Author: Nick Booth

Microsoft loses £258,000. Why? It seems Walsall Council is going open source as it trims budget.

Walsall Councillor Mike Flower has been tweeting from the budget setting meeting of Walsall Council. A while back he popped up one saying the council will stop paying Microsoft £258,750 for software licenses:

tweet from Mike Flower

How, I enquired, by going open source?  Yes, he thinks:

tweet from Mike Flower

Thanks for reporting for us from the council meeting. Very interesting. Have they budgeted for some re-training, or are they confident that the transition can simple be made. Any one from Walsall Council willing to flesh things out please do so below:

Links: Mission Impossible, Drift and Steve Jobs.

Neil Williams with a refreshing take on the new Digital Engagment Tsar’s job description: “So no pressure then. It’s truly a cracking job ad, targeting the challenges faced by government’s digital pioneers with a laser-like precision.”

Drift. Nikki Pugh walk’s Digbeth to discover that GPS is a bit cronky: “As I walked, I noticed that the device in my right hand was consistently giving me more erratic readings for my position than the one in my left hand. At one point I left them both next to each other on a wall for a few minutes so that when I could tell if it was my body disrupting the signal, or if it was because the device in my right hand was closer to the buildings I was walking past.”

Melanie Hayes clarifies how 4iP ought not be as clear cut as critics (see comments here) argue: “I don’t want to encourage a box-ticking approach to submitting ideas to 4iP; we want ideas that reflect the spirit of our investment criteria not simply a list that tells us what you think we want to hear.  Such an approach would never succeed anyway because it ignores the more intangible element of our process which is the exercise of professional judgement by a team that has been purposefully selected because of their diverse range of views, skills and expertise.”

Anecdote on the power of hobbies for building communities.  “I noticed an animated discussion between two of the engineers talking about their love for motor bikes. They’d worked out they both had an interest in German classics and one was describing a fuel tank issue he was having. You could see that there was trust and respect in the conversation and this trust and respect was at least partially developed while discussing their hobby.”

Steve Jobs Logs Off?   Jack Schofield reporting claims that Steve Jobs is not online. He adds a very useful reminder for any of us online: “I suggest you heed the immortal words of Shirdi Sai Baba: “Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary, does it improve upon the silence?”

Links: Downing Tweet, Potlatch, Play.

Charles Leadbeater on the Digital Britain report. “To succeed, according to Perez’s theory, the government’s plans for broadband would only succeed if they also bring about a massive change in consumer habits and lifestyles, which new businesses can make a profit from. When her theory is boiled down it turns into three questions about the government’s plans set out in Digital
Britain. Will the technology really deliver? Will enough consumers want it and create new demand with it? Can businesses innovate to supply new services that a mass of consumers want which will be profitable?”  (hat tip Dave Briggs)
Downing Street Hits a 100,000 Twitter followers: Simon at Puffbox says: “The fact it may not be here tomorrow shouldn’t stop us exploiting it while it’s there. 100,000 people have signed up – actively, voluntarily – to hear from the heart of UK government. Now they’re actually listening, what should we be saying to them?”

OOGL:   “Shortly after President Obama’s inauguration, he issued a memo on transparency directing his top officials to develop plans for an Open Government Directive to promote transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Sunlight Foundation has created this page in order to add a public element to the crafting of this Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative”

Jon Hickman asking questions of 4iP (and getting answers) “One might say that the shine has come off, and some people have become critical of what seemed originally to be a good idea.  So what has gone wrong?”

A revamp in Prospect.

Potlatch on Play:  “I have a new metaphor for the next stage of post-industrial capitalism: the play-ground. Where play happens, but there is also an audience.* So how does our playground society produce economic value? Well, of course it produces value for those at play, who enjoy the scurrying around, socialising and innovating. But how might it produce business value? Most of the time, it will still be via the monitoring, watching, evaluating. What play produces is mostly of little interest to our corporate parents. Except, consider the exception. Parents still retain and cherish the paintings that their small children produce, and stick them up on their walls. Childish play still has its totemic products that are valued and endure. This, then, is the metaphor for user-generated innovation in the eyes of corporations: the innocent, messy artwork produced at playtime, that can be held up as proof that things aren’t all top-down”.

Every Voice Counts West Midlands:  “Empowerment is the result of strategic and practical actions – such as engagement, participation and partnership working – that increases the capacity of people to influence the decisions that affect their lives. A National Empowerment Partnership has been created to support and inform the Government in achieving this vision across the English regions.” Umh.

Social Media and chalk.

York art gallery

Abby Corfan from Audiences Central explains very neatly how social media is not about technology:

I strongly believe that social media doesn’t need to rely on super shiny gadgets or fancy websites- in fact it’s so much more about the ‘social’ part than the ‘media’.

Which leads me to this example: At York City Art Gallery they recently invited people to comment and write messages under works of art using blackboard and chalk. It was for an exhibition curated by Tracy Chevalier (author of Girl with a Pearl Earring) who chose pieces from the gallery’s collection which depicted parts of stories. These were hung with a blackboard border and gallery attenders were invited to write suggestions for the beginning and ends of those stories around the artworks. This is not a new technology, but it is an application of the principles of sharing, commenting and engaging in a dialogue; which to me is exactly what social media is for.

Agreed.