Tag: policy

Stuff I've seen September 19th through to September 20th

These are my links for September 19th through September 20th:

  • BBC NEWS | Politics | Dyke in BBC ‘conspiracy’ claim – Greg Dyke was impatient for change when he was at the BBC – remember if you have a radical boss find a way to support them: "Our current model was designed for the 18th Century. It doesn't fit 21st Century Britain," he told the meeting. And he added: "We want more influence over our lives and we are not just prepared to hand it over to this strange bunch of people who stand for Parliament because they have been knocking on people's doors for 10 years." "
  • Online Database of Social Media Policies – This database contains 82 documents.
  • Sentiment analysis – analysis « Emma Mulqueeny – Emma: "it is the first step I have seen in digitally automating the mood of the nation on any given topic."
  • Sarah Lay on Twitter and Coseley Baths – Sarah was almost in tears: "This account is the voice of a swimming baths in the Black Country on which the local council has taken the decision to condemn it to closure and demolition."
  • Sarkozy’s blue-chip Commission recommends measuring social capital « Social Capital Blog – It's personal" "A formal organization with a name and address may not correspond to any actual individual members, much less to social networks among those members. Moreover, the role of associations differs from country to country. Because of these reasons, measures of organizational density are generally not good measures of social connections, despite their frequent use for that purpose."

Links from August 19th to August 22nd

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

Links for August 12th through to August 13th

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.”

More links

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!