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On Tuesday 30th June, we have what might be a fascinating session with members of the City of Edinburgh Council, their employees, and a group of Edinburgh citizens / residents / customers / clients / service users.

We will have the opportunity to describe

• what is it like to live in Edinburgh at the moment, while we are trying to Combat the Recession
• what we think of Community Transport
• how we might use web2 and citizens ideas on current service to re-design services for the benefit of the user

We have a number of elderly people, a number of young people and some middle-aged as well. There is a diverse group, and we are all very grateful to the Councillors for agreeing to meet.

Is Edinburgh really an Inspiring Capital ( you credit ‘Edinburgh Inspiring Capital,’ use our logo and link to our website http://www.edinburgh-inspiringcapital.com. )

or as one of Polly Toynbee’s commenters in the Guardian said last week

” Evidence of improvement, Polly? What evidence? I live in Edinburgh, and all I can see is wrecked roads, inaccessible hospitals, unaffordable housing, closing shops, hundreds of bloody CCTV cameras spying on me and utterly crappy public services which have been deteriorating for a decade or so. ”

Learning Pool were also at localgovcamp in Birmingham on Saturday 20th June, as were Jadu.

Great to have this support from such companies.

Now we hear that Bristol and Newcastle will be running similar events later in the year.

This was mainly because we had a great band of speakers, and the cleverly crafted socialbysocial game to change the tempo after mid-morning.

As last time, James Munro from Patient Opinion gave the opening talk, and we could sense that they are growing, despite not because of the NHS supporting the customer voice.

Stewart Kirkpatrick from w00tonomy reminded us of the value of user generated content.

Stuart Harrison ( thanks for coming all that way ) gave a great insight into twitter, and how he and Lichfield district council for whom he  works, are using the application. He is a multi-talented proponent of technology, and other ways of using the web to get messages across.

Mike McTernan from Rapid Mobile wanted to know how people might use mobile in new ways. We had a great example of the simple ways in which Africa, specifically in this case, Malawi uses mobile technology.

The Learning Pool folks were over from Derry and it was lovely to meet Mary in person. Thanks so much to you all for coming. Paul had a plane to catch to get back home, so he showed us how much time and money can be saved with on-line training. I was thrilled to hear that they are working on serious games, and will definitely be in touch.

Al Tibett from Greener Leith explained how their organisation has grown using face to face communication backed up by extensive use of the web, and has been an on-line charity from inception.

Then we played the socialbysocial game and worked out in 5 groups what sort of actions might be needed to help Edinburgh transport, combat the recession, promote education and young people,ork with the environment, and engage the community to hear the voice of the citizen.It was fantastic to see the human dynamics in the room changing, as everyone played their game challenge on their table. Drew and David were extremely effective masters of ceremonies.

We will be doing more of this type of work with the city of Edinburgh council on June 30th. We are kindly invited to run a workshop on how citizens experiences and ideas can help design services.

Interesting in this context to see the post about Government waste of money on IT ( about £ 120 billion ). This comment suggests, as all of us at the event probably agree, that the citizen needs to be at the heart of the design ; government is ” institutionally incapable ” of delivering services in 2009 with the structures, IT systems and business processes that it has. It should listen, and in many cases get out of the way or remove itself.

After a healthy bowl of delicious soup from our wonderful hosts The Melting Pot, we heard from Mark Ballard at SCVO about the challenges the voluntary and not-for-profit sector face with web2.0 adoption.

Then the talk I had been waiting for from Iain Henderson mydex about Vendor Relationship Management. This will enable the individual to choose what they tell their vendors, either private or public sector. Give us back our identity is a powerful message, and the business case for supplier and individual is compelling.

Suraj from Jadu who spoke afterwards said that mydex is a paradigm shift, and I agree.

Suraj and Jadu have designed East Lothian web site, and it would be great if they could build a business in Scotland. Public sector websites on the whole are very poor and in real need of value for money re-designing. Citizens ought to be involved in this as well. After all, it is our money that pays for councils and our lives that are influenced by their services.

Finally James Coltham gave a pretty simple summary of accessibility issues. He blogs on this and other subjects, and would love to hear from others interested in accessibility.

