On Wednesday I gave a presentation which was coherent and informative, and yet made up partly while I was listening to someone else’s but mostly in response to questions from the audience as I was speaking. Whenever I’ve given presentations before, I’ve mumbled incoherently as I drowned in my own nervousness. So throwing me in the deep end is perhaps the way to get good presentations out of me. (Peter, don’t you dare!) Continue reading
Wise words from Angus Hardie of the Scottish Community Alliance:
I see community empowerment and ‘local’ democracy as two sides of the same coin with something akin to our system of community councils (albeit properly resourced, probably restructured and with effective national representation) as the bridge between the two. So while some might take issue on the detail, if the purpose of empowering communities is not about working towards genuine local democracy, could someone let me know what it is?
(emphasis added)
Here’s the full article, including a message from Marco Biagi MSP and pieces on ‘Caltongate’, the Big Lunch, community growing, euro-funding, Iceland’s financial crisis, COP21 and Comrie Development Trust
I have been interested in how governments use the internet to engage with citizens for a few years now. Of course, I’m very late to this party – e-democracy was ‘invented’ over 20 years ago. Continue reading
Links to all Glasgow CC websites, Facebook pages and twitter feeds can now be found at http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5603. The Glasgow CCLO tells me ‘A number of community councils have recently launched new websites using the WordPress platform, for example Mount Florida, at www.moflococo.org, Carmunnock, at www.carmunnockcc.com, Parkhead, at www.parkheadcommunitycouncil.wordpress.com, and Claythorn, at claythorncc.wordpress.com/.
The old CommunityCouncilsGlasgow website is now obsolete and should be ignored.
I’m very tired but I’m happy because good things have happened today. Continue reading
I have the following actual and potential work-streams.
| Title | What is it? | Funder | Status, dates and notes |
| Longitudinal Information literacy for democratic engagement (LIL-DEM) | Further research into factors affecting community councillors’ information literacies | Edinburgh Napier University | to start, February to April 2017 |
| Information literacy for democratic engagement (IL-DEM) | Research into factors affecting community councillors’ information literacies | CILIP‘s Information Literacy Group | finished, October 2016 to January 2017 |
| DigiCC workshops | How can community councils improve their digital engagement with citizens | Edinburgh Napier University, Scottish Government | finished, January 2015 to January 2016 |
| Delivering on DREaM | researcher/practitioner knowledge-sharing in Library and Information Science, supervised by Professor Hazel Hall | CILIP | finished, June to July 2015 |
| Workforce Mapping | mapping the workforce in the Libraries, Archives, Records, Knowledge and Information Management sector | CILIP, ARA | finished, summer 2014 to summer 2015 |
| Hyperlocal government engagement online | Social network analysis and Communities of practice research around 3 Edinburgh CCs | CCN+ | finished, summer 2014 |
| Community Council Location Finder | a searchable map of all Scottish Community Councils | Improvement Service | finished, spring 2014
My version is archived here, and the current version created by the Improvement Service is here. |
| 2014 survey of community council internet presences | How well do CCs use the internet to engage with citizens?
What are the lessons and consequences from the findings? |
Edinburgh Napier University | finished, spring 2014 |
| 2012 survey of community council internet presences | duplicate! | Self-funded | finished, summer 2012 |
| Communities of Practice and Knowledge Management around CC digital engagement | 2-year main research project, to extend CCN+ seed-project and other relevant previous work | TBC | funding application in progress, TBC |
| Writing paper(s) based on my MSc dissertation, to further updates of technology models | to report on local aspects of CC digital engagement | TBC | to start, TBC |
| Visualisation of hyperlocal data | to extend Community Council Location Finder | TBC | to start, TBC |
| 2017(?) survey of CC online presences | to build on 2012 and 2014 surveys | TBC | to start, TBC |
| Digital Proxies | Who guards vulnerable peoples’ digital presences | TBC | idea crystallised, TBC |
I’ve just been chatting with a CC member – let’s call him ‘Fred’ – who is setting up a wordpress.org-based site for his CC. Among other things, we touched on a continuity issue – basically, what happens if the CC webweaver suddenly becomes unavailable? I believe that many CCs have a single ‘IT member’ who is responsible for everything digital – including setting up email accounts on his or her colleague’s devices, administering websites, communicating via any social media or ‘traditional’ digital channels the CC uses (that is, the CC’s main email account) and so on. Continue reading
Yesterday was great. During the day, I was at the Democratic Sector Day, a day ‘for participation practitioners to share ideas, projects and ambitions, and hopefully develop a better understanding of this ‘community of practice’ in Scotland. The objectives were:
This survey is to gather data from delegates at the digital engagement for CCs workshop held at Edinburgh Napier University on Friday 30th January, and those who wished to attend this event. We wish to
This event, funded by Edinburgh Napier University’s Institute for Informatics and Digital innovation and supported by Scottish Government, the Improvement Service and the Democratic Society, turned out to be a great success. We were quite optimistic – there was a waiting list. However, I was full of trepidation – as it turns out un-necessarily!
Bruce's IT-ish world 