That’s the first minute of the film. 14 more to follow. We ‘re almost ready to send out copies of the documentary and booklets to Local Authorities and public bodies around the country. The recipient CEOs are invited to show the film to senior officers and members. We’ll also help out with 25 events by arranging for a local blogger to attend and answer any questions about what the reality of blogging is like.

If you would like a DVD copy of the documentary (including 3 booklets), extra booklets or to arrange for us to get a blogger to you then please email.

It’s an area all bloggers would rather not get involved in, but it is best to be aware of the principles of libel and how it applies to you as a blogger.  Mike Butcher, has written a very useful and informative guide to Libel and Defamation Law for bloggers.  Read it and bookmark it.

Councillors should of course pay equal attention to the Standards Board Code of Conduct and your own council’s code of conduct.  ICELE produced some useful guidance which you can download.

Council officers might also refer to the Civil Servant social media guidelines recently published by the Cabinet Office.  They are succinct but useful.

The Cabinet Office released “Participation online Guidance for civil servants” today. It has been some time in gestation but the really good news is that it is only one page long. In fact the guidance has been boiled down to 5 main points and a paragraph on how it relates to the Civil Service Code.

Mary Reid has pointed out that David Buckle, CEO of South Oxfordshire District Council has started a blog to keep people informed about the by-election caused by the standing-down of Boris Johnson.

Hats off to David for starting a blog at a time that will no doubt be busy and very high profile.

Rob Rees from Gloucestershire Trading Standards has started a blog to lead the debate on food.

Fantastic! At last one central point for the county to have a say about all the food issues of today and the future.

This is civic leadership even though it isn’t senior management or an elected representative doing it.

As part of the changeover from Cllr2.0 to CivicSurf we’ve moved the blog to the civicsurf.org.uk domain and changed the design to fit in with the other material we have produced.

There will be a lot of new material appearing here over the next few weeks so please do subscribe by RSS (using the nice orange icon to the right) or by email (using the box on the right) to ensure you don’t miss something useful.

Channel 4 News carries an intriguing story from Malaysia:

Candidates contesting some posts in Malaysia’s ruling party will be required to set up blogs, an official has said.

The move was a surprising turnaround for governing politicians who until recently derided online political writing as lies and rumours.

Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary general of the United Malays National Organisation party’s youth wing, said all those vying for national youth posts must have blogs to introduce themselves and their programs ahead of party elections in December.

“All candidates must have blogs,” Abdul Rahman said. “If not, they are not qualified to be leaders.”

Cllr Tony Tomkinson, from Clavering in Norfolk, started blogging in January 2008 as part of the civicsurf project.  His main objective was to use his blog to maintain communications with the 25 parish clerks in his constituency.

He used the blog to inform readers of developments from Norfolk County Council that affected his area.  In March he wrote about the possibility of a gravel pit in the village of Haddiscoe. He had been to a public meeting the night before attended by over 100 people from the village.  Over the following week Tony had 400 people visit his blog and within four weeks 37 comments had been left on the post.

I’m sure some of the people leaving comments had been to the meeting but by using the blog they are able to ensure their views are in the public domain.  Possibly some had not been able get to speak at the meeting. Also of interest is that people from outside the village were able to contribute including those with experience of gravel pits.

The post is a superb example of how using a blog a civic leader can gather considered and in-depth views from a wide range of people with a wide range of views.  The blog hasn’t replaced the village public meeting but it has complemented it very well.  Although Tony is prevented by his position as a councillor from expressing an opinion before the Planning committee meeting, he is providing leadership by encouraging discussion and opinion through having a place for that discussion to take place.

I’ve added a page to the site to describe “What is CivicSurf?” The page includes a downloadable PDF (single page A4). Hopefully this might be helpful to any officers wanting to discuss the project with colleagues.

We asked the opinion of the people on this site and a few Gallomanor friends in local government and the response was strongly in favour of civicsurf.

We’ve even started developing a logo and soon this website will transfer to www.civicsurf.org.uk with a fresh new look.

One of the reasons I particularly liked civicsurf was that it gives a label to something important that was previously undefined. civicsurf is the aggregate of online local information about a town or area. It is comprised of blogs, sites such as fixmystreet.com, local press and public bodies. In essence the civicsurf is like a public meeting occurring online all day everyday. Our project will inspire civic leaders to get involved in that meeting, those conversations through contributing and hopefully leading.