Category: Miscellaneous

Stuff I've seen April 27th to April 29th

These are my links for April 27th through April 29th:

  • Job listing for Innovation and New Markets Executive, Screen West Midlands, Birmingham – Audiences Central – Your job will be to assist in delivering a programme of support for digital projects and companies in the region including events, project development and production funding and identifying new trends in digital media, technology and emerging business models. Experience in the digital media sector is highly desirable, as is successful partnership work, project management and familiarity with media contracts – particularly in the digital sector.
  • After the crunch | Andrew Dubber – Ask me what is the greatest thing in the world, I will reply: It is people, it is people, it is people!
  • The mystery of the missing London parking tickets | News | guardian.co.uk – This fab use of data to reveal curious patterns shows how citizens and news outlets can work together to ask interesting questions: ”
    Nobody has parked in a loading bays illegally for 18 months, and nobody has overstayed in a parking place across the whole of London? That’s a flipping miracle. You’d think TfL would be shouting the new-found behaviour of London drivers from the rooftops.”  Except … apart from a couple of low totals at the end of 2008 (which may be due to delays in tickets issued working their way through the system), total ticket numbers have generally risen; indeed they hit an all-time high in November 2007. Clearly, people aren’t really behaving better.
  • cybersoc.com: revealed: groundbreaking study of user generated content use at the bbc – The majority of respondents to the MORI poll commissioned had favourable views of user generated content and thought it played a positive roll in reporting yet few have actually contributed. One of the questions was whether people would take a photo if they saw a fire break out – just 14% said they would, and just 6% of those said they’d send it to a news organisation. Great differences were seen across classes – 16% of higher management would take a photo, with all saying they’d submit it to a news organisation, but in other groups (middle-management to manual laborers) only between 4 – 5% would take a photo.
  • Job listing for Aspiring programme makers – Audiences Central – Our initial aim was to provide the area with its first local television channel and provide an outlet for video productions made with the various groups we work with. Now with the help of Aston Villa Community Interest Company and Data Pacific we have created V-Cube.tv. We intend to produce and schedule programmes that directly or indirectly support, enhance, promote or deliver local concerns & initiatives directly to the Web and other broadcast platforms.
  • Digital Mentors FAQs — Media Trust – “Is this about getting people online?  No. If more people get online as a result of Digital Mentors, that’s great. But digital media is as much about offline technology. But digital media is as much about offline technology, as long as it helps communities to express and exchange their views.”

Stuff I've seen April 24th through April 25th

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

  • gSO Talk: Where did gStepOne come from? – Data: Facts out of context. eg, it will be 30 deg C today, or the train arrives in 5 minutes. (Data is thus of minimal value.)
    Information: Data organised in a way that has a potential for meaning. eg weather details recorded and organised by date, or a train timetable. (Information has potential value.)
    Knowledge: Data or information that enables the receiver to produce an outcome of value. eg knowing the weather to expect, I can plan a picnic, knowing when a train departs and arrives, I can catch the right one. (Knowledge has high value).

Stuff I've seen April 22nd through April 23rd

These are my links for April 22nd through April 23rd:

  • OpenGov: One big challenge? Or a thousand small hurdles : Tim’s Blog – “The big challenges are not about technology – they are about the content and the process of mobilisation and communication. When it comes to technology we’ve not got one big challenge we’ve got 100s of small challenges – and we’ve got no systematic way of dealing with them.”
  • Sutton Green Map – “This is the Sutton Green Map, designed for pedestrians and cyclists with lots of overlay information to help you make the most of the Borough.” Brilliant use of open source mapping and data scraping.
  • Echoes From The Edge | Friction arts – Exhibition starts April 23rd 2009: Echoes From The Edge is a unique living history contemporary art exhibition, housed in a converted factory in Digbeth, Birmingham. Over the past eighteen months, Friction Arts have been collaborating with US artist, Shannon Flattery, to create an interactive exhibition reflecting the voices, thoughts and histories of the residents and workers of Digbeth, Deritend and Highgate as the area undergoes it’s most significant changes for forty years.
  • Stumbling and Mumbling: Waste & decentralization – “cutting waste and empowering public sector workers are not substitutes. They go together.”
  • Home of the Community Broadband Network – “There is an increasingly important role for community broadband projects even after traditional operators have provided vanilla services into an area. Many member projects give something back to their local community, and are constantly innovating and evolving their service to the needs of their community.”

Stuff I've seen April 21st and April 22nd

These are my links for April 21st through to April 22nd: