Comments on: Communities in ‘Control’? Meh.

By: MJ Ray

MJ Ray — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:15:36 +0000

“71 per cent of people know that councillors receive some payment for their council work, 52 per cent wrongly believe they must represent a political party” – I don’t know if it’s different in London or if this was only asking about particular levels of council, but I don’t get paid for parish council work and it seems pretty rare that independents get elected to anything apart from parishes. Even the neighbouring town council seems pretty party political.

I’m going to try to make more of an effort to use social media to discuss the council’s work, but not many of our electors are using the same forums yet, as far as I can tell.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:24:42 +0000

Rolf, of course there is a commitment required in terms of time and effort, to create content and manage responses to it. But in comparison to the potential quality of conversation you get in return, it is a relatively small cost.

And it’s not just about the open source thing. A self-hosted WordPress site is still going to need maintenance and other work, despite being open source. But if you just want a blog, use WordPress.com or Blogger, which really are maintenance free, technology wise.

By: Rolf Lührs

Rolf Lührs — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:34:10 +0000

Dave,

I do believe in the value of the social web for politics & government as well. But I do not believe that it is “cheap or free” as you have repeatedly pointed out. Even if we look at FLOSS it requires quiet a lot of implementation and/or configuration efforts. However, much more energy has to be spent to develop appropriate concepts for the use of social web tools, community management, content generation etc. pp. Participation remains a costly thing to realise, esp. for PAs

By: No, that other person « Policy and Performance

No, that other person « Policy and Performance — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:35:11 +0000

[...] Posted by Ingrid Koehler on July 8, 2008 Are you a Londoner? Look to the person on your right, then look to your left, no – not that one, the person just on the other side of the person on your left. That person wants to be a councillor. (Sorry for the throw-away post on this one, but Dave Briggs has a fascinating post with all the details). [...]

By: Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:31:33 +0000

Oh lets hope for a few more than that! But I know what you mean.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:33:20 +0000

Andrew – thanks for stopping by, and I agree with you totally. Even if only one or two peole are brought into the conversation as the result of a blog or other online initiative, it will have been worth doing!

By: Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:56:07 +0000

Definitely as-well-as, but definitely worth doing too. It seems to me that there's quite a lot of bleed between off line social activists and online ones at least around where I live. But even were there not the point would be about trying to develop that spark of wanting to participate positively in our communities. If that stuff about only 1% of people being social activists is anywhere near true then we should use every tool in the book. Or so it seems to me.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:15:15 +0000

Quite! Hence why I bang on about blending this cool, shiny online stuff with the boring old offline things people have been doing for years. New media doesn’t kill old media, and should be treated as an as-well-as, not an instead-of.

That makes it sound like extra work, but it isn’t really because it is dead easy, and in most cases free, to do. As long as people know where to look, which is where programmes like CivicSurf come into play.

The other point that is well worth making, though, is that the social media and networks savvy section of the population (and I am generalising massively here) are an interested, enthusastic and slightly geeky bunch who like getting involved and like making things better. Ideal folk to have on board, I would think.

By: Anthony Zacharzewski

Anthony Zacharzewski — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:03:22 +0000

I think the social web does have a lot to add, and I would be amazed if it went by without mention in the White Paper. How deep do the tentacles reach, however? I have my suspicions that the difference in reach between Andrew Brown’s ward assemblies and most kinds of social networking is pretty wide (or perhaps they’re circles on the Venn diagram that don’t cross over).

What evidence is there (and this is an honest question, not a snark) about the extent to which social networking can reach a reasonably representative sector of society?