Creating Community Conversations - Gallomanor

Sucessful new technologies are socially inclusive

I went to see some dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum yesterday.  I was there because TalkWiki had gathered speakers such as Tom Reynolds, who blogs at Random Acts of Reality and others.  One of the others, Peter Kawalek, from Manchester Business School, mentioned a powerful idea almost in passing.  He said "all successful technologies are socially inclusive".  Unfortunately he didn't back this up with anything but anecdotal truths as evidence, but think about it:

The alphabet vs hieroglyphics
English vs Latin
Internal Combustion Engine vs Horses
Printing press vs scribes
Radio and TV vs broadsheets
Internet vs books

The reason why this caught my attention was that social exclusion is one of the barriers we face when trying to implement e-government activities.  The fear that by doing so we are excluding part of society.  If it could be a commonly accepted notion that e-enabling things was inclusive in the long run then that particular battle over social exclusion would be easier.

More detail on Crime Maps

The Met Police have taken a big step forward and released a Beta Test of a much awaited Crime Map.

The interface is very simple and easy-to-use, the information is kinda useful in a crime's going up/down sort of way.  At the sub-ward (6 streets or so) level you can see hotspots developing around tube stations.  It is a good step forward, but...

It is lacking in detail.  The figures are given for burglary, robbery and vehicle crime (although that is quite difficult to spot) and what I remember from the work we did for West Mercia Constabulary back in 2002 was that it is the exact location of crimes that matter.  Plotting the exact location shows up patterns that help local residents work with the police to design out crime.  In the Met example you see red sub-wards (higher than average crime) amongst the yellow and greens where tube stations lie.  I'm assuming it is because of robberies reported as taking place at the Tube station, but it might not be.  Having more detail would help that. 

I used to live in Covent Garden in one of three blocks of flats.  Two of which suffered very few break-ins and a third (where I think John Hemming MP had a flat) whose front doors were not overlooked got burgled more often.  It is a small estate and sitting on the resident's committee I got to hear about this and was able to form the theory.  If the crime data were available on a more detailed level then local residents & businesses could work with the police not to find out why crime is high in an area but to help reduce it.

There are privacy issues and a danger such a map could become a blueprint for criminals to follow, but it may be an idea worth looking at in more detail.

(h/t to Tom Watson who'll be delighted to hear that I was a neighbour of JH)

Zimbabwe Twitterer

Sokwanele, a Civic Action Support Group in Zimbabwe, has used Twitter to bring a Flickr group of pictures to the attention of the Prime Minister via his Web team at 10 Downing Street.

The pictures are powerful.

Sokwanele are using lots of Web2.0 tools to bring their message to a wider audience.  They use Flickr, a blog, a website, newsletters, video and Twitter.  They're using as many channels as possible.

Yesterday we were discussing in the office who to try and get to take part in the International section of I'm a Councillor.  Sophia wanted someone from the MDC to highlight the issues in Zimbabwe similar to as we did last year with Myo Thein from Burma.  I preferred to try and find someone from Kenya as the resolution of the political violence there would be a more positive story.

Maybe someone from Sokwanele would be ideal.  Any thoughts?

Latest News - MPs get to use laptops for now

Steve Webb MP, writes about how he will be breaking new ground in the next few weeks by being allowed to use laptops in committee discussion on the Climate Change Bill.

Although the traditionalists will be turning in their graves - and we've already been warned not to use our laptops for 'other purposes' during the committee - there is a chance that this could improve the scrutiny. Just imagine that the Minister makes a statement and you can quickly surf the net and find a statistic that disproves his argument - mind you, if it works, the Government will probably find a reason to ban it...

Isn't it just shocking how using laptops in this type of meeting is not normal practice?

Speak up, minister listening.

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.

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

Cllr2.0 - Helping Civic Leaders use Web2.0

" 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.

Why Web2.0 works - Google Alerts

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)