Councillor Camp 2013 – #CllrCamp
Saturday was spent at the London offices of Facebook, which was the location of the first Councillor Camp which despite some of the comments in response to my tweets etc on the way prior to attending had nothing what so ever to do with the ‘American Pie’ franchise, but was instead an event aimed at encouraging, enthusing and empowering local Councillors (and by way of this local councils) to look at ways we can use ‘social media’ to better carry out our roles.
This possibly too long post cover’s the what with possible future posts to cover more on the ‘workshop’ style sessions.
Dominic Campbell from FutureGov who had put together proceedings, kicked proceedings off followed by presentations from our venue hosts Facebook, who reckon they have 14% of the world’s population on Facebook, 600 million of whom access it via mobiles.
Elizabeth who I think was from Facebook’s public policy bit, covered some great examples of how Facebook is been used across the world, including a City Councilman from Ohio who has a regular feature explaining why he’s voted in a particular fashion, to the Danish Tax Office who use Facebook to highlight some of the uses of the taxes they collect, along with some more local examples from police forces in the UK who along with how they are using to twitter to connect with not only locals but also inspire and engage folk working for them.
Elizabeth also highlighted some (I’m guessing American based) research around political activism that highlighted folk who were active users of Facebook were two and half times more likely to attend a political rally or meeting and 57% more likely to persuade someone to vote.
Next up was a series of presentations from different folk with a strict five minute maximum to cover their ideas, first up was the leader of Brighton and Hove Council who amongst other things highlighted how they include on their press releases a twitter hashtag for folk to use to debate the issue in the press release.
Liz from Harringay online covered how local Councillors were working with their ‘hyperlocal’ site to both pick up local issues, raise awareness of upcoming issues, connect with folk to help work ‘offline’ as well as online, and that one of the uses of the site has been to help counter rumours and correct incorrect information.
Dean Russell a councillor from St Albans was next with 5 thoughts in five minutes which covered a range of issues the most memorable (from the picture at least) was around how in using ‘social media’ you need to find what works for you.
Mark Pack from MHP Communications was next with 10 questions to ask to see if your council gets digital, covering things like should council’s be collecting email addresses from folk using their website to better connect / communicate with them, to do councils hate smartphones ? as quite often council websites don’t work so well on them, and we don’t always make it quick and easy to report an issue they’ve seen on the streets quickly.
@Merici who has worked for the Obama campaign and the Elizabeth Warren campaign spoke about using video and how authenticity is important with a number of video’s that have been used from the locally done to the high polished national campaign production video’s.
Councillor Dave Harrington from Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, spoke about how he uses Skype as an additional way to hold / host ward surgeries, whilst still doing the more traditional along with street surgeries, and last but by no means least was Cllr Alice Perry from Islington who went through some of ways Labour in Islington have used ‘social media’ to campaign, with the usual proviso that it’s not an alternative to traditional campaigning but an enhancement, and that whilst twitter can be great for many things with a 140 character limit – it’s not good for debating.
The afternoon was in a unconference style for 4 sessions of 45 minutes each, with the 100 or so Councillor’s in the room determining the subjects up for discussion in 7 ‘spaces’ in the venue to consider them, with in Facebook style some of the spaces having great names such as the Galifray Room, Time Lord, Dalek and so on.
In the first set of sessions topics up for consideration included slander and liable issues, good websites for town and parish councils, web casting, media literate hogging the agenda, Facebook strategies and working with less tech savvy councillor’s. My first choice was the session on web casting which to a certain extent was hosted by Catherine Howe of public-I which not only covered some of the issues around the more formal web casting of meetings and so on, but also ways in which for a relatively low cost councillors can look at using the tech for other community meetings etc.
The second set of sessions included options on working with older folk, blogging, open data, digital take up, twitter boot camp and evidencing success. My choice was blogging, with the session covering a range of issues around blogging from how to start to what to cover, along with a whole range of ideas including Councillor Paul Deach who founded and runs the Surrey Residents Network whose blog includes using Audio Boo and podcast to engage with locals.
The third set of sessions including options on email, building digital civic architecture, iOS & android apps, dealing with spam and trolls etc, Online campaigns, feedback during meetings, Facebook privacy. I went for the spam and trolls option, but more for ideas on how you can keep things positive rather than what you need to do to deal with them afterwards.
The fourth set had options on targeting / getting followers, Flickr how to, support for members / media team support, managing demands, reaching diverse communities, what’s the purpose of linked in, leading a digital council. Neatly fitting in with some of my portfolio responsibilities I went for the session on support for members / the council’s media team which promoted a good discussion around ways that some of the training that is done could be enhanced, along with the need to look at officer training on some of the ‘social media’ skills as well, as long with breaking down whether this type of stuff should be the sole preserve of the media team or whether it makes more sense for other services to use them as well.
Last up was a panel discussion with a cross party range of folk, which covered a whole range of issues from the basics – that use of social media is not going away and government both locally and nationally need to adept to it, too however you use it ensuring that you have / remain authentic and that rather than social media been something that’s an add on the need for it to become a core strand of work.
A final thought at least for now was promoted by one of the various motivational type posters that were about the place and pictured below – what would you do if you weren’t afraid?
