Podnosh

These are my links for August 22nd through August 23rd:

• http://libreapps.com/blogotics/ – Blog-o-tics is an innovative new service brought to you by a group of young, politically minded developers. The project was conceived as part of the “Young Rewired State” Hack Day, an attempt to use government data to create web applications. Blogotics uses information about the bills being passed through the UK parliament and analyses their standing in the blogosphere. Blogotics uses innovative code to analyse the positive or negative nature of blogs and subsequently show a certain blogs popularity.
• Killing Hope – You’re Just Making it Worse | Benjamin Ellis – “When will you learn?” “You’re just making things worse!”
• Cheo, 3Dom and Stokes Croft – An Apology! « Bristol graffiti – Bristol Council apologises fo getting something wrong!
• BBC – dot.life: The new tech start-up – US government – These include an app called StumbleSafely that uses crime data to help people get home safely after a night on the tiles and Carpool Mashup Matchmaker to help people find carpools.
• Blog What I Made » iFreeThePostcode – “iFreeThePostcode is an iPhone app to make submitting postcodes to freethepostcode.org really easy. You can download it from the iTunes app store or just search on the app store for “iFreeThePostcode”.”

These are my links for August 19th through August 22nd:

• Ernest Marples: the first month – Harry Metcalfe – “Scores of people have sent us messages of support. I’ve even been hugged.”
• Open Plaques – “Open Plaques is a service that aims to find and provide data about all the ‘plaques’ (often blue and round) that can be found across the UK.”
• Open Knowledge Foundation Blog » Blog Archive » Open Plaques: open data about UK heritage sites -
• Together we are LOUDER – Louder.org.uk will be the new online home for campaigners across England. The site combines a cutting-edge social networking platform, established multimedia toolkits and a hub for online advocacy resources
• Power in People’s Hands: Learning from the World’s Best Public Services – Bit late but thanks to Dave Harte: “This report presents the findings of a Strategy Unit study of leading edge innovations in world-wide public services, which involved interviewing 50 academics, public servants and other experts from around the world. The report highlights more than 30 case studies from 15 countries. It emphasises that innovation and productivity come from forging stronger relationships with citizens and finds the most successful services have five distinguishing characteristics:”
• Communitybuilders fund will open in September – Third Sector – “The Communitybuilders fund will provide loans and grants to help community-based organisations in England that boost interest in local democracy and improve community cohesion.”
• FutureGov » Features » Using web 2.0 to safeguard children: an invitation to a round table discussion – “we are looking to bring together multi-disciplinary group of senior managers and practitioners from childrens social services, teachers, police and health workers with social web technologist, public service designer, funders – or even just people who have a personal passion for this area – to help us design and run a small Safeguarding 2.0 pilot.”

These are my links for August 10th through August 12th:

• pachube :: connecting environments, patching the planet – Welcome to Pachube, a service that enables you to connect, tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world. The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual.
• haque :: design + research – The domain of architecture has been transformed by developments in interaction research, wearable computing, mobile connectivity, people-centered design, contextual awareness, RFID systems and ubiquitous computing. These technologies alter our understanding of space and change the way we relate to each other. We no longer think of architecture as static and immutable; instead we see it as dynamic, responsive and conversant. Our projects explore some of this territory.
• Introducing GrowthSpur – Recovering Journalist – Wow – very bold claims for growth spur: “How much money? We believe, based on our research and experience, that a well-run, sophisticated local site can bring in more than $100,000 a year in revenue from advertising, e-commerce and other sources. GrowthSpur exists to help local entrepreneurs achieve that level of success—and more.” I suppose it depends what you mean by local.
• From Grierson to Podnosh – a history of Participation | daveharte.com – This is ridiculously flattering bu also well worth a read: “From the moment we were taught how to white balance a video camera it felt like we were being given tools of dissension – not to be frittered away on shallow subject-matter but rather to be used to tackle dominant ideologies and tear down class structures. Sounds pious now I know but video’s ease of use and its directness felt that enabling. Ultimately we fell a bit short of changing the world but it was fun trying for a period there in the late 1980s.
  So how does the participatory work within Social Media fit into this?”
• MediaShift . Five Ways to Use Mind-Mapping Tools in the Newsroom | PBS – Very useful post, which, naturally enough, quotes a Brummie.

Here are some of the things I’ve read today:

• Mission Creep | Neil Williams on Twitter Stategy for Government – “You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter…” is how Neil starts this piece on his JFDI moment.
• TH!NK ABOUT IT – european blogging competition – Homepage – TH!NK2 Climate Change is a 3 month blogging competition with a focus on UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009. 81 bloggers from Europe with featured guests from India, China Brazil and the USA, representing the world’s biggest players in climate policy, will come together on the European Journalism Centre’s thinkaboutit.eu platform, to exchange ideas and debate the issues of climate change.
• A return to the “old skool” – Social Media challenges in the Public Sector « Carl’s Notepad – Thoughtful piece from Carl Haggerty: “Are we seeing social media facilitating a return to traditional and “old skool” values around community and neighbourhood support. I see the main difference being the “community” and the “neighbourhood” that people relate to is more complex and far reaching (offline and online) than ever before. If this is the case, then the Pubic Sector truly has a huge task ahead, not only support itself to transform the way we engage with people and our own staff, but to acknowledge those communities who are already engaged but also nurture communities (offline and online) to become part of the wider public service delivery model.”
• Mapping Digital Inclusion Actors « CDI Europe – A really useful map of the different roles different organisations and people play in digital media, digital inclusion, democracy and civic activism from iris at CDI

