For the past few months, I’ve been working part of Camden’s webteam in redesigning the new website. The first stage of this project, which is the design (look and feel) of the website is due …
Read the full story »There’s alot of stuff out there on social media in government. Here I’ve carefully chosen what you might need to know and other stuff that might be to your liking. So, check it out!
Here you will find inspiring interviews with key individuals involved either directly or indirectly with local government and their take on online engagement. Very useful!
Sometimes its hard to figure out what works, so why not look at some of the stuff here. You might find them useful to apply to your local council or community website.
Here you will find all the research data on local government social media channels that has been collected to date, which includes Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and more to come. Keep checking!
Ever feel that you need to be inspired to do your job or just everyday life? Here I’ve hand picked some stuff that might just give you the boost that you need!
Liz effectively articulates how local government can use integrated, multi-channel communications to increase access to information and services, improve opportunities for engagement, and offer members of the community a choice in how they get their information.
Stephen Cross from Hillingdon Council
If you wish to follow more of Liz’s tips and research in the future, join Liz’s LGEO Research page on Facebook.
Update (6/6): This paper has now been promoted on Scribd to the ‘Rising List’ with a count of 547 reads so far and increasing. Thanks for your support on this research!
Background of this White Paper
After years of research, I’ve often been asked of my opinion of what I feel can increase citizen engagement online. And through all the insightful conversations I’ve had with several of LGEO Research readers, it often nagged me that I never really could see a solution that was simple enough for local councils to adopt that will translate with citizens. It was also important that any solution that was going to work, should encourage internal processes within government to improve as well. So my vision was definitely a tall order!
Amongst all the wizzy stuff emailed my way, a lot of solutions seemed very sophisticated and very impressive but seemed difficult to measure or understand how it works. Simplicity and measurable results should be on top of the list when choosing a solution for citizen engagement online and I feel I have found one possible solution that might suit local councils. But for every solution, there must be reasons motivating its adoption.
So this paper explores the reasons behind those motivations. It will draw a picture of the true state of governance and communications, that we live in today. I do hope that you will find useful and inspiring. There are also videos links attached to this White Paper that will explain the content in more detail. Audios of the White Paper are also available below for accessibility.
I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Government-To-Citizen Communications – Using Multiple Digital Channels Effectively
Audios of paragraphs on this White Paper for better accessibility
1. Government Communications Today
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2. How is government currently engaging with citizens online?
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3. What are the challenges government faces when communicating with the public?
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4. The reasons why public communications must be improved
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5. Benefits for governments and citizens
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6. Finding a simple, low cost solution
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7. Integrating social media and email into governments web communications strategy
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8. Examples of social media as a web communication tool
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9. Example of email as an effective web communication tool
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10. An integrated platform for reaching the public more effectively
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11. Examples of how it should work
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12. Examples of effective communications via email with measurable cost savings and avoidable contact results
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13. Benefits measured within 9 – 12 months
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14. Communicating with citizens during emergencies
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15. Conclusion
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Thank you for all the tweets and wonderful support!
Also thank you to all my friends in government who have supported me all this time. Your support is what has given me this wonderful opportunity to deliver this White Paper to you today. It truly wasn’t possible without you! 
Hope this was useful!
Liz
Popularity: 100% [?]
This blog post is sponsored by Semantix Ltd.
This blog post features a list of social networks found online for medical practitioners.
Hope you will find this useful!
Social networks (Web 2.0) for medical practitioners
No.
Social Network
Overview
Weblink
1.
iMedExchange – …
This blog posts outlines the citizen’s wants and needs of Camden’s council website and some of their frustrations as well.
For Camden’s Website Redesign Project, we conducted some user interviews and contextual enquiries for this project and you might be wondering what sort of questions we asked.
Interview with Gemma Walford – Service Improvement Manager for Culture and Environment and Chris Carr – Customer Service Programme Manager
I love it when I can find inspiring speakers and stories to inspire and encourage social media adoption in all aspects of our lives. There are just some things that money can’t buy which is unpredictable and as effective if not more than those big advertising campaigns could ever do. And the best thing is, sometimes, genuine campaigns could later on create profit for those who need it the most. And how was this all possible if not for social media? ;o) Enjoy!
This data was kindly collated by @inhumanbeing, Tony Roberts, a public health operative which also can be found here http://lgeoresearch.pbworks.com/SideBar. Its an interesting bit of information for those who are curious and want to improve things.
Just a few weeks ago, Charlie Leadbeater gave a great keynote speech at the Personal Democracy Forum Europe 09 in Barcelona. I had the pleasure of being in the audience as a Google Fellow at this conference. He talked about the cloud culture and its impact on leadership and politics. This post breaks down and summarizes all the important points he made in that speech.
As mentioned before, I was due to present at the Preconference for the EU 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference last week. The title of the preconference was, eGovernment Research and Innovation: Empowering Citizens through Government Services across Sectors and Borders. I did a presentation that was well-received by the audience and thought I’d share it with my readers. Enjoy!
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of meeting the CivicoLive team while they were setting up their gear for PdF Europe 2009. @HadleyPaul (who ever so kindly lent me an adapter! TQ! ) introduced me to Daniel Cremin who is the main man behind the whole CivicoLive and I was greatly impressed with what they had to offer. Its funny how me and @johnpopham were talking about the same idea! Its just shows… if you have a good idea, you’ve got to act quick before someone else beats you to it! LOL
First of all, I’d like to apologize for the lack of original content recently. Been trying hard to strike a balance between studies, attending conferences, keeping up with external demands and also constantly in a battle to gain some sense of personal growth! LOL Anyways, thought I’d drop a post to inform what I’ll be up to this week. I’ll be mostly in Europe, firstly Sweden then followed by Barcelona.
The first session was run by Fraser Henderson (Founder and Director of Particitech) who discussed the issues surrounding e-Petitions. Now I wasn’t in this session myself, as I was in the “social networking sites” session (where else would I be …? hehe ;o) ), but I’m gonna have a go at reporting it based on the twitterstream and my own knowledge on this subject! Haha let’s see how well I do ay?
I’ve finally got around to doing what I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time. I’m opening up all the research data I have to local councils to own and update as often as you like. I know I am unable to update this data on my own any longer, especially with the increased uptake of social media by UK Local Councils.
I managed to catch up with Helen Williams who is a Socitm Insight Associate as well as a Better Connected Report Reviewer and ask her thoughts on social media in local government.
It was certainly interesting to learn that the Better Connected report will also be reporting on local government social media usage in next year’s report! This is really exciting news for local government from my point of view because as its important to see how we can better local government services online, isn’t it just as important to have a proper and ongoing evaluations on emerging trends and technologies that have an impact on our communities?
Liz Azyan started this blog in late 2008 to support her PhD research. The blog has now unexpectedly grown to become a useful resource for the public sector on topics relating to social media, web 2.0, e-learning and other methods for government online engagement. Find out more by clicking About above.
