Huh? Where'd Thought Store go?

Thought Store has a new home at www.sarahlay.com where you can continue reading about online communications for local government in my work and studies.
If you've bookmarked or linked to me here please adjust your settings and find me over there now! Sorry for any inconvenience :)
See you all over there - would love to hear your thoughts.
Over and out.

Public Sector Forums present PSF Buzz North East

Headed up to Newcastle today for the Public Sector Forums' event on Effective Social Media and Web 2.0 Strategies for Local Authorities - AKA PSFBuzz North East!!!

This a chance to meet up with some very inspiring, enthusiastic and dedicated local gov online people - some of whom had been at localgovcamp a few weeks ago but some of whom I had only had online conversations with so far so good to meet in person.

Oh, and the line up was pretty good too! I live blogged my notes for each session as well as I could (shaky wifi due to rampant tweeters) and will go back and try and add a sensible summary to each post. You can also catch up with the metaconference on Twitter at #psfbuzz.

Speakers for today:

• Simon Wakeman, Medway Council - Social Media: A Revolution in Local Government Communications? You can see my notes from the session or Simon has posted the presentation on his blog.
• Mike Saunt - sorry! I didn't write the title down :(
  
• Jack Pickard - Accessibility and social media
  and you can also see what Jack blogged at The Pickards
• Carl Haggerty - unblocking access to social media and creating policy / guidance
• Alistair Smith - Managing reputation online
• Stuart Harrison - Planbot / TwitterPlan
• Dave Briggs - Four steps to social media success

The whole day was a blast with the presentations being thought provoking, funny and useful in equal measure. Thanks to all involved in putting it on (PSF, Newcastle, Dave Briggs, suppliers etc). Good to see so many people there - would be great to see other events on same format in other regions :)

A few actions I have set myself after this day:

• Revisit the social media guidelines I drafted and make some changes / additions then chase to get them in place
• Start tracking the conversation happening in the online space about our organisation
• Start tracking the scope and impact of our socmed communications
• A few other things too vague to be stuck up here but have made it to the 'think on' post-it in my diary :0)
  

Dave Briggs - four steps to social media success

Post-event thoughts (updated 8 June 2009):

Last speaker of the day at PSFBuzz NE was Dave Briggs, who had also done a rather marvellous job of chairing the day.
I've not heard Dave present before and I really enjoyed the anecdotes and informal style which encapsulates the camaraderie of the whole event.
Dave presented his personal story first - from non-web-related role to working at Downing Street in five years and this was a great way of showing not only how fast online is changing in terms of technology and communications but in forming new ways of working and roles as well. This was all expanded on later in the presentation and is great food for thought.
Moving onto Dave looked at common mistakes and misconceptions about social media before imparting his four steps to success:

1. Listen
2. Acknowledge
3. Create
4. Share

Along with these four steps there are a few of other things Dave said which struck a chord with me: that people aren't going to like everything about social media and the battle cry of JFDI!
These are principles I'm carrying with me in working life and trying to get the organisation in the right position. However, as much as I love shouting JFDI (and sticking my LocalGovCamp sticker to random things), I do temper it with a degree of public-sector-risk-averse caution (ie I do some research and work things through and if it still seems like the best idea then I FDI).
And the other thing this presentation made me think again about is policy. I had a go at some draft usuage guidelines a few months ago (mainly copied from Carl Haggerty) but haven't followed up after circulating within my team. So, action for me from this session and Carl's session is to re-visit that document and probably rehash some of it to make it less strategy and less about specific networks and chase it to get it in place.

What I wrote at the time:

- recycling jokes again tch ;)
- digital engager - not a markerter ;)
- Dave's dad is on FB - profile is fairly empty but 63 year old is thinking about it
- data and mash ups - example is a google map of BNP members.
- This stuff changes lives: Dave's tale
- never worked in a web team, never worked in comms.
- interest is personal - tried to implement in each of his jobs; benefits office, scrutiny etc
- not able to do in day job so blogged about it at home
- Now working at Downing Street three days a week
- wouldn't have got that job if he'd used his 'work' experience cv but had a personal cv - social media changed him life
- websites don't change the world people do
- web 1.0 v web 2.0 - tim berners-lee thought of web 2.0 when he originally thought of online - collaboration and sharing
- be open, admit you don't know all the answers
- if you're building your policy, don't use the word Twitter - be broad - don't talk tech talk culture
- you don't have to like everything - find what you like, what fits but try stuff
- things moving scary fast - youtube is about 3 years old - already seen decimation of music industry
- when will socmed be everyday? when the tech becomes boring...
- lots of Clay Shirky love from Dave - and I like it!
- The Long Tail - value in niches
- Where does Here Comes Everybody come from? Finnegan's Wake
- self-organising (ppl changing the world but the tech allowing them to do that)
- There you go - Dave Briggs a fellow of the RSA
- infobesity - too much information, not enough time. It's filter failure - learn to listen properly (tech can help with that right?)
- you have a problem and you share it you can fix it better and quicker - crowdsource everything?
- for councils could be community groups etc open source yourself!
- if you put it out there the geeks will come (and build it for you)
- digital natives will expect things to be done a certain way - will expect IM etc or won't want to work there
- if you can't offer that will you be able to attract the talent in the years to come?
- if you don't do it someone else will...and then you lose the control...
- serendipity - it's how Twitter works! networks grow and opportunity arrives...
- timetric - the youtube of graphs! everyone go look!
- if you build it, they WON'T come - need to market and drive, create reasons to visit.
- if you start using socmed you will need to be an interactive organisation - djinn out of bottle - need to start thinking about change to process, change to roles etc
- non-professional - if it's corporate ppl won't engage. if it is unprofessional they won't engage either - has to be inbetween...the middle way
- try again, fail again, fail better!
- learn from your mistakes - go to #failcamp - talk about things they tried that didn't work out
- JFDI! don't kill off ideas through planning
- everybody in org repsonsible for online stuff - not just web team.
- new roles - community manager, social reporter, online cultivator, digital curator.
- venn diagram - internal / external collaborate / communicate - Carl / Blue Kiwi at Devon
- 4 step - listen, acknowledge, create, share!
- Listen: part of the reason ppl say horrible things about you is because they think you're not listening and they can get away with it!
-Acknowledge: even just realise there is conversation - step in!
- Create: incremental process, try stuff
- Share: open up data - more back to Stuart's presentation.
- start small, test, fail, learn, do better!
- create a community in your organisation or surrounds...use the enthusiastic to help and support you
- make policy - copy Carl's (already done!)
- dont' create strategy! (oops) will go out of date and makes it boring
- so JFDI!!!!

Stuart Harrison - TwitterPlan

Post-event thoughts (updated 8 June 2009):

I enjoyed this presentation even though I didn't understand a lot of it. I am not in any way technical and so things like APIs etc are straight over my head (although props to Stuart as he did explain and I am closer to understanding)!
It was interesting to hear about the development of TwitterPlan and the reason's why Stuart had decided to give it a go in the first place. This sort of creativity spinning off wider networks and council data is a fascinating area where more work is surely possible (and I'm sure Stuart has a few more things up his sleeve).
There were some good points made about an open collaborative, interactive web being the original intention of Sir Tim Berners-Lee despite it now being referred to as web 2.0.
Also useful to know that Stuart has blogged himself about how easy it is to start mashing and sharing data.
Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next :)

What I wrote at the time:

Yet another #epicvisionary!

- Planning Alerts - volunteers grab info from councils and push out to users by email
- Stuart realised that lots of ppl prefer Twitter and pay more attention.
- Used the Planning Alerts API to make Twitter version (am I getting this? non-techy alert!)
- API delivers 'stuff' in standard format
- Twitter username and postcode, stored in db, runs script everyday to look for applications in there area, then throws a tweet with links if there is a match
- Looking to develop so you can add more than one postcode
- Brave / stupid move - going live at PSFBuzz to sign someone up to Twitterplan - go Stuart! (right address helps ;) )
-@skepticmike goes for it!
- Turning browsealoud off - but is online so faring well so far! Alert set up complete.
- Did have autofollow but not switched on right now
- opening up data - I think Stuart wants to shout Free Our Data really!!!
- What formats are available - RSS: only 101 have RSS news feeds. Mash The State
- They Work for You Local - get info about councillor / committee etc
- Add extra information into the profiles, make it easier to re-use info and helps with search
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee says this is the web done right prob recommend that councils etc publish using link data - good call Stuart / Sir Tim; here we go with semantic web
- Widgets! (not the John Smith kind)
- Allow information from your site to be republished on other sites and be automatically updated. Some instructions on Pezholio's blog about how to get started
- only limit is your imagination - publishing data in RSS etc is as easy as publishing a web page
- I can haz API! lolcatz feature!

Alistair Smith - Managing online reputation

Post-event notes (Updated 9 July 2009):

We've been really interested in the work that Newcastle City Council have been doing for a while. They have a really good and well-followed Twitter and a good common-sense approach to listening and joining the conversation.
So it was great to be able to hear this presentation on why it's important to listen, what the danger is if you don't and how Newcastle got to where they are now.
Alistair made some really good points about online vs offline conversation and comments and shared some examples of what is happening in the online space.
Having been asked to give the rest of our public relations team a canter through social media soon there were lots of great bits in this presentation which have got me thinking about what I want to cover with our guys and how and why.
There is some good new stuff on the cards for Alistair and Newcastle and they're developing an interesting Twitter model. Looking forward to a web-friendly version of the presentation being available :)

Alistair has also blogged about his presentation.

What I wrote at the time:

- citizensheep has good flowchart for managing online reputationter
- Internets are places to talk
- Libraries with all the books on the floor
- they can say what they like online - what would you do if they said it offline down the pub etc?
- how do we control online comments?
- loose tweets sink fleets
- know what everyone is using socmed for. Don't make same mistake as habitat
- control of officers? control of councillors? example of Plymouth cllrs inappropriate tweet
- NCL - one central twitter feed. RSS news, events, jobs and events. Plus extra like the bid for the world cup.
- More ppl look at news on twitter / jobs on website
- Libraries twitter @toolibraries - library news + extras. started them off by providing content, provided training, now up to them to run.
0 @Cityeye events
- @NCL101 - customer service & local info - not final name! Run from contact centre - agents twitter enquiries! US model. (Move on from SMS tying into CRM)
- promote info from specific channels to top channels
- new ways of working - used to view it as faceless organisation - now Al is 'face of newcastle' (and epic visionary!)
- more chatty and personal. respond.
- soft launch / beta test
- new project coming with flickr - cut costs from council rather than buying in from agency. Approach local users of flickr - offer rewards for ppl willing to share pics (access to closed buildings, cover of citizen mag).
- Peter Holt - what does success look like?
- can measure in numbers - followers, click-throughs, unique visitors
- impact you have in real world lasts longer than that in the online world
- people will say bad things about you anyway - whether you are there or not!

Carl Haggerty - unblocking access to social media in organisations

Post-event thoughts (updated 8 June 2009):

I was really interested to hear Carl's presentation on the social media policy / guidance he has been working on for Devon County Council.
He blogged his draft policy a while ago and this inspired me to start work on our version. This mainly involved a find and replace on the organisation name at first ;)
I got as far as completing a draft version and circulating to the rest of my team for comments but haven't got much further. And I've had a nagging doubt about it...which this presentation coaxed out into the light - my version is too much strategy / too specific on the networks.
The presentation Dave Briggs made later confirmed this for me and I have now given myself the action of going back and doing some more work on our version before putting it out again. I'd like to think at that point I can blog it and get some wider feedback too...and throw something useful into the discussion about Carl's version.
It was really useful to find out more about Carl's role and experience at Devon and I think I'll be coming back to some of this within a few months for some work I would like to carry out.

What I wrote at the time:

- getting ppl engaged with examples, usage policy (shared resources - crowd sourcing policy document :) )
- Plymouth Council put blanket ban on socmed following cllr tweeting something (more from @alncl later). Typical IT risk avoidance rather than managing it
- need a policy whatever the stance - whether banning or not - allow employees know what they are allowed to do
- shame officers aren't allowed access and miss out on resources such as conferences being broadcast on Twitter. I am missing the metaconference thanks to rubbish wifi lol
- need to be committed and passionate in order to go round and find out what their concerns are. Start by listening!
- What value / waste of time / distration / just a social thing
- Focus on socmed not tech. Listen to problems and see if socmed is the solution!
- What is a digital native? We've all been socially networking forever, only online versions are new to humanity
- Good examples of how to build your case: modern pub serv delivery, could support mobile working, not just about main networks (FB etc) is about solving problems (good stuff here for my pres to PR!)
- Banning it within corporate network won't stop it happening (just like the conversation). ppl will use their phones
- Management issue not tech issue - if ppl not doing their job they need managing - tech ban is way to gain control! Hear hear! - Time between first conversation to Carl's draft = 4 months; plus consultation and review = 10 months. Issued drafts on his blog, altered according to external ppl as well as internal
- If you aren't raising awareness - JFDI - keep doing it until ppl get it and come to you for advice. Passion, persistence, perseverence (hey - that's my localgovcamp pledge)
- talk to your CEX and get senior level champion!
- policy dev - challenges, concerns, what's missing?
- Jack Pickard - more advice for employees about what is allowed from the web - can web pics be used (Flickr etc) for PPT?
- What is stopping you from implementing in your org now?
- What impact has the policy had? Early stages but generated huge interest in how organisation embraces socmed. ppl are trying things - listening to online conversation - trying to be more proactive. It's a gradual evolution. Has deliberately stayed away from socmed strategy as not about tech.
- Use FB ad set up to gauge how many ppl you could reach (what I did for our elections stuff!) without actually buying ad space!
- Has led to further discussions in council - what skills are needed, what advice for staff, peer-to-peer support
- If anyone has comments on the policy add them to the PSFBuzz site and let's keep the conversation going!

Jack Pickard - Accessibility & social media

- He's not wrong - the away kit is horrible and we aren't at St James' Park
- Is socmed accessible? - not really. What are problems? CAPTCHA; speaking about the bizarre and worrying sounding Penis CAPTCHA - leaves word sprinkled through digital text
- UGC - Flickr etc - easy for ppl to submit but no obligation to add alt text etc to make accessibility
- Improvements - FB working to make more accessible to blind, achknowledge they are some way off success.
- Added audio CPATHCHA instead of just the viewable known / unknown words (FB, Twitter and YouTube all work this way)
- Why is the wheelchair the symbol for web accessibility?
- Non-keyboard or mouse users - difficult to tab through social networks, not highlighted etc
- What parts can you make accessible? What are you responsibility?
- There is some responsibility - those already using it are probably able to use it. Those who can't won't. What are the DDA issues around providing FB / socmed benefits if the network isn't fully accessible. If you're providing information on socmed networks but available elsewhere in accessible format then this is a good way to meet needs
- FB provides some information for users - using screenreader etc
- Accessible twitter - externally developed API (in beta?) - highlight it to followers on vanilla Twitter. Provides many good accessibility features...AJAX alerts, highlighting etc
- Bob's House on YouTube example: video shows two deaf ppl in car trying to get to friend's house. Lights in houses coming on - house where no light comes on - Bob's House!
- Where video's don't have sound provide captioning
- Socmed by default aren't very accessibile. Accessibility is not a reason not to use it. Reason to understand and use properly & testing & Disability Equality Duty (note to self - disabled workers' group?)#
- you will fail, you'll make mistakes, experiment and moniter and improve
- you won't reach everyone but the numbers are growing
- JFDI!
- Resources: WebAIM, WebCredible etc

