Talking About Local in Stoke

Saturday’s unconference organised in Stoke on Trent by Will Perrin’s Talk About Local team was quite brilliant. It brought together an amazing range of people who are creating hugely interesting local blog sites and online communities  … yet often (read more...)

Next Big Thing in KM – workshop report

I’ve just finished running a workshop on What’s the Next Big Thing at the KIMPS09 public sector knowledge management conference, and succeeding (I think) through the simple expedient of asking participants what think. As I explained earlier I came (read more...)

Localgovcamp enlightens cultivating the digital garden

Last Saturday’s Localgovcamp in Birmingham provided me with a blindingly-obvious insight. If we want to use social media to improve public services and local democracy, build social capital, and tackle every other known social ill, innovatively (of course) in the face of spending cuts (inevitably) then there isn’t one big idea and intervention that will work. It’s about cultivating the whole of the digital British garden.
We need community websites and blogs, lots of work inside councils, mashing up of data, research, better connections, and all the other things that were talked about on the day.
Totally obvious … and in the world of physical renewal we’ve got used to say environmental AND economic AND social AND working with a mix of interests. (read more...)

Playing the Social by Social Game

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The Social by Social Game really took off at Net Tuesday this week when some 20 participants invented a south London borough, created a set of project ideas for better health, happiness and the environment, and then went on to plan how social technology could yield these social benefits. All within 90 minutes. (read more...)

The delights of social reporting teamwork

I’ve just had an exhausting few days social reporting at the National Digital Inclusion Conference as you can see from this dashboard of activity … except it wasn’t exhausting at all. It was a delight.
That was in part because we had the luxury of a whole team of reporters including Dave Briggs, Clare White, Tim Davies and Michael Grimes, plus People’s Voice Media from Manchester doing interviews, and We Share Stuff from Birmingham running a version of their social media clinic. (read more...)

How we can all engage with the London Summit. Digitally, anyway

The London Summit in April, when Gordon Brown is joined by Barack Obama to host a gathering of world leaders, finance ministers and central bankers, attracts some cynical comments from the Telegraph, in depth coverage from the FT, and police warnings of protests in a summer of rage.
However, these days we don’t have to rely on mainstream media for news and interpretation. Steph Gray rightly applauds the efforts being made by the governmental hosts, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to provide a range of content from their own news, blogging, YouTube videos, and tagging of debate elsewhere. Steph says:

In the emerging field of digital engagement for policymaking, this seems to be doing a lot right: a hub for news, early planning, serious resource invested original content (but not much new money thrown at technology), partnerships with innovative forums for debate, a strategy for engagement designed to work at the level of professionals as well as the public, and measurement.

(read more...)

Socialreporting an event – the inside story

The 2gether08 Festival of social innovation, media and general good stuff, held in London last month, gave me a terrific opportunity to try some concentrated social reporting, and learn what an extraordinary team effort and mix of tools it takes to make it work well.

I (read more...)