For around a year I've been involved in some way or another in looking at Newcastle City Council's website: http://www.newcastle.gov.uk. I initially came to the council in November 2008 to look at Web 2.0, how the council could and should be using the internet as a two way tool for conversation, engagement and service delivery - although with a strong emphasis on communications. This obviously had some impact on the way I viewed the council's web presence but I was not really involved in either the day-to-day running of the site or in looking at how the council would use the web as a whole.

There had, of course, been some conversations which would impact on the site, but I was eventually given the task of looking at the council's intranet. As quickly as this was mentioned it was taken away again - I wasn't the person to look at this and it wasn't the time to look at it either it seems. Later when I was asked to project manage the web refresh I assumed it would be a similar deal.

I'd had project management training on NPMF2 (Newcastle's project management framework based on PRINCE2) but hadn't had the chance to put any of it into practice and when the project officially got going in September 2009 I found myself starting out in fresh territory and quite nervous about it too.

Shortly after starting this journey we found out that the Project Executive and my then line manager as Director of Communication and Marketing was leaving the council. He had helped form the project and set out what we were to go on to achieve so it was an early blow. We appointed a great replacement in David Fay, City Libraries Manager, who understood what was required and had the experience to help me through.

So, the early meetings defined the project, and I blogged about this back in last September. To recap, the aims of the project were to:

• Purchase a new search box to improve the site's search function
• Create a new navigation based on LGNL but with amended headings and some user-friendly restructuring
• Re-skin the site, making it look fresher whilst still adhering to accessibility guidance

Problems we encountered really were down to project planning - which is down to me. When I did my project management training I was told to do things in a way that I was comfortable with, try to keep things simple if possible - if the paperwork isn't necessary just do what needs doing.

I tried to keep this approach because this is what I'm comfortable with. I don't like to be overly formal if I don't think it necessary. But this was the council, and some people were happier working different ways and I needed to be more 'corporate' to fit with this. I relied on others a bit too much to plan the project - I didn't know how long things would take and ended up being a bit optimistic as a result. That said we delivered slightly ahead of a revised delivery date in the end.

I'm probably being a bit harsh with myself, but I feel it's important to learn from this and I certainly will.

I also came to realise that I can't be liked by everyone all the time, which is tough because I care a lot about what others think of me. I have enormous respect for everyone who worked on this project and think that the end product reflects the passion and commitment of all those involved. When you are that close to a project you can get personally invested and when things happen that weren't what you had hoped for it's tough to accept it and move on for the good of the project. I must admit that I came close to walking away from the whole thing, but that I'm glad I didn't and that things worked out for the best and proved me wrong when I'd got too close.

So the three aims. First was search. That was the easy part. A mini Google search appliance was purchased and added onto the existing site as soon as it arrived. It seemed to do the trick and probably helped us to get our 4 Star SOCITM rating (more on that later).

Next was navigation. This was the bit that really took it out of me, but also the bit that we had to get right. Christmas also got in the way but the web team held a card sort exercise on category headlines that we'd thrashed out as a board - taking longer than expected. Initially we'd wanted to use a life events model, but it didn't feel right and we struggled to make a site to appeal to all of the groups that wanted to use it without creating lots of different sections which confused things too much. Eventually we looked at existing LGNL headings, worked on the language they used and rejigged them with the biggest change being to split Environment and Planning into two sections.

These were the headings we eventually settled on as they came through user testing unscathed. The card sort looked at the existing level 2 headings under the revised level 1 titles. Level 2 headings were capable of sitting below more than one level 1 title in a polyhierarchical taxonomy (thanks Martee) but there should only be one version of the level 2 page in existence.

Each level 1 heading also had a series of top pages beneath them, which can be changed seasonally and on demand basis so that content can be brought forward and highlighted when necessary. From these we can draw top three services in each category and highlight them on the front page.

We also looked at transactional functions, adding 'Do it...', 'Pay...', 'Report...' and 'Get involved'. This was a bit of future proofing really, giving some real estate up for when we can actually provide more of this stuff via the web.