Mike Saunt

- technical problems aside the first thing Mike Saunt did was plug his brand new Twitter account. Welcome to Twitter!
- still with the techy probs - @davebriggs suggesting presentation expressed in medium of dance.
- Reboot and restart. Here we go...
- Mike - is not a webby
- Is Twitter a fad or a new media
- cool tech - AJAX etc
- Power of the desk (how gov has changed)
- All about data
- cash saving data with example from South Tynside around NI14
- What is web 2.0? Social networks / collaboration. More than this. Transition to full fledged community platform. Networks are social side but also a tech side.
- Twitter - do ppl really follow council Twitters? Councillor activities, what happens about mistakes? who is paying (US model), what happened to RSS?
- Showed real power with big stories - MJ, Iranian elections, Mumbai.
- Local councils - snow, swine flu, internal comms also cool things such as Twitterplan (@pezholio up later about this)
- Acronyms - who knows what AJAX, CSS, RSS, TLA stands for???
- Details of AJAX
- Cool tech shouldn't be the only access - DDA, accessibility regardless of tech.
- e-gov to t-gov moved from data silos and owners and now shared data with custodians
- @skepticmike talking about power of the desk - diff between beaurocrat / civil servant. How the world has changed, how ppl want to access services.
- Everyone still learning - Google get web, some don't.
- Do councils get it? New medium, strategies need to change
- mash ups - PlanningAlerts, FixMyStreet and BBCTravelNews examples of data mashing
- PlanningAlerts - put in postcode to receive RSS of relevant planning apps, links to GoogleMaps
- easy to mash things up to make it easier for ppl to communicate with council or for council to communicate with ppl
- brave move to do some live scripting - esp given tech problems and wifi being shaky around the room (too many tweeps?)
- most of this is over my head as I am comms not tech but it looks really interesting.Could do with longer explanation in Captain DummyTalk though :)

PSF Buzz NE Simon Wakeman

Jack Pickard has blogged his notes from this session and Simon has also posted his slides.


Late coming in so apologies for missing the start of the session.

Simon Wakeman (@simonwakeman) speaking about social media at Medway Council:

- Fuse Festival - FB and Twitter
- Facebook allowed to flag up activities, report festival and allow communication with festival goers. See it as a customer service channel not an online billboard. Needs dedicated staff time for new content and interaction.
- Twitter - handed over to other staff within council for first time.
- FB - added value for 'fans' - exclusives and deals for the festival
- FB pages for specific events / whole council
- Medway view is to use FB / social media for things people care about rather than the whole organisation (I like this approach!)
- Medway on Twitter - publish news releases and jobs through RSS; hand publish interesting / useful stuff
- Twitter demonstrated power in Feb. News story about stance against airport expansion - gained 100 followers. View endorsed by RSPB - reached another 720, RT again - another 500. It's about the network and who is following you and the spread out of your message. Not just the ppl directly following you but those following your followers. How to track this??? Good story but could have gone further if it was a bad story.
- Twitter interesting content...monitor and respond (Tweetbeat); be human; respond to rumours / campaign groups
- Facebook - monitoring the 'Medway p**s up' group. When group started growing (thousands) beyond capacity of venue, passed onto relevant departments and Police who stopped event. Bad PR in local press about council. Became mainstream story and bad press on the FB group.
- role of socmed in monitoring issues in managment - engage directly or pass to relevant orgs; correct facts but haven't yet responded directly on FB. Approach through other channels.
- more than comms channel.
- Needs different skills - not just comms / web team but anyone using socmed to engage
- likely to see lines between PR / comms / marketing - see new roles emerging in comms team
- new policies and processes, socmed usage (session later by @carlhaggerty)
- disruption to traditional hierarchies - officers who haven't traditionally been forward facing may now be
- groups form in communities that would be slower or not exist offline. digitally-enabled communities
duty to involve / promote democracy
- more collaborative local gov / more participation

Academic research for local gov - LocalGovCamp

The power of suggestion (via Twitter) led to @liz_azyan and I hosting a session at LocalGovCamp on academic research for local government.
I may have been carried away in the moment when I agreed to do this but I think there were some useful points at the session. I didn't make any notes so this is all from memory - if anyone who attended to session wants to jump in maybe we can crowdsource the overview? :)
Many of the people who came to the session had been interviewed by Liz as part of her research but we each gave an overview of the work we are / will be doing. This lead to plenty of discussion and praise for Liz's blog LGEO Research (and that stands for Local Government Engagement Online). The overriding feeling here is that independent academic and active research is valuable to local government as a way of stepping back and explaining what you're doing and why (rather than the more practical how), having a way of seeing the bigger picture of what other people are up to and in some cases providing validation to the harder-to-convince within an organisation.
On a personal level several people said they had found being interviewed with Liz a cathartic, therapeutic experience which allowed them to re-focus their thoughts on their work.
We also discussed and explained the process of sharing the results of the research. Due to the research being part of our studies neither Liz or I will be able to share much as we go along. We both fully intend to publish and share as soon as we are able - Liz mentioned this may be early summer 2010 for her while it is likely to be early 2011 for my own research.
We also talked through my planned research and there were several people who felt that they would be interested in talking to me further about this and would be interested in the outcomes - I've certainly made a note of people I would like to talk to when I get underway!
We then returned to the place of academic and active research and how we can sustain this rather than rely on people like Liz and myself choosing it as a subject area and becoming part of the community. The funding available from the IDeA (session I missed earlier in the day) was mooted (not muted as I accidentally wrote earlier) as one of the possible sources which should be looked into, or whether an organisation like SOCITM may take up the role of carrying out independent research. The idea was tweeted and RT several times after the session and perhaps this is a discussion which needs to continue.
Altogether I found it really useful to talk through the reasons and uses of research and meet some people who I am sure I will need to speak to more as time goes on.

Picture credit: @JaduCMS

LocalGovCamp - an unconference for local government - Birmingham 20 June 2009

Yesterday was LocalGovCamp - an unconference for local government - organised by the wonderful Dave Briggs at Fazeley Studios in Birmingham.
To be honest I had so much fun and met so many great, passionate and inspiring people; had so many great discussions; that my head is still reeling but I'm going to try and sum up what came out of the day for me.

Top five: things in my head about LocalGovCamp:

1. Yesterday was a day full of meeting very very nice people. Meeting people you tweet with a lot, about work and about things outside of work, for the first time in person is a bit like meeting a celebrity; you feel you know them yet you know you've never seen them face to face before. For me it was less like networking and more like meeting up with great friends to talk about the stuff we're passionate about (online local gov, music, real ale, cake...)
2. That (aside from the usefulness of what was discussed) having that network of people who are willing to share their experiences and epic visions of where this is all going is the best support network imaginable. Often you may be the lone voice in an organisation pushing for change or certain projects and to be able to share this with people going through the same thing is both motivating and comforting - always good to you're not the only one fighting the fight and so aren't completely off track with your thoughts!
3. There are some great projects and changes going on around the country and it is great to be able to hear about them and think about what that might suggest for our organisation. So useful to have a space to thrash out ideas, here people's experiences, lessons learnt and the possibilities for digital enablement.
4. I've been thinking for a while about a social media cafe in Derby / Derbyshire and I've come back from yesterday convinced that it would be of benefit. Not only would it be a forum for web managers / web people from each of the authorities in the area (not just local gov but the partner organisations too) to meet and chat about things but a great opportunity for us to find out about the community groups and digital business in the area too. I'm already formulating a list of things to do in order to make this happen. Luckily, yesterday gave me a chance to chat with people who also want to make this happen - so let's JFDI!!!
5. Twitter has changed my life. Without having tweeted with people on there I would probably not have found out about LocalGovCamp, might not have gone even if I did. And this also brings us back round to point one :)

So, there are the top five things in my head at the moment and beneath these are a thousand little thoughts which came out of the sessions I attended yesterday - @timdavies session on overcoming the small hurdles to social media in organisations (his notes are here and my notes are here); @paul_cole's session on listening to the conversation happening about your organisation whether you're involved or not (my notes on this session are here) and @carlhaggerty's session on the internal network pilot he's part of (some very rough notes here by me).
I hope people found the impromptu (and definitely unexpected) session that @liz_azyan and I did on academic research into local government social media useful. I hope to speak to all of the people who came along (and more) as part of my thesis research (begins January 2010). I'll try and write up notes from what we talked about in this session as soon as I can.

