So. Twitter. I posted a bit ago about how Tweetdeck had folded into a pile of uselessness.
Well, now I'm discovering the irritation of outbound tweets disappearing. I tweeted a physio about getting some treatment for my back and ankles. Both are down to my being overweight and trying to do something about it (don't look at me like that, you might not find gyms boring, I do, so shoot me). Not even a 'sorry, I don't do fat people' back.
Of course she probably never saw the tweet. But I don't know if she did or didn't and how awkward is it going to be for me to chase that up?
Then there are the people who've asked me to post info the Communities of Practice. I have done, solely at their request, tweeted them to tell them so, and.....silence. Imagine if I didn't know with almost 100% certainty that he can't have seen the tweet because it would be uncharacteristically rude for this person to ignore it. So I know there is something wrong. But what if I didn't? Would I chase it up or not? What is the etiquette here?
In the same way that I am wondering if I am simply not the desired customer for a particular kind of physio, I am now wondering if there are people out there who are sending me tweets and direct messages and receiving no reply, simply because I have never seen then. And those people will never know either.
Slowly, I am understanding Twitters need to take control of 3rd party applications. Because at the moment I have no idea where the fault lies - Twitter or Tweetdeck. I don't seem to have the same problems with any other app, to be honest, apart from Tweetdeck. But Twitter only bought Tweetdeck recently so why on earth are they turning their newly purchased product into a complete lame duck?
I am very confused. I am very frustrated. And I am giving up on Tweetdeck. In the meantime, if you get a tweet from me assuming you know something and you don't, or seemingly following up on something you've never seen, I assure you it is not me going mad.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Saturday, 25 June 2011
5 min blog post - we are not secure
Lulzsec and the census. They had hacked the census, they hadn't hacked the census, someone else had hacked the census, then they hadn't.
So what did we learn?
The census bods reacted quickly and with restraint in responding to the rumours spreading like wildfire across the web.
It is easy to spoof (pretend) someone elses identify and lulz are not immune to that (a taste of their own medicine?)
No one is secure if identify is tied into security
The web is not secure if even leet hacker types can be spoofed
But that's not the point, really.
The point is, we are not secure. I can phone someone and pretend to be someone else with the right details. I can walk into a post office, claim my dole money, and then be forced to hand it over to someone else waiting outside who has been bullying me. Someone can cut through the straps of my handbag while I'm walking down the street and steal my purse with my credit card in it.
We are not secure. Our lives, in real time, are not secure. So why, why, why, do we labour under the expectation or illusion that online should somehow be different? It is not different. There are still bad people. There are still smarter people than you. There are still people fighting the good fight to try and stop the bad people from stealing our identity, your money, your ideas even. But not your lulz.
We are not secure. We are at the mercy of the entirety of society and it's self imposed expectations of peer enforced ethics and morals. The web does not suspend this.
So what did we learn?
The census bods reacted quickly and with restraint in responding to the rumours spreading like wildfire across the web.
It is easy to spoof (pretend) someone elses identify and lulz are not immune to that (a taste of their own medicine?)
No one is secure if identify is tied into security
The web is not secure if even leet hacker types can be spoofed
But that's not the point, really.
The point is, we are not secure. I can phone someone and pretend to be someone else with the right details. I can walk into a post office, claim my dole money, and then be forced to hand it over to someone else waiting outside who has been bullying me. Someone can cut through the straps of my handbag while I'm walking down the street and steal my purse with my credit card in it.
We are not secure. Our lives, in real time, are not secure. So why, why, why, do we labour under the expectation or illusion that online should somehow be different? It is not different. There are still bad people. There are still smarter people than you. There are still people fighting the good fight to try and stop the bad people from stealing our identity, your money, your ideas even. But not your lulz.
We are not secure. We are at the mercy of the entirety of society and it's self imposed expectations of peer enforced ethics and morals. The web does not suspend this.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Lead me not into temptation (Emma Maier on leadership)
I've just read a crowdsourced spec of future chiefs over on LGC.
