Overcoming the challenges to open government – the wiki way

The Wiki
The Wiki

My recent post on 50 Small Hurdles to Open Government generated some great comments and conversation. And so, with the encouragement of a number of those who commented, I took the 50 hurdles from the blog post, and turned them into a Wiki where anyone can share insights and ideas for overcoming them.

Take a look and see if you can offer some tips for dealing with the technical, organisation, policy and skill-set hurdles that hold back so much digital engagement potential in local and national government.

And in true Wiki style it can be built up and developed. Paul Evans has already pointed out one ommission which now has it’s own page: the lack of clarity about what the law says about engagement. However, thanks to Paul’s pointer to ICELE guidance, and contributions from the DC10PlusNetwork today, we now have a pretty good list of where laws and policies support and enable online engagement rather than prevent it.

Visit the Overcoming the Hurdles Wiki here.

Online Citizenship for young people – e-safety project ideas

[Summary: Ideas for online citizenship, digital youth work and e-safety programmes]

Project proposals
Project proposals

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working with Jonathan and Jackie from the E-Safety Sub-Group of Brent Local Safeguarding Children Board to develop ideas for a range of projects and programmes that could be run in the Borough to promote positive online citizenship amongst young people.

Brent LSCB have long been leaders in the drive to encourage every local authority to have an e-safety group within their Local Safeguarding Children Boards – and in encouraging organisations working with young people to have e-safety co-ordinators. Refreshingly their focus has not just been on a narrow definition of e-safety and safeguarding – but they have pro-actively recognised the importance of supporting young people to thrive online and be active online citizens as a means to promote online safety. And they have been very kind in letting me share the project and strategy ideas we developed.

So – here is Citizenship for Young People: promoting e-safety through promoting opportunity – proposals for positive project as a PDF download.

The document sets out a small portfolio of projects – some specific to the work in Brent – but, along with the critical questions I shared from this document previously, hopefully also provides a few general purpose projects that others working on e-safety might find useful. In particular:

  • The Content Creators (PDF) project proposal sets out a process for encouraging young people to consider online safety through creating digital media in their local areas. In particular, it works alongside the Critical Questions framework in the main document to suggest a series of stages of planning and working on online content with young people that provides opportunities to consider and reflect upon key online safety issues.

    Draft structure for the Content Creators programme
    Structure for the Content Creators programme
  • The proposal for Skill Swap sessions (PDF) suggests ways of getting young people to teach each other about online tools and technologies – and suggests using this as an opportunity to add in some e-safety messages. Underlying a skill-swap model, where young people are encouraged to teach each other about managing their online identities and keeping safe is a belief in building young people’s resiliency, rather than putting up barriers to protect young people; and a thesis that, given the right opportunities for reflection and discussion, young people are able to identify relatively unprompted, many of the steps they may need to take to be safe online.

    Both Content Creators and Skill Swap sessions have possible use in digital mentor style programmes with young people.

  • The Connection Hubs proposal (PDF) has a slightly different focus – on online outreach and taking content to where young people are. It outlines a possible strategy for having a core project presence online, and then ‘hubs’ out in different social media and social networking spaces to be able to engage with the online communities of young people in those spaces. It also fits with the idea of having a content strategy rather than a web strategy.

All the above are under a Creative Commons licence, and are very much initial ideas and sketches of possible projects. Brent LSCB have only been able to take a few of them forward at the moment, but hopefully in allowing them to be shared there may also be some value in here for other organisations exploring e-safety.

And of course – your feedback, reflections and comments (and edits even – let me know if you would like to Open Office/Word originals to work on) to help improve these would be most welcome.

Blogging from the National Digital Inclusion conference

I’ve been live blogging yesterday and today for the E-engagement strand at the 2009 National Digital Inclusion Conference.

You can take a look at some of the discussion and dialogue that’s been going on over here.

Update:

You can watch a full recording of all the plenary sessions here.

And if you’re interested in the engagement theme I was tracking at the event then take a look at these posts:

And a few general posts:

OpenGov: One big challenge? Or a thousand small hurdles

Update – July 2009: This list of 50 Hurdles has evolved into the ‘Interactive Charter‘ (an attempt to create a clear statement of intent for open government) and ‘Social Strategy‘ (a toolkit of practical resources for sorting it out). Keep an eye on posts tagged ‘interactivecharter‘ on this blog for the latest updates.

The original post:

What’s the big challenge to using new technology for mobilisation / communication around social issues, where government or large existing organisations are to be players in creating change?

