Tag: Birmingham UK

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

Sex, t'internet and Government

Directgov has just published a survey of what we want from the internet. Below are the wish lists according to different categories.

Apparently motorists haven’t noticed that you can already renew your tax disc online, parents want to watch their children in class (yeurgh) and nobody mentioned sex! Equally the survey seemed to fail to spot people’s desire to watch someone getting hurt on youtube, submit photos of semi-literate cats, or talk to their gran in spain. Disabled users said they wanted to have a conversation with a “digital person” . oh yeh! I bet they would have preferred to be asked if they wanted to use the net to communicate with an old fashioned person person.

I sense very limited questioning based on what we understand the internet could do yesterday, rather than ambitions for what it can do for tomorrow. Hat Tip.

What parents want from the internet

1. Immediate online alert if child hasn’t turned up at registration
2. View my child’s school disciplinary record online
3. Have a say in the running of my child’s school e.g. online PTA meetings
4. Track my child’s journey to or form school
5. Have a webcam in my child’s classroom

What teenagers want from the internet – top 5 responses
1. Take a virtual tour of colleges or universities
2. Have virtual driving lessons
3. Earn money through using your skills online
4. Have job interviews
5. Have school lessons / tutorials

What over 50s want from the internet – top 5 responses
1 Find out about local services aimed at older people
2 Use webcams/video conferencing to stay in touch with friends, relatives
3 Tracking pensions
4 Planning for new life after retirement
5 Be able to use online services regardless of physical situation or impairment

What disabled people want from the internet – top 5 responses
1. Create a complete journey planner mapped by accessibility
2. Have face- to-face check ups
3. Meet people from local disability and other support groups
4. Have face- to-face meetings e.g. job interviews or benefit claim meetings
5. Ask questions and receive verbal information from a digital ‘person’

What motorists want from the internet – top 5 responses
1. Renew car tax
2. Calculate carbon emissions and receive personalised advice on reducing them
3. Check car history
4. Get insurance quotes following an accident
5. Report a bad driver

e-working John Lennon.

John-Lennon-Darfur-v2Steve Bridger and Ed Mitchell are to begin working on a major campaign about Darfur with Amnesty, Yoko Ono and the music of John Lennon.

The two are planning to extend the benefit of the immediate publicity hit of the Instant Karma album. Effectively whilst artists will re-work John Lennon’s music, Steve and Ed will e-work the buzz. As Ed describes it:

We are going to help them reach out across the big name social networks which are closest to the artists’ fan bases (and youtube and flickr of course). Our plan is to do it in a co-ordinated way, by finding people within those networks who relate to the cause, and are willing to represent Amnesty responsibly (we’ll call them ambassadors for now).

Having found them, we are going to ask them to assist with the Make Some Noise presence in their social networks – the theory being that in order to make this a sustainable community development exercise (and not just another viral-styled marketing campaign thundering through the social networks), people who are already in those networks are best placed to do this themselves – they know the who and the how, we can help with the what and the when. Also, once this wave of excitement is over, Amnesty still have a clear idea of who is who in which network, and those ambassadors become increasingly closer to the organisation.

Congrats both, keep us informed and thanks to David Wilcox – who knew about this before Ed blogged it, but ignored his old media instinct to publish, instead applying his socially networked new media instincts and waited.

technorati tags:

Greenpeace explains how Apple is at the core of its campaign

To comment on the video please go here.

Greenpeace have just popped this up on Youtube to show how they are still using Apple technology to keep in touch with Steve Jobs over their Greenmyapple campaign. Tom Dowdall, the web editor at Greenpeace International, has just e-mailed me to say they borrowed a headline from an earlier post on Podnosh for this detailed explanation of how the camapign integrated a wide range of social software to apply pressure, share ideas and untap the innovation of mac users.  Good read. Nice job.

technorati tags: