Author: Nick Booth

What – if anything – will replace the old politics in a digital city?

If you’re interested in this topic there a good read at the Community Architect blog from Baltimore. Read here.

Can tactical urbanism, Internet journalism, direct action, “open data“, crowd-funding and social networking replace the comfortable business-as-usual model  in which the various casts of the power elite scratch each others back within an established system of power-play and paybacks? Can these various types of free form action provide a solution that is at once local and complex and accessible and less corrupted?

Hat tip Tessy Britton.

How advantaged thinking helped Fiona help herself to help her organsiation help itself.

We get to work with some brilliant organisations.  Foyer Federation has been developing approaches around what it calls Advantaged Thinking and talent –  intended to allow foyers and the young people they work with to use an emphasis on finding positive ways to view the world and focus on talent (rather than deficits) to improve how young people work with foyers to further their lives.

Today I bumped into Fiona McCance who describes herself on her blog:

My name is Fiona and I am 21. I have been living at the Northampton scheme run by Mayday Trust since 4th February 2013. When I arrived at Mayday I was very concerned about having to build a relationship with someone new and was very reluctant to communicate with the staff but after meeting my then Key worker I was challenged with the patience of a saint. After a while the barriers I had set up slowly disappeared and I was able to communicate what help I needed and what ambitions I had in life. Well, that’s where the fun started and my life changed completely

Fiona came across some of the Foyer’s work and was so inspired by this positive approach that she encouraged the people who run here Foyer to get more involved with the advantaged thinking as a way of working.  It has changed all sorts – seeing the first Learning Abilities Foyer established by the Mayday Trust and also changed Fiona’s life – as she tells you in  the video above.

 

 

G8 Open Data Charter

Today the G8 has published an open data charter. Nigel Shadbolt writes in the Telegraph about why this is important:

We need strong leadership from the top of the G8, committed officials within government, and a willingness to support those at the coalface: those who collect, generate, manage and oversee this new information revolution.

We need this innovation because we face unprecedented challenges as a society: an increasing population with very different demographics in different regions, environmental security, economic stability, growth and more.

We see open data as a crucial part of rising to these challenges. Quite simply open data is an enabler of freedom. Our freedom to trade, to learn, to be secure, and to our well-being as individuals, organisations, and as countries.

Done well, its impact will be material, measurable, and transparent.

Key points in the charter:

We, the G8 , agree that open data are an untapped resource with huge potential to encourage the building of stronger, more interconnected societies that better meet the needs of our citizens and allow innovation and prosperity to flourish.
We therefore agree to follow a set of principles that will be the foundation for access to, and the release and re use of, data made available by G8 governments. They are:
  • Open Data by Default
  • Quality and Quantity
  • Useable by All
  • Releasing Data for Improved Governance
  • Releasing Data for Innovation
While working within our national political and legal frameworks, we will implement these principles in accordance with the technical best practises and timeframes set out in our national action plans. G8 members will, by the end of this year, develop action plans, with a view to implementation of the Charter and technical annex by the end of 2015 at the latest. We will review progress at our next meeting in 2014.

Here’s the document in full (odd for an open data document to be released as a PDF – but..)

Open Data Charter G8 June 2013

Note: I sit on the CLG Local Public Data Panel – chaired by Nigel Shadbolt.

This was first published here.

Can I video my local council meetings?

 

It is often very helpful for local community groups or hyperlocal blogs to be able to record what happens at council meetings. It allows them to capture and share a record of what was agreed – and hold politicians to account in the future.  It can also help them celebrate success and show good local government in practice.

Some local council’s have had problems with this and today the Department for Communities and Local Government have clarified things for us all.

many councils across the country are still refusing to allow people to film public council meetings. In some episodes of TV programme Grand Designs, viewers have been perplexed at cameras being stopped from filming meetings of the planning committee considering the self-build projects.

The new guidance explicitly states that councillors and council officers can be filmed at council meetings, and corrects misconceptions that the Data Protection Act somehow prohibits this.

The Health and Safety Executive has also shot down the suggestion that ‘health and safety ‘regulations’ also bar filming, which Wirral Council used to justify a filming ban last year.

The new rules do not apply to Wales, as they have not been introduced by the Welsh government who have devolved responsibility. This led to the situation of a blogger being arrested and handcuffed by the police for filming a council meeting in Carmarthenshire. Wrexham council also banned a journalist from the Daily Post from tweeting a council meeting. Eric Pickles has today challenged Welsh ministers to introduce the new rights in Wales too.

Here’s the document and any and all active citizens and local bloggers should keep this in their back pocket.

BloggeYour council’s cabinet: going to its meetings, seeing how it works – a guide for local peoplers and V…

Be considerate, don’t disrupt, get those cameras out, share what you shoot.

So the short answer is yes.  hat tip Will Perrin and Talk About Local.