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

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.

some notes from the Local by Social online conference - 3-9th Nov

Hyperlocal – a web site covering a small community of interest

Hugh Flouch – best examples come when online activity is blending with the real world. Research also suggests that the community/voluntary led participation initiatives tend to have the biggest impact on decision makers.

Giles Gibson – the big asset that has yet to be tapped is local knowledge and expertise. Harness that and service delivery gets far simpler and more effective, local democracy can start to be taken off the life-support machine and we can deliver more for less.  Demographics are important – dictate levels of participation.

Dave Briggs – the opportunity here is for local councils to tap into existing communities to use them as focus groups or sounding boards, for quick, cheap, informal and effective engagement or consultation.

Carrie Bishop – people doing something for themselves that strengthens their sense of community. Directness and honesty online are vital.

Ingrid Koehler – the more we can help people to get used to the tools and understand that we all make mistakes and everybody’s learning… the better it will be. Makes #localgov vulnerable, but out of this comes opportunities.

Dan Slee – see his slides on the value that a council-led Flickr page can have - . Maybe what stops #localgov from engaging en mass is the officers fear of sticking a head above the parapet, coupled with ignorance of the medium.

Carl Whistlecraft – re. the argument that cllrs don’t like social media as they can’t control agenda – can they ever really control it. They always have had to confront issues they would sooner not. Re. change in council approach, make it cllr – use the enthusiastic ones to drive change from bottom-up.

Shirley Ayres – re. why tweet? It is the new information network

@tweetyhall – the place to find cllrs who tweet

http://twitter.com/_attenti_/local-councils - list of councils that do/do not use twitter

http://twitter.com/~!/Directgov/ukcouncils

Tim Davies – one page guides to most social media tools

Notes on: NYT’s Nisenholtz’s Speech: The Importance Of Engagement

Notes on: NYT’s Nisenholtz’s Speech: The Importance Of Engagement - by @josephtartakoff 

Key Idea - emotion drives engagement. Doesn’t really touch upon much new but;

- reaffirms the importance of identity.
- does it demonstrate how 'engagement' is becoming the new money-making buzzword?

Martin Nisenholtz, the SVP for digital operations at The New York Times Company, delivered the keynote address at the Wharton School of Business’ “Future of Publishing” conference on 30th April. Full speech can be found here

When Zuckerberg says that “web experiences want to be social,” he’s not just referring to social sites. He’s talking about the need for engagement across the web, including on publishing sites.

Re. NYT’s incoming paywall (2011) “the more engaged our users are with us, the more value we deliver to them, the more likely they will be to pay.”

But in thinking deeply about engagement—- what it means on the Web (and maybe off the Web) -  we’ve begun to view it as the essential moat around which our defenses are based; it is the emotional connection that our users have with us.

The media arts – including journalism – are fundamentally about storytelling. - But what is “storytelling” in an interactive network? What’s different about it online? It is about creating an essential human connection.

Why, for example do people spend so much more time with the print edition of The Times than they do, on average, with the web site?

Sheryl Sandberg, the Queen of user engagement and the COO of Facebook has outlined what she believes are four “shifts” taking place among users today:
The shift from anonymity to real identity
The shift from pull to push
The shift from temporal to permanent connections
The shift from the “what” to the “who”

Identity is, in my view, a fundamental building block for engagement <-- this Facebook has now proven it to be true.

Facebook works because it is rooted in identity.

The idea of users helping users is fundamental to the DNA of the web. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the worldwide web protocols, in part, so that scientists could link to one another, communicate with one another and help one another.

“I’ve always thought that among our most leverageable assets is our audience.” --> I’m referring to our audience as knowledgeable participants in the life our web site. This creates the essential emotional bond that will lead to real engagement in an interactive setting.

a site like nytimes.com must fully transform from a broadcast news experience, to an interactive network.
It must transition from being on the web, to being of the web.

What does it mean when we’re structuring geo-location (i.e. Foursquare) on millions of people? What does it mean to our readers and what does it mean to the businesses that serve them?  And let’s not lose the notion of more whimsical interfaces. All this meta-data is springing essentially out of something that’s really fun.

Betaworks About page, there’s a quote from a guy named David Reed who captures the essence of this new information ecology nicely. He writes, “The boundaries of your resources (read “site”) become liquid, public, shared.”

@robandale