>/sbin/reboot -n ...
>chown root my/life/now/loulouk
>rm negativity
>rm self doubt
>find . name 'inspire'*"
>chmod 777 inspire
>sleep 14h
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Monday, 28 March 2011
Department swapping for the win?
Inspired by @clarewhite who wrote about looking at parks and open spaces through different eyes and with a disclaimer that I absolutely know this can't happen cos it's utterly bonkers, right, but;
What if we all swapped staff for a week? As in, our Communications Department upped sticks and took their rather unique combination of skillsets, ideas and life experiences and descended on, I don't know, some other Local Authority in a completely different bit of the country?
What if we swapped Amenities Departments - the bit that looks after parks and open spaces and took our world which contains bowling greens down to Devon which might involve grass tennis courts and a completely different clientèle? Could things be learned, would things look different through different eyes, or would the grass just look greener (ha ha ha etc)?
And, ultimately, is this what digital is going to allow us to do? To look at someone elses problem at the other end of the country which seems a bit tricky and allow us to suggest solutions and ideas?
Or will localism reduce collaboration across borders as we all contract and look inwards to hack off any corner we can in order to make a saving?
What if we all swapped staff for a week? As in, our Communications Department upped sticks and took their rather unique combination of skillsets, ideas and life experiences and descended on, I don't know, some other Local Authority in a completely different bit of the country?
What if we swapped Amenities Departments - the bit that looks after parks and open spaces and took our world which contains bowling greens down to Devon which might involve grass tennis courts and a completely different clientèle? Could things be learned, would things look different through different eyes, or would the grass just look greener (ha ha ha etc)?
And, ultimately, is this what digital is going to allow us to do? To look at someone elses problem at the other end of the country which seems a bit tricky and allow us to suggest solutions and ideas?
Or will localism reduce collaboration across borders as we all contract and look inwards to hack off any corner we can in order to make a saving?
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Wheels still spinning
Traction. It gets talked about a lot at the moment.
I feel like my wheels are spinning. But while wheels are spinning, experiences are being absorbed, other peoples words are being listened to and I am reading and thinking and dreaming.
I think dreaming is important. I suspect to some it might look like I am procrastinating. I am not. I am...measuring things up. Accumulating information and connections. Assessing impact and reach. Finding out who my friends are, who my colleagues are and who my fellow dreamers are. They are not the people I thought they would be. I don't mind that. Life is like that. People are like that. Sometimes you cross paths at the right time and sometimes it's the wrong time.
But back to dreaming. I never have before. Others used to speak of dreaming of their wedding day and I'd wonder what was wrong with me that I never did. Then I realised, I never dreamt of anything at all. There was no room for dreaming. No room, actually, for glitter, sparkles, spangles, fizz or bubbles
I have spent the last 5 years making up for that. Owning it, acknowledging it, losing the resentment for it and finally coming out of the other side of the silliness and frivolity a different person. I am still a little more in touch with my 'inner child' that most. I can't help that and wouldn't want to - glee is flying down the side of a big hill with your hands off the brakes, and funny is trying to explain no you really did get that black eye from walking into a tree branch head on - but even that can and will be used in the future, I think, as a constant reminder never to be too serious, that hard work and dedication and determination will get you so far, but always, there is the tiniest element of luck, but if the dice rolls the wrong way, you've not lost your life. You are still breathing. The world still turns and you are still standing on it, a part of it.
I find risk taking fascinating. I was, for a long time, risk adverse. I remember sitting in pubs, many pubs, in many pub quizzes, knowing the answers but never venturing to mention that I did. I wouldn't, because I had noticed that I was more often wrong than right and I felt that that meant I should never speak at all. What I forgot is that being right can be the difference between coming 3rd or 4th, just the same as being wrong can be. So ultimately, the risk looked like it was 20/80 - when in actual fact it was 50/50.
What I find strange in both myself and in others who I ride with, is the ability to be massive risk takers when we ride our bikes - we think nothing of only covering the brakes, not using them, nothing of dropping off 3 foot drop offs which would make others cringe back in fear - and yet in our normal every day lives, we are not risk takers, in the main. We are normal boring people doing normal boring things.
I don't want to be normal or boring. But not for me. I understood something reading How to be a social entrepreneur this morning. He says that often the most successful social enterprises are based on the fundamental injustice someone has experienced first hand, that the powerful emotive feeling of reaction to that injustice can be harnessed, can be used for good. Can drive. Can be positive.
Well I tick those boxes.
What I don't tick is very many others which I suspect will be covered in the rest of the book. But for now, it is enough to know that the thing which I honestly thought was a negative trait in me, is actually the one thing which might mean my complete lack of experience in all other areas can be minimalised, born by someone else, can be absorbed.
What do I do well? The things that I care about. The things I love. The things I connect with on a visceral level. The things which make my heart sing and dance.
I'll get there. Wheels still spinning. Doesn't matter if it's in one, ten or twenty years. Ill get there.
I feel like my wheels are spinning. But while wheels are spinning, experiences are being absorbed, other peoples words are being listened to and I am reading and thinking and dreaming.
I think dreaming is important. I suspect to some it might look like I am procrastinating. I am not. I am...measuring things up. Accumulating information and connections. Assessing impact and reach. Finding out who my friends are, who my colleagues are and who my fellow dreamers are. They are not the people I thought they would be. I don't mind that. Life is like that. People are like that. Sometimes you cross paths at the right time and sometimes it's the wrong time.
But back to dreaming. I never have before. Others used to speak of dreaming of their wedding day and I'd wonder what was wrong with me that I never did. Then I realised, I never dreamt of anything at all. There was no room for dreaming. No room, actually, for glitter, sparkles, spangles, fizz or bubbles
I have spent the last 5 years making up for that. Owning it, acknowledging it, losing the resentment for it and finally coming out of the other side of the silliness and frivolity a different person. I am still a little more in touch with my 'inner child' that most. I can't help that and wouldn't want to - glee is flying down the side of a big hill with your hands off the brakes, and funny is trying to explain no you really did get that black eye from walking into a tree branch head on - but even that can and will be used in the future, I think, as a constant reminder never to be too serious, that hard work and dedication and determination will get you so far, but always, there is the tiniest element of luck, but if the dice rolls the wrong way, you've not lost your life. You are still breathing. The world still turns and you are still standing on it, a part of it.
I find risk taking fascinating. I was, for a long time, risk adverse. I remember sitting in pubs, many pubs, in many pub quizzes, knowing the answers but never venturing to mention that I did. I wouldn't, because I had noticed that I was more often wrong than right and I felt that that meant I should never speak at all. What I forgot is that being right can be the difference between coming 3rd or 4th, just the same as being wrong can be. So ultimately, the risk looked like it was 20/80 - when in actual fact it was 50/50.
What I find strange in both myself and in others who I ride with, is the ability to be massive risk takers when we ride our bikes - we think nothing of only covering the brakes, not using them, nothing of dropping off 3 foot drop offs which would make others cringe back in fear - and yet in our normal every day lives, we are not risk takers, in the main. We are normal boring people doing normal boring things.
I don't want to be normal or boring. But not for me. I understood something reading How to be a social entrepreneur this morning. He says that often the most successful social enterprises are based on the fundamental injustice someone has experienced first hand, that the powerful emotive feeling of reaction to that injustice can be harnessed, can be used for good. Can drive. Can be positive.
Well I tick those boxes.
What I don't tick is very many others which I suspect will be covered in the rest of the book. But for now, it is enough to know that the thing which I honestly thought was a negative trait in me, is actually the one thing which might mean my complete lack of experience in all other areas can be minimalised, born by someone else, can be absorbed.
