UKGovCamp10

Yesterday was UKGovCamp 2010 – the third barcamp for UK government.An inspiring, energetic day with interesting open discussion which has nurtured seeds of ideas I was already having and planted a few new ones too.

Sessions I went to and will try to post thoughts on soon included:

• Local Gov Group Hug  – an experience sharing session about ‘selling’ the idea internally. Lots of positive examples of social media working beneficially for citizens and organisations.
• Social internal comms – is there a place for social web technologies to be used internally in the organistion?
• #uksnow – innovation used in recent bad weather and how social media / mobile could and should be used in crisis comms.
• The future of journalism – where is traditional media headed and how should a government / local gov press office evolve.
• Knowledge Hub workshop

There were loads of other sessions I would have loved to attend – lots of stuff about opening up data, what makes a perfect council website and the Downing Street response to the postcode petition. I’m always slightly disappointed I can’t be in more than one place at the same time. Excellent social reporting helped me keep up as the day progressed and soak up more details since.

I always come away from an unconference buzzing with ideas and re-invigorated to carry on with projects already in process. At several times yesterday though I did wish that I wasn’t the only one there from my organisation.

A lot of the sessions or discussions are continuations of those from other unconferences or that I am involved in online. Sometimes there is a sense of preaching to the converted. I’m not sure how much further I can move on certain things without more people from my organisation joining the conversation to allow some momentum to gather.

Yesterday there was lots of new conversation too – less about social media (perhaps this is moving toward being the norm) and more about opening up data. And the energy gathered from simply being around so many passionate people who are really thinking about changing the way we / things work is invaluable.

So, thanks to Dave Briggs for organising, Google for hosting us at their HQ and all the sponsors. Thanks also to Hadley Beeman and sponsors for the social gathering afterwards.

And well done, big thanks to Sharon O’Dea for raffling off epicvisionary.com raising more than £300 to be donated to the DEC appeal for Haiti. Whoever had the winning ticket I hope you use it well 🙂