Podnosh

Anabel Palmer and Dylan Martlew at NDI10

I’ve just got back from  the National Digital Inclusion conference – very, enjoyable.  I was particularly interested in the strand on social housing and digital inclusion which has spun off the work chaired by Helen Milner on just that problem.

At the forefront of  the case that Social Landlords are key to tackling digital inclusion is that 70% of their tenants do not have internet access at home.   It is a figure that appears in the first sentence of the introduction to the  Social Housing Providers Digital Inclusion Action Plan 2010 (pdf):

Research shows 70% of people who live in social housing do not use the internet. That means they’re missing out on all the benefits, opportunities and conveniences computers and the internet can provide – essential public services, instant communication, commercial comparisons and online bargains, job searches and applications.

That figure is sourced to the Office of National Statistics, 2008 and it seems that things are changing quickly. Anabel Palmer of Southern Housing Group and Dylan Martlew of Knowle West Media Centre have both recently done research on internet availability in the home of social housing tenants.  One found 56% of households are connected,  for the other the same figure was 67% with internet access. Listen to them sharing their thoughts on this:

Click below to listen to the podcast

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Naturally we would need to check that they are measuring exactly the same but are these number and oddity?  There’s no reasons to suppose they are.  Southern Housing Groups 2008 survey found 30% using the net, which matched the national figure then.   Now they find 67% using the net.

It does not mean that there is not important work to be done by social landlords to help close the digital divide (for those who want it closed).   Living in their homes are many people who might benefit from much wider use of digital tools – but have never really been exposed to them, or may have barriers to using them.

But it does show how quickly internet access is being taken up by those who see some sense in using it.

Let me introduce you to two new blogs about neighbourhoods in Birmingham, both run by public servants

Hands on Handsworth is written by Tracey Thorne – the neighbourhood manager for Handsworth in Birmingham;  Be Heard in Birchfield is being nurtured by Yvonne Wager – the neighbourhood manager for that particular part of the city. (Click here to see Tracey’s explanation of neighbourhood management)

Both Yvonne and Tracey are in jobs funded by Be Birmingham – the local strategic partnership.  They were inspired to start a neighbourhood blog by their colleague Kate Foley who had been running Life in Lozells – a site set up originally to address the problem of all the bad news you find when googling Lozells. Kate explains in more detail in this video made by the Chamberlain Forum.

What do they do?

They talked to us about helping them develop these sites during the Social Media Surgeries we ran in Lozells last year.  Both are built on WordPress with some changes to the back end that make it a little easier to blog and listen to what the web is saying about your neighbourhood.  There’s also a simple events system with mapping, plus the sites include a facility to easily turn plans into commentable  consultation docs.  We also provide a service that ensures the software stays updated, plugins don’t clash etc, plus training and support on using it well.

Tracey is a natural – she really enjoys writing for the site and is on a roll. Yvonne is equally enthusiastic but needs a different sort of support, so it is taking a little longer.

Why Bother

The sites are the neighbourhood managers’ home in a wider web conversation. It’s only fledgling at this stage.  The point is that over time they help the neighbourhood managers share information, ask questions, pool expertise and begin to collabroate in new ways with their community.  I’m not convinced they should attempt to become THE site for their neighbourhood.

Such an idea concerns me, because if THE site gets switched off or someone begins using it to be self serving that’s a problems for the whole neighbourhood. Instead I’m interested in how we can nurture a range of online resources and voices in a place. These blogs form  part of that process – providing a tool that can also help neighbourhood managers link to and encourage the wider conversation.

What do you think?

It will take time and patience for these sites to bed in – but what do you think? Could you encourage them by commenting a post or do you have any advice for Yvonne or Tracey?

I think it is only a matter of time before we switch from hyperlocal blogging to hyperlocal “mapping”.

Below is a short TED2010 talk from Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Microsoft Live Labs.

He is demonstrating augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft. It’s quite a substantial extension from where Google appears to be just at the moment and shows glimpses of great possibilities.

If you serve neighbourhoods,  interested in very local media or work for a news organisation, whether press, web or broadcast then it may be worth sparing a few minutes to watch this:

The short video below is Carl Haggerty, Enterprise Architect at Devon County Council, talking about his thoughts on the nay sayers in government, local or central, who use the problems of risk to prevent social media use.  For him this is a misuse of the idea of risk management. Indeed the right response to managing the risks that social media might present to government is to – use social media.

It’s a question I’m often asked.   May I start with something simple.  I’m assuming you want something that is easy to use, easy to carry and makes video which is simple to edit and very quick to upload to the internet.  If so buy this one, the Flip Mino – but not the high definition one.

If you are going to buy a flip get this one

Why?

It is light and very easy to carry in a pocket or a bag.
I’ve used and owned the larger ones but found that the red record button was prone to stick.  On these it works like a dream.
60 minutes is plenty of recording time.
The built in usb connector is darned useful.
It does wide screen, which is nice.
There’s no point in buying the high definition one because the lens is the same and the files are just bigger and take ages to upload to the net.

Tip:  the white one if often cheaper than the black one and you’ll rarely find any for less than they sell on Amazon.

What if I want something like a Flip that isn’t a Flip?

At the moment the best reason to do that is because you want better sound. The Flip does perfectly decent sound in straightforward conditions – but make it very noisy and you start to struggle a bit.

Oddly there are not that many sensible choices. There are growing number of high definition flip type camera  that allow you to do what you can’t do with a flip – plug in an external microphone.

