valuable lessons | Society | The Guardian – The UK government wants to offer up performance data so we have an "open book government". This from Liam Byrne: "online performance information is used to allow people to hold services to account and contribute to the way they develop. Take the US federal government website, Data.gov, which offers a wide range of information, from spending by different government agencies to levels of pollution. People can download and analyse the data themselves."

    Such open-book government is generating pressure for both better services and greater value for money. US cities, such as New York, Washington and Baltimore, which have been pioneering these approaches, have demonstrated improvements in policing and healthcare, as well as saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

  • CDI Europe Doers VII: We Share Stuff, Podnosh and Talk About Local – Iris lapinski cam to Birmingham from and organisation called CDI Europe and talked to some (not all) of the cities "doers". It's good to get a perspective from outside the city. CDO Europe sprang from South America and as srtong aims: "Our mission is to transform lives and strengthen low-income communities by empowering people with information and communication technology. We use technology as a medium to fight poverty, stimulate entrepreneurship and create a new generation of changemakers."
    Thanks for coming Iris, come back soon!
  • LGC on social media – "Now tweet this…" | Simon Wakeman – public sector communications, marketing and public relations – One of the key things I’d pick out of the LGC piece is that social media is only part of a communications strategy – it’s not a communications strategy in itself. How appropriate social media is compared to other tools depends on the campaign objectives, target audiences, key messages and a whole lot more.
  • Curating conversations | The Guardian Open Platform | guardian.co.uk – "Twitter is becoming an ever present backchannel at conferences and events. However sometimes it needs curating and moderating, especially if it's to be displayed large as a part of the event. Here we talk about an app built in a few hours and open sourced today which we used for this purpose for The Guardian's Activate Summit"
  • Technology Strategy Board | Creative Industries Strategy 09 – "Our three-year strategy for 2008-2011 is to drive innovation by connecting and catalysing. To achieve this we are focusing on three themes: challengeled innovation, technology-inspired innovation and the innovation climate. For more information on the overall strategy see www.innovateuk.org."

Things I've spotted July 17th

Here are some things I’ve been reading July 17th:

  • MP asks UK.gov: Why are you still using IE6? • The Register – Tom Watson MP: “I feel sorry for the thousands of civil servants using the Austin Allegro of web browsers when they can have newer, faster alternatives. I want government CIOs to pull their fingers out.”
  • UK Parliament – House of Lords Information Committee – Lords information Committee want to see parliament change the way it shares information with the public: “We recommend that information and documentation related to the core work of the House of Lords (including Bills, Hansard, transcripts of public committee meetings, evidence submitted to committees, committee reports, records of divisions, expenses and the register of Lords’ interests) should be produced and made available online in an open standardised electronic format that enables people outside Parliament to analyse and re-use the data.” (paragraph 66) “We ask the Government to explain how and within what timescale our recommendations will be incorporated into the work that Sir Tim Berners-Lee will lead on opening access to data.” (para 81)
  • The social media paradox: success & time. | Blog | Econsultancy – “We’re about to see a wave of anti-social media feeling and a call for back to basics; with comments like “Why were we all getting so carried away!?””
  • 10 things you should cover in your social networking policy | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com – This post reminds of why controlling and obsessive business will founder with sociaol media. The whole tone of voice is about aversion to rather than embracing the social web: “To have teeth, a policy must include consequences for violations. The policy should spell out that violation of the policy can result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination, and reference other company policies that lay out the appeals process and other relevant information.”
  • The Wires are gone, now for the Restrictions « FutureLibrary – “Is your library wireless friendly? And why not? It is the way we communicate and work now. People are less attached to desktops as sales suggest, with laptop and other mobile devices taking off. Yes, we are a mobile society in more ways than one.”
  • A huge list of social media and blogging guidelines « Webyogi’s blog – “One policy that really sings to me is Zappos Twitter policy ‘Be real and use your best judgement’ – that’s it! Thanks to original posts listed below just for reference….”

