An online notebook
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An online notebook
If you want to get the skinny on what’s going down at WordCampUK, check out the Pageflake thingy.
Here’s some notes from the session at WordCampUK on SEO for WordPress, presented by Nick Garner of Betfair. Will tidy up later with more links and stuff.
Another bit of top notch, innovative digital participation work has come out of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and again it is WordPress magic. This time though, there are all sorts of different bits built into it.
Steph Gray, the main social media man at DIUS explains more:
Some consultations are basically dull. Some are politically-charged. Some are hurried. So when the Science and Society consultation came sauntering along, it was clear this was an opportunity too good to miss. It’s a genuine call for ideas, casting the net wide to improve the way that science is communicated, understood, taught, and recruited for. What can we do to improve trust and confidence in scientists? How can we get more high quality science broadcasting and more intelligent media coverage of science issues? How can science be taught in school in more engaging ways? Interesting stuff.
The main difference between this site and the Innovation Nation one, it seems to me, is that in the latter’s case, the white paper had been written and the consultation done, so the online exercise was more about fine tuning and maybe developing some ideas on how things might be progressed. What Science and Society offers, though, is the chance to have your say before the document is written.
As Simon Dickson notes, one of the key bits of new media funkiness on show is the ability for folk to widgetise the consultation for their own websites. DIUS is asking a whole range of different questions about the way science is taught in schools and elsewhere and provides the platform for others to republish the questions they are interested in so their readers can feed back into the process. It’s a great idea, and fits in totally with my thoughts on trying to improve participation by making government a bit more interesting.
It’ll be fascinating to see what kinds of responses this move produces. I’m still a bit wary of the whole Big Questions approach to consultation: my own feeling is that the constant, small-scale exchanges around a well-managed blog will build something more valuable. But if Big Questions are the way you’re going, this is a very clever way to drive them further.
Other cool bits include a Twitter account, for a bit more responsive interaction, and an embedded Google Calendar so people can find when related events are happening.
Tim Davies also picked up on the site, and noted approvingly:
This approach of enabling citizens to easily take, remix and re-publish government consultations to their networks is worth exploring in many more contexts – not least in promoting positive activities, enabling young people to take, remix and share information about positive activities in their areas with their networks.
DIUS are clearly leading the game in government when it comes to digital participation. The reason they can do this, as Steph has noted elsewhere is because they have the resources to do so. The tech stuff is free or at least damn cheap, but you need the man-power to get it approved and embedded. There is plenty for everyone to learn from DIUS’ example.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, at ReadWriteWeb wrote a piece that caused a certain amount of flurry yesterday, asking whether startups need community managers:
A community manager can do many things (see below) but the most succinct definition of the role that we can offer is this. A community manager is someone who communicates with a company’s users/customers, development team and executives and other stake holders in order to clarify and amplify the work of all parties. They probably provide customer service, highlight best use-cases of a product, make first contact in some potential business partnerships and increase the public visibility of the company they work for.
He’s writing about tech startup companies here, but I do believe that many of the points Marshall makes are equally applicable to online projects started by government or any other organisation. This certainly chimes with a comment Steph made on this blog talking about the success of the recent online consultation exercise undertaken by DIUS:
I’d underline that the value of a Community Manager to bridge the gap between officials and stakeholders or those discussing these issues online has been enormous for us. As government starts to engage in new ways, I hope we start to see more Community Managers embedded in policy teams combining the skills of strategic comms, digital literacy, training/coaching, and stakeholder engagement. I think that’s how we’ll really change government communication online.
In other words, you have to encourage people to get involved, and that uses up a lot of time and needs a dedicated resource. Interesting where Steph places this role within the org chart – embedded in policy teams – this is not a web role, nor an ICT one, nor commuications. The community manager’s eventual aim is to make this stuff a part of business-as-usual, not an add on to people’s existing jobs.
I wrote a while ago about what techniques people can use to facilitate online communities. Here’s the gist so you don’t need to bother reading the other post:
Firstly, the facilitator must encourage discussion on the platform. This can be through seeding discussion by adding background content and then asking a question to try and spark a conversation, for example.
Second, back-channels should be used to ensure the conversation is maintained. For instance, if someone you know who is very knowledgeable about a topic that is being discussed, but isn’t presently engaged in that discussion, then the facilitator should drop them an email or telephone call to get them involved.
Thirdly, the facilitator should be a guide to the platform being used – helping users find the most appropriate way of posting their content. This is especially true of a platform like that I was discussing today, where forums, blogs, wikis and document sharing are all possible, and only really the first and last on that list get used – I’m sure just because folk are used to them and not to some of the newer tools.
