Tag: bIS

Stuff I've seen from August 16th to August 18th

These are my links for August 16th through to August 18th:

  • Lancashire County Council – Homepage – “Welcome to our new website. To find what you are looking for, use the search box below. If you are interested in the featured campaign, follow the link in the right-hand box.”   Neat – I think I like it.
  • Centro consultation on local rail routes – new stations for Kings Heath? – “We are now seeking your views on this draft. These will help shape the final document.” Not like this you’re not. There are better ways to do online consultation.
  • Go forth and play! « Talk About Local (alpha) – Google and hyperlocal tools: “I don’t know who you are or what you want to do, but chances are a few of these powerful tools will help you do it really easily – and, of course, for free.”
  • Young Rewired State « Emma Mulqueeny – Emma Mulqueeny is excited: “nearly 70 people aged between 15-18 years have registered (way more than we had dared hope for, and more signing up – even though we have closed the list)” and rightly so
  • Illegal downloading – P2P – filesharing – UK government plans tough new laws | Tom Watson MP – Tom Watson writes a fine piece on the proposal to criminlise file shares in the UK. “It is clear that the big corporations are gearing up for an online struggle. Enforcement is central to their strategy. Expect to see hordes of bedsit bloggers and home alone music fans in the courts for copyright misdemeanours over the next few years.Just as the newspaper industry looks set to embark on a collective global impersonation of Ned Ludd, there is an irony that forward thinking players in the music market might be finding some solutions. We’re at a stage where attempts to bring all-you-can-eat digital services to music fans might just be about to pay off. Civil servants might better serve the nation if they were to establish what conditions drive these Internet success stories.”

Stuff I've seen June 16th through June 19th

These are my links for June 16th through June 19th:

  • Helpful Technology – New Ministry new website – From idea to live site took less than 72 hours, including signoffs – a thoroughly enjoyable collaboration between former DIUS and BERR people, led by Neil.
  • The Guardian’s tool to crowdsource MPs’ expenses data: time to play | Online Journalism Blog – So here’s The Guardian’s crowdsourcing tool for MPs’ expenses. If you’ve not already, you should have a play: it’s a dream. There are over 77,000 documents to get through – and in less than 24 hours users have gone through over 50,000 of those. You wonder how long it took The Telegraph to get that far.
  • Birmingham Social Media Cafe – Flick to page 29 of this month’s copy of Wired UK and you’ll see we got a mention as part of an article looking at free-form workplaces. Which was very nice of them.

    The next meet-up is on 10am to midday, Friday 26 June downstairs at the Coffee Lounge. Feel free to just turn up on the day but it’d be nice if you could sign up on one/all of:

  • Councils of the country unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! « Policy and Performance – The essence is that councils challenge and help each other to help them get out of difficulties or ideally prevent it before it happens. We do a lot of that already through peer challenge and review, mentoring and ‘loaning’ staff to authorities in trouble. However, taking this to the next level where it’s not just a ‘nice to do’ but the whole of local government is committed to it, is a major challenge.
  • BBC – The Editors: Social media in Iran – What really stands out is the range of sources, voices and angles to be looked into. There's no hierarchy: everything's on merit, and there is of course a new set of challenges for our staff – chiefly editorial challenges, as well as a kind of chase as social media services appear and disappear in what The Times' Judith Evans describes as "an electronic game of cat and mouse".