Tag: Birmingham UK

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

The Tenth Pink Slip – School’s Podcasting in Frankley

A few weeks late with this but I just want to share with you the work of a group of year Nine Students at Frankley High in Birmingham.

I’ve been working for Stan’s Cafe and Birmingham Creative Partnerships, with musician Mathew Beckett, to develop podcasting skills in infant and senior school students and staff in Frankley. The most recent results are up on FrankleyTalk (blog every much in beta! any tips to improve it visually gratefully received).

It’s the start of the process for most of the young people, and we have more time in September to leave develop the skills, and hopefully enthusiasm, to continue to use these techniques to raise creativity, aspiration and citizen involvement.

The group pictured above chose to produce a piece of short radio fiction and radio journalism on the connection between boredom and antisocial behaviour. Their starting point was “The tenth pink slip..”  – a drama created in less than a day and based on the fear of getting too many pink slips from the police. The tenth one, they told us, means a likely court appearance.

From dramatists to journalists: the next part of the work produced radio journalism exploring the link between boredom, crime and gangs. (listen to “The Estate We’re In”).

One curious frustration was our attempts to invite the police to come and talk to the students. In principle they were willing to help, in practice it didn’t happen. Even a direct appeal from two of the most pink-slipped young men didn’t manage to get the critical interview. Better forward planning which helps the services understanding the value of work like this as a means of talking directly to young people is on my to do list.

The team presented their work twice, once to the rest of year 9 and once to a Creative Partnership conference. If you want to understand what the work meant to the group listen to this podcast (produced by a shy (!) volunteer conference goer who we trained on the spot)

 

Also read the many comments on the Frankley Talk blog – add to them if you wish.

Refucast – the podcast for refugees – new on the Grassroots Channel

Mikko Kapanen and Shauna Magunda are two students at UCE in Birmingham who used their final year project to experiment with podcasting to tell the stories of refugees in the city. This programme talks to them about how and why they did it and also hears excerpts from some of the remarkable people who spoke to Shauna and made it onto Refucast.

Talk like a Brummie day

image from peteashton

Jon Bounds – the man behind BiNS, the chap who put this site together and the bloke I worked with (he did it mostly) on upyerbrum, continue his one man online campaign to show the true strength of this fabulous city.

He has declared July 20th 2007 Talk Like a Brummie Day.

Orlroit bab!
How often do we hear or read this on a slow news day? “The Brummie accent has been named the least intelligent” “least trustworthy” “least friendly” “most dishonest”? When the media needs a quick stupid stereotype what sort of voice do they pick?

Well us moaning isn’t going to change anything – let’s face it we’re bloody good at whinging and it hasn’t worked yet – so we should celebrate our accent and dialect and encourage everyone to ‘Talk Like a Brummie’ for one day. Come on everyone, don’t gerra cobb on, we ain’t yampy.

We’ll be celebrating, no matter how dark it gets over Bill’s mothers.

Of course this has to be a global collaboration – fluent speakers can add to the brummie dictionary, whilst anyone can vote for this on upyerbum, add the date to their diary, pop this countdown to the day on their site, practice from the dictionary and remember that July 20th is a day of solidarity – a day to talk like a brummie. of course their more besides – perhaps someone fancies doing a youtube guide – and maybe I should get round to a podcast.

Apple, the iPod and networked innovation.

If you’ve been keeping tabs on this blog recently you know that I do love my apple computer and that I’m curious about networks and how networks can accelerate innovation. This weeks cover story for The Economist is “What other companies can learn from Apple.”

The magazine sets out four ideas:

“The first is that innovation can come from without as well as within…its real skill lies in stitching together its own ideas with technologies from outside and then wrapping the results in elegant software and stylish design. The idea for the iPod, for example, was originally dreamt up by a consultant whom Apple hired to run the project. It was assembled by combining off-the-shelf parts with in-house ingredients such as its distinctive, easily used system of controls. Apple is, in short, an orchestrator and integrator of technologies, unafraid to bring in ideas from outside but always adding its own twists. Making network innovation work involves cultivating contacts with start-ups and academic researchers, constantly scouting for new ideas and ensuring that engineers do not fall prey to “not invented here” syndrome, which always values in-house ideas over those from outside.”

“Second, Apple illustrates the importance of designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology. Too many technology firms think that clever innards are enough to sell their products, resulting in gizmos designed by engineers for engineers. Apple has consistently combined clever technology with simplicity and ease of use.”

“a third lesson from Apple is that smart companies should sometimes ignore what the market says it wants today. The iPod was ridiculed when it was launched in 2001, but Mr Jobs stuck by his instinct. Nintendo has done something similar with its popular motion-controlled video-game console, the Wii. Rather than designing a machine for existing gamers, it gambled that non-gamers represented an untapped market and devised a machine with far broader appeal.”

“The fourth lesson from Apple is to “fail wisely”. The Macintosh was born from the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a response to the failure of Apple’s original music phone, produced in conjunction with Motorola.”

It seems to me that these are all attributes which government could use well. Perhaps the hardest for government is the idea of ignoring what the market (voter) says it wants today – although one of the key functions of good government is to have an understanding of the future and make plans for it.

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