Working with front-line professionals in local government over the last couple of months, I’ve been coming to see that:

  • The big challenges are not about technology – they are about the content and the process of mobilisation and communication.
  • When it comes to technology we’ve not got one big challenge we’ve got 100s of small challenges – and we’ve got no systematic way of dealing with them.

When all these small challenges stack up – the chance of staff members or teams in local or national government organisations and agencies being able to effectively engage with online-enabled policy making shrinks and shrinks.

Of course – as small challenges – I’m sure they can all be overcome. And one of the first steps to overcoming a challenge is knowing it is there – so below are 50 of the challenges I’ve encountered since the start of this year.

50 Small Hurdles to Online Engagement in Government

(Update 4th May 2009: There is now a wiki set-up with all these hurdles listed, and space for you to read/add shared learning about overcoming them…)

INTERNET ACCESS

  1. Access to Web 2.0 sites is blocked or filtered;
  2. Requesting that a website is unblocked requires a form to be filled in and the request may not be actioned for 24 hours or more;
  3. A site that has previously been unblocked is suddenly blocked again;
  4. A site is only unblocked for the computer a staff member usually sits at – and they are unable to access Web 2.0 Sites from another part of the office, or another desk;
  5. Web 2.0 Sites can only be accessed during lunch hours;
  6. Managers see abuse of ICT resources as an ICT issue rather than a management issue;
  7. ICT staff see access to Web 2.0 sites as an issue for ICT decision making, rather than for team leaders and managers;
  8. There is no capacity to provide staff with internet-enabled mobile phones, even if a business case can be made;
  9. Staff are not aware of the ICT, internet access and mobile phone/internet access resources they can legitimately ask for;
  10. Permission to use Web 2.0 is granted ad-hoc but not enshrined in policy, so a change in ICT manager could make access more difficult;

OFFICE TECHNOLOGY

  1. Computer only have out-of-date Internet Browsers (E.g. IE6);
  2. Staff cannot change their browsers home-page;
  3. Staff cannot install browser plug-ins or add-ons, and key plug-ins like Flash are out-of-date versions;
  4. E-mail sign-up confirmations from Web 2.0 sites regularly get caught in spam filters;
  5. Staff cannot install desktop widgets and utility software (e.g. Twitter clients, RSS readers etc.)
  6. Office computers have no ability to play sound;
  7. There is no easy way to get a photo onto an office computer. For example, a personal photo to use as a profile picture online;
  8. Any customisations staff add to their computer log-in are regularly lost;
  9. There is no WiFi in meeting rooms, and guests cannot get access to the internet in the building;
  10. There is a one-size fits all IT policy;

SYSTEMS & PROCEDURES

  1. There are no finance procedures or company credit cards to pay for low-cost online subscription services;
  2. There are no systems in place for backing up content from Web 2.0 tools;
  3. There is no secure password vault that can be used to keep track of ‘corporate’ memberships of Web 2.0 sites;
  4. There is no agreed way of notifying other staff members of plans for using Web 2.0 tools;
  5. There are no policies or procedures for responding to positive or negative online comments;
  6. There is no processes for carrying out CRB or Independent Safeguarding Authority checks on staff or sub-contractors involved in the use of Social Media to engage with young people or vulnerable adults;

POLICY & GUIDANCE

  1. There are no policies on personal use of Social Networks and Social Media sites;
  2. There is no accessible guidance available to staff on personal use of Social Networks and Social Media sites;
  3. There is no policy on Safeguarding and Child Protection in digital environments;
  4. There is no policy on Data Protection in digital environments – and no guidance on items of data which should not be shared in digital environments;
  5. There are no policies on appropriate levels for official staff engagement with Web 2.0
  6. Consent forms and model release forms make no mention of possibly sharing photos or videos from events and activities online;

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

  1. Senior managers see Web 2.0 and the Social Web as something to be scared of;
  2. Senior managers see Web 2.0 as a passing fad, or at best a persistent distraction and minority interest;
  3. Staff see Web 2.0 as an extra burden to add to already busy and pressured days;
  4. Ideas from outside the organisations are treated with suspicion;
  5. The organisation wants to be in control of any discussions that take place about it online;
  6. The organisation wants to moderate every discussion that it is any way responsible to convening or starting;
  7. The organisation wants to put it’s brand front-and-centre in every online engagement;
  8. Service-user engagement is not valued;

