Tuesday, 10 June, 2014

Bookmarking

I’ve started properly bookmarking again, using Pinboard.

If you want to quickly see the latest things I’ve bookmarked, they are in the right hand sidebar on this blog – just below the email subscription options.

Alternatively you could look at my Pinboard page for everything I have ever bookmarked, and I also have an IFTTT recipe set up to send new bookmarks to my Twitter feed.

How does this differ to daveslist? Good question. My bookmarks are more of a firehose, just anything I find remotely interesting. There are likely to be at least five links every day.

The newsletter, on the other hand, offers the most interesting things I’ve seen recently, with commentary attached. Consider it the executive summary.

#Bookmarking

Monday, 9 June, 2014

Challenges facing local government

I spent a really enjoyable morning today at Devon County Council, facilitating an internal unconference. It was a senior managers’ get together, a regular event, which normally has a proper agenda and proper presentations.

The idea was to turn things around a bit, giving all those in the room the chance to pick the brains of all the others, share what they know, admit to what they don’t, and hopefully pick up a bit of momentum to get something done.

The whole process went down well, and hopefully the Council will be using open space in the future to run this kind of event.

It was an opportunity for me to listen to the current concerns of those people who are having to deliver services in local government, what they see as being the main challenges, and what some of the solutions may be.

The following poorly-expressed points seemed to me to keep cropping up.

  • speed, agility
  • flexibility and responsiveness
  • nature of community, different (probably self identifying) groups need different approaches, internally and externally
  • complexity of landscape. No one size fits all approach. End of universality.
  • development of culture (I prefer ‘development’ to ‘change’…)
  • Collaboration across the organisation, across organisations, across sectors and geographically. Council an enabler not necessarily deliverer
  • big challenges cannot be solved in one go. Must be broken down

I probably ought to spend a bit of time writing these up into something more coherent. In the mean time, feel free to pick away at them.

#Challenges facing local government

Friday, 6 June, 2014

Podcast episode 3 – Helen Reynolds

Here’s the third episode of the podcast, where I chat with Helen Reynolds who helps organisations do great digital stuff at Social for the People, and is an all round good egg.

Apologies to our listener, and to Helen, as my Skype connection dropped at one point in the conversation. See if you can spot where it happened.

Here’s a link to download the original mp3 file if you would like to do that.

If you would like to subscribe to the podcast in your favourite podcasting app, the feed is http://davebriggs.libsyn.com/rss or you can find the podcast on iTunes.

Show notes and related links (in a slightly jumbled order):

#Podcast episode 3 – Helen Reynolds

Monday, 2 June, 2014

Friday, 30 May, 2014

Thursday, 29 May, 2014

Blog academy

I’m running a day long workshop in London on the topic of blogging – might you be interested?

Here’s the skinny:

Join Dave Briggs for a day’s practical, hands-on workshop learning how to be a better blogger!

There are only 10 places available for this workshop, so sign up quickly!

It’s suitable for anyone who wants to start blogging, or who wants to improve their blogging to enable them to meet their goals. Equally, those who want to encourage blogging within their organisations will find this workshop helpful.

The day will cover:

  • Why blogging is a good idea and how it can be used
  • Choosing a platform
  • Setting up a new blog
  • How to write engaging content
  • Ideas for different types of blog posts
  • Using different types of media
  • Practice writing and publishing posts, with constructive critique
  • Post event support by email for those that need it

The event will take place in central London at a venue to be confirmed. Lunch and refreshments will be provided, as will laptops to enable practical work to be undertaken.

Interested? Sign up on Eventbrite. Register before the middle of June and you get a discount!

#Blog academy

Saturday, 24 May, 2014

cloudHQ – fantastic cloud syncing tool

I’ve just found a tool that is making some of my biggest Google woes go away!

It’s called cloudHQ, and it’s really cool. You give it access to your cloud storage accounts – such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Evernote and so on; and it enables you to transfer files between them – whether on a one-off basis or as a continuous synchronisation.

You can also add details of more than one account for the same service, which is dead handy.

