I’ve been out and about again this week and speaking to Council’s about their social web strategies. Its interesting (to me at least!) to note a couple of the ideas which seem to have the greatest resonance as it would be good to know if these are themes which are emerging anywhere else:

• Government should not be building social networking platforms when this is already done so successfully – no-one wants to be friends with a council and trying to recreate FaceBook is an expensive waste of time as councils try to act corporately in a space which is designed for individuals
• Council years are slower than internet years – which are faster than normal time. To accommodate these differential you need to build a permanent online civic space which will outlast the next big fad
• You need to find ways to connect to people in the wider social web and invite them to the civic space – you can’t expect them to move their conversations there and you can’t expect them to turn up spontaneously
• You need to focus around the citizen is the same way as transactional service are focused around the customer in the one stop shop

Anyway – this is starting to sound like a manifesto but would like to know what you think. Am I stating the obvious or barking up the wrong tree?

PS  Once again I tried to think of a picture to go with this – but I just can’t – sorry to those of you that like something to liven things up – next time I can always add one of the dog if I get stuck I promise!

Professor Lawrence Pratchett

I went to an interesting seminar last week at the CLG (yes – unusual!) where Prof. Lawrence Pratchett and Dr Catherine Durose from De Montfort University talked about a recent systematic review they have carried out of a number of different empowerment tools. You can find the full report on the CLG site and its excellent to see someone looking at stuff that has already happened rather than running around trying to start something new the whole time.

The research picks up 6 tools but the 3 of these I am interested in specifically are:

• Participatory budgeting
• Petitions
• eParticipation

I think in the research and discussion it was clear that the first two of these are far more tangible and as such can more clearly be evaluated.

eParticipation was not defined well enough for my liking and seemed to talk too much about eForums which is such a small part of the potential. Where things did get interesting however was in talking about the link between empowerment and co-design – which is a connection I see very strongly.

Co-design seems to be a necessary part of empowerment but this brings a few problems that need addressing:

• Does Local Goverment really want to share power?
• Do the citizens really want to be shared with?
• What’s the role of the representative?
• Is it sustainable?

The seminar also made it clear to me how inadequate a tool based approach to empowerment is – you need a clear idea of what you want to create and a strategic vision for achieving this that goes beyond the tactical. This worries me because we are not even starting to have the debate around this with decision makers even though those of us thinking about these issues knows its essential. However much we prefer to do this by stealth we need to lobby and educate on a far wider basis if we are going to make these changes happen and I am not sure who is doing this or how it will happen – answers on the proverbial postcard please!!!

Yes – I’m new here – I think Paul asked me as we have been having a falling out about Petitions over on my blog and he likes an argument.

You can find out more about me there obviously but probably the most relevant fact is that I am currently researching for a PHD around the question of whether or not we can use informal social participation online to increase formal participation in the democratic process – specifically in local democracy as I think this is where the heart of the community should be.

To this end I have for some time now been struggling with the idea of Twitter. At first I was worried that this was a sign of aging and I had reached my personal limit in terms of new innovations but thankfully I am still filled with excitement about the idea of the new Palm Pre and the possibility of a Google OS netbook – I have also managed to form my Twitter objections into a coherent argument rather than a short grumble so all is not lost. Twitter had troubled me on two main fronts:

• Its yet more noise. I (like many people) spend a lot of energy trying to make my life quieter and simpler and the idea that everyone I know could be giving me constant updates on what they were up to fills me with horror – it just feels like noise. Now, obviously all the people I know would only tweet with great profundity but even so – that’s a lot of information I don’t think I actually need
• I am not sure that anything important can be said in only 140 characters.

That being said there have been some striking examples of Twitter being used – in particular around real time news and this move to real time web is perhaps the crux of what is interesting about Twitter. It speaks to the idea of pervasive technology and a confirmation of the underlying assumption of constant connectivity.  Have a read of this as its another take on this thought.

But as ever I wonder what the use is for Local Government – how can we use it – and I think Twitter should be thought about in terms of listening and not in terms of talking and this makes things make much more sense as I am not sure anyone really wants to here tweets from a council as its really a tool for individual voices.

The most accessible description of Twitter I had was in relation to the way in which flocks of birds communicate – one cheep at a time!! If we can develop ways to listen to these cheeps and tweets, and to select the right ones to listen to then we can can listen and learn to the public. Search companies are already trying this with big global topics like swine flu but if Twitter, or other real time web tools, continue to grow then it should start to be true on a local level as well.

Interesting…..so now onwards to research semantic search and analysis tools!!!

There’s a good deal of useful stuff here for anyone with an interest in new conversational applications.

The three that stand out for me are….

• PatientsLikeMe
• TeachStreet
• OpenCongress

The others are worth thinking about though. Mint, for example – in a year when finance-literacy is becoming very relevant indeed – aggregates a lot of personal data very neatly.

And for next year? The same site has a bit of a wishlist….

Here’s Lichfield DC taking a pioneering interactive approach to communications, using open source tools. Too much there to comment on, but very well worth a look.

Via Dominic

UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron

UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron is visiting Northern Ireland this weekend to speak at an Ulster Unionist Party conference. Slugger O’Toole has been crowdsourcing questions for him, and he’s agreed to answer them.

The site’s managers are also encouraging Twitterers to post to a widget on the site.

The widget can be seen on the left hand side of the Slugger site, or in full here.