You’re not the first person to voice an opinion against the email link and, to be fair; all the responses so far have come as comments.

So fair enough, we’ve removed the email link.

Geoff

Thanks for the comments. The key for us is to convey our message(s) as clearly as possible and to ensure council news reaches the widest possible audience.

We’re not looking to do anything flashy just for the sake of it and, to use the example of video content, this will only be used if it enhances a particular story.

This is not an exercise in simply ‘ticking all the right boxes’. We want to know what the audience wants and then respond.

Geoff

Be wary of equating online communication with multimedia content – do it well and it’s very good indeed (eg Common Craft’s explanations of tech questions http://www.youtube.com/user/commoncraft?gl=GB&hl=en-GB – imagine “plain english” explanations of the mechanisms for approaching Council) do it poorly and it’s embarrassing and ignored – most online communication is still writing, just a different type of conversational writing.

Presenting facts in an easy to read, share, use, re-use way is much more important than anything flashy.

Opening as many channels of communication is good in one respect, but it will fragment debate (and direct communication is nothing more than a canvassing of opinion) – debate is more valuable here I think.

Fair point on the ‘click here’ link and we’ve made a change.

The idea was not to solely canvas opinion via email. We’ve allowed comments on this blog because we want to open as many channels of communication as possible.

We’ve also got a presence on Twitter (http://twitter.com/bccnewsroom) for the consultation and Twitter will definitely form part of the online newsroom.

I agree there are a lot of extremely creative and helpful people in Birmingham and this is the initial stage of trying to harness the expertise out there so we can deliver a better news service. We’d like to see that develop over the coming weeks and months.

Thanks again for the comment.

Geoff Coleman (Press Office)

Next up I’d ask why are you soliciting replies via email: Wouldn’t public comments be a much better way of not just getting feedback, but also displaying the evolving discussion to interested visitors?

Also think about twitter: it is still a relatively niche application, but the attention it is getting in the press is massive: and if you have a word with your IT people you should be able to display a twitter feed directly on your homepage: E-consultancy do it splendidly at http://econsultancy.com/
I would also recommend that this is monitored closely: things happen quickly online and if you are going to engage in the social media space you need to be able to also move quickly.

There are a lot of very creative, very helpful social media / online marketer type people in Brum: I like to think of myself as one. If you can harness their ideas and input, maybe with a meeting or two, you could garner a lot of free help and ideas.