What do I do well? The things that I care about. The things I love. The things I connect with on a visceral level. The things which make my heart sing and dance.
I'll get there. Wheels still spinning. Doesn't matter if it's in one, ten or twenty years. Ill get there.
March 26
The London Metropolitan Police are finally learning how to play chess.
After the students made them sacrifice their Queen and forced their hand enough to resort to tactics which were perhaps not appropriate for young people (kettling) it seems someone has realised that anger, frustration and unrest are unlikely to go away but only to get worse as the UK's financial austerity starts to bite.
There is a command centre with pods for not only the police, but also other partners needed to manage so many people including the Ambulance Service. I hope, as I suspect do they, that they will be surplus to requirements. There are independent observers in the command centre from Liberty, the police not only entering into dialogue with external groups without being directed to, but opting to open up a little, to become a little more transparent in their decisions.
So much has changed in 4 months. The Commander now talks about bluetooth and tweeting, using their website 'much more'. Never mind the questionable strategy they previously employed which by inference meant they didn't think they needed to update their website at all. They're catching up. They're learning to play.
The final piece of a jigsaw which gives me hope is the quiet words hidden away on the Sukey website:
Finally given permissions, but permission given all the same. Anyone who is any way familiar with the mechanisms of the Ministry of Justice or the Met will understand that the decision to release that documentation is a big deal. Things are changing. Not only because of the fronts being fought loudly and to much fireworks and noise on Twitter and in other places, but because of the quiet, determined under the radar negotiation of people like those behind Sukey.
The war for transparency and accountability is being fought on many fronts, and it is being won.
NB
It is estimated currently, at 12 noon on the 26 March that the Met believe there are at least 450,000 people on the streets of London marching against the cuts being imposed across the public sector. They are marching on behalf of those who cannot make it down to London, for whatever reason. I would like to say thank you. Whether I believe it will make a fig of difference or not, I passionately believe in this countries ability and responsibility to look after those who cannot look after themselves as well as they themselves would like for any number of a thousand different reasons. Thank you.
After the students made them sacrifice their Queen and forced their hand enough to resort to tactics which were perhaps not appropriate for young people (kettling) it seems someone has realised that anger, frustration and unrest are unlikely to go away but only to get worse as the UK's financial austerity starts to bite.
There is a command centre with pods for not only the police, but also other partners needed to manage so many people including the Ambulance Service. I hope, as I suspect do they, that they will be surplus to requirements. There are independent observers in the command centre from Liberty, the police not only entering into dialogue with external groups without being directed to, but opting to open up a little, to become a little more transparent in their decisions.
So much has changed in 4 months. The Commander now talks about bluetooth and tweeting, using their website 'much more'. Never mind the questionable strategy they previously employed which by inference meant they didn't think they needed to update their website at all. They're catching up. They're learning to play.
The final piece of a jigsaw which gives me hope is the quiet words hidden away on the Sukey website:
As part of the same spirit we are releasing internal documents including minutes to a meeting we have had with the Met now that the police have finally given us permission to do so.
Finally given permissions, but permission given all the same. Anyone who is any way familiar with the mechanisms of the Ministry of Justice or the Met will understand that the decision to release that documentation is a big deal. Things are changing. Not only because of the fronts being fought loudly and to much fireworks and noise on Twitter and in other places, but because of the quiet, determined under the radar negotiation of people like those behind Sukey.
The war for transparency and accountability is being fought on many fronts, and it is being won.
NB
It is estimated currently, at 12 noon on the 26 March that the Met believe there are at least 450,000 people on the streets of London marching against the cuts being imposed across the public sector. They are marching on behalf of those who cannot make it down to London, for whatever reason. I would like to say thank you. Whether I believe it will make a fig of difference or not, I passionately believe in this countries ability and responsibility to look after those who cannot look after themselves as well as they themselves would like for any number of a thousand different reasons. Thank you.
Friday, 25 March 2011
The next train at platform 4...
There are two things I'd like to comment on and they'll be brief because I've just worked out the most perfect mountain bike route from my front door and little gets in the way of going and trying it out except explaining something which I think might be important.
I said a while ago that the cuts were wreaking havoc in local government and I was very careful what I said and didn't say out of courtesy for other peoples feelings. Some comments said 'it sounds like no one will be made redundant'. No. Actually, what was happening was that we were in the middle of the competitive interview/matrix selection stage and people were most definitely going to be made redundant at the end of it, but it was none of your damn business right then.
Now it is. People have gone from our team. A mixture of compulsory redundancies, voluntary redundancies and early retirements have left us with considerably less hands on decks. And we are, I think, one of the first Departments internally to have arrived at our new streamlined Department structure and stare it, and its implications, in the face.
It also means no one else understands the stream of random tweets I've been sending for the last two weeks. But some of you will, in time, because as someone tweeted last night - it's about to hit a lot of managers that they're about to lose half their team whilst still having the same amount of work and more importantly expectation of work hanging over their head.
Our small little web team might not have been touched. And as someone yesterday pointed out 'but there's 3 of you!'. Well, yes there are three of us but 4 core websites, two internal and two external across a shared service, untold satellite sites to either maintain or create internally, the world and its dog suddenly realising social media isn't going to go away and wanting help, advice, training and presentations, and the low level churn of a day to day web team in a Council mean those three people are over capacity.
Now we need to be a revenue creating team too. That brings with it a whole new way of thinking, working, new pressures and new priority shifts. And lots more work.
For some of you, this is all to come. And I'm going to be really honest here and tell you that it's hard. It's really really hard. As I said yesterday to the person who realised he's suddenly got half his team to do the same amount of work - welcome to hell, brother.
But.
As more of you come to the platform we're currently sat on, as more of you arrive with a slightly lost and shell shocked look on your face, unsure of where the track is going to next, unsure what lies ahead, unsure if the train will fall off the rails or a bigger hand will simply come along with a crane and forcibly lift if off the tracks, remember this...
It will get better.
There will be someone sat on the bench next to you a little further along in the process who can counsel, advice, and assist.
The coffee shop behind you is open while you wait - life still goes on, coffee still gets drunk, the coffee is no less pleasurable and tasty, don't ruin it by never concentrating on it and instead losing the pleasure in the stress.
You can leave the platform entirely.
You can leave the platform and come back again, fresher, brighter, more positive and more focused.
Stress bites. But if everyone on the platform could be nice to those arriving, share best practice, fears and worries while on the platform and most importantly continue to do so after their particular train has left, we can all get through this and perhaps drag some joy and hope out of the experience as well.
What you have seen in the last few weeks is the result of someone sitting on the platform alone. It was with complete and utter relief that I realised last night that it wont be for much longer. And that's selfish and unkind, and not a very nice thing to think at all. But so help me, I could use a little 'in the same boat'ism right now.
The other thing I'd like to comment on?
I'm a human being. Not just a username on a screen. Please remember that.
I said a while ago that the cuts were wreaking havoc in local government and I was very careful what I said and didn't say out of courtesy for other peoples feelings. Some comments said 'it sounds like no one will be made redundant'. No. Actually, what was happening was that we were in the middle of the competitive interview/matrix selection stage and people were most definitely going to be made redundant at the end of it, but it was none of your damn business right then.
Now it is. People have gone from our team. A mixture of compulsory redundancies, voluntary redundancies and early retirements have left us with considerably less hands on decks. And we are, I think, one of the first Departments internally to have arrived at our new streamlined Department structure and stare it, and its implications, in the face.