The design was IT led really and we didn't want to get too involved and design by committee. There were obviously a few people who had an opinion, but we tried to see the site as a corporate product and not a personal product. The carousel for the council's key messages was to replace a lot of the messages we had routinely placed on the front page and get us to think more about how important messages are and how they are presented to the public - this will be owned by comms and regularly updated (although directorates can ask to use this space). There are also two ad spots on the front page owned by marketing for the council's key campaigns (directorates can also make requests on this space).

The show/hide menu function was changed as a result of usability testing - Martee used Silverback for this. Default for this was set to hide, but people didn't use it - so it's now set to show.

There will be further iterative testing whilst the site is live and there are tweaks to be made and new features which weren't in scope but should be delivered soon anyway. In addition there is a heat map running on the site to see where people are clicking in case we need to make further adjustments.

A note on content - content is part of the next phase and I may need a separate blog post on this - needless to say content was not in scope for this project.

There were about 26 people who made a really significant impact on this project from across the council. Their input made the refresh happen, and I'm proud of the results.

I'd like your feedback really. Have you used the site? What bits do you like? What bits don't you like? Have you found any broken bits?

The convention was titled 'Regeneration, Re-invention, Recession: Capital of Culture One Year On' which of course led me to add another 'R' in the title of my workshop: Social Media Revolutions.

A copy of the Powerpoint is available through Slideshare in the Presentations section of my blog here.

Anyway, as out of context the slides can be a bit meaningless, here's what I think I said!

Social Media Revolutions: How to communicate in the web 2.0 world

Liverpool is a great city, it's got a lot going for it and it's changing all the time. Much the same as Newcastle. But ask people about Liverpool and their first thoughts may be of scousers in curly wigs saying "calm down, calm down". Newcastle has similar issues, our first thoughts may be of noisy, angry football fans eager to depose Mike Ashley and appoint a new messiah.

Of course this is not "on-message". There are images of Liverpool and NewcastleGateshead that fit better with city and destination branding. But "on-message" and "off-message" doesn't always fit well with the web. But that's because of what the web is.

What's a social network?

Talk about social networks and people think you're talking about computers, about Facebook or Twitter or MySpace or Bebo. There are social networks for all sorts of interest groups. Knitters may be members of Ravelry, but they might also go round to each others houses to knit.

When we think about (the fictional) Fight Club do we think, "that's a social network". Maybe not. But interest groups may find themselves bonding together through seemingly unlikely activities where previously they may not have found each other or even spoken to each other. It's offline, but it's a network.

I illustrated this point by finding people in the room who had pet cats and drawing a physical connection between them with string to form a rudimentary social network named 'StringFace' [okay this bit didn't work all that well, but in my head it was amazing].

So whether you like cats, knitting, bare-knuckle fighting or all three, there will be others out there with similar interests. In arranging yourselves together and making connections it becomes a social network. It doesn't matter if you use a website or an abandoned cellar, your group exists.

So if it's about connections not computers then our approach to it must reflect this. It's all about communication.

Behaviours

If we can communicate offline then we can communicate online. Don't let the computers scare you, they work for you. But we may need to examine our behaviours to see what will work.

Key behaviours are:

• Openness - if you're on the web and you're choosing to communicate then do it, don't lurk in the shadows and don't keep things to yourself. The best parties are the ones where you talk to new people, not the ones where you stick with the people you came with
• Sharing - you're not on there to sell. You might manage to sell, but that comes through sharing your knowledge, experiences, your views and personality. Don't just broadcast, create something
• Friendship - this breeds trust. I trust what my friends say about something more than someone I don't know. But if I get to know you then I'll trust your opinion too
• Human - be human. Tell people who you are and what you do, give something away and you'll get it back. I find it difficult to form a bond with a bit of code that powers some repetitive interaction. People can still tell a mail merge letter from a hand-written one
• Interesting - this should really follow from the rest of the behaviours, but what your audience find interesting is not necessarily what you will be asked to communicate. There's a balance to be struck here, but if it's something that's unlikely to be of any interest to anyone then it's probably not worth the effort

Social media is not another megaphone, it could be, but then again it's open to everyone so there are millions of megaphones and if everyone's shouting at the same time then nobody will be heard. If you sit down with someone and have a chat then you'll get more done and people will be able to hear your message. Don't go for the hard sell, you'll end up being ignored.

