Damian Beaumont was at the Public-i usergroup in June to talk about the way that his council, Cheshire West and Chester, has used Connect Social for a new set of meetings called the Community Leaders Debate.
As Damian explains in the video interview I did with him at the user group, Connect Social‘s powerful integration of social media has enabled him and his colleagues to stage fully interactive meetings, like the Community Leaders Debate.
Damian says that these meetings aim to give local people the chance to talk in a forum away from the standard decision-making process to everyone involved in delivering services – including the Council, blue-light services, education authority and others.
Watch the video below…
Cheshire West and Chester used Connect Social to host live chat (Coveritlive), Twitter and UserVoice widgets into the webcast to help people to have their say, ask questions and contribute to debate.
He says: “From a customers’ point of view they could see everything that was going on: the debate that was in the room and the debate that was happening on the internet.”
While this was just pilot, Cheshire West and Chester is interested in holding more similar events – using social media to hold interactive meetings with all the key service providers.
He says: “It went very well. We had a very high standard of debate. We had about an hour’s worth of debate and I think we could have gone on for another two.” You can watch the case study presented by Damian at the usergroup here.
