So it looks like I’m even later to the party than I thought, what with Charles Arthur declaring that blogging is dying. Ok, so that wasn’t exactly what he was saying, but it sounds nicely dramatic so I’ll go with it
Anyway, now I’ve started I’d better keep it up, so I wanted to reflect a bit on last Saturday’s LocalGovCamp. This was my first unconference and also the first social media event I’ve been to in person.
I’ve followed a fair few online but it’s definitely a whole lot easier to follow what’s going on when you’re in the room! And it was great to finally meet some of the people I only know through twitter or blogs (though my stupid shyness prevented me from meeting many others – sorry if you were there and I didn’t introduce myself)
But hang about – I don’t work in local government – so why was I there? Well I’m a huge believer in stealing sharing great ideas & ‘good practice’ from all over the place – local, regional & central government, & the voluntary, community & private sectors.
The day had a big impact on me – I’ve NEVER attended another conference where there was so much enthusiasm, energy and sheer desire to do things from all the people there – people giving up a major share of their weekend too. Not your average ‘it’s a day out of the office jolly’
I only caught a few of the day’s sessions so it’s great that the discussions are continuing online (Dan Harris has set up the Localgovcamp forum to keep the conversations going & Dave Briggs has pulled links to some of the activity together on the LocalGovCamp site).
Lots of people have carpe diem’d (I know that’s an appalling abuse of latin – apologies to any classicists out there) in true JFDI style & are building apps, setting up social media cafes, . I’m going to start with a few smaller steps:
- start blogging (ok, that’s a cheat because that one’s already been covered) and start contributing more to online conversations
- try (inspired by Ingrid Koehler‘s session on councillors & soc med) to persuade my local councillor of the potential benefits of using social media to engage with the local community (this is proving more difficult than I thought, considering we live together, but I can be persistent. or a nag, depending on your point of view. but I will win)
- find the time to finish turning my CIPR diploma research into an online engagement strategy & guidance for my organisation (because they need it and I want to do it)
- start using the apps I’ve installed on my iPhone to start capturing some audio/visual stuff and sharing it (once I’ve figured what the hell some of them are. I only downloaded some of them so I could have a little rainbow of apps across the screen. yes, I am that shallow)
I know that’s a short list, but it’s just a start - I will do more. Because now I’ve re-discovered my enthusiasm for all this social media stuff. So big, big thanks to Dave Briggs and everyone else involved in organising the day, and to everyone who attended and made it a great experience
Oh, and I have to credit Justin Griggs for the American Pie inspired title because I totally stole it from him
Tags: blogging, localgovcamp, social media
I’m loving your blog! It has such a great tone to it and this post does really capture LocalGovCamp.
Can’t wait to read more =)
Thank you!