Monday, November 07, 2011
“I don't buy barbed wire, I just dig wells”
I am on the verge of packing up my bookmarks and taking them to Pinboard. I have a really heavy heart about this. My love for delicious has been expressed in a lot of blog posts over the years. It was the frontend of a service I have been quietly nurturing with some other volunteers for several years to make Stoke-on-Trent's websphere more comprehensible, to make a visual cloud of Stoke links. It felt like it was just on the verge of being very useful, then Avos switched it off.
The reason I'm on the verge of leaving is not because they've discontinued the tag cloud. The people of the internet will fix this in time. It's more a deap-seated irritation at the business-model that drives this kind of decision. The decision to take out the tagcloud is inexplicable, but it has been replaced by some development that is trying to make the service more like a channel, a platform that you stay on. A walled garden. They haven't switched off RSS, the birds that power the free web, the channels that enable free sharing, but by killing the tag cloud they took out one of the features that made delicious so useful and powerful. It's hard to keep faith in owners that so fundamentally misunderstand the way their community were using the service.
He giants of the internet did an amazing thing by showing how content, platforms and software want to be free. That people can build sustainable businesses around sharing and cooperating. What they need to remember is that users, too, want to be free.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
On the peacock-feather sellers of London
I wanted to flood the peacock-feather sellers (4 for £2) in Trafalgar Square and Brick Lane with questions. Where have they come from (peacocks and sellers)? Do they sell enough feathers on the streets of London to make a living? Are they ethical feathers, gathered from behind peacocks with acres to roam, or plucked from within a cramped farm?
You could never sell four peacock-feathers for £2 in Stoke-on-Trent. Only the other day I got five peacock-feathers for free from my friend Helen, who rehomed a peacock from the Bucknall City Farm. We would all know a source of cheaper peacock-feathers and would use this information to mercilessly drive the peacock-feather seller away from profit. That is, unless peacock-feathers became part of some advertising and word-of-mouth boom, or if they became part of a social custom. In those cases, we would flock to join moody queues and battle old ladies for the last bunch of feathers, which would mysteriously have increased in price to £1.50 each, or 4 for £4.
The amateur economist can draw several lessons from the fact that peacock-feathers are sold to the tourists of Brick Lane and Trafalgar Square.
Packed Brick Lane market seemed to be teasing recession-hit Stoke with its tables of mismatched Wedgwood being picked up and turned over by enthusiastic hunters. But then you'd think of their overheads. And of how hard it probably was to get a spot in this teeming market. It is bad form to begrudge anyone a living, but as soon as I stepped off the train back in Stoke, I felt the familiar rising feeling of anger at missed opportunities, silence and passive barriers; envy for Burslem and its quiet streets. At the same time knowing gloom, blame and helplessness is a bad habit, preventing us from just getting on and working towards the city we want to see.
The many successful traders of Stoke are like the peacock-feather sellers. They find or make something simple and beautiful and take it to where the crowds are. The global pottery industry developed in a way that was untainted - relatively if not completely - by slavery and exploitation. We can learn much inside and outside of the Potteries.
Maybe next time I'm in London I should ask those questions.
You could never sell four peacock-feathers for £2 in Stoke-on-Trent. Only the other day I got five peacock-feathers for free from my friend Helen, who rehomed a peacock from the Bucknall City Farm. We would all know a source of cheaper peacock-feathers and would use this information to mercilessly drive the peacock-feather seller away from profit. That is, unless peacock-feathers became part of some advertising and word-of-mouth boom, or if they became part of a social custom. In those cases, we would flock to join moody queues and battle old ladies for the last bunch of feathers, which would mysteriously have increased in price to £1.50 each, or 4 for £4.
The amateur economist can draw several lessons from the fact that peacock-feathers are sold to the tourists of Brick Lane and Trafalgar Square.
Packed Brick Lane market seemed to be teasing recession-hit Stoke with its tables of mismatched Wedgwood being picked up and turned over by enthusiastic hunters. But then you'd think of their overheads. And of how hard it probably was to get a spot in this teeming market. It is bad form to begrudge anyone a living, but as soon as I stepped off the train back in Stoke, I felt the familiar rising feeling of anger at missed opportunities, silence and passive barriers; envy for Burslem and its quiet streets. At the same time knowing gloom, blame and helplessness is a bad habit, preventing us from just getting on and working towards the city we want to see.
The many successful traders of Stoke are like the peacock-feather sellers. They find or make something simple and beautiful and take it to where the crowds are. The global pottery industry developed in a way that was untainted - relatively if not completely - by slavery and exploitation. We can learn much inside and outside of the Potteries.
Maybe next time I'm in London I should ask those questions.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Dare we hope?
Are we witnessing the start of a crumbling News International media empire in Britain? Only sales figures will tell.
Thinking back on the decades since Murdoch owned the Sun, his influence has been significant. It was the flight to Wapping and subsequent strikes that are in my consciousness as the equivalent of the miners' strikes, showing how unions could be broken and working conditions gradually stripped back, not because of a lack of rights but because workers willingly entered into jobs or continued them in an industry they felt passionate about. I moved away from that industry, as I've stayed out of party politics, under the assumption that I could never change the things that made me feel uncomfortable, even fearful at times.
And yet things are changing.
I have renewed respect for the Guardian, whose relatively quiet work on this story has underpinned all that we now tweet and retweet. The patience that the editor has had in commissioning journalists goes against the belief I had developed that all newspapers only chase the fast story, the easy conflict. There are other journalists with stories that will be equally, if not more important, whose time could still come. The unpredictable thing about online mobs is that, like a swarm of bees, they can land anywhere.
There is the possibility that buyers of newspapers will look again at what they're reading and look around, try one of the different, very good newspapers that are still being produced. That they might think a little more about the sources of the stories that are so compelling and wonder whose privacy has been invaded, whose door has been knocked upon, to get it. They might, as they did this week, think "What if that was my family?" Newspaper sales may have declined, but there is still a market there of millions, and the potential to grow many more with investment in news that people want to read. Newspapers, after all, have been running on the web model of micropayments and advertising for centuries and most of the infrastructure is still there. Time may be up for newspapers that simply rewrite what we can already find online, that don't allow their journalists to do the job that we need: curate, reflect, dig deeper, ask questions.
As Nick Davies said in much more detail in Flat Earth News, phonehacking was a part of the churnalism culture. It's cheap and easy to do from your desk. You don't even need to send an agency hack round for the deathknock. There were no ethical considerations before it was made illegal because they were just responding to the market. Why would millions of people buy a product or advertise within it when the means of making it would, apparently from this week, disgust them? We can only assume that they didn't know, or they hadn't thought about it. And that, in itself, has a lot to do with an addictive, fast-moving culture that wasn't a Murdoch invention, it was being written about in the 50s and probably before that. Stuff that drives the emotions, gives people a sense of belonging, provides enjoyment.
Could we imagine a market for regional and even local newspapers, working with the web, the millions of voices that can be so easily found now, to provide newspapers that are enjoyable as well as useful, where they can say "nobody was hurt in the making of this newspaper (except in the public interest)".
Dare we hope for more diversity in mainstream journalism in the future; a change in the industry that, maybe without intending to, produces the same homogeneity we see in politics? That communications officers might be hired to share messages, not 'manage' them? And that the Labour party might stop blaming everyone else for a second and talk about why they spent so many years inflating the power of people who, at the end of the day, just run some newspapers? And rather than calling for new laws (which will be completely unenforceable now we can publish from anywhere), look at why our existing laws weren't applied?
Twitter is an intense place to be at the moment and emotions are running high. It has, after all, been an amazing week for news. I guess I'm writing this blog as a reminder to myself to step back, to take a bit of time to think, and to encourage more of the careful, thoughtful work that we have seen so much of this week, from powerless people as well as the big names. Let's not get too addicted to the thrilling rush of the next twist. Let's not, as newspapers might, overplay the power of 'social media' which is as meaningless as saying it was the News of the World that hacked those phones.
Luckily for us - on the whole, we are lucky to live in a country like Britain - our version of the Arab Spring won't see us overthrowing a brutal dictator. But there are parallels, especially for those in my generation and younger who have never known a world without Page 3 (for any overseas readers who might stumble upon this: topless women seen as soon as we open a number of tabloid newspapers). And there are also serious questions to be raised about some of the things that have been ignored over the years. I hope politicians and grassroots activists will feel emboldened to tell their stories and speak out about things they have been frightened about in the past. None of this will be easy. It requires exchange, education and probably all sorts of other things I haven't even thought about yet but I'm sure others have.
Because if there's one thing I know which makes me hopeful, it's that there is an amazing world of good people making rapid new connections and, maybe, shifting old power structures, even just a fraction.
Thinking back on the decades since Murdoch owned the Sun, his influence has been significant. It was the flight to Wapping and subsequent strikes that are in my consciousness as the equivalent of the miners' strikes, showing how unions could be broken and working conditions gradually stripped back, not because of a lack of rights but because workers willingly entered into jobs or continued them in an industry they felt passionate about. I moved away from that industry, as I've stayed out of party politics, under the assumption that I could never change the things that made me feel uncomfortable, even fearful at times.
And yet things are changing.
I have renewed respect for the Guardian, whose relatively quiet work on this story has underpinned all that we now tweet and retweet. The patience that the editor has had in commissioning journalists goes against the belief I had developed that all newspapers only chase the fast story, the easy conflict. There are other journalists with stories that will be equally, if not more important, whose time could still come. The unpredictable thing about online mobs is that, like a swarm of bees, they can land anywhere.
There is the possibility that buyers of newspapers will look again at what they're reading and look around, try one of the different, very good newspapers that are still being produced. That they might think a little more about the sources of the stories that are so compelling and wonder whose privacy has been invaded, whose door has been knocked upon, to get it. They might, as they did this week, think "What if that was my family?" Newspaper sales may have declined, but there is still a market there of millions, and the potential to grow many more with investment in news that people want to read. Newspapers, after all, have been running on the web model of micropayments and advertising for centuries and most of the infrastructure is still there. Time may be up for newspapers that simply rewrite what we can already find online, that don't allow their journalists to do the job that we need: curate, reflect, dig deeper, ask questions.
As Nick Davies said in much more detail in Flat Earth News, phonehacking was a part of the churnalism culture. It's cheap and easy to do from your desk. You don't even need to send an agency hack round for the deathknock. There were no ethical considerations before it was made illegal because they were just responding to the market. Why would millions of people buy a product or advertise within it when the means of making it would, apparently from this week, disgust them? We can only assume that they didn't know, or they hadn't thought about it. And that, in itself, has a lot to do with an addictive, fast-moving culture that wasn't a Murdoch invention, it was being written about in the 50s and probably before that. Stuff that drives the emotions, gives people a sense of belonging, provides enjoyment.
Could we imagine a market for regional and even local newspapers, working with the web, the millions of voices that can be so easily found now, to provide newspapers that are enjoyable as well as useful, where they can say "nobody was hurt in the making of this newspaper (except in the public interest)".
Dare we hope for more diversity in mainstream journalism in the future; a change in the industry that, maybe without intending to, produces the same homogeneity we see in politics? That communications officers might be hired to share messages, not 'manage' them? And that the Labour party might stop blaming everyone else for a second and talk about why they spent so many years inflating the power of people who, at the end of the day, just run some newspapers? And rather than calling for new laws (which will be completely unenforceable now we can publish from anywhere), look at why our existing laws weren't applied?
Twitter is an intense place to be at the moment and emotions are running high. It has, after all, been an amazing week for news. I guess I'm writing this blog as a reminder to myself to step back, to take a bit of time to think, and to encourage more of the careful, thoughtful work that we have seen so much of this week, from powerless people as well as the big names. Let's not get too addicted to the thrilling rush of the next twist. Let's not, as newspapers might, overplay the power of 'social media' which is as meaningless as saying it was the News of the World that hacked those phones.
Luckily for us - on the whole, we are lucky to live in a country like Britain - our version of the Arab Spring won't see us overthrowing a brutal dictator. But there are parallels, especially for those in my generation and younger who have never known a world without Page 3 (for any overseas readers who might stumble upon this: topless women seen as soon as we open a number of tabloid newspapers). And there are also serious questions to be raised about some of the things that have been ignored over the years. I hope politicians and grassroots activists will feel emboldened to tell their stories and speak out about things they have been frightened about in the past. None of this will be easy. It requires exchange, education and probably all sorts of other things I haven't even thought about yet but I'm sure others have.
Because if there's one thing I know which makes me hopeful, it's that there is an amazing world of good people making rapid new connections and, maybe, shifting old power structures, even just a fraction.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
If Twitter was a nation state...
...it would be Sparta.
Disciplined, it makes its members perfectly concise, not like those verbose chatterers of Facebook and Google+. The harsh isolation of Unfollows for those who transgress against unwritten rules. A stern framework with boundaries. Full of strange rituals, games that appear on the surface so pointless. There be wolves and other dangers and tests which all young tweeters must face.
But it's so frikkin' cool! The ladies so tough and sexy, its citizens standing up and fighting for what they believe in!
Twitter looks like a mess at first. But suddenly the enemy realises there are hundreds, maybe thousands of tribes, all standing together with one voice when they have to,
Shouting: this is Twitter!
(admitted: I learnt everything I recall about Roman history from the film 300)
Disciplined, it makes its members perfectly concise, not like those verbose chatterers of Facebook and Google+. The harsh isolation of Unfollows for those who transgress against unwritten rules. A stern framework with boundaries. Full of strange rituals, games that appear on the surface so pointless. There be wolves and other dangers and tests which all young tweeters must face.
But it's so frikkin' cool! The ladies so tough and sexy, its citizens standing up and fighting for what they believe in!
Twitter looks like a mess at first. But suddenly the enemy realises there are hundreds, maybe thousands of tribes, all standing together with one voice when they have to,
Shouting: this is Twitter!
(admitted: I learnt everything I recall about Roman history from the film 300)
Monday, July 04, 2011
It's time for an entente cordiale
As anyone who bothers reading my updates on Twitter or Facebook knows, I got very excited indeed about Google+, finally got in and have been enjoying playing with it for a few days now. First impressions are very positive, with the usual reservations of any beta Google product and the excitement that us early-adopting geeks always have when we get to link to the same people in exciting new ways.
Google+'s engineering is very snazzy indeed - although it doesn't have as many features as many of us imagined, we have faith that they will come and with a very few glitches what it has built works very well indeed. An exciting sign is that Google's generally fairly antisocial founders are using Google+ to share and an interesting one is that Mark Zuckerberg is lurking there, not sharing in public but making some circles. It's intriguing enough that he has already been ranked as Google+'s most popular user. Yep, geek gossip heaven, this stuff.
My biggest request now is not new features, but a friendly agreement. The big three - Google, Twitter and Facebook - are so ingrained in our lives now that it's hard to imagine us drifting away from any of them, but so it was with Myspace. I don't doubt that everyone expects to see a massive battle to the death with one winner, but I'd prefer another path.
For someone like me, Google Circles is already an interface that I really like using. I want to make my public updates broadcast straight to Twitter. I would prefer however, to continue to read most updates on the Twitter interface because the updates there are snappier. The only reason anyone can follow more than 1,000 people on Twitter is that we say very little on there. Perfect.
I would love to have a circle called Facebook, where me and people who were happy to authorise the link could communicate, with me on Google+ and them on Facebook. Then, while they play on Farmville, I can be reading and +1ing the latest geeky discussions in my stream. Or Reader articles; Reader needs to become incorporated into Google+ forthwith, they could simply merge it into Sparks. Oh yeh, and I want this blog post to automatically go into my Circles stream - *obviously*.
What I'm trying to say is we all want something different: we want to concoct our own unique mix, a little bit of Twitter here and a little bit of Facebook there, a few of Google magical interfaces pulled together into one page. For that to happen, we need the big three to give us the ability to push and pull our data very easily, to link up our contacts rather than duplicate groups and to manage our communication in whichever ways work for us, not the way websites lay on for us. Each site will always have features that you have to visit the site to use but we should not have to feel like we're dumping old friends by spending more time in new communities just because we like a new interface more (or just because we're super-twitchy early adopting geeks). Twitter, Google and Facebook all have an interest in making 'their' site the universal website, but equal interest in defending an open, social web and making it easy for us to connect communities. I mean genuinely easy too, not just 'we'll make it really easy for you as long as you come over to us' easy.
Facebook has everyone I love (at least all of them who have joined Facebook), therefore I have a lot of affection for it. Twitter and Google have my trust because they work so well I barely notice them and they connect me with information and people I like and respect. Love and trust are very emotional ways to talk about websites, but this illustrates how much these tools have become part of our lives and the way people interact. There are billions of unique individuals using the web and website developers do not need to seek universal use. By improving on the different strengths of their sites and their communities as they evolve, they will create stronger loyalty amongst their users and this in turn makes it more likely that we'll build up more detailed profiles and be served more useful, efficient advertising. And while all of you enjoy your riches, the rest of us can enjoy the rich variety of the ecosystem.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Royal Wedding - the webfan view
As the dresses, the cake, the trees and everything else will be picked over in fine detail, I thought I'd write about what I know and praise the social media yesterday.
Clarence House has been tweeting with great confidence throughout the engagement and yesterday's wedding did not disappoint: a nice mixture of the formal facts, ceremony PDF, the stuff *everyone* wanted to know about, retweets and rooftop views of the flyover.
Finally I noted that Clarence House staff swiftly swept through the site to ensure that William and Kate's new titles are fully reflected in their biographies and even the URLs. (Yes, I have been reading it all)
As well as tweeting for the rest of us who had finally succumbed to romance, Fashion Critic was quick to post photos of the dresses and her thoughts on them.
There should also be plenty of hyperlocal street party action being posted over the next few days and if anyone out there wants to help gather them, I'd suggest the tag 'rw11hyperlocal'
While this was definitely a day when you want to be glued to a largescreen TV when you're not sipping Pimms in the street, having the web around enriched an historic day no end - with more pictures, wittier commentary, a host of extras and the voices of the crowds. Loved it.
