www.digecon.co.uk

I love that name “Everything Everywhere”, it sings optimism. Better connectivity, more investment in digital infrastructure, more reach, more mobility, faster broadband, more opportunities for connecting people and more creativity, more brilliant shiny stuff. I hear a deep voice, proclaiming “everything everywhere is a service for all citizens” while in the background I imagine a Bladerunner-ish, urban Japanese night scene. Its noticeable that BT is also advertising their expanding  superfast fibreoptic services in sort of Toy Story terms, calling it ‘Infinity’.

I went to hear more about faster and better communications at the Everything Everywhere fringe event at what was an upbeat and optimistic #Lab10 conference.  I listened to Ex shadow cabinet minister for digital stuff Stephen Timms MP talk about the main differences between Conservative and Labour digital policies.  He described his digital optimism in social terms with universal access and digital inclusion or what I would call the real value of superfast broadband.

Richard Rumblelow  from Everything Everywhere went on to describe very well the Orange and T-mobile vision for better national connectivity. They had teamed up to pay for the big infrastructure that was essential for superfast broadband and digital inclusion.  However, he was also realistic about only being able to reach out to two thirds of the population at best. As he was speaking, I wondered what grey clouds were on the horizon for the big four providers Virgin, Everything Everywhere, Talk Talk and BT by way of the De Act, Ofcom and BIS?  You may already know that Talk Talk and BT have a Judicial Review of the DE Act well underway and Talk Talk’s Andrew Heaney has made it clear, he thinks ISPs should not be forced by government to share the cost of policing the internet by sharing the cost of Copyright Inspection Reports (CIRs) with rights holders and the  creative industries.

It’s clear that mobile service providers (and ISPs) are worried about the growing costs of policing the internet as those costs are being passed onto them. There is one area of cost iwhich requires more scrutiny and discussion, it is the rising cost of maintaining data security.  This is because as mobile services are expanded (as analogue TV broadcast frequencys are refarmed) government is placing greater demands on ISPs for better data security (not to mention monitoring and reporting). We are beginning to see  some additional costs attached to providing the infrastructure and emerging technology we want. But  we must ask, are they all really necessary or at very least do they have to be as big ?

Last week the big 4 virgin, BT Sky, Everything Everywhere became even more worried about what else they may be asked to do to polish the tarnished digisphere. The recent evidence is that they are right to worry, as we can see from the mess that is the ACS Law revelations.  Journalists are picking up on what are a range of social, technical and legal time bombs which the DE Act and Ofcom has yet to start dealing with. It is  fairly obvious that the Data Protection Act and Digital Economy Act are poor bed fellows but if you throw in the human Rights Act  you then have a very awkward threesome. Technollama describes the problem better than I can.

Increasingly it looks like we just might not get the sort of internet we really want, well not unless we can all be more digitally optimistic. How can we make sure that we get the balance right between better connectivity with improved collaboration and protecting creativity with improved data security.   Andrew Heaney has an interesting take the digital creativity vs copyright infringement issue. He, (like myself) would opt for a model  with more self-regulation. Without putting words in his mouth, I think he would opt for a more constructive and community approach that is rooted in education. We need a broader more trust based approach if we are to improve our cultural understanding of digital literacy.  It doesn’t matter which prism you see it through social optimism or big society, analogue fear and digital optimism are not well balanced in either view at present.  As Trefor Davis has said the DE Act is just a stick without a carrot while Sir Tim Berners-Lee goes further to describe the DE Act as extreme punishment. Are we just meeting digital challenges with analogue concerns?

I like Donald Clark a digital entrepreneur and e-learning consultant who offers new digital solutions to old analogue problems. I recently heard him talk about sharing knowledge at a Learning Pool event in Edinburgh. He exclaimed, early on in his prsentation that “we are not at war”, meaning we (public services) should not act as if we are. In other words, we do not need so much secrecy, at least between local authorities and government departments. I’m sure he would go further. Extreme? Not really, so much information is still not freely available and there is a work culture of hiding stuff from each other. OK we have FOI requests but these are often expensive for the public purse. I think Donald touches on something deep rooted which is the fears of middle class professionals and two analogue generations (ww2 and the cold war) who still believe knowledge, or as we now know, simple information is power.

