BIG PICTURE: Case study: How Flickr can work on a local government website

Good pictures leap from a page to celebrate, amaze and tantilise.

Poor pictures shout loudly. But not in a way you’d like.

One source of good pictures is the website Flickr which has more than four billion images. It’s something I’ve blogged about before.

What’s on there? Think about any subject and there will be pictures. A whole heap of them. And Flickr groups too. It’s the civilised corner of the web where people are constructive and are happy to licence their images through a Creative Commons licence.

Residents have self-organised and are daily taking an avalanche of brilliant pictures.

It can be a community around a love of countryside. Or of cats. Or a geographical community brought together by an area.

In Walsall, a borough of 250,000 near Birmingham in the UK that’s expecially the case. There are more than 100 members, 5,000 images and a vibrant Flickr group.

People like Steph Jennings, Lee Jordan, Stuart Williams, Beasty, Tony M, Nathan Johnstone and others do brilliant things.

At Walsall Council, we looked at their shots we wondered aloud how good it would be to showcase their shots on the council website.  After all, people taking pictures of the place they live and seeing them showcased on their council’s website HAS to be a good idea.

Our head of communications Darren Caveney and web manager Kevin Dwyer picked the ball up and ran with it.

As part of a web refresh, Kev designed a Flickr friendly header that woud apply across all pages.

Next the pictures. A comment was posted on the Walsall Flickr pages to flag up what we were looking to do. We asked people to add the tag ‘walsallweb’ to each individual picture if they wanted the shot to be considered.

We were staggered to get more than 400 shots tagged for consideration in three days. An amazing response that showed the community support.

The postbox shape of the header ruled out scores of images. We also steered clear of people shots because of any problems with permissions.

The first shot was a canalside image. By linking back from the council site to the original Flickr image we embraced the web 2.0 approach of sharing.

The image got more than 150 hits in just over two weeks.

This is the revamped Walsall Council website that celebrates our residents’ work.

SIXTEEN THINGS WE LEARNED…

1. Ask permission. Photographic copyright by default lies with the photographer. Even if there is a creative commons licence available I’d still ask. Just to be on the safeside.

2. Ask permission to name and link back to the original picture too. For some people photography is a hobby they don’t want publicity for.

3. Rotate images. Try and use pictures from around the borough. Not just the photogenic park.

4. Rotate photographers. Share the love around.

5. Use freelance pictures too. But ask permission. The licence you may have originally negotiated may only be for print use, for example.

6. Be seasonal. A cornfield in summer sun looks great in August. It may not be so at Christmas.

7. Change the shot regularly. Two or three weeks is enough to freshen up the site.

8. Stage a competition to encourage participation.  Post a topic.

9. Use Flickr images across the site. A cracking shot of a park would work well on the park pages, for example.

10. Be aware of your policies towards people. Do you need to get permission forms signed in order to use the image for publicity.

11. Join Flickr. Contributing to the Flickr community is a good way to build bridges and understand how it works.

12. Acknowledge using a shot via a comment under the picture from the council Flickr account. Comments are a social part of Flickr and a way to give praise.

13. Create a gallery. A page on the council website to gather the header screenshots.

14. Stage a Flickr meet. Generate content and allow residents to take shots of their landmarks and building.

15. Showcase your area. It’s a chance to really show off.

16. Skill up. Make sure there is the skills base for several team members to add content.

LINKS:

bccdiy.com – A website for Birmingham put together by bloggers that uses Flickr images brilliantly.

Lichfield District Council – Some lovely shots of the Staffordshire city of Lichfield using Flickr.

San Fransisco’s District Attorney’s Office – Great blog on how a US office is now using photo sharing.

LGEO Research – Good blog by Liz Azyan on how Lichfield used user generated content.

Coventry – How Coventry City Council use Facebook to showcase official images.

SPEED DATA: Ideas for local government spending transparency

Only the wisest and stupidest men never change.

Confucius said that. Only, thing was he never worked in local government.

Speed of change in open data is blisteringly fast and getting faster.

In the Spring I thought all this would be important in 12 months time. Wrong. It was important TWO months later.

Local government in the UK has been asked to publish spending over £500 line by line.

A few months back Maidenhead and Windsor Council were hailed as a shining example of how to do this.

