We’ve posted the full CivicSurf documentary on YouTube. Full details at www.civicsurf.org.uk. Please watch and let us have some feedback. Better still, organise a viewing at your council. if you want a copy on DVD with some booklets, just email: shane@civicsurf.org.uk
There has been some conversation about what role a virtual world such as Second Life should play in a council’s engagement strategy. I’m a sceptic myself. You need to download and install special software, you need a beefed-up computer, the controls are far from intuitive, and the sight of clothed Read more…
This May I finished my politics degree at university. I was often awake until dawn, writing essays about politicians and civil society. Now, ‘I’m a Councillor’ has me chasing the same politicians and contacting grassroots bloggers, looking for volunteer politicians abroad to talk to young people in the UK, and all those high-falutin’ theories are making good. It’s exciting to play my part.
The international section of ‘I’m a Councillor’, with five representatives from countries around the world, ran for the first time in 2007. It was such a success that we’re recruiting five more volunteers to answer questions this year. It’s great to get young Brits connected with real people from other countries.
The good news: David Bly, from the Minnesota house of Representatives, is on board again. David was very helpful last year, and we look forward to having him back. We think we’ve found someone in India, thanks to Kris Dev; and I’m waiting for confirmation from one councillor in Tartu, Estonia and one in Malmö, Sweden.
The bad news: Outside of Western Europe, it’s difficult to find anyone at the local or regional levels of government. I dig up the civic roots and the
media-conscious canopy, but it’s very hard to find people with links to local politics. I’ll show you what I mean…
Peter Reed rowed his heart out with his other three crewmates this morning to win Olympic Gold in Beijing. Less well known about him is that he is a blogger and contributes to the also fasirly unknown JackSpeak set of blogs published by the Royal Navy. Well done, Peter, Steve, Read more…
Jeremy Gould, the Whitehall Webby, has posted Part Two of his Six Approaches for Social Media Adoption in Govt. – Listening. It is a critical and oft overlooked aspect of using Social Media. The inclination is that because the tools are so easy to set up and use, we can Read more…
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 Read more…
The Ministry of Justice* Innovations Fund (that brought you CivicSurf or Cllr 2.0 as it was) is back. It’s bigger than ever with £150,000 to be spent developing new ideas. Go to www.buidlingdemocracy.co.uk for the details. There is a difference this year. Instead of only being able to submit applications Read more…
Michelle emailed me again. She wanted to tell me a little story about her and Barack backstage at the Democratic Convention in 2004 and how she’d broken the tension with a private joke. Barack likes to tell a story about the two of us standing backstage before his speech at Read more…
A while back I posted about a Consultation Consultation. BERR yesterday published their new guidelines for Central Government consultations to come into force in November 2008. The new Code of Practice on Consultation can be downloaded from the BERR site. "This Code is based on the results of a review Read more…
OK, we can’t have her celebrity or looks but hats off to Queen Rania of Jordan who has been running an interesting YouTube project for the last few months. Back in April she posted a video on the Queen Rania channel asking for people to post questions about the stereotypes Read more…