DavePress » Events

How to run a GovCamp

Dave — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:43:21 +0000

With the excitement building up to LocalGovCamp Yorkshire and the Humber on Saturday, I thought I might share this piece, which I wrote for the UKGovCamp hub site a little while ago.

It’s a ten point plan to organising your own GovCamp type event – and it really is quite easy!

1. Have an idea

It doesn’t really even need to be a good one, though that sometimes helps. GovCamps take two main forms: being about a location, or an issue. So, would gathering people to talk about lots of issues about a specific place be useful? Or maybe getting people from lots of different places to talk about one similar topic would work better.

2. Float your idea

Join the Nou Camps group on UKGovCamp, and just chuck your idea out there. Mention it on Twitter, on your blog if you have one, and other online networks. How do people react? If they don’t at all, then it’s probably a non-starter. If they do, but don’t offer to help organise, then it’s worth doing, but expect to be busy!

3. Create a group

Next, if people seem interested, create a group on UKGovCamp and invite people to join it. Ask people for ideas on venues, sponsors, things to talk about and that sort of thing. Also ask for volunteers, but don’t be upset or indeed deterred if there aren’t many. Often it’s easier to get things done yourself.

4. Decide on a date, and find a venue.

First of all: weekday or weekend? All depends on your audience. If it’s a very worky-type event, do it on a weekday. If it’s a bit more socially-inclined, then a weekend is perfect. Here’s an example – Jon’s localgovcamp about project managers was planned for a Saturday, but not many people fancied it. He changed it to a weekday, and was oversubscribed!

Next, fix a date. Don’t ask loads of people because a) they’ll give you a different response; and b) you’re giving them an excuse not to come if you don’t choose their preferred date. Instead, pick a couple of weeks where it could happen, and then…

Get a venue. What does it need? One big room for congregating in. Several breakout rooms – the numbers depend on how many attendees you have. Wifi would be nice. Lots of coffee is a must! Wifi is also quite important, but not a deal breaker.

If you can, get someone to let you have the venue for free – it’s your biggest cost by a mile if you can’t. Approach companies in the area you want to host it in to see if they’ll put you up – they often will if it is a weekend and they get some good press out of it.

The venue will generally detemined the exact day you run your GovCamp on.

5. Organise, and find someone to pay for, the food and drink

Having a decent venue is important, but having decent – and sufficient – food and drink is vital. Arrange to have very regular deliveries of tea and coffee, and make sure that pastries, biscuits, muffins and that sort of thing are turning up all the time too. If you can arrange for a sponsor to bring a supermarket trolley full of Mars bars, apple pies and cans of coke, all the better!

Lunch is important too. Always order more than you need – never underestimate the appetites of public servants out on a junket.

6. A note on sponsors

I have mentioned sponsors – or at least, getting people to pay for stuff – a couple of times now. Here’s my advice on this – identify things that need paying for, and then get someone to pay for it. Don’t whatever you do either pay yourself, then find a sponsor to pay you back, or just take cash from a sponsor. Connect the sponsor to the supplier, and let them get on with it. Two reasons for this: you’ve got other things to be thinking and stressing about, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably cock it up.

7. Pimp your ‘camp

Keep banging on about your event, on Twitter, blogs, forums, social networks, phone calls, emails, conversations with strangers. It’s a good idea to set up a site for your GovCamp so people have an easy place to link to – a simple WordPress blog will do.

Use something like Eventbrite to handle ticketing, it makes life a lot easier. Release tickets in batches to create a false sense of excitement. Always hold a few back for good people you’d like to attend but who weren’t quick enough originally.

Think of some mad stuff to do at your GovCamp. If you fancy having some musical accompaniment – why not get a DJ to come along? It’ll be fun! Tell everyone about it – they’ll think you’re an idiot, but it turns out that everyone LOVES idiots!

Basically though, never, ever, stop talking about your event.

8. Get some tat to give away

The thing with sponsors and GovCamps is that there isn’t that much to pay for. Once the venue is sorted, and the lunch and refreshments, that’s all the important stuff done. So you’re likely to have to invent things you ‘need’ to satisfy the need of companies to be seen to be involved with your awesome event. So, get people to pay for things like:

T-shirts
Pens
Mugs
USB sticks
Stickers
Badges
…and anything else you can think of

9. Get people ready to present

The one big worry about a GovCamp is that nobody is going to want to talk about anything. Usually you’re safe because there will be one or two happy campers who know the drill. To be sure though, get people to talk about issues they’d like discussed before the event, online. Encourage people to join together to present sessions together if they have similar interests. Talk to people offline to make sure they will be up for stepping forward to suggest something they’d like to talk about.

