BarcampUKGovweb

Am very excited about the forthcoming BarCamp for UK government web types. In fact, I think the remit is probably going to expand beyond government into all areas of not for profit web work.

Jeremy Gould, of the Whitehall Webby blog, seems to have kicked things off with his post:

My proposal was to run a barcamp event, where those who want to participate in  developing ideas, sharing their expertise and swapping tips can come together as a community. For those not familiar with the barcamp concept, check out the wikipedia page. The key point is that you come if you have something to offer and you participate, rather than simply observe.

I’m delighted to report that they agree, so I’m pleased to seed the message here that we aim to have the event run across the last week of January 2008 (Saturday 26th/ Sunday 27th). I say ‘aim to have the event run’ because it will only work with the input, energy and enthusiasm of the participants. We have suggested a proposition and date, we’re hoping that enough people will want to be part of this to come along and also to help organise the event.

The story was soon picked up by David Wilcox, who describes it very well, with Jeremy

inviting us to help transform government by sharing expertise in the use of social media tools.

As well as the traditional BarCamp wiki (hosted on the excellent, and free, PBwiki) today I set up an event on FaceBook and a Google group for mailing list discussions. Hopefully more social media tie ins will be possible once photos and videos are being taken at the event – they can be shared through the common ‘BarcampUKGovweb’ tag and maybe some groups and channels.

One of the cute things about Barcamps is the fact that every attendee is expected to present. I’ve put the hugely vague topic of online social tools, community building, using social media to improve engagement down as my area – lord only knows what I’ll actually say. Any suggestions, let me know.

Hello world!

I know, I know. It seems like I start a new blog every 5 minutes. But this is different. This time, I’m staying put.

The whole FEconnect thing didn’t work for me, in the end. This was a big shame, because the blog proved pretty popular quite quickly. But what I realised was that there wasn’t any FE content on there. When I thought about it more, I realised there probably never would be. I’m better writing generally about web 2.0 and social media, how it can be applied to community building and online collaboration, without the added hassle of tying it into a specific sector.

So, DavePress. Non-sector specific. It’s just about me, and what I think, what I am interested in. I’m hoping that all the people who read LGNewMedia, FEconnect, and the various other bits I have done will tune in here and find stuff that will interest them. I’m sure they will.

The blog is still being built, but I will start adding content from now. Hope it’s useful.

Success!

Well, I was successful in my interview. So, from sometime in October, I will be a Change Manager at the Information Authority. My role is going to be a really exciting one:

Establishing, supporting and maintaining communities of providers and data users to support the development and management of information and data standards for the FE sector…

Provide online and face-to-face facilitation to enable and then manage the process of defining, assessing and agreeing changes to the information standards

It’s my first paid role in community facilitation, and probably the closest I have ever come to having a job about which I am truly passionate. Exciting times.

Of course, I’ll be leaving the local government sector, which raises a question about the future of LGNewMedia, which has always had an obvious lg focus – even down to the name and URL.

I’m going to be starting a new blog, with a focus on the further education sector. The content will still be quite similar to that here: the social media and web 2.0 news will still be popping up, for example, and much of the stuff about community building can be applied to any sector.

The new blog will be called FEconnect, which is already mostly built, though there are a few jobs still to do. The feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/feconnect so please subscribe to receive updates as soon as the blog starts for real.

So where does that leave LGNewMedia? Well, I will certainly leave it up here until the domain expires, at which point I will probably archive all the posts at my personal and historical blog. That is unless there is someone out there in local government who fancies taking it over. I would be happy to continue to pay for the hosting and the domain in the future if there is someone who’ll take the time to regularly update the blog. You would be getting a well established blog with a number of regular readers by RSS and visitors to the site.

I’ll keep maintaining LGSearch myself, and will continue to coordinate the localgovglossary so it would only really be the blog that you would be responsible for.

If you are interested, please drop me a line at dave@change2.org. Thanks!

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