There are some videos by David Wilcox and photos from the day on Flickr and once again, thank you Dave for organising and thanks to the sponsors also. Really great to meet you all :)

Updated (22 June 2009): I was also interviewed by @podnosh about our use of social media in the recent election. You can see the video and post on the podnosh blog.
And there is a round up of all the stuff being said online at the LocalGovCamp blog.

Internal networks - #localgovcamp

Updated (21 June 2009):
I admit I missed the first couple of minutes of this session (having too much fun chatting) but I am really interested in the pilot that Carl Haggerty and Rob Gray were discussing about the internal social network they have set up at Devon County Council with Blue Kiwi (please correct me if I am wrong about this!).

It's interesting to me both in a professional capacity as we'll be doing some work around internal communications / our intranet soon (ish) and also because my thesis next year is on the place of social media in local government internal communications.

It was a busy session and there was lots of great information about the reasons behind the pilot, the practicalities of setting it up and where they are now. There were lots of questions around the pilot and about internal communications in general.

I tried to make some notes at the time and I hope @liz_azyan captured some of the discussion on video as well. There is this video with Carl Haggerty and Rob Gray by David Wilcox:

Notes I made during the session (posted 20 June 2009):

• Great slides by @caralhaggerty - hoepfully these will be shared so I don't have to make too many notes. I'm having too much fun listening.
• Lots of really great suggestions backed with practical examples about how to get people internal to the organisation connecting online.
• Lead by example - great complete profiles including information on where to be found online, cvs, personal information, image, networks, where to find me online, skills etc
• Manage expectations but encourage people who are unsure to join. There is an optimum number (25-35) where a community becomes self-sufficient.
• Tell people what eblic engaging allows the system to do for them
• Coventry use Yammer internally - why not use a system that everybody already in and by default follows each other and then opts out. Saves having to rely on it self propogating
• Be great not to have to pilot but organisations don't always work like that - particularly public sector
• Make them give something up to use social media - so no more emails. @carlhaggerty does this with his team - no more email in their team! Sometimes generates social media envy, hopes pilot breaks down the barriers and answers questions while trying out new systems
• Great for early conversations
• How do you measure success?
• How do you overcome resistence to change? Nurture and support those that do adopt early, suggest people take the question / conversation into the internal network
• Currently 4 months into pilot Devon CC and Blue Kiwi
• Try and encourage people to be more informal as well as having social conversations alongside the business questions - change of culture for many public sector orgs perhaps?
• Fit in with existing internal business strategy - where there is a communication problem - is there a social media solution?
• Didn't see a lot of the benefits they have already reaped from the pilot
• Would organisation see benefit of getting 250 ppl together in a room to talk about issues?
• It's not an instant messaging service - is asynchronous. It's basically a large chat room - tells you to refresh when new information available
• Will be happy to share the results and lesson's learned
• More business conversations - not set out to replace email etc although that could be outcome!
• Is marketing to council staff based on the interests they put in their internal network profile a step too far?
• Target people who can help shape it - don't want it to be an internal version of Facebook but legitimate business tool.
• Only people with core access to business systems at the moment.
• Could be used to identify gaps in training by HR to enable more people to get involved
• Share details and skills - by having this information in the network allows HR and teams to work more efficiently and identify exisiting skill base?
• Put the network in and let the business evaluate what the benefits are...don't anticipate how this benefit each individual
• Users who are engaged and finding benefits encourage others to join and so the conversation widens and benefits and could drive change
• Middle managers important as they are vital in strategy
• There will always be those who converse more
• How much did it cost? Less than £10,000 but not much!
• Around 100 users is good number for pilot
• Deliberately seperate from ICT - intranets etc

Are we listening #localgovcamp

Updated (21 June 2009): I made the notes below as the session was in progress and I won't change those.

Paul hosted this session around the work going on in Derby to listen and capture the conversation's happening in the online space related to the area. Paul tracked this on mindmeister.com although the map he'd produced is not generally available yet.

He had searched across many networks, including the main online gathering spaces at the moment of Facebook and Twitter, to show which groups and individuals were participating in conversation about the area or about the authorities / public sector organisations in the city.

Potential issues around gathering this information and different methods of doing so were discussed as well as highlighting how this information can be a useful tool for showing the organisation the conversation is going to be happening with or without their involvement - at the very least they need to listen.

Discussion moved on to cover social media policy / usage and participation guidelines and the need for these given existing internet and email use policies. The discussion also covered the issues around the blurring of personal / professional identity online and what work or responsibility organisations have to make employees more aware (potential education task rather than policy task).

Really interesting discussion over a broad topic and a lot of great examples from a range of councils.

Notes taken during the session (posted 20 June 2009):

Are we listening hosted by @paul_cole

• At different places with projects and also personal social media enthusiast.
• Using mindmeister to showcase something he has developed around the subject
• Shows what they think is going on to show what they are missing out on. Started on Facebook (nodes) to show groups, pages etc to map what conversations are going on.
• Jack Pickard (@thepickards) - done something similar but less mapped. just poking around found existing groups.
• One group (in Derby) has 600 members - more than at any public meeting...are councils integrating comments into meetings / consultation
• Also mapped employee personal profiles
• Manual process.
• Brigton doing from opposite way - identify audience then go to networks to find relevant people.
• More credence to citizen led groups for citizens - more trust
• Easy to find people talking about you on Twitter and other networks.
• Houston, we have a problem - no, houston we have an opportunity.
• Can hear the discussions and then act accordingly.
• Brighton looking to recruit a social media officer.
• People are having conversations without the council - up to council to find and jump in
• Change the way the organisation is perceived.
• Wealth of information out there.
• May be communicating with one citizen at a time but all worth it
• Many organistions use Twitter etc as broadcast channel - good baby step to pursuade stakeholders to allow you to start
• Not about the technology, about confidence to have the conversation. Gradual process to build confidence.
• Small steps - but get involved. @danslee - diving in from day one like being trendy uncle break dancing at a wedding - people who can dance think it's appalling but gets others up on the floor!
• Camden started Twitter as emergency response to bad weather but from there kept it going and started being more conversational
• Just by putting the toe in the water is a move towards providing services to citizens and they can see the council is doing something - even if they're not doing much or well at first
• keep going at it, if the answer is no today, it might not be tomorrow.
• show what they are missing out on
• need to show be benefit of engagement, allow relevant employees to attend and use their learning and networking - today good example- we're all here on our day off!
• blurred lines between professional and personal relationships of social media / comms staff using networks. how much is work? what is allowed?
• are HR telling employees what they can / can't do? outside of work hours you are still representing organisation. have been sending staff off to events without being able to manage but now can see what staff are up to in their own time - managing organisation representation online
• starting to develop social media usage guidelines - updating internet / email use policy. can share our draft guidance with anyone interested. Jake Pickard interested in seeing draft policies.
• simple guidance - what's out there is public, permanent. informal relationships - if you're blogging someone to run it past. '
• under contract not to badmouth organisation - covers social media too. code of conduct. highlight this also applies online.
• how do you raise your voice as a citizen when also an employee? #staff #citizen lol
• never off duty - comments and personal pictures can be used against the organisation! can reap benefits from the flipside
• can be used by council's to convict benefit cheats - this could be concerning - invasion of privacy - but online isn't private the way most people use it!
• moral issues rather than technology issue. journalists now can do the death knock online - example of Express / Dunblane survivors
• younger people don't view privacy in the same way
• people forget and send wrong things - @glinner phone number, Croydon council on Twitter
• Channel 4 about to launch a game to educate children about privacy online
• we're set on digital engagement and moving people to online space from offline but we are still learning - how can we support and encourage when we don't fully understand the possibilities / consequences of our actions?
• unique and different channel for engagement. different audiences within the space.
• reach out to different, hard to reach audiences. Deaf community huge users of Bebo (pos. due to less constrained language). Lots of Eastern European migrants - use Facebook to keep in touch with family. Stats somewhere on demographics for networks - will try to find!
• @paul_cole started off by ward but biggest groups are emotive groups. names impact on popularity form meta-communities.
• Are same people joining many groups across networks? Are these the engaged people anyway, just using another channel?
• Mentioned our election Twitter and Facebook and how members were different - not following on both feeds except small number of people.
• Working out how to engage not just be marketed at. Have smaller feeds for specific groups.
• If all you do is RSS you will get companies, journalists etc. If you do it manually and converse you will get people engaging with you. Better response to having a voice - have a personality don't be personal! Issues around this - see old post about our Twitter.
• Who does this out of hours etc - back to the line between on / off duty being blurred!
• Lots of tools to manage - Hootsuite, Tweet Later etc...

