local government

#GoogleLocalGov

Google UK

Do you work in local government?

Are you free on 7th August?

Fancy popping down to Victoria in London to visit the Google offices?

Oh, and get to hear from the real experts about how to make the most of Google services, whether search, analytics, maps, advertising, widgetising content, and more?

For the princely sum of, er, nothing?

Then you’re in luck.

Pencil that date in your diary. Keep an eye on #googlelocalgov on Twitter. More information will be released as it is confirmed.

This will be a ticketed event, and it will be first-come-first-served when it comes to places. You can’t afford to miss this one!

LocalGovCamp very close indeed!

I can’t think of much other than LocalGovCamp now. Am literally widdly with excitement at what will be a fabulous day.

Despite the disappointment of a few folk having to drop out at this late stage, the demand for places has been such that substitutes have been found – we’re looking at over 120 people turning up to Fazeley Studios on Saturday morning. Fabulous.

Even better will be the great range of talks and discussions taking place. The beauty of open space events is that the agenda is decided by the people attending, so there’s no arbitrary decisions around what people might or might not find interesting. Some of the stuff includes:

  • How to engage online
  • A sneak preview of Help Me Investigate
  • “Encouraging active citizenship may be seem like a good idea, but it isn’t really”
  • The pros and cons of open source
  • Better use of Google Analytics
  • Is twitter worth bothering with
  • The Public Sector Web Professionals group
  • A social media toolkit for local gov
  • Debategraph
  • Less local government, more social innovation? From local government as an institution to local government as a community

…and many others. All of these sessions will be run by people like the people attending them practitioners talking to practitioners, nobody calling themselves experts, just lots of people with a desire to learn and a desire to share.

Don’t forget that even if you can’t be at the event, you can still join in via the blog, the Google Group, twitter and plenty of other online places. Remember, if you are creating online content, make sure you tag it with localgovcamp so we can bring it all together.

I’ve also started a twitter list of everyone attending, so that those new to twitter can find a bunch of useful people to start talking to. If you are coming, please add yourself. If you aren’t, then start following those on the list so you can keep up with what’s happening!

Finally, a few thank yous to people who have been so remarkably helpful in putting this event together: Vicky Sargent of Boilerhouse and Socitm; Nick Booth; Sammy Williams of Birmingham City Council; Kate Manion at Fazeley Studios; and of course everyone who has contributed via the Google Group or on Twitter.

Massive thank-yous as well to the supporters of the event, without whose sponsorship, this would simply have not got off the ground. You can find them listed on the blog’s supporters page. They are all good people, and should be praised for associating themselves with an event which is quite different from most others.

I doubt I will be back here again until after Saturday. Hopefully then I will be writing about what a success the day was, and where we will be going next with this.

Social networking in local gov event

I’m going to be speaking at and chairing an event run by Public Sector Forums this Thursday, which is going to be all about how local authorities could be using social web technology to reach out to citizens.

I’m going to be joined by some great speakers, including my good friends Paul Canning, Tim Davies and Simon Wakeman. You can find the full running order here.

Another person who will be at the event will be Liz Azyan, who will be blogging and tweeting her thoughts on each session. To keep all of this activity together, I’ve made an aggregator which will republish:

  • Blog posts
  • Comments
  • Delicious bookmarks tagged with psfbuzz
  • Tweets tagged with #psfbuzz
  • Flickr photos tagged with psfbuzz

Visit the aggregator at www.psfbuzz.com.

It should provide a great way for people not attending to get something out of the day.

Day 1 of Councillors Connected

The first day of the Councillors Connected online conference was really successful, with some excellent contributions from a whole host of different people. Here are some of my highlights:

A fantastic debate about the meaning of local to different people. Cllr Mike Causey kicked things off, asking

There’s a lot of good aspirations around social networking, the internet, and local government. However – and I write this as a Conservative councillor – even the very good paper from the Conservative party recently, outlining their vision for local government, does not address the fundamental thinking that must exist behind any such proposal – how local is local?

Conrad Taylor added to this theme:

I live in Southwark, but if I need to dispose responsibly of an old video machine and some batteries, my “local” waste disposal centre is in Mercury Way (Lewisham). Transport also shapes what is “local”: it’s easier for me to get to Waterloo than many places “more local” on an as-the-crow-flies basis because it is a single bus journey to Waterloo.

Paul Canning urged local authorities to make use of existing online communities and not to create new online spaces:

I think that anything which is funded and set up needs to firstly engage with this existing local discussion infrastructure and not appear to replace it. Many of these blogs and forums in my town have an audience, a community of interest. For example we have a very active local youth dominated forum mainly about music but also about activism and local issues.

After some more discussion, Mike Causey came back with his considered response:

I want to post how much my thinking is helped by this thread. And, at the risk of being accused of thinking up new jargon, the above ‘word’ might be a way to express the germ of an idea in my head. Especially the concept of local being so individual, and the potential of web and social media innovation to build bridges between this and artificial constructs and areas of our councils.

Excellent stuff, and a great way of showing how online discussions can be used to refine thinking and develop new ideas. I have hardly scratched the surface of this debate though, to see it in all its glory you will need to join the CoP.

Some other great threads on the day:

Today looks like it will be another cracking day, with Hugh Flouch of Harringay Online already posting a great piece on Community Websites: Friend or Foe?

Councillors connected

Over the next three days, a rather special event is taking place online – a virtual conference for council officers and members to learn about the benefits of using social media to engage with communities.

It’s happening on the IDeA Community of Practice platform, which does mean there are a couple of hoops to jump through before you can start posting. But it will be worth it!

Some of those contributing to the debates and discussions are:

  • Councillor Richard Kemp, of Liverpool City Council, Deputy Char of the LGA Executive and Leader of the LGA Liberal Democrat Group
  • Councillor James Cousins, of the London Borough of Wandsworth and co-founder of the Cllr Tweeps site
  • Dominic Campbell of FutureGov Consultancy
  • Shane McCracken of Gallomanor and CivicSurf (blogging mentor project for councillors)
  • Stuart Bruce, Wolfstar PR, former councillor
  • Hugh Flouch of Haringay Online (hyper-local networking site)
  • Simon Wakeman, Head of Marketing at Medway Council

I am helping out by facilitating some of the discussions and adding useful tidbits to the various conversations that will be going on. Hope to see lots of people joining in!

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