The video above shows how some people respond to adversity. Sound it Out lost core funding from the Arts Council last year and since then has been stretching it’s network and imagination to keep going. Tamperine is a stroke of genius.
Author Archive
#tamperine is a great fundraising idea from a Birmingham charity
Posted on 10th May 2012 by Nick Booth#Opendata, cities, civic tools and Make it Local 10 things to make opendata work in local government – some links from #tal12 in Birmingham
Posted on 1st May 2012 by Nick BoothI have a collection of half baked thoughts following the truly excellent Talk About Local unconference in Birmingham on Saturday.
Whilst they stew into something edible I just wanted to quickly share some very useful links plus a list of ideas generated as part of Make it Local - the work done by Nesta on opendata and local government.
First the links – all mentioned by Jon Kingsbury (twitter) – who’s driving the Nesta Destination local programme.
- http://civiccommons.org/ is a us website which “is a marketplace for open innovation in government, tracking 585 apps in 199 cities. “ As Jon said – son’t re-invent the wheel, check ideas against this site.
- http://www.listpoint.co.uk/ Jon described as “an open platform for code lists standards”collates a lot of work on data standards, what they means and saves time and energy for opendata work.
Make it Local - opendata and local government programme from Nesta
Make it Local - was a project that Jon helped run for Nesta which supported local authorities to work with local developers on open and data tools. One of the projects – for example – was Birmingham’s Civic Dashboard. Nesta created this make it local toolkit. – (download as a pdf ) which gives from very practical thoughts on how to make data work in government more successful. I cite the whole thing below, simply because i think it’s worth sharing:
Ten tips for creating online local public services using open data
nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/public_services_lab/make_it_local
1 Generate the idea
Focus on the needs of the (more…)
What skills do I need to become a social media surgeon?
Posted on 21st March 2012 by Nick Booth
Dudley Social Media Surgery (image from Gavin Wray)
This was the question Beatrice asked me. She wasn’t sure if she could help as a surgeon at one of these events designed to support local community and voluntary organisations in a relaxed one to one format:
I would like to make myself useful helping other people and I would like to know what skills I would need to be a good social media surgeon.
I am not a technical person by background. I have, however, spent a fair amount of time on the internet and it would be good to know what skills would be in demand at such an event.It seems I have a bit of time to mug up on skills before the event but I’d be grateful for any advice on where to focus. Twitter is my platform of choice. I have just splashed out on a camcorder and digital recorder but I doubt I will feel confident with these tools before the event. Can I still be a useful person if I stick to Twitter/Facebook/general internet skills?
Oh yes – very. The fact that Beatrice wants to help is really the most important skill/thing she needs – but I also replied with:
- Ability to ask simple questions like “what are you trying to achieve” or perhaps “how do you use the web at the moment”
- Willingness to listen to the answers
- Enough knowledge/experience of say twitter or blogging or facebook to be a couple of steps ahead of the person you’re helping.
- Patience, willingness to ask for help from another surgeon if they ask you something you can’t answer (including ability to google to answer questions you can’t answer)
Ideally a laptop or similar so you can show people how the social web works in your experience.
That’s about it really! A sense of fun helps too (see the pic above of “surgeon” and “patient” in Dudley)
For other thoughts on keeping it simple at surgeries please see our recipe and later clarification.
Social Media Surgery movement wins the Prime Minister’s Big Society Award – hurrah!
Posted on 16th February 2012 by Nick Booth
I’m very excited to be able to say that the Prime Minister has recognised social media surgeries with a Big Society Award for 2012.
The Big Society Awards were set up by the Prime Minister in November 2010 to acknowledge individuals and organisations across the UK that demonstrate the Big Society in their work or activities. The aim is also to galvanise others to follow. David Cameron said this about the surgeries:
“This is an excellent initiative – such a simple idea and yet so effective. The popularity of these surgeries and the fact that they have inspired so many others across the country to follow in their footsteps, is testament to its brilliance.
“Congratulations to Nick and all the volunteers who have shared their time and expertise to help so many local groups make the most of the internet to support their community. A great example of the Big Society in action.”
Thank you for such kind words – to which we responded formally with:
“It’s wonderful to have recognition for everyone who has organised a social media surgery or turned up to volunteer their help. I think the surgeries work because they are simple. They are very easy to organise, fun to do and not in the least bit intimidating for people who want some help. They give active citizens and community groups the confidence and skills to use social media to campaign, organise and hold power to account. They’ve grown because of the passion and energy of bloggers and voluntary groups up and down the country.”
Background
The idea of a social media surgery originated with Pete Ashton – who used them with people who were looking for free help from his consultancy supporting arts organisations. We then applied the relaxed approach in a new way, scaling it up and putting together two sets of people – lovely helpers from the Birmingham Bloggers group (started in 2007) with the fab active citizens I’d had met through (more…)
#Opendata @72prufrocks radishes and neighbourhoods – an unashamed lift.
