Tomorrow morning, I’m heading up to Stirling for a Local Gov Social Media Unconference, kindly arranged by the Improvement Service, under the banner of the Customer First programme (enabling councils to deliver better, faster and more efficient services to a wider section of the population).
The day will bring together people from local authorities across Scotland who are using social media (or at least thinking about it) to offer better customer choice and engagement, improve access to services, and reduce costs.
Being an unconference, delegates are expected to bring their own suggestions for topics to shape the agenda on the day. People then vote with their feet and gravitate towards the discussions that interest them most. The emphasis is on collaboration – everyone will have the chance to contribute and share.
A starter for ten
I’m sure everyone will be bursting with ideas, but I thought I’d get some of my own thoughts down here, as a bit of a starter for ten.
OK, now I have your attention I’ll confess that this isn’t exactly true… But I would direct people to a post of mine back in August 2009, where an associate and I proposed an idea for filtering tweets based on audience. I’m delighted that this has now come to life through Google+ Circles, but wonder if the problems I foresaw back in 2009 will still prove to be a stumbing block for Google.
I’m still getting familiar with Google+, setting up and expanding my Circles. I hope to blog more about it soon.
Earlier today I met with some associates to discuss a possible idea for the upcoming Social Innovation Camp in Edinburgh. The idea had come from a colleague’s personal experience of caring for an elderly relative, and the complications in arranging basic tasks and chores ad hoc – things as simple as getting something from the corner shop or replacing a light bulb. For carers, it can be time consuming and frustrating for the individual and their carer to try to find cover or a helping hand at short notice, and so those simple tasks often end up not getting done, or being done riskily or badly.
My colleague’s idea was for a tool that carers, and the people they care for, can use to easily check if someone in their existing personal and local network of relatives, friends and neighbours can offer a bit of their time. The aim would be to reduce some of the social isolation and stress of caring and being cared for whether the people involved live together or not.
Last week I headed down to London to attend the Web Accessibility Unconference – a11yLDN 2010. You can head over to the official site to find out more about the day, along with links to slides, comments etc.
Later this week I’ll be attending a national awards ceremony, at which one of our campaigns has been nominated for an award. ** UPDATE – we won! **
Edinburgh’s 2009 Scottish Youth Parliament election campaign has already won a Bronze award in the Marketing Society’s Star Awards – the only local authority campaign to win in any category. It was also a finalist in the CIPR national awards, in the category of best campaign under £10k, and won the CIPR Local Public Services Award for Hard to Reach Communications, where the judges commented on how the “strong and effective use of social media and online marketing together with celebrity endorsement succeeded in creating a vibrant and healthy parliament and increased vote.”
It has now been shortlisted for the “Government to Citizen Communications” category of the Good Communication Awards, and I’ll be representing my organisation at the ceremony on Thursday.
The tremendous reception that the campaign has received is thanks to the enthusiasm, innovation and hard work not only of my colleagues, but also of the young people involved in the elections, and I’m proud to represent such a campaign as just one of the many people who worked to make it happen.
The following gives a flavour of the efforts, and hopefully offers some inspiration to others, especially those involved in e-participation and youth engagement.
I’ve just updated my list of social media lessons learned the hard way with details of a Labour candidate who appears to have committed political suicide on Twitter.
Today I found myself in the opulent surroundings of Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel for a breakfast seminar, run by Precedent, on creating dynamite campaigns. The following are some of my notes.
The seminar was lead by John Campbell and Mark Baillie, and John began by considering the good, the bad and the ugly. Examples of good campaigns included:
Coca-Cola’s 80s/90s “Can’t Beat the Feeling” adverts – a tune that many of us still recognise today and an excellent example of strong branding.
The University of Birmingham’s Circle of Influence campaign to raise £60 million. Astonishingly, they’ve already reached the £50m mark, combining online strategies with a more traditional print campaign.
Drinkaware’s drink diary, which allows you to monitor your drinking and compare with friends, adding a social element to the mix. You can even download a phone app. I couldn’t help thinking this could backfire though – imagine people using the diary to compare how much they could drink in a week and actually trying to beat each other!
Volkswagen’s Fun Theory website, featuring various viral videos aimed at making people change their behaviour for the better:
John notes that common factors to all of these successes were creativity and innovation.
Tonight I went along to the Informatics Forum in Edinburgh to listen to an inspiring talk by Euan Semple on how social media can make organisations more effective. I furiously scribbled reams of notes on a few scraps of paper and have reconstructed them here as best I could. Apologies to Euan if I have misquoted or misinterpreted any of his points. The talk was organised by the Edinburgh branch of the British Computer Society.
During Euan’s time at the BBC, he pioneered the use of weblogs, wikis and online forums to enable staff to work more collaboratively. Now an independent advisor on social computing, his insights help bring a clarity of thought to what is, for many, a brave new world.
Those of you who read my overview of accessibility and social media back in June know that I spoke about the subject at the ScotWeb2 unconference. Liz Ayzan, from LGEO Research, has kindly posted a section of my talk to YouTube (also available via Liz’s blog post about the event). I thought (in keeping with the very theme of the talk) that I should offer a text alternative of that video. A full summary of the talk can still be found on my original overview (as linked above).