It also means no one else understands the stream of random tweets I've been sending for the last two weeks. But some of you will, in time, because as someone tweeted last night - it's about to hit a lot of managers that they're about to lose half their team whilst still having the same amount of work and more importantly expectation of work hanging over their head.
Our small little web team might not have been touched. And as someone yesterday pointed out 'but there's 3 of you!'. Well, yes there are three of us but 4 core websites, two internal and two external across a shared service, untold satellite sites to either maintain or create internally, the world and its dog suddenly realising social media isn't going to go away and wanting help, advice, training and presentations, and the low level churn of a day to day web team in a Council mean those three people are over capacity.
Now we need to be a revenue creating team too. That brings with it a whole new way of thinking, working, new pressures and new priority shifts. And lots more work.
For some of you, this is all to come. And I'm going to be really honest here and tell you that it's hard. It's really really hard. As I said yesterday to the person who realised he's suddenly got half his team to do the same amount of work - welcome to hell, brother.
But.
As more of you come to the platform we're currently sat on, as more of you arrive with a slightly lost and shell shocked look on your face, unsure of where the track is going to next, unsure what lies ahead, unsure if the train will fall off the rails or a bigger hand will simply come along with a crane and forcibly lift if off the tracks, remember this...
It will get better.
There will be someone sat on the bench next to you a little further along in the process who can counsel, advice, and assist.
The coffee shop behind you is open while you wait - life still goes on, coffee still gets drunk, the coffee is no less pleasurable and tasty, don't ruin it by never concentrating on it and instead losing the pleasure in the stress.
You can leave the platform entirely.
You can leave the platform and come back again, fresher, brighter, more positive and more focused.
Stress bites. But if everyone on the platform could be nice to those arriving, share best practice, fears and worries while on the platform and most importantly continue to do so after their particular train has left, we can all get through this and perhaps drag some joy and hope out of the experience as well.
What you have seen in the last few weeks is the result of someone sitting on the platform alone. It was with complete and utter relief that I realised last night that it wont be for much longer. And that's selfish and unkind, and not a very nice thing to think at all. But so help me, I could use a little 'in the same boat'ism right now.
The other thing I'd like to comment on?
I'm a human being. Not just a username on a screen. Please remember that.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Putting a foot down
And I'm not talking about bicycles, although it factors. As it should. Which is exactly where I have been going wrong, because it wasn't.
A very lovely wise lady who for some reason has agreed to water me a bit to see if I can grow, asked me what stressed me. Because we both know that I am stressed. And we can both see it coming out in anger and frustration and resentment, and that it is destroying all love I had for digital tech, social media and my job.
So here's what stresses me - not having time to play.
I need time to play and I need time to think. I also need to verbalise ideas in order to be able to sort them into the useless pile, and the run with pile. I am managing to do none of these things at the moment and as a result I am getting crosser and crosser as I watch other Councils running with things when I've been musing over them for months amongst other things, and of course the more cross I get the less people want to deal with me.
It's going to stop.
I am a human being. I am not a machine. I need sleep. I need to relax. I need to have fun. I need to be listened to. I am not apologising for any of those things. Not being allowed to have those things is a sure fire way to turn me into exactly the kind of person you don't want to have around - negative, no ideas, no spark and no happy.
I am not happy.
So I am putting a foot down. But I am also taking responsibility. It is my fault entirely I am in this mess, mentally and physically. I didn't say no. I didn't say 'listen to me, damnit' and I definitely didn't say 'shut up I'm trying to concentrate' either. I should have done. And I should have flagged that there was an issue way way before today and I shouldn't have done it on Twitter.
Thankfully, what I have managed to do is flag that there is a problem before I quit, not for good reasons, but for bad ones. So I am going to tweet about whatever I feel like tweeting about. I am going to play with geeky toys in the evening but I'm also going to ride my bike. And I wont be taking my phone or any kind of connection with me. I'm going to learn to knit, I'm going to start doing yoga, but I'm also going to start an idea which had the flickerings of a beginning last year but which needs building on this year. I'm going to try and find a sustainable way to make money so I can spend my days teaching people who need teaching how to use the web and all the wonderful toys and tools scattered across it to do whatever it is that they want to do.
But most of all? Very most of all, I am not going to feel guilty if I don't feel like doing something in my evening in my time, or worse at weekends, which most definitely is my time. I don't mind working in the evenings sometimes but I will not be making a habit of it. If someone wants me to work in the evenings regularly, then they need to acknowledge my expertise is worth paying for - currently it is not being paid for, therefore I will be spending my time earning money where I can doing bits and bobs for other people who are in a position to acknowledge that worth a little better.
Hopefully, the end result of all this will be less stress as I remember what the fun things are in life, re-establish something resembling a relationship and remember that tech is fun, that working to produce something in the evening just because I want to even if it's nothing to do with work is fun and that thinking up mad ideas and being allowed to run with them is not just the domain of work, and that if that's not practical at work right now for whatever reason, there is no reason at all that I can't go and implement that idea out of work instead and get paid for it.
A realignment of priorities. And hopefully the retention of some sanity, the dissipation of some stress and the dissolution of my own very big pile of resentment.
A very lovely wise lady who for some reason has agreed to water me a bit to see if I can grow, asked me what stressed me. Because we both know that I am stressed. And we can both see it coming out in anger and frustration and resentment, and that it is destroying all love I had for digital tech, social media and my job.
So here's what stresses me - not having time to play.
I need time to play and I need time to think. I also need to verbalise ideas in order to be able to sort them into the useless pile, and the run with pile. I am managing to do none of these things at the moment and as a result I am getting crosser and crosser as I watch other Councils running with things when I've been musing over them for months amongst other things, and of course the more cross I get the less people want to deal with me.
It's going to stop.
I am a human being. I am not a machine. I need sleep. I need to relax. I need to have fun. I need to be listened to. I am not apologising for any of those things. Not being allowed to have those things is a sure fire way to turn me into exactly the kind of person you don't want to have around - negative, no ideas, no spark and no happy.
I am not happy.
So I am putting a foot down. But I am also taking responsibility. It is my fault entirely I am in this mess, mentally and physically. I didn't say no. I didn't say 'listen to me, damnit' and I definitely didn't say 'shut up I'm trying to concentrate' either. I should have done. And I should have flagged that there was an issue way way before today and I shouldn't have done it on Twitter.
Thankfully, what I have managed to do is flag that there is a problem before I quit, not for good reasons, but for bad ones. So I am going to tweet about whatever I feel like tweeting about. I am going to play with geeky toys in the evening but I'm also going to ride my bike. And I wont be taking my phone or any kind of connection with me. I'm going to learn to knit, I'm going to start doing yoga, but I'm also going to start an idea which had the flickerings of a beginning last year but which needs building on this year. I'm going to try and find a sustainable way to make money so I can spend my days teaching people who need teaching how to use the web and all the wonderful toys and tools scattered across it to do whatever it is that they want to do.
But most of all? Very most of all, I am not going to feel guilty if I don't feel like doing something in my evening in my time, or worse at weekends, which most definitely is my time. I don't mind working in the evenings sometimes but I will not be making a habit of it. If someone wants me to work in the evenings regularly, then they need to acknowledge my expertise is worth paying for - currently it is not being paid for, therefore I will be spending my time earning money where I can doing bits and bobs for other people who are in a position to acknowledge that worth a little better.
Hopefully, the end result of all this will be less stress as I remember what the fun things are in life, re-establish something resembling a relationship and remember that tech is fun, that working to produce something in the evening just because I want to even if it's nothing to do with work is fun and that thinking up mad ideas and being allowed to run with them is not just the domain of work, and that if that's not practical at work right now for whatever reason, there is no reason at all that I can't go and implement that idea out of work instead and get paid for it.
