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“The internet is changing society and public administrations need to adapt”: Interview with Nick Booth14. April 2010 – 22:57 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH) |
Photo of Nick Booth by aeioux on Flickr.com
Before becoming a social-media consultant and founding Birmingham-based Podnosh, Nick Booth was a BBC journalist and then ran a government quango. He advises public administrations on using social media, is involved in many projects that promote active citizenship, and is a major player on the UK’s eParticipation scene. Nick is regularly invited to speak at conferences on social media.
JH: Hi Nick. Thanks for taking the time to be interviewed for PEP-NET. First question: what does eParticipation mean to you?
NB: Hello. Podnosh does two things: on the one hand, we help citizens use social media to become active in their local communities; on the other hand, we work with public administrations — for example the Audit Commission, Birmingham City Council, Be Birmingham, FutureBuilders, and neighbourhood managements — to make sure that they listen to these conversations and take part in them.
So for me, eParticipation is more about employees of public administrations and politicians participating in discussions that are happening “out there” than citizens participating in online consultations that public administrations set up. The internet is changing society and public administrations need to adapt, not the other way round.
JH: That’s a really interesting view of eParticipation. So what examples do you have of conversations that public administrations could have “eParticipated” in better?
NB: One example with huge potential for public administrations and citizens to work together is a website that I run: it’s called “Help Me Investigate“. Anybody can ask a question, which people work together to answer. Public administration officials can help a lot by providing information to help people get answers. That is real transparency, but it requires a shift in attitudes so that public administration officials feel able to answer the questions the public want answered, not just ask the public questions that they want answers to.
I live and work in Birmingham, which has plenty more examples where citizens have taken the time to create solutions to problems instead of moaning about their local government. When the City Council consulted on a plan to undertake a major redevelopment of the city centre, they uploaded a PDF document to their website and invited comments via email. Many people in Birmingham thought this was a bit old-fashioned, so they created a website called “Big City Talk“: the group paraphrased the document in more understandable English, and posted each paragraph individually so that people could comment on — and discuss — specific parts of the document.
Then there’s the “BCC DIY” example: when Birmingham City Council unveiled its new website last year, it was felt to be overpriced at £2.8m and not up to scratch. So Stef Lewandowski organised a group of people to spend a day developing a website that would show what a local authority’s website should look like.
JH: I wrote about some examples on PEP-NET a while ago. So how does your work help local authority officers take account of what’s going on “out there”?
NB: One example is our work with Neighbourhood Managers. Podnosh works with them to develop blogging platforms that have built-in monitoring tools that sift through the masses of information on the internet and notify them of information about the local area. That’s not the end of the story — it’s important that neighbourhood managers use the blog and participate in the conversations that are happening online. We also offer “social media surgeries” in the neighbourhoods to help residents use the blogs. This is really important because unless citizens know why and how they should use these tools, they are unlikely to be successful.
JH: The social media surgery is a model that you developed isn’t it? Tell me a bit more about that.
NB: It’s really simple: a group of bloggers from Birmingham volunteered to help voluntary organisations and anybody interesting in starting a blog about their local area get started in using social media. We kept it as uncomplicated as possible: we booked a room with wifi, volunteers brought their laptops, and anybody who wanted to try out social media was invited to come along and learn from them on a one-to-one basis, for free. Now the same thing happens every month in Birmingham, and the model has been adopted in other parts of the city, in other cities and even countries.
I’m working on a website that will allow anybody to set up social media surgeries with some tools to help them, and also collect information about how successful they are and how they can improve the surgeries.
JH: It sounds like you’re really busy, so I’ll just ask you one last question! Where do you see the future of eParticipation?
NB: It’s all about mobile phones. People often say that lack of internet access leads to digital exclusion, but so many people access the internet through mobile phones that this is an increasingly important channel.
JH: Thanks for you time Nick. Keep us up-to-date with what you’re doing!
NB: You’re welcome. Will do.
Tags: Birmingham, eDemocracy, eParticipation, inenglish, local government, public administrations, social media, society