A few months on and the shine is wearing. Yes, they deserve praise for innovation but bright people have pointed out that you can do so much more if you publish a little bit more than a handful of categories.

Change was one of the themes of a session in Birmingham by Vicky Sergeant of SOCITM and hosted by Birmingham Council on the subject of publishing spending transparency open data.

It was a chance for people to bounce ideas and was an alphabetti spaghetti of a gathering with SOCITM, LGA and LeGSB.

Will Perrin from the Local Data Panel that helps shape data.gov.uk policy delivered a clear message:

There will be no spoon feeding from on high.

Eighty per cent of problems have been solved with blog posts such as this, he says.

It’s now down to councils to be brave and stand on their own two feet.

In the words of social media pioneers: Just Flipping Do It.

The combined efforts of the groups at the meeting are likely to publish at some stage some valuable advice on how best publishing spend can be put on line. These are things that struck me in the meantime.

Here are 12 key pieces of advice I took from the day

1) Publish open data-related FOI requests. Great idea. Further research shows you’ll have to be careful about publishing personal data not just in the name and address field but also in the text of the response.

2) The size of the dataset would double if it included ALL spend.

3) You can run a programme if you are clever to remove – or redact – at source personal data from social care and children’s services data.

4) You may need to make it clear to suppliers that this change is taking place. Not all are following this whole debate. In fact, I’d be amazed if any of them are.

5) Commercial confidentiality is a grey area. As Will said, the Information Commissioner’s presumption is to publish in the public interest but there is worryingly no case law to show where this has been tested.

6) Publish a unique identifier for your authority when you are publishing open data. Finance people will know what this is. It identoifies the line of data as being from a specific council.

7) Put an email address as a first point of contact for residents queries. Maybe people don’t have to go down a 20-day Freedom of Information response route first to get an answer.

8)Set-up an Open Data Panel in your council to keep-up the pace of publication.

9) Use the licence that can be found at data.gov.uk. It’s been looked at by government lawyers. Creative Commons while great hasn’t really been tested in  law in the UK.

10) There are a lot of codes in local government finance. If you don’t know what a CIPFA BVACOP code is make friends with someone who does.

11) Don’t plough a lone furrow. As a council or an officer don’t be alone. The Communities of Practice website is an excellent place to learn and discuss.

12) Guidance maybe getting drawn-up but don’t let this stop you. The LGA, SOCITM and others are looking what would work best. Don’t wait for them, however.

13) Communications is important. You need to explain it internally as well as to elected members, residents and suppliers.

14) Getting management on board. Yes, local government is being asked to do this. Yes, a enthusiastic volunteer is still better than 10 pressed men.

15) Publish monthly. Some in the web community are baffled as to why publication can’t be done at the end of every working day. As a compromise the Local Data Panel are saying publish monthly but within a month of month end.

Ian Carbutt from the LGA made some excellent points at the meeting. He points out there are three main areas that have several sections to them.

  • What and who its for: Local authority ID code, directorate, goods and services, service department.
  • Payment details: invoices, invoice number, net amount, VAT, gross amount, date of payment.
  • Supplier: name, contract title, supplier company number or VAT reference.

Pick from those three paints a better, more complete picture and may lead to fewer FOI requests.

LINKS:

Pezholio blog on the SOCITM Birmingham local data event. A useful summary and some very useful comments.

Creative Commons

Money: Glamlife

COMMS 3.0: How open data will change the face of news and PR

Robert Peston famously spelt out the future of journalism – and PR – in a landmark Richard Todd lecture.

In a world of 24-hour multi-platform news the blog ‘is at the centre of everything I do’, he said.

His speech covered the role of the print media, TV and Twitter.

Just 12 months on and he’s out of date. Or rather, he needs rebooting slightly.

If web 1.0 was the equivalent of pinning up a digital public notice with web 2.0 we started to learn how to listen.

With web 3.0 we’ll be learning a whole new set of skills. The role of open data will be central to journalism and hand in hand as a consequence with PR. I wrote an idiots guide to it here a few months back and boy, I’m still learning.

With the open data revolution gathering pace reporters must now also be at home navigating a data store as they are on the Town Hall press benches. Press officers must do likewise.

Why? Because the avalanche of public information that will be released has the potential to sweep all before it and drown the unprepared.

