Tag: birminghamuk

Stuff I've seen August 10th to August 12th

These are my links for August 10th through August 12th:

  • pachube :: connecting environments, patching the planet – Welcome to Pachube, a service that enables you to connect, tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world. The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual.
  • haque :: design + research – The domain of architecture has been transformed by developments in interaction research, wearable computing, mobile connectivity, people-centered design, contextual awareness, RFID systems and ubiquitous computing. These technologies alter our understanding of space and change the way we relate to each other. We no longer think of architecture as static and immutable; instead we see it as dynamic, responsive and conversant. Our projects explore some of this territory.
  • Introducing GrowthSpur – Recovering Journalist – Wow – very bold claims for growth spur: “How much money? We believe, based on our research and experience, that a well-run, sophisticated local site can bring in more than $100,000 a year in revenue from advertising, e-commerce and other sources. GrowthSpur exists to help local entrepreneurs achieve that level of success—and more.” I suppose it depends what you mean by local.
  • From Grierson to Podnosh – a history of Participation | daveharte.com – This is ridiculously flattering bu also well worth a read: “From the moment we were taught how to white balance a video camera it felt like we were being given tools of dissension – not to be frittered away on shallow subject-matter but rather to be used to tackle dominant ideologies and tear down class structures. Sounds pious now I know but video’s ease of use and its directness felt that enabling. Ultimately we fell a bit short of changing the world but it was fun trying for a period there in the late 1980s.
    So how does the participatory work within Social Media fit into this?”
  • MediaShift . Five Ways to Use Mind-Mapping Tools in the Newsroom | PBS – Very useful post, which, naturally enough, quotes a Brummie.

More links

Even more thing I found in my feed reader after a while away

  • The new model for journalism: Hyper-local, collaboration and aggregation « How to microblog in high heels – Hanah Waldram, she behind the hyperlocal site for Bournville says about Help Me Investigate (I site I helped set up) “hyper-local, collaborative and aggregation seem to me to be key terms in the future of local journalism online. And I’m excited my home town Birmingham is pioneering such innovative and exceptional work.” Thank you Hannah
  • Finding Innovation in Design – Bokardo – Joshua Porter is interesting on how websites should start by mimicking existing and current behaviour, before attempting to lead users towards some new combination of behaviour.
  • Towards a New Golden Age of Rail? | Andy Howell – “I never thought I’d be praising the work of Lord Adonis. But now this famed train spotter has begun to unveil his vision for high speed rail I’m going to have to take my hat off to him.” Andy Howell on the hope for a high speed rail link from Birmingham to London. Despite high levels of digital connection it would certainly make my work easier. The web has made me want to meet more people and get more done, that means better transport. Now where in Birmingham do we have the space for a shiny new train station… umh, there’s some empty land behind Curzon Street.
  • Islamophobia: only 10% of Muslims believe discrimination is on the basis of religion « walls come tumbling down – I ink to this partly because it’s intersting and partly to encourage you to keep tabs on Chris Allen’s blog: “the evidence base for Islamophobia is remarkably weak and so offering any comparison between this and other forms of data remains extremely difficult. Nonetheless, if the findings are correct, then it may be time to re-consider the way that Islamophobia is perceived particularly when the reality and the perception appear to be so different.”
  • Screen WM – Roger Shannon writes about Jill Balcon – I link to this simply because one of the first films I ever made when i was working on the first series of Inside Out for the BBC was about Balcon and the other famous movie entrepreneurs who worked out of Birmingham in the 1920’s. it was presented by Adrian Goldberg an included a wonderful interview with Roger Shannon. In fact the whole piece was essentially Roger’s idea.
  • Total Place and Accountability « Philip Parkin – Birmingham Councilor Philip Parkin also has views on Total Place: “the conversation about how to best scrutinise the unelected should have begun a long time ago.” in 2003 I ran a quango called Birmingham City Pride, who had as part of it work scrutinising the Local Strategic Partnership. It was a rubbish idea because the organisation which paid us to scrutinise the Local Strategic Partnership was …. yes you’ve guessed it.
  • Birmingham Post – Cost of new Birmingham City Council website spirals to £2.8m – This story originally emerged from a Freedom of Information request made as a result of an investigation started by Josh Hart on http://www.helpmeinvestigate.com. At first the Post piece failed to acknowledge the work of volunteers that had made their story possible, but after being prompted they put that right. If you read the comments you’ll see they gained respect for doing just that. The Birmingham Mail also amended their story to acknowledge Heather Brooke, who submitted the FOI
  • Local Gov is self organising | DavePress – Dave Briggs on how localgovcamp is spawning self organised regional events.
  • 10 great leadership quotes « Common Purpose – Leading Beyond Authority – Click this link for 9 more quotes a bit like:
    “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs
  • Roy Greenslade: Murdoch is wrong to charge for online content | Media | guardian.co.uk – I’m with Roy on this one: “Journalists have skills, valuable skills, but the net allows new forms of collaborative journalism that does not recognise the need for barriers. We want to see journalism develop, not return to the days in which an elite minority acted as secular priests, telling people what they thought they ought to know. “
  • Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: The Struggle Over Local Media: An Interview With Eric Klinenberg (Part Two) – Cart before horse argument going on here: “young people may not miss reading the local newspaper, but they would be very concerned if they could no longer get reliable local journalism online because the paper had fired so many reporters or even closed. They would notice if their favorite bloggers suddenly had less material to comment on or extend, or if their local TV news got even dumber because there was so little reporting to repackage. If the media is an eco-system, newspaper reporting remains its sun, even in a digital age. When it diminishes, so does everything else. “
  • Citizen Engagement « Policy and Performance from IDeA – :A range of projects to promote citizen engagement are being sponsored by CLG under the aegis of the snappily titled Citizen Engagement Tools Sub-Programme Board.”
  • Birmingham, B29: Weoley Castle – local news – Charlie Pinder eviscerates the Post and Mail’s attempt t use tagging to get very local.
  • A41 Warwick Road Route Enhancements – A-social media from this local government consultation site. It uses wordpress but doesn’t allow conversation. It’s a classic case of consultation being understood as you tell us, on a one to one basis. Wrong, and I’m not interested in being told “we’re learning”. You’re not!

