Dave

Bookmarks for October 30th through November 6th

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 30th through November 6th:

  • Change.gov – Obama's pre-inauguration website. *Great* URL!
  • Sunderland Community BarCamp – Sunderland Council appear to be hosting their own Barcamp. Crazy!
  • Innovation Catalyst | The Young Foundation – "Despite all the good work of the last decade in local government, there is still a need within the sector to develop new approaches to delivery if we are going to meet the challenges facing public services both now and in the future."
  • The cynicism at the heart of the communities agenda – "With this in mind, the proposed duty on local authorities to "promote democracy" is not only a curiously bloodless way of engaging the disengaged. More worrying is the notion that democracy can be imposed by diktat. This authoritarian bent to the communities agenda reveals a thinly veiled attempt to paper over the exhaustion of politics and the increasing isolation of a clueless and desparate political class. "
  • Demos | Publications | Network Citizens – "humans are social animals, spinning intricate webs of relationships with friends, colleagues, neighbours and enemies. These networks have always been with us, but the advance of networking technologies, changes to our interconnected economy and an altering job market have super-charged the power of networking, catapulting it to the heart of organisational thinking."

Busy, busy

Sorry for the light blogging of late, but I have been jolly busy of late, not least with moving house. I’m now resident in Cottenham, near Cambridge. Do come and say hello if you are ever nearby.

Here’s a couple of morsels to chew on before I can get back in the blogging swing of things:

  • I’ve started work at DIUS! I’m doing two days a week working for Steph Gray, building WordPress sites and helping implement some other social media goodness, including some training for civil servants. Should be fun!
  • Since moving to Cambridge I have wanted to see if a similar social media scene could be started here as is happening in London and Birmingham. Maybe the coworking collective could be the start of that.
  • Tomorrow (Wednesday 5th November) I’ll be at Public Sector ICT 2008 near Northampton with Steve Dale, running a social web workshop which no doubt will feature the beautiful game at some point.
  • I haven’t forgotten about ReadWriteGov and I promise that some content from the day – which was a rip-roaring success, by the way – will go up on the blog soon. Before the end of the week? I should hope so. Also, look out for some new RWG events near you soon!
  • Public Sector Forums are running a GovWeb type event on the 4th December in Edgbaston. I’ll be talking about social web stuff there. It will be great – so do sign up for it. More details on that soon.
  • Finally, welcome to Twitter, Bracknell Forest Council!

Bookmarks for October 25th through October 28th

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 25th through October 28th:

The UKGovWeb Twitterverse

The real value of Twitter is in the network, and if you are just starting out with it, and don’t have many people to follow, or much of a following yourself, it can seem a bit quiet, depressing and pointless. As you build up your network, though, suddenly things change and it becomes a vital communication tool.

So, if you are a public sector worker wanting to make the most of this great network, you might need a bit of help tracking down some people to start following and interacting with. Here’s that help! I’ve tried to break the various groups up into categories, to help you find who you want.

If I have missed anyone out or put them in the wrong place, please let me know in the comments! There’s gotta be more tweeting politicians, surely?

Central Government Official Feeds

Civil Servants

Local Authority Official Feeds

Local Authority Web Teams

Local Authority Officers

Other Public Sector Bodies & Officers

Politicians

Freelancers, Consultants etc

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