BASIC TECHNICAL SKILLS

  1. Staff have never received basic training in how a web browser, web addresses and search engines work;
  2. Staff are not aware of tabbed web-browsing;
  3. Staff do not make use of search tools;
  4. Staff find it difficult to adapt to and remember new ways of working digitally;
  5. Staff are not able to download, edit and upload images in web formats;
  6. Staff do not know how to install new utility software or browser plug-ins;
  7. Staff have no opportunities to share skills and develop their understanding of digital environments;

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

  1. Managers do not support staff exploration and experimentation with Web 2.0;
  2. Managers take no ownership over exploration and experimentation with Web 2.0 and provide no support to their staff;
  3. Managers react to initial teething problems with Web 2.0 engagement by shutting it all down and banning further exploration of the potential;

Your Challenges & Your Solutions?
I know that not only can all these challenges be overcome – but they have been. Somewhere.

If you’ve overcome one of the challenges here – could you write 50 words on how you did it? Add it as a comment here or your own blog post including the tag ‘smallchallenges’.

Or perhaps you can add to the challenges list? Naming the challenges is the first step to overcoming them!

Digital engagement & organisational change

Next week I’ll be helping out David Wilcox, Dave Briggs and team with a bit of social reporting from the National Digital Inclusion Conference 2009.

We’ll be bringing together content on the Digital Engagement Blog and Network, a new project described by Helen Milner from UK Online Centres as

a collaborative space for all those interested in digital engagement to share ideas and agree priorities for action around digital engagement. Our first focus is developing a Manifesto for Digital Engagement, which you can read about here.

So – to join in that discussion before I’m in a social reporter role next week I jotted down a few reflections about Digital Engagement and Organisational Change posted originally on the Digital Engagement blog, and re-posted below.

Digital Engagement and Organisational Change

There are an amazing amount of elements that go into successful and sustainable engagement with social media – and there tend to be even more elements needed when we’re talking about engagement by public sector organisations.

Just to set up a fairly simple project using a blog, or a social network site profile, to engage service users might, in the long run, need:

  • up-to-date computer hardware & software;
  • internet access free of filters and blocks on social media sites;
  • sign-off from managers and support from senior management for experimentation with social media;
  • a clear policy sanctioning use of social media;
  • guidance to staff on how to use social media tools in line with the policy;
  • updates to related policies and strategies;
  • a procedure for responding to any problems that arise;
  • skills development within a whole team so the project can be sustained even if staff change;
  • research into potential approaches to using the blog / social network site;
  • copy written to clearly explain the project;
  • backup strategies in case anything goes wrong with the social media platforms being used;
  • an evaluation plan;
  • and a whole lot more.

When it comes to social media engagement with young people, then public sector organisations (and others) will need to add a whole host of further key elements around safeguarding policies and youth participation.

All these elements are important – and some are essential pre-requisites before any engagement can get underway. But if all these elements are seen as part of a big list of separate hurdles and barriers for each individual public sector project wanting to engage with social media to overcome we’re going to be waiting a long time for widespread digital engagement to become a reality.

Learning from youth participation
Embedding effective youth participation into the way an organisation works also involves many elements: from getting a clear commitment to participation in organisational values, through to developing staff skills and even making sure finance structures are set up able to cover the petty cash for young people’s travel expenses.

Over the past four or five years I’ve worked with the Hear by Right tool – a standards framework designed to support the organisational change needed for effective youth participation. This collection of 49 different indicators under 7 key standards has been instrumental in many organisations moving towards better and more sustainable youth engagement. Hear by Right divides it’s indicators into ‘Emerging’, ‘Established’ and ‘Advanced’ levels. <any of the organisations I’ve watched using Hear by Right over the last four years are still working at the ‘Emerging’ level (embedding participation is a long journey!) – but, the presence of the standards framework – turning a list of potential hurdles into a clear and achievable plan of action – means that they are able to move forward with their youth engagement rather than to get stuck in inaction.

In the last year, I’ve spent a lot of time working with organisations interested in taking their youth participation practice online and into social media spaces. However, in the absence of a framework like Hear by Right for digital engagement we’ve spent at least some of the time going round in circles – unable to develop staff skills until policies are in place, and unable to get policies without providing the benefit of engagement, and unable to do that without skilled staff able to engage etc.

An organisational change framework for digital engagement?
I’ve already started work on sketching out an organisational change tool for youth-sector organisations seeking to explore their engagement with social media (and I hope to be able to share an early version for others to contribute to in the next few months) – but the challenges exist not only in the worlds of youth work and youth participation.

