It’s been a funny couple of weeks as I’ve found myself on the Guardian website twice.

I have been in a national newspaper before but that was for surviving an emergency operation rather than anything to do with my professional knowledge or abilities. This felt far more exciting and just a tad scary too.

With the Guardian I’ve been pleased to be part of an expert panel discussion ideas around how councils can be more effective online and then profiled as part of the Local Leaders ‘meet our members’ section.

How can councils be more effective online?

This live discussion took place on Friday 11 October 2013 and saw a panel including myself, Phil Rumens (West Berkshire Council, vice chair LocalGov Digital), Sarah Jennings (Local Government Association, LocalGov Digital), Helen Reynolds (Monmouthshire Council), Vicky Sargent (SocITM), Ben Matthews (FutureGov), a couple of councillors and a couple of chief execs as well as a representative from discussion sponsors SaS.

It was a great discussion that took in discussion on whether there was digital talent in local government and how to retain it (yes, there is but it’s not always recognised); what makes a great digital team (leadership, respect and trust); why aren’t there more women in digital; innovation and good practice across the sector (Shift Surrey one of the really interesting examples here).

You can read the full discussion in the comments of this article or there is a round-up article of a top tip from each of the panel here.

For my part I hope my contributions were useful to the discussion and I certainly found it useful in furthering my thinking on work I am doing at the moment.

Meet our members – an interview with Guardian Local Leaders Network

After the discussion I was asked to do an interview as part of the newspaper website’s ‘meet our members’ series.

This takes the form of a Q&A to show a professional profile and I’ve been honoured to be described as ‘the woman behind Nottinghamshire’s digital strategy’ (maybe, but certainly not the only person behind or involved in it) as well as discussing again talent in the sector and being a woman in digital.

And it nationally confirmed my age as 34. Lovely.

You can read the profile here.

And if you’d rather read my words about music than my thoughts on digital and local government then check me out over at Louder Than War. For chat about either then follow me over on Twitter.