SupportingPipes visited Perth last week, although this time Snook were stranded in snowy Glasgow peering into the workshop via Skype. So with a sprinkle of improvisation and last minute planning the Aliss Team led the way. They were joined by Gillian Easson from Nesta’s Age Unlimited Scotland Programme.

It has been a little while since we’ve given you an update on our work with Aliss project, so here’s what happened at the second of the Supporting Pipes workshop a couple of weeks ago in Edinburgh. 20 people made the trip down the event, making up five groups of one facilitator, a service provider, a carer and a person(s) with a long term condition(s). Oh and we were joined by another member of the FutureGov family, Carrie Bishop.

My first blog of 2010 is to let you know about what is bound to be one of the big events of the year in the digital government world. I’ve been fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of the Programme Committee for the second installment of Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC, a much expanded, more diverse and more global committee compared to the 2009 edition.
If you are interested in sharing your Gov20/digital engagement story (read more about the event tracks here) the deadline for submissions is 6th January (ie THIS Wednesday - I know, sorry!) [read more]

Wowzers. It’s been a busy year for FutureGov and we’re only just catching our breath. Not only have we done loads, but we’ve had a few changes as a company and grown in a really good way, with the chance to work with some brilliant people. Dominic and I thought we’d share some of our highlights like the cool projects we’ve been involved in, the events we’ve hosted and the thinking we’ve done. Warning: This might read a bit like one of those cheesy family news letters :s

I’m very excited to tell you about FutureGov’s next event - The Crowdsourced Council: online tools for participative policy making. Not only is it a triumph of aliteration, it’s also shaping up to be a great session about tools and tactics for getting actual people involved in shaping policy. In partnership with Capital Ambition, we’ve invited some great people to show off their tools: The founder of Uservoice will be there along with the clever Audio/Videoboo people of Best Before Media, the co-founder of Yoosk, and the founder and CEO of Debatewise. We’ll also be introducing US company GovDelivery and getting a look at new tool Quiet Riots.

As the keen followers of this blog will know, we like to organise (and attend) the odd event or two here at FutureGov. From FutureGov Network meet ups, to Gov2Gov events, to online film premieres, to lending a hand at bigger events like Gov20 Camp, Reboot Britain and Social Innovation Camp, we love getting out and about listening, learning and sharing. At all of these events and more besides, there has been a rapid growth in real time reporting on the goings on during the sessions due in no small part to the explosive adoption of tools like Twitter.

Today, FutureGov will be leading a session at the first (and hopefully last?! ) Reboot Britain, an event pitched as an event aimed at exploring “how this new digital world can help revive the economy, rebuild democratic structures and improve public services”. The session falls within the Political Innovation Camp stream curated by the thoroughly democratic Paul Evans following on from some other fantastic looking sessions on the drivers of change and how we can push for the adoption of social media as a tool for (hyperlocal) engagement in local government.

So we have just gone live with the FutureGov Nework social networking site! We have developed this site as a really straight forward, open and easy to use place to start to capture those things that we all do to improve public services - share stuff we’re all working on wherever we are, look at what other people are doing and, most importantly, talk.

A bit like back in March this year, it seems event time is upon again here in FutureGov Towers. So here’s just a quick post pulling it all together to let you know where you can find us in case you fancy coming along and joining in the fun yourselves.

This is the transcript and presentation from my slot at the IDeA’s “Councillors Connected” online conference on their Community of Practice site.