A realignment of priorities. And hopefully the retention of some sanity, the dissipation of some stress and the dissolution of my own very big pile of resentment.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
A quick guide to...RSS
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.
The simple is a lie. I don't know who exactly it was supposed to look simple to but judging by the blank looks I get when I try and explain it or even mention it, end users it aint.
This:
is the RSS symbol. You might have seen it around in the same way you've seen that cute blonde loitering around town in a big group of friends including the Twitter and Facebook symbols - but you've never quite felt confident enough to walk up, tap her on the shoulder and ask her quite what she's doing there.
She's your key to reading masses of information quickly and easily, to collecting news, blog posts and text snippets in the same way you use Flickr or Picasa to collect pictures or Twitter and Facebook to collect friends and colleagues (it is collecting you know, whether you like it or not).
What RSS does, is take the blog posts, for example, and change the formatting to something which still doesn't change the actual content of the post, but simply changes the wrapper inside which it is contained. So in the same way you might know that this blog relies on HTML to ensure every post inside this blog appears perfectly aligned and presented - RSS changes it's format yet again so that a Reader can understand.
So. You need an RSS reader to understand this newly formatted information. Enter into the mix the RSS Reader. There are many, but the one most start with is Google Reader, simply because most now have a Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Documents account, but also, and I speak from personal experience here, it's quite easy to use.
Google Reader asks you to add a subscription in the top left hand corner when you fire it up for the first time. In order to be unbiased, copy and paste this: http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml into the box after clicking on the Add Subscription button and click Add. On the right hand side of the screen you should now get a list of headlines down the page, all in bold. If you click on one of these headlines - the top one for me is Explosion in Tripoli - it will have changed by the time you get to it - you get a summary of the headline. If you want to read more of the story, you can click again on the headline and it will take you to that story on the BBC website. If not, simply move down the list until you find something you are interested in.
A list of all RSS feeds from the BBC is listed on the site - to add any of them to Google Reader, simply click on the link next to the little orange RSS icon on right. Once the new page has loaded, go to the address bar up at the top and copy the web address (Sport for example will look like this: http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/sportonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml). Go back to Google Reader, click on the Add Subscription button and paste the web address. Click on the Add button and again, the contents of the feed, the headlines will appear on the right.
Blog posts work the same - in fact absolutely any page that you visit which has a little orange button on it will work - usually if you actually click on the little orange icon, it will take you to the web address containing rss somewhere in it which you can then copy and paste out and back into the Add Subscription white box over on Google Reader.
Once you've started adding them, you might find that you'd quite like to start organising them - add more than 20 (entirely possible if, for example you add the entire contents of the Public Sector bloggers list) and you're going to struggle. Click on each blog feed on the left, and you will get the contents listed on the right. Click on the Feed Settings button at the top of this section and you can select the New Folder option - which you can then name Public Sector, or Local Government or whatever is appropriate - and start your filing depending on your tastes.
If you can't find the little orange icon on a site, and you're reasonably convinced it's a big enough site to warrant having one, find the search button for the site and tap in RSS - it usually works.
And that's RSS.
Worth tapping the blonde on the shoulder if you want to keep up with all the professional journals, cricket scores, Olympic scores, web comics, work blogs, recipe sites, new Flickr posts or even Twitter search results without needing to go to 30 different websites, I reckon.
The simple is a lie. I don't know who exactly it was supposed to look simple to but judging by the blank looks I get when I try and explain it or even mention it, end users it aint.
This:
is the RSS symbol. You might have seen it around in the same way you've seen that cute blonde loitering around town in a big group of friends including the Twitter and Facebook symbols - but you've never quite felt confident enough to walk up, tap her on the shoulder and ask her quite what she's doing there.
She's your key to reading masses of information quickly and easily, to collecting news, blog posts and text snippets in the same way you use Flickr or Picasa to collect pictures or Twitter and Facebook to collect friends and colleagues (it is collecting you know, whether you like it or not).
What RSS does, is take the blog posts, for example, and change the formatting to something which still doesn't change the actual content of the post, but simply changes the wrapper inside which it is contained. So in the same way you might know that this blog relies on HTML to ensure every post inside this blog appears perfectly aligned and presented - RSS changes it's format yet again so that a Reader can understand.
So. You need an RSS reader to understand this newly formatted information. Enter into the mix the RSS Reader. There are many, but the one most start with is Google Reader, simply because most now have a Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Documents account, but also, and I speak from personal experience here, it's quite easy to use.
Google Reader asks you to add a subscription in the top left hand corner when you fire it up for the first time. In order to be unbiased, copy and paste this: http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml into the box after clicking on the Add Subscription button and click Add. On the right hand side of the screen you should now get a list of headlines down the page, all in bold. If you click on one of these headlines - the top one for me is Explosion in Tripoli - it will have changed by the time you get to it - you get a summary of the headline. If you want to read more of the story, you can click again on the headline and it will take you to that story on the BBC website. If not, simply move down the list until you find something you are interested in.
A list of all RSS feeds from the BBC is listed on the site - to add any of them to Google Reader, simply click on the link next to the little orange RSS icon on right. Once the new page has loaded, go to the address bar up at the top and copy the web address (Sport for example will look like this: http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/sportonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml). Go back to Google Reader, click on the Add Subscription button and paste the web address. Click on the Add button and again, the contents of the feed, the headlines will appear on the right.
Blog posts work the same - in fact absolutely any page that you visit which has a little orange button on it will work - usually if you actually click on the little orange icon, it will take you to the web address containing rss somewhere in it which you can then copy and paste out and back into the Add Subscription white box over on Google Reader.
Once you've started adding them, you might find that you'd quite like to start organising them - add more than 20 (entirely possible if, for example you add the entire contents of the Public Sector bloggers list) and you're going to struggle. Click on each blog feed on the left, and you will get the contents listed on the right. Click on the Feed Settings button at the top of this section and you can select the New Folder option - which you can then name Public Sector, or Local Government or whatever is appropriate - and start your filing depending on your tastes.
If you can't find the little orange icon on a site, and you're reasonably convinced it's a big enough site to warrant having one, find the search button for the site and tap in RSS - it usually works.
And that's RSS.
Worth tapping the blonde on the shoulder if you want to keep up with all the professional journals, cricket scores, Olympic scores, web comics, work blogs, recipe sites, new Flickr posts or even Twitter search results without needing to go to 30 different websites, I reckon.
Don't feed the developers
I'm not a developer. I don't code. So the following might be entirely wrong, and if it is I apologise, and will happily stand corrected if necessary. But;
- developers aren't some special strand of humanity who don't have anything in common with the rest of us.
- you can talk to them outside of unconferences and hack days. You don't need to convene one just to talk to them or meet them or drink with them
- they're there, always, just like everyone else, as part of the conversation. They might tell you what they do for a living, they might not. Just like everyone else when wanting to disclose what they do for a living or not
- you wouldn't ask an electrician to fit your pipes for free, repeatedly. If you did, they might give you the first hit free but the second or third. In the same way you'd not do the accounts for someone for free for the rest of your life. Geeks in general joke about this, but really it's not funny.
- understanding geek/developer psychology, or rather wanting to is quite sweet but there's a fine line between condescending and patronising and being lovely.
- attention spans vary. Don't get cross if it doesn't happen to coincide with what you want. Especially if you're not paying.
- exceptions and variances occur in the sample.