Fourth, get people meeting face to face. Facilitation is not just about the online, the offline is just as vital. Social networks are great for bringing people together and getting them to work together, but there is a definite trust element that’s missing until people actually get to meet each other. Facilitators need to be as comfortable introducing people to people face-to-face as they are online. It also helps to always have stuff like coloured post-it notes, sticky dots, glue sticks and magic markers to hand.
Fifth, figure out ways of using the technology to help people get the information they want. For example, hotseating is cool thing to do: find a person who is rather knowledgeable about a subject, get them to write a blog post about it, and then invite people to ask them questions in the comments. Make it a time limited thing, so there is some sense of urgency, and you’re away. Or here’s another: set the community a blogging challenge, where every member has to write a blog post along a common theme, maybe with a suitable prize for the best one. It’s a good way of generating content and getting people used to using the tools.
Ed Mitchell wrote a really interesting post on community management back in January, identifying three main ways of approaching it: centralised, de-centralised and distributed. It’s a big post: print it out and muse over it with a cup of tea. It’s worth it.
The community manager is clearly an important role in the digital participation space. It’s one of many that are being developed by practioners who can’t be sure that they are doing exactly the right thing because precedents have not yet been set. Digital mentors are another, of course, and it’s an especially interesting one because it has been coined by government, in a white paper. How does a digital mentor differ from a community manager, or a social reporter, or a buzz director? I suspect that there is sufficient overlap between all these roles that a common set of resources could be put together to help develop people in any of these roles, maybe with a few modifications here and there.
In the meantime, there are individuals around who can perform the role right now, but not that many. Did I mention I’ll be looking for work soon?
I’ve finally done it.
Today I handed in my notice at work, and once that period is up, I will be freelancing: peddling my social media wares to anyone that will have them. Actually, that isn’t strictly true. Here’s some of the stuff I hope to be doing:
If you, or someone you know, is interested in any of the above do get in touch – I am happy to work contracts or short term little projects.. I’ve a few bits up my sleeve already, but the more the merrier for me, quite frankly!
I’m going to be getting as much work as I can through this blog, as it is certainly the best means available to me to be able to reach the people who might be interested in giving me money. Also, if people read the blog they know what they are going to be getting: enthusiasm, a can-do attitude and a real desire to help people make sense of how the web can help them.
Now starts the fun stuff of setting up a company and getting my head around tax and stuff. Thank God Mrs Briggs has offered to help with the admin.
The Local Government Association has responded to the white paper Communities in Control on behalf of local authorities across the country. They are clearly anxious about finances:
Councils will work with the Government to ensure that any additional responsibilities that councils have as a result of these proposals are properly funded.
and are keen that not too much power goes to the people:
It is through representative democracy that elected councillors make tough decisions based on the interests of residents and this should remain the lynchpin of involving people locally.
Worth reading in full – thanks to Dominic for the link.
There has been quite a lot of interest in the Public Sector Bloggers site I set up recently (and which I really must get around to updating soon), which has been very gratifying. One of the issues with it – and indeed with any process of aggregating content from lots of blogs into one place – is that the sheer weight of content may well get people down a bit.
I wonder if there is any need for a more editorialised type of blog, with multiple authors, writing about government webby issues, maybe in an introductory style. It might not even look like a blog, using a ‘magazine’ style theme for example. It could cover the occasional snippets of news in the web world with how-tos and other guidance, and lots of links to other related content. I don’t see why some content couldn’t just be reposted from people’s individual blogs, to be honest.
To try and avoid having too many articles, though, it could maybe have the content refreshed twice a week, say, so that people only need to visit the site then, rather than feeling they have to check it several times every day to avoid missing something. Obviously RSS and email subscriptions could be available for those that know how.
What do people think? Is there a need for such a site? If there is, who’s in to contribute?
I’ve touched on this before, talking about people liking email more than things on the web because they see email as work and the web as messing around, having fun. It’s interesting because while on the one hand people are always saying that email is ‘broken’, or that there is too much of it; they are also saying that it is still the internet’s killer app, and the best way to build and develop online communities. Which is it?
One rather surprising development in this area happened over the weekend, when Jason Calacanis, the chap who has done as much as anyone else to promote the blog as a communications medium, with his foundation of Weblogs Inc (now owned by AOL), announced he was quitting his blog. What’s more, he was launching an email list that he would use to publish the stuff he would normally blog. He says:
Starting today all of my thoughts will be reserved for a new medium. Something smaller, something more intimate, and something very personal: an email list. Today the email list has about 600 members, I’m going to cut it off when it reaches 750. Frankly, that’s enough more than enough people to have a conversation with. I’m going to try and build a deeper relationship with fewer people–try to get back to my roots.
