Before social media, comms was traditionally done by a small team within an organisation. Could a charity challenge help to encourage your staff to use social media?

By GUEST EDITOR Dyfrig Williams

In September, the Staff Charity of the Wales Audit Office took on a mammoth task – to walk the entire coast of Wales in 24 hours. And we did it, all 870 miles of it. Whilst the undertaking of the task was an impressive feat in and of itself, I was also impressed by how our staff used social media to communicate their trials, tribulations and ultimately, their success.

Sign me up!

I may have been the other side of the country, but by following #audittrail15 I could see how staff were getting lessons on using Twitter. Encouraging people to use social media in a hectic work environment can be hard work, but the challenge provided a safe environment for people to try out new technology. The informal aspect also gave the opportunity to try out some different social media tools, like using Vine to share the sights of Ceredigion.

Public services constantly have to change and adapt, so it’s no surprise that the way we share learning has to too. Here’s how you can make the most of your webinars

By GUEST EDITOR Dyfrig Williams

Anyone who’s run an event will know that they’re expensive things. So to complement our shared learning seminars, the Good Practice Exchange at the Wales Audit Office have been running webinars on a range of topics that affect public services. Here’s some of what we’ve learnt so far.

Start small

Doing things differently is always nerve racking. I haven’t been as nervous as the first time I clicked the ‘begin webinar’ button for quite some time. Helen Reynolds has blogged about how she’s finding her feet with podcasting and isn’t actively promoting her efforts with Ben Proctor. Similarly, our first webinar was a pilot webinar with twenty attendees from an IT seminar. If it went wrong, it wasn’t the end of the world, but fortunately it didn’t.