open data « Podnosh

Posts Tagged ‘open data’

Making (and saving) money with open data – ideas generation session

Posted on 14th April 2011 by Gavin Wray

Yesterday, Podnosh and Substrakt collaborated under the SpeedData banner to run the evening ideas session at Making (and Saving) Money With Open Data in Birmingham.

Small groups and individuals worked together to develop their ideas for useful, commercial and social open data projects. At the end, each group pitched their idea to a judging panel: Dave Harte, Award Leader, MA Social Media at Birmingham City University and Simon Jenner of Adventures in Business and founder of Urban Coffee Company.

(more…)

Posted on 14th April 2011 by Gavin Wray
Tags: mmwd, open data, speeddata
Posted in Open Data | 6 Comments »

Stuff I've seen October 11th through to October 19th

Posted on 19th October 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for October 11th through October 19th:

G-Cloud will save us £1.2 billion a year, says government CIO – ComputerworldUK.com – Also on procurement… “SMEs can’t afford to bid. In my opinion, that stifles innovation.
Ordnance Survey Blog » GeoVation gets £150,000 funding boost – The funding will be used to support geography based ventures that have the greatest potential to transform how we travel – so get your thinking caps on!
Council’s red tape cut as 4700 whitehall targets slashed – Local government – Communities and Local Government – instead of the National Indicator Set, and instead of every single department's endless demands that you measure this, that or the other, there's just going to be one list of every bit of data that Government needs."
Pickles scraps more national targets » Communities » 24dash.com – National Indicators used to monitor council performance will be replaced with an agreed single list of Whitehall data requirements for local government. New transparency arrangements, CLG says, will make sure councils remain accountable to local people.
DCMS Transparency Data – This transparency site is a data repository for the Department and its Arms Length Bodies.

Posted on 19th October 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: geovation, Government, linklove, open data, speeddata, transport
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Stuff I've seen October 9th through to October 11th

Posted on 11th October 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for October 9th through October 11th:

Machine written sports reports Projects – Stats Monkey – By analyzing changes in Win Probability and Game Scores, the system can pick out the key plays and players from any baseball game. Second, the system includes a library of narrative arcs that describe the main dynamics of baseball games (as well as many other competitions): Was it a come-from-behind win? Back-and-forth the whole way? Did one team jump out in front at the beginning and then sit on its lead? The system uses a decision tree to select the appropriate narrative arc.
Too much money plays against government 2.0 – government 2.0 is more interesting – and useful – where the are scarce rather than abundant resources.
The Great Transition: what it means for Local Authorities « Nat Wei’s Blog – make cuts intelligently rather than in a knee jerk fashion, safeguarding effective and connective local community projects and other external suppliers rather than avoiding to make savings closer to home or spinning out functions as mutuals or social enterprises – at least until many of them have been able themselves to transition to a more diversified financial position.
Community Media Activist: The Spectre of Community and the Big Society – The Big Society, if there is such a thing, or spirit, or programme, will most likely emerge from the evolution of community, and community development, rather than the ideological urgency of a cutback-driven Little State.
Thriving too: Big Society: Exploring Sustainable Collaborative Service Models – "Collaboration between equals is difficult, between disciplines more so… but between paid professionals and unpaid volunteers very hard indeed. On paper it sounds like ‘just the sort of thing we should be doing’…. But in real life situations, such as the one described, it presents challenges that we don’t know how to overcome…. Yet.
The challenge is not organisational or even financial… but about how we create frameworks that sustain the *relationships* that are required for collaborative services to flourish."

Posted on 11th October 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: bigsociety, Journalism, linklove, localgov, open data, statistics
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Stuff I've seen October 1st through to October 5th

Posted on 5th October 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for October 1st through October 5th:

An open letter to David Cameron, part one of three « Francesca Elston – I have worked in a large Government department, and I believe the following: firstly, that it would have been possible to take 25% of the costs out without harming the service delivery in the long term (that caveat’s important); secondly, that it might have been possible to improve the service in doing so, and thirdly that there were people within that organisation who knew exactly where the 25% lay.
Government data will be machine readable, Maude pledges | Politics | guardian.co.uk – Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude told the Conservative party conference in Birmingham that the Freedom of Information Act will be amended so that all data released through FoI must be in a reusable and machine readable format.
BBC News – The ‘night riders’ who help the NHS – The volunteer service, which is available in the south-east of England, offers a free out-of-hours service to a number of NHS hospitals and can be asked to carry anything urgently needed from baby milk to blood products and X-ray results.
MaPit – MaPit is our database and web service that maps postcodes and points to current or past administrative area information and polygons for all the United Kingdom.
Another notable benefit is that this new version has been filled with only totally open data, so you can be secure that you can reuse the data from this site under the minimal terms of the licences given below.
BBC – dot.Rory – A 16-year-old who turned up at a hacking event a couple of months ago may just have achieved two great things. If Isabell Long’s idea works, it could make a major contribution to getting Whitehall to cut its energy use.

