Posts Tagged: social media


6
Mar 11

#walsall24 — What’s the point of a tweeting council?

Walsall Council tweeted their activity for 24 hours on 4-5 March using the #walsall24 hashtag. Here are my responses to points made in a discussion on a Guardian article about this project. The whole discussion thread from the Guardian was subsequently deleted for unknown reasons.

Many of the tweets are trivial and banal (Atomant77)

Taken out of context, just about everything is trivial and banal. The time of the next bus from here to the town centre is trivial and banal unless you’re here and you want to get to the town centre.

But that’s what happens when you release comprehensive information about something. Most of it isn’t of interest to most people. Conversely, there tends to be something for everyone. Just look at the Freedom of Information requests that people make.

I don’t live in Walsall but I was very interested to see that there was a clairvoyant appearing at a council library to teach Tarot. As a rationalist, I don’t think this is the kind of thing councils should be subsiding. Does it happen in my area, too? It turns out that it does. I’ll be following this one up.

When you’ve got information on a computer you can slice and dice it any way you like. Cut through the mass of information you don’t care about to find what you do.

Twitter isn’t a good medium for reaching Walsall’s residents. It’s just for the “chattering classes”. What about my 85-year-old gran? (liberalcynic)

As Chuffy and HenryHomer said, this is an experiment. It’s not a new council service and they won’t be doing this every day.

If councils are going to improve their services over the long term they need to experiment with new ideas. This doesn’t mean committing massive resources to untested ideas. It means doing exactly what Walsall is doing here: Short, one-off projects that are cheap and have no adverse impact on other services.

You don’t have to have a very long memory to remember when councils didn’t have websites. And if you remember that, you’ll probably also remember the people who were resistant to councils having websites. The internet was just for geeks and the chattering classes, they said. Well, look at it now. No, we still don’t have everyone online (nor equally good access for those that have it) but I hope no-one seriously still thinks that the web is a waste of time.

With half the country now on Facebook, councils learning how to use social media looks pretty important, not only because there’s already a huge audience there but because most of the other half will follow soon enough.

More generally, this project is about capturing and disseminating information. Just because it passes through a computer doesn’t mean that it’ll necessarily be consumed on one. Web pages can be printed out. So can RSS feeds. Data feeds can be displayed on public screens like the countdown boards at bus stops and train stations. Software can send out text messages that can reach just about everyone. I’m looking at #walsall24 and thinking, “How could we automate this? What else could this approach be used for?” I see nothing wrong with Walsall blazing the trail here for others as well as themselves. Everything has to start somewhere.

Walsall’s Twitter experiment is a drop in the ocean, but reminding people of all the shitty stuff that councils do is no bad thing. (Chuffy)

… and …

It’s just a shallow PR exercise to make the council look good (liberalcynic)

It may have “image” benefits in a PR-sense but I think this is more about engagement than self-promotion.

Many people missed the point of #gmp24, which as I remember it was to show people how much time Greater Manchester Police spent doing “social work” rather than fighting crime. It wasn’t so much “see how wonderful we are” as “see how our time gets wasted”. They wanted people to think about the role of the police and how it could best serve the community rather than affirm what a great organisation they were. What Walsall is doing with #walsall24 seems similar to that aim.

In my view, esteem has to be earned. If proper communication helps services to be accessible, efficient and popular, then esteem for the council will surely rise. (liberalcynic)

I take this point entirely. Councils should be engaging with residents and making themselves accountable to them rather than bigging themselves up. #walsall24 certainly couldn’t be rolled out as it is as a regular council service, but I’ll definitely be trying to think of ways in which some of the ideas could be applied to realise tangible benefits at a sustainable cost. Birmingham’s civic dashboard is taking steps in that direction and I expect to see far more realtime, fine-grained information being made available by councils and used across many media.


12
Mar 10

It’s easier to mash than to filter

A common social media dilemma solved:

Imagine you’re running social media for a public library service. You’ve got ten libraries in the service and you want to use Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

How many accounts do you need?

Continue reading →


20
Apr 09

Example “House Rules” for community forums

These are the (slightly modified) house rules I developed for Sutton Chat. If you’re starting a new community forum or blog and would like to use them as the basis for your own rules, please take them and modify them to suit you while giving attribution to Adrian Short under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK licence.

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House Rules for Anytown Chat

My aim is for Anytown Chat to be a place where everyone can feel comfortable debating both serious issues and the lighter side of life. In order for this to happen, there are a few House Rules which will be enforced sensibly.

By registering with this website you agree to follow these rules.

1. Be yourself

(Snip this clause if you’re happy to have pseudonymous members.)

Use your real name as your username when registering with Anytown Chat. Anytown is a real place full of real people, many of whom know each other in real life. Using real names rather than nicknames allows members to identify others that they already know and get to know people that they don’t. It also ensures that members are accountable for their words: If you wouldn’t put your own name to a comment, it probably doesn’t belong here anyway.

You are encouraged but not required to show your face by creating a profile picture of yourself.

2. No bad language

Most of us have a broad vocabulary of swear words but Anytown Chat is not the place to use them. Avoiding bad language helps to keep a civilised and intelligent tone to discussions. Use your imagination and where that fails, just restrain yourself.

3. No personal attacks

Anytown Chat is about sharing information, learning and debating. It’s not a place for personal disputes and vendettas. By all means strongly dispute others’ ideas and arguments but if you make it personal you’ll be asked to stop.

4. Respect others’ privacy

This is a public website and everything you write here can be viewed by anyone. Practically, things written here will be permanently available to the rest of the world. Do not disclose any private or personal information about other people, whether they are members here or not. This isn’t Facebook or your private email. The whole world can see what you’re writing.

5. Avoid discrimination

If you hold any unpleasant bigotries about people on the grounds of their sex, sexuality, age, nationality, ethnicity or (lack of) religion, this isn’t the place to express them. Get yourself a blog if you really must. These topics will inevitably come up in discussions but I hope that everyone is able to debate them without making the site uncomfortable for others to participate.

6. No porn

This is a site for adults, not an “adult site.” Don’t post porn, whether words, pictures, videos or links to any of these things.

7. Respect the law

Hate speech, libel, incitement, copyright infringement and obscenity are all forbidden here.

8. No spam

Don’t post just to advertise your website or business. If in doubt, please ask first [create a link here to your email address or contact page]. It’s fine to use your business or professional web address in your member profile.

These rules will be reviewed and changed if necessary in the light of experience.

Enjoy yourself

While it’s not a rule, I hope you enjoy chatting here and that these rules enhance rather than inhibit that enjoyment.