Get posts by weekly email:
Canada’s social media policy
Well worth checking out if you are designing your own organisation’s policy on this stuff.
Dave Briggs
An online notebook
Dave Briggs
An online notebook
Wednesday, 30 November, 2011
Tuesday, 29 November, 2011
What happened to November?
April may well be the cruellest month, but for me November was the busiest – and the illest (as in, I’ve been poorly. I’m not starting to talk “street”, you’ll be pleased to know*) as well.
Kind of Digital seems to have had time to get settled in now, and we’ve so much work on it’s meaning that I have no time for blogging or emailing any more, which is a real shame – even with the team growing all the time. I’m looking forward to some time over Christmas to get my thoughts together and start publishing here a bit more often.
Here’s a quick run through some of the stuff we’ve been doing this month:
- I had a lovely trip to Oslo and met with representatives from all the ministries making up the central government there to talk about how we do digital in the UK and what the two sides could learn from each other. There’s a proper blog post brewing on this one.
- UKGovCamp tickets were released and sold out in a matter of minutes. The two day format seems to have gone down well with most, and we should see some real outputs from the event this year. We still need sponsors, and if you are interested in being involved, do drop me a line.
- We’ve been beavering away on a great project for Consumer Focus which will hopefully emerge soon. It’s an online database of digital engagement methods, which we will be developing to include case studies and links to examples. Searching will be done by choosing various variables from dropdowns and sliders, so you can choose the type of interaction you want, the demographics you want to reach and so on, and a list of the best methods for you will then be presented.
- We’ve also been covering some events for the LGA as part of their healthy communities programme. This involved live blogging keynotes speakers, video interviews with various people involved, taking photos of the action and tweeting updates as well. All the content is presented on a microsite which we developed and hosted, and having done two events in Bristol and London, we’re next up at the late event in Leeds on 8th December. If you’d like to get your events documented in this way, you know where I am.
That’s probably about it. We’ve another couple of busy weeks in December coming up and then things wind down for the festive period. I’m looking forward to it!
* Yes, I know. I’m turning into Alan Partridge.
Monday, 31 October, 2011
Crowdsourcing Big Society in South Holland
I’ve written a couple of times about the WordPress based ideas crowdsourcing tool we’ve been working on at Kind of Digital, which is called CiviCrowd. We’re delighted that it’s now being used out in the open by South Holland District Council, to find the ideas people have to improve their local community.
Ideas are entered by users using a simple online form, moderated, and then when published others can comment on them, rate them and share them on their own networks.
Part of the driver for this project is that all councillors in South Holland now have a designated ward budget to spend on local projects. This site is seen as being a key way of getting people to share those ideas in a simple and straightforward way.
There are already a bunch of ideas on the site, and that’s before it has been promoted in the Council newsletter and the local paper – that should be happening in the next couple of weeks.
If there’s anyone else out there that could use a site like this – you know where I am!
Thursday, 20 October, 2011
What I’ve been reading
I find this stuff so that you don’t have to.
- Getting the digital debate going – Jimmy Leach announces the FCO's conference on cyberspace. Sounds interesting!
- Mid year review: the state of DH digital – Great honest review of activity in digital at the Dept Health
- Ofsted Parent View – Interesting "Parent's Opinion" style school feedback site from Ofsted.
- Staff, social media policies and managing risk – Good stuff from Simon Wakeman on the need for organisations to have a clear approach to social media and networking.
- Trimming the long tail – the danger of stripping back our websites – Interesting addition to the debate around the top task focus on local government websites.
- Introduction to Databases – Stanford University – Free online course. Interesting!
- Thinktanks are in crisis. To survive, they must become ‘do tanks’ – "For thinktanks to be effective, they must be imaginative and radical. But a funding crisis is making them increasing bland."
You can find all my bookmarks on Pinboard.
Wednesday, 19 October, 2011
Introduction to Public Sector Digital Engagement LONDON & SE
Tuesday 25th October 2011
Feedback from previous Digital Engagement workshop
- The workshop provided me with a better understanding of the advantages & pitfalls of social media – Tourism Development Officer, Ceredigion County Council
- The workshop was informative and lent itself well to interaction with well thought out activities – PR Officer, Coleg Morgannwg
- Useful insights and experiences shared. Very knowledgable and practical. – Information Systems Consultant, Newport City Council
- Dave is very engaging and informative – E-Communications Officer, Mid & West Wales Fire & Rescue Service
- Very engaging and knowledgable – Head of Consumer Strategy, Remploy
- Interesting. Good use of examples. Relaxed interactive discussions. Good mix of activities & discussions – PR Officer, Coleg Morgannwg
We are delighted to announce this workshop introducing Public Sector organisations to the opportunity offered by the web and social media to enable effective engagement with citizens and communities.
