Open Eye:Chat

GOATs do roam

The Sunday Times has been a particularly rich vein of thought material this weekend.

I note that Gordon Brown has sent a team to see what they can learn from the Obama campaign. They better stay there a very long time because there is a whole heap to learn.

As Obama transitions to power, people who have signed up to be on his email list (Roughly 13M people on Obama's key individual network at the last count) are receiving email and text messages about the next stage of change, Organizing America, and the part that they can play in it. The message links to a YouTube video and there is a website that calls people to action (see the screen shot pictures).

There is a Citizen's Briefing Book where people get to make suggestions and vote on other peoples suggestions for issues to be addressed. The book goes to Obama for his consideration.

In short, the Obama team have built, and are continuing to build, community with access and apparent influence. Not sending out 'good news stories', not just hoping that their messages are the right messages reaching the right groups about the right issues at the right time, but building communities of interest, insight and action within the Obama framework. Pure web 2.0. Pure effectiveness.

Now, even allowing for the differences in personalities between US Citizens and UK Citizens, compare the UK process. Here we have 'GOATS' (Government of all the talents) and a range of eminent Lords being appointed to said 'GOAT' status. Building community? Citizen involvement? Web 2.0? Inspirational ? Don't think so.

Openeye gets a makeover

OK. It's finally happening. I've put it off long enough. It's time for this website to get a make over and redesign.

Having just carried our a review of police web sites for a client, I guess that the 'physician heal thyself' principle now applies to my own site. 

So. What improvements would you like to see ? I'm only too aware that there needs to be a better search facility and that document navigation needs to be easier, but is there anything else that you want ? Do you have a view on style, on content, on presentation?

I'm talking to the web people at the moment, so let me know.

 

 

Thank you

My grateful thanks go to those people who responded to my request for feedback on possible improvements to this site. Lots of useful suggestions have been made and I will be making some changes soon. Thanks again. Mike

New option. Get your Open Eye:Chat news by email

As those of you who have heard my presentations will know I constantly talk about the need for the police service to become more customer driven. Well, taking a leaf out of my own book, and in response to feedback from readers of this blog who wanted an easier way of getting their site updates (and who weren't too keen on RSS feeds), I have now added an email notification facility to this site.

 This clever little piece of technology allows you to be notified by email whenever I write a new entry. Actually, it not only notifies you, but also sends you the entry, together with any picture or graphic that I have used in the piece.

The sign up is really simple. Just pop your email address into the 'sign up' box at the top left of this site and the software takes care of everything else.

Thanks for reading Open Eye:Chat. I appreciate it and I hope the email widget makes things easier and a better experience for you.  Mike

    

Downloadable 'Resource Section'

I'm often asked on my courses if I can send/give/provide people with some of the reference documents and pdfs that I gather as part of my research for the courses.

Whilst I am always hapy to do so, I figure that it would be easier if I put them all in one place and then everyone can help themselves. As the place will be on this blog there is also a tiny, tiny, tiny, (OK, huge) element of self interest here as it keeps my site traffic up !

So. I have uploaded a heap of front cover images. I have uploaded a heap of pdfs and, just as soon as I can work out how to link the two so that you can download them ( or I can convince a grown up to show me how to do it),  I will get the grandly named 'Resource Center' (or Centre depending on where you are living and reading this) up and out there.

EPolicing - LAPD style

I have been watching the evolvement of the LAPD Blog with interest.

Whilst I believe that they have fundamentaly missed the point of blogging as a mechanism to offer an insight into the views, thoughts, and issues facing the leadership of the LAPD ( a conversation with many, making the leadership visible, accessible and familiar ) and have chosen instead to use it as a broader vehicle for press and PR purposes, it is nonetheless engaging.

If you're listening LAPD, I would still argue strongly for a separate blog to this for the Chief and the leadership team ! People (including staff) want an insight into the issues and challenges facing the top team and want to know where they stand and what their views are. Blogs aren't for PR press releases and recycled speeches. They are about personal interaction.

With Tony Blair's speech on services designed for the customer and fit for the 21st century in mind, it was interesting though to see the way that the LAPD is developing its EPolicing content.

Their recent post states: 'The Department very recently unveiled two new programs, "E-Policing" and "Crime Maps" both that can be found at http://lapdonline.org/e_policing.  E-Policing allows Los Angeles residents and business merchants to received "timely" information about crimes, wanted suspects, police programs, and other information via their personal e-mail address.  All you have to do is sign-up, and the system will link your address to the concerned Senior Lead Officer of your Division/Area.  Unfortunately, the address must be within the City of Los Angeles, and does not cover the county, or adjacent cities.   

Crime maps provide you with a system to identify the crime trends in your neighborhoods, again in a timely manner, as the information is updated Monday through Thursday.  Other links available to you on the home page can connect you to the proper authorities should you have information about a crime, or wanted suspects'

I have long ranted about the way that crime and incident information is generally presented by forces in the UK and I believe that there is little excuse for the information not being current and easily accessible. LAPD update their information Monday through Thursday and have an effective partnership with Google maps. Now that's heading towards 21st Century service provision !

Bratton blogs, shouldn't you?

So, how about that ! Just as Griff Wigley and I launch our 'Leadership Blogging' mentoring programme for police leaders in the UK and USA, Chief Bratton of the LAPD gets blogging !

The Chief has recognised the huge potential that blogs have to humanise police leaders and police operations. The Chief states that:

'Our online journal is an interactive tool that we use to deliver real-time, unfiltered information.  We invite you to take a look inside the Department to learn more about the men and women in blue who have sworn to protect and to serve you. By using this Blog, the LAPD hopes to maintain an open dialogue with the communites we serve and those who have an interest in the men and women of this organization'

In our overview of the mentoring programme where we discuss ' Weblogs as a leadership tool' we talk about how to:

• Leverage and amplify your leadership interactions that otherwise disappear

• Convey your message directly to a wider audience instead of depending on media institutions

• Use a voice of authenticity to have a one-to-one conversation with an audience

• Extend your presence with a selective window into your day

• Provide another way for people to interact with you

• Interact with staff

• Show community leadership

If it's good enough for Bratton and the LAPD, shouldn't you be a police leader that blogs?

Get in touch for details of the programme.

Work for idle hands...

Sitting in an airport (Detroit) with a seven hour gap between planes provides the space (welcome or not) to putz around a few blogs and see what's happening.

Scobelizer makes pretty good sense regarding the intrinsically human nature of blogs in his 'this is not a numbers business' post. The very essence of public sector blogging is to stimulate a conversation with your public, the citizens, the stakeholders (call them as you will). It is the humanising of the anonymous public face that makes blogging such a powerful tool.

Take a look at the highly successful Policeman's Blog. Cynical: yes, weary: yes but human and rich (and undeniably an active front line police officer). Taking a look further up the command ladder, peek at the blogs of US Police Chiefs Dan Carlson and Gary G Smith.  Long time bloggers both.

Contrast their open, human, informative style with the recent attempt by the UK's Kent Police to blog. I don't want to be too critical, as at least they are making the effort to move toward blogging (and I've been urging such a thing to forces for several years). But it is too important a medium to be left as an additional task for the Divisional Press Officer. To important a channel to merely be a repetition of an already published press release. It needs the human touch of someone who wants to listen, to communicate, to converse with the people of South East Kent. As Scobelizer puts it 'They should start blogging because they want to talk with their families. Their friends. Their customers. And other people. About what they care about.'   Policing.

Why

I guess everyone starts here and I'm no exception. My particular hobby horse: policing.

I believe passionately in the delivery of effective policing and in providing the service that's needed, to the people that need it, at the right price and in the right way.

I've done it, I write about it, talk about it and present widely in places near and far on the subject. For several years I have been actively exhorting police colleagues throught the UK to blog about what they do and how they do it. Now I'm taking my own advice. Welcome to the crumple zone.