Year: 2009

Balance Your Bobbies, policing and social media.

www.north-wales.police.uk/balanceyourbobbies is a really simple way that people living in North Wales can help their police force set local priorities for neighbourhood policing. You are given a choice of priorities (set by the public) and then able to assign resources to them. The priority that averages the greatest amount of support where you live gets turned into a job for the local police.

It’s an extension of the idea of Neighbourhood Tasking, where police and public meet to set priorities.

Ian Davies – the Programme Director for Citizens Focus in the force – explains how it works and how he hopes it will help.

I met Ian last week at a hugely encouraging event organised by West Midlands Police, the Police Improvements Agency and the Association of Chief Police Officers.  Nick Keane, Mark Payne and Gordon Scobbie brought together a small group from various police forces with some social media specialists, including Podnosh, Talk About Local and MyPolice (worthy winner of this years Sicamp in Scotland).

I have to say I am very proud of how open West Midland’s Police is embracing the possibilities of social media.  They have been ahead of many forces with early use of podcasting in the form of Plodcast,  getting officers using  Facebook, widespread us of Youtube and Twitter. More importantly they are impatient to learn and, I think, willing to accept mistakes along the way.

Assistant Chief Constable Gordon Scobbie was keen to stress that different forces should learn from each other as quickly as possible.  I think he was hinting at a competitive between forces which would be best set aside, instead collaborating to make good use of social media.

The web itself sets the example for this.  Why sit in a darkened room invesnt a who new governance policy about social media (should you need such a thing) when others have already shared there’s: www.socialmediagovernance.com.

He also recognises the potential culture clash between an organisation structure around control and the problem that the web can’t be controlled in the same sense.

Chief Inspector Mark Payne and I first met properly when we both spoke at an Association of Police Press Officers event in June.  Last week his first blog post threw a challenge out to all the forces in the country:

Nobody is going to be confident in an organisation who they don’t hear from, and who they can’t engage with.

Why then are many police forces so reticent to engage in social media? I have spoken to people involved in policing up and down the country, and I am genuinely amazed at the real fear that there seems to be around blogs, Twitter and Facebook. We are still in the position where the majority of Forces do not have a meaningful web presence.

I have a theory that people have become a little bit seduced and scared by the technology involved in social media. In my experience though, there are no dark secrets associated to the web, IT IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF COMMUNICATION!

One of the other people there was PC Ed Rogerson of North Yorkshire Police. He tweets his job:

For him it’s a simple way of raising his visibility – people can see he’s working even though they can’t see him. It is all start on what might turn out to be a powerful new way of police relating to communities.

December Central Birmingham Social Media Social

Our brains are fried, we’ve done a bunch of great social media stuff… it’s time to kick back and have a chat with friends we have met through the Birmingham Social Media Surgeries this year.

Our December Social Media Surgery is going to focus mainly on the ‘social‘ part of ‘social media’. It’s a great chance to come a meet other people who have been to surgeries in Birmingham, discuss your ideas and work, and hopefully go away feeling supported and inspired for the new year.

The Social Media Social will take place on Tuesday 15th December from 5pm – 7.30pm at the studio on 7 Cannon Street, Birmingham, B2 5EP (link to map).

Talkbar Bar Area
Photo: Edward Moss

The lovely people at thestudio are letting us take over their bar area free of charge – all the more reason to buy another drink or two. They are located right in the centre of Birmingham and couldn’t be easier to get too (see directions below).

Feel free to drop-in anytime during the evening. There’ll be no agenda and it is up to you whether you come to share and show ideas, or just socialise. It is a space for voluntary groups, organisations to chat and get to know each other. Whether you’ve been to a surgery before or are interested in finding out more about what we do – all are welcome. We’d also love it if the surgeons (our voluntary social media experts) who have helped over the year come along too.

If you want to let us know you’re coming, – sign-up using the form on the BeVocal site here. Or just turn up on the night.

How do I get there? From New Street Station walk down the ramp out of the Pallasades, turn left onto New Street (past H&M) and Cannon Street is the first road on the right. Thestudios are further up on the right (opposite Jigsaw), and the restaurant is on the second floor.

Find out what normally happens at a Social Media Surgery here.

Stuff I've seen November 24th through to November 28th

These are my links for November 24th through November 28th:

  • Open Sourcing Google Project 10^100? – Social by Social – 170,000 ideas have simply disappeared. Only Google knows what they are.
  • Sarah Lay » Blog Archive » Social networking for councils – "Carl Haggerty of Devon County Council had re-branded social networking as business networking in order to get chief officers to look past what they thought they knew toward the potential of such a system."
  • NN News & Blogs | Networked Neighbourhoods : passionate about local digital – The key differences between the different types of local citizen sites were brought sharply into focus by a simple four-box model. Hugh also offered some insight into how different types of sites may be best used:
  • Changing the acoustics for citizens’ voices – Neighbourhoods – initiatives imply significant changes to the acoustics for citizens' voices. Organised community action – in meetings around the town as in Castleford or (especially) online as in some of William's examples – is starting to bring about a far more audible articulation of local people's views and experience than we have had before. And don't be fooled by the rhetoric from above, which to use Alison's phrase tends to mean 'big people not listening': much of it is in spite of, not because of, official action.
  • A Manifesto for the Social Organization | The Idea Hive – "We are entering the era of the social organization, because, like a school of fish, or a swarm of bees, a social organization fluidly dances with the ever changing music that engulfs it, rather than trying to control it. For, as shown by the story of King Canute trying to hold back the tide, attempted control over elemental forces is ultimately futile. Change is on the way."