Tag: Leadership

Key Questions: Local Government and Social Media

What this blog post says.

Ingrid Koehler at the IDeA Srategy Unit poses seven good questions. Here are my thoughts, although they boil don’t to one key answer: 

Get involved and act like normal people do.

1 What are the greatest areas of potential benefit in councils using social media. These spring from the culture change which social media can help to drive, or rather requires you to adopt. Organisations which are alive to how social media can build trust, strengthen relationships and allow people to collaborate will eventually benefit from being able to work much better with the people they are there to serve. It helps make you a council which learns quickly, acts quickly, collaborates well inside and outside the organisation, is transparent and more trusted.

2 How can councils support individuals in becoming digitally enabled and empowered?  I think the answer is to start with your own staff. Councils employ a goodly proportion of those in work in any area and if they get it then that will reach many others. Give them access to organised yet informal help on how to use social media for their work. Reward those who share what they know and make sure they know they have permission to help the ‘citizen’ to also learn how to use the social web. Why doesn’t a housing repair team use social media to talk about what they do – why can’t they then share these skills with the people they meet in their work? Support would include identifying digital mentors in your teams and offering social media surgeries, some for insiders, some for outsiders and some for both. Don’t underestimate how much people enjoy using the social web and treat that as an opportunity.  Oh, and open up internet access to council staff.

3 How can local and hyper-local social networks increase community cohesion and empowerment.  At it’s simplest these networks help people know each other. That in turn allows them to see what they have in common and to begin to organise around shared problems or opportunties. Don’t imagine that a council run ning for each neighbourhood is the answer though.  Often councils have to go to where networks have begun to spring up. Don’t expect people to come to you. Equaly don’t think of these online very local networks (they could cluster around a blog or series of blogs, perhaps even people on twitter) are separate from you as a local authority. Just be sincerely part of them.

4 How can councillors develop their leader and communication skills using social media?  The key here is not the tools but the habits. If they participate in the conversation as normal human beings they will develop more sophisticated collaborative and conversational communications skills and be more accountable as leaders. If they learn to seek help from their networks and in turn help people within those networks they can build a great deal of social capital – which is core to being a leader. On the other hand,  if they use the tools as a one way broadcast mechanism they won’t gain much benefit from social media.

5 How can councils create the space for community conversations without overpowering them?  Usually it will be wrong for a council to think they can make a space and it will work. (I’d prefer to say always – because the usually could be the excuse for thousands of moribund council created ‘social’ sites). People working in councils have to be granted permission to think and act as part of a network. You wouldn’t blunder into your knitting club and start saying that things are going to a certain way because you are in charge. You would help to negoatiate what’s best.

6 How can social media be used for more effective social marketing, encouraging the behaviour change necessary to achieve complex outcomes? People using social media are already beginning to collaborate on solving complex problems – often with ad hoc networks of expertise attracted to particular issues. So the answer to this question can’t be prescriptive other than to say officers and politicians in local authorities need to begin contributing professionally to other people problem solving. They need to use their skills and reosurces beyond their normal areas or permission. That way they can learn techniques which they can then apply to their own proferssional problems.

7 What’s the “next practice” in social media, including virtual worlds and more?  Virtual worlds are essentially a slightly clutsy toy at the moment (sweepeing genralisation I know – and much of the work being done is valuable) .  There may well be something new about how information internally is processed – internal (perhaps semantic) search offering the right stuff to the right person at the right time. Included in that stuff will be information coming from bloggers as much as newspeprs or academia. So digital media literacy and refined critical skills for information processing will be critical.

More importantly local authorities have not yet particularly begun to ‘get’ current practice in social media. The key is to learn to share openly and generously. Social media practice includes being wiling to give away what you know, help people solve their problems in the knowledge that they in turn will help you solve yours, praise, support, respect people for what they do and know, not their status and relax.  Social media is like government – it’s never finished so don’t behave as if it should be.
See also:

Stuart Bruce, including a very wise “don’t aim too high”.

Simon Wakeman is very practical in his well throught through answers.

Like me, Carl Haggerty comes at it very much from the perspective of saying culture change is the thing.

Director of Digital Engagement – Cabinet Office.

I’ve always thought encouraging the active use of social media in government is a patient game. Culture change takes time and asking people to start listening in new ways, joining new conversations, collaborating with new people is a substantial culture change.  What it can lead to is a step change again.

Fortunately the Cabinet Office is quite impatient to see progress. They are looking for a Director of Digital Engagement (salary £81,000 – £160,000) who will take on “a new role charged with getting Government to work differently.

This will require Government and individual departments to change the way they do business – from consulting citizens to collaborating with them on the development of policy and how public services are delivered to them. It will involve supporting Ministers and senior officials in entering conversations in which Government does not control the message or the dialogue.