Perhaps the digital engagement manifesto give rise to a widely applicable framework for digital engagement organisational change?

(Comments turned off here – to leave a comment please visit the original post…)

Web skills for Guyana

[Summary: exciting international ICT training project recruitment open until end of April 2009]

Do you know someone who:

  • Is aged 18 – 35?
  • Has skills in web development, graphics & animation, web hosting or e-commerce?
  • Would be interested in spending six-weeks this summer working as part of a team sharing their skills with young people in Guyana?

Perhaps it’s even you?

If either is the case – take a look at this call for participants over the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council website where you will find more details. Or take a look at the video below:


Web Skills Guyana Project from Tim Davies on Vimeo.

(Oh, and while you’re there – do feel free to explore the rest of the CYEC site. It’s in no small part due to getting that new site up and running that blogging over here has been a little quiet of late.)

Getting the ball rolling for a 2009 youth work online unconference

Last year around 50 of us got together one Saturday in September at the offices of DIUS and had a great day exploring all aspect of digital media and youth engagement through the UK Youth Online unconference.

It’s about time we started planning to do it again – so if you head over to the Youth Work Online network* you will find an opportunity to get in quick to make sure we hold it on a day that works for you – and to find out how you can get involved in the organising.

More details & information coming after Easter.

(*The network was renamed Youth Work Online from from UK Youth Online when we realised that it was getting confused with charity UK Youth with whom we have no links)

It’s not about you

If you have documents, websites or presentations about your youth participation project, and they spend more time talking about your organisation, or the consortia and collection or organisations involved in the project – than they spend talking about the project itself – something is probably wrong.

If your consultations are designed around your internal organisational structure, rather than being based on the issues and themes that matter most to the people you are consulting – something is probably wrong.

If to access your services young people need to provide all sorts of management information that is just for your funders, and which provides not added value to the young person – something is probably wrong.

Good participation isn’t just something you bolt on to your organisation – it shifts the focus. It’s not about you. It’s about change for young people.

Post your policy: e-safety, online youth work, e-participation

[Summary: Towards a pack of practical guidance for youth workers and participation workers using Social Network Sites]

I’ve just shared a copy of my latest attempt at putting together guidance notes for youth sector professionals exploring safe and effective engagement with social network sites, created as part of a series of training for youth services and other youth sector organisations that I’m currently preparing to pilot*.

You can grab a copy of the five-page document over on the Youth Work Online website. But, rather than just read the notes I’ve put together – I would love it if you could share any existing e-safety and e-participation policies or guidance you’ve put together in your organisation. There has a been a lot of discussion in the ‘Policies, guidelines and boundaries for interacting online‘ thread on Youth Work Online about what a good policy or guidance note might look like – but as yet we’ve had no draft policies or notes shared in full. It’s time we changed that.

*If your organisation might be interested in piloting a one-day workshop on ‘Safe & Effective use of Social Network Sites in Youth Work/Participation Settings’ then do drop me a line.

(Update: It seems some Local Authorites have trouble accessing the Youth Work Online website (and some even have trouble accessing this blog…). If that is preventing you accesing the document mentioned in the post above, or preventing you sharing a policy or document you would like to share, drop me a line…)

Quick links: Participation Works & OpenGov

OpenGov Event – 22nd April
On the 22nd April I’m going to be speaking and taking part in a panel at OpenGov which describes itself as:

A practical one-day conference to discuss the challenges and opportunities of social technologies to enable engagement, collaboration, and transparency in government.

I’ll be drawing on learning from our work with new technologies and youth engagement what engagement, collaboration and transparency look like when you include young people in the picture.

Registration is now open – and if you sneakily use one of the links below you can get yourself a specially discounted ticket (just say Tim’s Blog sent you…)

For Government employees £115 (normal price £150)
For Start-ups, Sole traders & Independents – £55 (normal price £75)

New Participation Works Website
Participation Works have just launched their new website – with a much clearer layout – and new features for members of the Participation Works Network for England (PWNE). In particular, if you’re a PWNE member (it’s free to join…), make sure you log-in to take a look at the new Participation Works blog, currently running as a trial project just for PWNE members – but, if all goes well, to be opened to the wider world soon…

Plus – if you’ve struggled to find information in the Participation Works resource library in the past – the new resource library makes it a lot easier to dig into a great knowledge base around participation – including lots of new video content.

(And, I have to say, having interim managed the launch of the last Participation Works site which I inherited running the horrible DotNetNuke CMS, it’s great to see the new version is made up of Drupal goodness)