• The Stirrer – Social Media Surgeries – “The Birmingham social media group have attracted visitors from across the UK to see how it works. The model is so simple and cost free. Just bring those who have something to teach together with those who want to learn and bang a life changing concept is off.” Audrey Miller, a beneficiary of the social media surgeries sums it up quite nicely, although it’s a touch embarrassing.

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These are my links for June 4th through June 8th:

• Socially Media, Birmingham – 24Randomthoughts.com – Birmingham is a huge hive of activity there’s stuff going on every single week if you just seek it out (it took me a while to find it but then I can be quite lazy). The people that come to these events are welcoming and friendly and I have had the most excellent introduction to this scene and I know its only going to get better.
• socialstrategy:start [Practical Participation] – There are many small hurdles to effective use of social media and technology in public services. In democratic engagement and participation; communications and outreach; education; or just about any other area of work – the same soluble barriers hold up action.
• Headstar E-Government Blog » Blog Archive » Birmingham Transformation Aided By Mapping Tools – The group hopes to make Birmingham England’s first “intelligent city” by creating an integrated, fully digitised transport network. Birmingham also uses digital maps in its contact centres, where staff can pinpoint the caller’s property on a map and quickly bring up information relevant to that location.
• Convince and Convert Blog: Where Social Media and Email Collide » The 6 Dangerous Fallacies of Social Media – It’s about having a strategy for making your company or organization more like a person and less like a machine. It’s about humanization.
• LocalGov.co.uk – Your authority on UK Local Government > LocalGov.co.uk – Your authority on UK Local Government > Council freezes Twitter account after insult gaffe – Croydon council has suspended the Twitter account of its 'newspaper' Your Croydon after it 'tweeted' a dig at an Evening Standard journalist. A local newspaper has reported that a member of the council's staff used the account to criticise the reporter, claiming 'a squirrel could have run rings' around her after she had interviewed TV personality Esther Rantzen.
  As Dominic Campbell put it so beatly, get over it.
  The council claim that the post was supposed to be a private message, but was instead published for all to see.

  It was then forced to post a further message which said: 'A few have picked up on a tweet about Esther R interview that was meant to be a PM (private message). No offence intended to ES (Evening Standard) lady! Still learning here!'

These are my links for April 24th through April 25th:

• gSO Talk: Where did gStepOne come from? – Data: Facts out of context. eg, it will be 30 deg C today, or the train arrives in 5 minutes. (Data is thus of minimal value.)
  Information: Data organised in a way that has a potential for meaning. eg weather details recorded and organised by date, or a train timetable. (Information has potential value.)
  Knowledge: Data or information that enables the receiver to produce an outcome of value. eg knowing the weather to expect, I can plan a picnic, knowing when a train departs and arrives, I can catch the right one. (Knowledge has high value).

These are my links for April 15th through April 17th:

• G20 Police Witnesses IDed: ‘D5′ – City of London Police dog handler A712 – ID'ing G20 police officers
• YouTube – How copyright extension in sound recordings actually works – How copyright extension in sound recordings actually works.
• Better ways to share information digitally: West Midlands Regional Observatory. – The Observatory’s Population & Society Group is planning a seminar in the summer to investigate and discuss how research organisations in the West Midlands can get better at sharing information digitally. Do you have any thoughts on this?
• The Social Innovation Camp comes to Scotland. – Over one weekend from 19th-21st June 2009, we’re bringing together some of the best of the UK’s software developers and designers with those at the sharp end of social problems at the Saltire Centre, Glasgow.

  Their mission will be to turn six back-of-the-envelope ideas that could change the world into social start-ups in under 48 hours – complete with working software.

  You’ve got until Friday 22nd May 2009 to send us your idea that uses the web to create social change and you could be joining 100 other participants to try and make it a reality.

• Local Authority Mapping Collective | Bringing together mapped data across the UK – The Local Authority Mapping Collective aims to get officers from local authorities in the UK collaborating with one another using Google My Maps. It is hoped that this will allow for large sets of mapped data to be made publically available without the need for bespoke software development. This data could then be used on local authority websites, as well as being made downloadable to use in any number of projects.

  We would also like to encourage members of the public to get involved; if your council is not submitting their data to any of our maps, let them know about this project. The more local authorities we can get on board, the larger the data sets we can make available.

An open source street map of Birmingham has been completed by volunteers – next they will be turning their attention to the Black Country, unless of course the Ordnance Survey open up it’s data as recommended in the Power of Information Taskforce report.  (Come on OS – save these folk some pixel work.)  I’m also told that the folk who handcrafted every pixel are keen to come to the next Social Media Surgery.
Below is an entire news release from  www.mappa-mercia.org

“OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you.”