Mathew Ingram, the communities editor of The Globe and Mail in Toronto, famously has said “the golden age of computer assisted reporting is at hand.”

Open Data logo

Data journalism is a phrase that will become as familiar in journalism colleges as Teeline shorthand and exam favourite The Oxdown Gazette. What is data journalism? It’s the use of apps and mash-ups to mine for news amongst released data. Isn’t that for geeks? No. Where once a council committee report would bear fruit the data set is the new news source.

Open data brings transparency and openness.

Think of it as FOI turbo charged and you’re not even close.

Hyperlocal bloggers who are at home on the web are light years ahead in the interpretation of open data compared to print journalists.

Some journalism courses understand this. The excellent Birmingham City University gets it in spades.

So where does this leave the press officer?

The fashionable thing to say is the press officer as gatekeeper will be redundant by web 2.0 and buried by web 3.0. For me, that’s hooey.

But the old-style press officer who has served time as a hack and can only write a press release is a dead man walking.

What is needed to keep pace with the information arms race are new skills.

The ability to work with or create a mash-up will become as important as having a notebook or a sharp pencil.

Will the press officer for web 3.0 be an allrounder? Definitely. Will they have to have the command of every skill? No. But the team he belongs to sure as hell collectively will have.

At the risk of sounding in years to come as a BBC Tomorows’ World clip, here is how the web 3.0 communications team needs to look:

In the days before the web the press office needs to:

  • Have basic journalism skills.
  • Know how the machinery of local government works.
  • Write a press release.
  • Work under speed to deadline.
  • Understand basic photography.
  • Understand sub-editing and page layouts.

For web 1.0 the press office also needed to:

  • Add and edit web content

For web 2.0 the press office also needs to:

  • Create podcasts
  • Create and add content to a Facebook page.
  • Create and add content to a Twitter stream.
  • Create and add content to Flickr.
  • Create and add content to a blog.
  • Monitor and keep abreast of news in all the form it takes from print to TV, radio and the blogosphere.
  • Develop relationships with bloggers.
  • Go where the conversation is whether that be online or in print.
  • Be ready to respond out-of-hours because the internet does not recognise a print deadline.

For web 3.0 the press office will also need to:

  • Create and edit geotagged data such as a Google map.
  • Create a data set.
  • Use an app and a mash-up.
  • Use basic html.
  • Blog to challenge the mis-interpretation of data.

But with web 3.0 upon us and the pace of change growing faster to stay relevant the comms team has to change.

Data journalism links

What is data journalism? A good introductory piece from The Guardian..

Mapped: the UK’s road cycling hotspot A mash-up of accident data by The Times.

Oil and Gas Chief Execs Are They Worth It? Lovely Financial Times data visualisation – needs a sign-up.

Is It Better To Rent Or Buy? New York Times data visualisation.

How to guides

What is a mash-up? Great advice from the BCU journalism lecturer Paul Bradshaw.

Creative Commons credits:

Open Data logo

Mobile phone

I LIKE: How Local Government can do Facebook

Heard the one about the council Facebook group with two friends?

It’s up there with forgetting the rings on your own wedding day for how not to do it.

Back in the day you had to be a fan of a council if you wanted to see what your council was doing on Facebook. Thing is, not everyone did.

As a platform, it’s a behemoth. Theres 500 million registered globally and more than 20 million in the UK.

Today there’s some brilliant examples of how Local Government can use it.

If you believe in the argument that you go where the debate is – and everyone sensible does – then Facebook is a must.

How to do it well as an organisation?  Go to Coventry. They do it brilliantly. Look, observe and learn.

The story of just how they do it is well covered in this blog by Steve Woodward from a talk given by Ally Hook at the Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe. There’s also this natty video of her talk if you want it direct.

Ally Hook is one of the good people on Twitter. I’d spoken to her before launching our own council’s Facebook fan page.

What’s her secret? Simple. The main messages I took are:

  1. Use the language of the platform.
  2. Be laid back.
  3. Don’t call yourself  ‘Council.’ Call yourself  after the area you represent, if you can.
  4. Don’t have a logo. They switch people off.  Have a nice picture of the place you represent.
  5. Don’t update too much. People will get bored and stop ‘liking’ you.
  6. You can delete abusive posts.
  7. Use a fan page not a Facebook group. You’ll get a breakdown of amazing stats on people who like you.
  8. Interact. Talk to people. They’ll talk back.

Coventry went from 300 to 11,000 in weeks when they started to use Facebook as an outlet for school closure updates.

There are other examples of good work too. Check out this exhaustive study by Ben Proctor . Belfast City Council do good things, as Ben quite rightly points out.

Should this be the only way Local Government uses Facebook? Of course not.

For venues and events it works brilliantly. Anywhere where there is a community it can work. People respond strongly to bricks and mortar far more than they do to institutions. Have a look at the Warwick Arts Centre, New York Public library or Solihull libraries.

Enjoy…

Creative commons: Facebook wants a new face SM Lions 12

CAKE TAPE: What cake and mixtapes can offer local government

'Mmmmmm, cake.'

Birthdays are natures way of telling you to eat more cake.

Marvellous, but what exactly does a slice of carrot cake have to say about local government?

Actually, quite a lot. So do mixtapes as a session heard at the excellent Localgovcamp Yorkshire and Humberside revealed.

Why? Two things. First, because it’s all about messing about on a project in your own time so you can learn by your mistakes.

Second, it’s about doing something in a fun, interesting, creative way.

Why Cake? As a wheeze I built a cake blog based on a rash of pictures of cake tweeted by friends from Twitter. It taught me how to crowdsource, how to use WordPress and where a decent piece of carrot cake can be found in the charming Shropshire village of Ludlow (At the Green Cafe since you were wondering. The review is here.) Stuart Harrison (@pezholio on Twitter) then raised the bar with a beer blog.

The excellent Sarah Lay picked up the baton and created a cake map. She got to know about Googlemaps as a result.

Mixtapes? Same principle. A tweet by Sarah sparked a series of blogs, a Flickr group and a Tumblr site. Why? Because mixtapes even in a digital world spark happy memories of taping the top 40 and crafting a tape to say ‘thank you!’ or even ‘actually, I quite fancy you.’

There was even a mixtape built by song contributions at the barcamp built with the help of Janet Davis (@janetedavis).

So what do cakes and tapes teach? In short, go away and experiment in your own time. You can learn. You can do fun things. Then you can transfer some of those ideas to your day job.

Amongst web developers, there is a useful saying: ‘fail forward.’ If you are going to fail, make sure you learn something about it so you can take things just that bit further next time. Messing about on a scheme allows you to do just that, risk free.

Links: Nice ideas that have emerged by messing around…

SOCIAL PHOTO: 11 groovy ways Flickr can be used by local government

There’s four billion reasons why Flickr is brilliant.

Four billion? That’s the number of images uploaded to it over the past five years.

Best bit? You don’t have to be David Bailey to get something out of it. You could be Bill Bailey.

What is Flickr? It’s a photo sharing website. You join as an individual. You upload pictures. You can add them to groups. You can comment on pictures too.

There are tens of thousands of groups on a bewildering range of subjects. Football? Check. Walking? Buses? Cricket scoreboards?  Clouds? They all have dedicated groups. There’s even one for Gregg’s shop fronts, believe it or not.

There are also geographical Flickr groups based on areas like the Black Country, Walsall or London.

Why bother with Flickr? Because a picture says 1,000 words. Besides, it’s a brilliant way to capture, celebrate and collaborate.

It’s a cinderella social media platform without a Stephen Fry to champion it. But there is a growing and exciting number of uses for it.

So what are the barriers for people to use it?

Like any platform, there are obstacles. None are insummountable.

There’s the usual cultural issues for an organisation using web 2.0. People can talk to you. You can talk back. You may have blocking issues too.

There may also be concern over images. Surely there’s room for dodgy pictures? Actually, not really. The Flickr community is a hugely civilised place. Your first uploads get checked over before they are seen. People comment constructively.

Isn’t it just for good photographers? No. Amateurs thrive here. Snap away.

How about copyright? Copyright is with the photographer. Even if you’ve commissioned it. Don’t upload someone else’s shots without their permission.

Eleven uses of Flickr in local government

1. Be a dissemenator – Stock photography – Newcastle  use it as a way of allowing stock photography to be disseminated. With photographers’ permission. Like Calderdale Council’s countryside team.

2. Be a campaigner – Create a Flickr group for a campaign – Willenhall, Aldridge and Darlaston  in Bloom, for example.

3. Be a way to open-up museums – Create a Flickr group for a museum exhibition. Look at Walsall Museums.

4. Be an enabler – Set-up a Flickr meet. It’s a brilliant way to connect and collaborate.  Here’s my blog on this event from  a council perspective and from a Flickr photographer’s perspective from the excellent Steph Jennings and also Lee Jordan.

Here’s some shots from the Walsall Council House Flickr meet (see left) which saw the Flickr group invited into the Council House.

5. Be a Flickr Twitterer – Link to pictures via Twitter. Pictures are always more popular than straight forward links. They brighten up your stream.

6. Be a marketeer – Use Flickr pics for marketing. Leaflets can be brightened up with Flickr shots – with permission.

7. Be a Flickr webbie – Use Flickr on the council website. Like BCCDIY or Lichfield District Council, Brighton & Hove Council or the Walsall Council header.

8. Be a civic pride builder – Create a Flickr group for an area, like Sandwell Council did.

9. Be a picture tart – Post council Flickr pictures to different groups. Shot of the town hall? Put it in the Town Hall Flickr group.

10. Be a stock photography user – the Creative Commons is a licence that allows the use of shots with certain conditions. There is a category that allows for not for profit use, for example.

11. Be a digital divide bridger – favourite walks or a way to celebrate heritage is an excellent way to encourage people to log on.

There’s eleven. That’s for starters…

Steph Jennings from the Walsall Flickr group and the Lighthouse Media Centre in Wolverhampton made some excellent points at Hyperlocal Govcamp West Midlands on how Walsall Council used images on their website.

This YouTube clip helps explain it:

This blog is based on a session at localgovcamp Yorkshire and Humberside in York (#lgcyh) which also had input from @janetedavis, @allyhook and @barnsley55.

Much kudos to the Walsall Flickr group and to the inspirational @essitam and @reelgonekid.

Creative commons: Smiling blonde girl Pink Sherbert Photography.

Flickr screenshot from the Walsall Flickr group pool.

Other pics by Dan Slee.

GOT, GOT, NEED?: Panini stickers as social media

Like a salmon returning to the river it was born Panini World Cup stickers are back. Irrestible. Alluring. Exciting.

And like those fish battling up stream it sparks something deep inside many men – and yes, it is largely men.

It’s a deep seated yearning to hunt and gather Honduras midfielders. Then stick them into a book.

It’s a desire to tell the world: “Switzerland? Yes, I have the complete team. Even their star midfielder  Hakan Yakan.”

What are Panini stickers? They’re adhesive pictures of footballers. But they’re far more than that.

Growing up in the 1980s Panini stickers were the social media of their day.

Armed with a pile of doubles – or swaps – children would show them to other fellow collectors. The ‘got, got, need, NEED!’ commentary gave a status update.

They brought people together. They still do.

Here are some tales of the power of Panini.

1 My brother Paul’s best present

Somewhere on my brother Paul’s book shelf is a tattered Europa 80 Panini sticker book from the European Championships. It cost thirty quid on ebay.

Paul is a reserved man. He’s not given to flights of fancy. The album was the only present I’ve ever given that has caused him to leap from his chair and smile as broad as Marco Tardelli.

It was my way of punching him on the shoulder and saying: ‘Good on you, brother.’

Why? Because it was the first sticker collection we both collected. Not together, of course, but as sibling rivals in a sticker arms race.

We would use a Subbutteo pitch to play tournaments with the stickers as players.

Our mum often asked us why we didn’t join forces and collect them together. Pah! What did she know?

She didn’t understand the thrill of opening a packet of stickers to find Karl Heinz Rumminigge or the Chile foil badge.

2 Panini West Midlands swaps Facebook

Facebook as a platform for swapping. This is inspired. And not just because Russ Cockburn – @dwarfio on Twitter – sent me Stoke City’s Thomas Sorensen.

It’s a case of a digital native using the platform her knows to create something using social media to bring people together. As the Facebook group says ‘bringing the playground to Facebook.’

Link: Black Country Facebook swaps

3 It costs £412 to collect a sticker album

Si Whitehouse is good at maths. He’s good at lots of things, actually. He worked out how much it would cost to collect a World Cup 2010 sticker album. It’s more than £400.

I’m not sure whether I should be amazed or frightened at the sums of money involved in collecting these things. You’d get better value for money from a Build HMS Victory in 100 easy to follow steps.