Do you know what I thought as I read down the list? I think I might know at the very very very least one of the people who will, in future, be a chief. And I know many more who don't think they will be or who don't want to be who I'd happily follow down assorted dead-ends and creeks.
When I think of the those people, I smile. Right now that's a really rare thing - and so is feeling hope for the future of local government as well all sit here and assume we will be nothing but commissioners and performance monitors in the near future. Maybe disaster can be aborted. Maybe we can slow this descent down, maybe we can have leaders who will change the world, who will inspire us, who we can have faith in, who we can trust and who will own up to failure, learn from it, and then move on.
Maybe we aren't at 'abandon all hope ye who enter here' quite yet. And if we are - well the people cited at the bottom of that article don't seem to think that those types of leaders cannot exist, so I guess I'll just go and find one and work for them instead.
Do you know what I thought as I read down the list? I think I might know at the very very very least one of the people who will, in future, be a chief. And I know many more who don't think they will be or who don't want to be who I'd happily follow down assorted dead-ends and creeks.
When I think of the those people, I smile. Right now that's a really rare thing - and so is feeling hope for the future of local government as well all sit here and assume we will be nothing but commissioners and performance monitors in the near future. Maybe disaster can be aborted. Maybe we can slow this descent down, maybe we can have leaders who will change the world, who will inspire us, who we can have faith in, who we can trust and who will own up to failure, learn from it, and then move on.
Maybe we aren't at 'abandon all hope ye who enter here' quite yet. And if we are - well the people cited at the bottom of that article don't seem to think that those types of leaders cannot exist, so I guess I'll just go and find one and work for them instead.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Shared learning
Quick background: @sturgey is our Deputy Head of Comms (but with lots of corporate/internal comms added in there too) - she's admittedly old school but very enthusiastic about new school comms and a really big support in our push in that direction.
So I sat down with Andrea about something else entirely but we got to talking about unconferences and traditional conferences, about L G Comms but also about #localgovcamp. And we've sort of come to a conclusion which I think is quite important, at least to me, in coming to a place where the two can meet.
It reflects our digital and communication policy, which is, use every channel which is appropriate and which you are trained in and comfortable with and which you think is valid and there is someone on the end of. Don't exclude anyone by only using one channel if possible, share your learning and flag any risks, if there are any. (heck, I think I just distilled a strategy into a paragraph, go me!)
Why should learning be any different? What's the different between traditional conference and unconference? Is it that the opportunity for discussion is moved (trad conf = discussion in form of Q & A after, unconf = before, during, after, in the corridor and at lunch)? Is it that the attendees dress differently (trad conf = formal, unconf = t-shirts & jeans)?
Whilst I agree with John who commented on my last post that the problem with old networks is the same old learning circulating, I would also like to propose that unless it gets new blood the unconference circuit is in danger of sharing the same old learning too. Therefore what is needed is a band of people like Nick Booth and Nick Hall who attend both and cross pollenate. But everyone else, I strongly believe, should be allowed to make an informed decision about the kind of learning style which they feel most comfortable with and should be respected no matter what decision they made.
However as all the commentators on my last post I think will agree - the fundamental issue here is lack of ability to make an informed decision because of the traditional being entrenched and the modern being misunderstood.
Solve that, and I think we can start to see some progress here.
So I sat down with Andrea about something else entirely but we got to talking about unconferences and traditional conferences, about L G Comms but also about #localgovcamp. And we've sort of come to a conclusion which I think is quite important, at least to me, in coming to a place where the two can meet.
It reflects our digital and communication policy, which is, use every channel which is appropriate and which you are trained in and comfortable with and which you think is valid and there is someone on the end of. Don't exclude anyone by only using one channel if possible, share your learning and flag any risks, if there are any. (heck, I think I just distilled a strategy into a paragraph, go me!)
Why should learning be any different? What's the different between traditional conference and unconference? Is it that the opportunity for discussion is moved (trad conf = discussion in form of Q & A after, unconf = before, during, after, in the corridor and at lunch)? Is it that the attendees dress differently (trad conf = formal, unconf = t-shirts & jeans)?
Whilst I agree with John who commented on my last post that the problem with old networks is the same old learning circulating, I would also like to propose that unless it gets new blood the unconference circuit is in danger of sharing the same old learning too. Therefore what is needed is a band of people like Nick Booth and Nick Hall who attend both and cross pollenate. But everyone else, I strongly believe, should be allowed to make an informed decision about the kind of learning style which they feel most comfortable with and should be respected no matter what decision they made.
However as all the commentators on my last post I think will agree - the fundamental issue here is lack of ability to make an informed decision because of the traditional being entrenched and the modern being misunderstood.
Solve that, and I think we can start to see some progress here.
Why management wont come? #localgovcamp
I didn't attend the 'why management wont come to camp' session at the weekend because my own failed efforts to bring anyone else from my organisation felt like education enough.
People wont give up their Saturdays. Some wont because they go home at 5 o clock and that's it, because they feel they don't get paid enough to work outside of the office in the evenings, never mind on a Saturday. Other people wont come because weekends are the only time they don't work - they spend every evening during the week working and catching up and the last thing they want to do is go and talk about more work at the weekend.
And the simple fact is - people above me in our organisation have clearly defined development and career paths and don't need to raise their profile at a national level. They've got existing networks who advise them and send through information and links on new developments - and sometimes they have the time to read those things and sometimes they don't.
But, ultimately, I can't help feeling that if I can't get anyone from our team of open minded bods to attend camp, the chances of getting anyone else at their level to do so is slim to nothing. I don't think it's anything to do with not seeing the point of attending or thinking that they would get nothing out of it - I just think that L G Comms is far more established across the industry and that unconferences are still seen as where all the 'problem' people who wont sit down nicely and shut up go.
Unfortunately, they're right. And if I were middle management, I'm not sure that'd be an environment I'd want to give up a Saturday to attend either.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Twitter isn't working for me any more
I know why, before anyone says anything but it's making things almost impossible.
I was under the mistaken impression that the Retweet function which Twitter built into the functionality of the platform was so that people like me who like to share interesting stuff with other people, could.
I can't, any more.
I am probably what Twitter would call a 'power user'. This, unfortunately, now seems to equate to 'person we don't value any more' and that's a dangerous business model. I can't run Tweetdeck, it constantly freezes and crashes. I have 2 list columns open, 1 for mentions, 1 for DM's and 1 for favourited tweets. Not excessive, you would think (and I've checked with other heavy users too - they've got more than me open). The basic Twitter homepage is now unusable too as I can't send my own tweets or retweet others.
Except I can - but only 2 or 3 before I'm banned. I assume I'm going over some limit imposed by Twitter. But you see, I don't use Twitter how Twitter is trying to impose on me I must. During a working day, I do not sit there watching Twitter all the time - I dip in and out once or twice, catch up, say something, retweet anything interesting and then produce no activity on their servers whatsoever for 4 hours.
In other words, the restrictions they're imposing on me as a power user, do not fit the pattern of use of what I think will be most busy power users who work for a living. Now all of this would be fine, but I've noticed that as a result, other people are retweeting an awful let less as well. And that's now impacting on my learning because I am simply not coming across as much interesting stuff as I used to. I'm also sending tweets and no one is seeing them - I @ people and then come back a few days later and tell them I responded to the question they asked on Twitter and they say 'no you didn't'. I DM people and they DM me and they never arrive - or some DM's arrive on the web interface and others on Tweetdeck and yet others on Twitbird on my iPad.
I'm not checking 3 different places to ensure I've got all the important info I need. And don't tell me Twitter don't mean for important stuff to be sent via Twitter - the switch to https kind of indicated that yes they were expecting those kinds of transactions.
So where am I now?
