let's be social

I went to full Council last night in Solihull, mainly because we have started promoting meetings via our Twitter feed, and as this was something I have said they should be doing for some time now, I felt I should at least attend one to see what I wanted promoting.

There’s no reason why we can’t stream meetings, but for the costs involved, who would watch it, and what would they get out of it?

I was one of 8 or 9 people in the spectator’s gallery, most of those were students, so for the general public.

In a time when Councils are being told to cut costs, and in some cases services, where does the funding come from to do this, and how would it be justified? I am all for citizen engagement, democracy, and due process, but I am really struggling with justifying the expense of making things like this available online to the directors, and members of the Council.

Any ideas?

my Councillors gave to me, 3 blogs!

OK so two were set-up previously, but they all spent the evening learning more about how they work, and ways in which searching for local data can be useful.

Ken Hawkins

Martin McCarthy

Mick Corser

Hopefully we’ll see more blogs over the coming months, and these ones getting more content, so please be supportive.
Thanks to Paul Hadley, Dan Slee, and Lorna Parsons for helping the Councillors this month!

This will be the 2nd SMS for Solihull Councillors, and we’re expecting more people this time, so please leave a comment if you will be able to come along as a surgeon, or just interested in being part of the conversation about why blog or use social media/networks, and how it’s helped you etc.

As before, free coffee, biscuits, and parking around the Council House itself.

6-7:30pm Civic Suite

[googlemaps http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&msa=0&msid=101345853077325692828.00047494e05e75d93d874&ll=52.411451,-1.777747&spn=0.002291,0.00456&z=17&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

The first one is at least. But the response was very positive, so I have decided to go ahead and book the first real SMS sessions.

10 Councillors turned up on Monday evening (plus 3 SMBC staff with an interest in Democratic Services, and communications), and another 10 have expressed an interest (some of these will be coming to the intro session on Friday the 11th) so I think that’s quite an achievement. I told myself I would be happy to get 15-20 members involved, so I have managed to do this, and there’s always potential for more to join in down the line.

We had hoped to hold the full SMS sessions in Gloria Jeans in Solihull, however they close at 6pm, so that won’t be of much use. For now we’ll carry on with the original plan of holding them in the Civic Suite, at least the coffee is free, and we will have WiFi.

Session 1 will be on Friday the 18th of September, 6pm to 7:30pm

Session 2 will be on Tuesday the 6th of October, 6pm to 7:30pm

If you would like to volunteer to help out as a surgeon, or to offer your experiences of how blogging and social media have helped you, please leave a comment so I can get in touch, alternatively email me at alanjc@chimerax.net

Hope to see you soon!

The first two sessions have been booked for Solihull’s Councillors, and these will primarily be an introduction to social media, and how it can be useful to them, and their communities.

CivicSurf have kindly sent out some DVDs and about 70 booklets for me to distribute to the Councillors, and directors, so I really hope this generates some interest in these social media surgeries.

I have been very careful to aim this at the Councillors themselves, rather than the whole council, as these members do not have budget, and are not paid, so I really hope that some of the volunteers from the Birmingham Social Media Surgeries will be willing to help me out here. As this is all about them being able to engage more with their communities, in the same way that we have been helping community and voluntary groups to engage.

In the first two sessions (currently booked for the 7th, and 11th of September) I am only going to introduce them to the concepts, and answer some questions. From this, we should have some people who are genuinely interested in learning, and setting up their own blogs, presence on Facebook/Twitter and so on. I would like to run four surgeries in total with the first towards the end of September, then the other three over October and November.

Without Councillors active engagement through blogs, and social media, I honestly believe we have lost something after spending so long helping community groups make their presence felt online. If they can both engage with each other, and the public together, surely the outcomes will be better for all.

Please let me know by email, or in the comments below if you would like to be involved.

I’ve been bitten by the SMS bug! SMS for the uninitiated (in this case at least) means Social Media Surgery.

It’s a fairly informal gathering where people can learn about blogging, twitter, mashups, online community engagement, and in its most simple form, how to talk each other online.

Since I started working for a council in the West Midlands, I have started to feel like there are things I believe in passionately which aren’t being done, and the best way to get these views across nowadays is online. The sad thing is that so few of the people making the key decisions are online to listen.

That’s where the West Midlands Councils Social Media Surgery can help. I hope to engage with the Councillors, directors, and CEOs, of our councils, and anyone involved in partnership working, voluntary organisations who work on their behalf, and associated people who make decisions, and local area plans.

Are you one of these people? Are you engaging with people online yet? Just having an email address visible online isn’t engagement by the way, we in the community don’t know what you’re up to unless you’re out there telling us, and discussing things with us in a two way dialogue.

Soon I hope to have some interest from the people above, and active social media people such as bloggers, and journalists who can help us all make this informative, and useful to get real engagement working for everyone.

Please feel free to leave your comments below, or email me to offer support, suggestions, or anything else you want to discuss about it. alanjc@chimerax.net and put WMCSMS in the title.