Social Media & Networking

Mike found that three police forces had the highest rate of increase in Facebook “likes” compared to the previous month: Hampshire, Greater Manchester and Strathclyde. I looked at the Facebook pages for these three forces and identified the five most popular posts from each in the month under review.[read more]

government/shutterstock

Confusion can be caused when political operatives and members of a politician's own staff use social networks in ways that can mislead parts of the broader community into thinking those accounts are run by appointed professional public servants.[read more]

Open Raleigh is an online repository with open data, web and mobile applications, and links to participatory tools and organizations. It’s part of Raleigh’s open source strategy focusing on transparency, collaboration, and improved access to information.[read more]

This is a presentation I gave on Monday to NSW Health, including a review of Australian social media adoption, how agencies have been using social media, risks to watch out for and some examples of good public sector social media execution.[read more]

connected communities/shutterstock

We wanted to foster a friendly event where anyone would feel welcome to participate. The team in Ottawa had, in particular, done great work in reaching out an engaging new people in previous hackathons, they’d have a wealth of non-software developers and even full families attend their events. This was as much a hackathon as it was a community event.[read more]

Whether emergency service personnel and management ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ Facebook, Twitter or other social media and online channels is now irrelevant. Citizens, media organisations and other groups increasingly rely on them to share information, tactics and to organise outside of any central control by an agency and regardless of their wishes.[read more]

What can social media do for law enforcement? A new study finds nine different ways that police are using social media in Europe.[read more]

copyright/shutterstock

In the US, material created by the Federal government is, by default, owned by the public. In the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and others, governments are transitioning from closed copyright systems to more open ones. There's continuing scrutiny, review and debate over the 'right' setting for copyright, with the companies who only exist due to copyright often at odds with their own customers, who wish to share books, music and video material they enjoy.[read more]

How do you measure success? What counts? Likes? Retweets? Twitter followers? The impact of communications – traditional or digital – must be not the passive audience who glanced at it but what people did as a result of it.[read more]

messages/shutterstock

The Australian Government Housing Minister Brendan O'Connor apologized for and deleted a tweet that claimed that a tweet from Australia's Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was a political stunt as it highlighted Abbot's volunteer fire fighting activities. Without delving into the politics of this discussion, the topic raises an interesting area for both politicians and public servants.[read more]

virginia/shutterstock

Virginia has redesigned and launched anew version of its official state website, Virginia.gov. The website was redesigned with a focus on citizen usability and also includes a mobile version. The website will be considered the official state portal and contain links to all other necessary state websites and online forms.[read more]

city/shutterstock

The premise is simple. Cities publish details of a strategic challenge they need help solving and the public, social enterprises, research centres, not-for-profit and for-profit organisations are invited to contribute their solutions. Jurors shortlist and select winning solutions, which are then implemented.[read more]

politician/shutterstock

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Liberal Party had 'slapped a social media gag on MPs.' I think social media has become an important 'toolkit' of channels for politicians to use to engage constituents, stakeholders and the media. If the party can't trust its own electoral candidates to behave appropriately in public discourse, why should the public trust these candidates in public office?[read more]

How might a police department use Pinterest? You can see for yourself. Philadelphia's police department is now on Pinterest, and using the image sharing site to increase community engagement and put the spotlight on Philly's most wanted.  From the Philadelphia Police Department: "The Philadelphia Police Department is always looking...[read more]

On election day, voters will be able to enter the address of their polling place and find out in advance about wait times, comment about their experience, report problems, and upload photos. MyFairElection will also supply voters with the location of their polling place, voter identification requirements, and other election-day information such as current average wait times. Both real-time during Election Day and afterwards, the application will aggregate voter-provided data into heat maps and other data-rich displays to identify and display the quality of electoral access across the country. The site will allow voters to identify and locate problems as they emerge in real time, compare and rank states and localities according to the quality of access to the vote they provide, and share the experience of exercising their right and ability to vote.[read more]