Interesting piece. I wasn’t aware of the data showing that webcasing of council meetings has generally failed. Do you have any suggestions for alternative methods of public engagement that have a better record of success or that you believe may be a better way of reaching the public?
Good question Ann-Marie. I’d suggest looking in two places for the answer for any particular council. First, email is used by far more internet users than use social networking, read blogs or watch video clips. Yet nearly all councils do very little to communicate with residents via email other than responding to emails that come in. Large, virbrant newsletters and email lists are very rare in (UK) local government.
Second, ask what it is that people might want to know about the decisions made at council meetings. Often it’s the detail (e.g. exactly where will the catchment area for the new school fall) that’s locked away in hard to find (and search engine unfriendly) pdfs rather than hearing the debate. Take documents, provide them in user and search engine friendly ways and link through to the background information. Again, it’s far too common for the meetings pages on council websites to be listing of pds of council agendas and minutes, with pretty much no other information nor any other assistance to help find the related documents which give background and further detail.
Sean: what both those examples seem to miss out on is evidence that webcasting is consistently a better way of spending money than the alternatives. In itself, saying that those people in Cornwall watched the event doesn’t make it a success; the question is whether there’s been more engagement doing webcasting than if the money had been spent in other ways.
The Bristol example is also a rather unusual case as pretty much anything involving local football club fans is going to get lots of interest – and those cases are very rare. If you’re paying for webcasting all year round, you need to look at not just the most popular time it has been used, but also what it does or doesn’t achieve the rest of the year round. (That said, I know a Bristol councillor has posted up some interesting stats elsewhere about year-round usage, which I’m taking a look at.)
What I’ve been reading (via LibDig.co.uk)
Value of webcasting council meetings? @markpack says low http://bit.ly/7HsAWz But maybe high when Google returns clips?
Interesting piece. I wasn’t aware of the data showing that webcasing of council meetings has generally failed. Do you have any suggestions for alternative methods of public engagement that have a better record of success or that you believe may be a better way of reaching the public?
Good question Ann-Marie. I’d suggest looking in two places for the answer for any particular council. First, email is used by far more internet users than use social networking, read blogs or watch video clips. Yet nearly all councils do very little to communicate with residents via email other than responding to emails that come in. Large, virbrant newsletters and email lists are very rare in (UK) local government.
Second, ask what it is that people might want to know about the decisions made at council meetings. Often it’s the detail (e.g. exactly where will the catchment area for the new school fall) that’s locked away in hard to find (and search engine unfriendly) pdfs rather than hearing the debate. Take documents, provide them in user and search engine friendly ways and link through to the background information. Again, it’s far too common for the meetings pages on council websites to be listing of pds of council agendas and minutes, with pretty much no other information nor any other assistance to help find the related documents which give background and further detail.
One of many examples of where it does succeed:
http://www.kable.co.uk/bristol-city-football-planning-committee-webcast-09nov09
Interesting piece on web casting council meetings http://bit.ly/cfYq0D
And another:
http://jeremyrowe.mycouncillor.org.uk/2010/08/12/webcasting-the-next-steps/?lang=en
Sean: what both those examples seem to miss out on is evidence that webcasting is consistently a better way of spending money than the alternatives. In itself, saying that those people in Cornwall watched the event doesn’t make it a success; the question is whether there’s been more engagement doing webcasting than if the money had been spent in other ways.
The Bristol example is also a rather unusual case as pretty much anything involving local football club fans is going to get lots of interest – and those cases are very rare. If you’re paying for webcasting all year round, you need to look at not just the most popular time it has been used, but also what it does or doesn’t achieve the rest of the year round. (That said, I know a Bristol councillor has posted up some interesting stats elsewhere about year-round usage, which I’m taking a look at.)