The Social Media Challenges within UK Local Government

This video feature Dave Briggs, Learning Pool’s Community Evangelist on the topic of social media and the challenges it faces in the UK local government. There is a big issue around local government blocking access to social networking/media sites at work. There is also a worry around the use of old technology like IE6 web browser still being used in government. Take a look at the video to learn more.

Interesting view with a good pointer to how it will work out eventually. There are some deeply ingrained Local Authority subtexts in the way that they handle IT issues. The application for an e-mail address and access to “Twitter” accounts is a good example. Your not really applying, by signing the form you are agreeing not to misuse them. In a local authority this is an important distinction. It’s not your e-mail account, it’s the Local authorities and it’s paid for by public money and you will use it accordingly (that’s not the same thing as just having an account or an e-mail address.

The second thing is that modern web applications execute code on the desktop, that’s the way that web 2.0 works. A local government IT environment is designed to stop anything external operating internally because, potentially, it can stop the functioning of local government. I’ve seen that happen. this means things like no benefits payments, no transport arriving for disabled people, no escorts for vulnerable adults. Therefore a real paranoia rules.

Yes, there are people who hide behind the paranoia but instead of just ranting about them let’s find ways to enable and get around the real barriers before we rant. One of the first things to tackle is ownership and access to the service boundary and how that might operate.

Comments

Paul Nash says:
October 1, 2009 at 11:16 am
Interesting view with a good pointer to how it will work out eventually. There are some deeply ingrained Local Authority subtexts in the way that they handle IT issues. The application for an e-mail address and access to “Twitter” accounts is a good example. Your not really applying, by signing the form you are agreeing not to misuse them. In a local authority this is an important distinction. It’s not your e-mail account, it’s the Local authorities and it’s paid for by public money and you will use it accordingly (that’s not the same thing as just having an account or an e-mail address.
The second thing is that modern web applications execute code on the desktop, that’s the way that web 2.0 works. A local government IT environment is designed to stop anything external operating internally because, potentially, it can stop the functioning of local government. I’ve seen that happen. this means things like no benefits payments, no transport arriving for disabled people, no escorts for vulnerable adults. Therefore a real paranoia rules.
Yes, there are people who hide behind the paranoia but instead of just ranting about them let’s find ways to enable and get around the real barriers before we rant. One of the first things to tackle is ownership and access to the service boundary and how that might operate.
ourfutureplanet (Our Future Planet) says:
October 1, 2009 at 1:02 pm
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