Links I like 12.04.04

Local elections 2012: predicting the 50 councils to watch – LGiU blog The Local Government Information Unit charts the more hotly contested local councils elections this year, which have yet to turn the heads of many people if my (very basic) tests of public opinion represent a wider view. It identifies a number of councils [...]

So many budget bloggers, so little reading time

Here are some of the budget-related blogs I have read this week. None are intended to reflect my viewpoint, but all are relevant to my area of work in some way. I have always enjoyed the run up and reaction to budget day: miles of newsprint and days of airtime are devoted to the subject, [...]

Links I like 12.02.25

The most overused jargon in press release headlines – PR Daily This post links to Schwartz MSL’s study into the use of keywords in American press release headlines, which can increase the prominence of PR content on internet search engines. It cites some examples of jargon which will be familiar to Brits, with ‘solution’ listed  as [...]

Trouble for Times: hacking gives Harding a headache

There were some highly uncomfortable moments at The Leveson Inquiry today for The Times editor James Harding, who apologised after one of his reporters was found to have hacked into an email account to unmask anonymous police blogger DC Richard Horton (aka Nightjack). Harding told the inquiry he ‘sorely regrets’ not disclosing the actions of [...]

Housing hits the headlines

The publication of the housing strategy has led to some interesting headlines over the weekend, which I thought I’d share below. Notwithstanding the complexity of the issues around housing in this country, it’s interesting to see how different media treat the same information.  The Guardian played it straight on Friday with a piece setting out plans to use brownfield sites to [...]

Links I like 11.11.02

The notion that social media is a great leveller is wrong – Jon Worth A great post from Worth who sets out why, after six years of blogging, he appears to be less influential than when he was ranked in the ‘top 10′ by people like Iain Dale. Despite the talk of social media being [...]

Lots of love for local government

I was recently asked by the We Love Local Government team to supply them with a tweet about why I ‘love’ the sector for a post they were putting together to mark the anniversary of their blog. I was flattered to be asked and duly set about putting my thoughts into a tweet for them to use [...]

Links I like 11.10.22

‘Engagement’: fashionable yet bankrupt – Canalside View Martin Weigel writes at length about the industry-wide misuse of the term ‘engagement’ and hits the nail squarely on the head a number of times. The problems he cites in his nine ‘bad habits’ of engagement highlight his main point that the phrase has become so widely used, [...]

Will Twitter tackle ‘turgid job aps’?

Local newspaper editor Alan Geere seems like a man who hates time wasters. The editor in chief of the Essex Chronicle Media Group has become so sick of ‘wading through turgid letters of application’ from job seekers that he’s asking people to keep it short and apply for vacancies using Twitter. On his blog, he [...]

State of social media in the States set out

I’ve come across this presentation from Nielsen called The Social Media Report today. Although it is focused on the growth of social media use in the US, it contains some interesting snippets for people who are getting to grips with it in the UK. One message comes through: if you’re not using social media, you’re [...]