Involving more people in your policymaking processes

1. Involving more people in your policymaking processes Slugger Consults social media training sessions – day 2

2. The programme for today • 10.00 – 10.15am: Welcome and introduction (Paul Evans) • 10.15 – 11am: Policy processes in 1995: Classical political science (Paul Evans) • 11.00 – 11.45am: Showcase of e-Democracy change (Mick Fealty) • 11.45 – 12noon - Break • 12.00 – 12.30pm How has the landscape changed since 1995? (Paul Evans) • 12.30 – 1pm (split into two halves) The direct democracy problem (Mick Fealty) • 1pm – 1.45pm – Lunch • 1.45pm – 2.15pm - The direct democracy problem (continued) • 2.15 – 3.00pm – Positive examples of inclusive policy-making - how processes are being changed – and can be changed – using social media tools (Mick Fealty) • 3.00pm – 3.15pm - Break • 3.15 – 4pm: Developing a listening / intervening strategy for your organisation (Paul Evans) • 4pm: Day ends

3. Other sessions in this series Promoting conversational communities – Tuesday 23rd March 2010 Politics online – campaigning and representation – Tuesday 30th March 2010 Promo code: networks

4. How policies are (used to be?) made Session one

5. The official channels • The PM’s growing office (sofa government) • ‘Evidence based policy’ – Third Way depoliticisation • ‘Presidential politics’ • Decline in local government – presentation / consistency • A weaker parliament – in NI, a compromised one • Parliament & Select Committees – a decline in representative government • Political parties • The ‘independent’ civil service – fears of politicisation (in-and-outers in France / US) • The Core Executive(see http://tinyurl.com/coreexec)

6. Unofficial channels • Think tanks • Pressure groups, ethical / religious lobbies • Commercial lobbies • The media • Populist – policies that sell papers • Ungovernable – weak regulation • Self-interested (Murdoch / BSkyB) • Academic input • The ‘unaccountable state’ • Budget maximising bureaucrats • Security services • ‘departmental capture’

7. Questions • Do any of these strongly apply / not apply in Northern Ireland? • Are any of these ripe for challenge from the read-write web?

8. @paul0evans1 paul@memeserver.co.uk Paul Evans

9. So what’s changed? Session three

10. Historical background • 9/11: Terrorists organise online / Security services monitor web usage • Bank crisis • Politician’s expenses • Consolidation of democratic structures in NI

11. Impact of read-write web? • Change in the sociology of politics • media changes • expectation of interactivity from other services • Shifting debate on civil liberties • Gambling, pornography, extremism, cost-barriers on expression v surveillance • Fear of the populist ‘mob’ • demagoguery, flash-mobs and mob-organisation on Facebook / YouTube • Road pricing, hostility towards politicians / bankers

12. Read-write web and policy • Evidence based policy – easier to convene • The Long Tail Wisdom of crowds • Nudge – behavioural economics – ‘Freakonomics’ correlations • TheyWorkForYou – easier to target politicians • Easier to set up a pressure group / ‘false flag’ • Transparency / FOI / The Official Secret • (….but where do demand for transparency come from?)

13. Transparency – a political tool?(campaigns are often ‘deniable’) The political left The political right MPs and MEPs The BBC Profligate civil servants Quangos that over-regulate Politically Correct over-funded NGOs The Labour Party Trades Unions Benefit cheats Climate change advocates The EU in general • Commercial media • Business lobbies • Bad employers • Banks and financial services & short-termist shareholders • The Conservative Party • Tax-dodgers • Quack doctors & Consumer rip-offs • ‘Libel’ censors • Climate change ‘deniers’

14. How does this translate to Northern Ireland? Question?

15. @paul0evans1 paul@memeserver.co.uk Paul Evans

16. Developing a listening / intervening strategy Session six

17. Tech need-to-knows 1: Search engines • The main source of traffic for most sites • Build their indexes by crawling websites, grabbing text / images and applying algorithms • They *love* blogs and Twitter – human beings indexing the internet for them – signal / noise • They *really* love tags – folksonomy & taxonomy • Search Engine Optimisation is an important commercial service

18. Tech need-to-knows 2: RSS & XML • Well-made websites usually hold text separate from styling • That text can be exported • An RSS reader can ‘fetch’ stories from a selection of websites • A website can ‘scrape’ other websites and re-use their content • Your blog can update Twitter / your facebook page / • Complex information flows can be built fairly easily: • Watch this vid: http://edublogs.tv/play.php?vid=216

20. Signposting and convening information • Press articles (open-source your clippings) • Blog postings – from elsewhere • Your own blog – doesn’t need to be a column del.icio.us feeds • Google Alerts • Your own YouTube channel • Making your photographs available freely • http://tinyurl.com/sluggerpics • http://tinyurl.com/sluggerpics2

21. Eavesdropping • Technorati – searching blogs • iTunes podcast search • Twitter search • Tweet-deck – on the go twitter monitoring • iGoogle dashboard – great for multiple RSS feeds • Google Alerts • Addict-o-matic • Google Reader – building a sharing network • Google’s advanced search – shows who has linked to you, allows you to search specific sites and for complex combinations

22. The ‘chatter level’ • Terrorism experts treat ‘chatter’ as indicative • Keeping in the ‘peripheral vision’ of lots of stakeholders – Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed • Blogs – start conversations • Blogs – commenting can drive conversations • Advantage: • more press coverage, • ability to suggest agenda items

24. Capacity building • Sharing information – Google Reader, Del.icio.us, Twitter, • Facebook – social bookmarking tools • Handling photographs – Flickr, Picasa, • Writing for blogs – keeping it quick and light • Writing for blogs – handling conversations • Moderating and managing comments • Geo-tagging photographs – Flickr, Google Maps • Managing video – flip cameras, simple editing, • YouTube • Maps + spreadsheets: Mashups

25. Other sessions in this series • Promoting conversational communities – Tuesday 23rd March 2010 • Politics online – campaigning and representation – Tuesday 30th March 2010 • Promo code: networks