Overcoming small hurdles in digital engagement #localgovcamp

Updated (21 June 2009): @timdavies hosted this session off the back of a post he made on his blog a while back. In the post he listed 50 small hurdles he had noticed through his active research with local authorities into youth engagement.
The session was well attended with a mix of people who wanted to share the obstacles they had discovered as well as ask for advice on overcoming them and share tips where they had been successful.
I made the notes below as the session was in progress and won't mess with them now. Tim has also put his thoughts about the session in a post and has actioned one of the outcomes - to create a wiki of hurdles and possible solutions people are trying. The more people who get involved in adding information and advice to the wiki the more useful a resource it will be not only to those directly responsible for web / social media / digital engagement within an authority but managers / employees in other service areas too. So, take a look and see if you can add to the dicussion there.
There is also a video of an interview David Wilcox did with Tim straight after the session.


What I blogged during the session (posted 20 June 2009):

First session I am here at today is about the small hurdles to digital engagement:

• How to get people looking for solutions not presenting them with problems
• business has to be committed to web / social media
• technology first never work
• this technology makes the authority more fuzzy. is a huge cultural shift.
• one of the issues is about control - so many agencies want to control the space and at hint of loss they demand the experimenting stops and risk assessments etc demanded.
• the way the public is engaged is controlled, not easy for public to comment back to council's which is why discussion is happening away from the authority in other spaces
• the vision is important and stakeholder buy in essential.
• chief execs etc need to be assured of who will engage and that criticism is constructive rather than just putting themselves out as sitting duck. as principle they want to listen to what people want to tell us.
• most things happen through a series of small changes.
• finding someone else who has already gone first opens doors to other areas of the authority
• need to move to an always on nature. so many projects fail because change doesn't happen to check online every day
• overcoming small problems doesn't undermine bigger cultural change
• lots of examples of people developing under the wire and this can open doors to others once project out there and success. to some extent gets round the control issue but should we have to work this way?
• all projects should start from the point of what is the business trying to achieve? what is the communication you are trying to make. team of (under wire) communication developers then need to facilitate the best solution on a case by case basis
• need someone to who is passionate
• if we all share our experiences and approaches through the session wiki this can be of massive help and best outcome of session. there is lots of this going on informally but a shared space to help with solutions to the hurdles.
• @timdavies committed to continuing the wiki if people will find this useful. he also has a toolkit for youth engagment.
• social media strategies across the organisation needed but each service also needs to have own approach
• also great resources and case studies on IdEA CoP by @ingridk help pursuade stakeholders as they see work elsewhere and ask 'why aren't you doing this?'
• genuine examples of 'if they're doing it, we must do it'
• league tables and easy to view 'how we're losing out' to present to stakeholders
• tips from everyone in session
• collaboration sometimes is sometimes better from bottom up. have an open mind and asked what is out there, who is using it, how can we do it. look at who else is already on the journey
• if you want to be the enabler be the link between business strategy of engaging customers and what the opportunities on the ground. @carlheggarty get on and do it until someone asks you to stop. run pilot projects on key services to act as demonstrator. be persistent. shamelessly promote and explain it. be outright - say if we don't do this we are not fulfilling our business strategy.
• just do it. get some examples. under the wire if necessary.
• engage councillors. get them interested so they put pressure on chief officers.
• work around the blocks. simple things first and build up. start a blog
• find out about demographics and empirical evidence - where to find?
• demonstrate the danger of not acting. if you're not doing it someone else will. examples of campaign groups already running but council's not responding / engaging
• aggregators available for any conversation happening across the spaces in order to show empirical data and how to get involved and become more efficient.
• second view of finding one or two advocate councillors who would buy in and support. possibly a charter to overcome obstacles. started with rewired state (example)
• framework needs to be in place so things can be farmed out to services. manager convinced of worth even if still technophobe.
• conversation to continue outside of session.
• get to know the technology in your own time, keep up with the market, trends etc
• @timdavies says share even if it isn't finished or perfect. councils and communities are not perfect they are work in progress
• social media is not publishing it is conversation
• throw stuff out and show what you are doing, show the good practice and lessons learned
• the people who are trying to pursuade need to be more political with skills to pursuade and influence
• bullsh*t is your friend - chief officers and councillors love this stuff but middle managers don't
• where will this stuff be shared? IdEA CoP, SOCITM web professionals group, need a new website! lol
• SOCITM runs a CoP but will also form the web professionals group including social media pro and web

#localgovcamp

Here at #localgovcamp in Birmingham today. About 100 of us local gov web geeks and communicators gathered on a weekend to talk about changing the world or at least doing a better job of getting council information out there.
First sessions are about to start and I'll try to blog and Twitter as much as I can. Follow me @sarahlay.

Power to the people

We've had some interesting discussions this afternoon and now I am a-pondering.
We're reaching the end of a project to upgrade our content management system (sort of). We've sailed on choppy seas throughout this project and now we're looking to chart a course in calmer waters. Talk turned to that most vague of things - the medium- to long-term future.
Since bringing web work in-house and into the CMS around five years ago we have worked a devolved authorship model. Once trained authors throughout the organisation were responsible for creating and publishing web content through our CMS. For some of our sites the content passed through workflow to our team for a final approval on house style and accessibility / usability before actually being live.
The question has been raised today about whether this model is working out for us or not. If not, why not. Having personally trained the majority of our authors, often on more than one occasion; classroom style with practical exercises and one to one with bespoke guidance; on writing for the web and on our CMS; and provided support (drop in sessions, online, telephone, in person) I have a whole raft of views on what the answer to the question might be.
But I wonder:

• What experience does anyone else have?
  
• Do others implement devolved authorship?
  
