CityCamp Brighton: Four Ways to Encourage City Councillors to Use Social Media

A breakout session during this afternoon’s CityCamp Brighton explored the topic of neighbourhood governance, which Kirsty Walker of The Trust for Developing Communities described as “when people across [a city] have a direct way of influencing services.” Discussion quickly turned to dialogue between residents and city councillors, with Walker asking “how can we make that cultural shift so it’s normal for city councillors to talk about the stuff they do and the communities to talk about how well that’s working?”

Social media swiftly became the main topic of discussion, with some interesting ideas discussed:

Social Media surgeries: What’s a hashtag?  Am I allowed to blog about my work activities on a personal website? Should I be using Twitter if I only have 14 followers? City Councillors are likely to have many questions about how they can use social media effectively, and why they should be using it in the first place! Social Media surgeries are where tech-savvy city employees or people from external organisations teach the basics about using social media, always in line with the social media guidelines of the organisation they work for.

Google Mapping local projets: Keeping up with community-led initiatives happening in a city can be difficult; actively communicating with those undertaking those projects even more so. This idea involved tagging the location of community projects to a public Google Map along with contact and social media details for each project. City Councillors would then have at-a-glance access to developments happening nearby, as well as easy ways to follow up with those involved.

Open IDEO: This web service describes itself as an “open innovation platform for social good,” bringing people and organisations together to develop innovative solutions to problems. Past successes have looked at food systems and sanitation in urban communities. Does it also act as an opportunity for discussion between citizens and councillors around urban challenges? One participant wasn’t so sure:

Chap mentions openideo.com at #ccbtn but will this work in a small network

— Paul Brewer (@pdbrewer) March 23, 2013

MiniCamps: CityCamp is an unconference model replicated in cities across the globe. Could it also work on a micro level in city councils? One participant in the discussion shared their experiences of hosting team sessions with city council colleagues where best case practices in social media were discussed. Informal sessions like these can demonstrate the potential of social media, inspiring council employees to engage with the communities they represent in a new way.

Photo: that.with.the.camera