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We Are Legion: LocalGov Digital comes of age at LocalGovCamp

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photo 1What a manic, beautiful, stressful, inspiring, thoughtful and happy couple of days I’ve had. LocalGovCamp and Fringe 2014 is over (or at least in the physical event sense, the online aftershocks continue) and I *think* it’s been a success – a relief as I was this year’s main organiser on behalf of LocalGov Digital.

I’ll try and blog in more detail about the few sessions I participated in over the course of this week but I’m just getting a few early notes down about the events that happened, on being organiser and what the camp meant for LocalGov Digital.

Makers’ Hack Day

Let’s get the thank yous done first. Phil Rumens did an awesome job of pulling together this event by partnering with Nesta – a massive thank you to him, Haidee Bell and Paul Mackay for their work preparing the day and running it.

I loved that the group’s got straight into the challenges with access to resources from Nesta, NHS Choices, Ordnance Survey and more. And it wasn’t just tech stuff happening, there was lots of customer journey planning and UX happening in the room. In just a few hours they bought this together into prototypes for the three challenges which they presented in front of the delegates from the Leaders’ Summit.

There’s already plans for follow up events and how to keep the momentum going so I think there’s a promising look to practical collaborative tools coming out of this for the sector.

Leaders’ Summit

Also happening on the Friday was a Leaders’ Summit and the thanks here go to FutureGov, particularly Jon Foster, and Sarah Jennings at CapacityGrid. They pulled together a great line up of speakers to delivery 5 minute lightning talks and then got delegates to go hands on with service design and customer journey planning.

There was a great energy in the room and it was great that so many of the delegates came over to the hack event and stayed on for day two and the unconference.

There will be videos of the talks uploaded soon (massive thanks to Julia Higginbottom and Rebel Uncut for the filming) for those that couldn’t make it.

As far as we know this is the first time that doers (Makers) and decision makers (Leaders) have been bought together in this kind of event and hopefully it fired them all up to the possibilities and practicalities of what digital can deliver.

LocalGovCamp

So, onto the big one, the unconference we call LocalGovCamp. There’s been a lot of reflection done over the last few days about the life of camp – from the first one in 2009 (right across the road from this year’s venue) to the fallow year in 2013. This was the fifth incarnation of LocalGovCamp and the biggest event I’ve organised.

I think I put more pressure on myself because LocalGovCamp has been so important to me personally and professionally, I *so* hoped I could create an open space for others to experience that too.

As it was our laid back (some may say shambolic) style on the day seemed to set the tone. We booked the space, ordered the coffee and food, gave people an idea of how the day worked and then got out of the way. And they all went for it – they suggested sessions and conversations just started happening. There seemed to be a really great energy around the venue and there’s a lot of positive tweeting happening now.

I managed to get into some sessions – the first one on how we find all the good work and examples that are already out there, then I co-pitched one with Catherine Howe on comms not being the only flavour of digital and her emerging theory of the seven tribes of digital, and then an almost-structured reflective practice before trying to kick off work on a comparison framework for common CMS. I’ll blog thoughts on those separately.

LocalGov Digital

Sarah Jennings has blogged her reflections on her first unconference and how this was the point that LocalGov Digital – a passionate and determined group of practitioners – reached critical mass and became a significant movement.

During the lunch break at LocalGovCamp we held an open steering meeting and as the core group sat in a circle on the floor of the main room and just began discussing the issues we’re facing (capacity, imitation, too modest with our level of influence), priorities for the next year and our structure. More and more people wondered over and sat round us, and it felt amazing.

The core group has supported each other through getting established and beginning work on the streams but this was a physical show of the wider support for the group, that here at LocalGovCamp there were a whole load of people who wanted to push the movement forward and be a part of it. That feels possible.

When I first started getting involved in the group and explained the concept to a long-time local govver they pragmatically told me groups like this happened all the time and they never changed anything before their energy burnt out. I thought that was wrong then, because I believed so strongly in the other people involved and the values which kicked us into life but today I *know* it was wrong.

This isn’t an appointed committe, or a tick box exercise, this is people who *care*, people who are passionate and people with the tools at their disposal to convert that into action. That isn’t a fast burning flame, that is the heat under a hundred fires or more. That is a movement, and one I now think can’t be stopped only steered by those within it.

What’s next?

A whole load of stuff – there are people and tweeting about their own to do lists from the sessions they attended or the conversations they found. For LocalGov Digital there will be more events, there will even be a LocalGovCamp 2015.

Yes, yes, I know. I said I didn’t want to do it again, that once had been quite enough thank you. But it actually isn’t. That’s just the organiser rollercoaster made more extreme by trying to do this on top of the day job, the journalism and the family. It’s tiredness and the worry of letting people down by not having time to do things the same way someone full time on it might.

But it’s not just me. I know that, I always knew it. When Carl announced at the end of the day that our aspiration was for Eden Project as the setting for LocalGovCamp 2015 I wasn’t paniced I was excited. I actually can’t wait to be a part of it again.

Thanks to everyone that came to Camp and was lovely to me on the day and online. Sorry I didn’t get to talk to y’all – just another reason we must do it again!

Finally, a big thanks to Carl Haggerty, Phil Rumens, Sarah Jennings, Nick Hill, Dave Briggs and Jon Foster for keeping me grounded when I whined in the run up and for making the event a massive success and to all the sponsors (CapacityGrid, FutureGov, PSCSF, Nesta, Jadu, Goss, GovDelivery, Public-i, dxw, Socrata, The Satori Lab, Resiflex and Comms2Point0) who made the event possible.

~

If you want to get involved with organising LocalGovCamp 2015 then tweet @localgovcamp with ‘I’m in’. If you want to get more involved with LocalGov Digital then tweet @localgovdigital with ‘I’m in’.

If you’re blogging about local government then make sure you’re connected to LocalGov Digital Voice so other people can find you more easily.

And, let’s chat on Twitter. Having been full on with local gov stuff for the last few months I’m hoping to give some love to music over the summer and spend more time with Louder Than War.


A CMS comparison framework

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Although I forgot to pitch this session at LocalGovCamp I managed to squeeze it onto the agenda and make my plea for help. That call was for assistance in creating a simple comparison framework for common content management systems used or being considered by local government. *

I’d had some conversations online in the weeks before camp about whether this would be a useful thing to have around – my feeling was that council’s looking at open source options may find it particularly useful to choose between a couple of options.

There were a few people interested and on the day it was great to chat through purpose and ideas with Dale Shepherd, Ally Hook, Simon Gray and the guys from Jadu. The feeling was it would be useful and those who are have recently been through a procurement or switch to open source would have experience to share that could stop everyone starting this comparison anew when their time to consider options comes.

I also think it would be a useful companion piece to work that Paul Mackay at Nesta has previously done to show who is using what system at the moment. This could arguably lead to a contacts directory so you use the Framework to get the high level info, then the contacts sheet to talk in more detail with a council already using a system.

My action from the session on Saturday was to throw up a rough framework on Drive so we could crowdsource the initial info – thanks to Dale Shepherd for refining my first draft and for adding information on Umbraco.

If anyone else can add more info or detail then you can find the spreadsheet here. Please feel free to add in extra systems from the few I named off the top of my head here.

Once we’ve got something together I’ll share the results through LocalGov Digital Makers.

* Please note – this is not a replacement for your traditional requirements spec as part of a procurement (yet!) and is looking at basic functionality or technical spec rather than detailed requirements.

~

My overview of LocalGovCamp is here and there’ll be a couple more posts this week about other sessions I took part in.

Let’s have a chat on Twitter.

LocalGovCamp 2014: Digital is…

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LocalGovCamp 2014 by Suraj Kika“Okay, so, Catherine Howe and I would like to do a session that follows on from something we’ve been talking about recently, roughly that social media is not the whole of digital…and nor is comms.”

And so went my pitch at LocalGovCamp 2014. I was near the back of the queue and I’m not sure I summarised what the session was about overly well, partly because I was still trying to define it myself.

That meant that when the session came around there was a small group gathered to find out more in a session that Catherine Howe* and I had hoped would be a continuation of an open conversation that had begun online, fleetingly surfaced at the recent LG Comms Academy and seemed a good fit for LocalGovCamp.