• What is the ratio of authors to size of organisation / website?
• What skills do those authors have? Why were they chosen as authors? Is it a dedicated web author role or part of A N Other job?
• What training is provided? What is the incidence of retraining?
• What level of support is needed / provided?
• Is content 'let free' by authors or is there an approval system in place?
• Has anyone gone from devolved authorship to centralisation of publishing or 'super users' (sort of extension of the web team)? How was any change to the process received?
• If you run more than one website do you have different levels of devolvement / approval? For example, do you approve web content but not intranet content?
  

I'd like to take the discussion further and if anyone is willing to share their thoughts or experience on authoring web content in an organisation I'd be really interested to hear this. Or if anyone wants to grab me at localgovcamp this Saturday (or maybe have a short session on this) this would also be great.

Public sector intranets

I've had some interesting email exchange with Ian Vaughan of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council today about intranets in the public sector.
They are currently planning an intranet redesign and so Ian is looking to find out more about what other councils are up to. This got me thinking about our own position (again) and where we want to go with our own intranet and internal comms tools.
We're not in a position to go forward with the major overhaul of our own intranet at the moment due to other project work needing to be completed. But we've had it on the cards for a while and I (and the rest of the team) are itching to get to the point where we can take a serious look at what we've got, what we could have and go out and chat with employees about what they think we should end up with.
Intranets, generally, fascinate me. Possibly because I am nosey and anything that appears secret (which an intranet, by nature, is) needs investigating. Possibly because I am as passionate about the internal audience and online communication as I am about the external counterpart.
When our time comes (soon, make it soon) I hope to be able to find others willing to allow me to peek over their (fire)wall at what they've got. In the meantime I hope you might be willing to share what you've got with Ian? DM me on Twitter and I'll pass on his email address - or leave a comment and I'll nudge him to contact you himself.
Ian has also just completed his thesis research and has some info on web 2.0/social media usage in local gov which I am sure he would be willing to exchange for your intranet knowledge / thoughts ;)

Election 2009: Part the second

So, the dust is beginning to settle and while it will undoubtedly take a while for the organisation adjust to being under the control of a different party for the first time in 28 years now seems a good a time as any to have a look at how we covered the election in which they took the seats.
In my first post about election 2009 I looked at how we had set up a new section and added extra functionality and revealed what we planned to do as results came in. Our plan, very nearly, came together.
Our real-time reporting of events worked well as did the system we had in place for getting the results from the count rooms around the county to us at county hall.
Using Twitter and Facebook to publish the results also worked well. At one point (around 8.30am) it looked like it might be all we had to get the results out as we tackled technical problems, eventually winning most of the battles.
The problems did mean we had to jettison some of our content to get off the ground though. Sadly the detailed text pages organised by division were a casualty, as were some of automated functions of the system. But temporarily letting them go allowed us to fix the other stuff on the fly and get something out there.

What did make it?

• The virtual chamber - the little people colour in according the the result, the pie chart shows the party share and then you can exactly how many votes each candidate for each division polled.
  
• The county map - we would have liked to have done more work on this. It was intended to have interactive functionality so you could hover off and get information but also drill down to detailed info by district and division.
• Our Twitter feed - I'd say this was successful. We gained around 130 new followers as the results started rolling in. Were able to respond to queries and gather feedback on how we were doing. The Twitter feed also fed the website and the latest results featured on our home page and on a dedicated page in the results section. Lessons? Well, we could have probably used hash tags more effectively.
  
• Our Facebook page - I'd also say this was successful. The group trebled in size during the results action and, most interestingly, they started talking to each other (and kept it polite). This also allowed us opportunity to see how we were doing, allowed citizens a platform to discuss what was happening and I hope some will take the time to email us about their experience so we can learn from it further.
• Our work on your TV screen - I think we made most of the networks. This was great as it meant they thought our graphics clearly displayed the situation and was also a great morale boost for the team. We had a lovely moment in amongst the constant action where we stood around the TV in our office and all clapped and grinned like idiots as our graphics played out on BBC lunchtime news.It wasn't the most important thing to us that day but it was special all the same.

What didn't make it:

There were a couple of things in the run up to polling day which didn't make it and a few bits of the results system which also remained dormant.

• Mapping data - we really wanted to map all the polling stations in the country and link it into our public transport journey planner. Sadly, this was not to be. This time.
  
• Blogs - we initially planned to carry blogs from our first time and new to county voters to be updated through the run up to the election. Again, this wasn't to be. Instead we went for a compromise option and did case studies.
• Photo galleries - we also had some ideas around photo galleries which would take user generated content too. Images have been a problem all round for us throughout this build & deployment. We've tried our best to build a bigger stock and I think, if nothing else, a general election will give us the chance to get out and take some more pics! We've started to set up a photo album on our Facebook page and hope to add one to the website next week.
• Our text content of results - when the results were entered into the XML file powering the map and chamber this was supposed to generate a text page which gave the detailed information for each division. In turn the URL to this division specific page was to be included in the tweets & Facebook status updates. It didn't happen, autopsy pending.
• (Added 7 June): Results available by SMS - originally planned for visitors to be able to register their number and division ahead of polling day in order to receive two text messages in return; one with result of the division and one with the overall result. For reasons beyond our control we couldn't go ahead with this.
  

Generally cool things that happened:

• Opportunity to work with the rest of Public Relations, in particular the press office. This was a real test of the teams working together and it seemed to go pretty seamlessly. We got the job done and left each other to deal with the specialisms and the overall effect to the outside world was quite cool.
• Working with colleagues in democratic services and IT.
  
• Did I mention our graphics were on TV? lol
• Working with colleagues across the public sector who were kind enough to look at our stuff in advance and give us help, advice and support as we went live blind to what everyone else could see thanks to being shut out of the network. Special thanks to Dan at Redbridge, Al at Newcastle, Simon Wakeman at Medway and the districts in our county. There were lots of others who supported via Twitter on the day.
• Our visitor figures spiked somewhat. In 24 hours (Friday) we had more than 19,000 visits to our election section alone. And the site didn't fall over (too badly, as far as we know). This is our highest number of visits in one day ever!
  

Still to come:

• New councillor profiles
• Rebuilding areas of content around the new administration (meetings etc)
• Hopefully that photo gallery will make it
• European election results
• Results of the outstanding division in mid-July
• We're due a reskin of the website (when we finish the CMS) and a lot of the things we tried or learnt here will feed into that.

(Added 7 June) Looking ahead to the next elections I think we would look to do more work on the sort of systems we had this time, ensure that the complete picture of information could be presented and try to get the back office hook ups to work how we wanted them to. Beyond that I think the next step in development would be looking at online voting and widgets / other platforms (iPhone apps etc). I am sure there is lots we can do and we have four years to work it out!

And I think that's about all I can say about elections. I am still a little emotionally charged from the adrenalin of working at such pressure yesterday and giddy with the joy of how well our team worked together on the day and in the run up. Now we just need to decide what to tackle next!

Elections 2009: a post in two parts

Today is polling day in the county council and European Parliamentary elections. It's an important date in the calendar. Politically it could turn out to be a significant vote for this county. It's will also be of significance to this team and the work we do whatever the political outcome.
In a lot of ways it feels as if this day has been a long time coming as planning and work on how we will cover the election on our website and in the greater online space began at the tail end of last year. In smaller ways I would still like a bit more time to tweak and improve and do even more than we have. But time and voting waits for no web team and so here we are: polling day 2009.

What have we done so far?

• We've created a new section of the site expanding and improving on content which first served in 2005. We changed to a three column layout (rest of site is two column) and tweaked the design without moving radically away from the main look.
• We added social bookmarking to the election section. This is something we are waiting to implement across our main site and other sites we run from here so it seemed a good idea to give it a go and see what feedback we could gather and tweaks we needed before a bigger roll out.
• We tried to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find out all the information about what they can vote for, the different methods of voting, registration, key dates in the run up, candidate and division information, other things they can vote for at different times, why it is important to vote and how and when they would be able to access results information.
  This included us linking to and featured multimedia content from The Electoral Commission, the Every Vote Counts campaign, a press section with copies of the offline campaign and linking through to the district and borough councils own information.
  We also created two short case studies - first time student voter and new to county voter - with real-life people to help people understand what they should do. This also allowed us to make links with our youth brand.
  
