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Tom Watson, blogging MP extraordinaire, was promoted in the Peter Hain aftermath to be a junior minister in the Cabinet Office.
According to his blog he has some responsibility for technology projects, which is a good thing because Tom is certainly interested in technology, and he wants to hear from people.
I've already invited him to the next BarCampUKGovweb. Go leave comments.
When we start a new project we also start a blog. I'm a Scientist has started. Cllr2.0 has been going a little longer. It is good practice. It helps us market the project, it helps us communicate with a wider group of stakeholders and it helps us define what we are doing.
BA has just started a new project and blog. I'm very impressed. The project is a new airline, OpenSkies, to launch in June, that will cross the Atlantic missing out London. The MD, Dale Moss, is writing the blog for the same reasons as we do. He is marketing the airline (research and promotion), communicating with stakeholders (there is much on staff recruitment) and he is using it to fine tune the airline. Neville Hobson analyses OpenSkies in more depth.
His first post has already attracted 91 comments and I bet he is glad he is able to finally talk about it. When I was involved on the launch of Computeractive magazine we were hidden away on the top floor of the building not allowed to speak to anyone outside the room about what we were doing for nine months. It was murder to be so secret but great to finally launch.
That's a fair description of BarCampUKGovweb (although I guess the easy doesn't apply if you organised - hats off to Jeremy, Emma and co.).
My way of describing BarCamp is that it is a conference without the interminable self-promoting presentations. It is self-organising to the extent that the agenda can and does change right the way through the day and more time is spent discussing and networking than listening to people tell you things you could have read if they'd been bothered to share it online.
More information about BarCampUKGovweb is on PageFlakes.
I want to use this post to make a few comments about the day and to move the conversation forward. This is needed because the one frustration I felt about the day was that everytime the discussion was coming round to solutions and actions someone would pop their head around the door and say
Some children's hospital wards are decorated with 'fun' images of clowns. This is supposed to cheer up the patients and help healing, etc. Then someone thought of actually asking the young people what they thought.
It turns out that they thought clowns were sinister and odd. And really, who doesn't? There's a reason why Stephen King's It was voted the scariest programme to ever appear on TV, by readers of the Radio Times.
But the real point is, how much of a difference it makes to actually ask the young people themselves. One of the researchers pointed out, "As adults we make assumptions about what works for children." Or, (for my obligatory plug I'm a Councillor plug, I know you saw it coming), as Cllr Philip Smith from Mansfield said, when asked what he'd learnt from taking part, “we don't know as much as we thought we did about young people's views”.
If you ask the people actually affected by something, they may say something you didn't expect and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run.
(although, in this particular case what sort of sadistic hospital managers didn't think clowns were sinister??)
What do you do if the public vote for the "wrong" name? If you're Blue Peter you do a cover-up. If you're Greenpeace you smile about it and be thankful for all the publicity that has been created for your anti-whaling campaign.
[hat-tip to The Bristol Blogger and Bloggerheads]
" Having a static website rather than a blog is like having a cardboard cutout of you at a party instead of going yourself."
Tim Ireland used this analogy, three or so years ago when we met to discuss how to get more MPs and councillors blogging. There have been some good initiatives to get more civic leaders blogging since then such as ReadMyDay, the Political Blogging Project and individual and successful attempts at using proxy blogging to get MPs blogging.
Slowly but surely the number of blogging politicians has risen and so generally has the quality, but researching the subject made us think that the "early-adopter" bloggers had made the jump but that the majority of councillors were still holding back. The case for starting a blog simply wasn't being made. The downsides were clear but the upside were not.
The Ministry of Justice Innovations Fund II approved a bid from Gallomanor and Norfolk County Council to help set this record straight. We're filming a group of six Norfolk County Councillors as we train them on how to blog. The film along with a introductory booklet will be distributed to public sector organisations to help them convince their decision makers, their civic leaders that using the internet and blogging in particular are good communication tools. We'll also be setting up a series of Q&A session with local bloggers for the first 25 local authorities wanting to run them.
There is a project blog at www.cllr2pointzero.wordpress.com where more information is available.
Jeff Littlejohn uses Google Alerts for his work [and quite possibly on his own name too - hope all is well in Bellingham, WA]. Jeff is interested in Community Development and emailed us the day after the YouCanDo Guides website went live asking a question. He has a Google Alert for "Asset Based Community Development" [hi again Jeff, sorry to overburden you with alerts] and this brought to his attention the new site and resources.
In "the old world" Jeff wouldn't have known about the YouCanDo Guides without an international marketing campaign, but using Web2.0 techniques at no cost we've managed to reach him instantly. That's why Web2.0 works.
(You too can sign up for Google Alerts. You just need a Google account)
Following the avalanche of emails about the rapid organisation of BarCampUKGovweb is a masterclass in Web2.0 tools.
Twitter, Googlegroups, Wiki, Yahoo Pipes, Flickr, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Slide.com, and my favourite because it brings them together - PageFlakes.
We here at Gallomanor Towers are very excited about our next venture - "I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!" It's, errm, a bit like "I'm a Councillor, Get me out of Here!", only with scientists.
As you may or may not know, my background is in science communication - I used to make science documentaries, worked for the Science Museum for a bit, that kind of thing. These days, the world of science communication has realised (just like the world of democracy) that communication is a two-way process, and you have to give people a say and engage in dialogue. And of course, what better way to do that than with our tried and tested youth engagement tool?
So the lovely people at the Wellcome Trust People Awards scheme have decided to give us a big grant to develop a version of "I'm a Councillor" for scientists. Young people will take part in science classes at school. The curriculum now (especially for GCSE) has a much bigger emphasis on 'How Science Works' - getting across that science is about questions, doubt and investigation and not just facts, the limitations of scientific knowledge and also to consider social and ethical considerations. Science teachers commonly find this a difficult area to cover in the classroom, and we (and the Wellcome Trust) think that "I'm a Scientist" will be a great way to bring these questions to life. As well as giving an insight into real science careers and the excitement of working in science.
I think it's going to work well. I'm excited at taking this format, that we know works, and extending it to something else. And excited at the cross-fertilisation of bringing together science communication and e-democracy. Watch this space for further news!
Plea for help: And if you know any science teachers who might be interested in testing things out for us or giving us advice from the horses mouth, please get them to get in touch with me. They'd get the chance to be involved in shaping this new project to really work for teachers and first access to new and innovative resources. Ditto scientists who might be interested in competing.
There's been a flurry of calendar dates on the UKDoWire email list today. A while back whilst experimenting with Google Calendars I created one for eDemocracy events. Clcik on Agenda in the top right of the page to see the events so far listed.
This button links to the calendar where everyone can see the events. We'll add any more events that we become aware of and we'll also add anyone that would like the ability to add events to the calendar. Please let us know of any events and if you'd like to be able to post.
(apologies to Google for ahem adapting their button)
If you'd like to use the button on your own blog or site use this code:
<a href="http://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=qtq4vk4m2st5rjccioac6vmtd8%40group.calendar.google.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://gallomanor.typepad.com/gallomanor/images/2008/01/08/gc_button1_en-GB_edited-2.gif" border="0"></a>
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