local government

Dave @ PSF

I’m going to be talking to a bunch of public sector folk on Thursday as part of a Public Sector Forums event entitled Public Sector Websites – Essential Issues for Managers, Developers and Others.

It should be a good day – as well as me, other speakers include:

  • Gavin Woods – Business Development Manager, BrowseAloud
  • Jack Pickard, Web Services Manager, Public Sector Forums
  • Dan Champion – Champion Internet Solutions
  • Simon Halberstam – ‘Weblaw’ & Partner, Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP
  • Simon Wakeman – Head of Marketing, Medway Council
  • Peter Barton – Lincolnshire County Council

My bit is on ‘Social Networking and other Tools of Engagement’. Here’s the blurb:

Dave will begin to identify what the social web can do, and help equip the delegation with the skills and tools that will enable them to succeed using those tools.

Should be a good day. If you aren’t already booked up, what are you waiting for? šŸ˜‰

Do councils need a website at all?

Simon Wakeman poses a potentially controversial question on his blog:

One idea thatā€™s been playing on my mind for the past few days is whether a council needs a website at all.

Initially this might seem like complete heresy. Surely a public sector body providing services to local residents needs a website to help them communicate and provide online services to their residents?

But do they need a website in the sense that we might see a traditional ā€œdestinationā€ website – a place where people go to find out information and do council stuff online?

One of the things that is making me challenge some assumptions is the increasing focus on place in local public services. For the uninitiated this means that thereā€™s much less focus on the organisation providing particular local services (eg council, police, primary care trustā€¦) and more on the organisations working together to provide services in a coherent way that suits residents and businesses, not service providers.

So why a council website alongside a police website alongside a primary care trust website?

He goes on to make some further really interesting points. Well worth a read.

I’m also thinking I need to add Simon to the Public Sector Bloggers list…

Unlocking the Power of Local Government Information

The Power of Information Taskforce has shared some great advice on their blog for local authorities to help them share their data with people who want to do interesting stuff with it.

It includes making it clear to folk exactly what they can do with the data, using a single common licence to reduce confusion and recommends the use of the PSI’s ‘Click-use‘ licence.

Building networks in Twitter

Neil Williams has a nice post about the way he has built up his network using Twitter:

Twitter, the micro-blogging site to rule them all, has introduced me to more relevant contacts more quickly than any other web 2.0 tool. Or other human being for that matter.

Some people just don’t like Twitter, and that’s fair enough, although I think that much of the time it’s more that they don’t like the way some people use it. One example of terrific use of it, though, comes from local government, of all places.

Quite a few local authorities have Twitter feeds now, as an extra channel of communication between the council and the folk who live in the area. OK, so there are unlikely to be that many Twitter users in each authority’s locality, but as an add-on bit of comms stuff, it’s pretty cool.

However, quite a few of the web teams behind these feeds have set up extra ones, which represent just the webbies themselves. So, not a feed with information about council, but actualy with news of what the web guys are doing and which they use to talk ides through with others. These feeds are seeing a considerable amount of activity and are increasing the interactions between these teams to an extent which I really don’t think happened before.

What’s even better though is the fact that others are being drawn into these conversations as well – it being Twitter, this is no walled garden. So when one local gov web team asks what people think about some of the stuff they are doing, they get responses from not just other local authority folk but also feedback from people like me, who might have a different perspective on things.

It’s a great example of the use that these social networks can bring, as long as you approach them in an open, and collaborative way, of course.

The local gov web team twitter feeds are:

  • http://twitter.com/sdcwebteam
  • http://twitter.com/shcinternetteam
  • http://twitter.com/SBCDevTeam

Have I missed any?

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