gmp24 - The Greater Manchester Police Twitter Experiment
There are two ways of responding to the GM24 event on the 14’th/15’th October 2010.
Either one can recognise the tremendous potential impact of the event itself or one can simply criticise and bemoan the missed opportunities to deploy and take full advantage of technology which already exists today. It would be a sad day if the balance of opinion was the former.
Multizone are well aware that although the software capabilities used in the GM event have been around for well over eighteen months or so, it should not be forgotten how much institutional resistance (or apathy) which has existed until recently towards Twitter and Facebook usage in Public Services.
There have been champions for promoting their use for social networking in policing (e.g.ACC Gordon Scobbie as lead for APCO, Nick Keane at NPIA) as well as several officers from Nick’s burgeoning army of 200+ twitterers who have promoted local initiatives such as Streetwatch.
However we believe that It has taken real courage for CC Fahy to press ahead with this demonstration despite risks that it could have backfired. We should recognise that and salute it. Perhaps the best way to do so is for the Social networking Community, with an interest in Community Safety to respond by taking full advantage of the opportunities which hopefully will now emerge following #GMP24.
These opportunities, in the short term, would be to more fully use existing software features, with recently developed features of Twitter/Facebook,to bring out the full power of this new phenomenon, which is evolving in parallel with Cloud Computing technologies.
Multizone will not join those who criticise and bemoan the GMP24 initiative because of the risks incurred and the additional opportunities that were missed.
Instead, Angus Fox and his colleagues, including some members of the DEVNEST community, are already seeking to promote improvements to the use of these Apps in conjunction with the use of Twitter. This could enhance the efforts of those members of Police Forces who are seeking to make progress in their use of technology to improve their social netwworking without increasing cost.
Particular features in these improvements relate to;
- Automating the processes to minimise manual inputs.
- Means of measuring performance in terms of added value arising from Tweeting.
- Improving effectiveness of delivery.
- Visualisation of the data sets created.
In some cases ,they are available here and now. Have a look at the page about visualisation of #gmp24 data for details
Conclusion
The constructive response to the GM24 Event should not be to discuss it in terms of the Half /full-half/empty metaphor but more in terms of how to fill up the cup quickly,and at the same time,improve the taste of the tea. Well done GM Police