The starting point was really a set of tweets a few weeks back which left me feeling I needed to assert that ‘while all comms should be digital, digital is more than just comms’. And I’m not just talking about integrated campaigns here.

Catherine and I had separately begun to notice that ‘digital’ was becoming synonymous with ‘communications’ and that this was limiting the potential for technologies to enable social change, innovation and democracy. I posed the theory that as communications professionals include more digital communications in their daily work and become adept with the tools to do so they become blinkered to other lanes of digital running parallel to them (and that’s no disrespect to comms colleagues who are doing great work). Catherine asked whether normalising social media and digital into the profession of communications was in fact damaging the wider potential.

This led to a lively discussion on whether we needed an common understanding of ‘digital’ and the recognition that everyone was broadly talking about the same thing but looking at it through a different lens and therefore at cross-purposes much of the time. This fitted with an exercise Carl Haggerty did at a recent workshop in Nottinghamshire where he asked attendees to complete the sentence ‘Digital is…’. The range of answers was really interesting – some people said culture, some people said technology, some said it was about services, some said it was about doing things better. And the best thing is that these are all right, but given that you need to have an awareness of the range of views as well as the one that makes most sense to you.

In his blog following on from this session Phil Jewitt asked whether this debate around ‘digital’ was in itself holding us back from actually progressing things. It’s a great post and a pertinent question so go and have a read (but come back, deal?)

Conversation then followed taking up one of the ‘digital is’ suggestions of it being about connections or networks. Cathering talked about ‘starburst networks’ – where the person or organisation at the centre is connected to lots of others but they aren’t connected to each other – and a connected network – where the person at the centre is connected to lots of others and those are all well connected to each other. I likened this to the current and emerging models of local government with a council as provider with connections to lots of individual service users and the council as commissioner with connections to lots of individuals or other groups and a need to help them connect to each other to strengthen the community. I asked how we helped an organisation move from starburst to connected community. A strand that needs more thought I think.

The last part of the session was Catherine trying out her theory of the Seven Tribes of Digital. I won’t steal her thunder by going through it here but it certainly seemed to fit with my own musings on how many different areas, views, professions and types of people make up the whole of digital. I still remain convinced that comms is just one track within the wider field and the while upskilling professionals running that line should look up and around for a perspective on what else is happening, what else is possible.

I ended the session by lobbing a thought grenade, something I like to do to hear a collective intake of breath but also keep cogs turning. I suggested another conversation for another day would be discussion around: ‘is councils being forced toward transactional digital services at the expense of their online relationship with the community and how damaging could this be?’

I’ve already written it on a post-it and am ready to go – I just need an unconference to pitch it at.

* I love talking to Catherine. A brilliant mind, full of passion and talent to actually make some of these big leaps forward for networks and digital in society. She has that rare gift of never making you feel inferior in the presence of her immense talent and intellect for which I am grateful.

~

There are loads of blog posts, tools, resources and videos from LocalGovCamp, the hack event and the Leaders’ Summit which I’ve handily gathered together in one place on the LocalGov Digital website. You can find them on the LocalGovCamp and Fringe 2014 page.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this so leave me a comment below or come and chat on Twitter.

Thanks to Suraj Kika for the image, from a set he took of the whole day at LocalGovCamp.

 

Now taking requests – a collaborative playlist for CommsCamp14

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commscampNext week the second CommsCamp will be held in Birmingham to bring together communications professionals in an unconference format to discuss the issues and practices which are important to their work and skills.

It’s been organised by Dan Slee and Darren Caveney of Comms2point0 and Emma Rodgers. They’ve added other elements to the day to make it more of an event than purely unconference – the social baking element of the charity cake stand and looking for music for the downtimes during the day.

Music at an unconference works well – at least two of the LocalGovCamps over the years have been DJ’d by Stuart Harrison and as well as adding ambience as people chat it also reinforces the creative, informal atmosphere and helps further charge the energy generated by unconference empowerment.

When CommsCamp asked for volunteers to DJ I thought I better make myself useful (I’ll be at the event for LocalGov Digital) and bring together the music part of my life (remember, you can read my words about music on Louder Than War). But an unconference is about everyone being equal so it seemed sensible to make this a crowdsourced playlist, and it seemed fun to make it communications themed.

I’ve done something similar before – at LocalGovCamp Yorkshire and Humber in 2010 – although that was a wider LocalGov/Camp themed list. You might want to take a look at it here.

For the new playlist, there’s already been some suggestions on Twitter and I’ve added these to the start of the playlist below. But now you need to send me your suggestions for bands or songs that relate to communications in some way. I’ll pull them altogether and we’ll play them during registration at CommsCamp14. Leave me a comment here or tweet me using the hashtag #commssongs.

I’ll see you on the dancefloor / seated area in front of the presentation screen.

Talk to Me – CommsCamp14 Playlist

  • Saint Etienne – He’s on the Phone (suggested by Albert Freeman)
  • The Jam – Girl on the Phone (suggested by Albert Freeman)
  • Talking Head – Radio Head (suggested by Martin Howitt)
  • Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby (for the ‘stop, collaborate and listen’ line, suggested by Dan Slee)
  • Elastica – Connection
  • Soulwax – Conversation Intercom
  • The Marvelettes  – Please Mr Postman (Albert Freeman)
  • Elvis Costello – Everyday I Write the (face)Book (Eddie Coates-Madden)
  • Electronic – Get the Message (Matt Clements and Albert Freeman)
  • The Editors – Release (Eddie Coates-Madden)
  • The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (Dan Slee)
  • No Doubt – Don’t Speak (Lorna Perry)
  • Blondie – Hanging on the Telephone
  • Lady Gaga – Telephone (Kelly Quigley-Hicks)
  • Spandau Ballet – Communication (Dan Slee)
  • Super Furry Animals – Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home) (Albert Freeman)
  • Led Zeppelin – Communications Breakdown (Eddie Coates-Madden)
  • Elvis Presley – A Little Less Conversation (Tim Morton)
  • Captain Sensible – Happy Talk (Tim Morton)
  • Pet Shop Boys – E-mail (Albert Freeman)
  • Beastie Boys – Ill Communication (Jamie Whyte)
  • T-Rex – Telegram Sam (Tim Morton and Simon Whitehouse)
  • Fats Waller – I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter (Tim Morton)
  • Mojave 3 – Return to Sender
  • Beatles – No Reply (Albert Freeman)
  • The Clash – London Calling (Albert Freeman)
  • Lou Reed – Satellite of Love (Albert Freeman)
  • I Wanna Be Like You – Robbie Williams and Olly Murs (for the ‘learn to be human too’ line)
  • Carly Rae-Jepson – Call Me Maybe
  • Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
  • Cardigans – Communication
  • Pink Floyd – Is There Anybody Out There?
  • Kings of Leon – On Call
  • Depeche Mode – Enjoy the Silence (the anti-comms song?)
  • Coldplay – Talk
  • Deftones – When Girls Telephone Boys

Send me your suggestions by tweeting me using the hashtag #commssongs or leave a comment below!

~

This brings together several parts of my life but also links back to the Epic Mixtape collective that Dan Slee and I were a part of . If you’re looking for more themed mixtapes – including an Atlantic 252 list and a massive collaborative Rave mix – then check out Epic Mixtape.

Albums of 2014: half-year list

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Well, my intention to blog every month went by the wayside somewhere during the first half of 2014. Fortunately for me that hasn’t stopped the amazing music coming and even more fortunately I have been keeping a note of it elsewhere.

I meant to publish this list around July but that intention also went awry so here, on a dreary August bank holiday is (finally) a list of the best albums I’ve had the pleasure and honour of hearing, all released in the first half of the year.

They are presented in no particular order of preference from me and I’ve linked to my review on Louder Than War where I’ve written about them.

