Last Thursday I went back to school. The teacher for the evening was Steve Johnston, Google Consultant. He was giving a one-off presentation on how to make Google Love Your Website in order to raise money for St Laurence School (which his 3 kids attend, and mine probably will in Read more…
Shane Richmond from the Telegraph is hosting another Open House event and this time focussing on Political Blogging. In the interest of the Cllr2.0 project, Andrew and I are going along to take the pulse and add a ha’penny. (hat-tip to Simon Dickson for highlighting it)
A bit like the proverbial buses – you wait all year for an eDemocracy event and then suddenly three (and then some) appear at once.
Yesterday Sophia and I nipped across to the bright lights of Bristol and the Watershed for the Modern Methods of governance – democracy in action or mob rule?. (A Webcast has been promised).
We heard from Tom Steinberg of MySociety about how ePetitions and "golden pages" can help draw people into engaging with democracy and government. A view that was put forward in our evaluation of ePetitioner for ICELE (page 8). Mary Reid continued on ePetitions and Mike Brewin added some Bristol detail. Ian Wiebkin from Kirklees Council presented the DigiTV project and the imminent digital switchover was hailed as a potential tipping point when interactive TV services could become mainstream. I am currently sceptical about interactive services on TV and the figures that Ian was able quote from Sky were not comforting. 90% of Sky users have used the interactive service at some point, but nothing about how often they used them and what for. Personally I don’t know anyone who has ever used digital TV to access a non-TV service, yet last night in the pub (not a Hoxton digirati crew) we found that Mr T, the farmer, was on Facebook and for the next hour a masterclass on social networking and virtual knickers ensued. I have never heard that buzz about interactive TV services.
Shane’s career travelled through advertising, magazine publishing and broadcast TV before he started citizen engagement and e-democracy experts Gallomanor Communications in 2001. Gallomanor creates community conversations through providing creative audience-led events to local government and other organisations. Past campaigns include JurorOnline, Your Say Your Way Voter Education campaigns in 2002 Read more…
Well, we’ve just about recovered here from the whirlwind two weeks of I’m a Councillor, Get me out of Here! AND the last few weeks of manic organisation before the event. Tbh, we’re in a bit of a post-adrenaline lull, doing all the clear-up with markedly less enthusiasm and pep Read more…
As part of a Ministry of Justice funded Innovations Fund project, we’re involved in giving a presentation tomorrow to a group of Councillors at Norfolk County Council on the ways that are / could be used to engage with constituents via the internet. Here’s the long list I have at Read more…
A supermarket trolley has a mind of it’s own." This little gem was provided by Cllr Richard Brodie from Dumfries and Galloway Council in a Live Chat this afternoon on www.bigvote.org.uk. He also provided us with a couple of poems which I’m sure he won’t mind being published here: Dalbeattie, Read more…
We’re in Party Conference season and the news is full of speeches from politicians playing to the gallery, the media and their opponents. There has been recent coverage about how Gordon Brown is similar to Margaret Thatcher as they are both "conviction politicians". Jerry Sanders, the Republican Mayor of San Read more…
I’m normally far too quick to complain and not quick enough to praise, so when I get really good customer service I ought to shout about it. So let me introduce Tony West, our friendly TNT driver. At 7.20am this morning there was a knock on the door at home. Read more…
We first got involved with The Scarman Trust a couple of years ago during the development of CampaignCreator. They were tasked with coaching members of the community on how to campaign and how to use the site.
Since then I’ve got to know them and their work in the South West a little better. At the moment we’re producing a marketing campaign for a series of guides they have produced to help communities help themselves.
Another cornerstone of their work is in dispersing small grants to creative and energetic members of communities to help with community cohesion. It is a programme called Community Champions. Unfortunately the DfES, before it was reorganised, decided to stop funding the programme and The Scarman Trust are working hard to save it. They have started a petition to save community champions on the Number 10 Downing Street site and I’ve signed it. I hope you will too.
The petition copy reads: