An online notebook
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An online notebook
I’ve loved Cat Man Do, the first of the ‘Simon’s Cat’ animations since I first saw it. It’s drawn by Simon Tofield of Tandem Films and since discovering his Youtube page, I’ve found the second in the series – ‘Let Me In!’:
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Magic.
Mike Butcher lays into the BBC over web innovation:
I think the BBC should do more, a LOT more, to hook into the innovation happening in technology companies in the private sector, and at the same time allowing private sector companies to innovate around the products the BBC produces. And that does not mean just commissioning more user interface design, or the odd microsite, from a bunch of agencies. If it did so, the BBC might even find some products it quite liked and could use to make the BBC better. Really. No kidding.
An entertaining and thought provoking rant.
John Hayes, a Director at the Improvement & Development Agency, has started a blog – and started it really promisingly, too:
So, having taking my own personal plunge into this Web 2 pool with this my first blog, I’m hoping I can encourage other local government staff and councilors to use this medium as an additional channel for dialogue and debate, and that the transparency will serve to illustrate that we are all working towards the same goals of better government and improved services for our citizens.
Just the sort of thing we need to hear following the events of the last week!
Shane McCracken was sufficiently interested in the social reporting that David Wilcox and I undertook at the DC10plus event early last month that he started to develop a business model around it, dubbing it ConferenceXtra.
The concept is that it’s all well and good for public sector organisations to put on events to disseminate information, or share good practice, but the reach is only ever going to be as far as those that attend. By using the social web, events can be turned inside out, so those that can’t attend still get to find out what went on and an even contribute to what’s happening.
This idea was put to the test a couple of weeks ago in Norwich, as Shane explains. The event was the evoice international political forum on eDemocracy, hosted by Norfolk County Council. Now, evoice are not necessarily a group that too many people are aware of, which makes putting their work up online all the more important, so that people can learn and share experience.
I was delighted to be involved in getting a whole host of audio and video online, as well as presentations through SlideShare and photos on Flickr. There’s a real mixture of content, especially video, with formal recordings of the presentations mixed with short vox pop interviews with attendees, very much in the social reporter style.
The site that we put together is hosted at ConferenceXtra, using WordPress (of course!). The great thing with the blog format is of course that is has interactivity built in, and it was great to see some comments being made, and conversations held, on the site soon after it went live. Hopefully the site will become a place where all those involved in the evoice project can convene in the future.
One fantastic project that was highlighted was that of Bus Stop 39, an online youth engagement initiative by Norfolk County Council and partners, which aims “to give young people an insight into their local council and its services, as well as offering the opportunity to be part of one of the UK’s first online teen soaps, enabling them to make informed choices when the chance to vote in local elections arises”.
Here’s one video where Tom Hodgkinson introduces the project in detail:
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Check out the Bus Stop 39 page at the ConferenceXtra site for another clip where young people talk with great passion about the initiative. I, and others, have said it loads of times before, but this stuff works, folks.
Have come across some interesting bits and pieces recently on the topic of how local government should be using the social web to better communicate and collaborate – exactly the sort of thing we are trying to promote on the Community of Practice.
First up is a presentation by Simon Wakeman, who is Head of Marketing and PR at Medway Council in Kent. Simon’s slides include some interesting research results, plus some details of how Medway have used podcasts to reach out to younger people:
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Second is some slides from Dominic Campbell, who was lucky enough to be appointed Social Media Manager at Barnet Council recently. Dominic discusses how web 2.0 can help Barnet implement their Communications and Engagement Strategy.
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Another tip from Dominic led me to Barnet’s YouTube page (yes! They have one!) which feature some great clips of Charles Leadbeater – he of We-Think fame – talking to the Council about the future shape of local government and local governance in the UK.
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There are some great initiatives going on out there in local government where forward-thinking folk are making the most of web technology to bring councils closer to the people they serve. As with the eDemocracy debate though – is this stuff too fragmented? How can we bring everyone together?
Hmmm. So FeedBurner is going to start allowing folk to embed Adsense in their RSS feeds. I don’t like ads on blogs much, I have to say, and getting content through RSS usually lets you avoid them. I really don’t like the idea of ads in my feeds.
There is one thing that is worse, though, and that’s partial RSS feeds (damn you, BBC!). Maybe with ads in feeds being more easily accessible – previously it’s only very well read bloggers that have ads on their feeds – we’ll start to see a two-tier system. Get the partial feed for free, or the full one with ads.
What an awful thought.
Anyway, DavePress is remaining ad-free, both on the site and in the feed. Just thought you might like to know.
Steven Clift rightly points folk to the discussions going on at the UK & Ireland eDemocracy exchange about the demise of ICELE, in the comments to my previous post on the topic.
Here’s a sample of what folk are saying – the archive is public if you want to see more.
Ella Taylor-Smith:
I think there is room for an organisation to -like ICELE – to be a central contact/info point for e-democracy in the UK (I’ve widened it there from local). Where they’ve collected data and case studies on a specific topic (like e-petitions) I’ve found it useful.
This just highlights for me the absence of any national central point of reference for egov. It’s splintered all over the place, so no one actually working in the area has ‘heard of’ most of the worthy stuff…
It just pains me that the Australian state of Victoria and other governments like Hong Kong and New Zealand have managed ‘one stop shop’ portals to egov for practitioners but all Downing St has led with is endless, endless different initiatives with different websites whilst at the same time preaching to the rest of us about ‘just’ directgov and businesslink.