As a back-up, have a couple of your ideas up your sleeve yourself – you almost certainly won’t need them, but just in case…

10. Get the agenda sorted – and then relax

The last stressy thing to get done is first thing, on the day – and that’s the agenda. Find someone skilled with a magic marker and get them to draw a grid on a sheet or two of flipchart paper. Then, gather everyone around and get them to introduce themselves – a good way is for everybody to say their name, organisation and then two or three words that describe why they are there.

Next, call people forward to suggest sessions. In a break from true Barcamp style tradition, it’s often useful to get people to tell the group what they are planning on talking about, so everyone gets an idea of what is on the agenda. They then write them down on a post it, and add it to the agenda grid.

Once this process has begun, you’re done. Relax in the marvellousness you have created.

Possibly related posts:

Looking forward to LocalGovCamp Yorkshire and Humber

Dave — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:41:16 +0000

This Saturday sees the latest LocalGovCamp, in York. It’s going to be a great day. Learning Pool are pleased to be helping out with a bit of sponsorship, and Breda and I will be in attendance.

It’s funny to think it’s only a year since the first LocalGovCamp, in Birmingham. I’ve such fond memories of that day – the sun was shining, Stuart was a hit on the decks, and Mrs Briggs and the boy even turned up and joined in.

For a trip through memory lane, the Flickr tag page provides a great visual time machine. I’ve just spent far too long looking through the photos from Birmingham (June ‘09), Lincoln (Oct ‘09), London (Jan ‘10) and Cheltenham (March ‘10).

Anyway.

I’m quite excited about this LocalGovCamp, because in the spirit of these events, the format has been messed with slightly, with a parallel track for councillors to talk digital engagement. Should be fun and I’m hoping to get involved in that at some point with some exciting plans for Learning Pool’s Modern Councillor service.

The regular track has already had a wide range of suggestions put forward for sessions on the day, so we should be short of a few things to talk about:

How efficient is social media? or, How the internet can teach you how to save money
Our digital future – what does it look like?
Getting offliners online – digital mentors – who where when how?
Libraries and Social Media
The mixtape as social media
Web & online content strategy for local government. An informal discussion about who’s got one, why / why not?
Connecting, public culture & cuts – how the social web can help public cultural institutions to connect with the public, and consider new patrons and forms of patronage
Stuff you can do with Flickr
New ways of working – a solution to local government’s crisis?
Enterprise 2.0 – deploying social technologies within our organisations to improve comms
Selling open data in local government – what steps do we need to take as sector to get us sharing our data
Election wash-up – why wasn’t this the first Internet election?
Co-designing the Knowledge Hub – developing an open process of development
Using ‘Free’ and ‘Good Enough’ technologies – the next stage of digital services development?
Smart Cities & Internet of Things – What could the future hold?
Social Media Surgeries – Lesson, Practice, and Applicability to other contexts
Engaging less able people by the use of virtual walks/events in their area or field of interest.
Front- line social media: Engagement, Consultation & Learning
Just games? Does the growth in social and geo-sensative gaming have any meaning for local government?
Crisis, what crisis? Innovative responses to emergencies

I expect it isn’t too late to get in, if you want to. Come – it’ll be fun!

Photo of Andrew Walkingshaw at LocalGovCamp Birmingham by Arun Marsh.

Possibly related posts:

Webchatting in Kingston

Dave — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:25:20 +0000

Being part of something big is really nice sometimes. Take being on the Learning Pool team, for example. Now, quite a few people read this blog, and my gibbering on Twitter – but really, relative to the number of councils and government departments out there, it’s hardly any.

But Learning Pool have over 80% of UK councils signed up for one product or another, and from time to time I get to talk to those councils – usually by turning up to a meeting and performing, but sometimes in other ways. Normally I’d never get a chance to find out from these people what the issues are that they face, and how I might be able to help out.