Within six months the Head of Digital Engagement will have developed a strategy and implementation plan and be able to show concrete signs of momentum in executing the plan.

Within a year the Head of Digital Engagement should be able to point to two departments whose use of digital engagement are recognised in the digital community as being world class

Within two years the use of world class digital engagement techniques should be embedded in the normal work of Government”

Umh. Is Tom Loosemore really ready to leave 4ip or perhaps Richard Allan wants a change from Cisco?  Steph Gray from Dius has already begun thinking about what this “poor soul” should do first and with uservoice has begun voting on just that problem (No 1 appears to be promote the use of small contracts and contractors for govt IT). Even Jeff  Jarvis noted the job. So there’s some names. Who else do you think ought to be sharpening their pencil?

Update: 1 Dominic Campbell fleshes out the role: “the Digi Director must also avoid becoming embedded in government and spend as much time out and about as possible, out with the policy makers, politicians and social innovators. They will also need uber executive back up from somewhere in government to make the change happen, with experiences such as those of the recently ex-civil servant Jeremy Gould highlighting the distance the government still has to travel before it truly gets the web and is willing to invest appropriate amounts of time and attention in it.”

2 I fear that Dave Briggs coinage of blogging tsar might catch on. Twould be a shame.

3 A campaign, begun to get the job for darrenbbc, as already had cold watered poured on it by Tom Watson. Sheesh – the job applications will be crowd sourced, why not teh job itself!

4 Paul Evans toys with the Robin Williams problem, do ‘they’ really want to be that engaging.

Mappa Mercia – Open source mapping for Birmingham

An open source street map of Birmingham has been completed by volunteers – next they will be turning their attention to the Black Country, unless of course the Ordnance Survey open up it’s data as recommended in the Power of Information Taskforce report.  (Come on OS – save these folk some pixel work.)  I’m also told that the folk who handcrafted every pixel are keen to come to the next Social Media Surgery.
Below is an entire news release from  www.mappa-mercia.org

“OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you.”

PRESS RELEASE FEBRUARY 9th 2009

Today Birmingham takes another huge step to becoming a digital City. The metropolitan area of Birmingham and its environs within the motorway ring have been completely digitally remapped by its own citizens in a format which is freely editable and available at www.openstreetmap.org.

It is the first English city to be completely remapped in this way. It joins the likes of Paris, Berlin, Canberra and Vienna

Birmingham now has a digital map that is more up-to-date and accurate than all other online or satnav maps. Only Ordnance Survey can claim to be more accurate – and they have huge technical and financial resources at their disposal.

(Click here for a detailed view of Birmingham )

The OpenStreetMap of Birmingham has been created by local people, with local knowledge, who take pride in how their neighbourhoods are represented. They can match, and even surpass, the efforts of commercial mappers who spend millions creating this kind of rich data. A dedicated band of 100 volunteers has been collecting GPS data whilst cycling, walking, and riding the buses and trains. One of our team has even mapped by canal boat!

The raw positional data is supplemented by additional visual observations on the ground and then edited into a format that can be rendered as a map readable by humans. All the software used in the project has been developed as open source software and is free to download and use. All participants have to do is invest their time and pay attention to detail. All data once submitted is editable in a wiki-style process.

“It’s very satisfying to see a complete city mapped in OpenStreetMap. Four years ago when this project was created we were looking at a blank screen and most commentators thought we were crazy.” said Andy Robinson, secretary of the OpenStreetMap Foundation and a prolific mapper in the West Midlands.

The Birmingham effort is part of a worldwide movement to digitally remap the entire planet which started in 2004. The project was originated in the UK and now involves some 85,000 enthusiasts globally, who have so far mapped almost 14 million miles of road globally. We have mapped some15,000 residential roads, 6,000 footpaths and 9,000 other roads in Birmingham ( and over 700 bus stops, 300 pubs, 200 traffic lights and 300 postboxes)

Why re-map the world?

We need a free dataset for programmers, social activists, cartographers, and communities and the like to use geodata and create maps suited to their purposes without being limited by proprietary restrictions designed to protect large corporate investments in geodata. Under-developed countries are particularly helped by a project of this sort, because it is just not economic for commercial mappers to map their areas in detail.

How can it be accurate? The essence of a wiki-style process is that all users have a stake in having accurate data. If one person puts in inaccurate data, maliciously or accidentally, the other 99.9% of people can check it, fix it, or get rid of it.

Just think how amazing it was a few years back when you saw Google Maps for the first time. Suddenly mapping was cool, and access via an API* lead to a wave of innovation. Satnav was nowhere 3 years ago. Look at it now! But you still can’t access the incredible amount of data locked behind the API and you can’t add or improve it, so your applications are limited. Just think of the explosion of innovation, much of it in unexpected areas, that’s possible when the data is available!