  1. Egg Hell – Once Part of a Whole Ship
  2. Gruff Rhys – American Interior
  3. Simone Felice – Strangers
  4. Blank Realm – Grassed Inn
  5. Let’s Wrestle – Let’s Wrestle
  6. Hatcham Social – Cutting Up the Present Leaks Out the Future
  7. Hospitality – Trouble
  8. Ed Harcourt – Time of Dust (mini album)
  9. Bird – My Fear and Me
  10.  Ghost Twins – Never Fear Total Failure
  11. Gold Codes – Gold Codes
  12. Dean Wareham – Dean Wareham
  13. Lapland – Lapland
  14. Secret Colours – Positive Distractions 1 & 2
  15. Patterns – Waking Lines
  16. Lakefield – Swan Songs (mini album)
  17. East India Youth – Total Strife Forever
  18. Brian Jonestown Massacre – Revelation
  19. Martha – Courting Strong
  20. The Horrors – Luminous
  21. Latimer House – All the Rage
  22. Keel Her – Keel Her
  23. You Blew It! – Keep Doing What You’re Doing
  24. Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots
  25. Ava Luna – Electric Balloon
  26. Peggy Sue – Choir of Echoes
  27. Vulkano – Live Wild Die Free
  28. Biscuit Mouth – Doing It Right and Doing It Well
  29. Lorelle Meets the Obsolete – Chambers
  30. Jimi Goodwin – Odludek

What have you heard in 2014 that is good? Leave me a comment or find me on Twitter.

Should we have a Local GDS?

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I’ve resisted as long as I can but it feels like I should add my thoughts to the ‘Should we have a LocalGDS?’ debate that has been rumbling on for years but really gained traction in the last few months.

If you’re not aware of it all you can catch up by browsing the extensive debate catalogue here or read this summary article by Ben Proctor for the Guardian.

So, should we?

Way back in January 2012 when I blogged about UKGovCamp I was very definite on what I thought, writing:

“We need a local government version of GDS – and I’m sort of excited that one may already be self-organising even if it eventually gets consumed by the centre.”

So, more than two years on have I changed my views? Well, yes and no.

Why, yes of course we should

The situation remains that digital is not improving fast enough or widely enough across individual councils or the sector as a whole. It’s fairly simplistic but not an unfair assumption that what the Government Digital Service has done for central government, a local version could do for local government.

It gets more complicated when you think about how this would work across 400+ councils each with their own political will and local priorities but at this point the debate starts to stray toward the structure of local government rather than how to improve the digital version.

On a practical level there is duplication of systems and effort and one single body providing this could save money and increase the quality and efficiency to boot. I’m not going to go down the road of talking about whether we should have a single local.gov.uk because…well…it’s a different debate and we should probably just focus on talking about the same thing.

Sounds like a no brainer so far, right?

But, wait a minute, no…

Two years ago all those points came together and made me resolve to a solid yes to a LocalGDS. That’s exactly why I co-founded LocalGov Digital with Carl Haggerty and others – because I could see the need and I would rather do something to address that then get bogged down in go-nowhere debate.

For the last two years this grassroots, sector-led movement has been swelling. We’ve released collaborative tools back to the sector (such as the Content Standard and Usability Dashboard), we’ve held events (like LocalGovCamp and LGMakers meet ups) , we’re starting to tackle collaborative tools and services, capability and skill frameworks and toolkits to get good practice more widely adopted. We’ve tackled the things within our capability to do so and challenged those that are outside our direct control.

We’re not the only group working on stuff but to my mind we’re the one delivering the fastest – despite the term ‘volunteer’ being used somewhat disparagingly toward us (in my opinion, which may differ from the intention of those using the description). We’re from lots of different councils and those councils have signed up to actively work together for the benefit of all. That’s a powerful thing.

To me this means that the last two years have seen something change in terms of sector organisation: there *is* now a Local GDS – LocalGov Digital.

It may not be fully formed (as it’s not the only group working to common aims) nor may it be producing at the scale or speed that some would like. But as a proof of concept that digital experts can collaborate and deliver tools and standards for the sector it’s done pretty well so far.

I don’t doubt that this standpoint will have it’s objectors but if the debate is going to have a practical valuable outcome for the sector then for me it needs to move on from ‘should we’ because something is already established. We need to move on to the next stage…

Let’s ask a better question: how do we grow and develop the existing LocalGov Digital service?

So, we’ve got the basis of a Local Government Digital Service (is the name of it important, it seems to be an underlying issue to some?) but we want to…what? Deliver at scale and speed? Reduce costs of digital across the sector? Improve digital public services? Get funding from somewhere to be a formal organisation?

All of these things have been mentioned but there seems to be little agreement in the debate about what the objectives of a Local GDS would be. Would it be about a single platform? A set of standards? Centralised content? One website to rule them all? We don’t seem to be talking the same line on this stuff yet. We probably should.

We can probably assume that reduced spend in the sector (or reduced duplication of cost) and improved user experience would probably come out high up that list. Other people in the debate have put forward some good suggestions on detail in these areas – take a pick from the list linked at the top of the article or start with this one from Sarah Prag.

If the idea of leaving this in the hands of a grassroots movement (yes, with – shock – some power from people giving their time voluntarily) or with an existing group (or consortium of existing formal groups) isn’t an agreeable route – what is? Create something new in the style of GDS with employees? It’s not something I’m fully enthusiastic about but that’s because it feels like it’s being hailed as a magical problem-solving unicorn rather than thought through against the constraints of getting 400-odd councils to do pretty much the same thing. Still – this post from Steve Halliday raises some interesting questions (and demands!) about how it could or should be funded and I’m still fond of this proposal from Phil Rumens on calling up your best to a national squad.

One part of the question which seems to have an assumed answer is where a LGDS comes from – are we reliant on central government to create and mandate, do we rely on external forces to try and apply it to the sector, or do we focus on what we already have in the sector and how to sustain and grow that potential? A consistent answer to this may well lead to how we fund, how we staff and what we do with any such entity.

What am I going to do?

The debate has been going on a long time now – it’s been on my radar for more than two years – and I do eventually weary of talk. I am, as I’ve said before, all about the positive action and delivering the change I want to see. I might do it in a small way but do it I will.

While discussions continue (and I really hope participants in the debate become more diverse it’s dominated by a really niche group at the moment) I’ll be continuing to deliver digital improvements. Carl Haggerty said in his recent post on the LGDS subject that for him that means concentrating on the Change Academy. I’ve an associated project for LocalGov Digital but that’s another blog post, best saved for another day.

For me I’ll continue delivering directly for my council and taking opportunities to share and collaborate with other organisations through the LocalGov Digital and other networks. I’ll continue to encourage the groundswell from within the sector because whether or not a separate Local Government Digital Service is created or not there’s going to need to be enthusiasm and active participation from councils if the good practice it promotes is accepted and put toward achieving the shared objectives.

~

If you’d like to take up this debate you can leave a comment or find me on Twitter.

If you’d rather read my words about music then you can find me on Louder Than War.

Certified!

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blackI got my week off to a great start this morning by becoming an Umbraco Certified Practitioner (Level 1)!

I was really pleased to pass the exam and become certified as although I’ve been using Umbraco as a content editor for a few months (running the LocalGov Digital website) the level one practitioner training and test is focused on the skills you need as a developer or designer using the system. This meant there was plenty of code I needed to get my head round in order to pass!

I was fortunate enough to do my training with a great teacher – Doug Robar – who was kind about my lack of confidence and coding skill but also demystified the science and art of code.

My current projects may not call for huge amounts of coding in Umbraco but from a content strategist view this training and certification will be really useful. It means I have my head around how all the pieces in the system fit together, what the limitations may be (although these seem to be few at the moment) and how we are best to prioritise building work so the system works well for us technically, but also supports content authors to create and manage post-launch.

On a personal note I’m reflecting that while I wouldn’t class coding in my core skillset (especially as I’m lucky enough to work and associate with some who are absolute masters in this arena) with a good teacher, some time and some resources I am capable of understanding and doing. It reminded me that getting hands on and having a go, whether alone or part of a group, can be great fun and yields real practical gains.

Never fear exploring and never stop learning.

 

Every one a winner

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I’ve been meaning to blog for some time now (isn’t that always the line?) and I’m finally grabbing 20 minutes post-Saturday morning breakfast to tap out some words here. And the words I want to write are a celebration.

