Talking about the project at UKGovCamp10

We attended UK GovCamp 10 (#ukgc10 on Twitter) which was organised by Dave Briggs at Google’s London HQ. Barcamps are usually fairly hectic, with no set agenda until the day and the open space arrangement using hi-tech post-it notes, never seems to fail to work.

Michele has blogged about more of the day itself, but we had a slot towards the end of the day to share what we had learned so far during the  project. Our slides are up here:

The session rounded off with an interesting discussion about approaches to governance and moderation. We also discussed how local gov community engagement relates to hyperlocal activity (local blogs etc.). The key points were:

• It takes patience to build hyperlocal involvement. Nick Booth and Paul related their experiences of running social media surgeries for local communities in Birmingham.
• It may not be appropriate for local gov to try to manage/control online spaces. But having a central space where discussions can occur does mean it is easier to monitor conversations.
• Those managing and responding to online communities need to distinguish between constructive criticism / suggestions and complaints.
• You can encourage positive feedback by responding quickly and sorting peoples’ problems out.
• There are existing examples of best practise in moderation and how to manage conversations without damaging the organisational ‘brand’.

As usual the most valuable part of the day was getting to meet enthusiastic people doing similar things up and down the country, comparing notes and sharing ideas.