Facilitated by Kind of Digital’s Director, Dave Briggs, who has a wealth of experience advising government on digital engagement at all levels; from small local authorities to 10 Downing Street – attendees will come away with a full grasp of the background and potential of this work as well as a practical toolkit to get underway.
The agenda, a blended mixture of engaging talks, group discussion and practical exercises, will include the following sessions:
- How local authorities can use the web and social networks to engage citizens and communities
- Case studies of good practice use of emerging technology to engage by those involved in local government
- How to develop a digital engagement strategy for your work
- Choosing the right tools and approach to meet your objectives
- Getting around organisational barriers to implementing your plan
- Further support
As well as the training on the day, attendees will benefit from post-event support and learning. This includes exclusive access to a follow-up web conference and an online support forum.
Click here to book your place.
AGENDA
9.30am: Registration
10.00am: Introductions and housekeeping
10.15am What is digital engagement, and why is it important?
* The background to digital engagemen
* The opportunities it offers for local government
10.45am: Introducing the digital engagement toolkit
* What are the key tools?
* How have they been used across the public sector
11:15am: The importance of a strategic approach
* Why having a strategic approach to social media activity matters
* The best way to balance strategy and experimentation
11.30am: Coffee break
11.45pm: Strategy development workshop – writing your own digital engagement strategy
* Objectives
* Implementation
* Evaluation
* Risk management
1.00pm: Lunch break
1.45pm: Overcoming barriers
* What are the blockers in many organisations for getting social media activity going?
* How to manage them
2.15pm: Planning a social media campaign exercise
* Group exercise to design effective social media projects, using the right tools and involving the right people
3.45pm: Coffee break
3.55pm: Social media question time
* An opportunity to ask questions of the group and facilitator to work out issues in more depth
4.25pm: Close and next steps
* Further online support: webinars and forum
4.30pm: Workshop ends
Delegate Costs : If you book your place before 19th August, you receive the benefit of an early bird discount, so don’t delay!
Early bird price – £200 + VAT
Standard price – £250 + VAT
Address:
CCT Venues Smithfield
2 East Poultry Avenue
London
EC1A 4PT
Map and Directions
Start Time: 9:30 am
End Time: 4:30 pm
Tuesday, 18 October, 2011
The Twitter guide, updated!
One of the more popular things I have written is the guide to using Twitter in the public sector, published by my good friends at Learning Pool.
It was first produce a couple of years ago and was due an update, which has finally happened!
You can download the new version from the Learning Pool website – all for free, of course.
It would be good to get some feedback on the guide, and to hear what might be good to add to the next revision.
Don’t forget the Kind of Digital one page guides to various social media tools, which might be of use too!
Thursday, 13 October, 2011
Getting digital engagement right
Today I gave a talk at the CIPR public services communications conference. In case they are handy, here are the slides:
Getting digital engagement right
View more presentations from Kind of Digital.
Monday, 10 October, 2011
What you really need to know about the internet
Lovely interview with John Naughton about the themes of his upcoming book. Worth getting everyone you know to watch this!
Saturday, 8 October, 2011
Shelter Housing Database
Another useful open data visualisation resource, this time from Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.
The Shelter Housing Database“brings together government data on housing need, supply, affordability and other issues at a local, regional and national level”, allowing you to produce graphs and download data in a nice user friendly way.
Could be a very helpful resource for people working in and around housing issues.
Friday, 7 October, 2011
Birmingham Civic Dashboard
The Birmingham Civic Dashboard is a neat project from the City Council that reports the requests made for services from the organisation and visualises them in interesting ways, such as by plotting them on a map.
It was funded by NESTA as part of the Make It Local programme, which also produced such excellence as the Sutton Bookswap and Kirklees’ Who Owns My Neighbourhood?
The Civic Dashboard aims to:
…make public, data relating to what issues people are reporting to the council. The belief being that when looked at on a map and in real-time the accumulation of data would provide and insight into the issues facing both the citizens of Birmingham and the council itself as it responds to the issues raised.
Interesting stuff!
Monday, 3 October, 2011
Houses and clouds
The Government Digital Service blog is essential reading. Two recent posts well worth a look:
The phrase “not a CMS” has become a bit of a joke around the GovUK office (to the point where more than a few people were humming Once In A Lifetime), but it’s a key part of our approach. The Single Domain will include several components that enable publishing on the web but they’re part of a much broader ecosystem of tools wired together using APIs and designed to be constantly iterated to focus on user need. As we began to unpack what that means it became clear that we were going to need custom software.
