Posts Tagged ‘ncvo’

Jadis Tillery

#Newpol: wrap-up of a great day

January 27th, 2010 by Jadis Tillery

Wow. We made it. We managed to get through two panel discussions, 12 workshops, an inspirational keynote speech and drinks in the Lords’ in one piece.

We want to say a big ‘thank you!’ to everyone who came along to yesterday’s event and helped make it happen. Our Twitterfall has even caused a bit of a stir over at Civil Society magazine!

If you couldn’t make it – and even if you did – we really recommend taking some time to check out all the great content that was captured from around the conference and published on this site. There’s loads of images, audio interviews and comment and analysis from our live reporters so take a look.

Here’s our highlights to get you started:

Steve Lawson from the Amplified team posted some great content live from the event and his analysis of how Social Media is leading to Social Action is good starter. Steve also gives a good overview of some of the key trends he saw emerging from the event in this post.

Off-site, Ian Noon from the National Deaf Children’s Society has already posted his thoughts from the day and highlights an inspiring quotation from the keynote speaker, Peter Tatchell:

      “it’s good to take risks, be provocative and stir up trouble once in a while“

      Maybe he was referring to our now famous Twitterfall! :)

      For a visual rendition of the day, make sure you take a look at the Flickr stream of photos from the day with the tag #newpol – and don’t forget to add that tag when you upload your pics. Ben Ellis’s Posterous blog also has a nice slideshow of his photos from the day too.

      The Amplified team also recorded a series of Audioboo interviews with speakers. Here’s Stella Creasy, Labour PPC for Walthamstow & the Scout Association’s Head of Campaigns talking passionately about the power social media offers campaigners (all the audioboo’s from the day can be found here).

            Speaking of Peter Tatchell: without shadow of a doubt he was the most inspirational speaker of the day.

            Founding member of OutRage!, regular contributing blogger on the Guardian and member of the Green Party , Peter Tatchell  is one of the country’s most well known campaigners.  He’s actively campaigned for more than 42 years and has proven fearless in the face of the world’s most notorious human rights abusers (as his two attempted citizen’s arrest of Robert Mugabe attest too). Peter was also named campaigner of the Year 2009 by The Observer.

            We’ll have video footage of his speech up on the site very soon indeed.   In the meantime, you can read a timely profile of the great man, published in this week’s Third Sector and listen to him chat to Steve about the best and worst of the web for campaigners

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            Posted in campaigning, Government, ncvo, politics, Public Sector, socia media | No Comments »

            From Social Media to Social Action.

            January 26th, 2010 by Steve Lawson

            NCVO - Campaigns Conference - The New Politics

            Image by @benjaminellis

            When ‘awareness’ isn’t enough.
            (Text by Steve Lawson)

            We spend a huge amount of time raising awareness about issues. We’re really good at it. It’s a very British thing to do. We write letters to local newspapers, we write to our MP, we talk to other people about them doing something.

            The web makes it so much easier to raise awareness. We can join facebook groups, we can ‘retweet’ quotes and links – we don’t even need to click the link to do it. Actions like the campaign against Jan Moir and her odious writing in the Mail suggest that people can mobilize if they are incensed enough, but did the Mail’s circulation drop? Did anyone continue to hold the Mail to account for the odious writing they publish every other day of the year? Some may have, the vast majority didn’t. They felt justified that Moir was vilified, and were happy that justice was served via twitter.

            Were we wrong to retweet the Jam Moir story? Or Trafigura? Of course not – both were instances of genuine outrage at things that more people should know about (though in the case of the Mail there’s perhaps a lesson about the oxygen of publicity). Raising awareness is not a bad thing in an of itself. And it is what the web does best. But the link between that diffuse outrage across a social network – connected only by a hashtag or membership of a facebook group – and action, physical protest, changes in behaviours, habits, conversations with people who don’t already agree with us, boycotts, fund-raising… that’s the tricky bit.

