A couple of weeks ago I agreed to take part in the Parity Podcasts series, aimed at

interviews with technical and business people working in the area of Collaborative Information Management and Web 2.0. In the podcasts the people share their knowledge and experiences of developing and deploying systems and solutions.

Joining me on the podcast was Mike Freer, leader of Barnet Council. Since taking on the role of Social Media Manager in Barnet last year, I have been impressed with the commitment and strength of political leadership around the social media agenda from Mike. As Adrian Moss (our interviewer and the main man of social media at Parity) writes about Mike’s podcast:

He strongly believes in the use of the ‘authentic voice’ rather than having ‘ghost’ posts and tweets and accepting there will always be ‘negative’ people and if you get upset by digital ‘heckling’ you should not be in politics. All very refreshing and down-to-earth for a politician!

In my section of the podcast, I took the chance to talk about the thinking behind the Public Services 2.0 event that FutureGov is jointly running at the EC in Brussels in two weeks’ time (fine other than the one faux pas as Tom Watson MP won’t be able to make the event in Brussels - oops!). I also mull over the rapid emergence of social innovation on the web and how it is starting to create new forms of public service delivery with or without government (although there is still a long way to go on that!).

If all goes to plan, I should be popping up on the Parity site with one final podcast very shortly, where I will be talking about my thoughts and learning from the work I have been helping Barnet with over the past ten months - so keep an eye/ear out for that!