Now, we should probably not read too much into what a blatent self-publicist like Calacanis gets up to, but this really is an unusual step – not least because it would appear from my short membership of his mailing list that it is a really one-way affair – I can reply to Jason, but not to the whole list. So this really is a Web 1.0 style push medium. It isn’t open or transparent, for you have to be a member to see the archives – i.e. you can’t dip your toe in to see if you would be interested, and there doesn’t seem to be a way for conversations to flow between readers, just between the author and readers.
In a sense, the subscribers to Jason’s list are his audience – and I really thought we had moved on beyond that.
This debate brings to mind a comment Tom Steinberg posted to the UK & Ireland eDemocracy list a little while back when we were discussing the Stratford Council Twitter feed. Tom asked:
As for Straford’s site – it lets people visiting the homepage find out about twitter, but doesn’t have a top-central-located box for gathering email addresses to turn into email updates more akin to the 50,000 leaflets mentioned above. As far as me and my cynical troupe are concerned, that’s an inexcusable prioritsation of buzz word compliance over tried and tested approaches that have far more user recognition. Barack Obama doesn’t do this – why should Stratford?
In other words, everyone – well, except for John McCain – uses email, so that should be the first port of call for online communications. He’s probably right – hence why in my wiki guidance and elsewhere I stress that it’s important to allow people to contribute using whatever method they are comfortable with, even if it is something as uncool as email.
But I would argue that Jason Calacanis is wrong, and that he will soon find his personal mailing list an echo chamber that doesn’t provide the richness of interaction that he had before with his blog.
The WordPress development blog has announced the release of a new version of the world’s best blogging software.
Some of the big improvements include: the ability to compare versions of posts, wiki-style, tracking who changed what – great for multi-user blogs; a new dynamic bookmarklet to help quick posting; the inclusion of Google Gears to speed up the admin interface; and new theme previews which include your content.
There is a video demonstrating the new version:
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Other, smaller changes include:
wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.That’s my morning sorted, then.
Last week, two different consultation exercises were launched by two Whitehall departments, each tackling the issue of how to engage people through the web slightly differently. Firstly, there was DCLG with their blog/twitter/forum combo; second was DIUS, with their funky little CommentPress number. Which is faring better, I wonder?
So far, Hazel Blears’ blog on the DCLG site has seen four posts, one of which included a bit of video, which was nice. The first post has seen the most number of comments, with 14. The subsequent posts have had a comment each, and the latest one none so far. The forum has seen seven replies. On the plus side, though, the Twitter feed has 83 followers, most of whom have been followed in return. This is a useful number and I would hope that the Twitter experiment, if nothing else, continues after the initial 7 days.
What could be done to increase the levels of participation on the blog, though? Here’s a couple of ideas:
This would open people’s eyes up to how this type of online consultation and collaboration could work, reassuring the bloggers that they are being listened to and allowing people to join in conversations started elsewhere.
One disappointing thing is that so far, no-one from the department has responded to any of the blog comments, nor the forum entries. But while several people have been pretty scathing about this short term experiment in online, I still hope that it can succeed as a way of bringing in the views of those who might never normally be involved in this sort of consultation.
Over on the DIUS site, there has been a little more activity, and even better, some of it has come from policy officials. In total, 115 comments have been left on the site, with regular responses from one David Rawlings, who a quick Google reveals is Head of Innovation policy at the department. Great stuff.
The DIUS site will be running until the middle of September, so if it continues at this rate, the Innovation team could have a hell of a lot of stuff to wade through. That’s a good thing though, right?
Really interesting post from Paul Canning, discussing the recent assertion by Richard Steele, SOCITM‘s President, that web should be just another part of IT within organisations.
Paul says:
Web skills are very specific, you need to be across a lot of terrain. You need to understand SEO, usability, web content, have good people skills, be across various and ever changing IT, visual design, accessibility, marketing, PR … Even the very best IT managers don’t have this skill range so they can’t make informed decisions or informed choices across the range of issues which constitute good and most importantly successful web.
Good stuff from Paul, and of course I agree with him, being a web and definitely not an IT person. Indeed, I would a couple of bits to Paul’s list about webbies needing to be excellent communicators, and maybe a real interest in policy is important too.