But you know what? I’m still collecting them.

Link: Si Whitehouse blog

4 Panini as Flickr set

Think of it as a photo love story fired by a passion for Panini. I like Dave Russon. He does good things with his camera.

Here he has captured brilliantly the 18-step process from buying, through anticipation, to sticking, to stocking the swaps pile.

LINK: 365 Days of Photos

5 Who is Senor Panini?

They are from Modena. They started in 1960. Two years later they were selling 29 million ‘units’. Their first World Cup collection was 1970. Thank you, Wikipedia.

LINK: Panini Wikipedia

DATA HELP: A site to marshall arguments and explain open data

Think there’s a lack of good resources to get your head around open data? Not any more.

Two bright people – and me – have drawn up an easy to follow blog post and data wiki

to marshall argument and counter argument.

There’s also a series of links to more resources, examples and case studies.

Why bother? Two reasons. Firstly, open data is a revolution that’s sweeping government both national and local. Politicians in the US, UK and further afield recognise it is a vital tool for transparency and just plain better democracy.

Second and most important reason for the sites? Because there are lessons to learn from social media.

In 2008 visionaries in local government were seen to be taking risks by adopting social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

What helped win internal arguments were websites like this (insert link) that helped marshall arguments and build a repository of case studies.

I’m convinced the local data blog can play a role in doing the same.

It’s a true collaborative effort between two hugely talented people Michael Grimes from the Citizenship Foundation, Stuart Harrison from Lichfield Council and myself whose day job is at Walsall Council.

It occurred to all of us that a resource like this would be helpful after meeting at the West Midlands local data panel which helps feed back ideas to the people behind the excellent UK data respository data.gov.uk.

It aims to be a place to read arguments and counter arguments for open data and also to help answer the question ‘what is open data?’

In the spirit of web 2.0 and open data we are throwing open our effort to colleagues from the public sector and importantly to citizens too.

Go and have a look. Comment. Add a link or an argument.

It was Charles Dawin who wrote: “In the long history of human kind (and animal kind too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

We’d be happy if you came to the site to collaborate. Or failing that just come and have a look at the trams scooting about on the Helsinki realtime tram map. They’re utterly brilliant.

Creative Commons credits

Earthquake map – Nick Bilton

Maths – Haags Uitburo

BE BASIC: A digital lesson from business to hyperlocals and local government

“We are the news supertanker,” an editor who shall remain nameless recently said. “And these bloggers will be swept aside.”

It’s not a view of hyperlocal sites shared by Marc Reeves who quit as Birmingham Post editor last November.

After more than 20 years in print journalism he moved firmly to digital launching the West Midlands version of thebusinessdesk.com – a site laser targeted at busy business people.

Sitting in Urban Coffee in the heart of Brum’s financial district he cuts a relaxed figure suited but tieless with a healthy tan.

Without the weight of a print works to keep warm and a 200 year old pension fund to service? No wonder he is relaxed.

To the National Union of Journalists Marc in the past has been a figure of suspicion. To the digital community an inspiration.

He’s here at a Jeecamp fringe event to talk to hyperlocal bloggers and students about his experience with his new start-up.

There are only a handful of news people who really understand the new digital landscape. Jeff Jarvis is one. So is the Bristol Editor. Marc Reeves is another.

This event Marc is talking at could just be an exercise of grousing at how journalism is going to the dogs. It doesn’t pan out that way.

Marc carefully explains the thinking behind the site. There’s a few surprises. And some lessons that can be learned by the local government, hyperlocals looking to monetise what they do.

The event was brilliantly summarised by organiser Philip John. No, I didn’t agree with all of it. But there were  a few lessons that can be learned by the public sector as well as hyperlocal bloggers.

How does the Business Desk work?

Business people are busy people. They’re at their desk early planning their day. A targeted email with 15 relevant news headlines is sent before 9am. The email links back to the website.

MORAL: They’d looked into their audience. Who it was and how they could best be communicated with. Then they tailored it. They DIDN’T build it Field of Dreams style and hope they’d come.

How do they know what stories are popular?

Google analytics help tell the journalist what stories are popular and which are not. Extra time and effort is then spent on ones which are popular.

MORAL: Don’t work blind. Listen to see what is popular.