Winners – GovDelivery Maximiser Award

At the start of November my team were pleased to be announced as the winners of the GovDelivery Maximiser Award. The recognition came at the end of our first year using the email management / marketing system for Nottinghamshire County Council‘s emailme service. I’m really pleased to have led the implementation during these first 12 months and proud that the team effort was recognised with a gong.

The Maximiser category is about subscriber growth and this was a focus for the implementation period. Over the first 12 months we built a subscriber list equal to 5% of the county population through consolidating existing lists but also through fast organic growth. We used some innovative techniques fanned by understanding good practice and have been pleased that while we hit the volume target we’re also getting great feedback from subscribers too. Onwards now for year two.

You can read a case study about what we did with emailme here (PDF), or why not sign up for a couple of our bulletins?

Congratulations Carl!

A massive congratulations to Carl Haggerty who’s been recognised as a ‘driving force behind the digital reinvention of local government’ in the LGC 100 list.

This description is spot on and a reflection of the work and leadership Carl has put into the first couple of years of LocalGov Digital, as well as at his own council.

Well done Carl – can’t wait to see where LGD and local government stuff goes next!

Read Carl’s own reflection on his placing here.

And a shortlisting…

I’m also really pleased to see the work of LocalGov Digital recognised with a shortlisting in the Best Collaboration category of the Comms2Point0 UnAwards.

The collaboration which has made the network possible at all deserves recognition (in my eyes anyway!) but the fact that the outcome of the work going on is more collaboration through the sector is really quite something.

My favourite thing about LocalGov Digital is that it’s about doing, not just talking, but next on my list would be the collaboration and the professional and personal links it’s led to and the many ways those involved find to think, do and share.

We’ll find out on 11 December whether we have won.

~

Time seems to be short right now but if you’re interested in the words I have written about music you can find them mostly on Louder Than War.

There is more about the digital work going on at Nottinghamshire County Council on the Digital First blog.


We are all LocalGov Digital

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IMG_4447Collaboration (noun):
working with others to do a task and to achieve shared goals; the action of working with someone to produce something. 

It was the inaugural Comms2Point0 UnAwards today and I’m thrilled to say LocalGov Digital was named as a winner in the Best Collaboration category. I don’t think there could be a more fitting award for the network, the grassroots movement founded on collaboration and pushing forward change in the sector on that basis.

The award comes at the end of LocalGov Digital’s second year and over the last 12 months there’s been masses of progress made by those who form the network. Pipeline, Pulse and Localo have all been created and are now in use, we held our first LocalGovCamp, we created Voice to bring together the debate from the point of view of those blogging about it, we started work around open data, and we started holding Digital Democracy Discovery Days.

Carl Haggerty and I hatched the idea of LocalGov Digital in a dark room at GovCamp 2012 (Reflective Practice, room 12) but we are not the network.

We are all LocalGov Digital.

All of us who are working in or around the sector and who are passionate about doing digital better. All of us who Think Do and Share. All of us who’ve had an idea and informally or formally joined up with someone else to see where it could go. All of us who think collaboration could be part of the future for our own roles, our councils, our communities and the sector.

We are all LocalGov Digital and this award recognises that. Whether you’re leading a workstream or following the debate quietly online, tonight you can reflect that they are all important parts in the movement and we can only grow from here.

And now some thanks and congratulations…

There’s a huge amount of work that goes into organising an event so props to Dan, Darren and Emma for their work to make today happen. Also, thanks as always to the sponsors who make these things possible.

Congratulations to Government Communications Service who were named as joint winners in this category.

Now something you can do…

You can get involved in LocalGov Digital in some way – of course – but there is also something practical you can do if the festive spirit of giving is upon you.

I was touched to see that Comms2Point0 had one award named in memory of someone who’s work and ideas about local government and digital I still miss: Dan Harris.

Although he left the sector Dan was still involved in the debate and sharing his knowledge online and at events. He was a great guy with a fantastic outlook and I feel sure he would have wanted to have a say on LocalGov Digital if he was still around. Unfortunately he’s not, as Dan was killed while riding his bike home from work in August 2012. I still miss his ideas, passion and place in the local government digital community very much, and many others do too.

Comms2Point0 named the Lifetime Achievement Award in memory of Dan and set up a fundraiser too – donate to Nordoff Robbins (the charity Dan’s family said he would want to be supported). You can make a donation here.

Being better in 2015

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coaching-mentoringAs 2014 draws to a close the festive period is a natural time for reflection and resolution (as well as indulgence, peace, goodwill and all that). This post is about that – reflection and resolution – what’s gone and what’s to come.

For me, this year has been pretty big in a professional sense with digital projects at work moving from transformation concept to delivery phases. There’s been challenges big and small in this process and they’ll continue into next year too.

LocalGov Digital has also provided plenty of opportunities with me organising my first LocalGovCamp on behalf of the network as well as starting to develop the ‘communications’ workstream with the creation of Voice and the daily links (we’ll be re-launching some of this stuff in the new year). There’s also been challenges here around how to fit this stuff in alongside the day job and everything else I do and am as well as some personal challenges about how taking on these opportunities can have downsides as well as ups.

But challenge – constructive challenge – is one of the things I really value. It makes things better, widens your view and allows everyone to learn something (if they want to).

I’ve no doubt that the practical stuff I’m working on in 2015 will come with plenty of constructive challenge but I’ve also taken the step to actively seek out ways to challenge and grow myself. The first step toward this is creating a more formal relationship with Carl Haggerty around coaching.

I’ve known Carl for around 10 years – almost as long as I’ve been working in the sector in fact – and over that time we’ve supported and challenged each others as peers, co-founded LocalGov Digital and constructively disrupted a bunch of stuff. Carl’s reputation has grown through his work and I’m really proud of him as a sector colleague and also as a friend.

And I’m really glad that Carl has offered to formally coach me throughout 2015 as I explore some of the challenges I’m facing, particularly around leadership and influence. I’m still thinking about exactly what I want to get from the coaching and how that might work but it may mean more blogging here and will certainly mean more reflection and some sort of firmer idea about where I want to go professionally in the next few years.

Outside of this arrangement we’ll be continuing to support each other as peers on practical delivery of better digital services and be actively involved in what LocalGov Digital is becoming.

The idea of coaching and mentoring sits well with LocalGov Digital and the Change Academy that Carl is developing alongside others. He blogged a call for coaches and mentors here and in the spirit of paying it forward, increasing capability and confidence all round, I’m chatting to a couple of people about whether I can support their development in 2015. Carl’s post also includes the useful image describing what we’re talking about when we talk about coaching and mentoring (at the top of my post too).

I’m really excited to get started with coaching and proactively grow this side of my professional development and already offer a massive thank you to Carl for agreeing to his part in it including giving his time to coaching sessions with me!

 

Albums of the Year 2014

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It’s Christmas Eve and so it seems the right time to get my Albums of the Year list out in case anyone is looking for a last minute gift to give, or a soundtrack to their festivities.

2014 has been a great year for music and it’s been a pleasure to continue working for Louder Than War. Yes, we might be shambolic in our spelling and grammar but no-one can doubt the passion or far-reaching tastes of our amazing writers. So thanks John, Guy and the Louder Than War writers for bringing so many new sounds to my ears in the last 12 months (and watch out for a new website early in 2015)! (The Louder Than War top 200 Albums of the Year 2014 is here).

