Tag: net2uk

Fair Play – a brief review of this partly online consultation for young people.

I’ve just played the online consultation game from the Department of Children and Families. You can find it here www.dcsf.gov.uk/playspace. Sorry to the folk at the department if I’ve slightly skewed the result. I ticked the over 13 button (which is true) as were the rest of my answers.

I expected to be very dismissive of the game but I was instead interested. It was an intelligent way to use a simple game to narrow down who was sharing their opinions. Allowing choices of things to go on the playground as a reward was a good idea (I immediately chose the treehouse, tunnel and den – why wouldn’t you!). The main problem with the game as a tool for consultation is I have no real incentive to work my way through to the the end. However it might work as a social object – to encourage a group of people to talk about what they want from play areas. It is also only one game – so inevitably won’t be well enough targeted for different age groups.

There is a separate online questionnaire, which I imagine is where the department is really expecting to get useful data. This, and all the other information could do with being more smoothly integrated. At the moment the game has it’s own set of pages, the rest simply appears on the web in a way which suits the department internal bureaucracy rather than the user. The game ought to have it’s own site with all the other information radiating out from that. It also would work best as w widget or some sort of onlne object which can be integrated into other people’s sites, myspace pages etc. Then the audience can distribute the consultation.

Summary:

  • A good stab
  • Not in the slightest web 2.0
  • Would have benefited from being executed with more conviction.

Simon Berry’s Coca-Cola idea makes it onto the BBC iPM blog – interview here.

Remember this post earlier this week encouraging you lot to join Simon Berry in his campaign to get Coca Cola to start using it’s distribution network to save lives by transporting re-hydration tablets to remote areas of Africa. One in Five children in Africa die before they are 5 because of diarrheoa.

Simon tweeted that the BBC is interested in his idea and this is what the iPM blog makes of what he is doing:

Simon Berry and others on the blog have been keen for iPM to to hear more about his big idea.
For more than ten years, Simon worked all over the world as part of the
British aid effort. He thinks there is a simple way to help the one in five children in Africa who die from simple causes – usually diarrhoea. And the answer is Coca-Cola.
Not the product – but its distribution network. We’ve asked Coca-Cola
to debate, but in the meantime Eddie has been speaking to Simon about
him and his idea.

Listen to Simon’s interview here.

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.

Poachers in the Masai Mara and the social web. A great case study.

Update on ranger Leyian who was shot: In total they gave him 6 pints of blood, and are keeping him under observation in case of infections.

That’s the latest tweet from the Mara Triangle on twitter and it illustrates some simple principles of good use of social media for charities and non for profit organisations.

The twitter account is linked to this blog written by the rangers in the Mara Triangle. It’s hosted by wildlife direct, an American charity who seem to be using a wordpressmu (multi-user) installation to offer blogs to a range of animal protection groups. The blog is also supported by image accounts on flickr and video on youtube. Integrating these tools is a key element of using the social web well.

The final element in this jigsaw though is the story. You have to have a story to tell and that means that what you write should be personal.

I hope ranger Leyian recovers quickly.

Hat tip to Robin Hamman.