Have a look at this Twitter page for how the soft sell can be used to good effect in the tourist trade.

Get into Newcastle

This is a TV ad. It's on YouTube, but it's still a TV ad. Don't get me wrong  it's fine on YouTube, a chance to get extra exposure with no real additional investment. If you've got video content it's probably better on YouTube than on your own site, it'll get seen more (although if you upload to YouTube and embed on your own site you'll have the best of both worlds).

J'aime la Tour

This is a nice video. It's sharable. I'd feel much more compelled to show other people this video than the one before. It has that quality which makes it ripe for YouTube and social media in general.

If you know what makes something sharable then you're halfway there. The second video would work well on TV or YouTube (although it's a bit too long for TV). But if you really want to use YouTube then look at what it can do that TV can't.

Choose A Different Ending

YouTube is web based, so it can be linked. This 'choose your own adventure' style video uses this to good effect. If you're choosing between YouTube and TV then think what each can offer against each other right from the start. Each has pros and cons. If you work in communications or marketing you can always choose your tools, social media just offers us more tools.

Risks

People often associate social media with risk. Which is fair. And to be honest if you're not aware of risks you're more likely to fall foul of them.

But the risks associated fall into two main categories, internal and external. Internal risks are the real risks, but they're also the ones you can prepare for. Are your staff going to 'waste time' on Facebook? What if someone says something they shouldn't in public?

These risks should be managed through HR processes and through line management. Who are your public facing staff? If you trust people to speak to people over the phone, by email or face-to-face then they should be trusted to communicate on the web. Monitor and evaluate this. If you can't trust your staff then why were they hired?

External risks are those that come from the general public. They won't stay 'on message', they won't bite their lip if they're annoyed about something and they cannot be controlled through internal policies, procedures or protocols. they never signed up to your terms of use.

So... I've said before that controlling these people is not really an option. People will say bad things about you anyway, whether it's on the internet or in the back of a cab.

You can leave it be (it may cause more trouble to get involved), try and sort their issue (if it's sortable) or provide an answer which may not help that particular person but may be of use to others with similar problems. Or you can report them.

It's important at this stage to first remember the spirit of the internet. Reporting someone without first giving them a chance to have a look at their own comments isn't all that nice. And also consider whose house it is. Which site are the comments on? If it's Facebook then refer to their terms of service. You don't own the space, you're just visiting, and in the eyes of the internet everyone is equal (you're all users).

Listening

All of this is about communication, knowing who you're talking to, tailoring your message. It's all straightforward for a comms professional. But one of the most important aspects of communication (especially in thew web 2.0 world) is listening.

Monitoring may seem creepy to some, but how can you answer if you can't hear the question? It's key that you have this in place so you can join the conversation. If someone asks where's a good place to stay in Liverpool you may be well placed to answer them (so long as you're aware someone's asking).

A cheesy video

Some objected to me calling this cheesy and said that this sort of thing was what they needed to convince people of the value of social media. It still grates with me a bit - I suppose it's a bit hard sell. But if you need a simple "what's in it for me" response then this does the job.

Selling social media is not really the tough part. It's getting beyond the stage where you're thinking about technology and on to the stage when you're talking about the behaviours needed to achieve your goals.

The article was based on a survey by ntl:Telewest Business (which I hadn't received) claiming 40% of councils have Twitter accounts and 22% of councils have official Facebook pages. Whilst these figures may well be accurate it is simplistic and a bit silly to suggest that councils are not using Facebook on this basis.

Facebook does have higher traffic than Twitter in the UK but there is not a straight comparison between the two. Both sites have different uses, pros and cons. Twitter lends itself well to distributing information and news and the ability to automate content via RSS saves officer time. In addition Twitter is more searchable and users can subscribe to Twitter searches, making monitoring easy.

