Engaging Children and Young People Online - CluedupinHull.com

November 30, 2009 by Ian Cuddy · 1 Comment 

Children and young people are notoriously one of the most difficult groups for councils to engage with online.  The history of initiatives aimed at the young generation has seem a long line of well-meaning councils try, and fail, to ‘get down’ with the ‘kids’.  So how do councils engage successfully with this ‘hard to reach’ group and earn their trust?  How can they use the web to reach this audience in a way that isn’t patronising, preachy or terminally embarrassing?  Can councils be cool and fun?

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.

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Simon Wakeman’s presentation at PSFBuzz North East

July 9, 2009 by Ian Cuddy · 1 Comment 

Here’s the slides from our first speaker of the day, Simon Wakeman, Medway Council’s Head of Communications.  Simon talked about the impact of social media in local government, highlighting some examples of the work Medway has been doing to engage people online with Facebook, Twitter and podcasting:

Social media - a revolution in local government communications


[Update] Jack Pickard has blogged a great post about  Simon’s talk here.  And Sarah Lay of Derbyshire County Council has also blogged her notes for the session. Thanks Jack and Sarah!

If you’re interested in the public relations angle, have a look at Simon’s slides from the presentation he gave immediately afterwards  to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) North East group.

Social media and local government - CIPR NE seminar - July 2009

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