I find this stuff so you don’t have to:
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 their civic contribution –
- Government IT: What technologies are the darlings of 2013 –
- How To Build An Online Community: The Ultimate List Of Resources (2013) –
- Help crowdfund this open source city book –
- The Subscription Dilemma –
- An intranet inspired by GOV.UK –
- commscamp: the low-down –
- The Makerbot Replicator 2 in action –
- Too cool for school: 7 reasons why tablets should NOT be used in education –
- On sharing and appreciation –
- Building a Community Management Centre of Excellence – Dachis Group –
- The Open Office: a drop-in centre for neighbourhood planning –
- Constructive internet dialogue, is it possible? –
- Building A Real, Meaningful, Community Is Worthwhile –
- It’s true – it’s all about location, location, location –
- Prototyping and learning in Wigan: Creative Councils Camp –
- The Performance Platform is recruiting –
- Norman: tech should be ‘invisible’ in learning –
- Lincolnshire Compact – We Want Your Views –
- Looking for examples of people-led libraries –
- Hillingdon Council goes Google – Hillingdon Council will be the first UK local authority to start using Google services. Potentially saving £3m over 4 years.
- RebelMouse – Interesting looking new personal social media aggregator.
- Coding Horror: Today is Goof Off at Work Day – Nice discussion about the concept of 20% time – having a day a week to experiment at work.
How online community management could really matter for public services
One of the key skills (or roles) that I bang on about a lot when I am delivering training to customers is community management. I talk about it a fair bit on this blog too.
One of the first things I ever did online was start up and manage a community – a simple forum for people who like reading books. It’s still running, in a sort of half life, which isn’t bad given that it was started back in 2003.
It turns out that the community was managed – largely by accident – fairly well. Rules were kept to a bare minimum (something along the lines of “don’t be an idiot” was the main one) and a healthy culture of respect and friendliness emerged over time. Membership was always fairly small, certainly compared to some of the huge book related boards out there, but I suspect that the tightness of the group contributed to its success.
Anyhow, these days I’m more concerned about public services – with my own particular fetish of course being local government. How could good community management practice help in this context?
I’ve written before about bringing local panels up to date with an idea about a mobile solution combined with a bit of micro-participation (go read the post – it’s really good!). An organisation could however do something similar by developing a community – whether one of its own creation or perhaps by engaging with an existing one.
Many interactions between, say, a council and citizens tend to be one off affairs – a question is answered, a consultation response received, some feedback provided, and then that’s it.
For a lot of folk, of course, that’s just how they like it. An ongoing conversation with their local authority would probably fill them with boredom, if not dread.
But perhaps by facilitating a space in which local issues are discussed on an ongoing basis, solutions could be teased out. Often when digital engagement takes place on what feels like a one-off basis, it’s too easy for people to drop in, be negative, and then leave again. By taking a long term approach, results might be a lot more constructive.
Also, it ought to save time and therefore money. After all, why rebuild communities or groups or even just lists of people, every single time you have a new campaign to launch, or a new policy to consult on? Why not keep adding people to your community, who can dip in and out of issues as suits their interest?
The kingpin of online community development is Rich Millington, who I seem to namecheck every week on this blog. In a recent email newsletter (sign up for it here), Rich outlines some success factors for online communities:
- Start small
- Start interesting discussions
- Engage in micro-interactions
- Encourage off topic conversations
- Create a sense of identity for members
A lot of this is about letting go and allowing the community to manage themselves. The facilitation role is about seeding discussions, encouraging activity and recruiting members. This takes time and needs resource allocating to it – which is why Rich advocates that successful communities need full time managers.
That might be difficult to swing in these straightened times, but if you’re serious about your digital engagement, it’s a role that needs filling, and activity that needs doing.
Succeeding or not on the internet
A lot of people are unwilling to innovate online because they’re worried it’ll go badly. After all, there’s a story every week in the media about someone ballsing up online in one way or another.
It strikes me, from only a cursory examination of a lot of these stories, that most of the time, people or organisations get into bother online for one of two reasons.
They either take the internet too seriously, or they don’t take it seriously enough.
If you take it too seriously, you worry about what you put online to the point where it comes out like it was written by committee, is completely bland and unengaging. Decisions take ages to be made, and opportunities are missed – and disasters can’t be fixed in time.
If you don’t take it seriously enough, you don’t take enough care. Maybe you don’t feel all that bothered about what users of the net think, or say. Being dismissive of the medium is disastrous, but we see it all the time.
The trick is – as always! – to take a sensible, middle way. Treat the web and the people who spend their time there with respect, but don’t take the whole thing so seriously that you and your colleagues tie yourselves up in knots every time you need to post on a Facebook page or reply to a tweet.
As is so often the case in terms of tone and style on the net, getting the balance right is one of the main keys to success.
A few thoughts on the year ahead
But certainly not any predictions!
In the space in which Kind of Digital operates – which means largely working with public sector people in helping them innovate in the way they engage with citizens and communities using technology – I suspect the next twelve months will see a bit of gradual evolution.
There are two conflicting agendas in a way – perhaps a bit of a catch 22. There’s no money to innovate, but unless organisations start to innovate they’re to making the most of the money they do have.
Still, I think the move this year is likely to be around the use of those tools that emerged recently by more people within organisations. Twitter isn’t quite the telephone on your desk, but it can’t be too long before the comparison is valid.
I still feel that we haven’t seen anything really interesting with mobile in the digital engagement space. Money is an issue here of course, as mobile development needs time and space to get figured out and money to develop. Still, with the proliferation of smart phones these days, surely someone is going to make the jump soon.
One other area I’ll be keeping an eye on is the rollout of quicker broadband throughout most of the country. There are still a lot of questions about those rural areas that won’t get the access, but even so – what happens once the vast majority of folk have decent speed internet access? Most folk assume that having it is de facto a good thing – and I agree with them – but it will be fascinating to see the use cases emerge.
For me personally, there are challenges ahead, and the economic situation is very much a part of that. It’s tough out there and one has to work ever harder for each pound customers pay.
I’m obviously looking forward to OurHousing being up and running in the next couple of months – it’s a new sector to work in, and an exciting tool that we are developing which I think can have a really positive social impact.
I’d like to get around to blogging more often here – it was this blog that allowed me to start doing this stuff for a living and I feel I owe it some love. Part of that will be to start doing regular web chats again, and maybe experimenting with other ways of interacting online – maybe some Google Hangouts perhaps?
That’s probably enough from me. Many thanks to all the lovely people who have supported me and Kind of Digital in 2012 – and here’s to another interesting twelve months!