Australian local council starts social media surgeries

From Mosman Librarys superb flickr feed. Click the image to see the source.
From Mosman Library's superb flickr feed. Click the image to see the source.

I’m delighted, nay giddy,  to see that Mosman Council in Sydney, Australia, is starting social media surgeries at their library. It’s also wonderful to they consider it part of delivering their community engagement strategy.

I’ll quote a bit from the blog of Mosman Library:

Birmingham’s social media surgeries are the model we’re working off. It’s an opportunity for neighbourhoods, community groups and local residents to help each other communicate, organise and just do things online.

Mosman Library would like to facilitate this sharing of information and experience at a local level. It’s also a goal of Mosman Council’s Community Engagement Strategy.

Right now we’re looking for ‘social media champions’ – people who are already talking, sharing and doing stuff online, and who might like to drop in and work with those interested in setting up a blog, podcast or social network for their community or group.

The structure is informal – no presentations or talks, just small group or one-on-one discussion with an emphasis on practical examples and advice.

We’ll host the first few meetups in the Library, where we have a meeting room, WiFi and PCs with internet access. It’s likely to be on a Thursday evening, 6-8pm. (Would mornings be better?)

It’s interesting that the surgeries were written into the council’s community engagement strategy (and not it’s not a pdf, it’s a web page).  This extract  is well worth sharing:

Acknowledge and mentor those community members who are active participants on-line or who wish to be.

Hold workshops for Councillors to encourage their use of blogs and other social media to communicate and converse with the community.

Hold social media workshops at Mosman Library to promote Council’s on-line engagement and give practical support for community participation.

Hold a regular brainstorming session along the lines of IBM’s Innovation Jam or the Guardian’s Hack Day to generate ideas and foster creative thinking.

Make information resources, wherever possible, available under an open content licence, specifically a Creative Commons Australia licence, to promote the use and dissemination of Council’s materials while retaining Council’s rights of authorship.

Continue collaborative projects on-line that allow the community to document and share its local knowledge while also participating in other collaborative spaces, such as Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap (an open data map repository).

Ensure that priority is given to open data formats to allow cost-effective and efficient use of that information by other Council systems as well as external applications and users. When commissioning or upgrading data systems and services, Council should prioritise the building of an application programming interface (API) to that information.

Mosman Library also keep this fantastic flickr account which shows what a huge range of vibrant stuff happens there.

The people involved in this also write at www.stapisi.com,   twitter.com/lindach and libraryfuture.wordpress.com

Now, how do I get to visit one of those surgeries?

Using twitter to source a milk float – things you learn at social media surgeries

Tuesday was the first  social media surgery held in Lozells.  Below are some of the folk who turned up to learn and share.  I spent the first 40 minutes with the Bangladeshi Youth Forum, warming them up to some ideas. Interestingly I don’t think I got very far.  For the teenage lads I was talking to,  the social web is a place to show off what’s cool.

Thanks very much to John Heaven and Raj Rattu for their energetic help with organising and the great welcome we had at the Lozells Methodist Church.  We had a busy time with a huge range of ages and abilities, all dipping their toes into social media – creating blogs and trying out Twitter amongst other things.

John has blogged about it on the Digital Birmingham blog over at Lozells.info,

Mark Bent, who runs the newly-opened Boathouse Café in Handsworth Park, set up a blog: boathousecafe.wordpress.com. Saeed, an educationalist and community activist in Lozells, was the first to bag lozells.wordpress.com. I was pleased to see Sharon Morgan, from Come:unity Arts, who is already a seasoned Twitterer! (Don’t forget about the Handsworth ArtWalk that they are organising.)

I spent the second part of the session Sharon.  She had already set up a blog and so we covered some theory, principles of netwroking through the web etc.  Then Sharon told me the absolutely brilliant story of how she used twitter to bag a milk float:

Thanks to Dave Harte, Paul Henderson and Simon Whitehouse for their surgical skills – watch out for news of the next lozells social media surgery at BeVocal.org.uk