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.

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 ;)