Why Do I Get So Angry With My Local Council?

Why do I get so angry about Stoke-on-Trent City Council?

They make it too easy for people to laugh at them, I don’t know if it is naivety, stupidity, lack of skills or just plain old lack of interest. I work in Social Media, I speak to people and advise them on a regular basis, I have been to a number of meetings with the council and spoken to different people about using Twitter for good, or to shout and rant about the really poor usability of their website. I have never asked for a penny, not money for parking, not a consultancy fee, nothing. I have spent hours speaking to people inside the council about how they can use the tools available on the web for good, how they can make small changes that could make a difference to people in the city and to their image.

All of this seems to fall on deaf ears. In the past 2 weeks Stoke-on-Trent City Council have again surpassed themselves with poor implementation of ‘things’

A couple of weeks or so ago, I attracted a new follower on Twitter, @stokehighways who proclaim ‘Notices from the highways department at Stoke-on-Trent City Council for issues affecting traffic and travel in the local area‘.

Yay! Go Stoke…

Protected Tweets! Useful….

Yeah Go Stoke.. Oh, protected tweets.. ?

They are following 12 and have 9 followers. What use is having a public service twitter feed that is protected? I have thought long and hard about this and to be perfectly honest I cannot think of any reason at all. The account in its current state is at best a waste and at worst a joke. @dordotky runs the @stoketraffic twitter feed and has been trying to get some data that would allow him to develop this service for about 12 months, with no luck. Scott has the time & the skills to do something clever with the data, the City Council it seems do not have the time to understand how Twitter actually works so the chances of anything innovative or exciting happening are probably slim.

As I am writing this I have just put in a follow request to them, to see how long it takes for anything to happen.

Today the City Council (re) released the cyclingstoke.co.uk website, a beautifully hand crafted site, with a domain purchased through uk2.net, I know this because again the City Council have either done things on the cheap and not paid uk2.net for the Full Web Diversion package or they haven’t read the instructions on how to apply 3 clicks to make the banner at the top of their site go away. I don’t use UK2.net but it only took me 2 minutes on the web to find the two links.

8 Responses to Why Do I Get So Angry With My Local Council?


Mike, Not being a person who doesn’t understand too much
about social networking sites etc. but I do understand your
frustration when it comes to how the very people who should be
leading our city seem to not know anything when it comes to using
the new technology to benefit its citizens, surely they must look
at the ways other towns & cities in the uk have embraced
what’s on offer and utilised it to enhance our standing and make it
all easier for the people to use it and feel proud of their city
council. To me it all seems to be run like the old style working
mens club, whatever you do don’t let the membership know what’s
going on, just stick an extra £10 on the bingo and they’ll all be
happy, except at at the moment there’s no extra £10 to spend on the
bingo

Nick King(Quote)

Nick King January 13, 2011 at 12:28 am

Hi Mike
Too many council people set in their ways to realise there is a whole new method of communication available to them. They don’t realise how bad they look when someone visits a website or social media platform and it looks naff. As for the protected tweets that’s beyond belief.

Len Foster(Quote)

Len Foster January 13, 2011 at 9:15 am

As someone who has set up and then protected what should have been a public Twitter feed, I can guess the reason why this was done. Probably some bright spark is really trying to make a difference, but has a nervous line manager whose unfamiliar with social networking. This may have been the only way they could have done it. I hope this public, constructive criticism is just the thing which helps their managers realise that public info should be public instead of making them yank the whole thing.

Notonyournelly(Quote)

Notonyournelly January 13, 2011 at 9:30 am

Notonyournelly: As someone who has set up and then protected what should have been a public Twitter feed, I can guess the reason why this was done.Probably some bright spark is really trying to make a difference, but has a nervous line manager whose unfamiliar with social networking.

This could be true, I agree, but there could be better ways of doing it if this is the case. How about just creating an account, any account and playing with it and sending some un official tweets?

Why create the account and start following people?

I really want things to be better but I am tired of banging my head against a brick wall.

Michael Rawlins(Quote)

Michael Rawlins January 13, 2011 at 9:41 am

Len Foster: They don’t realise how bad they look when someone visits a website or social media platform and it looks naff.

That is the worst bit of all of this, I know people look at what goes on and put their head in their hands and sigh, not just me (I Know I am hyper critical).

If this is how the organisation intends to use social media then they are probably better of just not using it.

Michael Rawlins(Quote)

Michael Rawlins January 13, 2011 at 9:43 am
Pingback: Tweets that mention Why Do I Get So Angry With My Local Council? ‹ Michael Rawlins – Just about me & stuff.. -- Topsy.com

I am just wondering on your opinion on Fathers that dont pay there CHILD SUPPORT?

anon(Quote)

anon January 14, 2011 at 1:48 pm

anon,

Don’t really have an opinion on that to be honest..

Maybe you should read this you illiterate troll

http://www.better-english.com/easier/theyre.htm

Michael Rawlins(Quote)

Michael Rawlins July 5, 2011 at 9:40 pm