Guardian Newsblog

The Guardian’s newsblog on Love Lewisham:

The battle against vandalism is becoming increasingly hi-tech, with a London borough surfing the wave of citizen journalism to crack down on civic nuisances.

Lewisham borough council in south-east London has a website which allows residents to send mobile phone images of graffiti, fly-tipping and similar problems. The photographs, sent by SMS or email, appear in a gallery on the site, lovelewisham.org, along with responses from the council about what action will be taken. Once the problem is resolved, the notifier receives a text message from the council.

idea blog on love lewisham

Here’s what Ingrid over at Partnership Place has to say about our partners in Lewisham:

I just spotted this website today - Love Lewisham. Residents can post pictures of what’s broken in Lewisham (e.g. graffitti, abandoned cars, broken street furniture) as a way of reporting it to the council to get it fixed. I think this is a fantastic idea. I would upload pictures to a similar website for my local council. It would also seem like this is a great way to help council services prioritise which jobs need to be done first - because public servants can see what’s in the worst nick.

But the website isn’t just about showing pictures of what’s broken, but what’s been done to fix them. Many of the pictures have additional details, including what action was taken and before and after shots

She’s got links to a couple of graffiti stories.

broken/not broken

From This is Broken which describes itself as a “project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it”:

The Love Lewisham website allows citizens to submit pictures of “broken” things in their community, to alert the local government for need of a fix.

I’m pleased to see they’ve filed this under “not broken”.

Love Lewisham Winning the NMA

image0002

Originally uploaded by New Statesman.

This is the photo of Lewisham’s Nigel Tyrell (right) and I picking up the New Statesman’s New Media Award for modernising government from The Rt. Hon David Miliband MP, Secretary of State for the Environment.

Other photos from the evening can be found here.

What the New Statesman says

This is what the New Statesman have said about Love Lewisham:

Lovelewisham is based on a simple premise: residents want to keep their communities clean and safe. This web site gives Lewisham residents the opportunity to take digital photos with their mobile phones of any environmental issues, such as graffiti, rubbish and pot holes, and send them via SMS message to alert clean- up crews of problem areas. Visitors to the site can then chart the progress of the clean- up online through before and after photos, or they can also request and SMS update when the mess has been controlled. “The software exudes brilliance not only because of its ease of use and simplicity, but because of it’s sheer effectiveness,” Lewisham resident Kamal Uddin said. Lovelewisham’s web site wins this award for its ability to focus on a specific community problem and employ a genuine use of new technology to fix it. This is a novel idea that could and should be replicated by more local governments.

Anyone wanting to replicate the idea can contact us to explore how we can work together.

at the awards

As we mentioned previously, Mediaklik’s work with Lewisham made the shortlist for the New Statesman’s New Media Awards in the modernising government category.

We were up against directgov and Devon and Cornwall police, so you can imagine how delighted we are to have won the award.

The judges seem to have liked the interaction between public and council that the site facilitates.

Who should use Mediaklik?

Getting Mediaklik into the hands of the right people can make the difference between getting information back which will help make your environment better or not. 

Our experience is that you can’t assume who your most proactive people are going to be, but here are some tips, that might help:

• People who are interested in technology;
• People who spend a fair amount of their time out on the streets; and
• People who are passionate about the environment.

These categories aren’t exclusive, I know a person who before they came across Mediaklik had never used a computer.  He stuck it it because he’s passionate about getting the streets cleaner.  (In that case it’s had knock on benefits for the individual and their family closing the digital devide - he’s now got a computer and broadband at home.)

I’ve also come across senior managers who’ve been given handheld computers with the application loaded on it and who very rarely use it.  Mainly because they’re not out and about so don’t see the problems as much.

But once you have early adopters they need to become the set of people who’ll drive the use of the application with the second wave of their peers.

Double Devolution

 

One of the things we’re pleased about with Mediaklik has been the way that the public have been enabled to direct services through using the product.

This is what David Miliband was talking about when he said this:

Over the next decade, I believe there is a major opportunity to change the way citizens and government communicate and interact with each other.  Lewisham Council already allows citizens to text or photo-message a complaint about graffiti, dog litter or abandoned cars and receive a text back confirming the problem has been removed in less than a day. Information about your neighbourhood is empowering.

APSE Awards

Lewisham entered the Love Lewisham website for the Association of Public Service Excellence Awards for 2006.

I’ve just been told that selected as finalists in the best information and Communication Technology initiative category. 

My correspondent from Lewisham says:

Given that there were 500 submissions - so at a guess around 50 in this category - and we are now in the final four, we’ve done well …. so far!

Ruth Kelly on Mediaklik

Ruth Kelly MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Minister for Women, from a speech she gave in about devolution:

A second rung must be a clear mechanism for triggering action when things are not going right – the ability to push for change when local public service providers let people down.

We have seen considerable recent innovation in ways for communities to make their views heard. Citizen juries, deliberative forums and so on. E-government products are opening up many more. Here in Lewisham you have the ‘Love Lewisham’ website, giving residents a direct link to improve council services. They can send digital pictures from phones or computers to trigger action and improve their surroundings.

We need to go with the grain of these changes and work with different localities. But these existing channels must have real teeth – linking expressions of concern into a clear and transparent process which demands serious consideration.

Mediaklik are the partners with Lewisham in the development of their Love Lewisham website and the technology that makes it all run smoothly.