Digital Transparency Index for US Congress – "The Digital Transparency Index is a way to indicate how active legislators in Congress are in the online world. It's currently comprised of several factors including a legislator's web presence, whether or not they syndicate content, and how active they are on Twitter and YouTube."
What is Rant and Rave? | Instant Customer Feedback | Rant and Rave – Spotted by @chrisunitt: "Rant & Rave works by gathering people’s thoughts as soon as they experience a product or service. It collects feedback instantly through two main channels – formal and informal."
Social seniors « stuff and junk – Some feedback from the first social media surgery/mob at Mosman Library ins Sydney: "I can’t think of a generation better suited to social media than that of our senior citizens." That's exactly how we find it at the Birmingham surgeries.
These are my links for August 14th through August 15th:
Birmingham Local Food Directory :: Loaf Online – Loaf Online is a blog about local food in and around Birmingham. Great content, a directory of local food suppliers and looks proper tasty. More superlocal than hyperlocal but I like it a lot. Another example of people seeing an information vacuum and just getting on and filling it.
Social seniors and Social Media Surgery in Sydney« stuff and junk – This is a quick blog post from one of the people who took part int he first social media surgery in Sydney Austrlai. I love the quote: “Which brings me to my third thought – I can’t think of a generation better suited to social media than that of our senior citizens.” I agree, especially when you link it to a passion for real world community.
Birmingham Post – Life & Leisure – Post Features – Blog Street central – Good piece about our very local social media surgeries by Jo In in the Birmingham Post: “There are many lovely things about the surgeries, not least that the line between the surgeons and the patients becomes increasingly blurred.”
Welcome to the NPIA’s Citizen Focus and Neighbourhood Policing Programme Website – The NPIA’s Citizen Focus and Neighbourhood Policing programme is responsible for a number of key projects including; The Policing Pledge, Confidence, Citizen Focus Hallmarks and Crime Mapping. More information on these and our other core stands is included on the following pages:
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)
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.”
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.
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.
Now, how do I get to visit one of those surgeries?
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