Tuesday, 31 May, 2011

Give us a break

Am sharing the details of this event on behalf of my good friend Jude, who is running what looks to be a really interesting project. GIVE US A BREAK: Ideas for developing easy ways to source respite breaks for carers…

Thursday, 26 May, 2011

The digital engagement game

At the introduction to digital engagement workshop we ran this week, I debuted the digital engagement game. It’s a workshop exercise that’s an expansion of my version of David Wilcox‘s social media game, which in turn has been developed into…

Online consultation and policy engagement

Neil Williams writes a great post about digital engagement on the AlphaGov blog: On the face of it, you could say it’s a simple case of government doing something a bit whizzier and more user-friendly than publishing thousands of PDFs…

Wednesday, 25 May, 2011

Portfolio: sharing council comms resources

Portfolio looks an interesting idea, coming out of Nottingham City Council. This, from an article at LGComms: We’re launching Portfolio, a web portal that allows public sector organisations to share marketing materials. Councils and other public authorities can sign up…

Tuesday, 24 May, 2011

Innovative ways of training

I’ve been thinking about using some new ways of providing training on digital engagement stuff to those working in public services – in tandem with the traditional approach that we are taking in our workshop tomorrow. Webinars are something I’m…

Monday, 23 May, 2011

Power lines

The RSA have just published a rather interesting paper that is well worth a flick through. The paper argues that the government’s efforts to build the Big Society are too focused on citizen-led service delivery. An approach based on utilising…

Thursday, 19 May, 2011

Thank you, LocalGovCamp sponsors!

Since my last desperate begging funding drive, several companies and organisations have leapt to support LocalGovCamp, namely: Public-i Firmstep Talk About Local Global Crossing Arcus Global Many thanks to them. They join those who had already stuck their hands in…

‘Official’ local gov blogging

Simon writes a nice post celebrating the existence of the new official BIS blog, and provides a handy list of existing Whitehall “formal, properly-designated corporate ‘blogs’”. Here they are – I’ve also added UKTI’s blog to the list, which I’m…

Wednesday, 18 May, 2011

Bookmarks for April 28th through May 18th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Local Government Graduate Gripes – "How would a networked, open, innovative, tech-enabled, social recruitment scheme for government work?" 10 things Alpha.gov.uk gets wrong (Part 1) | Helpful Technology – Nicely…

Tuesday, 17 May, 2011

Knowledge Worker 2.0

I rather like these slides from Stephen Collins. Knowledge Worker 2.0 – Power to the people View more presentations from Stephen Collins  

Spreading the GovCamp love

A quick cross post of something Steph put up on the MoreOpen blog, highlighting the great events funded in part by UKGC11. At the beginning of March, we announced a small grant scheme using sponsorship from the UKGovcamp in January 2011…

Monday, 16 May, 2011

More notes on mobile apps and government

I still haven’t really got my head around mobile apps and their use for government services. However, James Coltham wrote up some excellent notes from a meeting up in Scotland on the subject recently: There is definitely a groundswell of interest,…

Thursday, 12 May, 2011

Workblogging

Euan Semple wrote a short post the other day that really caught my eye. Here it is in full (hopefully he doesn’t mind!): A business where everyone blogs. Everyone thinks about what they are doing and writes about what they…

New councillor? Get the training you need online

With the elections of May 5 2011 now complete Member Development Officers need to look at the most efficient and cost effective way to train these newly elected councillors. Modern Councillor is the online learning and support destination for councillors,…

Wednesday, 11 May, 2011

Tuesday, 10 May, 2011

Adverts on council websites

Adrian Short picks up on some adverts that appear on a council’s website. They’re for debt management companies that encourage people to apply for bankruptcy. Probably not a good thing – I think we’d probably rather people needing advice about…

Monday, 9 May, 2011

Friday, 6 May, 2011