All the software used in the project has been developed as opensource software and is free to download and use. The data and maps are licensed by Creative Commons which defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. What this means to users (and this isn’t legal advice) is basically you can do what you like with the data, so long as you mention the original creator and the licence and anyone else can do the same with anything you produce.

A flagship example of the power of opening up access to geodata is OpenCycleMap.

It’s a customised online map for cyclists, based on OpenStreetMap data. It shows things that are interesting to cyclists including signed cycle routes, offroad cycle paths, bike shops and bike parking – and of course hills – whilst diminishing other things like motorways that are of little interest. It’s built on top of OpenStreetMap, and was recently commended by the British Cartographic Society.

So we’ve got a map, what’s next?

1. There’s most of the Black Country to map for a start!

2. Local businesses and organisations can start using OSM maps and data, rather than proprietary sources, freeing themselves from the technical, financial and accuracy restrictions of commercial mapping providers.

3. Now that we have a complete set of local data, Midlands software developers can start using it to create novel applications (e.g road traffic simulations, tourist trails, restaurant guides).

Why would a business consider using OpenStreetMap data when anyone can use maps from Google, Mapquest or Yahoo for free? Put succinctly: they have control. OSM data and map users have significantly more control over their maps than someone who uses a free API. With OSM you can modify, supplement and select the data to create a highly customised map.

4. It might take a 100 people to produce a map like this but we need a 1,000 to keep it up to date. We need communities and individuals to improve and verify the map via a simple tool available at https://openstreetbugs.appspot.com/ (or on our local West Midlands site https://www.mappa-mercia.org/openstreetbugs.shtml ) All they need is local knowledge and access to the internet.

For more information, individuals and community organisations can contact Brian Prangle 0121 604 1141 and community@mappa-mercia.org

Press contact Andy Robinson Tel No 07775537872 and press@mappa-mercia.org

More information for editors can be found at:

www.openstreetfoundation.org

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page

www.openstreetmap.org.

www.opencyclemap.org/

Images of one year of edits for the whole planet:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterito/3054501076/in/pool-itomedia

Animation of all the edits we have for Birmingham showing progress from initiation to today:

https://blip.tv/file/1625650

We have gathered all the resources together in a specific West Midlands website:

www.mappa-mercia.org

Sunday Links:

Try our new map.jpg

The National Trust creates this google map which helps people find National Trust properties and make their way there. No substantial techy shakes,  but what is most significant though is a sense of collboration here.  They tell us it’s a beta and ask for our iddeas about how to imporve it.  That attitude is good news.

The people who contribute to online communities are special – don’t lump them in with the rest of the members, urges Museum 2.0

“And so imagine if, instead of launching a community project and stating, “this is a place where anyone can contribute,” you launched and said, “Only one in a hundred people will share something here. Are you that one?” The idea that the user might be someone special, someone in the minority, is evocative and immensely appealing. If everyone can do it, why bother? If only YOU can do it, the motivation goes up.”

Andy Duncan of Channel 4 talks to Nesta about the future of digital Britain. (hat tip Dominic) He reckons:

  1. we must have universal access to broadband services.At the moment we rank fifth of the OECD countries for access, but in terms of speed we are some considerable way behind countries like Korea and Japan.   If we are to
    be a fully digital society, then every citizen must be able to participate.  Anything less would be an implicit denial of full citizenship to some.
  2. stimulate demand and here the best way forward must be a combination of public policy and private provision.when by the government’s own admission only 20% of schools have really ‘got it’ in terms of exploiting digital technology to drive next generation learning, we need to ramp up the integration of digital technologies with our formal and informal learning services.   Media literacy is as essential to a full and productive life today as basic literacy was in the world of our grandparents.
  3. My third boundary marker for Digital Britain concerns what you could call the supply side of the equation.  For example, there’s the hugely complex question of how to regulate and reward the exploitation of intellectual property in the digital world.  Children and teenagers don’t differentiate between content they access on television and what they access on the net, but our regulatory system still treat them as totally separate.  One way of dealing with this may be to learn from the advertising industry where responsible self-regulation has been a
    success, and it’s clear that, however they do it, the big internet service providers need to take more responsibility for the services they carry.  I’m not pretending it’s easy.  If ever an issue belonged in the ‘difficult box’ for parliament and for society at large, this is it.  But we can no longer dodge it.

MySociety reckons we have 6 days to prevent MP’s burying the details of their expenses.  Click here to see how you can act: “NB. mySociety is strictly non-partisan, by mission and by ethics. However, when it looks like Parliament is about to take a huge step in the wrong direction on transparency, we’ve no problem at all with stepping up when changes happen that threaten both the public interest and the ongoing value of sites like  TheyWorkForYou and WhatDoTheyKnow.”