Facebook on the other hand has numerous problems for local authorities to overcome. Whilst the title of LGC's article suggests that councils are not making 'friends' with Facebook users this is in fact the main hurdle. Who wants to be friends with a council? (If we wanted to get pedantic we could also point out that you can only be friends with 'people' on Facebook not organisations.)

The terminology of Facebook forces users to make declarations which may not sit easily with their views. There are essentially two options:

1. Have a council group
2. Have a council page

A group involves people becoming members and joining 'X Council'. A page involves people becoming a fan of 'X Council'. Neither is ideal and leads to low numbers of council 'fans'.

In addition moderation of Facebook groups or pages is time consuming and negative comments can cause reputational damage. Twitter does not have this issue as follower's tweets do not appear on the profile page of '@XCouncil'.

So those are some of the reasons why councils prefer to maintain a Twitter stream over a Facebook page (although many have both). But what wasn't discussed in the article is that councils can engage through Facebook without having an official page.

Councils may use Facebook for services or campaigns, you might not be a fan of 'X Council' but you might be a fan of a library or an art gallery. In addition you can highlight events like Medway's Fuse Festival. So without having to say "I love my council" you may want to tell people how much you love some of the things they do.

So, how about things that the council does that you really don't like?

Well that's an opportunity for engagement too. In the example above a councillor has invited people to come along to full council to hear a motion being discussed. I've blogged before about engaging with issue-based groups on Facebook.

Facebook is just another site. How you use it is up to you. To say that a council is not enagaging if they don't have a fan page is not even half the story. We have a fan page, it doesn't have many fans. We could invest a lot of hours into our Facebook fan page, or we could get better ROI by using Facebook in other ways or in maintaining our Twitter account. As communication professionals we make these choices, please don't suggest that we didn't think them through.

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Update

Here's a link to a Politics Show piece on social media engagement (focussing more on politicians) with a little cameo from me: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/regions/north_east_and_cumbria/8271707.stm

It's probably easier to say what our web refresh project will not do. We are not rebuilding the website or replacing the CMS. There is a seperate project which is looking at channel shift and improving/increasing the services that we provide online.

So what are we doing then?

Well, we're improving the search function on the site. This has involved the purchase of Google Search Appliance. Feedback has taught us that people have trouble with our existing search and that it struggles with PDF documents held on the site. This is a bit of a quick fix, but we'd also like directorates to upload less PDF documents, creating pages instead.

We're also introducing a new front-page navigation system on top of LGNL to take people to the things they are looking for in a more intuitive way. LGNL is useful for indexing the site and for linking up with Directgov so we're not doing away with it altogether. Instead it will sit at the bottom of the page as a 'site map'.

The new navigation system will offer categories of user/information drawn from multiple areas and displayed as suggestions. Each category will have the five top suggestions and a 'more options' link which takes the user to a landing page with an explanation of the category and a longer list of approximately 15 suggestions.

We have drafted a proposed list of 15 user/information categories and sample content (in no particular order):

1. Children and young people: For children and young people not their parents. Advice, events and opportunities for young people.
2. Student life: For students and people in FE and HE. Info on post-16 options, council tax exemption, advice on studying in the city, links to institutions.
3. Parenting: For parents. Advice on benefits, nursery places, registration of birth, family planning.
4. Visitors: For those visiting the city. Transport info, large scale events, places to stay, things to see.
5. Leisure: For residents. Parks, permanent leisure facilities, restaurants/scores on the doors, theatres, galleries and museums.
6. Roads and transport: For commuters. Public transport information, parking, Tyne Tunnel, roadworks and traffic.
7. Find a job: For jobseekers. Jobs at the council, benefits and back to work schemes.
8. Councillors and elections: For residents. Who’s my councillor, surgeries, registering to vote and election information, meetings, agendas and minutes.
9. Older people: For older people. Benefits, community groups and health advice.
10. Housing: For residents. Social housing, council tax, benefits, planning, home improvements (Warm Zone, adaptations), YHN.
11. Planning and development: For residents. Planning applications, regeneration, building control and citywide planning.
12. Environment and waste: For residents. Bin collections, Envirocall, and eco information.
13. Business: For local businesses. Doing business with the council, business rates (NDR), BID, licensing and procurement/partnerships.
14. Health and wellbeing: For residents. Public health campaigns, doctors, sports, activity, hospitals and disabilities.
15. Council tax and benefits: For residents. Council tax and benefits, customer service centres and contact centre.