Annoyed. Frustrated. Considering the point of Twitter having been removed from me entirely. I can't even use it as a social tool and not a business tool any more because well, what's the point? It's so unreliable, I might as well go back to sms's. At least I get told when the other person wont have seen my message!
I appreciate it is a free platform. However I also know they're going to be getting asked some serious questions about revenue generation around now. Losing your power users and your most vocal proponents of your system about now isn't going to help with that.
Monday, 20 June 2011
5 min blog post - #localgovcamp (part 3)
The 80/20 rule by @willperrin
The 80/20 rule is something I've written about elsewhere - and yet somehow, in trying to share learning with others, I've once again missed the point myself.
80% of everything I do should be task drive, objective focused, performance indicator measured and efficiency motivated. My problem thus far this year is that 100% of my time has fallen into this category. I have done nothing of;
The other 20% should be idea time. Innovation, the sky is green, tear down the walls, blank paper, post-it note, go find someone to bounce a mad idea off, mini-project time. @sarahlay was the first person to mention this - in that she put the idea of booking some time into my calendar to do this. Then Will came along and in 3 minutes, literally, managed to quantify the issue I'd been having.
All work and no play makes Lou a dull girl. It's no use writing about 'play' theory and sandpits and expecting to fail if I don't walk the walk too. And that leads back to the last post quite neatly, and so we'll leave it there.
The 80/20 rule is something I've written about elsewhere - and yet somehow, in trying to share learning with others, I've once again missed the point myself.
80% of everything I do should be task drive, objective focused, performance indicator measured and efficiency motivated. My problem thus far this year is that 100% of my time has fallen into this category. I have done nothing of;
The other 20% should be idea time. Innovation, the sky is green, tear down the walls, blank paper, post-it note, go find someone to bounce a mad idea off, mini-project time. @sarahlay was the first person to mention this - in that she put the idea of booking some time into my calendar to do this. Then Will came along and in 3 minutes, literally, managed to quantify the issue I'd been having.
All work and no play makes Lou a dull girl. It's no use writing about 'play' theory and sandpits and expecting to fail if I don't walk the walk too. And that leads back to the last post quite neatly, and so we'll leave it there.
5 min blog post - #localgovcamp (part 2)
Support and encouragement !=backslapping. But it's a fine line. This morning I have been reading @simonjgrays excellent post on such matters over here and much thought has been provoked.
I am not the most confident of people. Way back at the beginning when I was very unsure of myself, the support of others was absolutely crucial in my ability to keep coming back and dipping more toes.
As I became more confident and started to write and blog and talk about things that support disappeared from a few key areas and I was very confused because I was trying to carry on sharing learning and thinking and suddenly it was if no one cared. I hadn't changed, my thought processes hadn't changed, my writing style hadn't changed - it was just simply a case of no one being here.
I now understand why - 'hatstands'.
I sorely wish people would have come and challenged (and not anonymously). Because my confidence as a result ended being back in tatters again. And I don't want to be a part of a community which builds people up massively, then walks away and leaves them on their own when they're struggling a bit. That's not right nice, that's not.
The above may be why you are not seeing an outpouring of enthusiasm for the weekends events. I don't trust anyone or anything easily and in this case, being proved right means retaining safe distance. I did learn a lot. But it was not the hug fest Jan was. And that's why.
I am not the most confident of people. Way back at the beginning when I was very unsure of myself, the support of others was absolutely crucial in my ability to keep coming back and dipping more toes.
As I became more confident and started to write and blog and talk about things that support disappeared from a few key areas and I was very confused because I was trying to carry on sharing learning and thinking and suddenly it was if no one cared. I hadn't changed, my thought processes hadn't changed, my writing style hadn't changed - it was just simply a case of no one being here.
I now understand why - 'hatstands'.
I sorely wish people would have come and challenged (and not anonymously). Because my confidence as a result ended being back in tatters again. And I don't want to be a part of a community which builds people up massively, then walks away and leaves them on their own when they're struggling a bit. That's not right nice, that's not.
