Monday, April 2, 2012 unsung #localgov heroes – time to tell our stories
Last week I came across a brilliant storytelling project called Unsung New Yorkers (from the trenches to the treetops they keep the city running)
The project is a collection of amazing videos shining the light on the day-to-day workload of a range of people - from a lost property attendant to a crew keeping the city sewers clean.
In my opinion the stories are incredibly effective because they don't look like glossy promotional videos, they tell the real tale of real people doing the sort of jobs many of us simply take for granted.
Ring any bells?
My immediate thought as I watched the New York project was that we should do a local government version of this. Not a single council initiative (which would be interesting in its own way) but a UK-wide look at Unsung Heroes.
We know people working in local government do interesting things. We know their efforts often go unnoticed by the wider world. We also know people like to see how their council tax is spent.
Successful projects like #walsall24 have helped shine a light on the thousands of individuals who provide vital services day in, day out. As Walsall Council said at the time: "More than 700 services are offered by local government and many of them go uncelebrated."
So let's celebrate.
There are already videos out there that highlight the work of unsung local government heroes.
Stories like: Ready for Winter 2011-12 (South Lanarkshire Council) really highlight the work undertaken by council officers – the sort of stuff we all take for granted…until there’s nobody there to do it.
So all we have to do is pull these and loads of new stories together into one easily accessible archive.
The stories will be hosted on YouTube or similar platforms and we can then embed them on one website - either an existing site like comms2point0 (if Darren and Dan are OK with that) or a new tailor-made site – nothing fancy, a wordpress.com install will do.
And we don't have to leave it at video, audio diaries on audioboo or photographs on flickr are already used to great effect by councils. If we pull them all together we can in theory reach a much wider audience.
Right, that’s me off my soapbox.
This is just a starter for ten; an idea I think is worth discussing. If you think I’m talking nonsense (it wouldn’t be the first time) please tell me. If you’re interested in working together on a, ‘Unsung local government’ project please let me know in the comments section below. If enough of us fancy having a go, we can discuss what to do next.
Geoff Coleman is a Birmingham-based journalist, local governnment PR and social media fan
Geoff also designed and built Birmingham Newsroom
Reader Comments (4)
Thanks Geoff, I really like this idea.
Let's see what other folk think and get our collective heads together on the best way of hosting and posting pics, video, audioboo and other material.
We'll be very happy to host and support through comms2point0, and we've also just set up a comms2point0 posterous site which may be a possible solution.
The other thing to say is that we don't need to restrict this just to local government.
The comms2point0 community is made up of folk from the NHS, from housing, from higher education, from social care and from the third sector too so we maybe need to think about sub-sections or categories to capture heroes from other sectors too?
Cheers
Darren
Love the idea and we'd like to be involved and help. Looking at the NY site, it's a one off project. This could be a rolling one - maybe launched with ten different public service case studies, but allowing others to submit their own so the content is refreshed regularly?
Great idea Geoff.
Have a look at the work David Wilcox and I did for the Big Lottery Fund at http://socialreporters.net. While this is about Lottery-funded projects, not local government, I think the principles are similar.
It worries me how reluctant people are to shout about the good work they are doing. I remember suggesting the topic "My social media success stories" in the #lgovsm weekly chat. It was one of the most difficult chats we had and I don't think anyone put their heads above the parapet and pointed to their work.
Thanks for the positive response (here and on Twitter)
I agree we don't need to restrict this to local government - all good public sector needs to be celebrated.
The idea is that this would be an ongoing project with regular updates. Ideally it would develop a life of its own, serving as both a celebration of the best stuff in the public sector and a place to come for inspiration.
Love the Big Lottery Fund stuff John http://socialreporters.net and I agree people need to shout about the good work they do. Not in a 'look at me' way but in order to inspire and help colleagues across the UK.
I think the New York project works because it doesn't editorialise, it tells straight stories. We can do exactly that and let others decide if our work is worthy or otherwise.