The titles will be rewritten to improve flow and specific content is to be decided by the most appropriate directorate based on user stats. We'll then undertake user testing across the new navigation system.

We will also offer four transactional functions: Report it; Apply for it; Pay for it; and Get involved.

The final part of the refresh will be to reskin the site to update it and improve look and feel.

So, that's the plan. It doesn't involve much additional work and seeks to address three issues: search, navigation and design. What do you think?

Introduction

The council homepage typically attracts around 300,000 unique visitors each month. These visitors use the council website to search for information relevant to their experience of the city. In order to offset the cost of providing these facilities and of maintaining the quality and relevance of content it may be desirable to use the website to generate revenue.

Based on figures provided by other councils we could perhaps generate £15,000-£20,000 p.a. by hosting advertisements on the site.

Options

1. Carry on with the current model without advertisement
+ No additional associated costs
+ Avoid controversy
+ Does not change aesthetic values of site
- Does not generate revenue
- Misses out on added value of adverts

2. Manage advertisement in-house. Expand the current advertisement sales capacity in the communication and marketing team to cover selling space on the website and provide design services
+ Full control over placement and content of advertisers
+ Revenue generation
+ Added value for visitors
- Costs of management may outweigh income
- Extra demands at a time when capacity is threatened

3. Seek outside agency to manage advertisement for us
+ Revenue generation
+ No additional costs
+ Added value for visitors
- Commission taken by supplier
- Need to work closely with supplier to define appropriate advertisers

Recommendations

To maximise the value of the website, to cover the staff costs of moderation, and to fund innovation and research it is my recommendation that the council pursue the third option. Further to this I would recommend that we select a supplier with other public sector clients so that our specific requirements are understood.

Option one does not provide revenue generation and option two would require too much officer time to manage.

Concerns over monetisation of this resource raised by the public can be offset by explaining that these actions help to keep costs down. In addition advertisements may point the customer to relevant content on other sites which we do not hold ourselves. As such if a customer is seeking information on a health issue we would be able to direct them to retailers of relevant products through advertisements, without specific endorsement of the retailer.

Adverts should be held off site and content pulled through online; this would mean we would not have to host third party content on our servers beyond the source code required for this. This would pose no risk to our servers and little demand on capacity.

The code itself should be capable of being cut and pasted into webpage templates, this is a job which should take less than one hour and should not require ongoing commitment.

It is my understanding that the communication and marketing team would have the skills and expertise to liaise with the chosen supplier. All ongoing moderation of advert content would therefore be carried out by the communication and marketing team.

The next step would be to seek a suitable supplier, pending acceptance of these recommendations.

Examples of other local authorities using ads

http://www.fylde.gov.uk
http://www.nottingham.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=171
http://www.merton.gov.uk/learning.htm
http://www.huntsdc.gov.uk/
http://www.westoxon.gov.uk/living/Housing.cfm
http://www.weymouth.gov.uk

What will Council 2.0 look like? - Discussion of how councils and councillors can use social media as an engagement tool blogged by Paul Jennings

HR On Demand - White paper from the Berkshire Institute on how web 2.0 behaviours can enable employees to work smarter, useful answer to those "social media is just people wasting time" types

Capital Funding for social media…how to get it - If you're not interested in how to get your hands on some money to develop your projects then you probably won't be interested in Ingrid Koehler's advice

Recipe – How to make a Social Media Surgery - Finally, Podnosh has spilled the secrets of his social media surgery success (a bit of alliteration there). Good model to build on for people like Sarah Lay (who's planning a similar event for Derbyshire) and something for me to copy develop here in Newcastle

Having looked at press cuttings prepared by our team it does seem that this is one area that could be improved.

