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I have had the pleasure this morning to support Les Compton of Bristol City Council with presenting our website Go Places Do Things at the Engage event at the Watershed.

The workshop was arranged to discuss digital tools for participation and active citizenship with participants from the UK, Germany and Denmark.

ENGAGE is a continuing professional development programme for European youth workers who wish to understand the new ICT-enabled culture and explore how web 2.0 and social media tools can help to extend and enhance their practice.

Les and I went along to talk about our participation with young people while developing and evolving the GPDT site, as well as discussing the challenges that we have faced and the plans for the future. We discussed the access we have given to youth workers and other activity providers for adding their own events and direct feeds that have been set up from the BCC events online and 1 Big Database.

After Bristol the programme will move to Aarhus, Denmark and then on to Hannover in Germany where participants will continue to develop their understanding of how developments in ICT and online technologies can amplify and extend the voice of young people in European society.

The session was really interesting and we had the opportunity to discuss the other online solutions that people have set up, as well as talking about how to get young people to participate and engage as young editors on website content.

I will certainly be following the progress of the programme via the Engage website and will be looking to keep in touch with some of the participants at the workshop.

I attended an event this morning, organised by Bristol Media in partnership with Bristol City Council, to discuss the plans for the complete redevelopment of the Bristol City Council website and content management system.

Primarily the event was organised as an informal discussion surrounding the future of the website and the council’s wider digital offer.

The need to consult with the local digital community on their plans at an early stage was highlighted by Peter Holt (BCC’s Service Director of Communications) who recited a story about the disaster that Birmingham City Council faced when they unveiled their new website to a group of external web developers who proceeded to pull it to pieces and then create something better in the space of 48 hours!

After an overview of some of the issues with the existing platform, the vision for the new site and the plans for some data portals for public access to information, we were split into three separate discussion groups.

The sessions were set up to discuss “What ideas do we have for quick wins, and how best can we create an open environment where the local digital community can contribute to the site’s longer-term utilisation and exploitation?”.

Although in the introduction BCC highlighted that they required feedback on things such as the navigation for the site; social media and an enhanced user experience. The feeling within our group was generally that we needed more information from BCC, about who the site is for; the objectives for the site; the results from their usability audits and their findings from Google Analytics, so that we can begin to discuss and define how things such as blogs and widgets will be beneficial.

There were also many questions raised about the ‘open environment’ and how this will work if the platform BCC decide to use isn’t Open Source?

Obviously for us, we want to continue working on sites such as Go Places Do Things and 1 Big Database, where members of the council can be creative and have (almost) free reign over the content on the site, but with far more integration and information sharing between other BCC digital projects, including the new website.

I feel that the event was a step in the right direction for the council and by bringing the digital community together for a common cause they will have access not only to the best digital agencies in Bristol but access to a wealth of ideas and experience. The key now is how they use this information to move forward!

An interesting article this morning from NMA about how brands are failing to connect with young people.

The research, from Youthnet, shows that young people want to interact with the brand rather than be broadcast at about it - a concept that most marketing people are struggling to come to terms with. Our own work with young people through projects such as Go Places Do Things has always been interesting and when consulting with them they've always favoured functional elements such as forums, polls and news articles that allow them to leave their comments.

The article also mentions that 39% of teenagers go to a web site on the recommendation of a friend - only 1% behing Google - indicating how effective a viral campaign could be.

E-consultations have become an essential tool for many local authorities, helping them to fully engage with the general public. We have developed a new e-consultation module that is simple to use, and will help website administrators build their own questionnaires from scratch with the minimum of fuss.

Bristol City Council have recently embraced this new tool to consult with young people using the website, Go Places Do Things. Their aim is to gain an insight into how the website users feel about a wide range of complex issues affecting their daily lives. This information will then be used to improve services for young people in the local area.

E-consultations could work equally well in the private sector, helping businesses develop a greater understanding of their clients' needs. The resulting statistics are effectively displayed using easily downloadable graphs and charts to include in reports. Each questionnaire can be reused, edited, and scheduled to run over specific periods of time.

Please get in touch if you would like more information about e-consultations.

Our latest web project has been a true collaboration between young people and the Focus New Media team.  Go Places Do Things is an exciting new site designed specifically by and for young people in Bristol.

Teenagers from the GPDT steering group have provided invaluable input throughout the project, from deciding upon the site's 'look and feel', to suggestions on content and even provided eagle-eyed help during the bug testing phase.

On the site young people can find out about sports, arts, volunteering, music events, festivals, youth clubs, cultural and leisure events and places that can offer support.

Go Places Do Things has been developed as part of the Integrated Youth Support and Development Service (IYSDS) those who have contributed include Children and Young Peoples Services, Youth and Play Services and Connexions West of England.

Organisations can register now to add their own events to the calendar, while anyone else is welcome to sign up and leave their comments about the site.