The above may be why you are not seeing an outpouring of enthusiasm for the weekends events. I don't trust anyone or anything easily and in this case, being proved right means retaining safe distance. I did learn a lot. But it was not the hug fest Jan was. And that's why.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
5 min blog post - #localgovcamp
I can't write it all. Honest, there's too much learning I took away on both a personal and professional level to do that. So lets try bitesize.
We're pushing boundaries at work at the moment on so many fronts. Internal comms, external comms, internal collaboration, external collaboration, new campaign styles, new websites (that cos nowt), new platforms, new, new, new.
I am terrified.
Or rather, I was terrified until yesterday. Then I sat in @curiousc's agile session and suddenly I understand. I have never ever ever had to fail. I have worked x6 6 to ensure I haven't. I cannot do that in this post and I am terrified. Utterly. Have been paralysed by it, truth be told.
So thank you Ms C, because thanks to you, I recognised that, and now I know what to do. Just be up front and warn people if there's a slightly higher risk of something going wrong, if no one else has tried something and we're trailblazing, or if I've got no personal experience of something.
Problem solved. I am embarrassed, quite quite embarrassed to confess that I have been utterly crippled by this unidentifiable feeling for months. I thought I had to know everything.
I've also never failed, because I have always just tried harder to ensure it couldn't happen. And also, grades played a part too. The first time it happens, it will be horrible and I'm not looking forward to it, but I now understand that for other people it's expected and normal and permitted and I respect them enormously, and so I must learn to permit and allow it from myself.
Phew.
It's a 3 ring circus but there's some good in there #localgovcamp
If ever there was an example of local government being central governments poorer cousin, yesterday was it. This is going to be a quick post - the analytical stuff will come later (I will not be reading anyone else's content in the meantime, I'll be riding my bike up and down steep hills, being chuffed to bits at some friends exhibition at an art gallery and then doing some research for other things).
But some initial thoughts which I expect to be challenged on and will be expanding on:
Local government employs considerably more people, in total, than central. I'm a bit bored of central snobbery. You do a good and important job in difficult political climates. So do we.
ICT is not the cause of our dismay. You can work around barriers.
Do not talk to me about open data and transparency and then proceed to explain you will be holding closed discussions on an invite only basis.
Open data: too many cooks spoil the broth.
Where the hell has the Public Sector Transparency Board disappeared to and why does a rep never come to these events?
Don't talk to me like a school child.
I want to follow leaders not managers.
Agile - I am talking and have been talking about the dictionary definition not the technical implementation. Harry Harrold is right, we are not machines and I did not for a second suggest we were. However, I did suggest we can borrow some theories and strategies from the iterations, stand ups and scrums. I still believe this is appropriate and thanks to serendipity and nothing to do with me, we now implement some of these ideas in our team. The team don't know they do, but that doesn't matter as far as I am concerned.
So many battles have been fought and won that I'd not even clocked. I am lucky. I am trying, in my own stupid way to spread that and am grateful the few people I tried to explain that to understand and didn't roll their eyes. Cheers chaps.
Don't roll your eyes or smirk at me. I am not blind and I might look simple but I assure you, I am not.
Consultation, policy, visualisation. Not sexy but led to the most difficult session of the day for me.
No one might think performance indicators are sexy, and 'clueless' I might well be and 'clueless' those asking for performance indicators for social media might well be but it seems I am not alone and we are not alone in needing a hand in measuring these outcomes and objectives. Time costs money and I/we/they are being asked to justify that. I do not think that is so hard to understand at the moment.
No one asked about #lgovsm. I am most pleased about this - I would be, because, well, it justifies my decision that the time and effort I was putting into it invisibly was in no way required.
The people I thought were scary are not. The people I thought were good are not. The people who think they are good? Some are, and some are not. But I have not come across more genuine desire to grapple with difficult things, more honesty on difficult subjects and more people prepared to actually disagree vocally with people instead of rolling eyes in quite some time.
