Whilst it has its detractors, Twitter can prove an invaluable tool for keeping up to date with a lot of people quite easily. One of the people I ‘follow’ on Twitter is David Wilcox, of SocialReporter, who has been promoting innovative use of technology in and by the community for many, many years. I met him in the late 90s when I was working with the Family Welfare Association to get their staff hooked up to the new World Wide Web, and running a number of seminars for London voluntary organisations as part of a ‘Getting Voluntary Organisations Online’ project I’d got funding for. That work led to a publication ‘Making Sense of the Internet’, published by the Directory of Social Change – and available with some online second-hand booksellers at £15 a pop!

So it was quite appropriate that through following David on Twitter, I picked up a mention from him about a Social Media Surgery in Chelmsford which was being run by the RSA. They were looking for ‘experts’ on social media to come along to provide help to people from the local community to get to grips with social media such a Twitter, Facebook, blogging and so forth. My offer of help was accepted, and through the organisation efforts of Clare Reilly and her colleagues from RSA I found myself pulling into Chelmsford railway station and heading to the Central Library adjacent to County Hall.

Being a bit reflective of late, on account of passing a milestone birthday, I realised that it was almost 25 years since I had last done this journey when working with Essex Social Services Department. The part of County Hall I worked in is still there, but the Central Library is part of a new block, and the library has lots of space, and a very open feel to it. Upstairs is a learning resource centre, and the social media ‘surgery’ was hosted in the area normally used for Learn Direct, the means by which a lot of the community who don’t have good technology access at home can come and log on to a range of learning resources. Sad to say (and the finger here points to central government funding, not Essex Libraries) that the computers were somewhat on the dated side, and rather slow.

After a round of introductions, and a whizz through a PowerPoint with Clare, we broke up into groups and one-to-one sessions. I spent an interesting initial half hour talking through the potential for small businesses to use the likes of Twitter, blogging, Linkedin, Facebook and a couple of other resources (one of which was a new one to me). I think I was able to show how using a Flip camera, and setting up a blog through WordPress, supported by the use of Twitter, could be a very cost effective means of promoting a company, and communicating with customers.

My second session was with Katrina, a nominee for this year’s Young Achievers Awards for her voluntary work. She was keen to look at Twitter, and networking tools like Ning, as a means of developing an online resource for young people with epilespy – an issue close to my own heart. I talked her through Twitter, picking up a couple of tips on how to use it slightly differently to the way I use it, and got her set up with her own account. I also gave her a quick tour of resources such as Yahoo Groups, with the suggestion that she could do some initial research via Twitter and Yahoo Groups to confirm what resources were out there, before she set out on her task of creating something for her own network, and bringing others in.

All in all it was a pleasant few hours, and I’ve now got a copy of the RSA’s ‘Social by Social’ publication, and some thoughts about revisiting the work I did in the late 90s that led to the publication of ‘Making Sense of the Internet’, and seeing how else I could offer my expertise to the local community.

There’s nothing like a shocking death in the community to focus attention on the supposed inadequacies of our public services.

And Birmingham Children’s Services have been under intense national scrutiny following the death by starvation of 7-year-old Khyra Ishaq. Rightly, questions were asked: How could such a terrible tragedy happen in a modern British city? Where were the safeguards to protect the child?

Last Friday I spent an hour or so with Owen Pearson, assistant director of Children’s Services in Birmingham. Owen is a dedicated champion of children’s safeguarding, he’s on call most of the time, often working round the clock. He has no time for holidays, but is urged to take them far away from Birmingham and England so he’s out of contact, “which makes my holidays rather expensive,” he jokes. Above all, he loves his work: “I believe I can make a difference for children. If I’m making a difference for one, then I’m making a difference.”

Some 2,000 looked after children are currently in the care system in Birmingham, and 4 times as many children are on the child protection register living at home.

