Podnosh

These are my links for December 16th through December 17th:

• Film Exchange on Alcohol & Drugs – alcohol/Drugs video discussions – A really simple idea to collate a range of film resources – in this case on drug and alcohol abuse
• Twitter / Steven Tuck: Spent most of the journey … – "Spent most of the journey doing a small social media surgery on the train. At least one more person blogging :-)"
• bit.ly blog – Announcing bit.ly Pro – "…. a new service: bit.ly Pro. The Pro service provides custom short URLs powered by bit.ly. Publishers and bloggers will be able to use their own short domain names to point to pages on their sites"
• mySociety » Blog Archive » mySociety’s Next 12 months – Part 1 – "we used the technique that powers KittenWar.com to help decide our key strategic priorities for the next year: after all , if we don’t, who will?"
• FutureGov Network – "OK most of government isn't as sexy as (m)any of these brands, but we thought it might give you some inspiration when looking at how to build your Facebook page."

These are my links for October 26th through October 31st:

• mySociety » Blog Archive » Harassment problem leads to FOI strangeness – Interesting story about how government departments are making quite subjective judgements about which information to release through FOI: "Today we have a strange story about a department that appears to think that it has a duty not to release information under FOI if it makes people angry."
• We Share Stuff – Accredited course in Social Media – A triumph for wesharestuff: "We’re really pleased to announce what we think is the first officially accredited course in understanding and using social media for those with no previous experience. We Share Stuff has developed the course and it’s now part of the OCN framework (WSS are an OCN Centre), as three units of 10 learning hours each."
• Data is what we want – but why? – Birmingham Post – Business Blog – Paul Bradshaw explains in simple terms: "The best analogy I can think of is polymers. When the technology behind polymers was developed in the last century, it created a whole new market – innovative producers could create new products, and cheaper ways of producing old products. Similar opportunities are available with the release of data – release postcodes for businesses to use cheaply or for free, and you have the opportunity for new businesses creating applications based on location. Release transport data and others can tell you which direction to head in for the next bus."
• Blog | Birmingham Conservation Trust – Really interesting film about The highline – a community campaign to save an old elevated railways line in New York as a green park. Fascinating ideas about how to galvanise community.
• Green shoots of recovery – Birmingham Post – Lifestyle Blog – Kate Copper: "The accidental empires of the 20th century weren't forged in workshops (not even facilitated ones), but in back bedrooms, unused garages and fusty university research labs. At the forefront of this revolution were pizza-fed, caffeine-fuelled nerdy boys who couldn't get a date. These brainy T-shirted lads did weird math, challenged their mates to do even weirder stuff — not in order to make money or lead a revolution, but simply to explore what it was that they could do."

These are my links for August 12th through August 13th:

• mySociety » Call For Proposals 2009 – My Society wants suggestions on what they should do next: “We need your help to decide what mySociety builds next.
  Our previous calls for proposals have led to WhatDoTheyKnow.com, WriteToThem.com and Pledgebank.com.”
• The Imperative for Government to Engage Online | Open Forum | Independent public policy think-tank, blogs & forums | openforum.com.au – Matt Crozier: “Most of the time, the great silent majority is completely missing in action from public policy debates. If you are one of those people (and most of you are) then ask yourself, when was the last time an interest group asked your views? Or checked that their passion aligned with yours before campaigning on your behalf?”
• Case study on Facebook engagement « Al Smith – Al Smith details what he did with a group of Newcastle citizens who were using Facebook to have a go at the council.
• The Seven Laws of Journalism – This Semester « M. Appeal (Mass Appeal) – “Grow a pair.” (via @joannageary
• Sarah Lay: Getting noticed: The Five Step Programme | DavePress – Sarah Lay does a guest Post for Dave Briggs: “So, how to go about raising your profile and getting social media offerings to the table? I’ve worked up a list of five approaches.”
• Brooklyn Typology – “The subject of continuous residential development since the mid-1600s, every trend in American architecture and urban planning has inscribed itself onto Brooklyn’s moraine and salt marshes. Brookyn Typology is an investigation of borough’s population and urban form. It consists of 2100 photographs taken in a sample of blockgroups in Brooklyn, plus detailed Census, historical, and typological data about the residential and housing in area. Together, the interlinked photographs and data form a portrait of the urban fabric of Brooklyn.”

