Is Richmond ready to go digital…?

A few things have caught my attention this week, which centre around using digital approaches to the role of Community Links, and to that of the Council generally.

I attended an interesting little ‘meet-up’ on Tuesday – a new group called #DigiWest, that aims to bring
together people from the SW London area that have interests and skills in digital technologies. Although small in number, the discussions were really interesting, and I got to explore with the others what further role digital could play for community engagement.

I was asking, because many (if not all?) Local Authorities will surely be assessing how can we strive to be more efficient, and looking at what role 'digital' play in this? We already do many things where digital is an option – e.g. our consultations are predominantly filled in on-line, residents can do many things like pay bills through the website, and we include social media in our ‘engagement’ work. These are a few examples of building digital in to the mix of what we do, but I suspect that there are more

profound changes that could be made to shake things up (digitally speaking). The change needs to be more than skin (or webpage) deep.

The background to all this, that probably originally spiked my interest, was the reference to developing the use of e-technology to involve residents, outlined in the current administration’s manifesto. NB: Apparently I am ‘the office geek’, so my interest is probably already 204.3 times greater than that of my colleagues on these matters. There was concern that this could have been a touch offensive to me, but I was rather flattered…thus proving the point I guess…

There are concerns to address. Not everyone is confident, competent or even interested in using digital platforms. So perhaps the headline should be…Richmond Council might be ready, but are residents?

Away from the office, as a regular citizen, my use of digital is pervasive. My personal communications, my file storage, how I access media, how I plan my journeys, holidays, social events, pay bills, etc etc. are all digital. I know I am ready. However, in my professional role I must retain the mix of digital and ‘analogue’, on line and off line, ‘cyber’ and ‘real world’.

An example from this very morning demonstrates this perfectly. Using several online platforms I co-promoted a volunteering event at Isleworth Promenade (St Margarets) – reaching out to local people and potential volunteers to come and help improve this stretch of the Thames riverside. The engagement (including me tweeting, Instagramming and writing about it in this blog) is all very well – but the personal interactions and ‘hands-on’ activity of the event itself, are irreplaceable by digital, on-line means of working.

We'll see what the future holds, but I think we an expect to see much more of the digital approaches (or perhaps not see, as the developments will be behind the scenes).

To sign off, I’d like to thank Colin at SWLEN, and Jason and Rebecca at The Thames Landscape Strategy for pulling together the two volunteer days. Anyone that’s interested in taking part in further activities can drop me a line (email please...no letters!).

John