In no particular order at all (but Simone Felice was my favourite album of the year if you’re going to twist my arm) here’s my top 100 albums of 2014:

  1. Simone Felice – Strangers
  2. Let’s Wrestle – Let’s Wrestle
  3. Acollective – Pangaea
  4. Lakefield – Swan Songs
  5. BIRD – My Fear and Me
  6. Taylor Swift – 1989
  7. The Mistys – Redemption Forest
  8. Kate Tempest – Everybody Down
  9. Keel Her – Keel Her
  10. Egg Hell – Once Part of a Whole Ship
  11. Ghost Twins – Never Fear Total Failure
  12. Twilight Sad – Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave
  13. The Cosmic Dead – Easterfaust
  14. The Hobbes Fanclub – Up at Lagrange
  15. Gruff Rhys – American Interior
  16. Gold Codes – Gold Codes
  17. East India Youth – Total Strife Forever
  18. Allo Darlin’ – We Come From the Same Place
  19. The Rentals – Lost in Alphaville
  20. Martin Duffy – Assorted Promenades
  21. McBusted – McBusted
  22. Flamingods – Hyperborea
  23. Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots
  24. Gwenno – Y Dydd Olaf
  25. My Psychoanalyst – Choreomania
  26. Inspiral Carpets – Inspiral Carpets
  27. Ed Harcourt – Time of Dust
  28. Hospitality  – Trouble
  29. The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream
  30. Temples – Sun Structures
  31. Hatcham Social – Cutting Up the Present Leaks Out the Past
  32. Charli XCX – Sucker
  33. Perfume Genius – Too Bright
  34. You Blew It! – Keep Doing What You’re Doing
  35. Luke Saxton – Sunny Sadness
  36. Martin Carr – The Breaks
  37. Vashti Bunyan – Heartleap
  38. Lana Del Ray – Ultraviolence
  39. Women’s Hour – Conversations
  40. Biscuit Mouth – Doing It Right and Doing It Well
  41. Matt Watson – Grounded
  42. Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else
  43. Alvvays – Alvvays
  44. Gulp – Season Sun
  45. La Roux – Trouble in Paradise
  46. J. Mascis – Tied to a Star
  47. Joseph Coward – The World Famous Joseph Coward
  48. LostAlone – Shape of Screams
  49. The Vacant Lots – Departure
  50. Patterns – Waking Lines
  51. Brian Jonestown Massacre – Revelation
  52. Pixies – Indie Cindy
  53. Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal
  54. Chloe Howl – Chloe Howl
  55. Minus the Bear – Lost Loves
  56. Thurston Moore – The Best Day
  57. Real Estate – Atlas
  58. Like Swimming – Structures
  59. Lorelle Meets the Obsolete – Chambers
  60. Peggy Sue – Choir of Echoes
  61. Dean Wareham – Dean Wareham
  62. Tom the Lion – Sleep
  63. Blank Realm – Grassed Inn
  64. Colorama – Temari
  65. The Third Round – The Third Round
  66. Tim Wheeler – Lost Domains
  67. Mark Chadwick – Moment
  68. Wunder Wunder – Everything Infinite
  69. Thom Yorke – Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes
  70. Lydia Loveless – Somewhere Else
  71. Warpaint – Warpaint
  72. Martha – Courting Strong
  73. Vulkano – Live Wild Die Free
  74. TV on the Radio – Seeds
  75. The Horrors – Luminous
  76. St Vincent – St Vincent
  77. Flowers – Do What You Want To, It’s What You Should Do
  78. Candy Says – Not Kings
  79. First Aid Kit – Stay Gold
  80. Ava Luna – Electric Ballroom
  81. Jenny Lewis – The Voyager
  82. Withered Hand – New Gods
  83. Weezer – Everything Will Be Alright in the End
  84. St Paul and the Broken Bones – Half the City
  85. The Antlers – Familiars
  86. Pauline Andres – All Them Ghosts
  87. Elbow – The Take Off and Landing of Everything
  88. Jimi Goodwin – Odludek
  89. Latimer House – All the Rage
  90. Lapland – Lapland
  91. Secret Colours – Positive Distractions 1 & 2
  92. Beck – Morning Phase
  93. Nat Johnson – Neighbour of the Year
  94. Take That – III
  95. Manic Street Preachers – Futurology
  96. Azealia Banks – Broke With Expensive Taste
  97. Erica Nockalls – EN2
  98. Sheepy – Sheepy
  99. Mica Levi – Under the Skin
  100. Edwyn Collins, Carwyn Ellis and Sebastian Lewsley – The Possibilities Are Endless.

At some point I might get round to linking these to reviews or places to buy them  but for now just take a lucky dip and you won’t go far wrong.

The bands to watch in 2015 and albums we’re already looking forward to will be on Louder Than War soon.

Data forests of the quantified self

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FitBit Flex

I’m not the sort of person who has to have the latest gadget as soon as it hits the shops so I’m a little late to the quantified self movement – using tech to track and feedback on personal data.

Late I might be, but right now I can’t get enough of the new addition to my wrist – my FitBit Flex.

If you’ve not heard of them they are a fancy pedometer and sleep tracker which also allow you to track other activity and health data (such as calories consumed and water drunk) through the online or app dashboards. You can use it just to track your own data and improve your own fitness and health or you can link up with friends also using FitBits in order to add some competition (Carl Bembridge is currently owning me in our Weekend Warrior challenge).

Three weeks into wearing it on my wrist and I can see I am woeful at reaching the recommended daily 10,000 steps. Long commutes by car and being mainly desk based means that most week days I can hit around half of that if I’m lucky. So, the gadget has tracked the data and delivered it to me. It’s provided a little knowledge along with it (that 10,000 steps a day is a good healthy goal) and it doesn’t take much analysis to pop these two things together and start making little changes to help me move toward that goal. This has led to parking further away from the office and making sure I get up and go outside for a walk at least three lunchtimes a week (and I’m lucky I can step straight out of the office and walk along the banks of the River Trent meaning it’s doing my soul good too!).

But what about the sleep tracking? I can’t deny that this is really interesting. You tap-tap-tap and the Flex’s lights change to say you’ve headed into sleep mode and then when you wake it and sync in the morning there is all kinds of data to delve into. It tells you how long you took to fall to sleep, how long you were asleep (or more correctly how long the Flex was in sleep mode), how many restless periods there were, how many awake. It pops it all onto a beautifully coloured graph. Initially at least it seems the secrets of sleep are all revealed…

But there’s some bits that are missing from making the really useful; the knowledge, the analysis and the path between where you are now and where you want to be. After the presentation of the raw data there is nothing…no indication of whether you’re sleeping too little (or too much), whether there’s any pattern to when you’re restless or awake, whether any of this is good or worthy of further investigation. There’s a lot of data trees to look at but there is no sense of the wood they surely must form.

So while it’s interesting I have started to question how useful it is to me in the longer term. Is quantifying my self, tracking my personal data, helping me become better in some way? Not on it’s own, not without that path to goals being illuminated by knowledge and analysis.

In that respect my personal data is no different to any other quantatative data you could track – social media stats or website traffic, say.  There are vast amounts of numerical data you can pull from the various systems and tools used to manage digital outputs but it generally needs some human intervention in order to place meaning on it and then translate that current position into a step on a journey toward some goal.

Data is wonderful – it is possibilities waiting to be explored, knowledge waiting to be discovered. But it needs a commitment, it needs to be understood. To get the valuable rewards, what I’m learning, is that the data alone is not enough. You have to be prepared to learn around the data to reach for your goals, and become more than just a number (I am NOT A NUMBER).

Anyway…who else has a FitBit and fancies a step challenge?

~

Find me on Twitter or blogging on behalf of my council. You can find my words about music on Louder Than War.

Coaching conversations: Try Again Today

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“Something’s gotta change, goodbye yesterday, try again today, something’s gotta change”
The Charlatans, Try Again Today

Yesterday I had my first formal coaching session with Carl Haggerty.

I’ve known Carl for 10 years (we first met at a Public Sector Forums event in Sheffield where we were both, somewhat reluctantly, doing the traditional networking thing) and in that decade we’ve been on similar journeys, walking alongside each other at different stages – most recently with our co-founding and involvement in LocalGov Digital.

Carl is someone who’s work has inspired me, who’s passion and vision is aligned with my own and who is also a friend. This puts us in a pretty good place to move years of informal mentoring to a more formal coaching arrangement as trust and honesty is well established between us.

I’m really thankful to Carl for giving his time to support me through coaching and after our first session last night I’m feeling really positive about the benefits it will have for me in my professional life.

Why coaching? Why now?

I hadn’t actually considered being coached until Carl suggested it to me but when he did it made sense in lots of ways.

I’m moving into a team leader / line manager role in my current job as well as co-leading on delivery of parts of a big project. This, alongside LocalGov Digital, has had me thinking about things I need to learn or get better at as well as starting to think of what my future plans might be (I tend to think in months not years at the moment).

