from the civil service to the west coast of Ireland and beyond

Time flies, and suddenly I realise that I haven’t posted here since the excitement of the civil serf affair. Rather than the usual (unintentional I assure you) long essay, here’s a few things that have interested me over the last few weeks – and might be of interest to you too:

• Networking Democracy – really interesting debate beginning over at Our Kingdom about how government can use the internet to assist a national debate. This is related to the Governance of Britain programme, which I have talked about before.
• Andrew Brown‘s been busy using Del.icio.us to create a feed of cabinet papers from Lewisham Council. What a brilliant idea! – and an easy way to syndicate content if you’re not all RSS enabled. Hoping to use this idea shortly.
• The BBC has published some guidance for its staff engaging in social networking. Its thorough but succinct and most importantly its out there for everyone to see. (I have had some involvement in the development of similar guidance for civil servants but that’s not published yet. Frankly, the BBC guidance and the civil service code cover the bases for any civil servant unsure about what they should/n’t or could/n’t do online).
• Almost as a companion piece, Colin McKay has published a great piece of guidance on how to do social media ‘stuff’ in large organisations. Worth reading for tips on getting people onside and stuff in ‘under the wire’ (according to Wikipedia, Colin is a professional skateboarder – you kept that quiet!)
• I saw Clay Shirky speak at the RSA last week about his new book ‘Here Comes Everybody‘. David Wilcox has a good video clip of part of the presentation. Can’t wait to read the book.
• Some more public sector blogging – nine members of the house of Lords have launched a team blog. Be interesting to see how that develops.