            And it’s why, when thinking about the use of social media in a campaign, literacy is WAY more important than policy - have ‘rules’ for twitter usage may end up being counter-productive for your organisation. Understanding the way that your fellow Twitter-users engage with the things they find on there is vital to making your campaign materials usable, shareable, clickable, and to them leading to a higher proportion of actions. Same for facebook groups. I’ve just been listening to an Jackie Schneider of Merton Parents For Better Food In Schools talking about Local activism, and she referenced the power of the ‘easy win’ – of people dipping their toe into the campaigning world seeing the fruits of their labours early on as motivation to keep going. It’s a brilliant and simple observation, and one that’s well learned online. Have a listen to her talking about it:

            This is also where information aggregators come in so useful, and where Louder.org.uk can be used to great effect to link Social Media presences and content to actions, both online and off. As a way of integrating email campaigns with contacting MPs, signing petitions and disseminating information about protests and other actions, Louder is designed to make the transition from awareness to action as easy as possible.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | 5 Comments »

            Emerging Themes at #newpol

            January 26th, 2010 by Steve Lawson

            NCVO - Campaigns Conference - The New Politics

            Image by @BenjaminEllis

            The day is drawing to the late afternoon here at the NCVO New Politics Campaigns Conference and we thought we’d highlight a couple of key themes that have emerged out of the panels, discussions and web-wide conversations.

            - Keeping it local
            - Social media and the web

            Making campaigns locally relevant - many of the workshops and the representatives of the varied charities and NGOs in attendance have been highlighting a need for a return to grassroots politics/activism. Combatting the fatigue of the big national yah-boo politics (whether in evidence or constructed by the media) and reaching out to people on a local (individual) level. This approach is also more likely to appeal to the PPCs that charities and NGOs need on their side to bring about political change, and keeps their campaigns relevant. For more discussion on this issue give the following audioboo a listen:


            Social media and the web             - though the conference opened with the fear that social media and technology might remove the need for campaigning organisations, the majority of delegates and workshops were very enthusiastic about the opportunities that social media allowed for grass roots, online activism. The opening notion suggested that tech was taking over, whereas the majority of the attendees recognised social media as one of many tools at their disposal. Social media can be a really useful and easy way of connecting to some your community – not all, and that’s why it’s only one tool of many. Unfortunately the ‘brand new – all change’ version of the social media story touted by the media makes many resistant, or leads them to highlight all the things it doesn’t do (reflective, face to face, sustained, or sustainable debate). The workshops focussed on social media as facilitating conversation – conversations that can’t happen online if you wouldn’t have them offline – you need to understand to whom and why you’re talking, as well noting that the reason there’s so much focus on it is because it’s new and is useful to learn to use, not because it’s the be all and end all of political and community engagement.

            Have a listen to this excellent audioboo with Stella Creasy, Labour PPC for Walthamstow and head of campaigns at the Scout Association chatting with @solobasssteve about Social Media and Power to the People.


            Want to comment on any of the conversations going on? Got some big ideas of your own? Join in on the comments thread of this post.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | No Comments »

            Afternoon panel live blog.

            January 26th, 2010 by Hannah Nicklin

            ‘Knowing your left from your right – dividing lines at the 2010 election’

            Panellists:
            - Oliver Letwin MP, Chairman of the Conservative Policy Review
            - Danny Alexander MP, Chair of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto Group
            - Chuka Umunna, Labour PPC

            Want to comment on any of the conversations going on? Got some big ideas of your own? Join in on the comments thread of this post.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | No Comments »

            Live Stream of John Bercow

            January 26th, 2010 by Hannah Nicklin

            A quick mobile live stream of John Bercow’s pre-lunch speech.

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            Image by @benjaminellis

            Want to comment on any of the conversations going on? Got some big ideas of your own? Join in on the comments thread of this post.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | No Comments »

            Images from #newpol

            January 26th, 2010 by Hannah Nicklin

            A slideshow of images taken by @benjaminellis of the day’s proceedings, updated as they’re added.

            See more via the flickr tag.

            Want to comment on any of the conversations going on? Got some big ideas of your own? Join in on the comments thread of this post.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | No Comments »

            Audioboos from #newpol

            January 26th, 2010 by Hannah Nicklin

            See below for a playlist of the Audioboo podcasts recorded on the ground at the London NCVO New Politics conference, talking to both speakers, and the charities and NGOs themselves for a reaction to the conversations and content coming out of today.

            Want to comment on any of the conversations going on? Got some big ideas of your own? Join in on the comments thread of this post.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | No Comments »

            #newpol live with Amplified.

