LocalGovCamp a sell out

I’m delighted to be able to say that all the tickets for next month’s LocalGovCamp have been claimed. This is remarkable: all gone in just over a week! Many thanks for the enthusiasm so many people have shown.

If you haven’t got a ticket but would like one, just email me and I will add you to the reserve list. I’m hopeful that we will be able to get everyone that wants to come into the building!

The focus now shifts to making sure we have stuff to talk about on the day. I’m delighted that we have had a couple of suggestions already on the blog: one from Steve Dale about the Local Gov Knowledge Hub project he is working on; and one about strategy by Alan Colson from Solihull MBC.

Keep the ideas flowing, people!

Finally, the support from potential sponsors has been outstanding. You can find the latest on the Supporters page. There is more to come.

PSFbuzz: Facebook applications

Image credit: Steven Tuck

I had a remarkably fun time up in Manchester last week, chairing the Public Sector Forums event at Old Trafford about local government web 2.0 strategies.

There was a whole lot of Twitter action during the day, which you can take a look at in this Google Spreadsheet. The tweets and other social media bits were all pulled together on the PSFbuzz site.

Also on that site, you’ll find a whole bunch of video interviews which Liz Azyan took. Do have a look through – they are rough and ready in a true social reporter style, but really give a flavour for the day and how delegates responded to the event.

As well as chairing, I was presenting on the subject of Facebook and how Councils are using it, and putting some ideas forward as to how they could do it a bit better.

Effectively, my argument is that applications are a great way for public bodies to engage with people within social networks. The main advantage for me – and one that is particularly pertinent for Facebook – is one of vocabulary, because an application won’t demand that you become its friend, or fan.

I’m currently working up some specifications with a developer of Facebook apps to provide a hosted service for local authorities to have their own Facebook applications at a very reasonable price. If you’re interested in this, then please do get in touch.

Cultural agoraphobia

John Naughton’s Observer piece this morning is a good one:

The cultural agoraphobia from which most of us suffer leads us always to overemphasise the downsides of openness and lack of central control, and to overvalue the virtues of order and authority. And that is what is rendering us incapable of harnessing the potential benefits of networked technology. Industries and governments are wasting incalculable amounts of money and energy in Canute-like resistance to the oncoming wave when what they should be doing is figuring out ways to ride it.

Well worth checking out in full.

Social networking in local gov event

I’m going to be speaking at and chairing an event run by Public Sector Forums this Thursday, which is going to be all about how local authorities could be using social web technology to reach out to citizens.

I’m going to be joined by some great speakers, including my good friends Paul Canning, Tim Davies and Simon Wakeman. You can find the full running order here.

Another person who will be at the event will be Liz Azyan, who will be blogging and tweeting her thoughts on each session. To keep all of this activity together, I’ve made an aggregator which will republish:

  • Blog posts
  • Comments
  • Delicious bookmarks tagged with psfbuzz
  • Tweets tagged with #psfbuzz
  • Flickr photos tagged with psfbuzz

Visit the aggregator at www.psfbuzz.com.

It should provide a great way for people not attending to get something out of the day.

Bookmarks for April 19th through April 26th

Stuff I have bookmarked for April 19th through April 26th:

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