It’s very different for  digital generations and in some ways opposite, look at an older meaning of the word ‘collaboration’. As one baby boomer said to me, “collaboration is something my father thought you should be shot for”. The distance between secrecy and collaboration (new meaning) can be seen in our cultural responses to emerging technology and data management. I’m left wondering if government legislation which leads to rising additional costs for improving data security and much more data inspection is perhaps a not a good thing. It is something  born of old fears and new misunderstandings. Is it something we can afford (a bit like old nuclear weapons) at a time when most governments in Europe are cost cutting, managing deficits and promoting digital optimism for digital solutions?

This summer I’ve been working on two websites: the digecon website,and the deappg website. Both of these sites give information about the digital economy.  Digecon supports the work of the Digital Economy all Party Parliamentary Group which is an idea that was discussed under the previous government, as the  DE Bill was being debated in the House of Lords but only came together in July 2010 after the new parliament was formed.

This all party group is mainly involved in bringing people together; politicians, experts and consumers to discuss the DE Act which came into being in June. Most people who know the act, accept that it is a complicated and wide reaching bit of legislation. Many would say that it is over ambitious and definitely rushed, but very few would argue that it is not hugely important to all of us.  While it is contentious, there is room for further discussion before it is enforced in March, and it will take another year (at least) after that before the technical details of how the act will be used to regulate the internet are ironed out.

If you would like to know more about what is being said about the DE Act and the group’s work in Westminster, you can read our bulletins and blog or even follow us in twitter @digecon (and #deact #deappg).

#DEAct #yourfreedomPosted by louisesdad July 03, 2010 at 10:51AM

I have been (after a few goes) in the government’s new Your Freedom website, you can seem my comment about the DEbill/DEact below.

Posted by louisesdad July 03, 2010 at 10:51AM

“This is an extremely important Act for many reasons, firstly the digital economy is something that overlaps into all areas of our lives now. It is not just about ‘justice and freedom’ but as we see in the government’s priorities digital things must be included under the heading ‘society’ (broadband/ net neutrality issues) too. It is in fact, a new form of an old problem, that of fairness: better access to services across geographical and social divides.

Just as roads, telephone lines, buses, trains, shops, schools and hospitals have all improved our quality of life across the UK, so too is emerging technology and improved communications through better and more open connectivity. This is a social process: better creativity, collaboration and cooperation follows on from improvements in connectivity. It is important that the conversation is about ‘what we can do’ (see Finland), unfortunately the DEAct is mainly about benefits for big business, not consumers and the conversation, in the UK, Canada and Australia is unfortunately stuck on what we ‘can not do’.”

If you are not up on the passage of the DE Bill or the ongoing discussions about the need to revisit  the DE Act and amend bits of it, start withMark Thomas’s excellent Youtube video. You might also want to have a look at what was said in the House of Lords about the bill. I liked what Lord Clement-Jones (Lib Dem) said  about  lobbyists, subscribers and consumers, also see the Earl of Errol talking about the problems universities will have in future with this act.

It is likely that there will be much more action around the DEAct as  the government, and the Lib Dems in particular, revisit this act. It will also be interesting to see contributions from Labour MPs on the opposition benches, now  they are less constrained by government demands. Needless to say, there is digital expertise in the HoC, with MPs like Tom Watson formerly Digital Inclusion minister with interests in gaming and copyright.  There are others aswell,  such as members of  the 25-year-old  PITCOM APPG, who have made a valuable contribution to digital discussions based on there strong interest in business, science and technology.

It is the Digital Economy All Party Parliamentary Group  which is most likely  to bring together MPs and Lords with an interest in the digital economy  (and/or social media) in a new way. The DEAPPG, the idea of Eric Joyce MP, came about during the passage of the bill in March and April but has only recently been officially registered in Portcullis House. Eric has been blogging and integrating Social Media into his office communications for a while now, in an effort to improve communications with the public and journalists. The DEAPPG is in the process of developing its own communications (website coming soon) and has had support from the public MPs, Peers and the Open Rights Group . The first meeting was held straight after the General Election and two more meetings will go ahead  in July. On the 26th of July there is a DEAPPG meeting which is open to the public who can ask questions of  MPs, Lords, and a range of experts: musicians, ISPs, artists, government employees, educationalists, bankers, lawyers, trade unions, and journalists.

