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You NEED to know about – LocalGovBarcamp

Do you:

• Work in Local Government?
• Interested in the social web?
• Have a desire to learn and explore what social media can do to transform what you do?
• Prepared to give up a Saturday?
• Available in June this year
• Can get to Birmingham?

If you answered yes to one or more of these then read on….

This years must attend event has been announced -LocalGovBarcamp will be taking place In June later this year.

To keep up-to-date with all the planning, confirmation of location, dates etc then follow the blog – You can even get involved in helping to make it happen.

The blog makes it clear that these events are volunteer led and requires time, effort and sponsorship – the website states:

Organising the event is a volunteer effort, and there are a number of things to sort out:

• Location
• A logo
• Sponsors (for food, refreshments, t-shirts, other goodies)
• Ideas for sessions to run on the day
• Publicising the event to make sure people come
• Getting people to do fun stuff around the event: tweeting, blogging, videoing, taking photos and stuff

Please do let me know if you are keen to come, get involved or what-have-you. You can do that by leaving a comment on this blog, or by emailing d@vebrig.gs.

You can help make this years must attend event the best, get involved and or encourage others to get involved.

The ever growing Twitterers from DCC

On the 14th January i summarised the social media journey so far in my council and I listed the known DCC twitterers, well since then we have had a steady increase in twitterings – a total of 26 accounts.

Original DCC Twitterers (not all are constantly active)

• Me
• Sue Tylcoat – Solutions Development Manager @suety
• Pete Morton – Enterprise Architect @podra
• Sue Bicks – Enterprise Architect @subix
• Russell Taylor – eComms @russ_t_uk
• Martin Howitt – Enterprise Architect @mhowitt
• Emma Jarvis – ICT Programmes @emjarvis
• Pip Tucker – Head of Strategic Intelligence @piptucker (private)
• Richard Carter – Head of Business Transformation @rcarter (private)
• Anna Matthews – National Management Trainee @localgovgrad
• Lynda Bowler – Libraries Web Manager @lmbowler
• Sarah Evans – Improvement Officer @sarahevans7
• Katie Bacon – Youth Participation @katie_bacon
• Shaun Carter  – Strategic Intelligence @Shaun32

Found or joined since the 14th January

• Paula Miles -Corporate Communications @paulamiles
• Fliss Clooney – Libraries – @flissc
• Lesley Salter – Libraries – @lesleysalter
• Julian Manning – Consultation – @julian_manning (private)
• Helen Drever – Strategic Intelligence – @hdrever
• Charlie Lee – Finance – @charlie_lee (private)
  
• Robert Weeks – Enterprise Architect @robjw
• Kevin Gillick – Project/Programme Management @kev_bo
• Simon Bailey – Enterprise Architect @smbsmb

The Council has currently got 2 twitter accounts

• County Council -  @devoncc
• Devon Libraries – @devonlibraries

We also have our first Councillor twittering as well

• Councillor Sally Morgan @sallymorgan

I am still on the hunt for more and also encouraging others to join. If you do work for DCC and you are not on the list let me know.

Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan

In case you haven’t seen this:

• Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan.

The website also suggests that if you are going to discuss this in online spaces use the following tag: #ukgovOSS

The four areas highlighted in the foreword by Tom Watson – Minister for Digital Engagement sets a clear direction of travel and one in which i completely support:

They are:

1. We want to ensure that we continue to use the best possible solutions for public services at the best value for money; and that we pay a fair price for what we have to buy.
2. We want to share and re-use what the taxpayer has already purchased across the public sector – not just to avoid paying twice, but to reduce risks and to drive common, joined up solutions to the common needs of government.
3. We want to encourage innovation and innovators – inside Government by encouraging open source thinking, and outside Government by helping to develop a vibrant market.
4. We want to give leadership to the IT industry and to the wider economy to benefit from the information we generate and the software we develop in Government

For me I’d like to see more open source thinking, that in itself can be transformational and can lead to exciting innovations and solutions.

This will lay foundations for a huge number of opportunities around enabling local and central government to create and understand a single view of “place”.

We hear a lot about single view of the citizen, staff and businesses etc but it is also important from a planning, biodiversity, conservation, wildlife, heritage, culture, leisure etc that we can see a consistent and complete picture of a place, where i live for example.  This would truly be a powerful took in engagement specifically around the duty to involve agenda.

Anyway, take a look, and comment where appropriate.

Links: Interesting talks/videos

I thought I would share some very stimulating and interesting videos or talks from the interweb and in particular TED.

I was looking at the Ted Prize 2009 winners and watched Jill Tarter: Why the search for alien intelligence matters

It was a fascinating watch and it reminded me of some of the motivations people often refer to when using Social Media or Social Networking tool – “I feel i can connect with people and feel part of something much bigger and organic”.

Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise -He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world. He also states “rules and procedures maybe dumb but they spare you from thinking”

Enjoy