“Our priority is to safeguard children in their own homes,” Owen says. “Most children don’t’ want to leave their parents. That’s home, that’s love for them. It’s only when they get older they realise they can get out.”

He manages 19 teams; each team has 6 social workers, 2 assistants and a manager. And each social worker has 15 cases or more at any one time. As Americans say, “do the math”. It’s a huge workload.

The teams’ records of helping vulnerable children go largely unrecorded, mainly because of the successful outcomes. Now and again tragedies happen and the teams collectively are vilified across the nation. Such is the lot of Children’s Services throughout the UK.

The reason for my visit was to plan a mini-conference where Owen and Colin Tucker, the Children’s Services Director, will talk to other heads of services to explain the type of work they do and how they’re going to develop this in the wake of little Khyra’s death.

The idea for the conference is to record the “journey” through video engagement of a vulnerable child who is referred to social services. So as Owen and Colin speak, behind them will be a portal containing half a dozen video blogs of everyone connected with the “journey”; that’s the 10-year-old child, social worker, case recorder, legal representatives and child/adult who has been through the care system.

The idea is to give an accurate picture – not a whitewash. Owen was clear about that. He wants to tell the truth and he wants each person in the chain of events to show clearly how the “journey starts and finishes”.

No system is perfect, but if we can show through directors’ speeches and video narratives how everyone is trying to improve the lives of children, then maybe next time tragedies occur, there’ll be less finger pointing and witch hunts and more empathy, understanding and analysis. That way real improvements will be made.

As part of this engagement process, it’s important to keep the portal growing post-event. That way everyone connected with the service can start to talk, engage and share best practice and anecdotal evidence. Using facebook-style profiling, microblogging and video blogs, a community can be formed and managed, and hopefully can act to help avoid tragedies in the future.

“What I really like is Facebook. Can you do Facebook for me?”

No, it wasn’t my 10 year old asking me to set up his own Facebook page (which he wants – tho I haven’t). It was the director of a local council asking me if we’d be able to extend Facebook profiling for all staff and community stakeholders.

“Of course,” I replied. “We can even throw in sealed microblogging (twitter-style) capability for your senior management team and different departments.”

Now there’s an interesting challenge…

On every level central and local government are working on ways to extend their reach into the community, the problem is how to do it when budgets/resources are scarce and local politics get in the way.

What I propose is a virtuous circle of engagement. Take the old ideas of knowledge management – so beloved by local authorities – and turn them inside out. Bring video/audio and blogging capability to all staff within local government. Add to this, set everyone up with Facebook-style profiling and secure microblogging networks.

Immediately, people can start forming groups within organisations, best practice can be shared, problems can be solved. Twitter-style blogs can keep members of teams up to speed with what’s happening inside and outside of the office. This will become an essential tool for senior managers/directors and also frontline social workers. The career minded will embrace the new ways of working while acting as evangelists to the less enthused members of staff.

Following this, you extend this level of engagement into the community, bringing in health, police, community groups, charities. So the complex of different individuals and groups, private sector and public, will start to interact with each other.

Furthermore, as the groups start to generate content, talking to each other and posting human interest stories on video and in blogs, the engagement process will gather its own momentum – altho still managed by all partners in the community.

It’s ambitious, far-reaching stuff. An absurd utopia, some might think.

Maybe. But not so absurd. If all stakeholders decide to engage it can work through proper management and proactive profiling.

If cabinet ministers down to directors of local authorities are serious about stakeholder engagement, they should take the lead and start the making it happen.

I recently proclaimed in a meeting with the senior management team of a London Borough Council that I would revolutionise community engagement. At the time I was embarrassed by my own hyperbole. But afterwards I realised what I said was true.

We need to create awareness, then show people the possibilities; not abstract but concrete possibilities. Conferencing + interactive content + plus managing the network.

The best way to get people talking is to entertain them.

