Creating Community Conversations - Gallomanor

BarcampUKGovweb09

One Saturday in January I jumped on an early morning train from Bath to London to go to a BarCamp.  My expectations weren't enormously high.  I'd heard they were very geeky, get your laptop out and code type affairs and that, quite frankly, is not me.  And it wasn't BarCampUKGovWeb08 either.  And I doubt it will be the case for the 09 event which again is happening in January.

BarCamp was in fact just what I, and many others, want from conferences: expert speakers who know what they are talking about and not selling you something; an interesting and full agenda (made up on the day); and lots and lots of networking with folk you want to meet.

My one complaint from this year's event is that not enough non-techie government types were there.  There were enormous numbers of ideas and some very committed comms and IT related civil servants but not enough policy and service types who inevitably need to buy into Gov2.0 to make it happen.  So I added an action point to the To Do on the BarCamp wiki that we must spread the word to that type of person.

So if you're working in Local Government and have wondered what the hype about Gov2.0 is, but not wanted to get pitches from expensive technology firms; if you understand the realities of trying to get councillors to adapt and engage with communities; if you recognise the value of the information that local government holds but wonder how to use it best; then BarCampUKGovweb09 is where you should be on Saturday 31st January 2009.  Sign up on the Wiki or email me and I'll do that for you.

Others blogging about it include:

Tom Watson, Jeremy Gould, Dave Briggs, Simon Dickson, & Neil Williams

Oxford eDemocracy meet up

Oxford has a gorgeous old town hall complete with an ancient ceremonial mace.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture and so you'll have to make do with this one of Steven Clift and Mary Reid who it has to be said were more interesting to talk to than the mace.

I was in Oxford to meet up with Steven and a few people who had been involved in Issues Forums.  We evaluated Issues Forums for ICELE a couple of years ago and found them to an effective technological solution for community forums.  The real benefit of using Issue Forums however is the network of people that all use them for similar reasons and the vast bank of knowledge that has been gathered over the years.

It was great to meet Stephanie Jenkins, who is Forum Manager for the Headington group, Shey Cobley from Oxford City Council and Steven Pearse from Bedminster Neighbourhood Partnership who seem to be doing good things in that part of Bristol.

Discussion focussed around how the technology behind eDemocracy Issues Forums have improved and going to improve and how eDemocracy can build upon the start it has already made in the UK.

From Minnesota to Oxford

Steven Clift, Ashoka Fellow, eDemocracy.org, Local Issues Forum and general eDemocracy Font of Knowledge is passing through the UK on his way back from a conference in Europe.  The meeting is taking place at Oxford Town Hall on Thursday October 2nd.

If you fancy coming to help plot out a direction for Local Issues Forum and eDemocracy in general then email team@edemocracy.org and visit the edemocracy wiki.

eVoice Conference Xtra

A Swedish Councillor, a German Professor, and a Dutch Civil Servant walk into a bar.  No honestly they did, today in Norwich at the eVoice conference.

We've also heard from Cllr Mary Reid, Euan Semple, Stephen Hilton, Cllr Daniel Cox and seen the World Premiere of the CivicSurf film.  Still to come is the launch of the eVoice handbook at 4.45.

And you don't need to miss a minute because we've been recording it all for those who couldn't make it and who want to contribute from a distance.  Visit http://evoice.conferencextra.org or send an email to message@conferencextra.org to tell us what you think.

Citizen Empowerment Symposium - Final Evaluation

The talented folks from Norfolk who ran the X-factor session at the symposium have now posted their evaluation on YouTube.  Well done guys.  You've joined a small group who have actually posted something about their attendance at the symposia.  A group that sadly doesn't include its sponsor the DCLG or ICELE.  The event's own web-site doesn't ask for feedback.

For an event primarily about using the internet the organisers are scarily poor at doing so.  With only a quiet Facebook group it is not surprising that the top Google Search for Empowerment Symposium is this blog rather than the event site.

empowerment symposium - Part III

The reason for me being at the symposium was to take part in the final session on Thursday. Tom Gaskin from NorfolkBlurb forced young people onto the agenda and was asked to organise a session on empowering young people.