You can keep up with what is happening with the DEAPPG in Westminster by following me @louisesdad or @digecon in twitter..  until the Digecon blog  is operational, soon

After all the hype about this being the first internet election (after Obama) in the UK, Rory Cellan-Jones asks the obvious Q: “Was it an internet election?” He also gives, what I think, is an equally obvious and good answer looking at the ‘decisiveness’ of social media during #GE2010

I want to add a bit  to that line of thinking here, by taking a quick look at what happened in one MP’s office, in one constituency where social media was deliberately cut with traditional campaigning methods. Before the election  there were a number of things that we did, over several months, to prepare for the general election and improve communcations in our office generally. Blogging and twitter were a big part of  getting our message out there and building a community. What we did was really useful in  collecting our ideas and improving our digital literacy aswell.  We moved on from wordpress and twitter to an integrated website with Joomla, Youtube and  Face book, fairly quickly… which came in really handy during our local campaign in the last three weeks before the election. Our campaign literature pointed everyone to a personal website: www.ericjoyce.co.uk which directed people to blog posts, twitter updates and a video log of visits to about eight constituency communities.  We had used  a wordpress blog and twitter account @ericjoyce previously. Between October 2009 and  April 2010 Eric joyce MP’s blogging profile improved rapidly through consistent engagement with the public and other bloggers.   Paul Waugh wrote about successful political bloggers: Eric ‘s blog is listed despite having only come into existence a few months before.

As parliament closed and during the three weeks that MPs stayed in their constituencies to fight the election, our use of social media became much more local. We exercised a shift from Westminster  to local issues, producing candidate centric brochures making videos, writing targeted letters/leaflets and communicating with local activists. We switched our efforts to working with councillors, volunteers and speaking to constituents in face book, in twitter and on the street. Facebook is a very useful forum for organising volunteers and for sharing national or local messages. You tube and Twitter were linked with Facebook for all our posts:  we really liked the excellent Labour UK videos and updates from Gordon Brown’s national campaign.

Our use of social media had an obvious and immediate advantage during the election. We had instantly acccessible digital content  in place: information about and pictures of our candidate could be passed on, linked to or emailed with ease at a minutes notice. Social media made dealing with radio and press easier. It was easier for us to move information around in social media for example in setting up a facebook fan page or posting digital links to other content quickly.

We also used google alerts to track what was going on in the press and blogosphere to our political advantage; we had many useful returns about the SNP, visits to Falkirk by Alex Salmond (three days in a row) leading up to the election.  We also have some interesting anecdotes to tell: for example about a nasty cybernat (there are plenty of sensible Nat bloggers too) campaign in Facebook.We spotted it and had it removed, thanks Facebook.

We made videos nearly every day and uploaded them quickly to youtube as we  delivered leaflets in the form of letters with local and digital information in them. We even  made a video of the local candidate hustings, uploaded to YouTube from an Apple mac laptop (quickly edited on imovie) via a handheld Kodak HD Zi8 video camera, which is excellent on the move.

This campaign was about  big Labour ideas (as the election results showed in Scotland).  We tied Labour messages about the change we see  to just in time local messages with a bit of help from social media.  Labour’s messages were seen both in twitter  #changewesee and the excellent Labour UK campaign and website. We used  local photos of a new hospital, new schools, the rejuvinated canals and waterways to illustrate our brochures and strengthen our local messages. There were also some excellent Labour videos like ‘The Road Ahead’ with Sean Pertwee  ….the blog took a back seat during this election while leaflets, our videolog, flikr and facebook took  priority.  The signposts are there, the verbal feedback on the street, the election result,  the number of clicks on our website and the number  of views of our videos in You tube, all good. I’m looking forward to using these in opposition, tweeking our new media strategy for what may be its most effective use, for opposition.

If anything digital communications, mainly by email and telephone, in the HoC is getting worse: technology (Parliamentary Information and communications Technology PICT) is way out of date, support is too paternalistic and now the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the new body appointed to oversee MPs expenses and office budgets is looking decidedly unapproachable and difficult to deal with.  IPSA are changing ‘the rules’ to constrain spending and make MPs work better. But will MPs be doing more creatively more openly more digitally? Probably not. Will the new rules promote better communication, more participation more engagement and with constituents? Doubt it.

It is already quite difficult to train staff in the use of social media, innovate or invest in technology in an MPs office.  It looks as if it might be getting more difficult at a time when  we need to catch up fast. The new system is in serious danger of constraining the use of technology and or putting off staff who want training for digital literacy in their parliamentary position eg:

Learning to learn about emerging technology

Integrating digital media  in a media strategy

Cross party communications

Engaging with the public  in social forums

Cloud versus terrestrial or parliamentary networks

.

