Stap isi

12 October 2008

Flickr & Local Govrnment

If your Council and Library service are not on Flickr, they should be.

In the first 4 weeks […] we had more views of the photos than the same photos in the entirety of last year on our own website — Seb Chan, Powerhouse Museum

He’s talking specifically about their Tyrell Collection – historic images from two of Sydney’s principal photographic studios in the late 1800s and early 1900s – in The Commons on Flickr. But the point still applies.

More people will see you and your content.

A challenge for Council websites is getting information across to the people who are not visiting us online. Many visits are motivated by a specific purpose — getting a resident parking form or the minutes of a Council meeting. But if we’re linked as a contact on Flickr (or any other social networking space) there’s always a chance we can grab some attention from their peripheral vision.

And what better way than with a photo?

That’s a good starting point to argue for US$25 a year (the cost of a Pro account) and the time required to set-up and administer your Flickr space.

Melbourne City Council moves to protect graffiti artist Banksy’s work — Hellblazer!

One experience

I set up a Flickr account for our Library in July 2006 as an experiment. It hasn’t been wildly successful in terms of views (39,938 all-time as of today) or comments (only 23!), but it has still delivered significant benefits.

• Our photo group for an annual community event holds over 300 images, most contributed by residents and visitors. We probably would not have seen these if we hadn’t joined Flickr. We’ve also had photos given to us by community groups. These have been made available as Flickr sets.
• Since 2006, I’ve favourited about 800 images of our Local Government Area. The collection reveals how people (visitors, residents, professionals) see the area. It’s also alerted people who may be constituents of our existence. I should probably have started a Flickr group for the area, and invited those photos to the group, but at that stage I didn’t want to be intrusive. We’re planning an exhibition on our website of some of the best of these.
• We use Flickr as a source of images to use (with permission) on the Council website and in Council publications. It’s easy to contact the photographers and the quality of the images is great.
• Using those resident and visitor images has had a positive effect on our digital reputation and our visibility online.
• Flickr is just about the easiest way to upload and describe a bunch of photos. I don’t know of any better workflow for getting images online. That means we have been able to distribute the workload (such as it is) to several staff.
• We pull those Flickr images into our own site as image galleries on a particular topic or theme. Flickr has an API – but even just a customised Flickr badge is better than nothing. Stratford-On-Avon District Council have made Flickr their image library. Mosman Council embeds a Flickr set into a webpage as a lightbox photo gallery.
• Our librarians have exchanged ideas with peers around the world (‘community of practice’). They’ve also answered questions about photos, and added information to photos where direct questions were not asked.

Reports from the museum & library world

There are some excellent and very generous reports online from public collections who have set up photostreams on Flickr:

• Commons on Flickr – a report, some concepts and a FAQ – the first 3 months from the Powerhouse Museum – Seb Chan, 21 July 2008
• Awesome photo – thanks!! Or, what I’ve learnt from our Flickr pilot – librarytechnz, 8 July 2008

Unexpected benefits of open tech

Two examples of how freeing up your content allows others to build good things.

• Paul Hagon has grabbed the geolocation data (latitude and longitude) in the Powerhouse Museum’s images and used that to place the photos dynamically on a Google map. Compare then and now with Google’s streeview.
• Flickr allows its users to tag other images. The Powerhouse Museum has harnessed the interest and knowledge of its Flickr contacts by adding those tags to its own catalogue.

Spectators on the lawn of Government House view the arrival of the first Royal Australian Navy, Oct 1913 — State Library of New South Wales

First steps

• To start, bank up some content. Maybe a couple of sets. When you post these, write good descriptive titles and captions (important also for search engines).
• Tag liberally. Add photos to the map. Provide people with multiple paths to your photos.
• When relevant, link back to a news item or web page on your site. Get some cross-promotion and synergy going with your website and other information channels.
• Consider the different licences for your photos. You can set a default licence but override that when necessary. Sometimes you want to encourage reuse of your images.
• By default you’ll get an email when someone comments on your photos. Make sure you’ve set your primary email address to one that’ll be regularly checked.
• Look for peers and constituents on Flickr, and mark them as contacts.
• Set up a Flickr photo search for your suburbs and check at least weekly what people are posting in your area.
• Maybe set up a group based on an area or theme. Link it to a popular activity that’ll generate photos to your pool.

Add photos regularly

There’s always lots happening around Councils.

• Festivals and other regular events are obvious candidates.
• Many officers now use digital cameras in their daily work. Talk to the environment team, the tree guy, the people looking after ovals, parks and assets, the town planners and local studies librarians.
• Track your digital repository to see what’s coming in, suggest them for Flickr. Show by example.

Dragon Boat Racers, Sydney Chinese New Year 2008 — City of Sydney

Join or start Flickr groups

Groups are where you can really connect. Flickr members contribute their photos to a group ‘pool’ – usually organised around a common theme. They don’t relinquish their copyright or control; photos in the pool always link back to the member’s page. But everyone benefits from being in the same room.

• The classic Australian example is Picture Australia’s People, places and events. They’re using the group to add contemporary images to the nation’s visual record.
• Stratford-On-Avon District Council have a group for their area, photos from which appear on their website in a public stream.

Some issues to consider

• If you’re using Flickr to supply images to your primary or other online spaces, you’re locked in to Flickr. When you stop paying, your photos won’t be deleted, but Flickr will only serve the most recent 200 images. That might mean broken images on older pages.
• What happens if Flickr disappears? Use this service to augment existing photo archives. You don’t have complete control over your data on Flickr.

Examples

Please comment if you know of others.

• City of Sydney
• Leichhardt Council
• Mosman Council
• Parramatta City Council

Doing it

The demonstrated success of the library experience with Flickr makes a strong case for its use in local government as part of your communications portfolio.

Flickr, in comparison to many other social networking sites, is a fairly safe and civil environment. Posting images on Flickr has immediate promotional and marketing benefits while developing a long-term online reputation and network.

And each image is worth a 1,000 words.

Credit

Article image — Leeds Town Hall entrance foyer (detail) — tricky ™

— b3rn   flickr, maps, user generated content   Oct 12, 10:50 PM   #

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