BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees.
BarcampUKGovweb09
BarcampUKGovweb took place In January 2008 for those working in and around, or simply interested in, UK government online. It was an opportunity for people with a wide variety of skills, experiences and perspectives to share their knowledge and get to know each other.
Since then an awful lot has happened - such as great examples of using social media tools and initiatives to make better use of government data. This second government online barcamp will be an opportunity to share some of the learnings of the last year and gain some ideas about what to do next.
This event should be of interest to all who work in the UK government digital media community: permanent civil servants, contractors, consultants, agencies, advisers, supporters, observers, and critics.
If you think you've got something to contribute to improving how government organisations use the web, then this event is for you. There's a Google Group that was set up for last year's event where you can find out more.
Sign up further down this page, and be prepared to lead a session on something.
- What did you build in the last year that you're most proud of?
- What didn't quite come off as you'd hoped this year? - and even better, why didn't it work?
- What's the coolest thing you're working on at the moment?
- What's the tool or technique you can't believe we aren't all using?
Some Background Reading
Pageflakes page from the last barcamp: BarcapUKGovWeb pageflake
Event details
When Saturday 31st January 2009
Where tba
Schedule
Proposed Sessions
- [Dave Briggs] I'd like to run a social media surgery - a drop in space for people to come by to get some free advice on what social media type stuff they could use to solve a problem, or even if they would just like to have Twitter demonstrated to them! Who'd like to join me? Nick Booth is, and we need others else all we will do is giggle like girls all day.
- [Jenny Brown] Last year I talked about why I love Twitter. Guess what? I STILL love it! Let's assess the best and the worst Twitter action of 2008.
- [Tim Davies] I could run a session around practical and ethical issues of using Social Network Sites in democratic engagement / youth participation. Or possibly something about Plings (DSCF funded pilot to collect, mash up and disseminate information about positive activities for young people) [Steven Flower] I could help with that!
- [Josie Fraser] happy to help out Tim with regards to legal, ethical and safe use of SNS/social media with under 18s, and/or could report back on current DCFS cyberbullying stuff. Would most like to do a session on digital literacy as a local & national agenda.
- [Steve Dale] Last year I talked about setting up Communities of Practice in local government. There's been a huge growth in this area with almost 600 CoPs now active, members from both local and central government. I could cover lessons learnt - what's gone well and not so well, how we're measuring success of these CoPs, and what we're doing to train and support the beating heart of many of these communities - the community facilitators.
- [John Sheridan] There's lots I *could* talk about, from work to semantically enable the London Gazettes using RDFa, legislation URIs, rights expression, through to some of the policy issues around the re-use of public sector information. The topic I'd really like to see us address is "how best do we get our data out there". At some point I would also be happy to cover the work of the W3C e-Government Interest Group, which I co-chair, and potentially a wander through the relationship between governments and web standards development.
- [Steph Gray] Now we've got some successes and failures under our belt at DIUS, I'd like to talk about online consultation and engagement in the policymaking process, including blogs, widgets, forums and commentable documents - and what the future holds.
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[Harry Harrold] Could do something about youth engagement, or education if that's not too far off-topic.
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[Neil Williams] Maybe something around the pros and cons of enterprise social media software versus distinct (OSS) installations. And/or my experience of embedding social media tools internally on the intranet: what's gone well, what less so. Also up for contributing in some way to Jenny's Twitter thing
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[Simon Field] At ONS, we are developing new web tools, like a data explorer, on top of a publishable API. I'd be interested in better understanding how people want to consume our published data. If not a separate session, could be part of John Sheridan's "how best do we get our data out there".
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[David Barrie] I'd like to facilitate an event that walks through the practical steps that need to be taken by local government and the community to establish a platform on which people collaboratively plan the future of their local area. What needs to 'emerge'? What needs to be 'put in'? And how to make the most of and capture dispersed involvement?
Topics I would like to hear about
- Making better use of search optimisation techniques
- What hasn't happened since the last one
- IT systems implementation & practice in 2.0 times
- What role will the big CMS apps play in future?
- [Simon Field] Mass Collaboration failures - they tend to sink without trace, before we have a chance to learn from them.
Volunteers to help organise the event
Participants (aka Campers)
Sponsors
- DavePress Ltd would be happy to contribute something to running costs
- Not wanting to be outdone by Dave Briggs - Podnosh would alos be happy to bosh some dosh if needed.
- [Steve Dale] Not wanting to be outdone by either Dave Briggs or Podnosh, I'll match their offer.
- [Harry Harrod] Neontribe could find some cash.
Task List
(please cross out (and say who you are!) when it's done/claimed)
Tech
- Wifi
Projector (I can find a projector)- White Boards
- Photo
- Video
- Audio
- Streaming or Stickam or Skype
Non-tech
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Coffee/Tea
- Tables and chairs
- Spreading word to non-obvious types i.e. comms and policy folk who don't know a BarCamp from their elbow
- could it be made a condition of entry that you bring such an individual with you? Just an idea. [dave briggs] - I like this idea a lot. [Josie Fraser] me too [Neil Williams].
Tags for flickr, delicious, ma.gnolia, technorati etc.
Please use the tag barcampukgovweb09 for content related to this event
*note from Jenny Brown - this is an enormously long tag! Can I suggest GovCamp09 instead?
- or even UKGC09? Josie Fraser
[Neil Williams] As people are already using UKGC09 (http://twitter.com/ianibbo/status/1019321547 for eg) I am going to start doing so too.
Who's blogging?