Where does content come from?

Refreshingly, it’s fresh copy. Stories emerge from networking, talking to contacts as well as through standard press releases and announcements.  They started as a two man team and have increased to six in the West Midlands. With similar sites in Yorkshire and the North West as well as the West Midlands they have a turn-over of around £1 milion. That’s a serious figure.

MORAL: Well written content updated daily can work. Traditional journalism CAN work.

What about paywalls?

What are paywalls? They are barriers to content you need a subscription to get past. They won’t work, Marc says. But they’ll work beautifully to push traffic towards sites like The Business Desk. They won’t work for hyperlocals.

MORAL: Information is free on the web. Think of other ways to be self-sustaining.

So how does the thing pay for itself?

Site advertising pays but increasingly events do too. Niche events that 40 people will pay money for insights on work, for example. They also become ways to built the online community offline too.

MORAL: Don’t look at one way to generate funds.

What about the site traffic?

Unlike newspapers, Marc was hugely free with insights into his site traffic. There’s about 1,200 visitors every day with 2.5 to three page impressions per visit.

This is from a base of 4,282 and 2,400 email subscribers. Small numbers? Maybe. But this is a start-up. And remember, the Birmingham Post used to sell around 10,000 a week.

MORAL: Build a community around a niche.

Email? Isn’t that boring?

It generates 90 per cent of site traffic. That’s big figures. I’ll say that again. It generates 90 per cent of site traffic. That’s not boring. It’s brilliant. It’s not something unique to thebusinessdesk.com. The IDeA Communities of Practice site does something with a daily email update.

MORAL: E-mail is the overlooked communication tool of web 2.0. As late 90s as it is you can reach big numbers through it. It also acts as a tap on the shoulder to remind you that site you signed up to is there.

So, what’s to learn?

I’m convinced there are lessons here, not just for news websites but for web users in general and yes, that does mean the public sector.

1. Think basic. Email may not be sexy. But people use it. In large numbers. Get an email subscription going. Don’t be afraid to be web1.0.

2. Think sustainable (content). Think about how the site will last. Make sure there’s a team not one overworked individual.

3. Think sustainable (finance). Think through how it can last and if not be a not-for-profit at least be a not-for-loss.

4. Research. Put some thought into your audience. Think who you are writing for. Think how and when they’d like content delivered. Be niche.

5. Wear different hats. Be a journalist. Be a marketeer. Be an advertising sales person.

6. Write your own content and develop a voice.

PIC PICKY: If a picture tells 1,000 words why are bloggers so rubbish at using them?

Striking pictures leap from a page and grab the reader by the throat.

They demand attention, illustrate a point and reel a reader in.

So why the ruddy heck are so many blogs laid out pictureless like telephone directories?

Am I being unrealistic? Maybe. I’ve worked in the media for more than a decade and I’m used to thinking text plus pictures. Not everyone is wired that way. Fair enough.

But I’m a reader too and you know yourself something that looks rubbish has a stronger chance of getting overlooked.

Yes, through blogging you swiftly publish content.  Being able to chuck stuff up is a strength.

But please, remember that a dowdy looking page may not ever get read.

Look at Linda Jones, or Jayne Howarth or Lee Jordan.

They’re  a good marriage of words and pictures. You’re drawn into them.

FIVE things to do to add pictures…

1. Use your own pictures. It’s surprising what good images you have. Particularly if you are David Bailey.

2. Use Creative Commons pictures Flickr.com  is a brilliant resource but it’s also a community so remember to be polite. If you are looking for a shot of a farm gate search ‘Farm + gate + creative commons.’ You’ll get some interesting results. Creative commons gives you permission to use a pic so long as you observe certain conventions.

3. Free to use stock image websites. Help yourself so long as you sign in. You’ll have to pay for the best ones. Not so best are usually free.

4. Use the ‘blog this’ button on Flickr. Many pictures you can add straight to your blog by following a set of instructions but be careful. The pic comes at the same size everytime and appears in the top right hand corner. It also publishes straight away which means you could have some surprised people scratching their head at their RSS feed of an empty page with a  picture floating there unless you add pre-written content pronto.

5. Don’t steal. Yes, it’s tempting just to save to desktop but it’s better not to.

Picture credits:

Elephant in the room – David Blackwell

Field – Dan Slee

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