This is how one school in America is using iPods and podcaststo assist with classroom learning and homework.

What is interesting is the way that the teachers used collaborative 'cascade' learning to teach each other and then expand the learning experience by having pupils create their own content.

The US Library of Congress is starting to use social media toolsYouTube and iTunes to allow even more people access to archive materials.

An interesting analysis of some of the practical issues the US authorities are facing implementing Govt 2.0.

I heard this morning on BBC radio 4 that part of the reason for slow case hearings in the UK Court system is weak IT and document management processes. The example given was where one part of the court system keyed in documents online and scanned them for another part of the organisation to have to re-key all the data. That is the way it has been done for over 20 years! When I started in IT back in the early 1980s I actually worked on a Magistrates Court system. Established practices and 'silos' of operations and departments caused us all sorts of challenges in developing and deploying a unified system.

To implement change in any organisation is hard. Into something like local and cetral Government with well established and embedded processes is hard.

According to an item in AdWeek the US consumption of podcastswill contine to grow until almost 1/5th of internet users will be listening on a monthly basis. The boost is being attributed to mainstream media organisations producing content.

What a number of podcasters have noticed in the UK is that the use of podcasts is increasing internally on the intranet as organisations use it for management communication, training and a form of 'event record management'.

In our latest podcast we interviewed the Leader of Barnet Council (and prospective Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Finchley and Golders Green) - Mike Freerabout his experiences of using Social Media.

Mike blogs and twitters and has been using social media tools for over 2 years. He talks about their earlier experiences.

He strongly believes in the use of the 'authentic voice' rather than having 'ghost' posts and tweets and accepting there will always be 'negative' people and if you get upset by digital 'heckling' you should not be in politics.

All very refreshing and down-to-earth for a politician!  

As it says on its website - FutureGov helps Governments exploit "...the huge potential of information and technology in driving improvement in the public sector, (so enabling them)...to get closer to its customers and deliver services that better meet the needs of the people it serves..."

FutureGov has been doing great work in the UK and is now taking the discussion to the Europe via an EU event on March 16th. The event will look at Public Services 2.0

We recently spoke to Founder and Director, Dominic Campbell about this event and his hopes for it. Listen at the Parity podcast website.

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The Parity podcastweb site goes live!

Recent research shows that 1/3rd of kids have a mobile phone by an average age of 8.

That level of adoption together with increased use of social media fill feed through to the need for more sophisticated, personalised, mobile based communications in the future. Marketing people as well as local/central Government should take note.

The US Governmenthas been using a variety of social media networking tools to ensure the message about the recent Salmonella outbreak in peanut butter is communicated widely.

"....Officials with Health and Human Services Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said social media helped them spread the word that peanut butter recall. The agencies used widgets, blogs, Twitter, podcasts, mobile alerts and online videos to warn the public that peanut butter manufactured by Peanut Corp. of America for institutional use and for additives in other products such as snacks may be tainted with salmonella. Eight people died and 500 were sickened by the infected peanut butter...."

Until now the US Government has not been able officially to use YouTube as part of any social media campaign. Reports state that an agreement is now close.

The active use of YouTube and other video 'narrowcast' sites provide a powerful extra tool for public information and advice.

The US Governmentis using social media pro-actively to engage with citizens following the recent Salmonella scare.

With increasing usage by people of social networking it becomes a very useful tool to get messages into the public domain.

Media can now track local or other geographic specific twitterers using a new application called twitterlocal.

Went for a great lunch at Ayoush in Bourne End, Bucks on Saturday. It calls itself North African. We decided to have the three course set menu. To maximise our choices we went with the Egyptian and the Moroccan choices. The decor was fun. Part Eqyptian and part Moroccan. It was a bit cold to try the outside tented area but it looked nice for BBQ's in the summer.

The picture above does not do justice to what the Moroccan main course was. The menu said 'Lamb Tagine - tender chunks of lamb with traditional Moroccan sauce, sweetened with prunes & apricots, topped with almonds and sesame seeds'. It was all of that. Hard to see in the picture but it was in a bowl so was very filling. The mixed grill from the Eqyptian menu (see top of the picture) were two big skewers of pork and chicken. Wonderfully marinated with rice and grilled vegetables and flat bread. A warm bread basked of seeded bread was tempting too especially as it was re-filled between courses.

The starters (choice from the set menu) were nice. Of the two puddings we found the couscous one from the Moroccan menu rather boring. That was no fault of the restaurant. We just did not like it - but you never know till you try! 

At just over £20 for two it was great value.

On a Saturday evening and on some weekdays they even have belly dancers. We had to make do with the guy below dancing with the tea pot on the table.

Latest research published in the Harvard Business Reviewshows influence is greatest through 'closer matched' people and once past the 3rd degree that influence levels off.

Rather than the concept of the long-tail of influence it seems to support the notion that closer people in a network influence the most.

What is interesting though is to look at the 'ripple effect of numbers. Take a retail client I worked with a year ago. They now have almost 1000 Facebook 'friends'. We know that over the last 12 months that the average number of 'friends' each person had rose from just over 100 to over 110. What that means is that a WOM has a 1st level potential impact on 1k, a second level of 100k and a third level 10m (1000 people each with 100 friends who in turn each have 100 friends).

Even allowing for significant failure to pass any promotional information on at each level the potential for free WOM marketing is huge.

 Tatworth Primary School, Somerset

It is really nice when you hear teachers are actively encouraging Primary school kids to use social media to share their activities and projects with parents and the wider community. (Source: Somerset Online)

The Tatworth School website and podcast is here.

India is banning officials using social media due to security fears. G-mail and other web based applications also banned.

Recent research by ABI in the US shows that 36% want access by TV. Application use varies depending on the age of the user.

comScore reports that an average of 5% of all mobile phone users across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are now using social media networking via their phones.

This represents a 152% gain year-on-year.

The UK has the highest penetration with over 9%.

Comscores latest data for online video consumption in the USA shows it is growing fast. Google/YouTube dominates as prefered delivery platform.

As more content owners release archive material and creat new original material consumption is bound to grow even more. The growing expansion of netbooks will enhance mobile consumption.

Some highlights from Comscore.

A great link from Conversations Matter. As they say Word of Mouth and Social Medias use in B2B is less well developed than its use in B2C. Click through to see how Cisco is approaching Valentine's Day and getting that perfect gift.

An interesting example of the use of twitter and other social media tools by US policeand law enforcement agencies.

Which brands get most mentions on social media? Check out this research