Tag: socialmedia

9th October 2010

Stuff I've seen October 5th through to October 9th

These are my links for October 5th through October 9th:

‘Big society’? Let me explain | Ian Birrell | From the Guardian | The Guardian – "At its core, the big society is an attempt to connect the civic institutions that lie between the individual and the state – and these range from the family and neighbourhood to churches, charities, libraries, local schools and hospitals. It is born out of recognition that our centralised state has become too big, too bureaucratic and just too distant to support many of those most in need of help, and that it deters people from playing a more active role in public life."
Why Facebook’s New Groups Will Change the Way You Use Facebook – the new feature offers an improved signal-to-noise ratio, increased context for communication and a big improvement in user privacy, thanks to respect for the contextual integrity of conversations.
HyperLocalGovCampWM 1 – How organisations can use social media for internal communication | the albert memorial is still there – "…if you think about it, a workplace blog is effectively a hyperlocal blog – or depending on the nature and size of the organisation, a series of workplace blogs."
Snowblog – Reflections on Birmingham – "By the way, now that the British Waterways quango is to go, who will sustain the magnificent canal system here?"
YouTube – Harvey Milk Speech – Harvey Milk Speech

31st August 2010

Things I've spotted August 31st from 14:24 to 22:49

Here are some of the things I’ve been reading August 31st from 14:24 to 22:49:

Facing up to the financial facts | birminghamnewsroom.com – Birmingham City Council's Chief Exec Stephen Hughes: "The truth is, that if we are to protect the public from the consequences of these spending reductions, we need revolutionary change in the way we provide services."
We are going to have to look at ideas that might have seemed inconceivable only a short time ago.
Slices of soup – towards a new definition of local media | ASH-10 – "….the future of online media looks a lot like soup. There will be carrots and they will be important but on the whole it’ll be a murky and opaque and very hard to perceive as anything other than a whole."
The 2010 Social Networking Map / Flowtown (@flowtown) – 2010 map of social media
– ‘Do not sue’ Part II: stories and leads wanted! – an Easy-Waiver (loosely based on what you’d sign to hire a mountain bike, go paintballing etc).
Your guide to organising a street party or fete – Communities and neighbourhoods – Communities and Local Government – "We want to make it easier for you to hold these sorts of local events, without having to plough through mountains of forms and red tape. So we have produced this simple step by step guide to how to hold a community event in your local area. It includes one simple form for you to use to let your local authority know about your plans."

12th May 2010

Digital scrutiny: the web’s the tool

While I’ve watched the election drama unfold over the last few days I’ve been busy trying to finish off the first stage of my digital scrutiny project – which is looking into how it might be possible to use the web to help the public scrutinise local government.

My idea has turned into a blog – Where Can We Swim – that I’m busy trying to develop as a sort of laboratory for the scrutiny of swimming pool provision. At the heart of my idea is a basic belief that we – the public – in all our great unwashed glory, might be able to help to run public facilities – not just as volunteers, but because we’re clever and can actually come up with new ways of doing things.

A reappraisal
When I started the project I hoped to develop a kind of tool kit for scrutiny. I even imagined I’d be scraping data in order to provide really good quality information. But my assumptions were totally off. By posting about my swimming pools idea on Podnosh I’ve learned of the work that Plings has done to find out all the local authorities providing free swimming to under 16s.

Where_can_I_swim_for_free__001 — The Where can I swim for free site

This has made me think about how this provision will continue in the future. I’ve also realised the mines of local information that exist from websites locally, like the Moseley Road Bath’s excellent updates on swimming pool news in Birmingham and are helping to keep an eye on how the city council runs its pools.

Swimming around the web
And, when I first encountered the daftness of the Active Places data set run by Sport England (the store for all the country’s public sporting facilities), I imagined I’d spend my time trying to unlock the data, but it turns out that the folk at Rewired State have already had a crack at it.

What all this is beginning to prove is that my idea of a tool kit makes no sense whatsoever. Instead it’s pretty simple really: the web’s the tool. The real trick – something I’m only beginning to understand – is learning to use it to make connections between you and other people who have the same idea. And, if you do that, then suddenly all sorts of clever things begin to happen.

15th April 2010

Report: April's Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery

Jon Law and James Robertson — Jon Law (left) and James Robertson at Apri's Central Birmingham SMS

Last night was a really interesting surgery at thestudio – not least because it saw the first introduction of the Social Media Surgery Plus website.

We were blessed, quite surprisingly, with a large number of people happy to help others, which was great to see. Nick Booth helped the Civic Centre Residents’ group with their efforts to use Scribd with their residents’ blog, which they set up a few surgeries ago.
Karen Caine was helped by Andy Mabbett and learned about using data sets in conjunction with her long-established site, BrumCityCentre.com, for Birmingham City Centre Neighbourhood Forum.
John Newson was helped with his blog by Danny Smith.

Nick Helping the Civic Centre residents — Another busy Social Media Surgery

Heidi Blanton very kindly came down to help as a surgeon for the first time and helped Nancy Langfeldt with the blog for the South Birmingham Food Cooperative, which she had set up at a previous surgery. Jon Law of the Balsall Heath Housing Co-operative was helped by James Robertson with his site.

As I indicated earlier a great number of other people came along. And we had more people ready to help than those needing help, including Mary Horesh of Birmingham Friends of the Earth.