The National Trust creates this google map which helps people find National Trust properties and make their way there. No substantial techy shakes, but what is most significant though is a sense of collboration here. They tell us it’s a beta and ask for our iddeas about how to imporve it. That attitude is good news.
The people who contribute to online communities are special – don’t lump them in with the rest of the members, urges Museum 2.0
“And so imagine if, instead of launching a community project and stating, “this is a place where anyone can contribute,” you launched and said, “Only one in a hundred people will share something here. Are you that one?” The idea that the user might be someone special, someone in the minority, is evocative and immensely appealing. If everyone can do it, why bother? If only YOU can do it, the motivation goes up.”
Andy Duncan of Channel 4 talks to Nesta about the future of digital Britain. (hat tip Dominic) He reckons:
- we must have universal access to broadband services.At the moment we rank fifth of the OECD countries for access, but in terms of speed we are some considerable way behind countries like Korea and Japan. If we are to
be a fully digital society, then every citizen must be able to participate. Anything less would be an implicit denial of full citizenship to some. - stimulate demand and here the best way forward must be a combination of public policy and private provision.when by the government’s own admission only 20% of schools have really ‘got it’ in terms of exploiting digital technology to drive next generation learning, we need to ramp up the integration of digital technologies with our formal and informal learning services. Media literacy is as essential to a full and productive life today as basic literacy was in the world of our grandparents.
- My third boundary marker for Digital Britain concerns what you could call the supply side of the equation. For example, there’s the hugely complex question of how to regulate and reward the exploitation of intellectual property in the digital world. Children and teenagers don’t differentiate between content they access on television and what they access on the net, but our regulatory system still treat them as totally separate. One way of dealing with this may be to learn from the advertising industry where responsible self-regulation has been a
success, and it’s clear that, however they do it, the big internet service providers need to take more responsibility for the services they carry. I’m not pretending it’s easy. If ever an issue belonged in the ‘difficult box’ for parliament and for society at large, this is it. But we can no longer dodge it.
MySociety reckons we have 6 days to prevent MP’s burying the details of their expenses. Click here to see how you can act: “NB. mySociety is strictly non-partisan, by mission and by ethics. However, when it looks like Parliament is about to take a huge step in the wrong direction on transparency, we’ve no problem at all with stepping up when changes happen that threaten both the public interest and the ongoing value of sites like TheyWorkForYou and WhatDoTheyKnow.”