Link roundup

(Am starting to post interesting links to the blog again, via Google Reader. Presentation leaves a little to be desired, but am working on it…) I find this stuff so you don’t have to: Bashing ordinary people who are making…

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.

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…