Goodgym : Site Launched!

Yes, the rumours are true – just what you’ve all been waiting for – the Goodgym site is in beta and you can check it out for yourself right here!

New project manager Phillip has been pretty busy getting things off the ground in Tower Hamlets as have the rest of the team, so keep your eyes on the blog for more news as the project grows.

Blogging Ideas : Pakistani Spectator

A -kind of- festive post for you before the holiday season kicks off for real… I read a few international blogs through the excellent global voices and one of the active ones is the Pakistani Spectator. Ghazala Khan does a regular series of interviews with bloggers from all over the place and it was my turn last week: 

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

I write about public involvement in decision making. This is actually takes in quite a wide range of different issues, from the tension between different modes of governance and electoral systems to how individuals collaborate on decision making in their own communities, both locally and online. I blog here.

    Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?

I think everyone learns as they write more frequently – it forces you to order your thoughts in a structured format and to try and imagine how others might understand your meaning. Having said that, I feel that the most important thing is to get out from behind the keyboard and monitor and to speak with a whole range of different people to gain inspiration whenever possible. That’s where you find opportunities to grow as an individual and as a member of several wider communities.

    I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

My favourite recent post was an interview with an Obama supporter on London bridge – I took a quick photo of him with my camera phone and it came out so well – really capturing the enthusiasm and spirit of the moment. I was affected by the belief of an individual that genuine change can come from those at the top rather than the cynicism that is often expressed towards decision makers in the UK.

    What do you do in order to keep up your communication with other bloggers?

I use RSS feeds to keep up to date – attempt to keep my netvibes page which pulls all of those feeds together in good order. Then of course, I read and comment when I have some spare time.

    What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?

In politics, it has to be the Obama campaign in terms of excitement and the interplay between online connection and offline action. This was a very powerful mix and am very glad to see this strong emphasis on online tools continuing. See obamacto for an interesting take on what should happen next!

    Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?

I do think that new technology can make people feel more personally connected than ever before, and more able to respond quickly and easily to causes or issues that they are interested in. Not only this, I think that it can supplement our existing networks in new ways which are only just beginning to be realised.

    What do you think sets Your site apart from others?

It focuses on public participation and involvement from a personal perspective. I work for an organistion called www.involve.org.uk which is based in the UK – this enables me to look at public engagement and participation from a more analytical viewpoint during the day – then my blog covers the aspect I feel is often not covered so well – what do these ideas and projects mean for real people in their working and home lives?

    If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success in life, what would it be?

Critical optimism!

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?

I’m not sure on this one – life is a journey and I’m usually looking forwards not back!

    If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for – what would your top 3 choices be?

I like this question – I’d go to Tierra del Fuego to see lava pouring into the sea, then drop by Venezuela to see the Angel Falls, and then maybe to Dongtan to see the eco city… in a year or two.

   What is your favorite book and why?

I don’t have a favourite – I love reading and lots of books have strong meaning for me – one would be ….read the rest here

Enjoy the holidays! 

(Yes, I know the life is a journey line is a bit Forest Gump –  is tough not to be able to edit your words after you write them…!)

CauseWired : A Web 2.0 Book Review

Review In Brief: Causewired is a new book by Tom Watson which chronicles next generation social activism, or the ’causewired’ phenomenon – people connecting directly on social issues using the web to make a difference in real life. Its pretty interesting, has some good real life examples of the power of web 2.0 so you should probably go & check it out!

Review in Full: Its true that I don’t habitually get my news through the broadsheets anymore – and that when I do get the chance to spread out the newspapers and browse through them it feels like a luxury. Maybe its something to do with the amount of time and concentration it takes to rifle through and unfold the various supplements, find what I’m looking for without a search engine, and then read something with a wordcount longer than 500 in its entirety without any links to source material or comments from other readers to distract me…. ;)

Despite my lack of dexterity and slight attention dysfunction – I do still persevere with getting information in this way, albeit less often than I used to. Of course, this move away from the printed press doesn’t mean that I read any less information, or that I’m accessing it less often. In fact my information sources are far greater in number, infinitely more diverse and (too) frequently accessed by me than ever thanks to RSS, e-newsletters, blogs, Twitter, online journals, and regular Amazon deliveries of the latest books to take my fancy.

So… I’ve increased my digestion of online, interactive, peer to peer, user generated news and info alongside a scaled down consumption of the of printed stuff; but whatever printed articles and books I do choose to take the time out to read from this deluge of information - I’m reading them quite differently now.