I’ve spoken from my desk via a live webcam thingy using Skype, and have pre-recorded webinar type things which have been played within organisations or at meetings. Occasionally it’s a mixture of a couple of ways of interacting.

A great example of this is the work we are doing with the The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. A couple of weeks ago, RBK launched their Learning Pool based learning system, which is called Evolve. To provide some light entertainment I went along to present on the subject of all things social.

It seemed to go down pretty well – and I’m going to do a question and answer session this Friday with RBK staff on what they might want to use the social web to do, and how they can go about it. Only, I’m not going to Kingston to do it, I’ll be at home in my office, contributing to a webchat on Evolve. Here are some of the topics I’ll be covering:

1. During the presentation the other week, I showed several examples of public sector organisations engaging with citizens about the services they provide. Could your service reach out to residents in this way? What would be the advantages, and what are the barriers blocking you from doing this?

2. A major theme of my presentation was about how we can apply the tools of the social web within organisations, to improve learning, collaboration and knowledge sharing. How could these tools be used within your council and what are the issues they could help tackle?

3. An important part of any organisation’s approach to using social media is that it has the appropriate governance arrangements in place in the form of corporate strategy and user policy. What are the important things to consider when drawing up these documents? How do you think you can get buy in both from senior management and from staff?

4. I bought an iPad on Friday. Anyone want to know anything about it?

The Learning Pool system, you see, is based on a bit of open source software called Moodle, which you may well have heard of. It’s the pre-eminent learning management system, used widely in academic, perhaps most notably at the Open University. We call our version of it the Dynamic Learning Environment (DLE).

The DLE isn’t just about e-learning though, it also includes social stuff like forums, wikis, blogs and the ability to run chatroom style webchats. Hundreds of councils in the UK have this technology available to them thanks to Learning Pool – although not many use it to its potential.

Kingston really want to make the most of it though, which they are running my Q&A as a live webchat. It’ll only take up 2 hours of my time, rather than the whole day which it would take were I travelling down. Hopefully it will be of help to the council, as well.

We are always looking for interesting and innovative ways that we can help councils. If your organisation has a Learning Pool DLE, and fancy doing a webchat or similar, let us know. Even if you don’t, we’re testing things like GoToMeeting and DimDim to provide online sessions to anyone who wants to join in. Get in touch!

Possibly related posts:

LocalGovCamp Yorkshire and Humber

Ken Eastwood — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:58:48 +0000

All Aboard the Great Yorkshire & Humber LocalGovCamp Train!

Departing from: The National Railway Museum in York (only 2hrs from London)

Departure date: Saturday 12 June 2010

For tickets and more information: www.localgovcamp-yh.co.uk

This first LocalGovCamp under the new Coalition Government will undoubtedly see some big issues debated, not least the future of local government itself.

The landscape has changed considerably since Dave organised the first event in Birmingham last June and our focus is now firmly on achieving more with less, or even less with less. So what of technology, social media, co-design and citizen participation? What about new ways of working enabled by technology and what of our digital future and vision?

If these questions are of interest, or you have some of your own, hop on the train and join in the debate in beautiful York. Bring an open mind, some passion and some ideas to share and explore. Bring a sense of fun too, it is a Saturday after all.

LocalGovCamp Yorkshire & Humber will also feature short parallel work streams for elected members on the use of social media, sessions being led by colleagues from Kirklees with input from Cllr Tim Cheetham (Barnsley), Cllr Simon Cooke (Bradford) and Ingrid Koehler (IDeA & Connected Councillor Programme).

If you work in local government perhaps you can ensure your Democratic Services colleagues inform your elected members of this opportunity.

The event is FREE for all to attend and as a bonus we’ll be having a World Cup themed after party to celebrate (we hope) victory for England in their first match!

You can book your tickets now: www.localgovcamp-yh.eventbrite.com

Twitter: @localgovcampYH and #LGCYH

UKGovCamp group: http://www.ukgovcamp.com/groups/yorkshire-and-the-humber-localgovcamp/

See you in York – WooooOOOoooWooooOOOooo!

Possibly related posts:

#lgworkforce – Sharing management successfully

Dave — Wed, 19 May 2010 11:13:25 +0000

Chris Elliott, Head of Transformation at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and High Peak Borough Council shows how to make the most of a joint chief executive, how to bring services together to save costs and how to best spread best practice.

Both excellent councils, semi-rural market town environment. Similar population, adjacent boundaries.
But different counties and government regions!
It ‘feels’ different. Everyone has to work differently. Greater emphasis on people. Challenging every activity.
Double the number of members!
Was considered a takeover at one stage but no longer
Cultural differences
Flexibility is key
More secure by the day
The role of management – the tiers of management – what should the be doing? Directors, Heads of Service, Service Managers. Strategic, transformational, operational
Enablers – IT, procurement, change. Also legal, HR and comms.
Methodology, toolsets and quick wins
Resource strategy alignment
Got external consultants to produce high level business case
Programme began quickly (be quick and be bold!)
Potential projects mapped in terms of difficulty and transformative impact
Member led initiative – concordat – 2 pager – and governance. Need for scrutiny and reality check
Sense of urgency driven by budget issues. Message to staff – support this or there may have to be compulsory redundancies.
Importance of engaging stakeholders
Situation now: joint CEO and Snr m’ment team, joint ICT, procurement and transformation teams, joint property services, joint environmental health team, joint grounds maintenance service.
Measures: VFM, customer service, public recognition and satisfaction, improved quality of life for residents
Observations:
- exception processes everywhere
- Measuring the wrong things
- Make waste visible
- Help people to let go
- ICT is a barrier – or is it? – Now at 35% shared IT systems. 80% by next year
- Management competency
- Use lean leanly
- Procurement = 50% of budgets
- Simple is better
Service heads have to own transformation process
Don’t create IT wish list
Pain is inevitable
Two councils = easy benchmarking
Don’t forget the supply chain
People first
Think process not tech
Be ruthless with waste
Make status quo unacceptable
Kotter – 8 reasons transformation projects fail
Grow your own, be prepared to learn
It’s easy to complicate things
Know when to stop

Possibly related posts:

#lgworkforce – Buckinghamshire’s Organisation Redesign Programme

Dave — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:59:28 +0000

Gillian Hibberd, Corporate Director for People, Policy and Communications, talks through how their change process was planned and supported, and how staff were engaged.

OD is aligning structure to objectives – form following function. Many orgs struggle to easily define their purpose.
Structure alone does not guarantee success
Org design is not a perfect science
What are the issues?
- business operating model – more outsourcing and commissioning. Councils become smaller with other partners delivering service
- Reducing layers and numbers of managers
- Spans of control
- Synergies from merging teams and reducing m’ment team
Approaches to budget pressure – slash and burn, be reactive, or plan for change
Key requirement is a vision for the organisation
Bucks’ vision is ‘rising to the challenge’. 4 elements of lean organisation: elected members, knowing our customer, support services, different service delivery models.
Model based on locality areas – 19 geographic communities with community plans.
The core of the council is a very small, learn organisation
Design principles clarify the vision and translates into organisational changes
Bucks have 6 key principles in total
Redesign model – flexible, sustainable, cost savings, management and admin targets, blueprint driven
Director team and heads of service team reduced with a 25% cost reduction
Phases: design, high level org design, design phase, consultation, transition
Outcomes – £4.2m cashable savings so far. 183 posts cut. Few employee relations issues. Next phase of transformation about to start. Blueprint coming to life and a fit for purpose organisation.

Possibly related posts:

#lgworkforce – Implementing a major organisational transformation

Dave — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:56:08 +0000

Melanie Wood and Catherine Griffiths from Birmingham City Council talk about how to take £450m out of the budget, addressing the workforce implications and creating new ways of working.

Birmingham is the largest local authority in Europe – £3.4b revenue expenditure, 52,600 employees and has large funding cuts announced
Excellence in people management – model which aims to improve performance, manage headcount and produce an org that is fit for purpose
Strategic Workforce Planning – effective and aligned business strategy, drives innovation, influence Council planning in a volatile environment, creation of collaborative networks with partner orgs
Four areas of team capability – people management intelligence, workforce planning, talent management and succession planning, innovation hubs
Model: define plan, analyse demand, analyse supply, plan actions, implement and review
Intranet content and e-learning are key tools
Developing modelling tools with a local university to help understand the organisation and plan for change
Org design function established after HR redesign at BCC
Role is to help managers and leaders run an org capable of delivering excellent services in a time of cost-cutting
Eliminating duplication, facilitating service innovation, removing barriers to collaboration, finding the ‘bright spots’ and replicating them
Components of org design – model, methodology, principles, knowledge management, toolkit (by phase) and a development programme
Systems thinking based approach.
4 phases – asses, design, implement, embed and revisit
Regulatory studies case study – saved £3.5m over 4 years. Front line services maintained through technology investments. 300 staff affected.