Coaching is one of the ways I’m taking some positive, proactive steps to manage the roles I’m undertaking as well as (hopefully) start to deal with a few monkeys on my back. Maybe it will also help me start to understand where my aspirations lie for my professional future too.

What manner of coaching is this?

My first session with Carl was largely exploratory to uncover themes and we started to take a navigational approach to that discovery. There may be specific skills I need to work on as part of the coaching and we’ll use appropriate approaches to guide conversations on those.

Reflections on my first session

I’m not going to publicly share all the details of what I’ve discussed or explored in my sessions. Partly this is because exploration sometimes heads round in circles before leading somewhere, and some times it leads nowhere at all in terms of outcomes but is interesting to me nonetheless. But it’s also partly as some of it is personal, and should remain for private conversations.

What I am going to reflect on is the broad themes that have emerged and how or what I’m doing to progress with them.

There will be another post in the next few days (or at least that’s what I feel is likely at the moment) about how I’m already working through a couple of these things. For now, for my own record more than anything, here’s some themes I felt were emerging for me to think more on:

  • courage and catalysts
  • visibility and resilience
  • self-limiting beliefs and challenge
  • self-awareness and regulation
  • focus.

What next?

Carl and I have agreed to schedule in regular sessions over the next few months where exploration of these themes can continue (and perhaps new ones will emerge). I feel really positive towards Carl as a coach for me – he knows enough about my professional skills, experience and current position to link our exploration to practical outcomes and has a good balance of curiosity, support and insight in leading me through the sessions.

In between the sessions I’ll be reflecting more and setting some outputs to work toward. Overall I’m looking forward to gaining confidence in some professional areas and taking a proactive approach to transitioning well into the next stages of my career.

~

If you haven’t already Carl’s post on coaching and mentoring as a way of building skills and capacity within the Local Government sector is well worth a read.

You can find me on Twitter, blogging for Nottinghamshire County Council about Digital First, or writing words about music on Louder Than War.

Twitter verification for councils

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twitter_verified_accountI thought I would just write a very quick post on how councils can apply to have their Twitter accounts verified and get the little blue tick next to their name.

This information isn’t secret but it’s not well shared! It was Carolyn Mitchell who passed the knowledge to me so I could apply for Nottinghamshire County Council’s tick. As it’s available to all category one responders (which covers a lot of councils – if you’re not sure you can check the Civil Contingences Act) it seems only right that the process is made available.

And it really is quite a simple process once it’s been revealed to you. Ready? Here we go…

You just need to send an email to twitterverification@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk with the address of your official council account and listing two organisational email addresses which can be stored against it (these can be personal or generic as far as I know). The good folk of the Cabinet Office will then do the do with Twitter on your behalf. That’s it…

Now, quite rightly, the Cabinet Office will only process requests from genuine Category 1 responders so I suggest you email them from your organisation’s email address to verify your own identity! Updates to the process (for example the email address occasionally changes) are posted in the Resilience Gateway – worth speaking to your emergency planning team about access to this or them keeping an eye out for updates if you don’t have access yourself.

It takes a few weeks to go through the approval process but eventually the coveted blue tick should appear on your account. It’s hard to tell whether this makes any day-to-day difference to you or your followers but it’s a good instant clarification if you’re carrying out crisis communications or have a parody account (do any Council’s have a parody of them?).

It’s well worth a read of the post Carolyn put together about her experience of submitting Scottish Cat 1 accounts to Twitter for verification. They came back with advice on what they would expect to see from these accounts which looks like common sense / good social media practice to me. You can find Carolyn’s post here.

So there you have it – one of those things that is simple once you know how! Good luck!

~

There is a discussion on the LocalGov Digital G+ Community about how to get verified so this post is a follow on to that – thanks to Albert Freeman for asking the question! The Community is a great place to ask questions, share and discuss with other practitioners so give it a look if you haven’t already.

You can also find me on Twitter, blogging about Digital First for Nottinghamshire County Council or writing words about music for Louder Than War.

LocalGov Digital steering group – February 2015

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If you want to go far, go togetherThere is a proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” And, man, has this saying been resonating with me since the LocalGov steering group meeting yesterday.

Probably everyone knows the story of the network by now, but it bears repeating. On the second day of UK GovCamp in 2012 Carl Haggerty and I sat in a reflective practice session (in this instance also known as a dimly lit room) and reflected with Jeremy Gould and Dave Briggs about the evolution of govcamps to that point. And we shared our thoughts on the then box fresh GDS; our ideas, hopes and fears about what the Government Digital Service could mean for local government as a sector.

We wanted to recognise the expertise in local government, we wanted to get those people (and the people outside of the sector who were passionate about it) doing better things. At our loftiest ambition we wanted to change the shape of local government and certainly seal this rift between ‘digital services’ and ‘real life services’ – it’s the same thing and it needs designing well.

This could have been another GovCamp rant that spilled onto Twitter as we took our journeys home. It could have been a lot of talk that made us feel better for having said it all out loud and connected to each other, but then failed to go further and prove any real, practical worth for the sector. Sarah Jennings, then at the LGA and now just starting a new role with DWP, deserves great recognition here for organising us and making sure that we stayed focused on our ideas enough to get other people together and commit to taking practical action to turn those thoughts to reality.

That was in early-2013. And here we are, two years later, meeting with the currently active members of the LocalGov Digital steering group in Huddersfield.

Why Huddersfield? Well, today (7 February) an amazing thing is going to happen in Huddersfield. LocalGov Digital’s democracy work stream (led by Carl Whistlecraft and Dave McKenna) is holding the Not Westminster – Local Democracy for Everyone event. This ground-breaking (yes, truly are discussions of this kind around democracy so rare) brings together people who are positive about local democracy and are up for the challenge of changing the big things, and the little things, that would make the system better for us all. Just think about that for a moment – that is really…just…YES!

It’s really hard to organise an event, and it’s even harder to organise an event for which there is little precedent (“come on sponsors, give us your money and just have faith our idea will work”) while also doing an unconnected day job. Huge props to Carl, Dave and the whole team of folk who’ve got behind Not Westminster – from sponsors to attendees and those behind the scenes who’ve put all the little pieces of the event together. Whatever comes out of today you’ve already done an amazing thing.

But, talking in the steering group yesterday, I think more amazing things will come out of the event. That, in the LocalGov Digital way, it’ll lead to thinking, doing and sharing. There is huge things happening in each of our work streams as distinct areas – Localo and Pipeline in LGMakers, Not Westminster in LDBytes, the coaching and mentoring push, LocalGovCamp 2015, open data networks and projects, daily links to interesting stuff, bringing together the Voice of the sector. Again, this shouldn’t be under-estimated as a result when we are all essentially volunteers doing this on top of our day jobs because we’re so convinced it’s a needed change in the sector that we can support happen.

There is real potential that we cross these streams (despite standing advice to the contrary from Venkman and co). That the ideas that come out an event like today around democracy, lead to Makers supporting the development of a tool and Jamie Whyte and Lucy Knight bringing its data out  into the open. That is really possible and really significant. The sector creating positive change for itself.

As a group we’ve had to take occasional criticism and questioning about the pace at which we are able to effect this change, asked often if we are frustrated by the speed at which we’re actually making things better being too slow. Yes. But also no.

There is a certain amount of being kind to ourselves as individuals throughout the whole network (and it is so much bigger than the steering group, we are the tip of the iceberg, just the bit you can see) because this isn’t anyone’s job – LocalGov Digital is grassroots and voluntary and we all have stuff we are doing elsewhere.

It is also that proverb – maybe we could go fast if we didn’t bring ourselves together as this burgeoning movement but speed isn’t the primary objective here. It’s desirable and change is much-needed, the sector can’t afford to wait long. But as LocalGov Digital we want to go far, not just fast. And to do that we must go together.

~

Huge amounts of positive vibes headed to Not Westminster today – you are changing things just by getting together. I’ll be following on #notwestminster as I head home to be mummy for the weekend.

You can also find me on Twitter and blogging on digital for Nottinghamshire County Council. If you prefer my words about music they are on Louder Than War.


UnMentoring: It’s good to talk

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One of the actions from last week’s LocalGov Digital meeting was for us to launch the UnMentoring scheme and start getting folk signed up to take part.