The way I access and absorb information has become far more interactive. As I read, I am more actively re-evaluating the text than before, wondering what other people I know think of the material and (much to the irritation of certain print fanatics!) am constantly writing notes in the margin of printed articles/books and intermittently googling references as I go…wondering more than ever before ‘what does this actually mean in practice for me, for my work, friends family?’ etc.

So, bearing in mind all of the above, I hope you’ll better understand what I did when I received a copy of Tom Watson’s new book CauseWired last week and why it matters.

What I did when I received Tom Watson’s CauseWired last week … and was it worth it?

Unsurprisingly perhaps, I started reading from the beginning, marking the interesting sections in the margin (of which there were many) and then googling my favourite references and quotes in what proved to be a fascinating chronicle of the way in which social media and connectedness is changing the face of philanthropy and activism.

Tom W writes clear and interesting accounts of how regular people have used social media tools to highlight the ongoing issues they face in their community or that they care about across the globe. He disscusses the citizen-led coverage of New Orleans post Katrina, of how Darfur and cancer research centres came to be so well supported on Facebook, of how the face of political campaigning is being changed forever, and many other fascinating practical examples of social web tools in action. I googled all of this stuff, and proceeded to skip around a few chapters back and forth and skimmed some bits, went on to discuss the references with colleagues and IM’d a couple of friends about what I’d read. Then I joined the Facebook group and contacted the author on Twitter to let him know I’d be writing something up about his book on my blog.

Then I lent the book to someone else interested in online stuff – and I hope to get it back to read the bits where I left off to go googling… :) Then I watched some Obama videos on YouTube, joined a Darfur campaign group on Facebook and sent an awareness raising video to a few friends, and finally, I clicked online to donate some money to a small charity in Africa that I only heard of and keep in touch with through email/blogposts.

The book is a great resource for anybody who wants to better understand what all this web 2.0 stuff actually does, and what it means for ordinary people right across the globe when it comes to social change.

So, yes, it was worth reading; and what is more, it was worth passing on, so I wrote it up here on my blog.

Web 2.0 is changing everything we do in a whole variety of ways both online and crucially in our everyday lives -some of these shifts are more subtle than others and they even apply to a bog standard book review like this one.

So below, please find the rest of my web 2.0 book review, or in other words – check out these links for more info. What you choose to do with that info will be the interesting part… :)

Max Gladwell

Steve MacLaughlin

The Mongoose

David Bailey

Only Connect

So, I’ve been getting some stick as to what this blog is about exactly -  and would refer you on to the about section…. if you’re too lazy to click, have copied it in below!

—-About—-

Only connect

The more we fill our lives with tasks and objects, the less time we have to connect with one another and with ourselves. 

This blog is all about repairing and renewing our connections – whether that is to yourself and your inner motivations or to friends, family, neighbours, strangers and structures of governance and power. I look at these ideas through the rather blurred spyglass of engagement, personal empowerment, public participation and involvement and aim to focus in on ideas around communities, people and connections in a way that brings it all back to practical outcomes and end results.

In a world where ‘anger and telegrams’ define our urban environments more often than ever – the call for connection has become ever more urgent.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, And human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect…

Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the gray, sober against the fire.

–E.M. Forster, Howards End —

Bla bla blah….etc.

Hazel Blears Blog

It has arrived…

7 day blog:http://tinyurl.com/6zarqb

7 day twitter feed: http://twitter.com/communitiesuk 

7 points for attention from the white paper:

1. being active in your community
2. access to information
3. having an influence
4. challenge
5. redress
6. standing for office; and
7. ownership and control

 Am feeling strangely biblical all of a sudden… ;)

However, the thing that really stands out for me in the first posting is the sentence:

“We want to make these changes because we believe that local people are capable and willing to take difficult decisions and solve complex problems for themselves. ”

Along with the ever-present challenges around spreading good practice in an accessible way, the challenge of helping local people to believe that they themselves are capable of taking difficult decisions and solving complex problems is absolutely key to making enagement work at community level in the future. The promotion of personal empowerment.

(Also, making sure that the people involved do indeed want to have the responsibility of stepping up and taking control is another major consideration – this links into the co-design/co-production issues that are currently being debated… Institute for Innovation in Public Services recently produced interesting work in this area.)

The last word.

I originally said I would run this blogsperiment for three months. The original first post which explains my rationale can be read here.

Well, three months have gone by pretty quickly, and sadly, its time for me to say goodbye :’(

Thanks to my mother, my one anonymous commenter- and of course the viagra spammers for making this a really special three months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only joking!!!!!!!!!! I have decided to stay on with the blogging – has been a really rewarding experience so far. :P Thank you to everyone who has been supporting the idea behind the scenes and of course particularly to the commenters! Over the summer, expect to see a facelift on this blog, maybe even a transfer to another blogging platform…. and a general tightening up and organisationfest. But whatever happens expect to see more of me and my participation ponderings and terrible, terrible jokes.

