As some of you may know, I have joined the micro-blogging craze and registered myself a twitter account and it's been an interesting experience, something like a cross between slow motion irc and blogging.

Part of the appeal of twitter is the fact that you can go through who's following your "followers" (those who are following your feed) and see who's interesting and expand your network quite quickly if you so wish. I was doing this last night when I came across this. Yup Mosman Council has a twitter feed. They seem to be using it to spread information and news about goings on in the Mosman LGA as well as inviting closer interaction with constituents.

Mosman isn't alone in the move towards utilising Social Networking to interact with its constituents, a quick "follow the followers" led me at least a dozen UK Councils, Number 10 Downing Street and the UK Parliament.

I'm going to try and catchup with the people behind the Mosman Council twitter feed and have a chat to see how successful it's been for them. I think Social Networking and Governments (of any level) has the potential to be either a wonderful success or a horrible mess. It really depends on the goals the organisation is trying to achieve and the level of committment it is prepared to make. Trying to get away with a "tick the box" exercise won't work, people will be able to pick it a mile off and will react accordingly, usually be ignoring it, or worse deriding it.

It's heady days for Local Government and tech, it just needs the right people to set out the right path, and very cool things can happen.