An online notebook
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An online notebook
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.
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…
I do a fair bit of training on digital engagement to public sector bodies up and down the country and most of the time it means very different things to very different people.
To some, it means running a corporate Twitter account or Facebook page - which, of course, it does.
To others it means teams delivering services making use of digital tools to engage with service users, to improve the quality of the service being provided - which, of course, it does.
To another group, it means bringing social technology into the organisation, to improve the way people work, learn and generally get stuff done - which, of course, it does.
Then there are those to whom it means an approach to consultation on a particular decision, policy, campaign or project - which, of course, it does.
So all of these things, and a fair few others as well, are a part of what digital engagement means. Often the trouble is that they aren't always considered by those looking to implement digital engagement.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
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.