Author: Nick Booth

4th Social Media Surgery for Birmingham charities, community groups and Volantary Orgs

The new venue for the social media surgeries.

Sorry it is such short notice. The next social media surgery for voluntary groups is this Wednesday March 25th 2009, as a drop in from 5.30 to 7pm.  We have a plush new venue, which is a few minutes walk from BVSC. For all the details and how to sign up please visit the link below:

http://www.paradisecircus.com/social-media-surgeries/

The surgeries are run by a group of volunteers, mostly from the Birmingham bloggers groups. They are willing to show people from the cities charities and voluntary organisation how they can make best use of social media.   If you want to see what people have made of the first three surgeries you might like to watch this video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEPbtfdIkVY

Ending Government "lockdown" on the internet.

Really good clear suggestions from the World Wide Web Consortium on, amongst other stuff, how some basics need to be put in place to allow the web to really play a part in modernising the way we govern ourselves. You can find the whole report “Improving Access to Government through better us of the Web” at this link.  Here’s an extract:

How Can Participation and Engagement Be Achieved?

Access of Public Servants to Web Sites that Citizens Are Using

Public servants need to be given access to the Web sites that citizens are using in order for them to be able to engage. The “lock-down” culture that exists in many government IT departments often restricts access to the more interactive Web sites for security reasons. This badly hampers the effective engagement with online communities by public servants.

Clear and Simple Rules for Public Servants

Governments need to set clear and simple rules for public servants to follow so they can be confident about engaging online without risking their career.

Training, Support and Cultural Change

There needs to be training and support for public servants in the use of appropriate tools and techniques to use the web to engage, particularly for the development of public policy. Engaging with online communities over the development of public policy will involve significant culture change in government. To achieve it will require clear leadership at senior levels. As the use of the web for engagement is so new in government there are few people with both the practical knowledge and the seniority and experience to provide this leadership.

Allow Comments on Policy Documents

Policy documents need to be presented in formats which allows for comment and discussion in a granular way. Fragments within such documents need to be directly addressable. In consultation documents for example, the relationship between the questions for discussion and the proposals to which those questions refer need to be made explicit. The RDFa [RDFA-PRIMER] based ArgotConsultation [ARGOTC] which was developed for the UK government is an example of the type of technology required for publishing consultation documents in ways that enable engagement.

A digital King Cnut?

Interesting to see that even the government recognises that attempts to control copyright infringment on the net may soon turn out to be a waste of time. That’s not going to stop them trying though.

In the new paper (pdf here) on a future Digital Rights Agency, there is a plan to introduce legislation to ensure that Internet Service Providers can and do have folk for peer to peer and free downloads of copyright material.

Our vision is for the legislation proposed and the rights agency to form an
integrated approach to content online, and we need to ensure that taken
together they create an environment where investment in creativity online is
rewarded, and deliver a practical solution to online infringement.  This would
provide a comprehensive framework that helps legitimate and attractive digital
content to flourish while ensuring it is not fatally undermined by people taking
creative products for free and without permission, either through peer-to-peer
file-sharing or other threats that may emerge in the future.

We have set out here a model which allows industry to keep control of how
this environment is created.  This model depends on a strong rights agency
that can and does require specific actions of its members.  We do not wish to
be more prescriptive in legislation – that would not be the best outcome for
anyone – including rights holders.  We recognise that we would run a real risk
of legislating to require specific actions that may turn out in practice to be
ineffective and to address only the short term problems, without the ability to
flex to deal with new situations as they arise.  However, if we are not
convinced that industry is willing or able to deliver an effective rights agency
we will need to think about alternative ways to approach the issue.

On top of that the government has no desire to act as a regulator. Instead those who have most at stake in control will be asked to create the rights agency.

we are inviting industry to come together to create a body that could tackle those parts of this agenda that are for industry to deal with.  In pursuit of that we are happy to work with industry as a convener and a facilitator in this process.

The problem with this approach is that it risks handing too much control of what we do on the internet to large businesses, which will presumably seek to further control us as an audience. That in turn is likely to stifle the open-ess that makes the web a powerful tool for innovation.