Posted on 3rd February 2012 by Nick BoothThere’s this really thoughtful post on where we live and opendata from Diane @72prufrocks – here’s a bit I’ve lifted to encourage you ro read the whole:
Knowledge and experience dwells in neighbourhoods, because we do. On recent visit to Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol, I was struck by how firmly the centre is rooted in the local community. Andrew remarked that projects like their University of Local Knowledge value and celebrate local experiences, and also treat the neighbourhood as a kind of pool of local data and local stories. The challenge for local authorities is how to mix our data into that same pool – how to put the data that communities can make use of into the places where they can really use it – their own places.
If you know where the radishes are, you know whether it’s feasible to get a supply of radishes – and if you know where the shops are, or what people buy, or what people’s attitude to local food is, then you also know where you might be able to sell those radishes. If you know who is growing the radishes, you can start a conversation with that person, and who knows where it might lead.
I know a few people who are partial to a good radish. There’s a story in that somewhere.
Skills in Birmingham – our people, what they’re like and what we need
Posted on 23rd January 2012 by Nick Booth
Great Value(s) P(l)eas(e) - photo by Tony Crider (click to view on flickr)
Later this month the Birmingham and Solihull LEP will start making some decisions about skills and work – asking themselves what skills do employers need and how to make them available.
I know this because of a set of “skills” that are hard to measure or teach.
One is being networked.
Peter Latchford (who’s doing some initial work for the LEP on skills) approached me to see what I thought businesses like Podnosh will need. On 30th January he’ll report back and tell the LEP what small business is asking for. So this is what I’d like them to hear:
Podnosh recruits for?
Values
We are driven by making things better: improving public services, helping active citizens have a greater impact, allowing individual civil servants more freedom to improve lives, supporting good third sector organisations to help more people. We don’t work with anyone – if potential clients don’t share a good chunk of our passions or values we’d rather they found someone else to help them.
So for this we employ or work with people who:
- believe in what we do
- care about it
- are accountable
- transparent
- honest
- have integrity
- are networked
In turn they often know what they want and believe in and are leaders in their own worlds.
They are usually enterprising: Steph Jennings runs her own hyperlocal blog, Josh Hart makes LIVEBrum happen, Gavin Wray has nurtured the Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery for years. They make things happen, adapt to change, accept and learn from failure.
On top of that they are flexible and committed. All seem to have an unstoppable ability to make things work, see things through and to learn everything and anything they need to make that happen.
So we also want to find people who start things themselves (not the same as self starters), can’t help but learn on their own, aware of their strengths and happy to be open about what they want to strengthen.
It may sound like a halcyon world of small enterprise. But these are the people who work at, or with, Podnosh and they all have remarkable qualities (and if it sounds like I’m expecting them to be superhuman I’m not, I could never keep up).
One thing I haven’t mentioned? A certificate in anything.
Certainly there are technical skills and we are looking for more folk who are good at Ruby on Rails, but in our world many technical skills get outdated very quickly. So at it’s simplest we recruit the person, get that right and the knowledge later.
What do you recruit for – what does the LEP need to understand are the skills or qualities we need to help Birmingham’s small businesses thrive?
Update:
Karl Binder at Adhere added these thoughts to the discussion in his post “Total Business”:
So I look for:
- Aptitude, a readiness and quickness in learning
- Love what they do, have a passion for their job
- Flexibility
- Desire to continually try something new
- Recognition that their job role can and will change
- Existing skill set
If I had to sum up my employment strategy in a catchy little sound bite I would say I always looked to ‘employ people, rather than skills’. This effectively means if the person’s attitude is right, they have a willingness to learn and an ability to do so, don’t get disheartened and give up quickly and realise that their role is one that is constantly evolving, I would employ them over someone who was the finished product in one particular area of expertise.
Thanks Karl.
A new form of planning gain: Supermarkets share their data with the public (sector)
Posted on 3rd November 2011 by Nick Booth
New Optimists listening to the conversation about food at last night forum
Below are some questions but first the context:
Last night I was working on the first of a series of conversations about how Birmingham will feed itself way into the future. The New Optimists Forum is organised by Kate Cooper who has the very powerful idea of getting groups of scientists from different disciplines and policy makers to think about this thorny problem. She argues, I think rightly, that getting practical about problems and places helps us understand best what we need to change now.
One of the scientists was Ian Nabney who talked about the opportunities that will come to make better decisions about complex problems when we have more data and more power to crunch and use that data. Here’s what he said.
It made me ask the question what if we created a new form of planning gain: supermarkets share their data with us rather than build a new badminton court.
Could knowing what they know about our eating habits help us lead healthier and better lives?
Mark Braggins Tweeted this this morning:
@markbraggins on twitter
And it also tickled a local MP’s curisosity. Richard Burden (who’s Northfield constituency may have a few urban “food deserts”, another idea kicked around at last night’s forum) tweeted this question about half an hour ago:
@richardburdenmp
So here are some questions:
- Is asking supermarkets to share their data a good form of planning gain?
- If so in what form would we want it – opendata, depersonalised or maybe full data to be share just with civil servants
- What would be the arguments against (so we can anticipate) or just how naive is this! ?
- How would Kate Cooper of the New Optimists go about talking to sainsbury’s about this?
- Would you rather have a new pavilion at the local park?
Odd what comes out of combining real world conversations with online stuff!
Update
Looks like Adrian Short was thinking about supermarket card data as a public good back in April – scroll to the bottom of this post.
