cdi – Podnosh

Here are some of the things I’ve read today:

Mission Creep | Neil Williams on Twitter Stategy for Government – “You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter…” is how Neil starts this piece on his JFDI moment.
TH!NK ABOUT IT – european blogging competition – Homepage – TH!NK2 Climate Change is a 3 month blogging competition with a focus on UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009. 81 bloggers from Europe with featured guests from India, China Brazil and the USA, representing the world’s biggest players in climate policy, will come together on the European Journalism Centre’s thinkaboutit.eu platform, to exchange ideas and debate the issues of climate change.
A return to the “old skool” – Social Media challenges in the Public Sector « Carl’s Notepad – Thoughtful piece from Carl Haggerty: “Are we seeing social media facilitating a return to traditional and “old skool” values around community and neighbourhood support. I see the main difference being the “community” and the “neighbourhood” that people relate to is more complex and far reaching (offline and online) than ever before. If this is the case, then the Pubic Sector truly has a huge task ahead, not only support itself to transform the way we engage with people and our own staff, but to acknowledge those communities who are already engaged but also nurture communities (offline and online) to become part of the wider public service delivery model.”
Mapping Digital Inclusion Actors « CDI Europe – A really useful map of the different roles different organisations and people play in digital media, digital inclusion, democracy and civic activism from iris at CDI

The Stirrer – Social Media Surgeries – “The Birmingham social media group have attracted visitors from across the UK to see how it works. The model is so simple and cost free. Just bring those who have something to teach together with those who want to learn and bang a life changing concept is off.” Audrey Miller, a beneficiary of the social media surgeries sums it up quite nicely, although it’s a touch embarrassing.

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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."