            January 26th, 2010 by Hannah Nicklin

            NCVO’s 2010 Campaigns Conference: A New Politics is today bringing together inspirational campaigners, political insiders and high profile commentators to look at the skills and expertise needed for charities, voluntary and community organisations to raise the issues that matter to them in 2010′s changing political landscape. The Amplified team will be live blogging, tweeting, podcasting and grabbing images and video from the day to give a feel for the content and conversations happening on the ground at the London conference.

            The hashtag to follow is #newpol, the Amplified team is today formed of @solobasssteve @hannahnicklin @benjaminellis and @brian_condon, and live blogs, images, podcasts and highlights from the day’s content will be collated here on this blog.

            Listen below to an audioboo with Liam Barrington-Bush from the NCVO Louder initiative introducing the day

            Listen!

            And see below for the live blog collating the general content and #newpol content throughout the day.

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            Posted in ncvo, politics, socia media | No Comments »

            Liam Barrington Bush

            Does it matter what politicians do with social media?

            January 12th, 2010 by Liam Barrington Bush

            There’s been a fair amount of discussion about the impact new technologies will have on the upcoming UK general election.  There is widespread belief that social media sites, mobile phones and online video will impact the ways people vote in May (or June) of this year, but as to how these gadgets will influence people’s voting patterns, is still up for debate.

            Some people have pointed (cringingly) to Gordon Brown’s YouTube address, the increasing number of MPs and government departments with Twitter profiles, and the online blogging platforms of the major parties, as evidence of an increasingly tech-savvy political class that will wage it’s election battles on virtual platforms, rather than in constituencies and on television debates.

            But the problem with this is that most of government (with some important exceptions) just don’t get social media!  If it’s seen as a free broadcast channel, it is unlikely to have any additional impact, beyond that of the traditional press, and may further disconnect them from the people they represent, if used solely to disseminate messages.  The groundbreaking nature of these technologies is in their ability to connect people and facilitate conversations, two traits which have traditionally run against the grain of mainstream politics.

            Technology will have some impact on this coming election, but not (primarily) because politicians are starting to get on-board.

            Technology will impact the election most significantly because of what is being said by those using it outside of the political institutions.  The fundamental shift that social media is starting to enable, relates to what blogger and academic Hannah Nicklin describes as a ‘wikipolitic’; the process through which public opinions develop a collective expression via various online platforms, and are then manifested in action – by people themselves or the politicians who are mandated to represent them.  Fundamental to this, is the breakdown of the interface between people and political institutions (initially through online technology) and gradually, the connection of people – including politicians – to each other in the development of the policies that impact our lives. (Read Hannah’s blog for more on ‘wikipolitics’).

            My thoughts on David Cameron (or Gordon Brown, or Nick Clegg, for that matter), can now float into cyberspace and immediately connect with the thoughts of those who agree with or oppose them – on a truly mass scale.  For that matter, if I was to capture a video on my mobile of one of the above leaders contradicting a key campaign message, or come across an email that included potentially offensive language about a particular people or constituency, I could share them with the world within minutes … or say, if I – or you – had an especially relevant take on one party-or-another’s election manifesto, we could become the tipping point of the 2010 general election!

            …Or… Or… Or…The list could go on…

            So when we talk about the impact technology will have on the upcoming election, I recommend turning our social microscopes away from the press-released YouTube videos of Parliament and Downing Street, and towards the places where people are discussing the issues that will affect them.  To the Twitter feeds, blogs and viral videos that are increasingly providing the narrative of life in Britain in 2010 and what we want the people we vote for to do with the power we have given them.

            Of course, ‘wikipolitics’ and ‘e-campaigning’ only matter, insofar as they can enable greater communication and discussion of political ideas; we can’t let new technology sweep away the importance of sound policy.  Many factors will influence this – like every other – election; I’m interested in how we, as people, can play a more central role than we are often credited in playing, as we decide who will lead this country into this next phase of history…

            Liam is Learning and Development Officer (Campaigning) at NCVO, he is chairing the Social Media workshop at the Campaigns Conference

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            Posted in campaigning, general election, mobile, ncvo, politics, socia media | 7 Comments »