We are going into a general election, (#GE2010) with social media being used more often for commenting on or providing political news. It is worth pausing to think about what we can find in twitter. We can read a wide range of views and political opinions, some of it good blogging, some of it bad blogging, but  I find it really useful to look at more than a few tweets in twitter before I follow someone. Checking bios and following links to find out more about the person (or account) I might follow is essential.  In fact I also look closely at the number of tweets, numbers of followers and number  of follows. Over the last six months, I have seen more political accounts come into twitter and it can be difficult to pigeon hole them.  I can think of three general categories of politics account in twitter: people who tweet as themselves, people who tweet  for a blog or website and people who tweet anonymously (for what ever reason). I might be tempted to add a fourth tiny  group of people, people like Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) who appears to have farmed out his account to a named person.  What I want to do here is to offer some suggestions as to the type of political micro blog you will find in twitter but without going into detail about the quality of the tweets ( I might do that in another post).

I have selected some political accounts from the 1000+ accounts that I follow in twitter and put them into two notional lists, all be it in an uninspired way: one is ‘named people’ and the other  is ‘named accounts’. The first list is accounts where a person’s name is used (and that name is in their ‘bio’ aswell).  The second list is accounts where a person’s name is not used as the account name. In this list, there may or may not  be a named individual in the ‘bio’. This list does not include accounts where an individual can not use their own name and is forced to use a similar or pseudonym eg my own account @Louisesdad (martin brown). Browns and Smiths have a hard time of it in social media. In this case, is usually obvious who the person is and the account is still searchable by that person’s name so it can still go in list one.

An important sub list and really useful source of political information is journalists such as @JohnRentoul (The Independent) and MPs such as @Tom _Watson . We should include in this list well-known political bloggers such as  Sunder Katwala of @thefabians and @NextLeft, and @Iaindale.  There are some really interesting twitter accounts which require separating out because they are so innovative in their use of twitter. Two of the best sites are @tweetminster and @blogminster. These are accounts which are well worth spending more time in for a number of reasons. They both have linked sites and integrated blogs and they are both about cross party and bottom up politics. Tweetminster lists MPs and PPCs in twitter and seeks to analyse what is politically happening in twitter. Blog minster has successfully integrated blogging, tweeting and email in a comprehensive platform. They are both well-managed and transparent while engaging the public and MPs.

As twitter has grown new ideas have developed, one of them is the  common usage of the hash tag. In fact as the web is associated with @, twitter is now associated with #. It is used to list tweets under a memorable tag name or simply to draw attention to an idea #bottomupolitics.  #peoplesposters is a tag that was used  last week to collect good ideas for a Labour poster campaign. It was an idea well suited to twitter. However, in this case Labour failed to follow through with their good twitter idea. The Tories very quickly seized the published ‘best idea’, a ‘Ashes to Ashes’ spoof  for their own campaign. I have to say  Dave Cameron looks much better sitting on a Red  80s Audi saying “Fire up the Quattro, it’s time for change” than he did in his famous ‘airbrushed’ poster. It is left to people like Jeremy Nicholl to point out the irony of this photographic copyright infringement  as the #DEbill is rushed through parliament without time for proper debate.

Labour is well-known for having great grass-roots support in twitter and it is a party with good ideas for involving the public. #changewesee is a hash tag linked to a website for sharing photographs of local improvements under a Labour Government. Unfortunately for Labour  the twitter account @changewesee was  taken by a sharpeyed Tory blogger before it could be used for more positive purposes. It is this type of negative blogging that I would place in or close to the bad blogging category. Many would say that on balance this type of  behaviour is OK in twitter. I’m not so sure of that, for me bad blogging is bad blogging. Better is better blogging, being more creative, being more positive and trying to contribute original content, whenever possible, isn’t it?