I also discovered something. It is most wonderful position to be in, to be inside something and yet to also be observing, to be listening and contributing and fighting and discussing and disagreeing and affirming whilst also, constantly, in the back of your mind, thinking 'these are the people of the future and which side will win, the ones who only want to make money and be famous or the ones who want to do that but want to change the world as well'.
I am not management material. Others, however, most definitely are. It's a pleasure and an honour to sit and listen as people deconstruct complexity, wrestle with morality and expound frustratedly.
We got some issues, kids. We can either ignore them, or we can talk about them. Guess which camp I'm in.
Thank you to Dave Briggs, Si Whitehouse and Sammy Williams.
But some initial thoughts which I expect to be challenged on and will be expanding on:
Local government employs considerably more people, in total, than central. I'm a bit bored of central snobbery. You do a good and important job in difficult political climates. So do we.
ICT is not the cause of our dismay. You can work around barriers.
Do not talk to me about open data and transparency and then proceed to explain you will be holding closed discussions on an invite only basis.
Open data: too many cooks spoil the broth.
Where the hell has the Public Sector Transparency Board disappeared to and why does a rep never come to these events?
Don't talk to me like a school child.
I want to follow leaders not managers.
Agile - I am talking and have been talking about the dictionary definition not the technical implementation. Harry Harrold is right, we are not machines and I did not for a second suggest we were. However, I did suggest we can borrow some theories and strategies from the iterations, stand ups and scrums. I still believe this is appropriate and thanks to serendipity and nothing to do with me, we now implement some of these ideas in our team. The team don't know they do, but that doesn't matter as far as I am concerned.
So many battles have been fought and won that I'd not even clocked. I am lucky. I am trying, in my own stupid way to spread that and am grateful the few people I tried to explain that to understand and didn't roll their eyes. Cheers chaps.
Don't roll your eyes or smirk at me. I am not blind and I might look simple but I assure you, I am not.
Consultation, policy, visualisation. Not sexy but led to the most difficult session of the day for me.
No one might think performance indicators are sexy, and 'clueless' I might well be and 'clueless' those asking for performance indicators for social media might well be but it seems I am not alone and we are not alone in needing a hand in measuring these outcomes and objectives. Time costs money and I/we/they are being asked to justify that. I do not think that is so hard to understand at the moment.
No one asked about #lgovsm. I am most pleased about this - I would be, because, well, it justifies my decision that the time and effort I was putting into it invisibly was in no way required.
The people I thought were scary are not. The people I thought were good are not. The people who think they are good? Some are, and some are not. But I have not come across more genuine desire to grapple with difficult things, more honesty on difficult subjects and more people prepared to actually disagree vocally with people instead of rolling eyes in quite some time.
I also discovered something. It is most wonderful position to be in, to be inside something and yet to also be observing, to be listening and contributing and fighting and discussing and disagreeing and affirming whilst also, constantly, in the back of your mind, thinking 'these are the people of the future and which side will win, the ones who only want to make money and be famous or the ones who want to do that but want to change the world as well'.
I am not management material. Others, however, most definitely are. It's a pleasure and an honour to sit and listen as people deconstruct complexity, wrestle with morality and expound frustratedly.
We got some issues, kids. We can either ignore them, or we can talk about them. Guess which camp I'm in.
Thank you to Dave Briggs, Si Whitehouse and Sammy Williams.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
The writing is on the wall
The writing is on the wall and it's on the Facebook wall if Sky News are to be believed as they analyse a second successive slump of Facebook usage. People are not just wandering off to some other network either - 100,000 Britons actively deleted their accounts in their entirety last year.
It seems, as I wrote elsewhere, that perhaps Facebook has finally stepped over the privacy line once too often. But is that the entire story? Hitting delete on an entire profile is a big commitment when your entire photographic history is also going along with the modern day equivalent of your business card, journal, sms history and address book combined with it.
