Broadcasts

Weekly Broadcast Friday 26 March

What's your role in what comes next?

Simon Norbury, former CIO at Westminster and more recently, senior member of the Government Connect team, has joined the speaker line up at the Socitm National Conference, Birmingham, 22 April. He will be delivering a high level view of the challenges ahead for CIOs and senior IT managers as the public sector faces up to dramatic spending cuts, and making suggestions about how to respond.

Support the Open Election Data Project

Socitm is supporting the Open Election Data Project which is encouraging local authorities to publish results from the local elections on May 6 in a format that will make the data easy to re-publish and re-use. The project has been set up by Chris Taggart, developer of OpenlyLocal.com, and a member of the CLG's Local Public Data Panel on which Socitm is also represented.

IT efficiency and Open Source: the Camden experience

Camden Council is driving efficiencies and cost savings since adopting Open Source software. This has freed the council from expensive software licenses and enabled them to test IT projects at minimal cost before rolling out to the rest of the organisation. View the video at: http://www.socitm.tv/CamdenCouncil

Recent postings in the Socitm blog: 

CFDG (who?) and other interesting things - by Adrian Hancock
Web management - is an analogy with brand management useful? - by Vicky Sargent
Tomorrow's Public Services by Martin Ferguson

Weekly Broadcast   Friday 19th March 2010

1. Hurry! Book now and claim your early bird booking discount before it closes
2. Read Socitm's response to the Ordnance Survey consultation
3. Featured on Socitm TV: reduce IT spend by 85% with Open Source
4. Promote your success in Better Connected

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Hurry! Book now and claim your early bird booking discount before it closes

Book your place at the Socitm National Conference on 22 April in Birmingham  by the end of today (actually we'll give you an extension till Monday morning 9am) and you will still qualify for the early bird discount. Our theme is doing things differently in tomorrow's public services and we have a great line up of speakers and workshops to focus your thinking.....

Read Socitm's response to the Ordnance Survey consultation

Socitm has submitted its response to the Government's consultation  on future options around licensing and use of geographic information from Ordnance Survey (OS). Among other things it argues that base level geographic data should be freely available for non-commercial use.......

Featured on Socitm TV: reduce IT spend by 85% with Open Source

Watch this interview with Phil Andrews, UK Director for Red Hat, where he discusses how Open Source can contain the cost of IT projects by around 85%.

Promote your success in Better connected

We have created a badge to add to your website and e-materials to promote your success in Better connected. We have also created some information explaining the ranking and the assessment process that you can add to your website or link to on www.socitm.net. We will be mailing the 'badges' to councils that achieved three and four star rating next week.

Weekly Broadcast, Friday 12 March 2010

It's the people, stupid: don't miss Michael Frater at the Socitm National Conference

Echoing Bill Clinton's rallying cry, former council chief executive Michael Frater will deliver his prescription for the tough times ahead. Read more and book your place now, before the early bird discount deadline is reached.

What's the relative cost and value of your phone, web and F2F channels? Sign up now for Channel Value Benchmarking Group 4

How are you doing, compared with other, similar councils? Could active channel management save your council money without diminishing customer satisfaction? Join our next series starting April 16 - find out more today.

See Socitm at Charity Finance Directors' Group IT Conference, London, 16 March

Socitm will be exhibiting at this event next week, selling the benefits of membership to IT professionals working for charities, voluntary and related organisations. Greater access to professional development opportunities and networking through our new Socitm Third Sector community are part of what's on offer. Come and visit our stand if you are going to the event. More at CFDG mini site

Weekly Broadcast   Friday 5 March


Tomorrow's Public Services: listen to our webcast on LGCplus now

Head of Policy Martin Ferguson presents this month's webcast, part of a collaboration with LGC. We need to abandon 'old ways' and address the 'whole system' of public service delivery in localities he says, in a curtain raiser to a theme that will be developed at next month's national conference.

Better connected 2010: have your say

Among the widespread media and blogger commentary on our annual council website review some 'plaudits and punchups' are going on in our web community space on the IDeA CoP - so join in! Better connected itself can be downloaded from the Socitm website.

Doing things differently...

...is the title of Socitm's National Conference on 22 April in Birmingham. The focus will be on tomorrow's public services - and whether lack of money will force the transformation e-gov funding never did.

Socitm special discount: Learning Pool Conference

Learning Pool is offering Socitm members a discounted delegate rate for its Public Sector Learning Conference on 12 May in London. Visit www.learningpool.com/events and enter promotional code SOCLPB for reduced rate of £125, saving £25*. If you are a Learning Pool customer enter SOCLPA instead, and save a further £25. For more information call 0207 101 9383 or email hello@learningpool.com.