London Borough of Camden unveils its customer focused new website design due to launch in August
July 16, 2010 – 12:11 pm | 2 Comments

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 …

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Social Media Gov

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!

Straight From the Horses Mouth

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!

Tools for Engagement

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.

Research Data

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!

Be Inspired!

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!

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Articles in Straight From the Horses Mouth

Digital Strategy: How Camden Council (UK) will be engaging with the local community through hyperlocal websites
June 3, 2010 – 11:16 am | 7 Comments
Digital Strategy: How Camden Council (UK) will be engaging with the local community through hyperlocal websites

This blog post talks about Camden Council’s Digital Strategy to include hyperlocal websites with featured interview clips with Will Perrin from Talk About Local.

Investigating the perceptions & challenges of using social media for informal e-learning and collaboration within the NHS trust
May 19, 2010 – 9:11 am | One Comment
Investigating the perceptions & challenges of using social media for informal e-learning and collaboration within the NHS trust

This blog post looks into those perceptions, both good and bad of why people want to resist or embrace social media within the medical e-learning environment within the NHS.

How formal e-learning can be improved within the National Health Service (NHS) trust
May 18, 2010 – 9:31 am | No Comment
How formal e-learning can be improved within the National Health Service (NHS) trust

This blog post highlights the challenges faced by all these stakeholders and hopefully better inform e-learning practices for medical students within the NHS trust.

Charlie Leadbeater’s Keynote Summary on Cloud Culture: How Cloud Computing Will Change Culture and Politics
December 21, 2009 – 6:01 pm | No Comment
Charlie Leadbeater’s Keynote Summary on Cloud Culture: How Cloud Computing Will Change Culture and Politics

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.

Local Gov Camp Lincoln Social Reporting Bumper Issue!
November 10, 2009 – 2:40 pm | Comments Off
Local Gov Camp Lincoln Social Reporting Bumper Issue!

So its been a been a while since LocalGovCamp Lincoln but its never too late to share all those juicy details for all your reading and viewing

Better Connected 2010 looking into Local Councils Social Media Activities
November 10, 2009 – 2:31 pm | One Comment
Better Connected 2010 looking into Local Councils Social Media Activities

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?

What’s the problem with ePetitions?
November 10, 2009 – 2:25 pm | One Comment
What’s the problem with ePetitions?

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?

What’s in store for Better Connected next year?
November 10, 2009 – 2:25 pm | One Comment
What’s in store for Better Connected next year?

With budget cuts looming, there is a greater need to be more innovative in delivering public services online and self-services can be used to deliver more for less. So local council website s are looking like a more attractive channel to move away from the costly business of servicing customer enquiries via the phone or face-to-face to self-service through the local council website.

LocalGovCamp Lincoln Recap: My interview with Andrew Beeken
November 10, 2009 – 2:25 pm | No Comment
LocalGovCamp Lincoln Recap: My interview with Andrew Beeken

So as you guys already know, I was at the LocalGovCamp in Lincoln last Friday and was fortunate enough to talk to Andrew Beeken (in video above), who was “the man of the hour” and ask him about what he thought about the whole unconference. I mean, I personally thought it was great and definitely different from the previous LocalGovCamp in Birmingham just because it was a smaller crowd and we had more time to chat to everyone who was there. Having the capability to network rather effectively and have a more open table discussion, certainly made this LocalGovCamp a more cosy and intimate affair.

Let’s talk about Government Consultations with Joss Winn
November 10, 2009 – 2:25 pm | No Comment
Let’s talk about Government Consultations with Joss Winn

Being a student and possibly sometimes out of the loop on innovative things like this, it was refreshing to listen to Joss Winn talk about WriteToReply.org…

A site for commenting on public reports in considerable detail. Texts are broken down into their respective sections for easier consumption. Rather than comment on the text as a whole, you are encouraged to direct comments to specific paragraphs. The full texts for comment are listed on the right under ‘Texts’.