I saw this at first hand yesterday in Liverpool at a huge exhibition and conference focused on transforming personal care. The event was attended by local authority transformation leads, carers, and people with disabilities and mental health problems, so a good mix of attendees

There were the usual suspects advertising their wares, handing out mints, chocolates, squeezy stress heads and – my favourite – balls that light up when you bounce them (couldn’t resist filching several of these).

And some of the workshops, while well meaning, bordered on the very tedious.

Nevertheless, the good bits were VERY good. There were dance troupes, a bell ringing Town Crier decked out in Georgian garb, an Elvis impersonator and a comedy troupe called Abnormally Funny People. This bunch have just finished a season at the Soho Theatre and boasted only one “normal” person (ie a person without a disability). The humour was not all about disabilities; it was simply put on by people with disabilities. That was the point. Fairly risqué stuff, but the audience loved it.

In many of the workshops people were invited to take part. From citizen leadership in the community to helping mental health service users understand personalised care, this was how conferences should work. The audience were tasked to help solve various conundrums among themselves. – and have some fun doing it.

Jenny Pitts from Shropshire CC headed a brilliant exercise in audience participation in her workshop on cultural change in the community. Here a couple actors from www.peopledeliverprojects.com gave a role playing exercise, one of them a cynical team leader who believed change wasn’t possible, the other a young eager assistant director eager for change. Throughout the workshop the audience was invited to stop the action and get the actors to use a different approach to solving their communication problems. It was funny, engaging and thought provoking. Everyone loved it.

The only workshop missing was a truly interactive one where people used Web 2.0 tools, cameras and social media to show how communities can grow through networks and active participation. That’s where I come in. Next time.

Below is an interview with Andy Taylor and Dave Rowen of people deliver projects and Jenny Pitts, Shropshire CC. Also Elvis singing In The Ghetto, followed by a chat with the king.

“What I really like is Facebook. Can you do Facebook for me?”

No, it wasn’t my 10 year old asking me to set up his own Facebook page (which he wants – tho I haven’t). It was the director of a local council asking me if we’d be able to extend Facebook profiling for all staff and community stakeholders.

“Of course,” I replied. “We can even throw in sealed microblogging (twitter-style) capability for your senior management team and different departments.”

Now there’s an interesting challenge…

On every level central and local government are working on ways to extend their reach into the community, the problem is how to do it when budgets/resources are scarce and local politics get in the way.

What I propose is a virtuous circle of engagement. Take the old ideas of knowledge management – so beloved by local authorities – and turn them inside out. Bring video/audio and blogging capability to all staff within local government. Add to this, set everyone up with Facebook-style profiling and secure microblogging networks.

Immediately, people can start forming groups within organisations, best practice can be shared, problems can be solved. Twitter-style blogs can keep members of teams up to speed with what’s happening inside and outside of the office. This will become an essential tool for senior managers/directors and also frontline social workers. The career minded will embrace the new ways of working while acting as evangelists to the less enthused members of staff.

Following this, you extend this level of engagement into the community, bringing in health, police, community groups, charities. So the complex of different individuals and groups, private sector and public, will start to interact with each other.

Furthermore, as the groups start to generate content, talking to each other and posting human interest stories on video and in blogs, the engagement process will gather its own momentum – altho still managed by all partners in the community.

It’s ambitious, far-reaching stuff. An absurd utopia, some might think.

Maybe. But not so absurd. If all stakeholders decide to engage it can work through proper management and proactive profiling.

If cabinet ministers down to directors of local authorities are serious about stakeholder engagement, they should take the lead and start the making it happen.

I recently proclaimed in a meeting with the senior management team of a London Borough Council that I would revolutionise community engagement. At the time I was embarrassed by my own hyperbole. But afterwards I realised what I said was true.

Apologies for overusing a recent video interview, but Christian Wraxall’s comments (below) are a good indication of how many people working in local adult services are starting to think along the same lines.

Yesterday I came across a grubby copy of Society Guardian with a highly readable piece by Dame Julie Mellor on how the state and citizens have to work together to build communities. To my mind it was very apt and timely copy and rather surprising given that Ms Mellor works for PwC, an organisation not noted for its services to the public.

Apologies, but I quote Julie at length here because I think she makes some crucial points:

“A shift to services produced in ¬relationship with citizens will require not just communities to take on more ¬responsibility but also the state to change the way it works. In particular, increased citizen involvement in services should not be used as cover for the state leaving people to fend for themselves, or putting them in situations for which they are unprepared. Co-producing services demands a new relationship between the state and communities.

“At its heart, community empowerment is about developing a new set of relationships between citizens, the state, service providers and actors in civil society. It is a demanding agenda that requires citizens and public services to change the way they engage with each other. However, the benefits are considerable, and policy-makers need to understand how the barriers to advancing this agenda can be overcome.”

In the past I’ve mentioned how the media is changing as the industry and communications change. And this is also true of the public sector and the professionals who are running public services.

To build these types of communities you need state funding and agendas that set out how professionals should connect with the public. You also need professional communicators that can make sure the connections are made and, more importantly, managed.

You need stakeholder engagement programmes that bring all sections of the community together through common platforms – and this is then managed by communications professionals.

Regardless of all the best laid plans, if communities are not managed then they will wither very quickly.

Linking to all this, I interviewed Chris Pyburn, communications and engagement manager at Suffolk County Council, last week. During the next year my team and I will be working closely with Chris and his team to roll out a programme that comes close to all the points Dame Julie Mellor has written about.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2010/feb/10/policy

You’ll have seen a number of posts in this blog about the work we’re doing in Stockport on their Stakeholder Engagement programme. We’re pleased to be beginning work with Suffolk Adult and Community Services on an engagement programme for them. I’m particularly pleased, as Suffok is 15 miles up the road from where I live, whereas Stockport is about 240 miles across the centre of the country. So my carbon footprint on this project will be much smaller.

We met Chris Pyburn today, and my colleague Andrew interviewed him on the top floor of the atrium in Endeavour House in Ipswich.

You’ll be seeing the video interview Andrew took on this blog shortly. In the meantime, you can watch a short clip taken by me on my Kodak zi8 of the interview taking place. You can hear how good the quality of the sound is with a microphone plugged into the zi8, particularly in picking up the sound of someone walking past! (note to self : invest in a directional microphone).

Professional journalism is dead – here comes everybody.

Social theorists the world over are in a philosophical frenzy about how journalism is dying by a thousand blogging cuts. It’s now you and me making and creating news, not the guys in the grey macs with the notebooks.

True, we’re now all at it, but journalists still do it better.

Call me new old school, but I believe journalism’s time has finally come. We survived the shipwreck of dictatorial media moguls, failed publishing trusts and B2B cowboys to arrive washed up on the shores of web 2.0 social media and hyperlocal websites.

I know I’m guilty of hyperbole here, but I really do think that journalists have an important part to play in our communities going forward. It’s now not just about the printed article, it’s about ways of joining up on a hyperlocal scale. From your small community to the wider world, using video blogging and other media.

I say all this as a preamble to the work I’ve recently done with Shropshire on their Common Assessment Framework (CAF) project.

I’ve written about CAF before – so apologies if I’m repeating myself – but this time I’d like to fit the idea of CAF into a hyperlocal social media setting. Indeed, a managed interactive hyperlocal media setting.

In essence CAF is about joining up local services so everyone in the community can access information about the most vulnerable members of society. A benign big brother if you like.

For my part, I believe that if you start to introduce social media, particularly video blogs, into the mix we can then create something unique. Join CAF projects into hyperlocal media sites and we have a community genuinely looking out for itself.

And here’s where journalists morph into a different type of media animal. They work closely with local public bodies and charities to link the hyperlocal media network to the larger CAF projects, which are in turn linked with the Department of Health and central government.