• We have Twittered throughout the run up to elections - @Derbyshirecc
• We made our first venture onto Facebook with a page dedicated to the elections. This provided prompts to 'fans' about the key dates and links through to relevant information on our site. We have also been able to use this and the associated event listing to send an email reminder (within Facebook) to 'fans' to remind them to vote and where the results will be.

All of this has been going on for a number of months (not full time) and has been a learning curve and exciting project for this team to get into. For the first time we have had a significant presence internally in promoting and reporting on elections. It's provided an opportunity for us to raise awareness of our work internally and work with colleagues in other departments to enable everything to happen.
Our results system will hopefully be the jewel in the crown of what we've done so far. We won't know until the dust settles tomorrow and we have some feedback from Derbyshire voters, councillors, other officers and colleagues in the public sector who are kind enough to take the time to have a look.

What we can say about our results system:

• For the first time for this organisation we will be featuring near-to-real-time results displayed in more than one way.
  
• A virtual chamber which will fill up as seats are announced - also provides break down information for all seats as announced
  
• A pie chart showing the total seats held per party as the seats are announced
• A county map with divisions colouring in as seats are announced
• Text pages showing a break down of votes for each division
• Twitter of results as they are announced. This will be available through our Twitter profile but also on our website.
• Facebook page updated as seats are announced. A Facebook update will be sent to all 'fans' once all results are in.

These displays are also being used internally in our members' room. On two pretty impressive big screens they will watch the results as they are announced via the virtual chamber and the county map.

So, this is what we have done and what we have in store. All that remains now is for the team to find time to go out and vote themselves and then some serious finger-crossing and possibly some flying-by-seat-of-pants action in the morning.
But, like the swan, we aim for everything to appear seamless on the online surface even if we are all paddling like mad underneath!
Counting in Derbyshire begins at 10am so keep a weather eye on the horizon for http://elections.derbyshire.gov.uk to ramp up and send us a good luck vibe, if you have one spare, for our maiden voyage in these waters.

Social media usage / participation guidelines

This seems to be something that plenty of people in local gov are trying to work on at the moment and it's not always easy, so I thought I would just post up where I'm at with it in case it was useful to anyone else, and if you want to be useful to me, then I have no problem with that either ;-)
So, not always easy. I've found getting the organisation to have a peek over the edge into online space has taken time and pursuasion in itself. Getting it to be brave enough to dip a toe in more of the same. Now we're paddling in the shallow end I think we need the waterwings of documented policy and/or guidance so we can go further*.
One of the great things about working in the public sector is that we're all so ready to share, and most of the time it isn't just because we need to as resources / time / support are scant to go it alone. I throw my hands up in appreciation of those who are already splashing about (in a waving not drowning way) and have shared their progress. It got me started.
It started as a policy but soon became more of a guidance document. In my head I envisage it being accompanied by a less formal overview, probably the content of the intranet page which becomes it's home.
I've tried to straddle the line between friendly advice in a conversational tone (if we're talking social media surely most appropriate) and the established style of this sort of document. I've tried to include a bit of a summary of what each network or space is to make it more inclusive to 'beginners'.
There is still some work to do...
Useful talks with Lee Jorgensen (Blackburn and Darwen) highlighted an area I had initially shyed away from; special guidance for purdah periods. I intend to revisit this. There is also some mopping up of duplication and conflicting advice.
I'm not sure whether I am almost ready to suggest this is moving closer to version 1.0 than draft...which is the main driver for this post!
And having written it I am now annoyingly aware that there is no facility to attach documents to this post. So I guess...if you want to see where I'm at DM me on Twitter with your email and we'll take it from there. Hopefully there will be time to talk at localgovcamp too!

*I accept full responsiblity for the mixed metaphor and then pushing it too far. In defence, m'lud, I've not had resonable quota of coffee yet.

Old life vs New life

I'm currently undertaking the Digital Media and Society module as part of my masters. It's been great to get stuck into as it meets up with not only so much of what I am currently working on (online local gov) but also my undergraduate work and first industry (journalism and newspapers).
It's been good to retreive some of that undergraduate learning (hello Habermas, my old friend) and put it into context with the current state of play for both sectors.
But while all this is fascinating learning, the time has come to pick my assignment and get on with the final paper. I find myself torn between my old life and new life when it comes to assignment topics:

1. Old life: Discuss the characteristics of online news journalism, indicating where and why it differs from traditional models and practices. (You may discuss the topic either in general or with specific reference to blogs.)
2. New life: It is often claimed that digital technologies have the potential to restore ‘direct democracy’. Explain and evaluate the claim with particular reference to electoral politics.

Option one would be interesting not only as there is so much chatter about this subject at the moment but also as it would be a nice update to my undergraduate dissertation (worryingly 10-years-on).
But I already know which way I will fall. Option two it will be seeing as am in the middle of all our local election online coverage right now (perfect timing). I'm happy with my choice...but it feels a little disloyal and sad to have to choose between my old life and new life.

New kid on the block

I'm delighted to have had a shout out from the research community about the work I am about to undertake on my thesis.
The lovely Liz Azyan introduced me via her Local Government Engagement Online Research Blog and the post is both flattering and hopefully really useful in letting others working in the sector know I will be pestering them shortly.
I have been thrilled that the online local gov community have been so interested, positive and supportive of my work so far and I'm hoping to build on these relationships further as my research gets underway.
Things may seem a little quiet at the moment but I am still beavering away on the taught modules of my MA. I am currently looking at Digital Media and Society and doing some skills building ready for the thesis next year.
I'm also busy in my day job - on the non-technical side of the eContent team at Derbyshire County Council. We've just launched a new section of the site ready for the elections on 4 June and this marks some big steps forward for us in terms of integrating and making use of social media.
Anyway, another big thank you to Liz for taking the time to give me such a postive introduction after already being a big help in pointing me in this direction and sharing some tips about the real life of researchers.
If you want to follow me please find me on Twitter (@sarahlay) or check out my full background on LinkedIn.

And the subject is...

Social media in local government internal communications.
After thinking long and hard about whether to go down this route, look at social media in local gov engagement with young people or another avenue entirely I decided internal comms would be best suited to my organisation, the limitations of a part time dissertation and perhaps be useful to others in the sector too.
I'm happy to say this has now been approved by my tutor and I'll be returning to plan the thesis in more detail from the autumn. My feeling at the moment is that an 'active research' approach may work well and be interesting, hopefully piloting some possible social media solutions next year.
While the thesis will mainly look at problems and solutions within my own organisation I do plan to research what else is already in place across the sector.
I'm looking forward to getting started and really excited that my first bit of pilot research took place in the online space!
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to read and/or comment on my post about topic ideas. I'll be happy to share the outcome of my research with anyone interested when the time comes.

Thoughts on my thesis

The time is upon me where I must get some clarity about what my thesis will focus on next year. My dissertation will complete my part time study for a masters in eCommunication.
My ideas so far have been pretty vague and I've got only as far as deciding that my study will look at social media usage by local government. I've come across a couple of other people already researching this area but don't think much has been done as it is such a new area.
Anyway, I've had a few ideas about what I might look at:

• local government use of social media to engage with young citizens
• library service use of social media and effect on take up of service

I am being encouraged to concentrate on service specific research as the other research so far looks to map who is doing what and why. While I don't want to repeat existing research I would also like to think that whatever I look at will be of use within my organisation but perhaps also to others working in the sector.
So local government web people - is there anything you would like more research on or would find particularly interesting and useful for going forward? I obviously don't want other people to decide my thesis for me but would certainly be interested in hearing the thoughts of my fellow local gov webbies.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read, think or respond to this!

