in defence of sam masters - we ALL get social media wrong

by Emily Turner

Sam Masters, a Lambeth Council press officer, has left his post after posting on Twitter that he thinks Streatham, the area he looks after, should be napalmed.

He Tweeted, “Having spent a considerable amount of time in Streatham, my solutions for supporting the High Road mostly involve napalm.”

Local business leaders and MPs complained and Masters quit. But was the end result, the right result? Should Masters have felt he had no option but to leave? Was quitting an appropriate response to the Tweet content? Should it always be one strike and you are out?

What we need to consider is when are employees entitled to their own personal views and opinions, and when is it safe to express them? It is reported that he used his personal Twitter account and his bio did not mention where he worked and stated that his views were not that of his employer.

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public sector comms is at a cross-roads

Scotland has a vibrant public sector digital community. The night before the excellent Public Sector Forums Comms2point0 event (disclaimer: we're biased) there's an informal event to discuss the future of digital comms in local goverment. The #tartantm event organised by Carolyne Mitchell of South Lanarkshire Council aims to bring people together across Scotland - and further afield online - on Wednesday June 20. In this blog first posted here Carolyne talks about the reasons behind it.

By Carolyne Mitchell

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a brilliant Facebook event in scotland

After the success of the West Midlands event we thought it would be fun to go to Scotland and update it. Here's the low-down...

By Dan Slee 

Facebook is an amazing communications channel that has transformed the internet.

More than 900 million people globally are signed-up with more than 29 million in the UK.

In bad weather, civic disturbances and crisis Facebook for many is the default emergency setting for people to find out what is going on and to get fast updates.

It almost seems to be a full time job to keep up to speed with the ever-changing possibility of Facebook and the best practice across the public sector is at best patchy.

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no bull

by Darren Caveney

More canals than Venice*, more trees than Paris**, and more comms folk than you could shake a stick at. That was Birmingham last week, and a hot and sultry City it was as it graced a fascinating LGcomms Academy 2012.

I was fortunate to chair three workshops around social media. I’d fully expected this to be the number one topic of the week, and I was not to be disappointed.

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25 things to learn from lgcomms academy birmingham: day three

by Dave Musson

Day three of the LGComms event in Birmingham, and there was still plenty to ponder and, even better, learn from. Whether it was starting the morning being dragged into the light with a statathon on local government reputation, through to how tweeting plastic ducks are getting young people into golf, it was quite a spread.

The theme for the day was ‘evaluation communications – understanding audiences’, which, clearly, is key if you want your hard work to serve its purpose.

It was also, sadly, the end of this year’s event, which new LGComms chair Cormac Smith claimed to be the best one yet. It’s also been the second largest.

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24 more pearls of wisdom from lgcomms academy birmingham: day 2

by Dan Slee

Okay, so maybe we should stop pretending things are all great when they're not?

Maybe we should just say that we used to do that but now we don't?

And that we didn't do that thing very well, maybe?

It cuts against the grain of many comms people but that was more or less the bold position of Richard Stokoe from the London Fire Service at the second day of the annual LGComms event.

As a former LGA comms head Richard has hard won experience of looking after the reputation of councils.

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18 pearls of wisdom from lgcomms academy birmingham: day one

by Dan Slee

There was a survey recently that listed PR in the top 10 most stressful jobs along with soldier, firefighter and police officer.

Surely in the field of public relations some of the most stressed must be in local government.

The LGComms Academy at Birmingham Council House drew hundreds of comms people from across the country in a formal event.

Twelve months ago at the event in Nottingham some people - wrongly - were talking about social media as something to think about next year. Forward wind a year and even the most died in the wool are having to work with it. Better than that, some are working with it well.

But digital is just one issue facing local government communications teams. Smaller budgets, less for more and a lack of trust all affect the sector.

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why comms people need a camera in their pocket

By Dan Slee

It’s clear that new web technologies are revolutionising the job of the communications officer.

But they’re also changing how we use photography too.

Back in the day freelance photography was commissioned for every eventuality. The launch event, the

new building or the new product all came with a photography budget.

But in times of shrinking budgets that world has changed.

There’s also been a perfect storm as social media and better mobile phones has opened-up access to half decent cameras.

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is networking not working for you?

by Carol Grant

I’m a communications consultant and also an accredited coach and mentor. One of the most common questions I get asked in my coaching work is: how can I learn to network?

At first it seemed an odd question. How can someone whose job is in PR feel they need to learn about communicating with other people? Why does the very word ‘networking’ strike fear into the heart of otherwise confident professionals?

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from Norwich with love

by Darren Caveney

When you turn up at a local authority headquarters and you're greeted with the sight of a Jaguar jet fighter perched on display in the grounds, then you know that something a little bit special awaits.

That place was Norfolk County Council's offices on the outskirts of beautiful Norwich. The reason for the visit was for an innovative 'ideas exchange'.

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the accidental communicator: who owns comms?

by Leah Lockhart

A few serendipitous events lately have focused my mind on issues around corporate communications and generally and in local government specifically.

Not just what it is, what it’s seen to be but who owns it. 

Some background: I’ve been fortunate enough to be at the unnerving and confusing end of local government ‘talent management’ and, while I’m paid to give housing advice and help write homeless prevention strategies, I’ve actually been doing work around increasing use of web and social media in the public services sphere for a little while now.

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good, bad and cake: a social media campaign to celebrate landmark birthday

by Kate Bentham

At the beginning of May 2012 the FIS ran a weeklong multi-platform social media campaign called #WeAre12 to commemorate 12 years since the service was first launched.

It was hoped that #WeAre12 would:

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can email be part of a comms and marketing plan?

by Dan Slee

Okay, so hands up if you've ever sworn at the number of emails you have?

Around 300 billion emails get sent every day in the UK and around 90 per cent of them are spam and viruses, according to the Radicati group.

Hands up too if you've ever felt as though a fair slab are being sent right at you.

Me too.

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the bridge

For my money it's the best of the Scandi-Noirs and it's just returned to our TV screens. But what do bridges and comms have in common?

by Darren Caveney

I’ve grown to love all things Scandinavian (with the huge exception of IKEA, that is)

Everything they do seems stylish, sensible and with people benefits not profits at their heart (with the huge exception of IKEA, that is) And all with seemingly effortless ease.

So, no surprise I’ve been enjoying their TV programmes so much of late. And the most recent, and perhaps the best, finished on BBC4 this weekend just gone – The Bridge.

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a shining example – how being a case study can be better than you think

by Eleanor Willock

So, Jeff from the ICT team has just called you to admit that he promised his contact from the vendor of your new [insert baffling tech term of your choice] that he’d ‘give them a quote’ once the deployment was successful. “Jeff!” you want to screech, “what were you thinking?”

I imagine this happens to in house comms staff in the public sector quite a lot.

On the other side of the PR fence, is the supplier’s agency, who’ve just had this email:

“Great news! We’ve just won a deal at [insert authority, hospital or Trust]. Can you set up a call with Jeff from the ICT team, he’ll give you a quote”.

And more often than not, this is how we first get talking – the in house customer comms professional, and the IT company PR agency bod.

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