Category: Leadership

Civil Service Principals for Online Participation – Be Responsive.

After the suspension of a civil servant for blogging Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson has finally got some guidelines up to help civil servants join the online conversation. They are based on the civil service code and a big conversation which was encouraged by Tom on his blog and evolved into Richard Allan’s task force on the Power of Information. I like the simplicity and clarity. For me the advance is number 3 “Be Responsive”. Encourage constructive criticism is good but is also going to exercise some civil service structures and perhaps liberate others:

1 Be credible: Be accurate, fair, thorough and transparent.

2 Be consistent: Encourage constructive criticism and deliberation. Be cordial, honest and professional at all times.

3 Be responsive When you gain insight, share it where appropriate.

4 Be integrated: Wherever possible, align online participation with other offline communications.

5 Be a civil servant: Remember that you are an ambassador for your organisation. Wherever possible, disclose your position as a representative of your department or agency.
Other feedback from bits of the web:Brilliant in their simplicity.

It is good.

To be applauded.

Woo Hoo!.

This is a big step indeed.

Some sense of security for those already blogging.

Youtube Insights – Analytics for Youtube

This isn’t new – but I’ve just become aware of Google Analytics thanks to this tweet.

Very useful tool for telling us the age/gender and location of the people who are watching our Youtube films. You can find it by clicking on My Account once you’re logged into Youtube and scrolling down until you see a link to Insight.

Surprisingly almost all Podnosh viewers on youtube are from the UK, which is good because the films are designed to encourage improvements in neighbourhoods in the UK.

What next? I couldn’t find more detailed geographic data – like city etc. Will google extend analytics with more info if you pay?

Coca Cola's Life saving compartment. An idea from Simon Berry Inspired by Annie Lennox

My friend Simon Berry is onto something. After listening to Annie Lennox on Desert Island Disc he blogged this:

By some miracle my PC and Radio Shark did record last Sunday’s
(11/5/08) Desert Island Discs. Unfortunately it’s a very poor recording
but this is what Annie Lennox said.

Just to put it into context, after talking about her passion for
AIDS campaigns in South Africa and the fact that she’s set up her own
campaign ‘Sing’. She then talked about that fact that she would have
shared, with her father, the sense of injustice in the World. Then she
said:

We can distribute Coca Cola all around the
World but we can’t seem to get medication to save a child from
something as simple as diarrhoea and I think that that is wrong. You
know, you have a choice you either get involved with an issue or you
walk away from it. I think it’s a human rights issue and I feel very
passionately about human rights.

Simon is a very practical man. Now he’s asking Coca-Cola to “use their distribution channels (which are amazing in
developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts. Maybe by
dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as ‘the life saving’
compartment?”

If you think that makes sense you can lend weight to the argument by joining this facebook group.

Gapingvoid quote on being a blogger:

From here:

“The best thing about being a blogger is the people you get to meet.” I have found this to be true and self-evident. When I was younger, the people who inspired me the most professionally were famous, dead, or both. Since I become a blogger the people who inspired me the most became good friends of mine. We hung out. We drunk beer. We ate pizza. It wasn’t a big deal, it was just… lovely. Back in 2004, my blogging buddies and I knew we were onto a good thing. Something powerful and creative and earth-changing. But that’s not the main reason we liked it. We liked it because we enjoyed it, because it was interesting, because of the smart, passionate, fun people we were starting to hang out with.

A decade from now, maybe blogs as we know them won’t even exist. Maybe they’ll call them something else. Do I care? Not really. What matters, like Loic (my link)and I talked about, is the people you get to meet. That’s where the magic lies. Ten years from now, these people will still be around, geeking out on the internet at the latest WHATEVER that’s coming down the pike. They’re not going anywhere, and Thank God for that.

Oddly enough my twittercloud got me thinking about the people I enjoy talking to and how far that is at the root of friendship.