Leaving the blog content aside for now, readers should look closely at the account not just the tweets to see what is at the back of the account: is it a person, a person in hiding or something else?  Many accounts really are just ‘personal accounts’, just ordinary people putting their name to an opinion. Other personal accounts are a bit more, in that they belong to a named MP or a well-known journalist whose full-time job is politics. Some accounts belong to large organisations like the Guardian online, channel4 or the BBC, where we also find a great deal of  informed conversation in traditional media. Other accounts seek to do something new in that they want to disrupt top down politics: they want to  feed bottom up politics conversations. @Juryteam is an interesting experiment in bottom up politics. They advertise their activities in Sunday newspapers and seek to improve public participation in politics using social media to ‘clean up politics’. However, from what I have seen, the more anonymous accounts, the more bottom up they pretend to be the more unsocial they become: see @fairfutureforall, @brownandbust and @eyespymp.  The Tory #cashgordon campaign is an example of how using social media in a  purely negative way can backfire very quickly. It ‘s failure became viral: see @megpickard for her now famous diagram ‘Anatomy of a  hashtag #cashgordon’.

Public participation in politics is important but to borrow from something I read recently about collective  decision-making,  ”you wouldn’t want the guy sitting next to you at a football match to be the manager of your team”. I think we sometimes forget that knowledge and experience is important (and knowing who said what and why), not just voice, counts . This is, in my view, most important with politics and new media: not that from the big news papers, the government or even individual politicians but that which is created or managed by techknowhows with an interest in politics.

The fabian society is a great think tank and a succesful publishing body based in London. The society  is now sharing and publishing more online and like  millions of  web users out there enjoying publishing on the web.  It is interesting to watch as Fabians experiment with social media and shape the digitalised Fabian brand.

When I first joined the Fabian executive in 2005 social media was not  a term that exec members used. In fact I spent nearly two years asking for more investment for the Fabian website, which was very clunky back then. The site now looks great as does the Next Left blog (with interesting divergent branding?) and the Fabian twitter account @thefabians. We even have our general secretary, Sunder Katwala,  tweeting on a regular basis as @nextleft and our chair @sadiqkahn showing us how an MP can use Twitter. Since early 2009 we have seen further developments in the use of  digital media by the Fabian society with more emphasis on digital participation in the next left blog and Facebook.

There is now, a more integrated approach with Fabian publications online, regular blogposts  in Next Left, conversations in Facebook and news in twitter.  It is no suprise that young fabians are also taking an active role with social media. There is a young fabians blog and some interesting sounding young fabian ning communities.Increasingly local and national events are better publicised and have a wider reach crossing geographical boundaries with more unconferencing, using twitter at the Fabian New year conference for example. In short Fabians have been using more social media and even more importantly Fabians have started to talk about new media more often.

There is some good evidence of useful new media discussion in the recent young Fabian publication (and online trial copy):  “Can the internet change politics?” (New Media Special by Sarah Brown, Ben Bradshaw MP, Alex Smith, Tom Harris MP, Will Straw, Jessica Asato, Kerry McCarthy, Catherine Stihler MEP  and others).  While you might not agree (and I dont) with all that is said in this publication about Twitter, blogging and Facebook  there is much worth thinking about and it can be seen as the start of a very useful Fabian conversation about social media and politics. The discussion, however, must go further and online to go beyond some of the cliches: a web presence is an outdated concept, older people (most MPs) dont understand social media and change can only happen from the bottom up? Of course that discussion has already begun in the Young Fabian blog with Nick Maxwell’s blog post: “Can internet networks change politics?’. Nick thinks it can: he has created two ning networks one is called Technology and Society Network, interestingly, it is open  to Fabian members and the general public.  Good stuff.

We should not forget that most Fabians are digital migrants, not young Fabians, long on useful experience and rich in their understanding of the ‘recent’ history of technology going back beyond the first computers and mobile phones.  They are big on amazement, often appreciative of new technology, knowledgeable, even expert, highly literate and as at present probably under engaged in collaborative media. Having said that don’t forget that most users of Twitter are middle aged.

There are some real challenges ahead for Fabians, of all ages, who intend to use social media to improve participation and political discussion.  One of these challenges is to  use digital means to overcome geographical and social boundaries. To engage local societies across the country both inside and outside of the M25  and furthermore to narrow a widening north south cultural and communication gap. There is also the real problem of balancing user generated content usually in the form of conversations and comments with more polished published content. Expertise is important and sharing knowledge is still very important but this has to be set against against ideas of improved communications for cooperation, connecting up ideas and finding new ways to collaborate. Inclusiveness is a high order value  on and off the web but the functional strength  of new media is still reduced by problems of connectivity and old technology in many places.  Add to that list, attitude but not necessarily age or digital literacy.

