Busy, busy

Sorry for the light blogging of late, but I have been jolly busy of late, not least with moving house. I’m now resident in Cottenham, near Cambridge. Do come and say hello if you are ever nearby.

Here’s a couple of morsels to chew on before I can get back in the blogging swing of things:

  • I’ve started work at DIUS! I’m doing two days a week working for Steph Gray, building WordPress sites and helping implement some other social media goodness, including some training for civil servants. Should be fun!
  • Since moving to Cambridge I have wanted to see if a similar social media scene could be started here as is happening in London and Birmingham. Maybe the coworking collective could be the start of that.
  • Tomorrow (Wednesday 5th November) I’ll be at Public Sector ICT 2008 near Northampton with Steve Dale, running a social web workshop which no doubt will feature the beautiful game at some point.
  • I haven’t forgotten about ReadWriteGov and I promise that some content from the day – which was a rip-roaring success, by the way – will go up on the blog soon. Before the end of the week? I should hope so. Also, look out for some new RWG events near you soon!
  • Public Sector Forums are running a GovWeb type event on the 4th December in Edgbaston. I’ll be talking about social web stuff there. It will be great – so do sign up for it. More details on that soon.
  • Finally, welcome to Twitter, Bracknell Forest Council!

Bookmarks for October 25th through October 28th

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 25th through October 28th:

The UKGovWeb Twitterverse

The real value of Twitter is in the network, and if you are just starting out with it, and don’t have many people to follow, or much of a following yourself, it can seem a bit quiet, depressing and pointless. As you build up your network, though, suddenly things change and it becomes a vital communication tool.

So, if you are a public sector worker wanting to make the most of this great network, you might need a bit of help tracking down some people to start following and interacting with. Here’s that help! I’ve tried to break the various groups up into categories, to help you find who you want.

If I have missed anyone out or put them in the wrong place, please let me know in the comments! There’s gotta be more tweeting politicians, surely?

Central Government Official Feeds

Civil Servants

Local Authority Official Feeds

Local Authority Web Teams

Local Authority Officers

Other Public Sector Bodies & Officers

Politicians

Freelancers, Consultants etc

ReadWriteGov is this Wednesday!

This Wednesday sees the first of hopefully many ReadWriteGov events taking place at Peterborough City Council.

It’s going to be a great day, with some excellent speakers, all of whom are working within the public sector trying to get things done. They are:

  • Dominic Campbell who will be speaking about the work Barnet Council are doing to better connect with their citizens
  • Steph Gray from DIUS who will be talking about making social media projects happen in government
  • Hadley Beeman from the London Deanery who will be discussing her project to get social networking and collaboration happening in the health sector

If you would like to come, there are still one or two places available – find out more here. Tickets are jolly cheap for this sort of thing, at just £25 for public sector folk.

Even if you can’t make it though, you can still receive some ReadWriteGov love. For instance, you can visit the blog, where after the event we will be posting content from the day, including presentations from speakers, audio, photos and maybe some video too.

We also now have a Twitter account, through which you can hear about what is happening and pass comments or ask questions during the day. Unlike a lot of events that offer this kind of thing, I really will be tracking what people are saying and making sure the less offensive questions get asked!

Just follow @readwritegov to join in!