These are my links for March 21st through March 25th:
- Deloitte | Unlocking government – How data transforms democracy
- 21st Century Councillor | Using Social Media: A Guide for 21st Century Councillors – If you are just thinking about getting online, with a blog or social network account and not sure about how to do it, then check out this guide.
- Governmentontheweb – Home Page – This site is dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of e-government and the impact of web-based technologies on government. This site is run jointly by the LSE Public Policy Group (London School of Economics and Political Science) and the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford).
- SocialGO – Create Social Networks, Build Social Networking Sites, Social Network Maker – Whether you're a beginner or seasoned developer, build a feature-packed Social Network customized for your group on SocialGO. No software, hosting or coding required just pick your features, monetization options, support package and GO.
- How to use Twitter for Social Learning – Twitter is very easy to set up and use, and as there are a huge number of Twitter apps that enhance its standard functionality, it is now a very powerful tool. And with over 50 million users, this free global system can no longer be overlooked for its potential as a social learning platform.
Having run a number of social media workshops for UK Local Government over the past few months, I will be focusing specifically on how social media and social networking (Web 2.0) can support the development of personal learning – ‘Knowledge Management’ at the forthcoming TFPL training event on 24th March 2010 – open to both public and private sector organisations.
There has been considerable interest in this training so I’m anticipating that there may be a few more courses shceduled in the coming year.
Details of the training below:
introduction:
There is a growing recognition but not yet a consensus about integrating Web 2.0 technologies into an organisation’s workflows and business processes. There is a desire to develop more effective knowledge sharing and a culture of collaboration amongst staff, but little recognition of what this means in terms of organisational change. Successful organisations need to be agile and able to adapt to an increasingly volatile environment. They are more likely to achieve this where conversations can flow and opportunities exist for collaboration and co-creation. In essence, we all need to be collaboration ’superstars’. The problem is, collaboration is a skill and set of practices that rarely gets taught. It’s something we may learn on the job in a hit or miss fashion. Some people are natural at it. Others struggle to understand it.
This one day course provides a practical and detailed introduction to Web 2.0 tools and techniques that will support more effective collaboration and knowledge sharing, and will give greater confidence to staff that may be on the periphery of the socio-technology changes that are becoming increasingly prevalent in both their professional and private lives.
outcomes:
- An understanding of social networks and social media and the overlap between personal and professional identities.
- An understanding of the barriers to knowledge sharing and collaboration and how these can be overcome.
- Creation of a personalised social computing toolkit to support on-going learning and development in collaborative tools and techniques.
programme:
- Social networks, privacy, digital orientations and the increasing overlap between personal and business networking.
- Risk and rewards in on-line engagement and collaboration.
- What does effective collaboration look like and what skills are needed to be an effective collaborator?
- Micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter) and its role as a business tool.
- Social Media Game – a fun game which introduces delegates to the various social media tools, how they can be used to solve real business problems, and the pros and cons of the deployment of these tools.
- The power of social bookmarking for knowledge sharing and collaboration.
- A practical introduction to Web 2.0 collaboration tools, including Google Apps, Blogs and Wikis.
- A practical introduction to social networks and social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare.
- Tools and techniques for developing and fostering successful communities of practice.
- Building a personalised collaboration toolkit.
Please contact me or TFPL if you are interested in attending a future course, or having a tailored training event for your organisation.
These are my links for March 5th through March 16th:
- Local by Social – This document outlines how local authorities can use social media to achieve more for less. It also highlights the risk to councils if they ignore the technological advances of social media and the people using them.
- sociable* | Archive | All – Examples of Social Media in action across business and government
- The truth is out there – Audit Commission – This discussion paper looks at how the public sector can improve information made available to the public. It follows our publication in November 2009, Nothing but the truth that looked at the reliability of facts and figures used by public service providers and decision-makers such as councils and health trusts, social workers, doctors and police.<br />
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The next document in our 'Truth' series, 'The truth is out there' poses questions such as 'What information will capture the public’s imagination?' and 'How will the public know what information to trust?
- Google – public data – Data visualizations for a changing world<br />
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The Google Public Data Explorer makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand. You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings.<br />
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Explore the data<br />
Students, journalists, policy makers and everyone else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages. Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you’re always sharing the latest available data. Here’s an example of an embedded visualization:
- iGoogle dashboard –
These are my links for February 28th through March 3rd:
- web20-21stcentury-tools – home – A great collection of Web2.0 tools, focused on educators, but a valuable resource list for anyone interested in Social Media
- Collabor8Now! Mail – Inbox (2) – sm1@collabor8now.com –
- Improving data visualisation for the public sector – Good data visualisation can help users explore and understand the patterns and trends in data, and also communicate that understanding to others to help them make robust decisions based on the data being presented. This site supports public sector researchers improve the way that they visualise data, by providing good practice examples and case studies, practical and step-by-step guides on how to visualise data, and links to more detailed resources.
- Making government more open and social | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com – Can social tools and community-based approaches truly help our government function better and operate more efficiently? Will open access to government data create important new opportunities for citizens and increase transparency?
These two questions are currently top-of-mind in many public sector policy discussions this year. The questions also herald new forces at work in transforming the government landscape in many countries around the world in 2010, particularly as we’ll see, the United states.
- E4 Longdistance Walk – If you know John Hayes (Services Director at IDeA) you may want to follow his new adventure: "Having worked non-stop for over thirty years I have now decided to do something completely different. I'm going to walk from Tarifa, the most southerly point in Spain, to Budapest. I'm following the route of the E4 European Long Distance Walk and I think I might be the first person to do it. "