Stuff I've missed during my quick holiday

These are my links for August 7th through August 8th:

  • BrandNew – “BrandNew is a friendly, informal gathering in London, UK, for those employed to represent a brand online to get acquainted, chat and share.” Jo Geary, yes she who set up the Birmingham Social Media Cafe, starts something new in London. You can still come home though Jo.
  • Mappa Mercia: Is this the shortest bus journey in Birmingham? – I linked to this simply because it shows the potential benefits of having attentive eyes on the street. I might not want time/money spent putting this right, but volunteer mappers are bound to find things worth changing.
  • ‘Total Place’ in Birmingham « – Total Place is an important idea, one which I first came across many years ago when Dr Dick Atkinson was trying to work out the total public spend for Balsall Heath. I know he shared that passion with both government an opposition. It helps at city level, but I think key decision making will change when there is also some way of making ti work at neighborhood level. To quote from one of the local MP’s: “The BeBirmingham partnership recently estimated that in total around £7.5 billion of public money was invested in the city in 2008-09. That’s a huge amount. Over a billion is spent on education.”
  • Government names successful projects to help young people unlock their talent – Corporate – Communities and Local Government – Have we on just got round to doing this? “The Inspiring Communities initiative is about getting people in communities working together to boost the aspirations and achievements of their young people.”
  • Social Media Provide Untapped Opportunity to Engage High Dollar Non-profit Donors, According to Community Philanthropy 2.0 Research Study : New Communications Review – The social web offers a welcome place for individual philanthropic activity. New research funded by the Columbus Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation demonstrates that High dollar donors — especially 30-49 year-olds — use the social web, but have yet to be engaged by strong, trustworthy philanthropic organizations. This was among the key findings of the new research study, “Community Philanthropy 2.0,” conducted by Beth Kanter, Society for New Communications Research Fellow Geoff Livingston, and Qui Diaz of CRT/tanaka.

Stuff I've seen July 28th and July 29th

These are my links for July 28th through to July 29th:

  • David Cameron’s missing a Twitter trick | John Prescott | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk – Interesting and true: “More and more politicians are blogging, vlogging and tweeting. Interestingly, according to the Hansard Society, MPs like me born before 1940 are more likely to blog than their younger colleagues.”
  • Rewired State Projects – Young Rewired State is a weekend event emulating the success of ReWired State’s National Hack the Government Day, but this time with hackers aged 15-18.
  • Data & Stuff – Neil Houston so enjoyed doing some spare time data journalism he’s started blogging about it.
  • localcommunities – Who’s who – David Wilcox has pulled together a very fine summary of lots of community digital media activity.
  • Autocar – New tech to cut congestion – Dominic Gill, Microsoft regional manager, said: “This is the first application to use available data intuitively to put real power in the hands of individuals to make and refine travel plans.“The strategy of linking with information sources so they can react to an individual’s changing circumstances will transform people’s travelling experiences.”