I  was asked to share  some of my ideas about using social media in a Labour MPs office, with some labour MPs and their researchers recently. This post catches some of what was said between 9.30 and 12.30 in W1 Westminster Hall on 26/01/10.

It is really great to see some MPs blazing the trail with new media for example, Derek Wyatt with his new iphone app for keeping in touch with his constituents. However, many MPs and their staff are quite along way from this. While things are changing in Westminster it is a slow process. If you look at Tweetminster and @tweetminster then you can get a feel for how far MPs have come in using social media. @albertonardelli has analysed the statistics on his site for a blog post about all the MPs in HoC who use Twitter. While there are far more labour MPs using twitter, it is as he says a case of the “conservative machine vs grassroots Labour”. It seems that while Labour’s values match closely with this medium, the Tories are more organised in their approach to delivering a useful election message. The Tories are acting much more like a marketing agency focusing on shaping the David Cameron brand and website while Labour MPs tend to be doing their own thing without much collaboration. Perhaps Labour should pay a bit more attention to Nardelli’s findings?

Most people would say, so what: Twitter or  Facebook are not going to change much in politics. However the evidence is there that they are very useful in creating and maintaining a brand. That brand can be party political or personal. Social media communities should not be underestimated, even rough statistics such as Average UK visitors to Facebook 11.86 million and Twitter 0.38 millons (ref:comscore) are obviously significant. Of course they are also easy to pooh pooh and we can get bogged down in looking for too much detail with age profiles,  target groups  etc. We can easily miss the main point here: that the advantages of using social media are not that easily measured. How do you measure outcomes such as the ripple effect of ambient conversation in Twitter or tother stuff like voice  and authenticity ? What we do know is that we are much more likely to be influenced by someone we feel we know or can call a ‘friend’. We also know that there is a great demand from the public for MPs to be more accountable (and approachable). Sites like Facebook and Twitter can help MPs to do their job.

Attendees at this social media mini event heard two presentations: The anatomy of a blog post by Eric Joyce MP and Do you have a social media strategy in your office? by me. Eric talked about his blog and his experience of blogging (since Oct 2009) and micro-blogging in Twitter (since  Feb 2009). He described how to integrate an MP’s existing media strategy, and he also talked at length about his experiences with traditional media such as TV radio and newspapers.

I presented four questions for discussion and gave suggestions with real examples. If you are planning to use  social media accounts in an MP’s office then these Qs can be a good place to start planning.

Q1 What resources do you have in your office? (inc trad. media strategy)

Q2 What are your messages?

Q3  Which new media tools do you want to use?

Q4 What are your goals?

The rest of the presentation and discussion revolved around planning to use a set of social media tools in concert. I showed and described five tools/accounts as a case study in using social media in an MP’s office:

blogging / wordpress

micro blogging/ Twitter

photos/ flikr

video/ Youtube

website/ personal domain name (+integration blog)

The last of these, the personal website, can be a very useful tool because it can help during an election when the MP reverts to being a candidate and can not use the title MP. This small event encouraged me to think about  doing something more to get Labour MPs and their staff talking about how social media can be used in an MP’s office. I’m off to develop a ‘ning’ community called ‘in house social’. Check your email for an invitation to join in.

I’ve been thinking about some reasons why public servants across the UK have been slow to start using new media. We have seen the quick rise of experts in social media, for business, with social media gurus appearing in marketing, creative industries and journalism but not in public services. Is that good? Its’s strange in one way because public services have acted like businesses in many ways and are managerialist over time, but they are much slower to adapt to innovations in technology or adapt to changes in any demand for that matter. Social Media is by it’s very name something worth looking at more carefully as it is something which could be said to define what  public service should be about. Really useful Knowledge which is a product of conversation and collaboration: not top down, not passed on from business and definately not told in guru storys. Of course there are good things happening in the public sector, for example there are some public sector specialists developing really good ideas for example with ‘community evangelists’ like Dave Briggs with Learning Pool offering policy advice and even great tips for using Twitter.

I suppose in some ways, it is not surprising that there are relatively small numbers of public servants in the UK pushing ahead in local or central government. It’s also noticeable that there are no self proclaimed social media  ’gurus’.  While public servants and MPs have an obvious and useful advantage in ‘social’ and ‘community’ building expertise  there is not a great deal of online conversation about how to do it. Public institutions like the House of Commons are known for being slow to make big changes and that is certainly true when it comes to technology, training and new media. However, two key points come to mind about using new media:  my first one is fairly obvious in that it can be something to alleviate  poor communications,  build partnerships and support collaboration, in  lots of offices up and down the country. My second point is that ‘we’ should recognise that our public services hold a massive pool of ‘social’ talent, skills and expertise, waiting to be tapped.

