We thought that libraries would be a good place to start as there was so much colour we could put around the service and I’ve had a lot of engagement on our facebook and twitter accounts when we talk about books so we know that it’s something that people online like to discuss.

We’ve both met with our library services who were really enthusiastic about getting involved, especially as most had been at CILIPs and had brought back lots of ideas.

I believe one of our roles as a local authority is to act as enablers in the community. We should be creating opportunities for our citizens to improve their quality of life and libraries can be used to reach out to the digitally excluded and bring them in as they are a neutral meeting ground, and not always viewed as a ‘cooncil’ service. We thought about using libraries as a place where we could hold ‘twinics’ or social media surgeries where we assist people with the basics of getting their own social media presence up and running as well as understanding how to use it to get the most out of it.

For those that are online already we could be reaching out to them on their terms, where they are, and letting them know what services are available online, and there are tons of of them. From downloading audiobooks, to family history databases to online renewal to dvd rental and more.

To promote library services to people already online we thought about having a tweeting mobile librarian using location  #tags so that people with a search on for their own areas will find it. We’d also have a central library twitter account that would tweet out the events happening locally again hashtagging the town or village name it was taking place at.

We’re also going to get up facebook pages for our book festival and Young People’s library service.

We also think that this has all come at the right time for councils with a strong or emerging social media presence.  Libraries have shifted and have a wide range of online services, and social media allows us to reach out to those who are online but not engaged with the service yet.  While researching this post @lelil very helpfully sent me her thoughts on saving library websites. And she is right, we need to vastly improve the online offering but even if they are improved how do we get them to come. Social media is that route.

The conclusion we’ve arrived at is that we won’t get immediate channel shift of users from expensive forms of contact (face to face) to the least expensive (online) by using libraries but maybe that’s not what we actually want to do.  But we can use  social media to engage the unengaged (people who think that the library service has nothing to offer them) and disengaged (people have have fallen away from using libraries)  and get them using the service in a way that suits them,  by increasing virtual footfall because that’s where they are already.

We then might be able to assist and enable others to become digitally engaged and once they all start feeling comfortable with using library services online they will feel confident about using other council services online too.So win a roundabout kind of way we will achieve our aim of getting more people to have a digital first approach with the council but only by making it relevant, easy and worthwhile first.

Oh, and we might save a few libraries along the way too as they become more relevant in a digital age.

I’d really love to know what others think of this and what is happening in other areas.

On Thu, I was just about to head off for lunch when this appeared
News unfolding on Twitter as @HertsPolice tackle an incident.  Hashtag #watfordbomb controversial

As I’m a local government comms officer who gets involved in emergencies and incidents I thought I’d have a look.  Oh, and the day before I’d been on a emergency planning exercise with the police testing the communciations response, and that also included social media. And that exercise had been about bombs.  So, fair to say I had more than a passing interest in what was going on.

As soon as I clicked through to #watfordbomb on tweetdeck I was bombarded with RT’s showing this

@Hertspolice We are currently dealing with an incident in Watford.The individual is on his own.No members of the public are at direct risk. #watfordbomb

and then this

@Hertspolice We are using the hashtag #watfordbomb as it was created by users and we want to make sure our messages are seen and to keep you updated

Seemed clear enough to me, speculation going on that the incident involved a bomb, and from reading tweets seemed to be in a bank. Fair play to the cops I thought for going to where people are (online, twitter,facebook) and using the immediacy of social media to comment, advise and reassure on a very fast moving situation. And no point putting out another # as #watfordbomb was already in circulation and being well used I thought.

As far as I was concerned they were fulfilling their legal duties under the Civil Contingencies Act of ‘warning and informing’ and doing it well.  They updated their website and tweeted and facebooked links back there with relevant and timely updates.

What happens during an incident is that information comes in from many sources, has to be checked,confirmed, information going out has to be cleared, it’s all time consuming and in a world of 24/7 news and social media we do need to speed up our comms even if it’s just to say, actually we’ve nothing to say bit this is when we plan to have something to say.

From what I can see the only error the cops may have made is using the word speculate here along with the #watfordbomb.

@HertsPolice We would ask that you refrain from speculating. Police are doing everything they can. http://tinyurl.com/3e265gw #watfordbomb

I’ve been in a busy incident room, and yes they could have said it in a different way and I’m sure they’ll look at this during their debrief. As one who has been there, all I would say is before you criticise put yourself in the other persons shoes and ask, under all that pressure, and using a relatively new communications channel would you really have done it all that differently.

And as for the story in the Drum, it’s poor journalism, if you’re going to criticise someone, in the interests of balance,you give them the right to reply.  All they’ve done is use a tweet from the incident, that’s just lazy and they should know better. The Guardian haven’t even done that, they’ve used something but it’s been cut so much it’s not even relevant.  Neither publication used a quote explaining Herts Police use of twitter or #watfordbomb.  I had to go PublicService to find a balanced, factual story.

Maybe there’s another agenda here, are ‘some’ journalists feeling undermined by twitter? That’s where news breaks and unfolds these days. It’s undermining their institutions and their comfort zones. Maybe that’s why they’re so quick to criticise?