Other things I learnt on the day

• Edinburgh Council education department will apparently not let school teachers or pupils build web sites in school time – this is one to follow up as I could have misinterpreted the statement
• One of the guests does the IT for the Homeless World Cup
• The pupils from Firrhill and Drummond High schools have great ICT teachers

It was a lot of fun and final thanks to Liz Ainan for covering it all so well

Everyone was then away by 1545, some to the pub, some to Dave Briggs localgovcamp in Birmingham, and others to Anna Maybank’s SICamp in Glasgow.

Busy times for web2.0

The reason for the lack of content is I have been writing bids to fund projects.

In a report that came out 2 years ago, New Philanthropy Capital estimated Scots spent £ 450 million on bid writing. It is mundane and dull work, but funders require it. It is also mostly a waste of time, but it supports armies of charity bureaucrats.

What I wish -

i) that the forms have a common template and that there is a cloud-based repository where you store your base details. I don’t like entering the same things twice.

ii) that the funders do not ask the same question twice, or three times, in the same application

iii) that the funders agree a common format ; this could be led by the Charity Commission or some-one. I suggested it to the Charity Aid Foundation and ACEVO a while back, but they are too busy lobbying to worry about process or systems. This is a shame as the ROI would be high.

iv) that the charity world moved on to web2. It ought to be possible in 2009 to construct a database to search funding sources ; to do it using semantics and matching charity to funder ; to simplify processes electronically. Is there a government, or charity up for this ?

v) the value of medical staff time bidding the MRC and Wellcome Trust and others must mean the achievement of their research outcomes is delayed by 30%. Why do professors spend their time writing bids ?

The Huffington Post called May 21 a big day for folks in America. They got this to play with.

Ladbrokes ( if they were offering prices and spreads ) for anything similar to happen here

UK -    18 to 36 months           10 to 1 before May 2010

Scotland – 24 to 48 months   20 to 1 before May 2011

If you feel strongly about this, then use this to write to your elected representatives. They need something else to do other than claim expenses. Do you think any of them have caught RECI ( repetitive expense claim injury ) ?

There has been talk among the Westminster hospitals of a surge in elderly white males blaming tennis elbow, but we know differently.

Clearly our MPs are happier serving themselves ; if you are a public servant reader of this blog, when was the last time you really served the public ? Is what you do adding value to the individual member of the public ? How do you know ?

Since the Obama victory in America, there appears to be a growing adoption of web2 tools, and an appreciation that the public may just know a thing or two about services and what we want. And the Feds are being challenged to think about Web2, and how to hear the conversations. In the UK, there are examples every day as this one from FutureGov proves.

As always, innovation is streaming out of smaller enterprises as well.  Hellohealth is a fantastic example of Web2 in action. Would it have a chance in the UK when competing with the NHS ? Let’s see because as a member of the public, it looks as if it is designed to serve my individual needs, not those of the NHS.

And if Hellohealth, why not Hellojobs or Hello (whatever ) public service. Ministers will be looking for new ideas in the next 12 months, and thereafter.

Will they adopt Web2 over here ? The view of the public mood over the last 3 to 4 weeks may mean that politicians and public servants start listening. I say “may” because the form is not good. However, there are green shoots ; please do nurture them as Liz asks.

Still no facebook page for jobs yet though

The commentator’s conclusions

What does all of this data mean for nonprofits?
1. Continue to embrace low dollar donors.
2. Segment, test and repeat.
3. When people first join your list, hook them and engage them immediately.

I don’t know if similar data exists in the UK

Anyone from ACEVO or SCVO a reader and can comment ?

From: Tom Steinberg <tom@mysociety.org>
Date: Fri, May 15, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Subject: [mySociety:news] mySociety Newsletter No 1: Sparing No Expenses
To: news@lists.mysociety.org

mySociety Newsletter No 1
14th May 2009

   - Welcome to our newsletter!
   - MPs’ expenses
   - Links we think you’ll like

What’s it all about?

Blimey! Nearly 4,000 people have signed up to get news from
mySociety<http://www.mysociety.org>via email, so we’re going to start
sending out a regular newsletter. Please
get in touch via tom@mysociety.org if you have something interesting you
want us to share with everyone.

Anecdata

MPs’ expenses

You may have seen a few months ago that mySociety led the campaign to stop
MPs concealing their expenses by changing the Freedom of Information
Act<http://www.mysociety.org/2009/01/17/6-days-to-stop-mps-concealing-their-expenses/>.
And we won, which was nice.

After all the fuss that has since come about, we’d just like to observe one
thing: if the information hadn’t got out, the expenses system wouldn’t now
be half-way through reform, and the tax payer wouldn’t be seeing money
refunded direct from MPs. Accountability makes government
better<http://www.mysociety.org/2009/05/15/mps-expenses-the-best-example-yet-of-why-foi-is-a-good-law/>
.

*Gurkhas*

Over 6000 messages about Gurkhas were sent via WriteToThem.com over the last
few weeks, contributing to the insurmountable
pressure<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8025658.stm> seen
in Westminster last week.

Got something you want to say to your MP? Get in touch with your MP, MEPs
and local councillors via WriteToThem.com – it’s easy to use and totally
free of charge.

*What do Private Eye, the Guardian and the FT have in common?*

They’ve all<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/945bc8d0-ee53-11dd-b791-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F945bc8d0-ee53-11dd-b791-0000779fd2ac.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Findusdelta.co.uk%2Fstory%2Fnote_financial_times_readers%2F3353&nclick_check=1>
published<http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&issue=1235>
articles<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/08/freedomofinformation-bbc>covering
Freedom of Information requests made by normal users via
WhatDoTheyKnow.com <http://whatdotheyknow.com/>, mySociety’s newest core
site. Your request could be next!

Some things we’re working on at the moment

   - Re-designing TheyWorkForYou.com – fresh new look coming soon
   - Relaunching HassleMe.co.uk – because your mother can’t nag you about
   everything
   - Adding lots of historic information to TheyWorkForYou.com (funded by
   the Ministry of Justice)
    – A Really Great Secret Project that uses that scenicness data we’ve
   been gathering <http://scenic.mysociety.org> and which we think you’re
   going to Quite Like

Little-known fact:  mySociety people spend more than half their time working
on commercial projects for clients like the BBC, Google and many others, to
raise money for the charity.  *If you*’*ve got a problem, and* no one else
can help… you know where to find us <http://www.mysociety.org/services/>.

Links We Think You’ll Like

   - *Spread the leafleting love*: Some
good<http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wpblog/>
   friends <http://memespring.co.uk> of mySociety started an election
   leaflet website called The Straight Choice <http://thestraightchoice.org>.
   If any leaflets land on your door, *please *upload a picture to their
   database. With a good database of election leaflets we’ll all be able to
   keep local politicians accountable for their promises better than ever
   before.
    – mySociety’s *Fun Thing to Try of the Month*: Have a go at Scenic Or
   Not <http://scenic.mysociety.org> and help us complete the first ever
   scenicness map of the whole of Great Britain. 74.67% is already complete!
   - *mySociety’s Puzzler of the Month: mySoc Director Tom Steinberg is off
   to give evidence to the inquiry into MPs’ expenses in a couple of weeks.
   What should he say? Answers on an email to tom@mysociety.org or a tweet
   to @mysociety <http://twitter.com/mysociety> please.*
   - *mySociety’s Immature Snickering at Government IT problem of the Month*:
   Kent Primary School has a better Google ranking for ‘British Bank
   Holidays’<http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=british+bank+holidays&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&sourceid=Mozilla-search&start=0>than
multi-million pound usability car-crash
   DirectGov <http://direct.gov.uk>. That’s bottom-up innovation.

And finally…

   - If you have any stories you’d like to share about getting things done
   using mySociety’s sites, please let us know <tom@mysociety.org>.

   - If you liked this newsletter, please tell your friends. They can sign
   up here <http://goog_1242379032597>
<http://goog_1242379032597><https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/news>and
we promise never to give or sell their email address to anyone.

   - If you like what mySociety does, please hire
us<http://www.mysociety.org/services/>or consider making a
   *regular donation <http://www.mysociety.org/donate/>*. We can only carry
   on making shiny and useful websites through donations and commercial work
   from lovely people like you.

Until next time,

– the mySociety team <http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommymartin/3191647033/>

Last tidbit: Got a G1 mobile phone? Check out the brand new ‘Fix My Street’
app on the Market.

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