Andy Williamson:
Our role now as advocates for eDemocracy is not to reduce the pressure but to increase it and argue strongly for a centralised, properly resourced and commissioned eDemocracy agency.
I think perhaps first of all we need to know what the great British public expect of e-Democracy or even Democracy and attempt to champion that…
Rather than assumptions, I’d like to see more evidence from this country (cultures and systems vary, along with connectivity). This includes more ‘measured’ pilots.
Now, if I were to try and draw folk together to provide a post-ICELE way forward, these are all people who I would insist have to be involved – people who have a genuine interest in making things better, who have a clear idea of what eDemocracy might mean. To this dream team, I’d add others, like Shane McCracken, Steve Dale, Ingrid Koehler, Steve Hilton and Dominic Campbell.
It would be fascinating to see what could be achieved just by bringing people together, dispensing with titles and the other paraphernalia of traditional government working groups, and non-organising our way into Getting Something Done.
From EU Observer:
Plans are being developed to launch a social networking site for MEPs and MPs to boost contacts between politicians across Europe and promote a trans-European democracy.
Myparl.eu – officially to be launched in October – is a website currently under construction that aims to work along the same lines as the popular MySpace or Facebook social networking services, but in addition to linking social contacts is supposed to foster debate about legislative proposals coming both out of Brussels and from national parliaments.
Sounds exciting, eh? Here’s the real belter though:
The site is planned to be open to the public, who will be able to react to the issues with letters to the editor. However, only MPs and MEPs will be able to post comments.
One for the ‘really badly not getting it’ pile.
Poor old ICELE. First of all, Professor Stephen Coleman questioned it’s utility on the Connecting Bristol blog:
I have been following e-democracy in the UK since its earliest manifestations in the work of UKCOD (UK Citizens e-Democracy), established in 1996. I was commissioned to be one of three evaluators for the Government’s national project for local e-democracy, out of which came the International Centre for Local e-Democracy (ICELE) This new body was well-funded, but seems to have produced conspicuously little. There might be others out there who can tell me that I’ve missed some wonderful outputs. If so, please do.
The discussion in the comments on that post soon spilled over into the UK & Ireland eDemocracy mailing list, which David Wilcox reported on, quoting Rita Wilson, ICELE’s director:
Having been on holiday for a few days I was surprised to come back to lots of speculation about ICELE. First of all I would like to say that I am more than happy to provide information regarding what ICELE has been achieving and there is nothing hidden about our activities. But we are doers not talkers, delivering a programme to make a difference in how local authorities use tools and technology to move from consultation to participation.
Now, it seems that the speculation was well placed. ICELE will soon be no more. In a message to various participants in the ICELE project, the Chairman of ICELE, Matthew Ellis wrote:
Although the termination date for ICELE was originally contracted as the end of March this year we agreed, at CLG [Department for Communities and Local Government]’s request, to maintain the Centres basic core operation for a further three months to discuss the way forward in promoting local eDemocracy. Unfortunately, although some talks have taken place, no decision or indication of CLG’s future plans in this important area of work have been forthcoming, or what form or structure ICELE could take. I am therefore in the process of implementing an exit strategy plan which will see ICELE cease operations of any kind with Lichfield DC as the accountable body after the end of June.
What was ICELE? Well, good question. In their own words:
ICELE is a sustainable [oh dear], UK-based centre with strong international backing from eDemocracy experts in the public, private and non-governmental sectors.
The Centre is designed to serve as a ‘virtual’ focal point for collaborative eDemocracy initiatives both in the UK and abroad. Within the UK, local authorities, community groups and citizens can use the Centre’s online resources to help run projects in their local area.
They were involved in a few projects, like the VOICE web publishing tool and the Blog in a Box blogging platform for Councillors. I don’t know much about VOICE – though what I’ve heard isn’t good – and Blog in a Box is frankly superfluous given the quality of free offerings like WordPress, as CivicSurf has proved.
So, ICELE, to be frank, was a bit rubbish. But what will take its place? I guess we will find out when the Department’s white paper on Empowerment is published. There has already been some activity around this, including the Community Power Packs developed with Involve‘s help, as well as Simon Berry’s job at CLG. Let’s hope the results will be good.
I think it is a bit of a shame that ICELE will be no more – or at least that there won’t be a body around which eDemocracy at a local level can gather. It might be argued that even with ICELE such a body didn’t exist. Maybe there’s another argument that in this networked, post-organisation world, we don’t actually need a body of this type at all any more at all.
There are a number of people who have a real, dedicated interest in local eDemocracy, as well as the opportunities that the social web offers to achieve real success in the area. The trouble is that local government is a remarkably fragmented sector and tying together all the various initiatives is a role that’s important but not happening right now. One of the best ways that local government is joining up at the moment is through the Communities of Practice, hosted by the Improvement and Development Agency, and set up by Steve Dale.
A quick search of the Communities platform for ‘edemocracy’ reveals nothing. Perhaps those with a genuine interest in making things better and sharing ideas might organise themselves through that platform? After all, there is already a huge user base on the platform.