My own contribution to ReadWriteGov Peterborough was to add a bit more interaction to proceedings, which I did via the social media game.

Two teams worked on two scenarios: firstly a council wanting to engage citizens on a policy issue (in this case, charging for waste collections) and secondly a council wanting to collaborate online, both internally and with partner organisations.

Once the scenarious were developed, a member from each team took their scenarious to the other team, who would act as ‘consultants’ designing a solution using online and offline tools, printed on cards, each with a cost attached to them - a simple points system, reflecting effort as much as cost. Each team had a miserly budget of 10 points, and neither managed to produce the solution under budget!

The game provides a number of benefits to those playing it:

• It encourages people to put tools into content, and work out what is needed, not what happens to be cool at the time
• It introduces them to new tools they may not have come across before
• It encourages the mixing of offline and online methods: this is not an either/or situation and a good blend of cool online stuff and old school face to face engagement is necessary

Hopefully everybody had fun, and maybe learned a bit too in the process. If you have any questions, do leave them as comments to this post, or email me at d@vebrig.gs.

Hadley Beeman works with the web team at the London Deanery, where she is working on the development of an online social collaboration platform for junior doctors.

Hadley discussed a number of interesting issues in her speech, including:

• Focus on need rather than technology
• Need to overcome cultural barriers
• How to ensure a network is trusted

Here are Hadley’s slides from the day:

If you have any questions for Hadley, please leave them as a comment to this post. Alternatively, you can email her at hbeeman@londondeanery.ac.uk.

Steph Gray is the Social Media Manager for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. He also writes an excellent blog called Helpful Technology.

Steph spoke about the many interesting initiatives DIUS are working on, including:

• Innovative blog based consultation with Innovation Nation
• Widgetised consultation with Science and Society
• Using government offices to host open space events

Here are Steph’s slides from the day:

If you have any questions for Steph, please leave them as a comment to this post. Alternatively, you can email him at steph.gray@dius.gsi.gov.uk.

Dominic Campbell is the director of FutureGov Consultancy as well as Barnet Council’s Social Media Manager.

Dominic spoke about the various efforts that Barnet are undertaking to increase engagement and participation between the Council and the community it serves. Some of these initiatives included:

• A blog written by the leader of the Council, called Leader Listens, which runs on open source blogging software
• A site where the people of Barnet can share their views of where they live
• Actively engaging with local bloggers to help resolve their issues

Dominic’s slides will be put online here in the next few days.

If you have any questions for Dominic, please leave them as a comment to this post. Alternatively, you can email him at dominic.campbell@futuregovconsultancy.com.

The first ReadWriteGov event is being held at Peterborough City Council, where I have been helped out by Fran Paterson in organising things. It’s happening on the 29th October between 1.30 and 4.30pm and is open to anyone who is interested, though I would seriously encourage people from local government to attend, along with folk from other parts of government and the public sector. You can sign up for the event at the Eventbrite page - it’s £25 for public sector folk and £50 for others.

It’s going to be a fun afternoon - I’ve lined up pals such as Dom Campbell, Hadley Beeman and Steph Gray to come and talk about the exciting stuff they are doing with Barnet Council and DIUS, respectively. In addition to these luminaries, I’ll be running a social media game style workshop, which will hopefully help attendees identify how they can use social media in their organisations.

I do like to practice what I preach, and this blog will be a way of letting those who can’t attend still get some value out of the event, by posting up various types of content during and after the day. I’m hoping to get the presentations from speakers up here, as well as photos, videos and audio wherever possible.

You can also interact with us all on the day, through our Twitter account. Just follow @readwritegov and post your thoughts and questions as we provide a bit of a running commentary on what is being said. We’ll do our best to respond to any comments people have.

Of course, this is just the first of what will hopefully be many such events, which could be held all over the country. So if anyone is reading who fancies hosting a ReadWriteGov event, please do drop me a line.