Are PM and social media natural bedfellows?

Yesterday I gave a presentation on performance management and social media to an advisory group to the IDeA’s Managing Local Performance project.  Some sceptical person said to me “Is there a relationship?” – Absolutely, I said.  And I hope my presentation went on to show that many of the tools for social media can be used for performance management and improvement in local public services – whether it be used to gather customer insight to being a fantastic accountability tool.

And we’re also looking at how we can use social media tools (like the IDeA’s Communities of Practice platform for example) to share knowledge about improving performance management between practitioners in local government and local public service partners.

You can download the presentation from the Policy and Performance community of practice or you can see it on Slideshare.

Councillors and Social Media

If you don’t think PM is a natural partner for social media, maybe you think councillors are natural users of social media.  No?  Well, many are.  A growing number of councillors blog, use Twitter and have Facebook accounts and they use these (and other tools) in some combination to communicate with local citizens, campaign on local issues or even campaign for office.

I was honoured to be invited to speak at the London Councils Annual Summit on Saturday about councillors and social media.  I shared the platform with three councillors who are keen users of social media themselves: James Cousins, Wandsworth, Steve Reed, Leader of Lambeth Council and Mary Reid, Kingston-upon-Thames.

You can see the full text of what I intended to say (though not what I actually said!) either as a download in the Social Media CoP or on my blog.