Tag: Local Government

Using twitter to source a milk float – things you learn at social media surgeries

Tuesday was the first  social media surgery held in Lozells.  Below are some of the folk who turned up to learn and share.  I spent the first 40 minutes with the Bangladeshi Youth Forum, warming them up to some ideas. Interestingly I don’t think I got very far.  For the teenage lads I was talking to,  the social web is a place to show off what’s cool.

Thanks very much to John Heaven and Raj Rattu for their energetic help with organising and the great welcome we had at the Lozells Methodist Church.  We had a busy time with a huge range of ages and abilities, all dipping their toes into social media – creating blogs and trying out Twitter amongst other things.

John has blogged about it on the Digital Birmingham blog over at Lozells.info,

Mark Bent, who runs the newly-opened Boathouse Café in Handsworth Park, set up a blog: boathousecafe.wordpress.com. Saeed, an educationalist and community activist in Lozells, was the first to bag lozells.wordpress.com. I was pleased to see Sharon Morgan, from Come:unity Arts, who is already a seasoned Twitterer! (Don’t forget about the Handsworth ArtWalk that they are organising.)

I spent the second part of the session Sharon.  She had already set up a blog and so we covered some theory, principles of netwroking through the web etc.  Then Sharon told me the absolutely brilliant story of how she used twitter to bag a milk float:

Thanks to Dave Harte, Paul Henderson and Simon Whitehouse for their surgical skills – watch out for news of the next lozells social media surgery at BeVocal.org.uk

Stuff I've seen July 10th through July 12th

These are my links for July 10th through July 12th:

  • Intel Social Media Guidelines – Genuinely excellent guidelines for intel staffers on getting involved with social media.
  • Not what ships are for at Helpful Technology – "one of the local authority participants contributed a quote which struck a deep chord: “Ships are ’safe’ in the harbour, but that’s not what ships are for” – great spot from Steph
    Amen to that. Here’s to seafaring!
  • Google – Local Government – This site is your guide to the tools and best practices your council can adopt to reach, communicate and engage with your community.
  • Conversation with communities – A councillor’s guide to social media – Councillors, as local leaders, will have a key role in these changes if they take that opportunity. Enhancing local democracy through greater transparency and providing both a greater voice and a greater responsibility for citizens in setting priorities and delivering public services means that the nature of a representative democracy may change. But the need for elected officials does not go away and there are tremendous opportunities local leaders to use social media to engage with a wider range of people in a powerful, focused way.
  • Kebablog » Blog Archive » Surgery anyone? – Steve's experience of the Social Media Surgery in Acocks Green: "2 ladies (bec and mandy? – I may have asked the names, but in the excitement forgot!) came in and asked about setting up a blog, Nick pointed them in my direction and I was happy to help out."
  • I couldn’t possibly comment: An open, digital Iraq inquiry – "The inquiry should assume that interesting things will be done with the information they publish off their website by independents." A really thorough explanation from Will Perrin about how the UK Government Iraq Enquiry could use the web and meta data in important ways.

Things I've spotted July 5th from 09:59 to 13:20

Here are some o the things I’ve been reading July 5th from 09:59 to 13:20:

  • Sustainable independent and impartial news. WriteToReply consultation – "Sustainable independent and impartial news; in the Nations, locally and in the regions" is a 12 week public consultation document published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that "seeks views on the proposal for a contained, contestable element to be introduced to the next licence fee settlement."

    This WriteToReply republication of the original consultation document allows interested members of the public to comment on the consultation document at a paragraph level.

  • The Investigatory Powers Tribunal – Welcome to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal website. The IPT exists to investigate complaints about conduct by various public bodies, in relation to you, your property or communications.
  • paulcanning: A SocMed history moment – "This is a historical moment. A question from Iranians, via social media, gets asked of the US President. Mark this one down"
  • What's wrong with Flips? – The Daily Grind – A Flip Pro would be breaking new ground, and that’s an order of magnitude more risky. Are people ready for it?
  • Social media in public service: ideas for the Capital Fund at LocalGovCamp « Policy and Performance – "We were (ARE) looking for ideas: CLG’s Efficiency and Transformation Capital Fund potentially includes some significant funding for innovative and effective social media projects. The ‘only’ criteria are that projects can roll out quickly, achieve real outcomes against local priorities (as set out in Local Area Agreements), be scaleable and applicable across authorities, promote empowerment, link to the Total Place approach as that develops…!"

Hello birminghamnewsroom.com and congratulations

Birmingham News Room header
Birmingham News Room header

After a brief consultation process and suggestions  from a number of folk, including this lengthy burble from me, Birmingham City Council has launched birminghamnewsroom.com.

It’s a wordpress based site for their news service to the public and press and  describes itself as

…your first stop for all the news from Europe’s largest local authority.

The aim is to improve our news delivery, so we want the newsroom to be a useful resource for both journalists and members of the general public.

Last rites to the press release?

Deborah Harries, head of news at the council, blogged about where they are at:

The press office at Birmingham City Council has moved into the 21st century and after months of hard work we’ve finally launched our online newsroom. This is an exciting development for my team and hopefully this site will prove to be a useful resource for journalists, bloggers and residents.

We haven’t quite read the last rites to the press release but the world of media relations is changing. (my emphasis)

People consume news in many different ways now and we’re keen to reach a wider audience through the burgeoning and exciting range of social networking tools available. Don’t get me wrong, this is far from the finished article and we’re looking for your views to help further develop the service.

Included is:

A dedicated Youtube Channel, managed partly through vodpod, with straightforward self made content like this:

There is a series of photos in their self hosted gallery (I’d like to be able to link to and use these images) and the twitter account, which popped up a while ago. Plus the all important RSS feed(s?) and it’s good to see comments enabled on individual blog posts/news items.  I imagine trackback is too?

What do I think?

I think it’s wonderful. I’ve got a head full of things that could be done next or perhaps a litle differently, but they can wait.  It’s through using social media that you get good at it and here the council has created a wonderful place for doing just that.

Congratulations to Geoff Coleman, who’s been nursing this for some months, and Deborah Harries for just getting on with it.

(Declaration – from time to time I get paid by Birmingham City Council – not for this though!)