Dave Briggs has this very informative explanation of why it’s worth buying a Kodak Zi8:

What Dave says is right, but the point of the Flip is simplicity.  Once you have to add an external microphone, plug it in,

Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera - almost but not quite

mess with it, hope it doesn’t drop out then – to keep the file size down, remember to reset the video recording quality to less than HD (for upload speed) I’m not convinced the more complex camera will be better. It does have one advantage – you can take stills.

It is still simpler to buy the Flip and ask someone to step into a quiet room to talk to them.

However sound is all important in online video so there’s a more expensive but better solution.  I bought one a few weeks ago and love the new Zoom Q3.  You can record just audio if you wish ( a still photo combined with an mp3 makes great content) and will record very simple video with great audio. There’s a built in USB connector, you can use and sd card and the file sizes are weeny – so whizz up to the net.

This is what @documentally says about it – and I agree with him:

What then is special about it?:

Robust
Same ease of use at the Flip
Great sound without needing an external mic
Low resolution video – hence small file sizes.
Does just audio in great quality

So for for me the almost ultimate is the Zoom Q3 – give me widescreen yet low def video on the Zoom Q4 and I’ll be a very happy man.

If you’ve never seen a social media surgery before then John Popham’s video above is just about what you might expect.  He shot it last night at the first such surgery in Leeds, which he started after visiting our first anniversary surgery last month.

Folk in Leeds are  using a similar model to the central Birmingham surgery, you get some idea from this video at the most recent Birmingham social media surgery

It focuses on the informal and matching volunteer webby types to volunteer community types. As we found when we began these here in Birmingham, there seems to be a a great deal of enthusiasm in the digital community in West Yorkshire to get on and make things happen. Simon Duncan thought it a “great success”.

Why then do I say surgeries are spawning?

Huddersfield.  Their first is next week.

York (courtesy of the comment below from the wonder John Popham) is in December.

In South Africa Marlon Parker is adapting the idea for shopping centres and the general citizen.

Cornella near Barcelona will soon have one organised by Chris Pinchen of Citilab – who visited us again in October:

Talk About Local uses the technique and has now spawned the wonderful idea of a social media tent for fetes and fairs.

Lichfield has experimented with one.

Sheffield incorporated one in Unsheffield this summer (umh “unbrum”? – I wonder).

Podnosh has run them in Acocks Green – which was featured by the Birmingham Post and now has a life of it’s own – plus Lozells.  Alan Colson now also runs a social media surgery for councillors in Solihull.

Others include a more business minded approach in  Nottingham, (similar to our own work at Hello Digital)  SCIP in Brighton, and far afield  Mosman, Australia has now used there’s to created a site for their neighbourhood.

Any Missing?

This is the fourth in our series of blogposts on the C&binet conference in London which took place last week. Following on from the first session on the state of newspapers and value of news, the issue of council reporting was raised in discussion.

With the decline of regional news coverage are we in danger of losing reports which hold the local council to account. Someone asked how much council reporting was actually going on anyway – are we seeing local reporting though rose-tinted glasses and not realising how little is done by regional media. Some councils actively try to stamp out probing news coverage by refusing journalists access to certain meetings and councillors.

Councils need to be open to bloggers and hyperlocal reporters and treat them like other news organisations (which is by no means an ideal relationship either) – by being given access to council meetings and documents and councillors themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the third post in our series from the C&binet conference on what the government should do about hyperlocal. Highly developed in the US, Rachel Sterne from GroundReport presented four types of hyperlocal news models.

US Hyperlocal News Market –

Whether networked or single locality journalism, hyperlocal start-ups all have some sort of editorial position and a hierarchy and production system which favours skilled editor roles. The voluntary start-ups often have an authentic and raw feel, but can be inconsistent in maintenance (thus professionalism) and attract small audiences. Hyperlocal sites which have a media parent, such as the recently launched Guardian Local and Associated Press’ Local People sites provide an instant audience, content pool, and access to the technology and resources, but can lack innovation which is prohibited by the internal politics of the media legacy of the publisher which need to be followed.

Models from the US showed how giving content providers (who write and upload articles voluntarily) a platform to publish content rewards them with being pitched next to writers on a site which give them credibility and an impetus to work hard. Similarly deputised editors will work on the basis they feel privileged to have access and control over content. GroundReport and The Huffington Post are good examples of this.

The final slide in the presentation on hyperlocal models shows government funded sites while delivering high quality of coverage would gain limited audience and less sustainable.

This is the second in our series of blogposts on the C&binet conference in London which took place this week. Our first sesssion was introduced with a presentation from Enders Analysis (below) about the state of local media from the newspapers’ perspective. The numbers were pretty harrowing but largely expected.

The second slide shows from 2001 circulation numbers from regional and national news started to decline. And yet slide three shows how comparatively little time readers spend online than they do reading newspapers – so is less news being consumed all round?

Far from it, was the consensus from those at the conference. News is being consumed today more than ever. But the relatively little time readers will spend skimming across webpages is no incentive for advertisers to migrate online – hence the combination of the digital revolution and the recession has meant job cuts and a number of regional papers no longer able to continue.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week sees the launch of  www.birminghambeheard.org.uk – a database of consultations about and from Birmingham.

Typically the consultations stretch back about 3 years and involve the various organisations which form Be Birmingham, the local strategic partnership.

The site itself has been made by an internal team at Birmingham City Council.  We were approached to make a a promotional video, which ended up being very practical: a simple to guide to how to start using the site:

You’ll notice one other thing which has happened since we made the film.  The site has an RSS feed.  It gives you general updates and the moment and I’m sure they’d be willing to consider a wider variety of  rss feeds – for example by ward or constituency if you think that would help you. So  there’s room to offer feedback here, use it if you get a moment.