There is a free trial, and if all you are doing are one-off transfers you might get away with just using that. I’ve signed up for a Pro account which gives me unlimited data transfers, so I can leave it whirring away in the background.

Here is what I am using it for at the moment:

  1. Transferring all the files in my old Google Drive account into my new one (this was one of my biggest headaches!)
  2. Copying all the photos I have in Dropbox into Google Drive (which I can then make accessible in Google+ and on the photo gallery app on my phone)
  3. Copying all the notes I have in Evernote into a folder on Google Drive as a backup

Here’s a video explaining it better than I can.

Hurrah for cloudHQ!

#cloudHQ – fantastic cloud syncing tool

Friday, 23 May, 2014

Podcast episode 2 – Carl Haggerty

Here’s the second episode of the podcast, where I chat with Carl Haggerty who does digital at Devon County Council, chairs LocalGovDigital and is a keen promoter of reflective practice at unconferences. Here’s a link to Carl’s blog.


Here’s a link to download the original mp3 file if you would like to do that.

If you would like to subscribe to the podcast in your favourite podcasting app, the feed is http://davebriggs.libsyn.com/rss or you can find the podcast on iTunes.

Show notes and related links (in a slightly jumbled order):

#Podcast episode 2 – Carl Haggerty

Wednesday, 21 May, 2014

Google account hell

I’m currently on a big mission to sort my online life out.

I’m simplifying as much as I can. Shutting down sites, consolidating email accounts, deleting old social media guff I never use.

One thing I have been putting off is the Great Google Nightmare.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been using Gmail since it launched as an invite only service a decade ago. My email address, briggs.dave@gmail.com has been a trusty ally over that time. It’s never let me down. I, on the other hand, have strayed.

I didn’t stray far, to be fair. Instead, when I decided I needed an email address for my work, using my own domain name, I chose Google’s service. This is all fine and dandy, except that with Google’s email service comes a Google account. Just like my trusty Gmail account. Only different. I now have two.

I want to get rid of the Google email on my kindofdigital.com domain. Sorting out the email is the easy bit, set up a forward here, some filters and labels there, and I’m done.

But what about all the documents in the dave@kindofdigital.com Google account? The Google+ profile registered to dave@kindofdigital.com? All the apps and services I use that are tied to dave@kindofdigital.com? Apps I have purchased through the Play store with dave@kindofdigital.com?

Even my browser set up is tied to dave@kindofdigital.com and I am struggling to see how I can easily transfer this to my vanilla Gmail account.

I’m sure I will get this all sorted over time, with a bit of irritation and some foot stamping, no doubt. But here’s the moral:

Always use a vanilla Gmail account as your main Google identity. Don’t be tempted to use anything else.

Seriously. Save yourself a load of hassle.

#Google account hell

Tuesday, 20 May, 2014

Dave Coplin’s got a new book out…

…and you really ought to read it.

Dave‘s last book, Business Reimagined, was a cracker. Full of insight, humour and delightfully short. I wrote a bit about it over on WorkSmart.

His new one is called The Rise of the Humans and sounds great. From Dave’s write up:

Essentially, this book continues the conversation we started in Business Reimagined and is my call to action, for both individuals and organisations to become more familiar with the opportunity that the digital deluge places at their feet every single day. As we begin to understand it more, this opportunity will change what it means to be a customer, to be an employee or an employer and, as you will find out, will even change what it means to be human. We can no longer afford the luxury of either ignorance or fear of this potential. We must understand that the digital deluge is not a threat but a gift to our society, but it will be up to us to rise up to the challenge to make it work.

It is bound to be a cracking book, and is now on top of my to be read pile (which currently towers over our house).

You can get it now, in electronic format, for free. If you want a paperback, you’ll need to wait for Amazon to deliver it.

Am hoping to grab Dave soon for a podcast to talk about the book.

#Dave Coplin’s got a new book out…

Monday, 19 May, 2014

An internal email newsletter?

Here’s an idea for those wanting to get some engagement going within your organisation. Send some emails.

Actually, let’s be more specific. Send some really good emails.

People are inundated with email at work, and adding to the burden might sound counter-productive. How about sending an email that reduces the burden though?