Possibly related posts:

#lgworkforce – Successfully redesigning your organisation

Dave — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:24:02 +0000

Duncan Brown, Director of the Institute for Employment Studies, provides some lessons from research, what works in practice and pitfalls to avoid.

How many major reorganisations have we all been through? Lots and lots, it would seem. Not many seem to have gone that well.
Context: budget cuts, redundancies rising, private sector is still cutting costs, more partnerships, outsourcing, shared services, flexible working, service removal
HR and OD depts are being challenged with fundamental questions around organisation structure and culture
How many people, in how many layers, does a council really need?
To get a 10% cost reduction, you need to target 25% cuts?
Restructuring: it’s happening more and more, isn’t going away, high stakes activity, organisations need to be good at it – because at the moment they aren’t
Less focus on internal issues than external which often leads to reduced success
What do you need to consider during a restructure? Incidence and influences.
Nature of change is shaped primarily by managers’ prior experiences, much less so on external advice
Reductions/Recruitment/Redeployment of staff
What are the causes of the change – what effect does this have on the nature of the change?
Don’t just look at total cost and numbers. Consider organisation of services – and workflow and geography.
Specialisation v co-ordination
New forms such as networks, modular, processes and project based structures
Get your risk management right
Balance of internal and external, fixed and flexible sourcing
Strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people – star model of change (Galbraith?)
Consider competence and capability early – need for knowledge and experience
‘Organisation architecture’
To be successful – Choose a team to manage change, craft a vision, connect organisation-wide change, consult stakeholders and employees, communicate clearly, support people so they can cope with change, capture learning
Also – early planning, address cultural issues, manage risk, capable HR function attending to the basics, appropriate speed
Success is nothing to do with numbers of layers or the scale of cuts
What would employers do differently in reorgs? More training, better comms with staff, better project management, redesign career structures, learn from other orgs
Difference between programmatic change and adaptive change. Programmatic more command and control. All about implementation, less about humans
Get the strategy right first, then assess, plan and prepare, then implement and manage. Evaluate, and keep doing it.
Removing layers not always the easy win it first appears.
Maintain staff engagement: lower turnover, better attendance, greater initiative, wanting to develop, higher productivity, improved customer service
Employee reductions – consider survivor symptoms – they have organisational outcomes: morale, risk avoidance, reduced motivation and commitment. Done well, the reverse can be true.
Prepare well, drive and leadership from the top, customers at the heart of change, don’t waste a good crisis, learn from outside but find right fit for your org, invest to save (get expertise and resources you need), ensure good union and staff relationships, communicate extensively, proceed with pace, be bold

Possibly related posts:

#lgworkforce – Welcome & Introduction

Dave — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:18:50 +0000

Andrew Hancox, Director of Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands introduces the day.

The money really does seem to be running out in local government
Leaked CLG memo – 40% reductions. Leaders and managers need to consider how their organisations operate.
How do we preserve front line services while reducing costs?
Changing org structures can help to produce efficiencies, so this event very timely
Online resource available on organisational redesign, outlining key issues, case studies and guidance on change
We must now pick up the pace when it comes to organisational change
Sharing good practice will be vital – this must be the start of a conversation
RIEPs very keen to support the discussions where possible.

Possibly related posts:

Designing a fit for the future organisation

Dave — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:38:26 +0000

I’m at the IDeA-organised ‘Designing a fit for the future organisation‘ event today, in Birmingham. It’s all about organisational redesign and development, and how councils can help meet the challenges they face by changing the way they work.

There are a load of interesting speakers, and I’m going to be live-ish blogging as much of it as I can, as well as catching some of the speakers afterwards for some quick video summaries of what they have been talking about.

You can also follow the action on Twitter, with the #lgworkforce tag.

Also, next week there will be http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/4236123/home.do#mce_temp_url# on the Communities of Practice exploring these issues (various levels of signup required).