- sometimes, I don't like the world, it looks like a sequence of irritating obstacles between me and what I would actually like to be doing with my time. I don't know if other people who don't like messing with data and focusing for long periods of time on random things get this, I don't know if all geeks and/or developers get this but I suspect they might. Frustration though, is rarely aimed at people - it's aimed at the workflows, the systems, the sequences and the damn bad design of it which just frustrates. We could do better. That's a big 'we'. Don't take it personally.
- I'm not cool. Lots of dev types I know aren't either. Some are, though, and can dress themselves quite well. Variances.
- Mechanics, right, have a way of working. People just work around it. So do accountants. No one questions their attachment to ties or obsessions with neat orderly columns of numbers. No one points at the lawyers and makes a comment about their wigs and you'd never dream of commenting on a butchers state of dress. Developers and data geeks are a bit different too. But persistently pointing out the differences, repeatedly pointing out ways to work with us/them is kind of....I feel a bit like some random zoo animal that everyone's looking at suddenly, trying to work out how to get the best pic through the bars and what we'll eat? Hack days, if you tilt your head a bit are the feeding times and I can list the gamekeepers quite easily.
I'm as guilty as the next person of knowing I fit in a sub-culture. Maybe it's just a cycle, from punk to goth to geek. But it feels a bit different sitting inside a culture or quirk sector and being invisible, hiding behind a monitor and suddenly having the sense that your behind some glass and everyone else is peering in curiously, wondering what makes you tick and how to make money out of you.
Cos that's how it feels a bit. And it's making me retreat a little and become less free with ideas and thoughts and flows. I don't like that feeling. I just want to get on with musing, thinking, talking, writing, learning, geeking. I don't want to think any more about other people can play nicely with me, I want to just be accepted as being me - just like the accountants, electricians, mechanics and brickies. Yes, geeks are a bit different. But in highlighting the differences constantly, there's a big danger that it wont just be me retreating back under my rock, I think.
I hope, once again, I am wrong.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Tripped over nostalgia
Last night I went on a nostalgia trip. It involved standing in an absolutely rammed and frankly, over sold Academy 1 in Manchester watching the Levellers, supported by The Wonder Stuff, as they played the entirety of Levelling the Land end to end.
Shouldn't this be in your other blog Lou? I hear you ask. Well actually, no. But you're going to need to do some dot joining because I can't do it for you.
The band played an intro projected onto a massive screen behind the stage. It's been about 20 years since the album was released and a lot has changed...and yet nothing has changed.
To understand the music of the Levellers and specifically Levelling the Land, you have to understand something about the South West of England before it became over run by 4 x 4's and Farm shops, but you also have to understand something of the preceding 10 years of British politics. The South West used to tick to a different rhythm to the rest of the country - but it also had different tolerances and different expectations of the travelling community, as well as an understanding of the even more intricate subtleties of hippies, tinkers, crusties, sound system collectives, gypsies and travellers - subtleties that I don't think other parts of the country had reason to know or understand. As a result, perhaps, of this and a proximity to Glastonbury, the South West was a hotbed not only of Levellers fans but also of people who were politically aligned that way too.
I idly wondered what the gig would be like last night, whether the crowd would just be there because they knew One Way and 15 years or whether I would be joined in knowing every word.
As the intro flicked through shots of Thatcher talking about the Falklands, Scargill rallying the miners, back to Thatcher arguing back, to Blair and then Cameron a chorus of boos rose from the crowd, quietening as they subject changed away from politics, swelling again as they same faces flicked onto the screen.
It struck me then, that I am not alone in my politically atheist stance. It wasn't until recently, sat in conversation with someone far wiser than I that I finally managed to articulate that that is what I am. I don't vote in national elections because I simply can't decide. I can't. I don't have an allegiance to any one party, but what I do have is an enormous respect for some political figures, and an enormous disdain for others, and their political colours are absolutely nothing to do with the emotions attached to them, which those people invoke.
The crowd last night were still angry about Thatcher. They are still immensely annoyed with Blair. The boos for Cameron were quieter, but I believe in time they will perhaps be as loud, if not louder. They were a crowd of people, ramming a venue on a Friday night, expressing their displeasure with political figures. So, engaged then? Care then?
And yet we live in a world where they can find little to cheer for, I should imagine. Little to find hope in. Small light at the end of the tunnel. No one to inspire, no one to lead, no one to carry a flag for the middle generation, not Y or X, who are lost and abandoned in the middle of England, sickened by the EDL and the BNP, frustrated and intensely angry at the Liberal Democrats and not quite resonating with Labour or the Conservatives. So who do they vote for?
No one at all.
And it leaves a gap - a gap which became clearly highlighted in the Barnsley election results as the Liberal Democrat candidate flailed under the BNP. It seems to me, we are missing a party in the middle for the people in the middle and if we don't get one, if we can't find one, if no one steps up to the plate, we are going to see things get much much worse before people react out of fear and desperation to ensure mistakes aren't compounded. I refuse to believe this country is one which wants the BNP to make decisions on their behalf. If we aren't careful and we don't pay attention, unfortunately that is exactly what I fear will happen.
Here ends the post which, I hope, managed to stay on the right side of political alignment. Because I have none, though I wish I did so very very much.
Shouldn't this be in your other blog Lou? I hear you ask. Well actually, no. But you're going to need to do some dot joining because I can't do it for you.
The band played an intro projected onto a massive screen behind the stage. It's been about 20 years since the album was released and a lot has changed...and yet nothing has changed.
To understand the music of the Levellers and specifically Levelling the Land, you have to understand something about the South West of England before it became over run by 4 x 4's and Farm shops, but you also have to understand something of the preceding 10 years of British politics. The South West used to tick to a different rhythm to the rest of the country - but it also had different tolerances and different expectations of the travelling community, as well as an understanding of the even more intricate subtleties of hippies, tinkers, crusties, sound system collectives, gypsies and travellers - subtleties that I don't think other parts of the country had reason to know or understand. As a result, perhaps, of this and a proximity to Glastonbury, the South West was a hotbed not only of Levellers fans but also of people who were politically aligned that way too.
I idly wondered what the gig would be like last night, whether the crowd would just be there because they knew One Way and 15 years or whether I would be joined in knowing every word.
As the intro flicked through shots of Thatcher talking about the Falklands, Scargill rallying the miners, back to Thatcher arguing back, to Blair and then Cameron a chorus of boos rose from the crowd, quietening as they subject changed away from politics, swelling again as they same faces flicked onto the screen.
It struck me then, that I am not alone in my politically atheist stance. It wasn't until recently, sat in conversation with someone far wiser than I that I finally managed to articulate that that is what I am. I don't vote in national elections because I simply can't decide. I can't. I don't have an allegiance to any one party, but what I do have is an enormous respect for some political figures, and an enormous disdain for others, and their political colours are absolutely nothing to do with the emotions attached to them, which those people invoke.
The crowd last night were still angry about Thatcher. They are still immensely annoyed with Blair. The boos for Cameron were quieter, but I believe in time they will perhaps be as loud, if not louder. They were a crowd of people, ramming a venue on a Friday night, expressing their displeasure with political figures. So, engaged then? Care then?
And yet we live in a world where they can find little to cheer for, I should imagine. Little to find hope in. Small light at the end of the tunnel. No one to inspire, no one to lead, no one to carry a flag for the middle generation, not Y or X, who are lost and abandoned in the middle of England, sickened by the EDL and the BNP, frustrated and intensely angry at the Liberal Democrats and not quite resonating with Labour or the Conservatives. So who do they vote for?
No one at all.