Present situation

Every day we take the morning (Journal) and afternoon (Evening Chronicle) regional newspapers. The weekend newspapers from Saturday (Journal and Chronicle) and Sunday (Sunday Sun) are looked at on Monday morning.

Press Officers then look through the papers for anything relating to Newcastle City Council, mark the pages by category, publication, date and page number and pass them to a Communication, Marketing and Press Assistant who cuts them out and files them away. A folder is kept for each category containing one month's original cuttings.

In addition a round-up of the weekend's news is provided to senior officers and members by email.

As part of my role I receive Google Alerts for news relating to the council. I have been asked at times to circulate links to relevant articles.

What's wrong with this?

• Duplication in the articles clipped by Press Officers and picked up by Google Alerts
• Time taken by Press Officers and Communication, Marketing and Press Assistant
• Archive is not searchable other than by date/category
• Archive is not used
• Cost of newspapers
• Duplication of function across council (directorates, officers, members taking papers themselves)

My solution

I've been bookmarking the articles I've picked up on delicious. I cut and paste the url, title and first par from the articles and add relevant tags, e.g. publication, +/-.

Advantages

• The archive is searchable
• Members/officers can subscribe to updates via RSS
• email digests can be produced automatically via Tabbloid
• Quicker than manual approach
• No duplication
• More news sources
• Reduces cost of hardcopies
• Reduces cost of NLA fee

Disadvantages

• Not all content published online (approx 50% of Chronicle/Journal/Sunday Sun on random sample)
• Does not avoid NLA link sharing fee
• Members/officers prefer tactile hardcopy
• Column inches not measured

Issues for improvement

• Additional searches can be added to Google Alerts to pick up some missed articles but coverage will still be patchy
• There are some people that will always prefer hardcopy, but is this a justification for expense?
• Initially press office would need to take hardcopy as a backup (they need to know the news before it's added to the web)
• This system is reliant on the type of data added to third-party websites but could cover more than the current system

I'd like to hear from blog readers about this. What do you think are the merits of the two systems and which should we use? Is there any way of integrating the two or should one be abandoned in favour of the other?

The group, titled 'Save the Coop' can be found here (link opens in new window).

Background

The Cooperage on Newcastle's quayside was a popular music venue and bar which also held club nights, I've had a few good nights out there myself in the past.

Local residents had made a number of complaints about noise leakage from the listed building which had been investigated by the council - as they are obliged to do. As a result a noise abatement order had been served.

Details of necessary works, which would have allowed The Cooperage to continue operating as a music venue were discussed with the owners Enterprise Inns who decided instead to close the venue. The council took the view that this had been a commercial decision.

The Facebook group

I could be all clever here and say that my monitoring of the social web alerted me to the existence of this group which had a few hundred members (now at more than 11k) and was critical of the council. In a way that statement is true. One of my Facebook friends invited me to the group because they knew I liked the bar.

Initially I did not join the group, but instead read through the comments. It became clear that there were a few points which needed addressing, which were:

• The council closed The Cooperage down
• The council took it upon themselves to investigate noise at the venue
• Other venues on the quayside make more noise and the council lets them off
• Council officials were open to bribery by breweries and/or property developers
• The council did not care that The Cooperage had closed

I spoke with the Director of Communication and Marketing who agreed that a response to these allegations should be made. I then joined the group.

The council's response

Rather than responding to comments on the group's wall I set up a seperate discussion board. The reason for this was that I did not want to hijack the group or to stifle the open debate which was taking place. I labelled the post clearly as a council response.

I introduced myself. On Facebook there's not really an option to post as an entity on a board and you can't really hide behind an alias. The avatar is a picture of me and it has my name next to it. I'm a communication adviser for the council so am trusted to act as spokesperson on behalf of the organisation, only this way flak would be directed at me and not the organisation.

