Social web & social media, consultancy, training and advice from a flâneur of the internets. Blogger, writer, broadcaster and runner of Birmingham: It's Not Shit. I also do the odd bit of art.
August 9th, 2010

Where consultation and campaigning break

We’re in need of new era in how people consult with authority — campaigning and lobby groups have gotten so good at getting people to use e-mail or other messaging systems that anyone soliciting input needs to have a large staff and a good process for dealing with the deluge. MPs are cracking under the strain of response.

I commented on a post on Michael Grimes’s blog (about an direct-MP-connection iPhone app) recently (8/7/10):

“the problem with online consultation exercises isn’t the collecting but the bottleneck at the place where the comments are directed. Patient Opinion [for example] has a very different form of consultation — wide, ongoing, informal — to direct contact with MPs or any public figure. It’s much harder to see how they [MPs] can scale without the burden of feedback or any contact back becoming too much.

In more conversational consultation those receiving the comments need to have the skills to be able to deal with comments that are possibly not responses to direct questions, but may also be part of a wider conversation. There also need to be feedback mechanisms in place.

We’re already seeing MPs particularly complaining of being buried under the weight of campaigning emails — something will snap if we (they, someone!) don’t think about how to deal and respond with mass communication.”

The problem is no longer establishing communication, but managing it. Maybe we need to mature a little and be realistic (much in the same way the media need to) — if communication takes minimal effort then it must deserve minimal effort in response. Maybe we can’t expect the same response to an automated email (or a Tweet, or joining a Facebook group or signing a petition) as we would to a bespoke email or conversation — but how to make sure response is proportionate?

Petitions try to give a central point of contact and collate strength of feeling, but they are binary — you have to agree with everything the petition says, there’s no conversation or discussion.  And they can easily be dismissed, as we’ve seen on the Number 10 petition sheet.

How does someone in authority really gauge strength of feeling, how do they  respond — is conversation even possible at this scale? It may be, but new mechanisms and a rethinking of expectation are needed.

by Jon Bounds | Posted in twitter | Tags: , , ,
June 30th, 2009

Are MPs happy?

And don’t worry this isn’t going to be a rant about expenses.

At Moseley Barcamp I gave a presentation about ‘conversational psychogeography‘ and the potential for an explosion in data analysis of emotions and place. It was a very broad overview and I continually admitted that real research needed to be done (I’d love to do it, but might have to find someone to fund it). As part of the talk I mentioned by emotional analysis of Birmingham social media – which outputs at @birminghamuk on Twitter.

During the questions afterwards Tom Watson suggested that my Birmingham UK emotion scraping could be applied to groups of people – Twittering MPs in particular. Technically it certainly can, and so I did. It’s at jonbounds.co.uk/arempshappy and tweets a score each day via @arempshappy on Twitter. It uses exactly the same code as the Birmingham UK system, except that it takes its data from an aggregated feed of the tweets of all MPs produced by Tweetminster.

Using groups of people immediately makes the analysis of the data easier (or at least offers precedent) – there’s already a website offering (limited, automated) analysis of people’s tweets. It’s called tweetpsych and uses established linguistic techniques (eg LIWC) to produce scores for different aspects of personality based on person’s tweets. to extend this to groups of people should be easy.

Although restricting analysis to groups of people opens up possibilities, the groups need to be be large enough to make the sample useful and also static enough to keep the statistics baring comparison. In some respects the group of tweeting MPs is ideal – and interesting enough to be worth analysing.

How useful it is is another matter, it was easy enough to set up – and could be improved upon by someone interested in groups – so let’s watch it and see if it spikes anywhere interestingly.

it’s not psychogeography, but it’s interesting.

Tom Watson suggested that my Birmigham UK emotion scraping coud be applied to groups of people – Twittering MPs in particular. Techically it certainly can, and so i did. It’s at jonbounds.co.uk/arempshappy and tweets a score each day via @arempshappy on Twitter. It uses exactly the same code as the Birmigham UK system, except that it takes its data from an aggregated feed of the tweets of all MPs produced by Tweetminster.

Using groups of people imediately makes the analysis of the data easier (or at least offers precident) – there’s already a website offering (limited, automated) analysis of people’s tweets. It’s called tweetpsyche (check) and uses established linguistic techniques (link to software) to produce scores for different aspects of personality based on person’s tweets. to extend this to groups of people should be easy.

Although resticting anaylisis to groups of people opens up possibilites, the groups need to be be large enough to make the sample useful and also static enough to keep the statistics baring comparison. In some respects the group of tweeting MPs is ideal – and interesting enough to be worth anallising.

How useful it is is another matter, it was easy enough to set up – and could be improved upon by someone interested in groups – so let’s watch it and see if it spikes anywhere interestingly.














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