One of the ideas in the Communities in Control white paper, published last week by the Department for Communities and Local Government, that has attracted a fair amount of attention is that of the ‘Digital Mentors’. Here’s what the paper itself says about them:
Government will pilot a ‘Digital Mentor’ scheme in deprived areas. These mentors will support groups to develop websites and podcasts, to use digital photography and online publishing tools, to develop short films and to improve general media literacy. The Digital Mentors will The digitalalso create links with community and local broadcasters as part of their capacity building, to enable those who want to develop careers in the media to do so. Depending on the success of these pilots, this scheme could be rolled out to deprived areas across England.
This is part of an initiative to help communities take control of their media, to fill the gaps in coverage themelves in a way that takes advantage of the remarkable opportunities that exist with social web tools, to both provide a means of communicating a community’s messages, and to help that community collaborate both internally and with other agencies too. I would argue that such a role is required in all local communities, not just the deprived ones, though it may well be the less well off that need it the most.
What isn’t particularly clear at this stage is who these mentors will be, nor how they will work. Should they be the employees of local authorities, for example? Or should they be volunteers, who perhaps are rewarded for their time in some way? Should they belong to the communities they mentor, or can they be ‘outsiders’?
One option might be for digital mentors to operate out of local colleges, say, and turn it into a real educative experience, or perhaps community centres or village halls would be better locations.
Then, what role should the mentors actually have? Just providing the training on new media, or actually coordinating projects too? It’s interesting that the focus here is on enabling ‘those who want to develop careers in the media to do so’ – what about people who just want to use this stuff to revitalise their local democracy?
I think the role, as fuzzily defined in the white paper, needs to be developed and broadened in scope. In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about a possible process for social media to be used to bring togther the various elements of civic society in a locality. The focus was on social media as an end in itself, like a local social media club, but I think it works for democratic participation too. The main steps I identified were:
The digital mentor could be the person driving this forward in a local area.
I know that there are people really interested in this role and its development, people like David Wilcox and Paul Webster, to name just two. It would be great if the Digital Mentor concept could be designed in the public, between CLG and those willing volunteers who think this could be a great initiative.
Charles Leadbeater – he of We-Think fame – has a piece in this week’s Spectator called ‘The web is the most conservative force on Earth‘.
Given the publication this article was appearing in, I wasn’t sure where it was going, but it turned out to be all about archiving:
Archiving is not regarded by most people as sexy, glamorous or even interesting. Odd then that most of us, and especially the young, hip and trendy, seem to have become avid archivists without even realising it.
My archive, which I keep on the web, and in my computer, mobile phone and iPod, is neither particularly extensive nor interesting: several thousand digital photographs, play-lists of songs, endless dull policy reports, papers and presentations, some internet postings, Facebook friends and connections. Teenagers, however, are archiving their lives as they happen through blog entries and photos taken on camera phones, much of which they organise collaboratively, in semi-public, on the web. We have become a society of mass archiving.
Interesting stuff and worth reading in full.
Paul Canning brings to our attention the case of a sacked blogger at the Welsh Assembly. As reported at WalesOnline:
AN Assembly Government civil servant who was sacked for running a political blog is taking his case to an Employment Tribunal.
Last night a former AM who himself is a regular blogger said he found the decision to dismiss the civil servant “heavy handed”.
The former Assembly Government employee, whose real name has not been disclosed but who ran a blog called Christopher Glamorganshire, provided what readers saw as a neutral running commentary on last year’s coalition negotiations involving Labour and Plaid Cymru.
An Assembly Government spokesman said: “This issue regards a former Welsh Assembly Government employee who was dismissed for activities related to the Glamorganshire Blog that contravened the Civil Service Code. The case went to the Civil Service Appeals Board, which we won, and it is listed for Employment Tribunal in Cardiff later this year.”
It is understood the elements of the Civil Service Code regarded by the Assembly Government as relevant to the case come under sections headed “integrity” and “rights and responsibilities”.
Obviously the material appeared on the blog before the recent guidance was developed and published, however it does show that the need for the guidance has been pressing for some time – it will be interesting if it wil be raised at the tribunal as being part of the blogger’s case. Let’s hope that sense prevails – this kind of heavy handed approach to bloggers doesn’t do anybody any good.
The issue that this case does raise, though, is that of how these guidelines can be applied to those not working in Whitehall. The argument will be made, I am sure, that they apply to anyone who also has to conform to the Civil Service Code, but what about all the public sector workers to whom this does not apply? I think there is a role for the developing Public Sector Webbies/Web Managers’ Group to come up with some guidance for anyone working in the public sector to work to – and to get some recognition from employers on the issue too.
Are our British colleagues missing the forest for the trees? They have a PM and two Ministers tweeting, soliciting comment and petitions online, running blogs and pulling back the curtain – at least somewhat.
That’s infinitely more than any other government in the world.