Dr. Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, attends seminar at No. 10 Downing Street
Dr. Vogels defined cloud computing as “a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ across the Internet to multiple external customers”. Calling on his experience from across the globe he outlined how the flexibility and resilience offered by clouds has helped to transform some government instances via the idea of software as a service and the advent of reactive charging models. He gave the example of Recovery.gov in the US as just one of over 100 Government sites using cloud hosting.
Friday, 30 September, 2011
Being good at work
Lovely post from Stephen Hale:
I think the culture and tools of social networking can go a long way to improve how people manage and share knowledge inside an organisation, and increase individuals’ productivity at work. Lots of people could be a little bit more productive if they used more of behaviours and the tools of social networking routinely at work.
Personally, I am much better at my job because of social tools. I’m better informed, often helped by others, better connected, more grateful, and more ready to share my own thoughts than I would be without tools like Yammer, Twitter and blogs.
Monday, 26 September, 2011
The problem with the intranet
I sometimes think there are a few too many of these infographic things floating around, but I thought this was a really interesting one!
Friday, 23 September, 2011
Introduction to Public Sector Digital Engagement LONDON & SE
Tuesday 25th October 2011
Feedback from previous Digital Engagement workshop
The workshop provided me with a better understanding of the advantages & pitfalls of social media – Tourism Development Officer, Ceredigion County Council
The workshop was informative and lent itself well to interaction with well thought out activities – PR Officer, Coleg Morgannwg
Useful insights and experiences shared. Very knowledgable and practical. – Information Systems Consultant, Newport City Council
Dave is very engaging and informative – E-Communications Officer, Mid & West Wales Fire & Rescue Service
Very engaging and knowledgable – Head of Consumer Strategy, Remploy
Interesting. Good use of examples. Relaxed interactive discussions. Good mix of activities & discussions – PR Officer, Coleg Morgannwg
We are delighted to announce this workshop introducing Public Sector organisations to the opportunity offered by the web and social media to enable effective engagement with citizens and communities.
Facilitated by Kind of Digital’s Director, Dave Briggs, who has a wealth of experience advising government on digital engagement at all levels; from small local authorities to 10 Downing Street – attendees will come away with a full grasp of the background and potential of this work as well as a practical toolkit to get underway.
The agenda, a blended mixture of engaging talks, group discussion and practical exercises, will include the following sessions:
- How local authorities can use the web and social networks to engage citizens and communities
- Case studies of good practice use of emerging technology to engage by those involved in local government
- How to develop a digital engagement strategy for your work
- Choosing the right tools and approach to meet your objectives
- Getting around organisational barriers to implementing your plan
- Further support
As well as the training on the day, attendees will benefit from post-event support and learning. This includes exclusive access to a follow-up web conference and an online support forum.
Click here to book your place.
AGENDA
9.30am: Registration
10.00am: Introductions and housekeeping
10.15am What is digital engagement, and why is it important?
* The background to digital engagemen
* The opportunities it offers for local government
10.45am: Introducing the digital engagement toolkit
* What are the key tools?
* How have they been used across the public sector
11:15am: The importance of a strategic approach
* Why having a strategic approach to social media activity matters
* The best way to balance strategy and experimentation
11.30am: Coffee break
11.45pm: Strategy development workshop – writing your own digital engagement strategy
* Objectives
* Implementation
* Evaluation
* Risk management
1.00pm: Lunch break
1.45pm: Overcoming barriers
* What are the blockers in many organisations for getting social media activity going?
* How to manage them
2.15pm: Planning a social media campaign exercise
* Group exercise to design effective social media projects, using the right tools and involving the right people
3.45pm: Coffee break
3.55pm: Social media question time
* An opportunity to ask questions of the group and facilitator to work out issues in more depth
4.25pm: Close and next steps
* Further online support: webinars and forum
4.30pm: Workshop ends
Delegate Costs : If you book your place before 19th August, you receive the benefit of an early bird discount, so don’t delay!
Early bird price – £200 + VAT
Standard price – £250 + VAT
Address:
CCT Venues Smithfield
2 East Poultry Avenue
London
EC1A 4PT
Map and Directions
Start Time: 9:30 am
End Time: 4:30 pm
Tuesday, 20 September, 2011
Brilliant free ebook on online community building
The marvellous Rich Millington is giving away a fabulous ebook on developing online communities.
Rich’s blog, Feverbee, is packed full of great hints and tips, and I recommend you subscribe to that.
All you have to do to get the ebook is to sign up to the mailing list for his Pillar Summit online learning course during September – just a couple of weeks left, so get in quick!
And yes, this is a great way of getting people to sign up to a newsletter like this!
Thursday, 15 September, 2011
Networked Neighbourhoods: effective localism or narrow insularity?
