Fortunately, one local authority has some answers.  Leading the way in this field is Hull City Council and its award-winning project, CluedupinHull. com.   Launched 18 months ago, CluedupinHull has proved an outstanding success. Targeting two age groups, 12 and under, and the over 13s, the site provides a trusted online source of information designed for and by children and young people in Hull - and one they actually want to use.

PSFbuzz met up with Debra Coombs, Integrated Content Manager at Hull City Council and her team to talk about CluedupinHull and the secrets of its success.   We discussed how the project was set up, how users are engaged, the issues and challenges involved, as well as what advice the team would offer to other local authorities looking to venture down this route.  See below for a video of our conversation.

Our thanks again to Debra and her colleagues Patrick O’Malley, Martin Brabazon and Gary Hass for their time.

Ken shares his slides here:

Here’s some photos of the day also courtesy of Ken:

You can view the complete #psfbuzz Twitter action here (there’s 200-plus tweets so this may take a while to load), with thanks to Steph Gray and Dave Briggs for the search hack.  And of course, many thanks again to all our sponsors, speakers and attendees for making the event such a success.

Firstly, we got a sense of being around what’s happening in the leading/bleeding-edge of  social media in local government right now.   Next, the incredible potential of this. And lastly, the sheer enthusiasm and energy of those there and their willingness to share/help/ support/encourage.  All in all - at the risk of sounding horrendously cheesy - the buzz of PSFBuzz.  How about you?

Judging by the feedback on the day and from the feedback forms, the event was a great success - so to all our delegates, speakers, supporters and our #psfbuzz followers and tweeters, thank you!  If you missed out this time, let’s hope you can make it to our next event - details soon…

Here’s all the presentations from the day:

• Mike Saunt, Astun Technology
• Simon Wakeman, Medway Council
• Jack Pickard, The Pickards Information Services
  
• Ian Stuart, BrowseAloud
  
• Carl Haggerty, Devon Country Council
• Alastair Smith, Newcastle City Council
• Stuart Harrison, Lichfield District Council
• Dave Briggs - Conference Chair

Sarah Lay of Derbyshire County Council also blogged notes for each of the sessions which are available here and indispensible for referring to.  Thanks again Sarah.

We’ve also collected the torrent of #psfbuzz activity on Twitterduring the conference into one handy table of tweets here.  The #psfbuzz activity continues as we type…

And a special word for our commercial partners who made the day possible.  Please give a round of applause for the great people at GOSS, Astun Technology and BrowseAloud for supporting PSFBuzz North East. Check out their info below.

Goss

GOSS has a proven pedigree and substantial Public Sector client list. Over the last 10 years GOSS has developed partnerships with in excess of 60 Public Sector organisations.
GOSS understands the pressures to meet online strategy standards but our flexible partnership approach ensures the deployment a dynamic Web 2.0 solution, such as www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk.  GOSS Interactive enables you to create and manage:

• Personalised homepages
• Dynamic search
• RSS, Widgets and Gadgets
• Social Networking
• Mapping
• Blogs/Vlogs and Forums

Follow us on twitter for more: www.twitter.com/GOSSInteractive.

Contact Tel:01752 517350  Fax:01752 517110 Email: info@gossinteractive.com Web: www.gossinteractive.com

Astun Technology

Police and Local Authorities are looking for effective software solutions to cut costs, transform processes, improve operational efficiency and enhance service delivery. Astun Technology’s iShare data integration and publishing platform enables organisations to make the most of their own data, extracting it, transforming it and publishing it both internally and externally. It can serve call centres via systems integration and citizens via the web with a rich mix of information and maps while delivering real savings through avoidable contact and transactional services. iShare also provides a direct communications channel to citizens that subscribe to its automated My Alerts service. Easily configured and completely automated iShare is a unique mix of the Astun’s own purpose built modules and the best Open Source components. In use with over twenty authorities the award winning iShare platform continues to evolve to meet growing e-services needs.

Contact: Mike Saunt   Tel: 01372 440143  Email: mikesaunt@astuntechnology.com Web: www.astuntechnology.com

BrowseAloud
BrowseAloud is the world leading text-to-speech solution from Texthelp Systems Ltd, which is designed to improve website accessibility for those with literacy difficulties, learning difficulties such as dyslexia, mild visual impairments or where English is a second language.   With a choice of 17 high quality voices covering 9 languages and a number of unique features, BrowseAloud is quickly being adopted as the product of choice worldwide.
Texthelp Systems Ltd was formally incorporated in 1996 and specialise in the design of assistive software solutions to support those struggling to read and write.  The company is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Adobe Solutions Network Developer, Apple Business Partner, HP Business Partner and is ISO 9001:2000 accredited.  For the past 9 consecutive years, Texthelp Systems Ltd has been a Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award winning company.

Contact: Email info@browsealoud.com Web: www.browsealoud.com

Beginning on how at a personal level, Dave explained how social media had ‘changed his life -  taking him from working at a Benefits Office to suddenly being called up by Downing Street for advice. His anecdote served as an example of the “frankly scary” pace of change in which the web is altering the world around us and the way we live.

Here’s the slides:

Four Steps to Social Media Success

And here’s his four steps for how councils should get into social media:

1. Listen >>  2. Acknowledge >>  3. Create  >>  4. Share.

Meaning (Thanks again for Sarah Lay’s indispensible notes of the session):

• Listen: part of the reason ppl say horrible things about you is because they think you’re not listening and they can get away with it!
• Acknowledge: even just realise there is conversation - step in!
• Create: incremental process, try stuff
• Share: open up data - more back to Stuart’s presentation.

The underlying philosophy, according to Dave, goes something like this: Start small, create a community, test, learn from mistakes and then move on. Learning Pool highlight this important message from his talk:

“Those that do it well will create a community with their followers; getting people to care about you is the absolute key. And if social media tools can help you to get people to care about their community, that can’t be a bad thing.”

And finally, don’t forget it to make it fun. Which brings us nicely to the final message of the day: JFDI!

Stuart Harrison, Webmaster and Lead Developer at Lichfield District Council gave us all the inside track on his creation of TwitterPlan, one of the most noteworthy and innovative local government mash-ups to date.  For the uninitiated TwitterPlan, launched earlier this year, gives out planning application alerts via Twitter covering an astonishing 300-plus councils and counting, making it definitely one to watch.

The session notes blogged by Sarah Lay make a great companion to Stuart’s slides, which you can view below to get an overview of the project.

Alastair has blogged his presentation which you can catch  here (except if you’re of a very sensitive disposition).  And check out his slides below:

This was the topic tackled by Carl Haggerty, Enterprise Architect at Devon County Council, final speaker of the morning session. In his presentation, Carl underlined that instead of banning staff from accessing Web 2.0 sites, councils should be consulting with them on developing policies on internet use. He discussed the development of Devon CC’s own policy, which has secured senior management buy-in to the extent that the Council’s Chief Executive has become the social networking champion. He’s also very kindly provided us with a copy of the guidelines which other councils are free to tinker about with to their heart’s content.

Web developer Jack Pickard offered some answers for councils on how to reconcile their desires to make use of user-generated content and rich media technologies, with the need to meet public sector requirements for accessibility.   Jack has blogged a write-up of his talk here - read this alongside this presentation below where he offers some great tips on how to avoid the pitfalls and stay compliant: