I was lucky enough to hear both Paul Kaplan and Mark McGuinness speak at an event last week (organised by CreateKX – thanks!) about the power of social media generally, and blogging in particular.
Paul spoke on a similar theme recently for GCN and once again his enthusiasm for the possibilities of the medium shone through. He’s also consulted for some government departments and agencies on the subject so you may be familiar with his work.
I hadn’t seen Mark speak before, though I had come across his blog. He gave a positive, but importantly measured, talk about how blogging has built his reputation and business.
They’re both worth listening to if you get the chance.
Mark has posted up a whole page of resources on his blog – slides from his presentation, must read books, on blogging, links to good examples of blogging, link to an article about the legal implications of blogging, and a good explanation of what RSS is all about. Well worth a read if you want to get some background info to all this stuff.
Paul has posted up his slides too together with a podcast of his talk.
Whitehall Webby 
Way t’ go Jeremy. Particularly like the Disclaimer … a bit like ‘Blog Smart’ for Government. What would be interesting would be to create a Wiki space (amybe on GSI?) to write a Civil Service Code fit for the new spaces…
I think that would be excellent and its something I’ve been mooting as a recommendation as part of the social media review. Not sure how easy it would be to implement mind, probably easier to buy some capacity at wikispaces or similar. Definately got potential though.
A combination Facebook/Linked In for civil servants would have massive benefits too, creating communities within the community…
Thanks Jeremy, glad you liked the talk. Interesting piece on Why Civil Servants Don’t Blog – I’d love to read Sir Humphrey Appleby’s blog!
You and me both Mark!