Tag: Europe

Stuff I've seen December 6th through to December 13th

These are my links for December 6th through December 13th:

  • When 1000s of Spaniards Rallied in Defence of Online Rights (I): A Chronicle | Personal Democracy Forum – Well worth a read: “An online fire is burning in Europe. It was set by what appears to be a designed campaign to transform the European intellectual property regime, towards a more restrictive set of rules directly affecting the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and information. We’re seeing its implementation in Sweden, France, Italy, UK or at the EU level in Brussels.”
  • The Ernest Marples Blog › The blog for Ernest Marples’ Postcodes – There have been some pretty exciting announcements during the last few weeks. Alongside those, we’ve also met with the Royal Mail to have a talk about finding a way forward.A couple of weeks ago, we had a great meeting with the Royal Mail. They explained in some detail the background to these datasets: how they’re maintained, where the data comes from and where money changes hands. It’s all a bit complicated!
  • Lee Bryant on leadership – I keep returning to this post by Headshift’s Lee Bryant, on leadership in the networked society. It’s big, meaty and good.My starting point was the myth that leadership is somehow less important in new, networked organisations. Not so. If anything, it is more important than ever, but the focus and practice of leadership is changing; and if we are to engage leaders and involve them in the development of social business structures, then we need to be able to understand and address their challenges and issues using language that resonates with them.He provides some slides from a talk he recently gave on the topic, which give a nice overview – though I really do recommend you read – and re-read – the whole thing:
  • http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement/post/2009/12/07/Local-Government-Data.aspx – “The Government will encourage local government to release local public data and make it free for reuse, and establish an open-platform local data exchange. Professor Nigel Shadbolt from the University of Southampton has been asked to head up a panel of experts to oversee the release of local public data and ensure that data are linked effectively across local authorities, the Local Government Association, government departments and agencies.”
  • Countdown to oneplace « Audit Commission blogs | Michael Newbury – If knowledge really is power then we’re truly putting an awful lot of power into the hands of the ordinary citizen. The person who uses and pays for public services. In times of extraordinary pressure on public finances this seems absolutely the right thing to be doing.

Stuff I've seen September 4th through to September 6th

These are my links for September 4th through September 6th:

  •   Google Wave as the future of citizen consultation by Michele Ide-Smith – "At the moment consultation processes in local government are generally still fairly archaic and ‘having your say’ might mean filling out a survey or attending a public meeting, exhibition or focus group."
  • Why town and parish councils are important #nalcconf09 #localgovweb – Paul Geraghty sticks his neck out – Great piece from Paul: Town and parish council websites should be the aggregators of all local information "Town and parish councils are neither cash-rich nor tech-savvy, so the only way they are they going to be able to swim in these streams is if they can develop and adopt a shared code base, using the SAAS (Software as a service) model to make a tool which – thanks to "place" (location) – unlocks data feeds from around the web."
  • Are you taking the mick? « Talk About Local – Humour in community activity: "next time you’re met with local plans, politics or problems that would be funny if they weren’t so angering, perhaps just try highlighting the funny. Point out the silly and match it."
  • Promising Practices in Online Engagement | Public Agenda – "For those who believe that citizens deserve the best possible opportunities to become partners in problem-solving, the public cannot be viewed just as an audience to politics or merely as customers of government. Instead, the public should be treated as a vital resource for effective problem-solving and community-building." via @simonwakeman
  • What really needs to change? « Co-creating an open declaration on public services 2.0 – Co creating an European e-government manifesto: "the aim of the above is to pull together a clear focused group of ideas that on the one hand, people can identify with (i.e. be able to say: “yes, I support that!”) and on the other, give a clear message to governments and a clear standard against which their response (and actions) can be judged."

Stuff I've seen July 17th through July 22nd

These are my links for July 17th through July 22nd:

  • Liam Byrne on how innovators from around the world can teach the UK valuable lessons | Society | The Guardian – The UK government wants to offer up performance data so we have an "open book government". This from Liam Byrne: "online performance information is used to allow people to hold services to account and contribute to the way they develop. Take the US federal government website, Data.gov, which offers a wide range of information, from spending by different government agencies to levels of pollution. People can download and analyse the data themselves."

    Such open-book government is generating pressure for both better services and greater value for money. US cities, such as New York, Washington and Baltimore, which have been pioneering these approaches, have demonstrated improvements in policing and healthcare, as well as saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

  • CDI Europe Doers VII: We Share Stuff, Podnosh and Talk About Local – Iris lapinski cam to Birmingham from and organisation called CDI Europe and talked to some (not all) of the cities "doers". It's good to get a perspective from outside the city. CDO Europe sprang from South America and as srtong aims: "Our mission is to transform lives and strengthen low-income communities by empowering people with information and communication technology. We use technology as a medium to fight poverty, stimulate entrepreneurship and create a new generation of changemakers."
    Thanks for coming Iris, come back soon!
  • LGC on social media – "Now tweet this…" | Simon Wakeman – public sector communications, marketing and public relations – One of the key things I’d pick out of the LGC piece is that social media is only part of a communications strategy – it’s not a communications strategy in itself. How appropriate social media is compared to other tools depends on the campaign objectives, target audiences, key messages and a whole lot more.
  • Curating conversations | The Guardian Open Platform | guardian.co.uk – "Twitter is becoming an ever present backchannel at conferences and events. However sometimes it needs curating and moderating, especially if it's to be displayed large as a part of the event. Here we talk about an app built in a few hours and open sourced today which we used for this purpose for The Guardian's Activate Summit"
  • Technology Strategy Board | Creative Industries Strategy 09 – "Our three-year strategy for 2008-2011 is to drive innovation by connecting and catalysing. To achieve this we are focusing on three themes: challengeled innovation, technology-inspired innovation and the innovation climate. For more information on the overall strategy see www.innovateuk.org."