This week the Leader of the Council, Jim Lynch and I kicked off our programme of Here to Hear You, with a community engagement meeting in Oban.
We’re asking:
- What do you wish your council’s leadership knew about your community?
- What would you like to tell them about the place where you live?
- What do you think are the big issues, the key questions, for your community?
- Is there anything you’ve always wanted to talk about, but haven’t had the opportunity yet?
The Here to Hear You community conversations programme will see people all over Argyll and Bute invited to talk to us and our next event will be on Coll.
I’ll share the themes that come from these conversations but the important thing will be the actions we take in response to the feedback we receive.
As members of our community don’t forgot that you can sign up and attend.
The conversations continued at the Argyll and the Isles Strategic Tourism Partnership Summit. As you can imagine the visitor levy featured heavily but overall it was very positive to catch up with so many great Argyll and Bute businesses.
One of the interesting things touched on at the Tourism Summit is the increasing role of AI. Apparently an increasing proportion of people now use AI to plan their travel itineraries. This means that it is really important to have good information available on websites, which is where AI models hoover up information from.
I’m sure people will also use it to enquire about public services so it will be increasingly important to ensure our online information is kept up to date.
AI also featured in other conversations between the public and private sector this week. This is definitely a space where I feel out of my depth but I’m learning. I am continually blown away by the potential of AI and surprised by the extent to which it is already being deployed.
Like many of you I’ve dabbled with ChatGPT. I’ve also seen demo’s of Co-pilot, Microsoft’s tool which offers really exciting possibilities. We’re currently looking at whether this is something we can invest in.
I’m sure many of you are already using free AI tools for work and I’d be really interested to hear how you’re using it or how you’d like to use it? Let me know at workingtogether@argyll-bute.gov.uk
Pippa
Pippa Milne
Chief Executive