Pitched by Carl Haggerty as part of the skills and capabilities work he’s been doing, UnMentoring takes its inspiration from Nesta’s Randomised Coffee Trials. By signing up to LocalGov Digital’s UnMentoring you are committing to give an 30 mins to an hour a month to have a conversation with the person you’re randomly matched with.

That conversation could be about anything but to get things started Carl suggests talking around the LocalGov Digital ethos of Think, Do, Share. The conversation could be with someone doing something similar to you in another council or it could be with someone doing an entirely different type of job but who is passionate about local government.

It’s not so much ‘institutionalising serendipity’, as Nesta put it, but rather giving connections, conversations and ideas permission to flourish. The only rule is no sales pitches – beyond that it is just starting to talk with another person and seeing where that conversation takes you.

UnMentoring?

LocalGov Digital has been talking for a while about coaching and mentoring in the sector in order to raise capabilities and skills. At the meeting last week we spoke again about the differences between the two, how they might benefit individuals and the sector, and how as a network we could support them.

As a steering group we committed to signing up to our version of the randomised coffee trial on the basis it’s informal but could lead to collaboration, discovery or, in some cases, very informal mentoring.

Why?

Well, for a start off, good things come from talking to other people. Networks and connections is increasingly becoming my ‘thing’ and this is just another way for people to discover things about others or themselves through talking.

Nesta also say the benefits are:

  • Provides legitimacy to chat to people about things that aren’t directly work related. Although every time there have been direct beneficial impacts on various projects and programmes.
  • Totally random conversations, as well as some very useful work related conversations. Breaks silos… in a really effective way.
  • Offers the chance to make time to talk to people they should be talking to anyway, and to meet people who they won’t be directly working with but it’s nice to know who they are!
  • It’s a really good way of revealing links within and outside of the organisation and encouraging us to collaborate.
  • They like the prompt to talk to someone new (or someone they already know), and the permission to take 30-60 minutes to just to see what’s going on, without any particular agenda or goal.

Who can sign up?

Anyone in or around local government. You don’t need to be digital, or employed by a council. You just need to have the time each month to be open to a conversation with a random person.

Carl launched the scheme earlier this week and in just a couple of days more than 50 people from in and around local government have signed up and made that commitment of an hour a month. You can sign up on the LocalGov Digital site (it takes 30 seconds) and pairings will begin in March.

~

If you want to talk to me more directly than waiting to be randomly matched through UnMentoring you can find me on Twitter. I’m also writing words about music over on Louder Than War here.

Twitter verification: tick!

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twitter_verified_accountLast month I shared the process for cat 1 responders (like councils) to get their official Twitter accounts verified and be endowed with a coveted blue tick.

The process wasn’t well known – it’s only down to Carolyne Mitchell that I knew about it and had managed to get Nottinghamshire County Council verified – so it seemed like the obvious thing to share it.

I’m not sure why but it was a surprise to me just how popular that post proved – and how many people started tweeting that they had popped an application in for their council. I am sure there was someone at the Cabinet Office who was cursing my name at the sudden flurry of emails about blue ticks.

Anyway – just to show that sharing is a good thing – those councils who applied back in January have now seen their blue ticks appear. A few more have picked up on the post as a result of the first cohort sharing their success.

It looks like 38 councils have recently been verified by the network meaning people have an extra level of assurance that the accounts are used as official communication and conversation channels. This can be particularly valuable during emergencies where the blue tick gives credibility to information and advice at a time when rumours often abound.

I’m glad to have been able to help a few more councils start the process to verify their accounts and hopefully now the way to do it is out there other councils will be able to find the information when they need it.

If your council has been verified then don’t forget to share the link to the ‘how to’ post to pay the knowledge forward!

~

You can find me on Twitter (no blue tick for me!) or writing words about music on Louder Than War.

We love Louder Than War

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“Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens.”
Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity

Sitting here looking at the new Louder Than War I can only assume it was love that kept her alive for so long when underneath the hood she was so very broken.

Love has definitely played a part in getting her fixed up and flying again. That and hours and hours and hours (seriously, hours) of very patient work by Carl Bembridge at Include Creative.

So, what do you do when something is so broken that it really shouldn’t even work? Ditch it? Not really an option with Louder Than War. Launched in 2010 by John Robb it’s grown to be one of the most read alternative music websites around today. I’m honoured and proud to be a writer for the site but also one of the four-strong editorial team. We’ve contributors all over the world writing about the music they’re passionate about, and an even wider readership sharing in that passion.

Killing it wasn’t on the cards then…which meant fixing it. Which means money. And as a completely voluntary outfit there isn’t much of that about. But, there was a little and that had to be enough. So, around six months ago I put the redesign work the way of one of the best digital designers I know – Carl Bembridge at Include Creative.

Except it was a little more than that. LTW had some serious code issues. She’d been patched and hacked by a load of people in her relatively short life which meant she was limping when she wasn’t falling over. I’m pretty sure each fix that had been put in place was put there with good intentions or because we couldn’t afford the full service option at the time. Individually that would probably have been fine but put them together and we had some issues. It wasn’t intended but most of Carl’s work has gone into unpicking the mess and then putting her back together in better order.

And for a while every time he stood her up, she defiantly fell back down and revealed another problem needing attention. Love from us in the LTW family and Carl’s refusal to stop CPR on the code means that today we *think* the site is stable. We’re still experiencing turbulence, sure, but we don’t fall over quite so catastrophically quite as often as we did.

We prettied her up some too. The design is a refresh rather than a re-do – we wanted to keep the personality of LTW, an online publication with roots in fanzine and DIY culture. We don’t want to look like every other music site out there but equally we wanted readers to have a good experience on the site.

We’ve still work to do but this post is to recognise the journey we’ve already been on. A journey that six months ago seemed almost impossible to imagine we’d ever make progress on. But here we are – www.louderthanwar.com.

We love Louder Than War and we hope you do too.

~

You can find Include Creative here and Carl is on Twitter.

My words about music on Louder Than War are here and I’m also on Twitter.

Louder Than War is on Twitter and Facebook.

Coaching conversations: Superheroes and symbols

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After the best part of a week with rampant tonsillitis I headed into my second coaching session with Carl Haggerty more subdued than I perhaps should have been. Or maybe it was serene because looking back over the last few weeks the first conversation was the first explosion in a chain reaction which has changed things for me in a quite significant way.

In that post I said said something had to change, and something surely has.

First though, a little recap on the themes which emerged from the initial session:

  • courage and catalysts
  • visibility and resilience
  • self-limiting beliefs and challenge
  • self-awareness and regulation
  • focus.

Revisiting this I was able to match up some of those themes with my thinking over the last month and see progress in some of the areas.

My thinking has been helped by a Coursera I’ve been taking in Design Thinking for Business which has really helped to consolidate shine a brighter light onto some of the areas coaching is exploring, but also helped me start to focus on the medium-term future. But it’s also been helped by the ripples the coaching conversations set off and by honest, open conversations with a few other people (most of them, coincidentally, called Carl). And finally, an opportunity opening up at work helped me fit all these pieces together into a full colour picture of who I am.

So, something has changed and that change feels really good. I know myself a little better thanks to the exploration coaching encouraged me to do.

Specifically most of the last month has led to thinking and realisations about courage, catalysts and change – some of these are directly related to me (and I’m not going to blog that here) but some of it is more general to the area I work in.

Yesterday I talked to Carl about my thoughts on these on my terms – by using superheroes and symbols to describe the roles disrupters play in change.

Tony Stark / Iron Man having a coffeeI read and watch a lot of books and films about superheroes and the supernatural. I indulge even more in sci-fi and dystopian futures. I love the escape to an imagined place, a world created completely in someone else’s head that I can then inhabit for a while. But I also love the very human, the often familiar stories which are told in these fantastic worlds, these dark futures. I love the symbolism that is often woven into a character and played our through their story.

It makes sense to me to frame my reflections in the worlds and characters I am familiar with, to double-up and use their symbology to fit my story.