These are my links for July 1st through July 4th:

• It's The Ruddy Future – "Hello people! So glad you've pulled your finger out – and used it to click through to our lovely website. Just by being here, you've already taken your first step towards a super sexy, rewarding career in technology.
  Well done you!"
• Do you care about Wales? Can you code? Fancy helping TheyWorkForYou then? | Quixotic Quisling – "TheyWorkForYou are looking for volunteer coders interested in working on Welsh Assembly data. If that’s you, please join the new discussion list and let’s figure out how to do it."

  If you don’t know TheyWorkForYou then take some time to familiarise yourself. It’s a well established site taking parliamentary data and presenting it in a queryable form. It’s free, loaded with information and very useful indeed.

• Directgov | Innovate | – "Welcome to Directgov | innovate. We developed our platform to enable conversation with the developer community around innovative use of digital technologies in the government space."

  We blog and encourage people to submit examples of apps developed in the government space using government data or demonstrating innovative use of technologies.

• CKAN – Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network – Home –
• Socrata –
• About Socialbrite.org | Socialbrite – "an affiliation of passionate social media consultants and strategists who believe in collaborating to produce positive change. Through training workshops, reports, case studies, learning materials, blogging and consulting services, we want to make sure that everyone has access to the knowledge and tools that the social media revolution offers."

• NewBizNews: Hyperlocal « BuzzMachine – The value of volunteering: This is the hardest to calculate but is critical to the local models: People are contributing to the newssphere because they want to, because they care. With help, I’m confident they’ll do more. That’s part of what we’re trying to discover at CUNY in our work with The Local at the New York Times: how communities can be supported to report on themselves. This could be podcasting a school-board meeting or crowdsourcing projects or looking up records. This, like new ad models, will be the subject of some speculative brainstorming. And it will be difficult to put numbers to it. But it’s critical.
• Mediabox – New strand Mini Mediabox – with grants from £1,500 – £5,000 is now open. Mini Mediabox is for grassroots and community organisations with an annual turnover of £100k or under, designed to enable smaller organisations to access funding for their youth-led projects.
• Home | Nominet Trust – We aim to support distinctive and inventive Internet-related projects that can make a difference to people, primarily in the areas of education, online safety and inclusion. With our grants we back programmes and organisations using IT to benefit society. The Nominet Trust is a charity created by Nominet, which maintains the .uk register of domain names and is one of the world’s largest Internet registries.
• The Straight Choice | The election leaflet project – Election leaflets are one of the main weapons in the fight for votes in the UK. They are targeted, effective and sometimes very bitter. We need your help to photograph and map them so we can keep an eye on what the parties are up to, and try to keep them honest.
• Murdoch: Web sites to charge for content – CNN.com – “I suspect within any readership there is a small slice — maybe three percent — that is willing to pay. News organizations are going to have to find a way of getting money from that slice without driving away everybody else,”

Kris Kowalewski at Birmingham City Council press office has sent me this:

Online petitions are set to be introduced by Birmingham City Council as a 21st Century way for citizens to express their views on matters of concern.  Under the plans, the new easy-to-use system, accessible via www.birmingham.gov.uk, will go live later this month.

E-petitoners will be able to upload external documents and images as supporting information and follow the progress of their petition through its life cycle thanks to a timeline function.  Additionally the system would give users access to support materials to market their petition to the public and be given the ability to create paper-based versions of petitions to run at the same time.

Those working on the scheme in partnership with the city council include Digital Birmingham and Service Birmingham.  Cllr Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “The introduction of an e-petition facility promises to be major step forward for the city of Birmingham.  “It will provide an additional mechanism for people to have their say on issues – strengthening and broadening citizens’ access and participation in democratic decision-making.  “As a council we are committed to embracing modern technologies and enabling citizens to make the most of the digital age. This project is clear evidence of this.”

Funding for the system would be supplied by the EU, which would also foot the bill for any amendments and upgrades that are needed over the next two years.

The most prominent online petition system was created by MySociety for the 10 Downing Street site and has created all sorts of political ructions since it went live in in November 2006. It was an early triumph in the process of using the internet to nurture a conversation between governed and government.  The Downing Street site also gets used for local petitions, such as this one started by the Bradley Stoke Examiner in Gloucestershire.

The Scottish Parliament has also be at it since January 2007 and Kingston upon Thames was one of the first local authorities to get started back in February 2007.

Birmingham City Council will use the Public-i E-Petitions system used by the ones mentioned above and by Bristol City Council.  There is a set up cost this financial year of £7,500 followed by an expected annula running cost of £1,332, currently funded for two years from EuroPetition project.  Source from the Democratic services minutes here (pdf) and here (pdf).

Also see Jon and Stef.