My thoughts on a failed experiment with Second Life and how we need to use evidence as the basis for the decisions we make in public sector communications, marketing and web development.

My thoughts on where the local government communications sector is at with social media and how things need to be in the coming year or so.

More information about this Thursday’s social media for public sector communicators course in Glasgow.

I’m running a social media course for public sector communicators in Glasgow on Thursday, 13 May. Read more about the course and feedback from previous delegates.

Follow the conference live here.

Here are the slides from my presentation on social and new media in public sector communications to today’s CIPR conference.

Some pointers if you’re looking for local government people on Twitter.

Some useful statistics on social media usage as well as a couple of handy posts from Neville Hobson.

An article I wrote for CIPR on local government and social media.

Three local government websites that show a new direction for councils online.

Birmingham’s social media community has shown the public sector how to consult more effectively online.

Get the lowdown from a whitepaper on Barack Obama’s campaigning success with social media.

Links to two social media research projects with surveys needing respondents.

A great graphic from David Phillips that links classic public relations theory with contemporary practice.

A bumper round-up of interesting content I’ve seen on the web in the past few days.

Steph Gray has created a superb tool for collecting examples of public sector social media in the UK.

Thoughts from an interesting two days at conferences last week.

Here’s a copy of the slides from my presentation today on how local government can get started with social media.

The recent “fake Tony Benn” saga on Twitter highlights a reputational risk for public relations and communicators to manage.

I’m speaking at two conferences next week – taking a local government angle on the mobile internet in Birmingham and social media in Manchester.

Here’s my final report from my CIPR dissertation earlier this year.

Things that I seen on the web this week that were worth bookmarking.

Social networking, email marketing and some UK usage stats.

A few interesting research findings and some thoughts on RSS.

Links to interesting content I’ve found.