Dave

Dave

  • Joined: January 6, 2026
  • Articles: 3152
  • Comments: 518

Far from the maddening cloud

Reading some of the coverage of Instagram's change in their terms of service, you'd have thought a murder had been committed. Or maybe that the world was about to end.

A few years down what might once have been called the Web 2.0 road, well funded companies are finding that they have built their networks, grown their user bases, and now shareholders are looking for some return on their investment. We should not, therefore, be surprised that the rules are changing, that the digital ground we've been standing on is shifting beneath our feet.

Google+ launches communities

Google+ is an interesting - if quiet - place. It's not used by very many people, which is a shame, as the interface is rather nice and it features some really cool bits of technology.

Hangouts, for instance, are fantastic - on demand video conferencing which integrates neatly with Google's other services likes Docs and so on.

However, because so few people are active there, it does feel a bit empty at times. When asked if organisations should use it as a space for engagement, I tend to say no - as time would be better spent working with the much larger existing communities on Twitter and Facebook.

Notes on making collaborative technology successful

I spent an interesting morning at the Online Information conference on Tuesday - ably chaired by my pal Steve Dale - and the session I enjoyed most was about implementing collaborative technology in organisations - one example was from a big media and communications provider, the other a government department.

Click through to see some of the thoughts that the session inspired me to write down…

Confessions of a justified camper

A little while ago, Paul Coxon wrote a blog post querying the long term viability of unconferences in the public sector. I didn’t respond, because I felt I couldn’t do so without sounding defensive and chippy. This evening, the weekly…

Experiments in social learning

Social learning is a really interesting concept. It's basically the idea that we can often learn better from each other rather than from an expert or teacher.

There's an obvious usage for the internet and the kind of social tools I write about here in social learning, and an additional argument in favour of making them available within organisations.

Great resources for online community building

At the weekend I got my copy of Rich Millington‘s new book, Buzzing Communities, through the post. It’s excellent and provides everything you need to know about building successful online communities. Thinking seriously about community building is something that I think…

Whose content is it, anyway?

Lloyd Davis has a thoughtful post on his blog about all the content he has been putting online for the last decade and a half:

I want to take stock and put it all in some order. It’s one of those things that really needs doing. I think I know pretty much what I’m doing here now – there’s writey stuff, there’s visual stuff and there’s audio stuff and sometimes it all gets mixed up but that’s about the size of it…

I hate the way that these are all differently integrated – ideally, I mean in that ideal world where I had a team of people to sort this out for me, I’d have everything also hosted independently and from today I’d not be using any of these services as the primary channel/home for anything.

I think Lloyd is right to be concerned - as he sees value in his content he wants to ensure he has some control, or ownership over it.

The state of online collaboration

Apologies for the lack of posting lately on here. The reason for this quietness can be seen in this set on Flickr.

Anyway, my friends at Clinked - who make a rather good online collaboration and project management platform - have produced an interesting infographic on the state of online collaboration.

Webchatting about localism

Our site for NALC, What Next for Localism, is going pretty well. Quite a few ideas submitted and some conversation starting up around them and the articles published on the blog. To further development the online discussion, we’ll be hosting…

Tools I use for learning

Recently, as part of a survey of members of the Social Learning Centre, I put together a list of ten sites or apps I use a lot in my own learning activity. Actually, I thought ten was rather a lot, so to share it here, I thought I'd whittle it down to half that number.
I think it's useful to always remind yourself of the tools you use regularly in your own activity, particularly if you spend time designing sites, systems and platforms for others to use.

Anyway, hit 'Read more' to see the list.

Digital councillors

digitalcllr is a place where we are bringing together all the work we have been doing recently with elected members. Mostly that means training, but we also offer a service to host websites for councillors, for free. On the digitalcllr…

What next for localism?

We've been working quite closely with the National Association of Local Councils this year. We produced the Planning for Councillors microsite a few months ago, and have contributed to the three People in Action conferences run around the country over the summer.

The parish and town council sector may have a certain image, but it's hard not to be enthused by the likes of Justin Griggs, whose presentation at the recent Open Space South West event was an illuminating discussion of a sector growing in importance.

Two councils collaborating

We recently helped Breckland Council and South Holland District Council work a bit better together by building them a shared, social intranet called The Place.

Today the Chief Executive of both councils, Terry Huggins, had a piece in on the Guardian's website talking about it all.

Here’s OurHousing!

The Nominet Trust has announced what for us is some jolly exciting news, which is that they have approved us for funding to develop OurHousing, a new social startup that will encourage dialogue between social housing tenants and their landlords to improve services and enhance community spirit.

What might mobile democracy look like?

I've often said that the problem with participation in local democracy is that it just isn't convenient enough. Meetings? Pah! I'm too busy trying to earn a living, quite frankly.

So mobile offers a really interesting opportunity. After all, the smartphones that sit in the pockets of an ever-growing number of people have a level of ubiquity that could make it work. You could also bring in some other recent developments (don't say buzzwords) like gamification to further boost engagement levels.

Youth councils – any good examples?

I’m starting to look at youth councils with a local authority, particularly in terms of how digital can improve levels of participation. I’ve got some ideas, admittedly not youth council-centric, but rather taking stuff I’ve learned from other online engagement…

Decline and fall?

Twitter has been taking a bit of a pasting in the technology media world recently. Could this mean it is facing a bleak future, and could become the new MySpace, or Friendster? Or even - the horror! - FriendsReunited?

How open are council meetings?

DCLG have today announced that residents, bloggers, tweeters, community activists and hyperlocal sites should have the same access and facilities to council meetings as traditional newspaper journalists. This is important because it means Government recognises the valuable contribute the wider community…