It came from a chat with Jon Bounds, who in turn had been chatting with Jez Collins about spreading music-related trivia. It’s a bit of fun really, but it could be a nice way to complement the blue plaques that we see on buildings; particularly as the criteria for those seem both well-guarded and arbitrary.

So I built a web page, set up a page on Facebook and started a Twitter account. Jon has been busy adding information to locations, and trying to get that information plotted to a map.

I’ve blogged before about how these tools can be used to spread the control of information-sharing more democratically. Of course there’s always the danger of sabbotage, but to be honest I’ve no more reason to trust the existing blue plaques than I have to trust Jon Bounds. Oh, hang on…

Anyway, we want to encourage the use of the hashtag #bp to become a common way to denote historical information. Just leave your gems of historical information on geo-location services such as Foursquare and add the hashtag to your comment. If you can also leave a link to further information, then so much the better.

Visit the Electronic Civic Council web page

• Possibly related posts

  1. Twitter panto
  2. Would you like more digital engagement knowledge-sharing events?
  3. Digital Economy Bill: my email to Lynne Jones MP

I’ve recently been struggling a bit with explaining why I think an organisation’s web presence need not be concentrated onto one ‘front page’, and this analogy is the best I’ve come up with so far.

A large public park may have any number of entrances, but it will usually have a main one. Often this main entrance will contain a reception desk, or even a visitors’ centre, where you can find out all about the park and its features. These may include its history, its opening times and the location of ponds, picnic areas and any branded franchises (such as coffee shops or cafes).

However, many visitors to the park will enter through different entrances. Therefore in order to find their way around they need to be given clear and appropriate signs (too much signage, for example, will distract and confuse them, and will quite likely spoil the nature of the park).

Each feature could be moved somewhere else and nothing about it would suggest it had ever had a connection with the park; it is the design of the park itself that gives them that clear context.

And so it is, I think, with an organisation’s web presence. It may include a number of different projects, but these needn’t all be vying for place on a front page. Indeed, the front page should be clear about its purpose and able to help visitors get to the bits that are of interest to them; it shouldn’t be choking under the weight of every aspect of the organisation’s work. And it shouldn’t be promoting something simply because someone thinks that putting it on the front page will magically do their communications work for them: it won’t; in fact, if everyone did that (and they often do) it would probably only serve to dilute it.

Each piece of an organisation’s work should concentrate on achieving its own goals and reaching its own audiences (firmly in the context of the broader organisational strategy, of course); the larger web presence – or, rather, the strategic collection of the organisation’s elements on the internet – should be managed in such a way that each of these disparate elements are recognisable within it and are enabled to flourish.

That’s all great in theory; currently I don’t do any of this very well in practice (but I’m trying). I thought I’d post it anyway though, in case the park analogy is useful to anyone else.

Update

Just to make it clear, I’m not advocating silos. A branch of an organisation needs to have the freedom and flexibility to meet its own strategic goals, but it must also allow visitors easily to navigate and make sense of the organisation’s work as a whole.

• Possibly related posts

  1. Legal considerations for people responsible for websites
  2. A world without newspapers
  3. What works for dogs in social media doesn’t necessarily work for citizens

In Smart Swarm Peter Miller explains how lessons from the natural world have already changed dramatically the way we work. These lessons illustrate how our individual interactions with our local environment can have a profound effect on the behaviour of society as a whole.

The author shows how an understanding of swarms (that is, groups of independent individuals aware only of their immediate neighbours) has saved the lives of hundreds of Muslim pilgrims, increased efficiency at Boeing and demonstrated that physical town meetings can be far more beneficial than virtual ones, even if they are less convenient. ’Citizens who talk to one another,’ he writes, ‘Give themselves a better chance to make smart decisions.’

I’m often wary of books like this. They come packed with kudos from the forward-thinkers in communication, which can give them an aura of game-changing brilliance (or at least the impression that they provide remarkable new insight into human behaviour). Often though they seem simply to be expounding common sense, backed up by examples and seasoned with the occasional ‘wow!’ moment. So, if I’ve been expecting a greater intellectual challenge from a book I can be left feeling underwhelmed.

What’s refreshing about Smart Swarm (to me, at least) is that, while it’s part of the discourse around developments in human communication, it’s not written by a ‘social media guru’. Instead Peter Miller, who is in fact senior editor of National Geographic, demonstrates how lessons from nature justify some of the theories posited by those gurus.

He shows us how ants are better than we are at planning business travel, how successfully bees use dancing competitions to decide the best nesting spot, how termites can teach us a thing or two about air conditioning and why locusts suddenly change from shy individuals into massive, marauding swarms (apparently it’s because they’re cannibals).

