Settling down in front of the fire this evening, I was intrigued to note a strange statistic in the good old Express & Star. In a column I’d previously not been troubled by the existence of, ‘A week in local politics’ written by staffer Dan Wainwright, there amongst the old rope pretending to be incisive reportage, was a PR puff for Walsall Council’s efforts on Twatter. I reproduce the item below, but the gist seems to be that Walsall is celebrating sending it’s millionth message via the social network. This came as something of a surprise to me, and I’m sure many other denizens of the Walsall Twatter community who are well aware of, and respectful toward, press officer Dan Slee’s commitment to involvement with the new social media. The shock arose due to the fact that as of tonight, Saturday the 19th of December 2009, Walsall Council’s twitter page says they’ve sent only 1,977 tweets. The confusion arises due to the method of enumeration involved – that of multiplying their follower number by that of their number of tweets. This does indeed result in an impressive figure, but I have to say, it’s complete bollocks and I’ve never seen such statistics used before.
I know the figure can’t have been generated by Dan Slee himself, as such aggrandisement would be completely out of character and he would be well aware of the piss taking, derision and general merriment such a statement would incur. Since a lack of numeracy – particularly with matters of a pecuniary nature – seems to be a hallmark of the council, one can only assume that the same person responsible for costing the new ring road scheme filled in on PR duties while Dan had nipped out for a quick doughnut.
Interesting, too, to note that Mike ‘Blofeld’ Bird seems to be advocating a new policy of council staff listening to the great unwashed. In my humble experience, generally, they already do. The ones that don’t listen to the public seem to reside in the cabinet and follow Mike’s example. Just ask any resident of Willenhall…
