Comments on: Do councils need websites?

By: william harrison ainsworth

william harrison ainsworth — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:29:51 +0000

[...] been announced. These include categories such as best new restaurant and rising star chef, but alsoSarah Lay Blog Archive Do councils need websites?william perrin Says: December 8th, 2009 at 1:30 pm. You could go further in the theme of your title [...]

By: william perrin

william perrin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:30:28 +0000

You could go further in the theme of your title along the lines of this (right wing/libertarian paper) government data and the invisible hand.

http://www.yjolt.org/files/robinson-11-YJOLT-draft.pdf

There is an interesting opportunity for public sector bodies to give up on traditional websites and move over to a simple website in wordpress.com for the vast majority of their content. Applications being hosted by their providers behind buttons (which is often what happens anayway).

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:02:27 +0000

Hi Peter – thanks for your comment – definitely very useful, interesting and relevant to this topic.
I did see the article you post a link to in your comment and am in general agreeance with the points you make. It’s a shame we ran out of time in the #lgclincoln session otherwise I am sure the question of who runs the website would have naturally flowed from some of the other areas we explored.
As I replied in my comment to Michele it looks as if I’ll be looking at the topic of authorship models and responsibility for the website as my dissertation topic (MA eCommunications) and it would be great to be able to contact you as part of that research to talk more.
I’d suggest to anyone who didn’t catch the Managing the Digital Stream article Peter links to they go and read it now – great post.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:58:56 +0000

Michele – thanks for your comments and glad you found the post useful.
It seems increasingly likely that I’ll be looking at authorship models as my dissertation topic next year. I’ve found so many people are having the same problems and trying to find a way through them that some formal research (and hopefully a suggested solution) would be a good idea!
I’m sure I’ll be posting more on the topic in the coming weeks / month / year!

By: Peter Barton

Peter Barton — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:55:00 +0000

Sarah,

You said…
“Councils do need websites, the cost not to is too great (as Peter Barton explored in his blog a while back), but they need to improve the way they run them and part of that may be admitting there is specialist knowledge involved.”

I believe there should be a specialist knowledge. In fact in another blog entitled “who runs your web site” I discuss the misplacing of the web element in local government under either of those two false standards of Comms or IT. There is a need for an alternative intelligent other. One that is not pulled in the direction of either of those two groups.

You can see it here if you have not caught it online in psf etc…

http://thewaistline.blogspot.com/2009/08/managing-digital-stream.html

By: Michele Ide-Smith

Michele Ide-Smith — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:15:27 +0000

Excellent post (again!) Sarah. A lot of familiar themes and concerns! We definitely need to find a way to curb the ‘just in case’ publishing you talk about.

By: Tweets that mention Sarah Lay » Blog Archive » Do councils need websites? -- Topsy.com

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:54:41 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Paul Canning, Jadu CMS, Suraj Kika, Diana Railton, danslee and others. danslee said: RT @sarahlay Blogged: Do councils need websites? #lgclincoln session – http://bit.ly/HYGvY [...]

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:48:29 +0000

Thanks Paul – I’ve added the link into the text as well now so people should find their way there!
PSF have been in touch so we’ll see what happens. Thanks for the suggestion – not very good at flagging my stuff up with them, unless they pick it up through Twitter or RSS!

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:37:14 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by prettysimple: sarahlay

RT @sarahlay Do councils need websites? #lgclincoln session – http://bit.ly/HYGvY…

By: paul canning

paul canning — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:33:35 +0000

Good stuff. Have you thought of cross-posting? Pointing PSF at this?

For readers info I talk about the Public Sector Web Professionals Group developments here http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/2009/10/public-sector-web-professionals-wheres.html