Ultimately, though, we have been here before and if you look at the work histories of any of the Execs over in Silicon Vallery working on social the story is clear to see - social networks have an evolutionary life and by all accounts, Facebook has done well to last as long as it has. I suggested in the office the other day that Facebook was dying and was laughed at....but.
What if everyone is as pig headed as me and as soon as they start seeing Facebook icons on pints of milk and other items in the super market, on flyers and on bus shelters they decide this has all gone a bit 'overground' and disappear off into the ether to find the next big thing? Likely, I'd say, especially in the current climate which is already seeing young people being arrested up and down the country for dancing in warehouses. If you want to organise an underground event, lets face it, you do not put it on Facebook which is the equivalent of organising something in a room with a press conference.
No. Cultural evolution, digital evolution, political reflections. Nothing is as simple as entrenched and therefore safe in this kind of climate.
And what does this mean for local government?
Well, for a start, I'm going to make a leap at the demographic which is not leaving Facebook - the over 40's. No. For them, it is the safe sandpit of the digital frontier - and so they will stay. Community groups will thrive, collaboration will flourish and consultations will be answered - potentially by the same old people who always answered, but hey, who the hell cares.
The people who are doing the digital equivalent of disappearing into the woodwork are the under 25's. And it begs the question, an interesting question - is local government as reactive as it could be, can it keep up with modern young people, does it have the systems and protocols in place to connect with young people digitally no matter what platform they might be using, were we too busy looking at the platform and not the access point, did we all miss a trick, did we do our behavioural research properly, did we impose our own expectations on this group of people, did we want them to stay there, nicely, with their mouth shut and their location nicely flagged while we talked at them?
Hard questions.
But the ultimate question for me is: can we move as fast as we need to in what is proving to be an incredibly fickle communication space?
Do we want to be?
What will it take to be?
It seems, as I wrote elsewhere, that perhaps Facebook has finally stepped over the privacy line once too often. But is that the entire story? Hitting delete on an entire profile is a big commitment when your entire photographic history is also going along with the modern day equivalent of your business card, journal, sms history and address book combined with it.
Ultimately, though, we have been here before and if you look at the work histories of any of the Execs over in Silicon Vallery working on social the story is clear to see - social networks have an evolutionary life and by all accounts, Facebook has done well to last as long as it has. I suggested in the office the other day that Facebook was dying and was laughed at....but.
What if everyone is as pig headed as me and as soon as they start seeing Facebook icons on pints of milk and other items in the super market, on flyers and on bus shelters they decide this has all gone a bit 'overground' and disappear off into the ether to find the next big thing? Likely, I'd say, especially in the current climate which is already seeing young people being arrested up and down the country for dancing in warehouses. If you want to organise an underground event, lets face it, you do not put it on Facebook which is the equivalent of organising something in a room with a press conference.
No. Cultural evolution, digital evolution, political reflections. Nothing is as simple as entrenched and therefore safe in this kind of climate.
And what does this mean for local government?
Well, for a start, I'm going to make a leap at the demographic which is not leaving Facebook - the over 40's. No. For them, it is the safe sandpit of the digital frontier - and so they will stay. Community groups will thrive, collaboration will flourish and consultations will be answered - potentially by the same old people who always answered, but hey, who the hell cares.
The people who are doing the digital equivalent of disappearing into the woodwork are the under 25's. And it begs the question, an interesting question - is local government as reactive as it could be, can it keep up with modern young people, does it have the systems and protocols in place to connect with young people digitally no matter what platform they might be using, were we too busy looking at the platform and not the access point, did we all miss a trick, did we do our behavioural research properly, did we impose our own expectations on this group of people, did we want them to stay there, nicely, with their mouth shut and their location nicely flagged while we talked at them?
Hard questions.
But the ultimate question for me is: can we move as fast as we need to in what is proving to be an incredibly fickle communication space?
Do we want to be?
What will it take to be?
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