Posted on 5th October 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: bigsociety, cuts, Government, linklove, MySociety, open data, postcode, technology
Posted in Link Love | 2 Comments »

Stuff I've seen September 11th through to September 27th

Posted on 27th September 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for September 11th through September 27th:

Government Should Do its Own Data Homework | Jeni’s Musings – "….we need to work towards a virtuous cycle in which the public sector is rewarded for publishing useful data well. The reward may come from financial savings, from increasing data quality, from better delivery of its remit, or simply from kudos. It doesn’t matter how, but there needs to be some reward, or it just won’t happen."
editorialgirl » Ah, Bridezilla… we’ve been expecting you – Government and e-mail: ! The assistant was apparently a bit flummoxed, saying, “well, you could email it, but there isn’t much point – I wouldn’t get it til tomorrow anyway”. Why was that, then? It wasn’t even mid afternoon. Had they got problems with their email? “No,” she explained, “all the emails are read at 9 o’clock in the morning, then they’re all printed out and we each get a copy on our desks. So if you email me now, I won’t get it until tomorrow.” He was baffled. Couldn’t she just access her email now? “No, it’s not my email,” she said. “It’s the office email. Only one person has access to it, and she only looks at it at 9 o’clock each morning.” Whu… why? “That’s just the way we do things.” Well, that’s silly, he told her. “Well, it works for us,” she replied. Bonkers."
Rewired State – For the first quarter the challenges available are likely to be (but we don’t know for sure yet):
* Building a framework to enable localised civil action (Big Society)
* Using digital channels to get people online; building network of digital champions and apps to help get people online (Race Online)
The arts make a contribution to the Big Society in Yorkshire | Arts Council – 'If public funding of the arts is cut too hard, the contribution the sector makes to the Big Society may be in real jeopardy.
Local council spending over £500: full list of who has published what so far | News | guardian.co.uk – UPDATE, 5:05pm: Government has just published its guidance for local authorities. See the guidance here

Posted on 27th September 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: bigsociety, data, linklove, localgovernerment, open data
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Stuff I've seen August 26th through to August 30th

Posted on 30th August 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for August 26th through August 30th:

I couldn’t possibly comment: Westminster commercial noise map – experiment with Google Fusion Tables – Will Perrin… "It isn't perfect, but it's easy. If you can use a spreadsheet you can take some real public data and make a map to make a point."
Reflections on the Birmingham Hacks & Hackers Hackday (#hhhbrum) | Online Journalism Blog – Paul Bradhshaw: "a different skill to that normally practised by journalists – we were looking not for stories but for ‘nodes’: links between information such as local authority or area codes, school identifiers, and so on. Finding a story in data is relatively easy when compared to a project like this, and it did remind me more of the investigative process than the way a traditional"newsroom works
Response: The digital era has not made publishers defunct | Comment is free | The Guardian – "The idea that publishers "now appear frozen in the headlights of the onrushing digital revolution" is simply untrue." (Is it?)
UK Sound Map – This is wonderful….. "Join the British Library in creating the first nationwide sound map. Take part by publishing recordings of your surroundings using the free AudioBoo app for iPhone or Android smartphones or a web browser. When uploading soundscape recordings via Audioboo, add the tag 'uksm' and they'll appear on the SoundMap"
Socialreporter | There is no Big Society Big Plan – and that’s no bad thing – There is no Big Society Big Plan, and no-one is in charge.
Unfortunately, in the journalistic sense, it’s not much of story.

Posted on 30th August 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: audioboo, bctlinks, bigsociety, crowdsourcing, data, heritage, linklove, mapping, mashup, open data, sound, willperrin
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Stuff I've seen August 25th through to August 26th

Posted on 26th August 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for August 25th through August 26th:

Open data, democracy and public sector reform – This is an online report based on an MSc Dissertation by Tim Davies submitted to the University of Oxford, July 2010. It is shared using the Digress.it platform which allows for paragraph level commenting and hyperlinking to elements of the document.
Alchemist dreams | El Pinchen – “how can a person who is doing things outside of the immediate understanding of many, survive and make a living. Make no mistake, this is not some bullshit from an artist in his ivory tower bemoaning the big bad world that doesn’t understand him. This is a new investigation from the person who has launched a thousand “social media” careers. (more…)

Posted on 26th August 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: linklove, open data
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Stuff I've seen June 19th through to August 4th

Posted on 19th August 2010 by Nick Booth

These are my links for June 19th through August 4th:

NHS spends millions on websites that fail patients, says government report | Society | The Guardian – Here, here… ” A layer of NHS bureaucracy, represented by websites built by primary care trusts, foundation trusts and strategic health authorities, received “almost no recognition” from the public. “The question is raised why these sites were developed in the first instance,” the report says.”
O2 makes text donations free for charities – Civil Society – IT – News – providing news and in-depth coverage of charities, voluntary organisations and not-for-profits – O2 has become the second mobile operator to pledge to deliver 100 per cent of all text donation value to charities in a move which could signal an industry-wide shift.
Birmingham Post – Business – Business Comment – Business Columnists – Jerry Blackett: Science festival brings hope – The New Optimists asks the simple question: what are you optimistic about? The essays in response – many from academics working in the region’s universities – (more…)

Posted on 19th August 2010 by Nick Booth
Tags: archaeology, bctblog, bevocal1, data, ethics, heritage, linklove, mobile, newoptimists, nhs, open, open data, public, services, warwickshire
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Stuff I've seen October 26th through to October 31st

Posted on 31st October 2009 by Nick Booth

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."

Posted on 31st October 2009 by Nick Booth
Tags: architecture, bevocal1, Birmingham Post, community, data, foi, Help Me Investigate, heritage, learning, linklove, lunar, MySociety, open data, policy
Posted in Link Love | No Comments »

Links from August 19th to August 22nd

Posted on 22nd August 2009 by Nick Booth

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.”