Tag: Birmingham UK

Podnosh is based in Birmingham in the UK, so often we write about exciting things that are going on near us.

Gapingvoid quote on being a blogger:

From here:

“The best thing about being a blogger is the people you get to meet.” I have found this to be true and self-evident. When I was younger, the people who inspired me the most professionally were famous, dead, or both. Since I become a blogger the people who inspired me the most became good friends of mine. We hung out. We drunk beer. We ate pizza. It wasn’t a big deal, it was just… lovely. Back in 2004, my blogging buddies and I knew we were onto a good thing. Something powerful and creative and earth-changing. But that’s not the main reason we liked it. We liked it because we enjoyed it, because it was interesting, because of the smart, passionate, fun people we were starting to hang out with.

A decade from now, maybe blogs as we know them won’t even exist. Maybe they’ll call them something else. Do I care? Not really. What matters, like Loic (my link)and I talked about, is the people you get to meet. That’s where the magic lies. Ten years from now, these people will still be around, geeking out on the internet at the latest WHATEVER that’s coming down the pike. They’re not going anywhere, and Thank God for that.

Oddly enough my twittercloud got me thinking about the people I enjoy talking to and how far that is at the root of friendship.

Truth in journalism.

honesty from MegElizabeth

If I spent an hour on a story I would end up with a ‘truth’ that represented 60 minutes of effort. A week of effort would yield a 7 days of ‘truth’. What the facts mean is always subjective, regardless of the solidity of those facts.

Good journalism chases honesty, not truth. Honesty is a state of mind and a process. It involves openly sharing the facts you have found and the process you use to find them. It gives your audience the information they need to decide their truth. Honest journalism is easier today than at any moment I have known from nearly 30 years in the trade.

So do it. Now. No excuse.

Monday Mentions. April 7th 2008

streetsize
A week of links is a long time, but I’m behind by four whole weeks. There were about 60 outstanding, but they’ve settled down to this lot. I’m rather old fashioned in doing this manually

Journalism:
Richard Sambrook on the 4 types of citizen journalism and also tells us that ‘control doesn’t scale’. I’m still (happily) thinking about that.
Charlie Beckett on the maturing revolution in journalism: “mainstream and citizen media are increasingly mixing and working together”
Tom Scotney is turned off.

Government:
David Price teaches me the term “lightweight web”. Thanks!

Other Media:
Nesta encourages film to go digital (with £££).
Potentially juicy job at ScreenWM (closes 24 April 2008)
If Charles Dunstone is king does that make the BPI Cnuts?
Web:
Services not sites.
Generosity and shutting up.
Cory on 17 ways to lure bloggers.
The Observer on the fact that the web isn’t fat enough. This bit boggled me noddle:

An ‘exabyte’ is 1.074 billion gigabytes. Two exabytes equal the total volume of information generated in 1999. The internet currently handles one exabyte of data every hour.

Locals:
Dubber – ‘…cos every little thing is gonna be alright’.
Charlotte on why mums currently socially network online not off.
Aeioux on enterprise.

Neighbourhoods:
Streetsize -social networking for your neighbourhood.
Upside down
The big picture but littler.<!–

Learning:
The School of Everything gets more. Yay.

Pleasure:
Russell Davies no T.

Other stuff:
Charlotte Green made me laugh.
Blimey and coo and thank you.

Birmingham Bloggers I think we have a target:

Dave Harte - picture from aeioux on Flickr

For at least 3 years now Dave Harte from Digital Central has been supporting the digital media industry in Brum. Now it’s time to return the favour.

Dave is running the London Marathon next week. He’s been long on training but short on fundraising. Last year he raised £495 for St Mary’s Hospice in 3 months. Now he needs your help to repeat that trick but in 6 days. Why the Hospice…

They deal with those people who are coming to the end of their life and work hard to make those lives and the lives of the people around them a tiny bit more bearable. I’ve not had close dealings with them but I see their building on virtually every training run I do and as I’ve said before I feel a certain elation when I do as it represents the end of a climb and only a mile and a half to home.Have a read of their website to see the full scope of what they do but I think they’re worth the money. So let’s see how we get on. 7 days and counting. Updates on here and on Twitter.

Dave’s job is to run 26 and a bit miles. Ours is to raise £495 before he does his bit. I know which I think is easier! You can donate online here or using this widget (which sometimes doesn’t work) – which of course can also live on your blog.