So, let’s start with Iron Man. Iron Man is cool, right? Tony Stark can sometimes be a dick but Iron Man, Iron Man is cool. He gets stuff done. It’s a fault and a feature that Stark doesn’t see any limits and will use his brain (and alright, his money too) to create what he needs (a mega cool armoured flying suit) to allow him to get right in there and force the change he wants to see.

When Tony Stark puts on the suit and becomes Iron Man he is the change in the situations he turns his attention to. Which (and let’s not get into a thing about good / evil / war / peace etc) is cool. It’s practical and proactive. It gets stuff done, (mostly) single-handedly (The Avengers – to my reading – are a fairly dysfunctional team who mainly don’t get in each others way rather than really being better together).

But when Iron Man isn’t around, when Tony Stark is off being a ‘genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist’, well then action/change stops. As with most superheroes the communities they save become victims of circumstance when the hero disappears. Superheroes make big, visible, cool, change but most of the time, that change stagnates when the hero goes away.

Mocking Jay symbol from The Hunger GamesSo, I talked to Carl about another character and another way of looking at a role a disrupter could play in change. I talked to Carl about Katniss, about The Mocking Jay, about the Girl On Fire.

Throughout the Hunger Games series Katniss is a girl who initially uses her skills to deal with an immediate (in this case extremely hostile) environment. Her motivator isn’t change, but survival. Almost accidentally she becomes a disrupter and throughout the story becomes a symbol for a wider change.

This new role, as The Mocking Jay – the symbol of a rebellion, Katniss initially dismisses as a role she neither asks for, nor wants. Focused on her own goal of survival she is unwilling to see the power she has to inspire radical change in others. In fact, it’s not a role she has much choice in and others who can see the acceleration she will bring to their agenda wield her as a symbol while she remains focused on direct skills.

Eventually though the change around her can’t be ignored and Katniss starts owning her role as The Mocking Jay. Crucially, as the symbol of change, she sees she was the catalyst but is also just one part of a wider movement. Through inspiring the rebellion she has created many Mocking Jays, a (in this case violent) but more sustainable change.

This idea of the superhero and the symbol can be used an analogy with my own development and career; with having been a practitioner doing hands on delivery to moving toward more senior strategic roles. It can be used to explore the climate around change in local government and how lone disrupters are important, and deservedly get support and kudos, may not be the significant player in long-term successful transformation of the sector.

*

Yesterday’s conversation also took in self-limiting beliefs and ways to recognise and deal with these; more gentle exploration of where I may want to be in the medium to long-term future; and the importance of empathy as an approach and a skill (more of this in other posts I think).

As much as you can after a few days of bed rest and antibiotics it once again left me feeling energised but also reflective. It’s a real privilege to be having these conversations with Carl as my coach, but also as a fellow disrupter.

After just two sessions I can see tangible, positive change to the way I think about myself, my work and my impact on others so have every hope that over the course of our remaining sessions (between now and September) that positivity will continue to grow and help me through this transition period of my career.

~

Our next conversation with focus on the theme of visibility, resilience and balance. Thanks as always to Carl Haggerty for superb coaching, for his time and finding my brand of weirdness fascinating rather than ridiculous.

You can find me on Twitter or read my words about music on Louder Than War.

Fear and Loathing in School Admissions

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[int. kitchen, breakfast time, child and parent at table]

Child: What day is it?

Parent: Why, darling, it’s the best of all days. It’s Offer Day when we find out if you can go to the school we picked.

Child: Is it hard to find out?

Parent: Oh no, sweetie, it’s so simple it’s almost fun.

[Manic laughter, end scene]

~

‘It’s so simple it’s almost fun’, said no parent, ever.

Yes, it is offer day and I like thousands of other parents up and down the country have been waiting (in fact, some might still be waiting) to find out if our child can go to the school we preferred. For us, it’s reception year for our younger child and the school is a local one that his older brother already attends, a situation which is likely to be in common with many other families today (aside – we got our preferred place! Yay!).

The process for those who haven’t been through it is that in the year before your child is due to start or change school (eg move from a primary to a secondary) you have a few months in which to apply for their place. Most council’s have now tried to channel shift this from paper-based to online, with differing offers of phone application or support depending which authority you apply to. You put down a number of preferred choices, submit, and then you wait. And you wait. And you wait a bit more.

For primary level applications (reception, infant, junior, primary) applications usually close in January and then everyone gets notified of the place they’ve been given on the same day in April. Today is that day.

There is a certain amount of nerves that go with this process – will my child go to the school I want, will I have two children at two different schools – and a small amount of helplessness too as the fate is very much in the hands of the council. Unless everyone is going to be guaranteed a place at the school they want then this is always going to exist. However, from today’s experience (and my flashback to similar the last time I did this) I think there is much improvement council’s could make to mitigate these nerves and make the process painless for parents even where the outcome is disappointing.

Wearing both my local gov digital professional and my CitizenSarah hats (jaunty) it is obvious that this is a process crying out for some user-centric service design.

Admissions is a huge task and I don’t underestimate the amount of work that teams in council’s are putting in to gather the applications, sort the data, make the allocations and then notify parents and schools. I don’t know whether they feel the process and the technology helps or hinders them in this task (maybe teams at different councils would answer differently).

As a parent / carer making the application for a child the process could be pretty simple – choose a few schools (most people know at least their first and second choice because of locality, siblings, school standards, faith etc), enter the child’s details, enter their own details, submit, get notified as quickly and conveniently as possible when allocation made. In my experience the technology or process rarely feel like they are supporting me in this task.

 So, redesigning the whole thing so the users needs in the process are met would be great but that takes time. But that takes time, and a serious commitment to looking at the tech behind it (which is probably Big IT as part of a wider contract) and a shift of perspective from business to user need. There might be some quick wins though that could improve things while we all warm up to that.

1. Make applying easy

There’s going to be some limitations whatever technology you use but make sure you’ve done whatever you can to create the best user experience within those boundaries.

Think and test the language on your web pages, in the application form and in any contact that comes out of it (emails and suchlike). And when I say test, I mean with real people.

Make the fonts big enough to read. Make the colour contrast web safe. Apply good practice to the form fields, structure and design.

Then test it with some more real people. Then act on what they tell you.

And then push the boundaries with your tech supplier to see if you can make more changes to make it even better.

2. Join things up

First things first: update your web content in good time. People will be looking in advance of Offer Days and they’re doing this because they’re nervous and trying to be prepared. Help them.

Then help them more by sending social media, reminder emails, press releases etc in the run up.

Plan appropriate comms for each channel and make the journey from each point to the information they need (like an updated web page, or the log on screen for the application system) as short as possible.

3. Tell them as soon as possible

Looking across Twitter and Facebook today it seems that some councils made the allocations available online from around 12.30am on Thursday 16 April while others didn’t let parents find out until 8am, 9.30am, 4pm and later.

There must be process and internal reasons for the timings and most people probably won’t know that someone in a neighbouring area has been told quicker than them.

But, thinking about the user, why not make the timing convenient to them? That might mean outside of your normal office hours, it might mean that you send the emails at the same time that parents can log on to see the offer in the application system.

4. Talk to them

People are chatting on social media about their experiences and their worries, and after allocation probably their relief or disappointment. Probably a lot of them are having that conversation in front of you, on your profiles, on posts you made.

It sounds really obvious but make sure you join that conversation, and that you do so appropriately. Yes, it’s a process that needs to be followed and you need to signpost people and remain impartial but there are ways to do that with a human tone and there are ways to do that which are ‘computer says no’.

So, try and get your tone and response right and maybe prepare for this in advance. Knowing that people are going to ask or comment online means you should be geared up to get the right responses to them as quickly as possible.

Listen to what people are telling you about this year’s experience and then see how that converts into things you can change for the better for next year.

5. Seriously, think about re-designing the experience

The quick wins are well worth doing but ultimately they are lipstick on a pig. It’s time to take a deep breath and think about approaching online school applications and allocations where the digital service to the user isn’t a tag on module to technology intended for a back end process, but rather something that makes a nerve-wracking experience into something so simple it’s almost fun.

~

Let’s not name names but how was your experience of school applications and allocation? How could it have been better for you?

You can leave a comment or find me on Twitter.

If you’d rather read my words about music I can still be found over on Louder Than War.

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