In my experience there is quite a bit of inertia and lethargy  around Corporate IT. Some senior managers simply don’t address the problem directly  while others try to retrack their systems to improve communications and promote better conversations. Corporate IT fails when it can’t offer enough choice in ways of working or sufficient autonomy to employees. People have become accustomed to more choice (in a way it defines the age we live in) not just in services or amenities. We can all access more information often with better technology at home than we have in the office (that includes the cloud and all it’s facilities).We really are more sophisticated. We all enjoy more access, more content and way more media. We enjoy all types of activity with digital media: reading, watching, listening, participating and interacting. Entrepreneurs recognise the about public want and business need.  Perhaps its time to take social media much more seriously in the public sector and address the social media wants and needs of public servants and politicians.

It was an exciting time in the House of Commons last week. George Foulkes MSP reflected on it and tweeted: “this week the tide turned with the defeat of Hoon/Hewitt: agreat PLP meeting; Cameron airbrushed out and smashed at PMQs“.

One  MP used his blog, and a telephone, in a timely way  to shape the winter news about Hoon and Hewitt. On Wednesday 6th january Eric Joyce MP blogged: “Pat Hewitt and Geoff Hoon sent out an email laying out their thoughts about the need for a ‘clearing of the air’ by the means of a Parliamentary Labour Party vote of confidence, or otherwise, in Gordon. No, they wanted him to go.” Most MPs were talking about the attempted coup around Westminster  and some of these conversations were reflected in Eric’s blog but he did not have all the facts.  What he had was an informed perspective and a well considered opinion. This was a story which came together over two days between new and traditional media: in blogs, in Twitter, radio, TV and newspapers.

It was in some ways the perfect story for a blog because it was all about context.  We the public knew the essential facts, very quickly: but the story rolled on as the context of the leadership challenge was discussed in the press and on TV. Eric’s version of events, from within the Labour party, was seen by colleagues, the public and journalists as correct and perfectly described in his punchy title ‘So who were the chickens?”

On the day in question, the blog post was written late in the evening after much tweeting, some telephone calls and some chat in the corridors.  Surprisingly, by midnight 3000 people had visited the blog post to read about the failed Hoon/Hewitt leadership coup.  The majority of these visits were directly related to links posted in Twitter, only a small number were from google searches and none were from mentions in traditional media. This was to change. Shortly before midnight the BBC called to ask if Eric could attend the R4 Today program in early the morning. A car collected him at 6.30am and he was  in the R4 studio by 7pm. By 8.30 journalists were calling his office for comments and requests for further radio appearances: this went on all day with some visits to Millbank. Meanwhile visits to his blog increased to around 6000, with about 25 comments left , some quite long. Eric continued to use Twitter to field questions and it became clear that more people were going into the blog as a direct result of listening to Eric on the Today program.

A  media conversation was  maintained on two fronts with journalists, by telephone and radio, and the public, in Twitter and in WordPress.  The Scotsman newspaper called on Thursday 7th Jan asking for an article to describe the political context of what had been the main story that week. He wrote the required piece in his constituency in Falkirk on Friday 8th Jan and promptly sent it the following day to the Scotsman. Eric returned to his blog with a short  post after the weekend titled: “Labour’s failed leadership coup (not coop)“ .  He included links to R4 and the online version of the article in the Scotsman on Sunday.

The papers continued  with a story in The Times about how Gordon Brown had been damaged by the coup. Meanwhile Twitter continued to sing with tweets from  Gordons supporters.  So what was different about this story? Well the key point is that this story started in Twitter and WordPress. Not the story of the facts about Hoon and Hewitt, they had already been given directly to the press, but the story of the context of the coup. How people came together and the events that followed the Hoon-Hewitt letter. The social context was captured and news was shared in Eric’s tweets and in his blog before  the newspapers could develop their own coherent story. The message here, I think, is that while all MPs take pains to think about how they handle the media, more MPs  should think about developing a Social Media strategy: one that integrates New Media and Traditional Media in their office, and not least just in case of events like this.