As far as following this online went, the local paper, the Watford Observer, were blogging it live and publishing straight to the front page of their website, along with many others in the local area.  I seem to remember there being a stand off, then about 1.25pm several people tweeted loud bangs being heard, then not long after that a picture appeared on twitter showing the man the police had arrested.  Sky were broadcasting live and I believe it made the ITV news too.  So it was getting national coverage and the police made sure there voice was heard on as many different platforms as possible. That’s why I’ll applaud their approach and overlook the one thing they could have done better, because no-one gets it right first time.  Had they not been online then that would have been the #fail.

I’m sure they’ve learned a lot ….oh and it really was also the most eventful lunch time I’ve had in a while.

I’ve wondered for a while what the point of twitter is if you’ve got Facebook as you can do and share so much on FB… a few of you know I’ve been on Twitter for a wee while, more out of curiosity than anything else, and I’ve got to ‘know’ cos it’s my job now, but the reason I’m rambling on a bit here, is I’ve just finally GOT IT… and I really do think that in the future it will be how we access the web, and learn more about the things we are really interested in.

I’ve heard it said that Facebook is where you meet your friends, and Twitter is where you follow people you really want as friends…..

There is room for both…

With FB it is for me and my friends, especially as we all have such busy lives and we don’t get the chance to catch up face to face, so it’s great to get wee snippets of what you are all up too …..but Twitter is about putting all my sources of info in one place, and it’s a place I go to learn something new, whether that’s to do with breaking news, what’s what in the world of social media, or what my fav comedians are thinking about or most importantly what wisdom Nigella is sharing today.

What put it really into context was two events of last week, the first was the Tommy Sheridan trial, and how Twitter came to the fore, it was the first time tweets were allowed from a court room in Scotland and credit to STV News for pushing to get this to happen and the other news outlets for joining in….suddenly there was a place to go where everyone could get the breaking news first, comment in the right place and share their views…and then leave again without upsetting or offending anyone…The second event is what is going on in Egypt, twitter has been on fire with this, and by following people whose views I respect I’m getting access to news before it’s on the traditional sources, BBC etc.

If you’re interested in how social media is going to evolve and allow us to be more informed and want to find out more, get yourself a twitter account, follow some interesting people, have a wee look at my list for starters and I hope you find it as fulfilling as I do….sermon over…hope to see some of you there. http://twitter.com/corrinnedouglas

I wanted an online campaign, that would give people  something to talk about on a weekly basis but it had to serve a purpose and have an outcome.  I looked at Waste Services as it’s a universal service, it reaches everyone and it’s human nature to talk about things we are good at.

I’m fortunate that our residents are pretty good at recycling, we recycle 50% of all our waste and have the highest recycling rate in Scotland.  This is in part due to demographics, in part to the system the service have in place and is supplemented by great waste awareness.

But…we need to get more out of our mixed waste stream and more into our recyclables so a campaign on FB and twitter with weekly themes about recycling seemed a good idea. It would be a good prompt for those who choose to engage with us to think about their own behaviour, share their stories and generally keep the awareness of waste up there. There’s so many areas to recycling that I thought we could run and run with it without ever really running out of good material.

I had the opportunity to speak to Elle Flett at Norfolk Fire & Rescue today, she’s behind the fabulously simple but effective #testittuesday and was very modest about her achievements. She did give me some good advice though and was really positive about the campaign.  One of the first things she saidwas ‘I’m not really sure about the campaign tag’ and on reflection I think she’s right.

#WasteWed isn’t really engaging, we chatted some more and tried to find a tag that people would want to engage with.  We arrived at #LoveWaste or #LoveyourWaste as we want to connect people to the action and although we might still run it on a Wed by tagging it #WasteWed we were limiting ourselves to just one day a week.

So far I’ve spoken to people in my council about the campaign,  to @ZeroWasteScot, the national body who promote recycling in Scotland and to a few people on Twitter and everyone’s been really supportive and interested.

ZeroWasteScotland are going to support the campaign by producing themes for the first wee while, until our council and any other council who wants to join in find our feet and are comfortable with leading activity in our own area.  The idea is to not create too much work for council’s to start with and to try and have a consistent theme.  We’ll tie into national events as well like National Compost Week and so on.

The important part is that the campign themes will have to be a benefit to the end user instead of banging on about carbon footprints and the like.  To launch on 16th March it’s likely to be about money saving.  ZeroWasteScotland will be launching an app that lets you put your leftover ingredients in, give it a wee shake and out pops a recipe so the food you were going to chuck will be used and you won’t have wasted your money. We’ll then invite people to post their favourite leftover recipes to get some discussion going.

Eventually I’d like to see all council’s that are active on Twitter and FB using it, I had the idea but I don’t own it, it will only be a success if we get all the minds we can on it and share ideas about what may or may not work.

As you’ve read this far I’d like to invite your comments on what might work, what you might like to see and let me know if your Council would be interested in joining in. Do you have another suggestion for tag that could be used instead. I’m quite excited about the potential of the campaign and I’d like to hear what people have to say on it.