What I wrote

"Hi there, I work for the Council and wanted to explain our position on this:

• We haven't closed the Cooperage, the owners have decided that they cannot soundproof the venue to an acceptable standard and so will close the venue themselves, which obviously we’re sad about too.
• We have a duty to investigate noise complaints of this nature (regardless of who is making them). After looking into complaints we did indeed serve a noise abatement order – as is our duty in such circumstances.
• Each case is dealt with individually on its merits, so a straight comparison with any other venue you might like to name isn’t entirely fair when the circumstances are inevitably different.
• We take allegations of bribery and corruption very seriously and if anyone has any evidence of this we'd ask them to go to the correct authorities, such as the police. Unfounded claims are a breach of Facebook's Terms and we'd ask if people could remove these themselves.
• If a solution can be found to the noise issues we would hope that the Cooperage will be able to reopen."

Rejection

The first response of members of the group were to reject me. I had expected some negative comment but I did think it would be a friendlier, more open discussion. But fair enough, I got a reaction and I'd addressed the issues which had been raised.

One of the quotes I found most interesting was:

I was just wondering if I am within my rights to say how dismayed I am to see that council money is being used to pay someone to monitor if anything bad is being said about them on Facebook?

I was suprised at this as people had organised themselves and set up a group to save a pub from closure, and they chose to do this on Facebook, but were disappointed when the council heard their voices and replied.

The next stage

Around the same time as discussions were being held to answer specific concerns, and let people vent about other things which were best not to respond to, I received a private message from the owner of the group.

He explained that the intention of the group was positive and apologised for some of the libellous content. He also suggested that we meet to discuss the group and his plans. It was agreed that I meet him, in a pub.

I arranged for Jack Pickard of TPIS to attend as an independent adviser, and a press officer also accompanied me.

The group's owner wanted to form a collective to purchase the bar and to carry out the necessary works to reopen as a music venue. We offered advice on how he could involve the (then) 7000 members of his group in this process and how he could fundraise for this, pointing out MyFootballClub as one example and the UsNow film for further research.

What we agreed

• The owner of the group would inform the members of his intentions
• The group was a positive group and could achieve more by acting positively

Outcomes

Since then the group's statement has been amended to reflect the positive outcomes they hope to achieve and the discussion they had with the council:

Here's an update guys:

I have spoken to the council to gather a bit of clarity as to the political and legal proceedings surrounding the Cooperages closure. Firstly, the council have done, and continue, to do everything in their power to keep the Cooperage from closing. They have had to follow procedure and are advising me on how to proceed best.

Anyone who is interested in helping, I am going to gather a co-operative and seek to fundraise the money needed to soundproof the building. DJ's, promoters, landlords, musicians, designers, anyone, we are going to need all the help we can get. Lets do this as an independent, community effort and turn the Cooperage into a place for, funded by and run by the people.

I am going to get in touch with Enterprise Breweries in the next few days and show them the support the Cooperage has received and see if they are willing to reach an agreement.

BREAKING NEWS: A CO-OPERATIVE IS BEING FORMED AS I WRITE THIS WITH THE INTENTION OF BUYING THE COOPERAGE, CHECK THE DISCUSSION BOARD FOR DETAILS.

Comments in the group have also become friendlier towards the council:

I have to say it's easy to blame the council on this one but their room for movement will be very limited. It sounds like they are being positive about it all.

and (I've amended this quote slightly as it had a typo);

I would also say with regards the council employing someone to look at facebook, I am sure this is not his only remit and they probably see it as a cheap and effective way to keep large groups of people informed and given this group has nearly 1000 members in under 10 days that seems sensible.

and;

This is, by the way, probably one of the most civilised debates i have ever encountered on facebook.

That last quote went on to be critical of the council, but the acknowledgement of the open nature of the discussion was exactly what we were looking for.

Conclusion

This involvement was an experiment, to see practically how it would work engaging with a group in this way. In the end we needed a little offline engagement too, but the two aren't mutually exclusive. We took an organised group who were veering a little off topic and becoming a place to complain about the council and reminded them of their goals and how social media can help them achieve them (the rest is up to them).

I'd call it a win, but then I'm biased!

But it's best not to dwell on the negatives. This was (hopefully) the first step in a relationship between local government and Google that will lead to co-operation, support and new ways of working. As people seem to want that more than paid-for advertising solutions.

