Location-based social media and social care

Local by Social South West, Friday 28 January 2011

Rich Watts

Thanks for the opportunity to come and share some ideas with you today.

It may seem peculiar that someone whose work is based in Essex is here in Bristol
talking about anything, but social media has a lovely habit of breaking down
geographical barriers.

In a way, that’s the main theme of what I’m talking about today, since location-based
social media could make a very useful contribution to the social care system as a whole.

Given the twin desires of minimising how long I speak for and maximising the
opportunity for discussion, I’m going to get right down to it.

My talk is in 3 brief parts: the first considers some of the problems of sharing information
in the social care system; the second is on how location-based social media can
contribute to the solution; the final is to outline why a 2.0 way of thinking in this area is
useful.

There are undoubtedly challenges in taking this from idea to implementation, but today is
not the day for those. I'm sure and hope we'll talk more about them during the
discussion.

Part one – problems with sharing information in social care

To take the first part: what are some of the problems associated with sharing information
in social care?

It is easiest to answer the question through asking another one and sharing two facts
about the social care system.

The question is this: if you or someone you cared for needed social care support, where
would you go? Where would your parents go? Where would your grandparents go?

And the facts are these:

•40% of Councils don’t have an information strategy in place for adult social care
(note/aside: there is a statutory duty on LAs to provide information about non-
residential services, and are expected to signpost to appropriate alternative
provision)

•Councils spend on average £1.98m a year on IAG, a total of £294.2m across the social
care system – and that’s 2007/08 figures.

What that question and those facts suggest is that, despite some efforts of LAs, there
are significant asymmetries in information between the supply-side in social care (i.e.
LAs) and the demand-side (i.e. people).

Basic economic theory tells you that information asymmetries are no good thing. In this
case, the practical effect is that they undermine the social care economy, which means
that service users don’t have the information they need to be able to successfully
navigate the social care system.

This, of course, is where our hero Foursquare makes their entrance in part two.

Part two - how location-based social media can contribute to the solution

Of the many things that social media is, it’s something that enables people to overcome
information asymmetries. What’s more, it allows them to contribute to the solution
themselves rather than waiting for a LA to do it for them.
So what does the idea look like in practice?

The basic concept is that social media like Foursquare and Gowalla allow people to
check-in when they’re at a location. You can add some commentary to the check-in, as
well as add tips, photos, information and meta data like tags, as well create to-do lists,
plus the usual ability to share this information with friends and vice versa.

Using these tools, hundreds and thousands of service users (and citizens more
generally, of course) can contribute to the issue of information provision in social care.
They can create and maintain what is effectively a repository of all the services, products
and resources they access in their local communities, attaching data such as prices,
opening times, comments on quality, location and offers to each of these things.

For anyone who is also then in that area (i.e. someone who lives there, is visiting as a
one-off, or simply seeking to understand what is available in an area), all they need to do
is look at Foursquare or Gowalla and immediately see a picture of what is around them.
Or they can access this information in advance of their visit or before they move house.

The job of the local authority in this world then becomes one of catalysing people to
share and contribute, and aggregating and sharing this huge wealth of data that has
already been created. There's also a role to ensure that there are suitable platforms
available for anyone and everyone to be able to access it.

Similarly, the job of service providers and/or community-based organisations is to

augment the information that users of their services have provided. It’s also to monitor
the data that’s on there as another means by which to gather feedback from clients and
citizens.

It's a simple-ish solution, but one I genuinely think could have very positive benefits to
users, providers and commissioners alike.

And the reasons for this bring me to my final part - why a 2.0 way of thinking in social
care is particularly needed.

Part 3 - why a 2.0 way of thinking in social care is needed

I've focused today on location-based social media, but my argument can be generalised
to social media and 2.0 ways of working in general.

Social care, with its policy drivers of personalisation, user engagement, and a
partnership between the individual and the state, should be well-placed to embrace 2.0.
But, as ever, there's a lingering suspicion - probably underpinned by questions of risk
and safeguarding - over the efficacy of social media in a social care setting.

So here are 3 broad arguments I'd put forward to advocate for location-based social
media (and so social media as a whole).

The first is that it shifts the power dynamics between the state and the individual.

•People contribute to it rather than having it thrust upon them. Creating and sharing data
and information in this way provides a sense of ownership for the people
sharing/contributing it, rather than being passive recipients of the information
presented to them

•It is bottom-up, not top-down. Local government collating information is a very central,
coordinating way of doing things and assumes everyone goes to the same place to
get their information. They don't, and that means there are big gaps in coverage
and/or audience

•It's a two-way process, not one way. If someone has some information, it tends to get
passed "up" to the LA and the individual no longer has control or ownership over it,
which is a vertical transaction from the person up to the Council rather than a shared
exchange.
The second is that social media makes the most of everyone's expertise.

•The location-based social media approach uses local expertise and is therefore likely to
pick up information that the "centre" might not. It makes everyone's expertise more
available

•It is an open invitation for anyone to contribute their expertise based on their
experiences. Information collection relating to social care can often be the preserve
of providers and support services in the private and voluntary sectors to local
councils; this approach supplants that

•It's geographically expert. Typically, centrist approaches mean by proxy that information
literally closer to the centre (i.e. the Town Hall) is more likely to be represented in the
centre's repository. Information that exists a greater distance from the centre may not
be captured or even known about; Foursquare and Gowalla overcome that.

Finally, social media is efficient, transparent and intelligent.

•I'm loathed to stress this too much, but it's likely to be a hook Councils will find
attractive. Location-based social media could provide a cheaper contributor to
establishing information strategies, especially as a way of keeping things accurate
and up-to-date. Current approaches are resource intensive and require staff to find
the information, process it, publish it and then tell people about it

•Creating, capturing and sharing information this way is more open, transparent and
"accessible" a way of sharing information than currently happens

•Using social media provides a natural aggregator of views and opinions, as well as a
form of quality assurance, that can inform commissioners' intentions in a more
engaged, less superficial way than traditional information strategies may.

Conclusion
Of course, social media is by no means a silver bullet for some of the significant issues
that face the social care system.

But for the particular part of the system that is generating and sharing information, I'd
argue that social media - and particularly location-based media like Foursquare and
Gowalla - is ideally placed to overcome the asymmetries in information that currently put
both service users and LAs at a significant disadvantage.

Thanks.