@citizens –local government twitters

I started thinking about this after being inspired by Simon Wakeman’s and Liz Azyan’s recent posts on the whys and ways that local government is using, or could be, using Twitter. The spur into action was Twitter’s change from @replies to@mentions, leading me to spot this one of @Derbyshirecc (the twitter of the organisation for which I work and for which currently I do most of the official tweeting for).

Twitter is not RSS. Why is @DerbyshireCC on twitter if it's not about giving it a human face? *sigh* #LocalGovtFail – 1:31am Mar 14th from TweetDeck.

I think this first part of the post will probably come across as defensive. I don’t really want it to but I think it probably will.
We soft-launched on twitter on 4 March 2009. This was the first step into social media for the organisation. Sure, we have a website but we hadn’t got involved in any other networks.
As yet we’ve not publicised our twitter presence elsewhere online or offline. We’re still finding our feet. Mostly, we’re still learning from other council’s and organisations who have been on twitter for longer and who have different approaches.
Yes, most of our tweets so far could seem like an RSS feed – news, events, consultations. We split jobs off into a separate @JobsDerbyshire account (as an aside I don’t think this one will survive long term and am struggling to identify value in it).
Our intention is to start making our tweets more conversational. We’ve been watching @Dorsetforyou and like their approach although perhaps ours won’t end up being quite so chatty (not saying their approach is wrong, again just my own feeling for our organisation).
We started moving in this direction with ad hoc tweets yesterday – all related to content on our website but more conversational nevertheless.
Where we go from here or where we end up is still very much up for discussion. And all local government is in the same boat really…the general feeling seems to be that we should be getting involved in social media in order to engage with citizens (or talk to people in everyday language) but how and where we do that are still questions to which we’re all trying to find answers.
The @mention tweet is really interesting though – how would we give @Derbyshirecc a ‘human face’?
I suppose I (or another member of the online communcations team) could be the ‘face’ of the organisation and tweet conversationally with followers. There would surely have to be guidelines though of what is and isn’t appropriate to deal with in person on Twitter? Could / should a communications officer have this responsibility?
I think that if we ever do get contacted by one of our followers about a service we’ll be much better off forwarding that query onto a relevant officer (in similar fashion to contact into our call centre) rather than an online communications officer trying to answer directly. So, played out all 30,000 plus staff could need to have access to tweet to the account at various times. Apart from being logistically undoable would this multi-voiced twitter feed be anymore worthwhile than the seemingly faceless one we have now?
How else then? Perhaps the best way would be for our chief executive and leader of the council to have personal twitter streams. Would these contain personal tweets as well as highlighting news etc on our website or elsewhere? The potential here is for ghost-writing (been enough about that on Twitter recently) and possibly having tweets posted by communications officers of one ilk or other rather than the chief exec or leader themselves (I am not saying this WOULD definitely happen, merely is a possibility for any organisation). Is that really any better either?
I would certainly like to see more councillors using twitter or social media to listen to and talk with people. With county elections in June I hope social media and what use it is to them will be something that will be put on the agenda for any new as well as re-elected councillors.
At the moment I don’t think we’ve got @Derbyshirecc quite right but neither do I think we’re completely off track. Although I doubt it looks like it to our social-media-savvy citizens taking a step into the online space is big step forward and we hope to move on from here in leaps and bounds.
Perhaps it may be back to a slightly-tempered but defensive stance: if you aren’t interested, don’t listen; if you want to talk to us, please do; and if you think we could do something better, tell us!
I don't think we joined Twitter with the intention of gaining another broadcast channel although that is pretty much all we’ve done with it so far. I think it would be great if people started talking to us, about council services but also about themselves, via social media. I would love for this to be a starter in the organisation being able to be involved and work in online communities. I do question whether people want to though. In my personal life do I want to talk with my county or district council, my fire service, the police force? No more than I wanted to converse with them by phone, email or in person ie only when I want a service or something has gone wrong.
I want to spend my time talking to people who share my interests or can further my knowledge. I guess I apply some roughly Reithian values to my networks – do they inform, educate or entertain?
I would see an organisation as falling into one of the first two categories and therefore merely broadcasting at me is fine for me.
But I want to know (and I think the organisation should want to know) how people want us to engage with them on social networks, if in fact they do? It is, after all, about conversation and that takes at least two!

History: Part Three: Oracle vs Community

I'd explored instant messaging and blogging so where did my Internet expedition take me next? Forums...well, one forum anyway.

Offline life sort of set me off down this avenue as I got engaged and began planning for my two wedding days. Looking back it is obvious that this was probably the point at which I really began to reap the value of communicating on the Internet rather than just using it for the sake of using
it.

Wedding magazines are incredibly pricey and shows are sometimes hard to get to and don't necessarily cater for those looking to stray from the traditional path. And I didn't have any real life friends to ask for advice or recommendations being among the first of my circle of friends to tie the knot.So, online I went.

I tried all the (now) well established websites from offline wedding brands. Then I found what was to be my online home for the best part of four years (two and a half wedding planning then moving to the baby talk board).

At the time I was slightly in awe of the way you could get an answer to any question at all from the collective knowledge available through the forum. Now of course that seems almost run of the mill given the way social media is evolving but for my first experience of it there was a danger of being overwhelmed.

I shared many wedding days through that board as people revealed their plans, counted down to their big day and then posted their experience and top tips for future brides.It was easy to get recommendations and many smaller, independent retailers were members giving a greater depth to the knowledge available.

How these suppliers were allowed to use the boards led to member debate and self-policing when rules were broken.

The bad side of boards were here also. I loved using the boards and the people I spoke to regularly on there but never really stopped feeling like the new girl in class. There were definite cliques on each of the boards which sometimes verged on snobbery or rudeness.

Most of the time if you weren't in the clique or you were a newer member you just got fewer replies to your threads.

Maybe some of this was down to the sheer volume of posts going through the boards. Possibly some of it down to repetition within those threads.Possibly some of it was just pure flaming.

It was a definite community though with some boards being tidal (as weddings passed people tailed off, sometimes to reappear on the off topic or baby boards) others being a more stable forum.

And the communities supported each other...when women were scared or confused on the baby boards there were people there to offer comfort and try to advise (this could have been a real benefit in situations where a woman hadn't revealed a pregnancy in her real world).

When the 7/7 London bombings happened the off topic community set up an informal and impromptu check in for known London members. They also supported each other in the days after posting about why they thought London was great and shouldn't be abandoned because of what had happened. A milder but never-the-less modern version of Blitz-spirit.

Much of the etiquette being bandied about today for newer platforms stood back then especially the 'I'll scratch your back, if you scratch mine' way of community building. If you were an active poster who took time to share and post quality replies you were more likely to get more / higher quality / faster replies when you posted a query.

And the things people wanted to communicate about on the off topic boards haven't vastly changed either...what they're wearing, where they've been, what they're eating. All still popping up consistently and frequently on today's social media landscape.

I learnt a lot even from just lurking on those boards (I can name the designer of a dress at twenty paces and I know more about the signs from your body that baby-making is go than I care to list). I also had a lot of good conversations and genuinely cared about what happened to some of the people I shared offline life journeys with through that forum.

But, like many, I drifted away on the tide. I returned to work after having my son and my daily visits turned to weekly turned to ad hoc. Now (just two year's after my son's birth) I can't even recall which email address I used to register in order to go back and visit those boards.

Just like ICQ and Open Diary before, it seems that the boards of Hitched had served their purpose in my life and I'd once again hit the road in search of a new online space.