Adwords were discussed in an opening session, perhaps wrongly focusing on transactional functions such as payment of council tax. High placement on Google council tax searches may be desirable so residents can find out where to pay, but as they can't pay their tax to another councils this is not something you would normally pay for. After all, I'd tend to search for my council AND council tax.

A case study was given on Hillingdon's use of Adwords to promote a Christmas ice-rink, which was a better idea and may be of some interest to our marketing team as we all try to make our budgets go further.

Analytics and conversion provided a brief how-to on what makes a good website and how to track abandoned shopping carts etc. Again, a presentation that focused on the transactional but highlighted a tool which could prove an alternative to others such as Websense.

Then, one of the most controversial topics of the day. Google AdSense. Do you want paid-for advertising on your site? If you do, why choose Google? Fair enough, it seemed a large number of people in the room had been asked to looking into advertising solutions for their sites, as 'alternative revenue streams' are increasingly mentioned. AdSense provides one solution and allows for family-safe advertisements, filtered by category on selected areas of the site. Downsides are retrospective blocking of individual ads and lack of monitoring.

A case study from Nottingham City Council did little to stop the murmurs. Nottingham's new website is an attempt to create a personalised council homepage, providing an alternative destination site (which is a bit Marmite it seems). Their case-study outlined that part of this development was paid for by AdSense revenue. Okay, so even if you don't like ads this may be an incentive.

Nottingham's traffic seems comparable to Newcastle's so I was interested to hear the figures, and it brings in approx £15k p.a., a contribution, but not a major one considering the revelations about the cost of Birmingham City Council's web development. Given slightly larger traffic to Newcastle's site it may be something to look at, but not a huge revenue stream. (It was also slightly concerning that a banner ad on an events page seemed to advertise a theme park nobody had heard about and was not labelled as a Google placed ad.)

The issue of negative feedback to ads on council sites was also brought up. Nottingham had received three complaints in 12 months relating to advertisement. But a full user survey may turn up others who do not like the advertisements but have not taken time to complain.

The next talk on Enterprise Solutions was a highlight. Use of GoogleMail, Docs etc. in an organisation as an alternative to MS to work collaboratively, quickly and flexibly. But this talk was a bit like preaching to the choir, and maybe the people in the room were not the ones who needed to hear about the savings and improvements on offer. It may take time, but it would be good to open up a conversation around this. Even on a pilot basis.

After lunch we looked at being creative with YouTube. Which is great. We watched a few videos, including this one that I highlighted on Twitter the other week. But we also got to see that it's actually easier than I had thought to add features to videos.

OpenSocial, featured in the next session, seems to be an attempt at universal login to sites, carrying your contacts with you. Nice idea, I liked that you could see your friends contributions to sites seperately from others, i.e. those whose views you value higher. It seemed to work off the peg too, so may be a solution for comment enabled council websites. Not sure if it works pre-mod though, which may put some off.

Next talk was on Android... lots of people have mobile phones... smart phone ownership increasing... why not create apps on Android platform... here's some demos... Android has 8% of market.

Finally a talk on Google Maps. Which are nice. People like them, we'd love to use them, but can't because of issues between Google and OS. If we buy Google Maps Premium we can use Google Maps apparently, so there appears to be some progress in this area.

So that's what happened. We came. We listened to a (slightly off-topic) sales pitch. We went home.

But it's a start as I say. Google got plenty of feedback from the day and hopefully there are a few things people can take away and build into what they're doing.

Google also have a dedicated webpage for this. And Carrie Bishop blogged about the day too.

Simon Wakeman has blogged about this and gives all the basic details so far. I'm still waiting for a response from Twitter as to why the account was suspended, but am using an alternate ID (@_guy_incognito) in the meantime. Please follow my alternate account for updates until this situation has been resolved.

You may also have noticed that I'm now on WordPress. I have been looking to develop my blog further and this is very much a work in progress - but I felt I had to update on the situation as it's showing no sign of reaching its conclusion. There will be developments with my blog and I'll keep you informed.

Twitter hashtag for the suspension is #freealncl and there is a petition and a twibbon!