COPtastic
Fantastic evening with colleagues at the National e-Government Award Ceremony. The best bit was definitely that opening the envelop moment and the announcement that the IDeA COP initiative had won in the Leadership and Professionalism category. Absolutely fantastic - Steve Dale and Micheal Norton could hardly control themselves. Fortunately I wasn’t asked to make an acceptance speech - it would have been hideously embarrassing. The core band of enthusiasts know who they are and the 26,000 people now registered on the network bear witness to their achievement. I guess if forced to single out one person it would be Lawrence Hall, largely because he had enough confidence in the programme to submit it for competition. Lawrence is the one holding the award in the picture.
I must admit its much more fun going to an awards ceremony when you have a chance of winning something. As a director at the IDeA I go to quite a few, but not as a competitor. Its easy to be cynical about awards ceremonies but they definitely are an opportunity to confirm that something has been achieved and to celebrate it.
COPs are not the IDeA’s only social media success. The National Graduate Development Programme has also just won a recruitment industry award (the top award) for its video content on the recruitment web site.
I am the Director of Services at the 
Just refelcting on a great night - made even better by the fact we’ve (at last) got some recognition for all the hard work that has gone into making CoPs such a success. Hoping now that this will kick-start some sustained marketing and promotional activity. There’s still quite a few across the LGA family who don’t know anything about CoPs - some attended the Social Media workshop that Dave Briggs and I ran on Wednesday 21st Jan. Look at what they are missing!
[...] also John’s IDeA Blog for photos of John Hayes, Michael Norton, Lawrence Hall and me picking up the [...]