Even more thing I found in my feed reader after a while away

• The new model for journalism: Hyper-local, collaboration and aggregation « How to microblog in high heels – Hanah Waldram, she behind the hyperlocal site for Bournville says about Help Me Investigate (I site I helped set up) “hyper-local, collaborative and aggregation seem to me to be key terms in the future of local journalism online. And I’m excited my home town Birmingham is pioneering such innovative and exceptional work.” Thank you Hannah
• Finding Innovation in Design – Bokardo – Joshua Porter is interesting on how websites should start by mimicking existing and current behaviour, before attempting to lead users towards some new combination of behaviour.
• Towards a New Golden Age of Rail? | Andy Howell – “I never thought I’d be praising the work of Lord Adonis. But now this famed train spotter has begun to unveil his vision for high speed rail I’m going to have to take my hat off to him.” Andy Howell on the hope for a high speed rail link from Birmingham to London. Despite high levels of digital connection it would certainly make my work easier. The web has made me want to meet more people and get more done, that means better transport. Now where in Birmingham do we have the space for a shiny new train station… umh, there’s some empty land behind Curzon Street.
• Islamophobia: only 10% of Muslims believe discrimination is on the basis of religion « walls come tumbling down – I ink to this partly because it’s intersting and partly to encourage you to keep tabs on Chris Allen’s blog: “the evidence base for Islamophobia is remarkably weak and so offering any comparison between this and other forms of data remains extremely difficult. Nonetheless, if the findings are correct, then it may be time to re-consider the way that Islamophobia is perceived particularly when the reality and the perception appear to be so different.”
• Screen WM – Roger Shannon writes about Jill Balcon – I link to this simply because one of the first films I ever made when i was working on the first series of Inside Out for the BBC was about Balcon and the other famous movie entrepreneurs who worked out of Birmingham in the 1920′s. it was presented by Adrian Goldberg an included a wonderful interview with Roger Shannon. In fact the whole piece was essentially Roger’s idea.
• Total Place and Accountability « Philip Parkin – Birmingham Councilor Philip Parkin also has views on Total Place: “the conversation about how to best scrutinise the unelected should have begun a long time ago.” in 2003 I ran a quango called Birmingham City Pride, who had as part of it work scrutinising the Local Strategic Partnership. It was a rubbish idea because the organisation which paid us to scrutinise the Local Strategic Partnership was …. yes you’ve guessed it.
• Birmingham Post – Cost of new Birmingham City Council website spirals to £2.8m – This story originally emerged from a Freedom of Information request made as a result of an investigation started by Josh Hart on http://www.helpmeinvestigate.com. At first the Post piece failed to acknowledge the work of volunteers that had made their story possible, but after being prompted they put that right. If you read the comments you’ll see they gained respect for doing just that. The Birmingham Mail also amended their story to acknowledge Heather Brooke, who submitted the FOI
• Local Gov is self organising | DavePress – Dave Briggs on how localgovcamp is spawning self organised regional events.
• 10 great leadership quotes « Common Purpose – Leading Beyond Authority – Click this link for 9 more quotes a bit like:
  “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs
• Roy Greenslade: Murdoch is wrong to charge for online content | Media | guardian.co.uk – I’m with Roy on this one: “Journalists have skills, valuable skills, but the net allows new forms of collaborative journalism that does not recognise the need for barriers. We want to see journalism develop, not return to the days in which an elite minority acted as secular priests, telling people what they thought they ought to know. “
• Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: The Struggle Over Local Media: An Interview With Eric Klinenberg (Part Two) – Cart before horse argument going on here: “young people may not miss reading the local newspaper, but they would be very concerned if they could no longer get reliable local journalism online because the paper had fired so many reporters or even closed. They would notice if their favorite bloggers suddenly had less material to comment on or extend, or if their local TV news got even dumber because there was so little reporting to repackage. If the media is an eco-system, newspaper reporting remains its sun, even in a digital age. When it diminishes, so does everything else. “
• Citizen Engagement « Policy and Performance from IDeA – :A range of projects to promote citizen engagement are being sponsored by CLG under the aegis of the snappily titled Citizen Engagement Tools Sub-Programme Board.”
• Birmingham, B29: Weoley Castle – local news – Charlie Pinder eviscerates the Post and Mail’s attempt t use tagging to get very local.
• A41 Warwick Road Route Enhancements – A-social media from this local government consultation site. It uses wordpress but doesn’t allow conversation. It’s a classic case of consultation being understood as you tell us, on a one to one basis. Wrong, and I’m not interested in being told “we’re learning”. You’re not!