Since I’ve been publishing daveslist, I’ve had some great feedback from people. Some of it has been commenting on the links I have shared, but most is just conversation, often responding to the brief introductory paragraph, which is often not particularly tech-related, but a brief note about what I’ve been up to.

It strikes me that email is great way to engage with people, when you get the tone and the content right, and it’s a lot easier for people to just hit ‘reply’ to provide a response, rather than visiting a blog post and filling in a comment form, say.

So how about you start an internal email newsletter within your organisation? Maybe do it weekly, on a Friday, and summarise the important stuff that has been going on that week that people really can’t afford to miss. You don’t even need to use a sophisticated newsletter delivery service like MailChimp – to get started just use the BCC field.

This could take the form of links to useful and relevant blog posts and news items online, or an intranet update that people may have missed.

Or, how about you use your email newsletter to curate the best and most important of all the other emails people may have received, and not quite got round to reading? In other words, saving people the bother of having to work out which are the emails they have to read.

Starting an email newsletter for your colleagues to opt-in to might be a great way to start getting your message across – why not give it a go?

#An internal email newsletter?

Thursday, 15 May, 2014

Podcast episode 1 – Dan Slee

Inspired by my friends Lloyd and Robert, I’m starting a regular-ish podcast. Here’s the first episode, where I chat with all round comms supremo Dan Slee, off of Comms 2.0.

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If you would like to subscribe to the podcast in your favourite podcasting app, the feed is http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:13017131/sounds.rss

Show notes and related links (in a slightly jumbled order):

#Podcast episode 1 – Dan Slee

Bringing an old telly back to life with a Chromecast

Google-ChromecastGoogle’s Chromecast is a neat little device that plugs into the back of a television via the HDMI port, and then is supplied with power through a standards mini-USB charger that you might use with a smartphone.

It then enables you to ‘cast’ content from another device – a laptop, tablet or smartphone – onto the television, assuming the app you are using on said device supports Chromecast.

They are relatively low cost devices – just £30, and work rather effectively. If you have an Android phone, for example, you can play television programmes, movies or YouTube videos on your television set, so you are not reduced to squinting at a tiny screen.

We had an old telly which didn’t have anywhere to go in the house as we had run out of TV points. We could have bought and plugged in a DVD player, perhaps – but who on earth watches DVDs?

Instead, the Chromecast works perfectly. We can watch Netflix and BBC iPlayer (to name just two services) on the big screen, all controlled via whatever device we happen to have to hand.

I hadn’t really thought before about how streaming services like the Chromecast can be seen to “liberate” older tech like televisions from having to be where there is a cable to connect them to the aerial on the roof.

Plus it means I can now watch the World Cup in bed, which has to be a good thing, right?

#Bringing an old telly back to life with a Chromecast

Tuesday, 13 May, 2014

Digital learning materials – any point to video?

Here’s one you can all help me with. When putting together learning materials – particularly aimed at a public sector audience – what’s the best format to use?

More specifically – is there any use in using video? Problems with video in the office include:

  • lack of sound cards / speakers / headphones to hear them
  • lack of access to video hosting sites
  • lack of bandwidth to download them
  • …and so on

For a couple of projects I’m looking at putting together learning resources for people about digital “stuff”, and I am leaning towards just writing lots of blog style bits of text with screenshots, rather than going down the screencast or video route.

It makes it chunkable so people can learn in bits if they choose, and of course text and images are a pretty universal, low bandwidth means of content delivery – they will work fine on whatever screen size, and won’t take ages to download.

Plus, by adding a social element, enabling people to talk about the content and discuss it in the context of their own work and projects, that will help embed the learning a little more.

What do people thing?

#Digital learning materials – any point to video?

Monday, 12 May, 2014

SyncSpace

SyncSpace looks like a fun, useful app:

SyncSpace provides a zoomable drawing space that can be sketched on by multiple collaborators, at any time, over the net. No files to send around, no versions to worry about. You’re all sharing the same whiteboard!

It’s on Android and iOS.

Here’s a video.

#SyncSpace