Author: Nick Booth

Stuff I've seen November 1st through to November 2nd

These are my links for November 1st through November 2nd:

  • Poles, Politeness and Politics in the age of Twitter « The New Adventures of Stephen Fry – “the most fatuous and maddening aspect of the press’s (perfectly understandable) fear, fascination and dread of Twitter: the insulting notion that twitterers are wavy reeds that can be blown this way or that by the urgings of a few prominent ‘opinion formers’. It is hooey, it is insulting hooey and it is wicked hooey. The press dreads Twitter for all kinds of reasons.”
  • Investment to The Media Bus | Futurebuilders – Futurebuilders invests ion a mobiel media training bus: “We have just offered an investment of £344,573 to The Media Bus. £297,527 of it will be a loan and £47,046 will be a grant. The Media Bus is a social enterprise in Poole that was set up by White Lantern Film as a solution to the growing demand for educational projects and digital media training in locations with poor technical resources.”
  • Supporting Birmingham Conservation Trust if you’re in business – A whole load of ways businesses can support one of my favourite charities – Birmingham Conservation Trust. Non of them cost you any more than a little attention.
  • Beware the instant online anger of the HobNob mob | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer – The heart of this piece on the power of online movements is the final very fine paragraph: ” A mob fighting a good cause is still a mob. To fight back, you need to remember that although the internet age is hugely expanding the number of complaints, the old rules still apply. Whether you are the owner of a tiny blog or the editor of a national newspaper, if someone points out an incorrect fact, you correct it; if someone challenges an argument, you argue back; and if someone says that you must think what they think, you ignore them.”

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

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."

The Birmingham Consultation Database

This week sees the launch of  www.birminghambeheard.org.uk – a database of consultations about and from Birmingham.

Typically the consultations stretch back about 3 years and involve the various organisations which form Be Birmingham, the local strategic partnership.

The site itself has been made by an internal team at Birmingham City Council.  We were approached to make a a promotional video, which ended up being very practical: a simple to guide to how to start using the site:

You’ll notice one other thing which has happened since we made the film.  The site has an RSS feed.  It gives you general updates and the moment and I’m sure they’d be willing to consider a wider variety of  rss feeds – for example by ward or constituency if you think that would help you. So  there’s room to offer feedback here, use it if you get a moment.

Stuff I've seen October 24th through to October 25th

These are my links for October 24th through October 25th:

  • What I (nearly) said at Government 2010 – Neil has some very well structured thinking on government, online consultation/conversation and who's job it is: "People have jobs already. Busy ministers and officials can be forgiven for thinking it’s my job and that of my team to communicate online for them. Challenge is to understand their world, the pressures they’re under, the things they want to achieve, and show how digital can help them do that quicker/better."
  • genzai·chi » MuseumNext: wild ideas about participation – Nikki on Museums: "I gained a lot through speaking with museum (and psychology!) professionals of all sorts and it has really helped me to better appreciate the sorts of issues institutions might be trying to address through the use of games and playful experiences. Also what the main concerns they may have in doing this and where likely pitfalls may be."
  • Urban Interface Policy – VURB – "In the smart city, what is written as programmatic software ‘code’ can easily become defacto ‘law’ as it imposes permissioning schemes and identity regimes on it’s participants. So far, the internet, and the open source software that powers much of it, has remained remarkably adaptable to the ideals of democratic and egalitarian societies. Every infrastructural advance, however, goes through a watershed moment where the governing design principles of the technology itself begin to influence the types of societal experiences they might produce. We need to attempt to understand the cultural ramifications of such infrastructural design decisions in this context"
  • Who’s not using the internet? | Culture | The Observer – "Access to the internet, and the ability to navigate the web has, for example, been shown to produce a significant rise in social confidence among 60 per cent of those who had previously been excluded, while in recent studies of internet usage among individuals who considered themselves to be depressed, "feelings of loneliness" decreased in 80 per cent of cases once people got online, and depressive symptoms were "cured" in 20 per cent of cases. Virtual conversations and interactions are now widely argued to be just as important as "real world" encounters in making people feel attached to a community, or part of a network."
  • Chinese city launches citizen feedback system | Articles | FutureGov – Solutions for Government | Education | Healthcare – The Chinese municipal government of Dalian has launched a user evaluation and electronic monitoring system to gauge the popularity and usefulness of its citizen-facing web sites, and to respond faster to complaints from the public.
  • Petition to: Encourage the Royal Mail to offer a free postcode database to non-profit and community websites. | Number10.gov.uk – You might like to sign Stuart Harrison's Downing Street petition: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Encourage the Royal Mail to offer a free postcode database to non-profit and community websites"