And it leaves a gap - a gap which became clearly highlighted in the Barnsley election results as the Liberal Democrat candidate flailed under the BNP. It seems to me, we are missing a party in the middle for the people in the middle and if we don't get one, if we can't find one, if no one steps up to the plate, we are going to see things get much much worse before people react out of fear and desperation to ensure mistakes aren't compounded. I refuse to believe this country is one which wants the BNP to make decisions on their behalf. If we aren't careful and we don't pay attention, unfortunately that is exactly what I fear will happen.
Here ends the post which, I hope, managed to stay on the right side of political alignment. Because I have none, though I wish I did so very very much.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
London 2012
Does anyone else have vivid memories of sitting in a school classroom watching a cartoon which involved animals competing in the olympics in preparation for the real Olympics being held in LA in 1984?
I was 7. I spent years trying to find someone else who remembered that cartoon - every time I asked I got blank looks until a few years ago when I asked the usual question and someone said yes, finally, and confirmed I'd not been imagining things.
For some reason it left a really big impression. I was only 7. I was a bit of a sprinter when I was younger, on teams and things before I got even skinnier and ended up being a long distance bunny for a bit. I ran 100 metres in 16 seconds when I was 10, much later, and chucked a javelin around a bit - I've loved athletics for a long time and the Olympic Games and its ideals for just as long.
I love the buzz skinny tyres make on track boards. I love the molecular displacement 'whoosh' as the peloton goes by. I love synchronised swimming, trampolining, gymnastics, mountain biking...I'm glued to the television every four years, to be honest.
So I'm quite narked right about now. Narked that 1.5 hours of diving, for example, will cost me and my partner £40. That there's little point in just going to London for the day and that by the time we've actually identified the events we want to see, we've racked up potentially thousands of pounds worth of tickets. And because most people will be applying for the cheaper tickets, we are unlikely to get any of them. So of course, the sensible thing to do would be to apply for 2 tickets at £200 and be guaranteed of getting them. But I don't want to just go and see one session for 1.5 hours and pay £200 for the privilege. Nothing, to me, is worth that much.
Not even considering the fact that payment will be taken out of my debit account for tickets the organisers wont deign to inform me I've been successful in applying for until some weeks later, not considering the potential for accidentally tipping into overdraft if things are not militarily planned for, not taking into consideration that the resell website wont be available until next year meaning if you actually get more tickets than you bargained for, you're going to be out of pocket for about 6 months and Visa are going to be earning interest on your not inconsiderable sums of money, not considering the nightmare of accommodation and the hideousness that I suspect will be transport, nor the advise for disabled people which amounts to...wait for it...leave home early - don't be surprised if you see a lot of empty seats at events just like in Beijing.
In fact I can honestly say after rummaging around the London 2012 site this evening that I will be shocked if there are not swathes of bare red seats glowing in front of the cameras next year.
We're in a recession. Thousands and thousands of people are about to be made redundant and they think they're going to get people committing to pay for tickets they might win but might not win but if they do win more than they bargained for will not be able to get the money back for 6 months?
I appreciate I don't live in London. I appreciate that strictly speaking I'm not the target audience for these games. But the games will never come back to this country in my lifetime. They just wont. It is, quite literally, the chance of a lifetime.
One I wont be taking part in in any way at all because the prices are ridiculous, one event is pointless to apply for when you take into account the £70 in petrol needed to get to London and the cost of accommodation, and you know, there go the dreams of the 7 year old me.
I made the mistake of believing the games would be for all.
They're for Londoners. If you're a Londoner you can pick n mix. If you're not, it's not worth it. Pop me in the gutted category. Because I really am.
I was 7. I spent years trying to find someone else who remembered that cartoon - every time I asked I got blank looks until a few years ago when I asked the usual question and someone said yes, finally, and confirmed I'd not been imagining things.
For some reason it left a really big impression. I was only 7. I was a bit of a sprinter when I was younger, on teams and things before I got even skinnier and ended up being a long distance bunny for a bit. I ran 100 metres in 16 seconds when I was 10, much later, and chucked a javelin around a bit - I've loved athletics for a long time and the Olympic Games and its ideals for just as long.
I love the buzz skinny tyres make on track boards. I love the molecular displacement 'whoosh' as the peloton goes by. I love synchronised swimming, trampolining, gymnastics, mountain biking...I'm glued to the television every four years, to be honest.
So I'm quite narked right about now. Narked that 1.5 hours of diving, for example, will cost me and my partner £40. That there's little point in just going to London for the day and that by the time we've actually identified the events we want to see, we've racked up potentially thousands of pounds worth of tickets. And because most people will be applying for the cheaper tickets, we are unlikely to get any of them. So of course, the sensible thing to do would be to apply for 2 tickets at £200 and be guaranteed of getting them. But I don't want to just go and see one session for 1.5 hours and pay £200 for the privilege. Nothing, to me, is worth that much.
Not even considering the fact that payment will be taken out of my debit account for tickets the organisers wont deign to inform me I've been successful in applying for until some weeks later, not considering the potential for accidentally tipping into overdraft if things are not militarily planned for, not taking into consideration that the resell website wont be available until next year meaning if you actually get more tickets than you bargained for, you're going to be out of pocket for about 6 months and Visa are going to be earning interest on your not inconsiderable sums of money, not considering the nightmare of accommodation and the hideousness that I suspect will be transport, nor the advise for disabled people which amounts to...wait for it...leave home early - don't be surprised if you see a lot of empty seats at events just like in Beijing.
In fact I can honestly say after rummaging around the London 2012 site this evening that I will be shocked if there are not swathes of bare red seats glowing in front of the cameras next year.
We're in a recession. Thousands and thousands of people are about to be made redundant and they think they're going to get people committing to pay for tickets they might win but might not win but if they do win more than they bargained for will not be able to get the money back for 6 months?
I appreciate I don't live in London. I appreciate that strictly speaking I'm not the target audience for these games. But the games will never come back to this country in my lifetime. They just wont. It is, quite literally, the chance of a lifetime.
One I wont be taking part in in any way at all because the prices are ridiculous, one event is pointless to apply for when you take into account the £70 in petrol needed to get to London and the cost of accommodation, and you know, there go the dreams of the 7 year old me.
I made the mistake of believing the games would be for all.
They're for Londoners. If you're a Londoner you can pick n mix. If you're not, it's not worth it. Pop me in the gutted category. Because I really am.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Sad realisations
When I first started this blog, I wrote it because I wanted to share what I knew - because I knew some stuff other people seemed to need/want to know and keeping it all to myself seemed wrong.
I joined Twitter around the same time, and there was a big group of people in local government, all of whom seemed to want to do the same thing.
Transpires, I'm a bit of a mug. Because there are people in the 'community' doing a whole lot of taking of ideas and other peoples words and not giving a whole lot back. And while an idea doesn't care who has it, a community can only sustain itself while everyone contributes to it.
Discovering there was a group off Twitter where people were discussing implementing Yammer in their organisations at the weekend was just the final straw, really. If people wanted to share their best practice, I'm reasonably sure they'd do it on Communities of Practice, instead of creating a closed user group which only the specifically invited by email address could see.
To me, that's not sharing best practice. That's creating little cliqes at a time when I would have thought that those working in the public sector might have wanted to stick together, to help each other out.
Turns out, I don't appear to need the group anyway, because we seem to have managed to implement our own Yammer network reasonably well. But it's left an enormously sour taste in my mouth.
Instead, I am coming to the conclusion which I am sure many people came to months ago which is that if the same old people have the same old discussions, then very little new comes out of those discussions. If you add new and interesting people into the mix, then often new and interesting ideas arise.
