Social media in use

I’m based at NAVCA who are the national umbrella organisation for the network of LIOs (Local infrastructure Organisations) across the country, these are the local support organisations that provide resources and give a voice to local front line community groups.

My role is to help these “supporters” make the most effective and efficient use of technology for themselves and the groups they work with, though sharing knowledge and best practice, the work of the regional ICT champions and helping them fill gaps in ICT services provided.

I’m also finding that there is an increasing number of LIOs (such as Councils for Voluntary Service) that are using social media (sometimes called Web 2.0 or new media) tools, such as blogs or podcasts as an extra resource to communicate with their members. There are also a number that publish RSS feeds of their news, events and ICT work enabling you to use a feedreader to have the latest information without constantly re-visiting the websites to check for changes .

Whilst social media isn’t just all that ICT is about (we don’t forget the groups that struggle with the basics of ICT, strategy, planning, funding, networking and affordable technical support) these examples do represent a step forward in the way the third sector is using ICT.

News from NAVCA is available either as a direct RSS feed you can subscribe to, or in the form of an email sent through from the RSS feed directly to your email In-box. All the RSS feeds from the organisations listed below are also grouped into a single RSS-mix of news from LIOs, to show all updates in one place.

The country is well covered, but your help is needed to make it grow – please get in touch if you feel your organisation should be listed.

This map is also part of the TALKWiki project set up to provide a space for local authorities to share collaborative discussion spaces and to map where local authorities are using social media. Thanks to Paul Carruthers for his help, ideas and support.

View Larger Map

(NOTE – Some organisations have more than one social media activity, zoom in on the map or look at the list in the table on the TALKWiki site to see them all).

So if you are a CVS with a blog, if you publish your news through an RSS feed or are doing something innovative with podcasting or Flickr etc. and want to be shown on this map, or if you know of an organisation that should be, then please contact me.

Thanks