Comments on: Working better together http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/ Using the internet to make government more interesting Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:06:57 +0100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Noel http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/comment-page-1/#comment-2722 Noel Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:28:02 +0000 http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/#comment-2722 When we started in Kent in looking at the potential of social networking tools to work better together, we were confronted with an unexpected ban of Facebook for all our staff. Irrespective of the pros & cons of this decision, this forced us to think innovatively about how staff could make the best (...) use of social media. This is why we piloted the IDeA's Communities of Pracitce platform - and we learnt that you need to: Attract the enthusiasts (those who are trying to work across boundaries and with users already), identify quick wins (pilot with groups working on projects that will affect the whole organisation), select different groups (so that everyone can participate in a way that suits them), build up the capacity and skills for facilitation and arrange meetups in...real life This person involved in our pilot sums it up better than I do: “People who find it hard to share skills face-to-face could see their ideas and knowledge being passed on and feel they are part of a community” When we started in Kent in looking at the potential of social networking tools to work better together, we were confronted with an unexpected ban of Facebook for all our staff. Irrespective of the pros & cons of this decision, this forced us to think innovatively about how staff could make the best (…) use of social media. This is why we piloted the IDeA’s Communities of Pracitce platform – and we learnt that you need to:

Attract the enthusiasts (those who are trying to work across boundaries and with users already), identify quick wins (pilot with groups working on projects that will affect the whole organisation), select different groups (so that everyone can participate in a way that suits them), build up the capacity and skills for facilitation and arrange meetups in…real life

This person involved in our pilot sums it up better than I do:

“People who find it hard to share skills face-to-face could see their ideas and knowledge being passed on and feel they are part of a community”

]]> By: Andrew Beeken http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/comment-page-1/#comment-2714 Andrew Beeken Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:08:00 +0000 http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/#comment-2714 I'm looking to redevelop our Intranet over the next month using a number of Open Source solutions including Wordpress (for comms), MediaWiki (to encourage departments to manage their own internal corporate information), PHPBB (for the more social side of things) and tying everything together with a seamless SimplePie powered frontend to keep everyone up to date with the latest info from all of these platforms. I also plan on doing a little jiggery pokery with pulling staff information in from Active Directory to run the staff directory, as well as perform auto login tasks so that all people need to do is fire up their browser and start interacting immediately. I’m looking to redevelop our Intranet over the next month using a number of Open Source solutions including Wordpress (for comms), MediaWiki (to encourage departments to manage their own internal corporate information), PHPBB (for the more social side of things) and tying everything together with a seamless SimplePie powered frontend to keep everyone up to date with the latest info from all of these platforms. I also plan on doing a little jiggery pokery with pulling staff information in from Active Directory to run the staff directory, as well as perform auto login tasks so that all people need to do is fire up their browser and start interacting immediately.

]]> By: Tony Molloy http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/comment-page-1/#comment-2712 Tony Molloy Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:52:07 +0000 http://davepress.net/2009/02/15/working-better-together/#comment-2712 I set up an internally hosted Wordpress blog at work and it provides our primary communication tool for staff and volunteers, in place of a number of noticeboards, endless emails to 'all staff', printed documents in pigeonholes, circulation folders, etc. Anyone can register for an account and all are given Author rights by default so can post and comment. It's available from any PC. It also serves as a basic intranet by using pages rather than posts to hold the internal telephone directory, useful phone numbers, copies of electronic newsletters, policy documents, etc , etc. The home page also serves as a gateway to all the other online services that are used, so it's a portal as well. It's been quickly taken up by everyone and is usually the first port of call for the volunteers when they come on shift, to see what's new. It's also good for new trainees, etc as they have one place they can go to for everything and don't have to remember lots of different URL's etc. The cost was (and continues to be) minimal, just my time to set it up on the server and to monitor and occasionally manage it. I set up an internally hosted Wordpress blog at work and it provides our primary communication tool for staff and volunteers, in place of a number of noticeboards, endless emails to ‘all staff’, printed documents in pigeonholes, circulation folders, etc. Anyone can register for an account and all are given Author rights by default so can post and comment. It’s available from any PC. It also serves as a basic intranet by using pages rather than posts to hold the internal telephone directory, useful phone numbers, copies of electronic newsletters, policy documents, etc , etc. The home page also serves as a gateway to all the other online services that are used, so it’s a portal as well. It’s been quickly taken up by everyone and is usually the first port of call for the volunteers when they come on shift, to see what’s new. It’s also good for new trainees, etc as they have one place they can go to for everything and don’t have to remember lots of different URL’s etc. The cost was (and continues to be) minimal, just my time to set it up on the server and to monitor and occasionally manage it.

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