Councillors blogging – looking for encouragement

The www.blogger.com application is perfect for councillors wishing to trial weblogs for the first time

I’ve promised to help a few Councillors from Welwyn and Hatfield Borough Council start their own blogs. I already manage a project that is intended to get as many of them as possible to manage a small personal website.

Anyway, here are the five aspiring bloggers. All have made a start, but you will see that – in most cases – they need a bit of coaxing.

Hatfield West – Kim Morris
Peartree – Louise Lotz
Handside – Fiona Thomson
Panshanger – Roger Trigg
Welwyn West – Cllr Mandy Perkins

At least one of these councillors should be able to take this idea to the next level and really develop their status and skills as a local representative. Perhaps all of them will do it?

I know that they would all welcome any advice and encouragement that you would like to give them. It is easy to overestimate how apparent the advantages of blogging are – and how easy it is to pick up. In my experience, I’ve met a large number of great local representatives – hard-working, articulate and confident in their roles – who were quite stumped by the idea of blogging.

In many cases, Councillors aren’t quite sure how to use weblogs to their best advantage. My own view is that blogging may be useful to councillors for the following reasons:

• A way of improving one’s interactivity – interactive people are better at representation, and are more likely to be given good ideas by those around them
• Enabling one to think out loud, and to allow people to see the way that your thoughts are developing
• Presenting oneself as an open-minded approachable individual
• Staying within the peripheral vision of a lot of people – helping to raise the status of councillors in general
• Making people more loosely aware of what you are up to – often turning you into a resource for others in the medium term

Having reviewed a lot of the literature that has come out of various government initiatives, I found that a huge – unnecessary – emphasis was placed upon the risks involved, and the legal issues relating to blogging. More than anything, councillors need help and encouragement in this field. My friend Shane McCracken has produced a very good handbook called ‘Civic Surf’(PDF). There is also a good ‘pro-blogger’ guide to setting up a good professional weblog – a 31 day programme. and it is well worth a look. It’s probably a bit ambitious, but you never know…

Go on! Send one of them an e-mail or a comment – make a positive suggestion on how they can use their blogs to improve their work as a councillor.

And be nice…..!