A couple of phone calls later and I was going to help Tom put together "Can X-Factor excitement beat bureaucratic boredom?".  Our first groundrules were that young people had to central to the discussion (ie an equal part of the speaking line-up) and that the session had to be participative.  Tom prepared a load of material for discussion as we feared conversation would dry up and the audience wouldn't participate, but in the end the only subject we managed to cover was young people and social networking.  The audience were invited to participate frequently during the session and at anytime by texting their comment or questions to the website that appeared on the large screen on stage.  We also had a simple "thumbs up or down" page voting system.

It worked brilliantly.  The relaxed format meant we got lots out of the young people on stage; the audience told us that it was the first time during the eparticipation symposium that they had been asked to participate; 38 messages were texted to the site - most were serious but towards the end the audience were able to tell us to wind up the session by asking for a drink!

Three interesting things to come out of the session?

• Most people realise social networks are not to blame for the recent suicides in Bridgend despite what the local MP says.  However young people and their parents/carers may lack some online intelligence.  How many people understand Facebook privacy rules?  Who has actually read the rules? Are some people just too naive?
• The MP for Bridgend encouraged young people not to go online, but to seek professional help.  Why aren't the professionals going online to offer their help?  Is it because their employers are banning them from the sites?
• People in our audience felt that a campaign on Facebook is more likely to result in action than an e-petition on the No.10 Downing Street petitions site.  I don't think that is a slight on e-petitions, but is on the trust we have in Government produced e-participation.

empowerment symposium - Part II

Friday morning was probably not the best time to present after a conference "networking evening".  The first session I saw involved Paul Hilder from AVAAZ.org, Sara Ashton from Amnesty, Thomas Noirfalisse from Oxfam and Juan Gonzalez-Mellizo from the European Commission.  All fine speakers with interesting things to say.  AVAAZ was a very interesting example of an organisation using the internet effectively to campaign in the real world.  Avaaz means "voice" in some languages and the strange thing for me is that they have managed to get such wide and numerous support based on their ability to campaign, rather than a history of campaigning on a certain subject.  Tom Steinberg, chairing the session, expressed the real potential for the existing NGO giants to be upstaged and replaced by an efficient and effective online "competitor" like Avaaz.

The final session was dominated by Paul Waller from the Digital Inclusion Team.  I don't want to say anything, but I would like to point you to a "film" he showed.  It "was filmed in virtual reality for the obvious reasons."  Please enlighten me to what the obvious reasons are in the comments.

empowerment symposium - Part I

I went to barcamp and the online noise about it was deafening.  I went to the Social Media CoP Big Day out and the blogging about it was swift and detailed.  I went the 2006 International e-Participation & Local Democracy Symposium and the blogging was in depth, immediate, and analytical.  I went to the 2008 International e-participation symposium last week and the silence is eerie.  So perhaps I can make up for it a little.

I missed the first plenary session.  Sorry Ms Blears, but I figured your speech would be online and that little opportunity for discussion would take place.

Next stop was online campaigning: Mary Reid, James Crabtree, David Speirs and Steve Webb all had things to say.  James Crabtree had some very useful insights into the current US cutting edge and Steve Webb proved he is one of the more engaging politicians both online and in front of an audience.  If only more could ditch the pre-prepared speech with amusing anecdotes from yesteryear.

The afternoon saw blogging being discussed by Matthew Ellis, Iain Dale, Andrew Brown, Stephen Tall and finally Luke Akehurst.  All fine but I felt sorry for Luke as the others had covered the points long before.  As usual too little time for discussion.

Preparation for the session I was involved in (more later) meant missing most of the afternoon plenary apart from Michael Cross posing one of the few challenges for the conference:  Where should the line between Govt providing services that the private sector can supply be drawn and who should draw the line?  Michael's uncertain answer to the first (let private sector provide waht it can but perhaps not in e-participation...) reflected that the required discussion has not taken place, but he proposed the answer to his second should be the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information.

The day finished with the results of the ICELE awards.

Quick, Easy and Fun - BarCampUKGovweb

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

BarCampUKGovweb - update

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.