Videos from the workshop - and much thanks

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Comment by David Wilcox on October 11, 2009 at 8:45am

Here's how the workshop was reported on October 8 2009 to the Community Empowerment Tools Board in the Department for Communities and Local Government, where the idea started.

Introduction
At the last meeting in July, this board discussed how the Government could use the influence that has to bring people together – its ‘convening power’ – to solve problems, answer questions and share ideas, with the help of social media technologies. The board agreed that Antonio Irranca should work with David Wilcox to organise a workshop to test out the concept, on the subject of using social technology for local good.

Progress
David, working with his colleague Amy Sample Ward of Social by Social (which provides practical guidance for using new technologies to deliver social impact) started an online community at http://localcommunities.ning.com/ and recruited the main interests to the site to start generating discussion. They used this as a basis for organising the physical event to bring together leaders practitioners of the main programmes working in the field of local community technology, to identify key issues and scope for collaboration.
The workshop itself took place on 21 September, hosted by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. About 40 people attended on the day, and there are now 139 people on the site. The programmes represented include Community Voices, Talk About Local, Local 2.0, Timely Information for Citizens, and there were also wide range of researchers, local activists, practitioners and representatives from CLG, BIS, Ministry of Justice and IDeA.
The agenda was deliberately kept flexible so that, while some items for discussion were raised online before the event, there was room for others to be decided on the day. Programme leaders made brief presentations, and others raised topics they wished to discuss. People broke into groups, and report backs were captured on video (http://localcommunities.ning.com/video).
More information about the event, who attended, what they discussed and how they want to follow it up can be fund at: http://localcommunities.ning.com/events/local-communities

Outcome
The general consensus on the day - and from discussions afterwards - was that the workshop was valuable on a number of fronts:

- It provided the first opportunity for programmes to meet each other, find common ground, and discuss collaborations
- Researchers and practitioners made valuable contacts, and those in field who might otherwise feel isolated were connected to a network of others with shared interests
- It created a neutral space online which could develop as a market place for ideas and services

The main programmes and IDeA are now discussing with the Social by Social team whether they might support further development of the online space, and other activities.

Comment by Amy Sample Ward on September 22, 2009 at 12:32pm

Thanks, David! I'm excited that we do have bits of our event yesterday captured on video so we can reuse them and refer to them to literally keep the conversations going!

Am diving into the video section now myself!