Why Can’t We All Just Play Nicely?

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know I didn’t have a particularly peachy morning. It started when our IT manager gave me unrestricted internet access. This brought cries of WooHoo! from me as I could potentially start to look at branching out our SocMed capabilities. The caveat, however, was that the access was handled by our Citrix mainframe, meaning I was essentially logging in again when I needed to access the web. The downsides to this were:

• I could only use IE7
• I couldn’t use plugins (bye bye Web Developer Toolbar)
• I couldn’t use FireFox et al (bye bye cross platform testing)
• I couldn’t upload as I was logged into a different system from my own and couldn’t see my C Drive
• Local apps that log me in based on my NT Login ceased to work

…and so on. Needless to say I wasn’t happy, but I was fully aware it wasn’t IT’s fault; they were trying to help me but unfortunately hindered me because they didn’t fully understand what I required. A lot of this revolves around the requirements placed on them by GovConnect; I don’t know that much about this initiative so I won’t go into it here. Suffice to say it’s caused a LOT of headaches around the authority. Again, this isn’t directly IT’s fault. They’re putting protocols into place because they have to.

I got my restricted but usable access back, but this got me thinking; everyone is very quick to vilify IT for blocking access to things, putting in protocols that hinder rather than help and not letting you install essential software on your machine. But it’s probably not their fault.

We’ve got some major roadworks going on round City Hall. Major. They’re going to screw up the road system, cause delays and generally tick a lot of people off. But this isn’t the workers fault. They’re just doing their job, what they’re told to do. It’s the same with our IT dept; I got a dialogue going with our IT head who told me that they have to follow legislation as to who can and cannot have and do certain things.

That’s fine; I’m happy with that. Large organisations have restrictions, that’s a given. I’m more than happy to play by the rules. But are these rules appropriate in the ever evolving technological world? And why should there not be managed exceptions so that higher end tech people can do their jobs (and I’m not just talking web bod’s like me)? Is GovConnect really THAT all encompassing that every single system in Local Government needs to be locked down tighter than a medieval virgin’s chastity belt?

I think that one of the key issues here is localisation. To my knowlege there is no drive from Central Gov to push a standard that we should all work to. We’re expected to develop better service delivery but set our localised protocols, also working within restrictive legislation such as GovConnect. And the localisation only breeds siloing which means that departments only ever end up working to their own rules anyway.

There is a distinct need to work together internally. IT don’t care about how the website works; and I don’t expect them to. What I do want, however, is an understanding from them of how I want to improve the web, as well as learn from them what their restrictions are and try and evolve their protocols to meet both of our needs. And this is, I’m sure not just applicable to the situation between me and IT; I can name a couple of other sections who can’t seem to gel when their protocols contradict one another. We should be evolving, not rooting ourselves in “My way’s best, so nyah!”

I guess what I hope to achieve from this post is a discussion; who has fallen foul of GovConnect? Is it the big bad wolf I seem to think it is? Shouldn’t we all by trying to forge better relationships instead of squabbling interdepartmentally all the time? Who should be pushing for the cohesion of systems? Or am I simply being a bit of a web-dev diva and throwing my toys out of the pram because someone is telling me I can’t deliver a system in the way I want to?

Presentation – Online Engagement

I’ve just returned home from a members workshop on the duty to involve. I was actually presenting there, giving my piece on why councillors should be looking at using online tools to engage, blogging, social networking and the like. This was my first presentation of this ilk and I’ve got to do it again soon to another group; I’d ask you to be nice, but I’m really looking for some constructive feedback on any changes I might want to make, anything I’ve missed.

The results of the presentation were generally positive with a number of councillors looking to take things forwards. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce some councillor blogs soon on the City of Lincoln Council site!

Community Voice Redux

Just a quickie to say that I relaunched Community Voice on the City of Lincoln Council website today. It has been properly branded with our standard website theme to blend seamlessly in and is now hosted on a WordPress MU install. I’m hoping to write up a little bit on our use of WordPress MU as a rapid deployment platform for satellite sites but, in the meantime, Community Voice v2 can be found at http://community-voice.lincoln.gov.uk.

LocalGovCamp – Exclusion and Social Media

The third session of the day was a good discussion about Open Source software, however I won’t be blogging about that as I didn’t really take notes; too much interesting discussions going on.

The fourth session, however, was a nicely heated discussion on how the take up of social media and how it is potentially excluding certain areas of the community. For my part I threw in the arguement of whether the councils implementing these technologies should be educating in their use. I’ve tried to list the general points of discussion below.

• Some people probably don’t use these services out of choice, not awareness; how much use would education be to them?
• If the council goes out educating, would it be seen as somehow forcing these solutions on the community?
• Not education, awareness.
• How do we address the digital divide? Non-spot areas?
• Councils should probably identify digital enablers in the community to spread the word.
• How much should concillors themselves be leading on this?

Not a huge amount of points but there was some good discussion on the back of this and id certainly changed my views on the subject.

LocalGovCamp – Community Activists – Busy Body DoGooders

Very interesting session from Will Perrin, discussing community activisim. Here’s my notes:

• Using bogs and social media to report issues to council. Empowering the community.
• Community activism goes on whether councils like it or not.
• Can significantly help and improve community; organise events, improve facilities, join community.
• Government written editorial bad; one sided. Community driven sites repurpose council content to be more readable.
• Friendlier face for community
• Elected members get involved; council officers not interested
• Starting to get recognition; site mentioned in Guardian and Digita Britain
• Funded enterprise to educate communities across country to be able to engage and work with councils – looking for paid volunteers.
• How can work be done to connect these sites to the “Community Activist” sites? Talk to local councils, “watch the customer”, councils should look at channels and address where appropriate. Practices need to change.
• Ensure partnership working? Don’t just deliver the service and then assume buy in?
• How do you stop nasty comments, local nutters? Just monitor and delete; be vigilant.
• Is it activism or desparation?
• Hyperocal Alliance
• Is there a danger for misinterpretation, one sided discussion with “activist” websites?
• Activism alliance. Perhaps there should be a centralised site to bring all these different activist sites together? Pull together disparate groups who may have the same views? What about groups with differing views? Alliance with LA’s?
• Does the concept of “activism” deter the target audience.
• Good for remote rural areas; simple free tech; WordPress.
• Should work alongside traditional face-to-face methods; some people do not like doing things online.
• Good way to get message across quickly, bypassing media. However, is the openness a mistake? With media there is a “safety net” for providing accurate information? Should be good relationship with media.