Social media is by its nature chaotic. So why not manage and organise the chaos so managers and directors from local services right up to central government know what’s happening in communities across the country. Seriously joined up thinking and all administered by savvy media-trained journalists or community managers.

Here’s Carole Lucas and Julie Edgington talking more about the CAF project in Shropshire and the workshops they’re running.

In the past year or so I’ve focused much of my working life on how to build engagement platforms for local government, based on video blogs rather than written materials, emails, newsletters and the like.

This video-style engagement programme is a huge amount of work involving directors, frontline social workers, community partners and service users. The process has to be meticulously mapped, champions need to be found and community boards need to be established. These will then help to build the programme and give it that unique sense of community.

These local government programmes by necessity have to be non hierarchical, so all participants have the confidence to speak out. There is an underlying corporate message – the personalisation initiative, for example – but this is often more a platform for participation rather than an order that requires a response.

If anything the programme relies on service users, partners and social workers to provide human interest stories that are at the heart of any community engagement. These are the stories people relate to and watch again and again.

Our two pilot programmes in Stockport and Suffolk are intimately linked with this sense of shared community, the idea of giving a voice to people.

But we also recently started a project with a private company, OLM Systems. This is a business that sells software to public sector organisations. So it’s inextricably linked with local government and the social care sector, but it’s very much a private concern.

The business wanted an engagement site so that staff could understand business initiatives, new sales propositions, new products about to be launched and get a feel for the overall direction of the company. The site also gives access to customers for any feedback – and staff are encouraged to be willing participants.

It’s a much more corporate-led engagement building exercise, but one that still has that idea of community wrapped around it. So maybe it’s not so different after all from its public sector counterparts. I suppose people live their lives in companies, just like they do in local communities.

Here’s Adam Ratliff, marketing manager, to explain what he’s looking for in the engagement programme.

Before you cry: “plagiarist, blogcheat, self publicist”, I’d just like to say sorry.

Well not THAT sorry.

But the reason for an upfront apology is that I’ve written about our Stockport project elsewhere in the blogosphere and even used the following video of Rob Powell and Natasha Howells, the leaders of the project, in a former blog.

Nevertheless, the Pav-I blogsite is a fairly recent one, so I thought I’d explain about Stockport in a little more detail and then let Rob tell the rest.

I sincerely believe we have started a communications programme that could make a real change for the better in local government, so why not labour the point a little.

About a year ago, we began a pilot programme with Stockport council to address their transformation agenda. They wanted a clearer message going out to staff, community partners and service users about what this “transformation” or “personalisation agenda” was all about.

Our idea was to set up a platform that would give the user a visual two-way connection that would involve ALL stakeholders. So everyone could understand the message and feedback their own contribution. The central tool to take make this happen would be small, handheld Flip video cameras.

Each online community has its own page; ie senior management team, direct payments team, workforce development, adults, mental health, learning disabilities, older people etc. It also has its own content manager. For example, the head of mental health is the content manager overseeing uploaded content (this also helps with governance issues). An editorial board meets regularly to talk about content going on the site each month. Each Thursday an email goes out to all registered users to give them highlights of the latest content that’s been uploaded. So it’s a managed, proactive network.

In Stockport much of the emphasis is on new ways of working via the transformation agenda. But the council is also using the interactive medium for workforce development and overall communications between managers and staff.

For instance, by addressing staff through a visual training portal, the engagement programme saves time and money, and provides regular policy updates helping to keep all staff informed of practice and procedures. Usage is tracked, so all areas of community engagement can be monitored and measured. So they can build on what’s popular and throw out things people aren’t clicking on to.

By adopting champions within the local authority, local health service and peer champions within the service user community, the programme is going some way to pursuing agendas on community participation, stakeholder engagement and empowerment in social care.

But, above all, I believe we have an opportunity to help people understand all the key issues that affect their lives – that’s inside and outside the council – by allowing them to talk directly to each other.

It’s THAT simple.