PRESS RELEASE FEBRUARY 9th 2009

Today Birmingham takes another huge step to becoming a digital City. The metropolitan area of Birmingham and its environs within the motorway ring have been completely digitally remapped by its own citizens in a format which is freely editable and available at www.openstreetmap.org.

It is the first English city to be completely remapped in this way. It joins the likes of Paris, Berlin, Canberra and Vienna

Birmingham now has a digital map that is more up-to-date and accurate than all other online or satnav maps. Only Ordnance Survey can claim to be more accurate – and they have huge technical and financial resources at their disposal.

(Click here for a detailed view of Birmingham )

The OpenStreetMap of Birmingham has been created by local people, with local knowledge, who take pride in how their neighbourhoods are represented. They can match, and even surpass, the efforts of commercial mappers who spend millions creating this kind of rich data. A dedicated band of 100 volunteers has been collecting GPS data whilst cycling, walking, and riding the buses and trains. One of our team has even mapped by canal boat!

The raw positional data is supplemented by additional visual observations on the ground and then edited into a format that can be rendered as a map readable by humans. All the software used in the project has been developed as open source software and is free to download and use. All participants have to do is invest their time and pay attention to detail. All data once submitted is editable in a wiki-style process.

“It’s very satisfying to see a complete city mapped in OpenStreetMap. Four years ago when this project was created we were looking at a blank screen and most commentators thought we were crazy.” said Andy Robinson, secretary of the OpenStreetMap Foundation and a prolific mapper in the West Midlands.

The Birmingham effort is part of a worldwide movement to digitally remap the entire planet which started in 2004. The project was originated in the UK and now involves some 85,000 enthusiasts globally, who have so far mapped almost 14 million miles of road globally. We have mapped some15,000 residential roads, 6,000 footpaths and 9,000 other roads in Birmingham ( and over 700 bus stops, 300 pubs, 200 traffic lights and 300 postboxes)

Why re-map the world?

We need a free dataset for programmers, social activists, cartographers, and communities and the like to use geodata and create maps suited to their purposes without being limited by proprietary restrictions designed to protect large corporate investments in geodata. Under-developed countries are particularly helped by a project of this sort, because it is just not economic for commercial mappers to map their areas in detail.

How can it be accurate? The essence of a wiki-style process is that all users have a stake in having accurate data. If one person puts in inaccurate data, maliciously or accidentally, the other 99.9% of people can check it, fix it, or get rid of it.

Just think how amazing it was a few years back when you saw Google Maps for the first time. Suddenly mapping was cool, and access via an API* lead to a wave of innovation. Satnav was nowhere 3 years ago. Look at it now! But you still can’t access the incredible amount of data locked behind the API and you can’t add or improve it, so your applications are limited. Just think of the explosion of innovation, much of it in unexpected areas, that’s possible when the data is available!

All the software used in the project has been developed as opensource software and is free to download and use. The data and maps are licensed by Creative Commons which defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. What this means to users (and this isn’t legal advice) is basically you can do what you like with the data, so long as you mention the original creator and the licence and anyone else can do the same with anything you produce.

A flagship example of the power of opening up access to geodata is OpenCycleMap.

It’s a customised online map for cyclists, based on OpenStreetMap data. It shows things that are interesting to cyclists including signed cycle routes, offroad cycle paths, bike shops and bike parking – and of course hills – whilst diminishing other things like motorways that are of little interest. It’s built on top of OpenStreetMap, and was recently commended by the British Cartographic Society.

So we’ve got a map, what’s next?

1. There’s most of the Black Country to map for a start!

2. Local businesses and organisations can start using OSM maps and data, rather than proprietary sources, freeing themselves from the technical, financial and accuracy restrictions of commercial mapping providers.

3. Now that we have a complete set of local data, Midlands software developers can start using it to create novel applications (e.g road traffic simulations, tourist trails, restaurant guides).

Why would a business consider using OpenStreetMap data when anyone can use maps from Google, Mapquest or Yahoo for free? Put succinctly: they have control. OSM data and map users have significantly more control over their maps than someone who uses a free API. With OSM you can modify, supplement and select the data to create a highly customised map.

4. It might take a 100 people to produce a map like this but we need a 1,000 to keep it up to date. We need communities and individuals to improve and verify the map via a simple tool available at http://openstreetbugs.appspot.com/ (or on our local West Midlands site http://www.mappa-mercia.org/openstreetbugs.shtml ) All they need is local knowledge and access to the internet.

For more information, individuals and community organisations can contact Brian Prangle 0121 604 1141 and community@mappa-mercia.org

Press contact Andy Robinson Tel No 07775537872 and press@mappa-mercia.org

More information for editors can be found at:

www.openstreetfoundation.org

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page

www.openstreetmap.org.

www.opencyclemap.org/

Images of one year of edits for the whole planet:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterito/3054501076/in/pool-itomedia

Animation of all the edits we have for Birmingham showing progress from initiation to today:

http://blip.tv/file/1625650

We have gathered all the resources together in a specific West Midlands website:

www.mappa-mercia.org