I enjoyed this book; it was engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking. Miller narrates the extraordinary discoveries of scientists and their application to complex logistical conundrums with a lightness and craft that makes them intriguing and easy to understand.

I haven’t figured out yet if this book has had a more profound effect on me than providing a few hours of pleasurable reading, but that really doesn’t matter. And besides, maybe I never will; perhaps I’m too small a player to be able to see the bigger picture. Maybe, in a hundred years or so, an anthropologist will argue that profound changes in human behaviour can be traced directly to the group of individuals who read Smart Swarm. And for that reason alone you should read it.

This was written for the good folk at Delib, who very kindly supplied the book.

• Possibly related posts

  No related posts.

(This is a very under-developed thought; I’m only putting it here because it’s too long for Twitter.)

I never buy the Financial Times, but I used to read the website before they started charging for content. So at that point I lost out on that news perspective. When other traditional media outlets start charging for online content I don’t expect I will want to pay for those either.

But Rupert Murdoch isn’t stupid, and I rather suspect that his paid-for news model has legs. Although there are plenty of other places to get content for free, they don’t have the same influence with the public and with policy makers; and, more importantly, they don’t command the same level of recognition and trust.

So does that mean that people who currently see themselves as connected, and to some degree influential, will either find themselves forced to pay for news content or face losing that connection?

Has the free news model given people a place in society that they are in danger of losing?

• Possibly related posts

  1. Yet another tuppence on why traditional media isn’t dead yet
  2. Young people see the media as powerful but don’t trust it: particularly not the tabloids

Since nothing happened the first time I tweeted, I suspect that Chiltern were not using Twitter then. However, when I tweeted again recently…

“I’ve asked before & I’ll ask again: whose stupid idea was it to put a fixed, redundant arm on the window side of Chiltern Train seats? Grr.”

they were quick to respond:

“@citizensheep I’ll find out. Do you have a direct email address so I can get an answer for you?”

Wow. I felt quite ashamed by the tone of my tweet, and I made that clear in our subsequent email exchange. I was briefly in contact with Emma, who was personal, friendly and helpful; she offered to take my enquiries to colleagues and promised to keep me informed, even though it could take a while.

Today I got another email from Emma, with a helpful response about arm rests:

“This was standard on the refurbished fleet. The twin seats have three arm rests, one at each end, and one between the two seats. I believe that the aisle-side arm rest and the central arm rest are moveable to allow for easy seat access for people of reduced mobility, or those who are of a slightly larger disposition. The window-side arm rests are fixed as this is not a requirement in this position.  Essentially, it is a copy of the original train seating – we have not changed it, but your comments about the fixed arm rests have been noted by our engineering department.” [my bold]

So, Chiltern Railways, today you win at communication.

• Possibly related posts

  1. Abolish counter-productive ‘quiet’ carriages
  2. Young people don’t value the political power of social media, but they would vote
  3. Since using Twitter…

The poster seemed to want two things. Firstly, to “leverage the strongest, most engaging elements of online campaigning and communications and transport them to the offline world”.

This is interesting but flawed. ‘Online’ and ‘offline’ are two different realms; replicating the benefits of one within the other would at best be a waste of effort, and would in fact probably be impossible. It would certainly seem to defeat the object of operating in two different realms in the first place.

To me, his second point is the key one: to “make finding relevant content easier, not harder”. However, the answer is not to make content available in as many formats as possible so as to give every potential user exactly the same experience.

Rather, we should be understanding our audiences (who are we targeting and why) and ensuring we are as accessible to them as we possibly can be; audience first, content and delivery second.

This is not simply about the presentation of our content, but about the whole design of our organisations.

For example, when someone phones our switchboard can we guarantee the call will be answered immediately? Will that person be able to provide a satisfactory answer? Will they have the initiative, for example, to offer to post a DVD or a web page transcript? Are they able to do that at no cost to the recipient? If not, are there systems in place to manage the transaction?

So how we organise and present ourselves is at least as important as how we present our information. Moreover, it’s about how we understand and manage our internal processes. (It’s a no-brainer really, but surprisingly ill-understood.)

In order to give the best service to our users – not just those in the extremely broad categories of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ – we must understand our target audiences; and we must strive to appreciate fully their experience of the points at which they interact with us.

*The forum cited is members-only, so I haven’t included links to it. If you’d like to know more about the post referred to please do contact me.

• Possibly related posts

  1. Why NOT blog about what you wouldn’t talk about?
  2. Social media: peripheral impact measurement
  3. Manage your online reputation