Stap isi

9 March 2010

Your Tube

Last year Craig Thomler alerted us to the fact that Youtube offers free branded channels to government departments globally. I can confirm that this offer is open to local government as the organisation I work for has taken advantage of it.

What do you get?

Custom banners and profile images, longer videos, autoplay on your featured video, no ads on your uploaded videos and Google Analytics integration.

See Mike Kujawski’s blog post and YouTube’s Partner Help Centre for more detail.

I still can’t find public information on the offer (I searched with Google) but Craig Thomler’s post has a copy of the form email from Google. It has the contact address.

— b3rn   google, tools, video, youtube   Mar 9, 07:37 PM   #   Comment

19 April 2009

The Muppet - Superman Continuum

By Councillor James Cousins of the London Borough of Wandsworth.

“My central contention is that online engagement is about being yourself online and, therefore, learning to use new tools rather than changing your behaviour.”

Prepared for Councillors Connected, an online conference exploring how councils and councillors can use social media to communicate with and engage communities, effectively deliver services and empower local people, facilitated this month by the UK Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA). You will need to register to get access to the rich vein of materials.

This video is an excellent accompaniment to the CivicSurf documentary.

— b3rn   councillors, engagement, listening, politicians, tools, trust   Apr 19, 10:05 PM   #   Comment

24 February 2009

Meetings in a Minute

Great idea, well executed, from Hermosa Beach deputy mayor Michael DiVirgilio:

‘Meetings in a Minute’ is a video series where I’ll be posting a brief video overview after each Hermosa Beach City Council meeting.

Through the videos I hope to help communicate important City business as well as to make it easier for busy residents to stay informed and engaged in their local government process.

Michael gives further background here and makes the point that Meetings In A Minute is “not the goal, but more likely one of many steps devoted towards a dedicated and continuous effort to include people in the process.”

Check also his blog and YouTube channel.

Council business papers do a poor job communicating what Council is doing and why. There is too much text. This format, like Twitter, rewards the succinct.

Thanks to @bashley for the link.

— b3rn   councillors, engagement, politicians, time, tools, video   Feb 24, 08:25 PM   #   Comment

29 January 2009

Breaking out

I’d say the jobs section would rank in the top 10 for traffic on most local government websites. Yet councils find it difficult to attract quality applicants for many positions.

The London Borough of Barnet have taken an innovative approach, breaking out the jobs section – and in their case, recruitment for children’s services – into a standalone site. They’ve called it Barnet Possibilities.

I think it’s a great idea.

• Fresh look (i.e. not ‘council’); clearly branded; simple URL to promote.
• Job seekers – even if they’re residents – make up a visitor segment with a well defined mission. No need to distract them with all the information you’re targeting at residents. Here the supporting information is prominent.
• They’re capturing email addresses of potential recruits.
• Just having a standalone site suggests that the Borough considers children’s services important.

Dominic Campbell (who allegedly does some work in the borough) says “biggest innovation not the site per se, but the fact that they’ve managed to pull recruitment for all children’s services jobs into one place, with partner organisations such as the NHS up next.”

He promises to report back on the effectiveness of the site over time.

As an aside, local government could use domain names more creatively. They’re cheap. And useful not just for larger projects but as a marketing tool or just to make a point.

— b3rn   tools   Jan 29, 09:12 PM   #   Comment [2]

21 January 2009

The other great open-source publishing tool

Wordpress gets lots of mentions. I think it’s great, although I’ve never used it. (I will find a use for CommentPress one day.)

But there’s another excellent open-source publishing tool out there, called Textpattern.

I’m told it is more flexible than Wordpress but I won’t argue that point – a tool should be selected for its task and both Wordpress and Textpattern are used in all sorts of ways. I will say that Textpattern is more for the designer or developer who is comfortable with HTML and CSS. You won’t find a hosted solution or easily installed themes, for example. You will find that it’s a matter of minutes to get yourself a blank canvas from which to work.

Textpattern is small, clean and elegant. Not adjectives you’d immediately associate with its six foot three creator – the great Dean Allen – but Textpattern continues to benefit from his rigorous application of typographic practice and web standards. Webcock he is not. The current devs have maintained the line.

The Textpattern community itself is a significant asset, contributing plugins to extend core functionality and very helpful in the support forum. You can see how people are using Textpattern at welovetxp.com.

Give it a try. Sometimes being second is best.

— b3rn   cms, tools   Jan 21, 09:41 PM   #   Comment