I'm feeling really quite disillusioned. And am wondering if I am not alone as I see the dynamics and demographics of Twitter change entirely as the people I used to love talking to are no longer there.
Have you all abandoned transparency and openness in government and gone back to your old ways?
I joined Twitter around the same time, and there was a big group of people in local government, all of whom seemed to want to do the same thing.
Transpires, I'm a bit of a mug. Because there are people in the 'community' doing a whole lot of taking of ideas and other peoples words and not giving a whole lot back. And while an idea doesn't care who has it, a community can only sustain itself while everyone contributes to it.
Discovering there was a group off Twitter where people were discussing implementing Yammer in their organisations at the weekend was just the final straw, really. If people wanted to share their best practice, I'm reasonably sure they'd do it on Communities of Practice, instead of creating a closed user group which only the specifically invited by email address could see.
To me, that's not sharing best practice. That's creating little cliqes at a time when I would have thought that those working in the public sector might have wanted to stick together, to help each other out.
Turns out, I don't appear to need the group anyway, because we seem to have managed to implement our own Yammer network reasonably well. But it's left an enormously sour taste in my mouth.
Instead, I am coming to the conclusion which I am sure many people came to months ago which is that if the same old people have the same old discussions, then very little new comes out of those discussions. If you add new and interesting people into the mix, then often new and interesting ideas arise.
I'm feeling really quite disillusioned. And am wondering if I am not alone as I see the dynamics and demographics of Twitter change entirely as the people I used to love talking to are no longer there.
Have you all abandoned transparency and openness in government and gone back to your old ways?
Sunday, 13 March 2011
1 week: 7 days - a lifetime in local government
Maybe those are the best kind? I am struggling to find the space to fit the words in. Or rather, the space to let the words out into. So we shall have a go here and see what comes.
Local government is a strange place, I've decided. Nothing happens at all for months. Or at least, from the bottom grades, it looks like nothing is happening at all. And then all of a sudden, or so it seems, everything happens all at once.
Thanks to a Communications Director who gets it, I managed to nab an hour with the Leader a few weeks ago. Rather ironically, the entire Councils external communication ability dropped at the same time, rendering a Twitter lesson somewhat pointless.
A week later we reconvened and, do you know, it wasn't scary at all. Instead it was a really important lesson in listening, understanding, translating, being gentle the same way I am with everyone else, because she is ultimately just like everyone else when learning a new piece of technology, and finally, pointing out that knowing stuff before other people can occasionally be useful.
She's still using it and can be found on @cllrkate though I see she's not tweeted since Monday.
Something has clicked somewhere though, as I was sure she was otherwise engaged this Friday for the Local by Social conference we're hosting - it transpires she is not and will instead be speaking about social media. I suspect a webchat penny drop moment will be mentioned. Nothing to do with me - we each come to our understanding in our own time and our own ways and perhaps this is the most important lesson I can teach here - wait. Be patient. Social media is becoming ingrained so deeply into every day life that our local Mall advertises its Facebook page opposite me as I exit Tescos after acquiring lunch each day. Other people within the Council, other people of all levels, also walk past that poster. Just be ready to be patient, calm, quiet and reassuring when the upper echelons come calling - because I am starting to believe they will all come calling eventually - but that's for another post.
In the same week, an article was published in the MJ from our Chief Executive Graham Burgess on using social media to engage. We all come to our understandings differently, and in the process of researching and discussing that article, new realisations hit home.
Also in the same week, Yammer took on a life of its own as I watched notification after notification flash up on my screen - a result of a quiet word in a few ears that inviting those outside of the Comms team was fine. I had a mild panic on Wednesday - what if all these people signed in and saw no discussions ready and waiting for them, and simply never came back? Was I supposed to create things, was I supposed to build it before they came?
Then I realised I was doing that control thing. And I just left them to it. And sure enough, 24 hours later people I never thought would be interested were asking me to explain Yammer and if it was okay to join, then requesting to join my discussion group on KPI's for social media, then starting other conversations which were absolutely nothing to do with me and I logged off on Friday knowing that this too, would come to into its own in its own time and in its own space.
Mapping reared its head too. A week ago last Friday I made epic train journeys to get to Hope in Derbyshire to see the fab CDR lot. Things percolated for a few days, before I had a discussion with the GIS team which enlightened me to the fact that this was no longer in either theirs or our remit and that ICT had realised we needed a solution.
A slightly panicked discussion on licences later (we haven't broken any t & c's, thank goodness, just relinquished IPR on our grit bin locations) and we're collaborating with an ease I didn't think possible - a collaboration and a stepping out of a silo which might result in a 23k saving. It might not. But the important thing is not that I picked up the phone. The important thing is that the man who answered listened.
He listened, I suspect, as a direct result of a meeting where he was in attendance, as was my Head of Service and his Director as well as our web team in which I think it became quite clear that in our tiny little three person web team there is more cross discipline knowledge than there should actually ever be possible, that we all know what we're talking about and that we all care a lot. The presentation was on Sharepoint - but it was almost irrelevant because the value was not there though of course it might also be. But the true value was somewhere else. Oddly, being able to speak up so confidently in that meeting allowed me to approach something hitherto heart wrenchingly terrifying with confidence.
I gave my first proper real life work presentation on the positives of social media to a Communications and Participation Panel. All of whom were utterly lovely, frankly, but quite rightly, also a little hesitant. Suggestions of revisions were made and an invite extended to present with a little more seriousness to the Trust in a few weeks. But the carebear slide stays, I'm afraid.
From there, in the same day, I swallowed further fears on public speaking and did a quick stand up and explain for a local childrens charity called the John Bury Trust. Chaos ensued in the impromptu workshop and I was so epically glad for the assistance of a lovely lady called Pam, who aside from broadsiding me by showing my own blog on a rather large screen proceeded to be a godsend in rallying all the questions. The chaos, by the way, was the good kind. There is a good kind. People can learn in chaos and some people are actually more comfortable learning in that environment, skittering and exploring, firing questions and wheels spinning fast, while still others will quietly sit and peg away at something until not only do they get it but they've leapfrogged everyone else as well. I hope I get to taste carrot cake one day, I suspect it will indeed be quite epic.
I think it was the most fun bit of the week. I also think I should like to help more people find the power of social media and digital technologies and that perhaps I've got a few more people riding the same bus as me who are infinitely better placed than I to spread the word of the opportunities. Frankly, the day after International Womans Day was the appropriate day to be giving them a bit of a hand - I left afraid I'd got more out of the evening than they had as I left really rather inspired.
So, dear readers, that was a week in local government. I've not mentioned tweeting from the Finance Council, proper internal Department collaboration, minor meltdowns, the sadness of realisation of impending departures but also the relief in seeing someone finally happy, the fab conversations, inspirations, and the indulgent cookie and girl geek session on Friday afternoon, nor finally meeting someone from Twitter who I got on with so stupidly well it was really rather awesome.
But I do know that it must be clear from these words that last week was utterly exhausting but contained small victories on any number of fronts, personal and professional. Next week promises no let up - to the point where I spent a few hours working today to prevent a car crash on Monday. But seeing things changing, watching things evolve and take shape, and stepping back and feeling that perhaps now we can let others lead - a feeling I'd like to bottle and take with me.
Today's lesson is about patience. But it's a patience tempered with absolute steel. By any means necessary.
Local government is a strange place, I've decided. Nothing happens at all for months. Or at least, from the bottom grades, it looks like nothing is happening at all. And then all of a sudden, or so it seems, everything happens all at once.
Thanks to a Communications Director who gets it, I managed to nab an hour with the Leader a few weeks ago. Rather ironically, the entire Councils external communication ability dropped at the same time, rendering a Twitter lesson somewhat pointless.
A week later we reconvened and, do you know, it wasn't scary at all. Instead it was a really important lesson in listening, understanding, translating, being gentle the same way I am with everyone else, because she is ultimately just like everyone else when learning a new piece of technology, and finally, pointing out that knowing stuff before other people can occasionally be useful.
She's still using it and can be found on @cllrkate though I see she's not tweeted since Monday.
Something has clicked somewhere though, as I was sure she was otherwise engaged this Friday for the Local by Social conference we're hosting - it transpires she is not and will instead be speaking about social media. I suspect a webchat penny drop moment will be mentioned. Nothing to do with me - we each come to our understanding in our own time and our own ways and perhaps this is the most important lesson I can teach here - wait. Be patient. Social media is becoming ingrained so deeply into every day life that our local Mall advertises its Facebook page opposite me as I exit Tescos after acquiring lunch each day. Other people within the Council, other people of all levels, also walk past that poster. Just be ready to be patient, calm, quiet and reassuring when the upper echelons come calling - because I am starting to believe they will all come calling eventually - but that's for another post.
In the same week, an article was published in the MJ from our Chief Executive Graham Burgess on using social media to engage. We all come to our understandings differently, and in the process of researching and discussing that article, new realisations hit home.
Also in the same week, Yammer took on a life of its own as I watched notification after notification flash up on my screen - a result of a quiet word in a few ears that inviting those outside of the Comms team was fine. I had a mild panic on Wednesday - what if all these people signed in and saw no discussions ready and waiting for them, and simply never came back? Was I supposed to create things, was I supposed to build it before they came?
Then I realised I was doing that control thing. And I just left them to it. And sure enough, 24 hours later people I never thought would be interested were asking me to explain Yammer and if it was okay to join, then requesting to join my discussion group on KPI's for social media, then starting other conversations which were absolutely nothing to do with me and I logged off on Friday knowing that this too, would come to into its own in its own time and in its own space.
Mapping reared its head too. A week ago last Friday I made epic train journeys to get to Hope in Derbyshire to see the fab CDR lot. Things percolated for a few days, before I had a discussion with the GIS team which enlightened me to the fact that this was no longer in either theirs or our remit and that ICT had realised we needed a solution.
A slightly panicked discussion on licences later (we haven't broken any t & c's, thank goodness, just relinquished IPR on our grit bin locations) and we're collaborating with an ease I didn't think possible - a collaboration and a stepping out of a silo which might result in a 23k saving. It might not. But the important thing is not that I picked up the phone. The important thing is that the man who answered listened.
He listened, I suspect, as a direct result of a meeting where he was in attendance, as was my Head of Service and his Director as well as our web team in which I think it became quite clear that in our tiny little three person web team there is more cross discipline knowledge than there should actually ever be possible, that we all know what we're talking about and that we all care a lot. The presentation was on Sharepoint - but it was almost irrelevant because the value was not there though of course it might also be. But the true value was somewhere else. Oddly, being able to speak up so confidently in that meeting allowed me to approach something hitherto heart wrenchingly terrifying with confidence.
I gave my first proper real life work presentation on the positives of social media to a Communications and Participation Panel. All of whom were utterly lovely, frankly, but quite rightly, also a little hesitant. Suggestions of revisions were made and an invite extended to present with a little more seriousness to the Trust in a few weeks. But the carebear slide stays, I'm afraid.
From there, in the same day, I swallowed further fears on public speaking and did a quick stand up and explain for a local childrens charity called the John Bury Trust. Chaos ensued in the impromptu workshop and I was so epically glad for the assistance of a lovely lady called Pam, who aside from broadsiding me by showing my own blog on a rather large screen proceeded to be a godsend in rallying all the questions. The chaos, by the way, was the good kind. There is a good kind. People can learn in chaos and some people are actually more comfortable learning in that environment, skittering and exploring, firing questions and wheels spinning fast, while still others will quietly sit and peg away at something until not only do they get it but they've leapfrogged everyone else as well. I hope I get to taste carrot cake one day, I suspect it will indeed be quite epic.
I think it was the most fun bit of the week. I also think I should like to help more people find the power of social media and digital technologies and that perhaps I've got a few more people riding the same bus as me who are infinitely better placed than I to spread the word of the opportunities. Frankly, the day after International Womans Day was the appropriate day to be giving them a bit of a hand - I left afraid I'd got more out of the evening than they had as I left really rather inspired.
So, dear readers, that was a week in local government. I've not mentioned tweeting from the Finance Council, proper internal Department collaboration, minor meltdowns, the sadness of realisation of impending departures but also the relief in seeing someone finally happy, the fab conversations, inspirations, and the indulgent cookie and girl geek session on Friday afternoon, nor finally meeting someone from Twitter who I got on with so stupidly well it was really rather awesome.
But I do know that it must be clear from these words that last week was utterly exhausting but contained small victories on any number of fronts, personal and professional. Next week promises no let up - to the point where I spent a few hours working today to prevent a car crash on Monday. But seeing things changing, watching things evolve and take shape, and stepping back and feeling that perhaps now we can let others lead - a feeling I'd like to bottle and take with me.
Today's lesson is about patience. But it's a patience tempered with absolute steel. By any means necessary.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Short and sweet
I am struggling, a little, to write with the same frequency I used to. Not because my words are going elsewhere (though they are) but because my time simply has contracted in an effort to keep up with all the things I have committed to do, as well as keep up with the sudden explosion of work in the day job as well as be a girlfriend.
Normal service will resume, I suspect, after the 20th March. Until then, all quiet, I think.
I will also be setting up another Twitter account for #lgovsm stuff as it's impacting on real friends abilities to endure following my loulouk account which is not quite the way it should be.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
International womans day
IWD has never even been on my radar prior to this year. I didn't know there was one.
Normally, I don't like celebrating differences. Times, however, have changed, and so have I.
Today will be spent pitching a presentation to someone in Childrens Services to see if it's good enough to present to the Children and Young Families cross partnership panel. Then I'm meeting our GIS team to explain to them the pro's and cons of assorted web mapping solutions and to explain that I am officially giving them their bunny back. After that (lunch a distant hope) it's into a Sharepoint demo from ICT for 2 hours, following by meeting someone I've been chatting to for a while on Twitter and going for a coffee or two.
After that, I've got a IWD event pencilled in but I don't know a single thing about it.
Compared this to a year ago, sat in front of a PC, on a refuse truck depot, in a portacabin, the nearest geek 2 miles away, with no meetings, nothing to say and nothing to share and, well, this ones for me to contemplate what getting off your ass does for ones self esteem and self belief.
But there have been some frankly, amazing people along the way who've helped. And a lot of them have been female, really quite a lot.
So, today, I'd like to celebrate the support, the care, the listening, the advice and the sheer patience of Shirley Ayres, Andrea Sturgess, Laura Howarth, Emer Coleman, Ann Kempster, Julie Wareing, Chris Doyle, Janet Davis, Karen Ramsey-Smith and actually, many many others. Many.
I'm trying to be less sappy, but you see, at least 3 people on that list, I don't think they've even given a thought to the fact that they might be someone elses role model. That someone else looks up to them. So it seems to me, that's the point of IWD. To say thank you, to acknowledge, to pass on back some of the things you've been given and most of all to celebrate what we can achieve.
I have, quite frankly, met some utterly phenomenal women in the last year. Here ends the gushing.
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