My friends at LGIU, The Hansard Society and Networked Neighbourhoods are running a free event next month in London that looks dead good:
Wednesday 19 October, 18.30 – 20.00
Thatcher Room, Portculis house, Westminster
LGiU, Networked Neighbourhoods and the Hansard Society are putting on a free event in Parliament on Weds 19th Oct.
We will be exploring the ‘relocalisation’ of the web and debating whether hyperlocal and community websites a vital democratic tool or if they lead to insularity out of step with an increasingly globalised world?
Panel:
- Jonathan Carr-West – Local Government Information Unit
- Natasha Innocent – Director of Community Partnerships, Race Online
- Kerry McCarthy MP
- Hugh Flouch – Networked Neighbourhoods
Chair:
- Dr Andy Williamson – Independent digital strategist
Jonathan and Hugh will also discuss some of the early findings from the ‘Residents Online’ research project. If you are a Councillor or council officer and would like to take part in the survey, more information can be found here.
Tickets
To register, please email hans_admin@hansard.lse.ac.uk, or book online or phone 020 7438 1216.
If this then that
Here’s another cool little tool. ifttt, or ‘if this, then that’ is a way of automating tasks across your social networks. It describes itself as ‘digital duct tape’.
It basically allows you to set rules and actions to happen whenever you interact online.
One example described on the site is creating a task that whenever a photo is uploaded to Instagram, it should also be added to your Dropbox account.
Just to test it, I’ve created a task that emails me everytime someone mentions me on Twitter. Not particularly useful, or unique, but the process for creating tasks is very user friendly, and the potential is huge, with lots of different services included, such as Facebook, Google Reader, Foursquare, Delicious, Tumblr, WordPress… the list goes on.
It’s a cool idea and I am sure that people more imaginative than I could come up with some great uses of it!
Trello, neat organising tool
Apologies for the light blogging this week, I’ve been doing a lot of travelling about.
Still, I came across Trello yesterday, a cool and lightweight planning tool. It allows you to create lists of actions, which can be filled in with all sorts of information, and dragged and dropped into different orders.
Here’s a video explaining it further:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaDf1RqeLfo
Well worth a play for simple collaboration and project management.
Wednesday, 7 September, 2011
What we’re working on
A quick note to mention some of the projects Kind of Digital is working on.
CiviCrowd
This is the name we have given to our WordPress-powered ideas crowdsourcing platform. South Holland District Council are going to be using the service to encourage people to suggest ideas for projects that will help their communities.
This will be linked to the ward budgets that councillors there have been allocated, with the CiviCrowd providing a mechanism for people to suggest ideas to their councillors.
The site should be launching in the next few weeks, and I’ll be sure to let you know exactly when that happens!
Lincolnshire coastal cultural SMEs
This is a project we are working on with Lincolnshire County Council, to provide support to small and medium sized enterprises in the arts and culture sector, that are based on Lincolnshire’s coasts. It’s all about providing training and guidance to these organisations to help them use technology like the web, social media, and also innovative hardware to promote what they do.
This is a year long project, so I’ll be posting occasional updates here on progress as we go along, and I’m really pleased to have Fraser Henderson and Tim Wilson on board to help deliver it.
Alconbury Airfield
An interesting one this, as we are working with the regeneration company Urban and Civic (warning: flash-heavy website!) to help them engage online as they develop the Alconbury Airfield site near Huntingdon.
We’re building an online engagement hub, to allow people to provide the sort of feedback usually only received during traditional open day style events, as well as working with the team to help them develop digital engagement strategies, policies and systems to make the most of online discussion of the project and the wider area.
If you’re looking at running a project remotely similar to these, and need a helping hand, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
ACAS’ social networking guidance
ACAS – the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, who you’ve probably heard of on news reports about negotiations between employers and unions – have published some guidance for employers on how to manage staff use of these sites at work.
Smart phones, internet, tweeting, blogging – we have accepted all of these innovations, and many more, as part of our working lives, helping us to work more flexibly, stay in touch for longer and respond to each other more quickly.
But is it all good news? Some estimates report that misuse of the internet and social media by workers costs Britain’s economy billions of pounds every year and add that many employers are already grappling with issues like time theft, defamation, cyber bullying, freedom of speech and the invasion of privacy.
So how should employers respond to the challenges posed by social networking tools at work?
New research from the Institute for Employment Studies, commissioned by Acas, advises employers to:
- draw up a policy on social networking
- treat ‘electronic behaviour’ in the same way you would treat ‘non-electronic behaviour’
- react reasonably to issues around social networking by asking ‘what is the likely impact on the organisation?’
Worth checking out.