Public Engagement in Local Government Conference

Went along to speak at an engagement conference yesterday. Here’s a selection of themes that came up around the room in the session I attended:

1. How to avoid the problems presented by traditional ‘town hall’ meetings.
2. Are we ‘marginalising the mainstream’? Engagement funding is targeted at deprived areas (and with good reason) but who else is getting left out at the community level?
3. People still don’t know who represents them – the elected representative to citizen ratio is so high
4. We may be in danger of making communities ‘responsible’ for solving their own problems
5. Tension and confusion between representative and participative democracy – clarity and boundaries needed
6. How do we ‘mainstream’ engagement so it becomes more than a ‘3yr wonder’?

I have a few initial ideas and responses to two of those more practical points, others need more thinking-time and discussion. All of them need more heads working on the subject and sharing ideas

The problem with town hall meetings

You could try hosting your meeting in a community venue at more convenient times of day than weekday evenings. With Involve I’ve been working on the Say&Play approach where a school fun day is used as the site for a consultation and so attract mums and dads with caring responsibilites can bring their children with them to the event.

There are lots of different formats other than a Q+A session which can get dominated by the same voices and can put off potential participants at their first meeting. Try a World Cafe perhaps – look at www.peopleandparticipation.net for more ideas to make your meetings more interesting and interactive.

Finding your representative

Online tools are making it much easier for people to find out who their elected representatives are but also to interact with them. Sites like WIMPS are using postcode searches (combined with great video content) to match young people with their representatives. Council websites are catching on too – see Westminster’s postcode search here.

Apart from finding out the name and contact information for your representatives, a whole lot more can be achieved in terms of participation when they go online and seek to engage with communities by blogging. This way a 2-way conversation is instantly made possible.

Here are a few examples of councillors wot blog:

Antonia’s Blog

Ann Garner

Iain Lindley

Hope those quick reflections give some pause for thought. I’ll be picking up on the other issues in separate blogposts in future.

Also will be sharing my presentation on slideshare – as soon as I get the images to work properly! (Who would use new technology eh??)

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks on : update on the blogsperiment

Well I’ve been blogging away for two weeks now. Time to take a quick look back and see what I’ve learned so far… plus a quick note on Jemaine’s lips.

Originally, I said I have been put off blogging before for three main reasons:

1) Convinced I won’t have enough time or inclination to update it

2) What’s the use? I won’t have anything interesting or useful to say that hasn’t already been said by someone wiser.

3) Blogging is something other people do – I’m a commenter not a writer! It’s just ‘not me’.

Well, in response to the concerns above I have learned the following:

1) I have actually enjoyed it so far and particulary the meeting of new people with plenty of enthusiasm and ideas who I probably wouldn’t have beein in touch with otherwise. Time to update is the main problem for me so far – there are a couple of draft blogs waiting to go up that I haven’t had time to finish off properly. For me, the best blogs are brief and to the point with a few key  links – I feel that works best.

2) I think I’m over my insecurity complex on that, though there is a related point here….

3) I guess what I mean by this is that on the web I usually find time to post up a quick reaction or two on others’ blogs or consultations from time to time but previously hadn’t naturally been inclined to find the spare time to write my own longer articles up just for the sake of it. I think this is still true – my preferred blog posting style is more of a comment than a developed article – I save that stuff for my dayjob!

Just to let you know how its going statswise 

My least popular day was the first Sunday when a mere 4 readers came on to check out my genius. (Quality not quantity darling) then went on to peak at an astounding, mindboggling 76 in one day. Yes, I know- this is the bigtime.

I am currently looking at how I can make this blog more useful to people looking for tips on blogging and Web 2.0 in general and will be creating pages with ‘how to’ sections in the near future looking at things like social bookmarking, writing your first comment on a blog, creating your own blog, offline participation/facilitation tips, using rss feeds, using youtube - whatever else comes to mind.

Hopefully this will be helpful for those many confused souls out there looking for a bit of basic support! If anyone has suggestions then let me know.

Update over- will keep you posted on similar matters in another couple of weeks.

PS. Only one person has clicked on my Larry David blogroll link in the whole two weeks. Nobody at all has clicked on Flight of the Conchords! Tragoedia :’(

The least you could do is to check out Jemaine’s lips!! This is the real life incident that inspired the same scene in the show…not that I’m the fanbase or innything.