robert's notes

this blog holds my research notes for interviews and/or interesting articles I've read about social media and political engagement. I hope you can also find some good use for these words

Lend Me Your Ears - Prof. Max Atkinson

study those speakers who most inspire you. Enthusiasm is key.

simplicity, brevity and clairty - 

- a speakers job is to summarise and give life to main points
- key to effective speaking is an objective understanding of the needs of your listeners. 
- having a sense of sequence and structure plays an important role in helping us to make sense of what we're hearing.
- win 'minor victories' by interacting more directly with the audience - best forms being laughter and audience participation.
- look out and make strong eye contact with the audience

- pause with purpose - allow audience to take things in one chunk at a time --> sometimes pausing at counter-intuitive places like between an adverb and a verb can be very effective

With a little advanced planning, it's easy enough to produce dynamic effects with chalk and talk - writing on a flip chart helps audiences follow an argument. It not only constrains speakers to develop their arguments at a comfortable pace for the audience, but can also convey an impression of authority, spontaneity and liveliness.

Rhetorical techniques

1. contrasts - contradictions (not this but that), comparisons (more this than that), opposites (black or white), phrase reversals and repetition, balance and anticipation
2. puzzles and questions - puzzle-solution formats, rhetorical questions
3. lists of three - give the impression of completeness
4. combined formats <-- obviously have an even greater impact. (see pages 198 - 210)

Painting words with pictures

1. imagery, poetics and the oral tradition
2. everyday imagery 
3. similies, metaphors, analogies
4. anecdotes <-- importance of stories. People with reputations as effective speakers invariably excel at using illustrative anecdotes to get their points across - hardly ever take more than a minute to deliver.

Being an effective speaker goes beyond deciding what to say to working out how to say it in a way that's most likely to appeal to your audience.

Using 'for example...' people's heads and eyes move upwards in anticipation of what is to come. Following it up with an illustrative anecdote shows a degree of sensitivity and responsiveness to the audience's problem of understanding. Focus is on making them truly remember 1 key message.

Checklist
1. analysing the audience
2. brainstorming the topic
3. creating the structure
4. saying it creatively
5. creating the visual aids
6. rehearsal
7. preparing for question time 

Local by Social : How local authorities can use social media to achieve more for less

Local by Social: by Andy Gibson

The expectations are growing on councils (and councillors) to engage, work openly, be more accountable and move quicker on issues - and social media/internet tools represent an extraordinary opportunity to do this.

Councils are beginning to use these tools to achieve real value against their objectives, by engaging citizens, listening more and harnessing local energy to help with public activities.

The problem though for councils, is that not engaging now represents a far greater risk than engaging. Citizens will still use these networks to talk about you, whether you add your voice to the conversation or not. These are bottom-up spaces. Citizens therefore expect their council to engage with them on their terms, via their channels, and to be openly available online >> in fact, it is clear that if councils don’t use these tools, the citizens will do it for them, and bypass the council entirely << creates problems in reputation management.

Driven from top (e.g. localism bill) and bottom then, there is a massively strong political context then for doing this.

These sites (tools) aren’t just about sharing knowledge or facts, they are about self-expression and relationships - information is being socialised.

Opportunities - new ways of working, cost savings, service improvements and greater democratic engagement << being online is also amazing at building trust. Even if people don’t engage directly with material from council meetings, the fact that they know they can is still important - and it only takes 1 or 2 citizens to then take this and make it into something like Saddleworth News.

Internal - Within councils, wikis, discussion forums and micro-messaging tools like Yammer are providing dynamic new ways to share info and retain knowledge. They also provide good practise for workers to get competent and confident with speaking online.

Innovation - Councils need to see innovation as a core activity, because it is their future. Failure is only a waste of time if nothing is learnt.

Like so much with what is happening at the moment - what is the alternative? News and opinions about you is circulating already, at the very least you should be listening to this.

Control - their is none (although you can look to influence). The only way to ‘control’ what people are saying about you on social media is to join in the conversation, not as the voice of authority shutting things down, but as a real person engaging openly and honestly with the criticisms. By positioning yourself in the conversation to begin with, and allowing your staff to build relationships with people there, you can reduce the risk of one piece of bad news dominating the debate.

Community - by invigorating the local community, and bringing the conversation to a shared platform, it makes it easier for everyone to talk to each other, saving the council time working out who is saying what, and how to reach them.

Many community organisations and small campaigns would benefit hugely from support and endorsement from their council, and by nurturing innovative projects councils can support the best to become more successful. Lessons learnt here can then be applied in their own work.

Fairness - treating people fairly does not mean giving everyone the same thing; it means meeting them on their own terms - discovering these terms are where internet tools are immense. And in not trying to provide the same service for everyone - we can alleviate pressure on existing structures (and save money).

Council role - councils can, and should, support activities. The most obvious thing they can do is of course listen to what is going on, and contribute information and comment wherever they can. Another easy way to help is to make public data accessible to those who want it - enable people to create for you << councils then can innovators and also innovation enablers.