My favourite picture of the day, via Popsugar & Getty
All pictures are screengrabs for illustration only, follow the links for originals and full source information.
All pictures are screengrabs for illustration only, follow the links for originals and full source information.
Friday, April 22, 2011
We are energy
This post is part observation of what communities (particularly, but not exclusively, digital communities) are doing, and part manifesto: me thinking that if we did even more of the things listed below we would overcome a lot of the city's challenges.
North Staffordshire is a complicated place of villages, towns and a city. Our area was one of the heartlands of the industrial revolution. Our ideas and products spread across the world and we retain easy links to the rest of Britain and further afield. We are surrounded by resources but for many people it can also be a very challenging place to live. For example, in Stoke-on-Trent many people live in substandard housing and experience poor health. Opportunities can be difficult to find and access. The city itself can be difficult to navigate. On the flipside, it's a low cost place to live and when the sun comes out and at least one of the football clubs is doing well, the spirit of the city is lifted.
North Staffordshire is a complicated place of villages, towns and a city. Our area was one of the heartlands of the industrial revolution. Our ideas and products spread across the world and we retain easy links to the rest of Britain and further afield. We are surrounded by resources but for many people it can also be a very challenging place to live. For example, in Stoke-on-Trent many people live in substandard housing and experience poor health. Opportunities can be difficult to find and access. The city itself can be difficult to navigate. On the flipside, it's a low cost place to live and when the sun comes out and at least one of the football clubs is doing well, the spirit of the city is lifted.
People coming together in groups help to keep communities healthy by raising wellbeing from simply spending time in each other's company, spending money together, making decisions collectively and exchanging information.
Together, we have more energy and more power.
These are some ways to access what's positive and do something about what's negative by building up people's skills, confidence and ability to:
+ find and navigate everything around us such as opportunities, events, spaces, resources
- challenge decisions, navigate and improve systems, overcome challenges and live more sustainably
+ find and navigate everything around us such as opportunities, events, spaces, resources
- challenge decisions, navigate and improve systems, overcome challenges and live more sustainably
- take part in opportunities to learn
- share our own knowledge and skills with others
- help to make links between people and organisations
- curate and collate information to make it accessible to more people
- share information about opportunities, spaces and services
- listen out for the positive and negative in the conversations around us and online.
As I said at the beginning of this post there are a lot of people already doing this. On Social Stoke I collect links to some of the good stuff that I've spotted.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A note for sharing
In my day, you were lucky if someone knew what you were talking about when you said "telephone". In the next few days, magical digital events are going to be coming faster than tweets during a student demonstration.
There are two major festivals, DATfest and Stoke Your Fires, with packed programmes involving pixels and bytes, about which more information is below.
If you'd like to share your super social media skills with people who've never had the opportunity, please come along to help at any point of the Social Media Cafes in Hanley library, details below on the DATfest website. You'll be very much thanked and rewarded with cake.
And on Wednesday 2nd, one of the ideas from the last Tweetup is going to be planned in more depth at a mini-tweetup meeting. Stoke Twestival is just over three weeks away and we've missed all the deadlines so nearly everything has yet to be organised. If you'd like to come and watch the world's fastest moving fundraising party take shape before your very eyes, leave a comment to this post with "Yes I'm free on Wednesday night" and I'll email you final details.
Over the next few days please can you do your bit as a digital citizen to talk about DATfest to all the people you know who aren't online. There are lots of great opportunities to get hands-on and learn all about technology in ways that aren't scary at all and the organisers have worked really hard to put together a pioneering digital programme right here in the Potteries, so please support it as much as you can.
THIS WEEKEND: Datfest: http://www.datfest.org.uk/
Stoke-on-Trent’s first ever digital arts and social media festival takes over venues and streets across the city centre for a weekend of events. Almost all of it will be free, with some events being ticketed and many drop-in.
The festival kicks off on Friday night with a multi-media electro-acoustic concert event at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery performed by musicians from Keele University Music Technology Group.
On Saturday we take to the streets with B Arts’ 100 Stories – a unique walking tour around the city centre looking at Stoke’s hidden histories that blends live performance, projection and digital soundscapes.
On Sunday we end with a special bITjAM performance #mediafail. The digital discards we all have cluttering up our hard drives – out of focus photos, phone messages and video of the sky – will be transformed live into magical sounds and images.
As well as performance events there’s a full workshop programme that encourages all ages to join in and get creative. At the Central Library there’s social media surgeries for the over-fifties that will have you Flickering and Facebooking in no time; Lego animation workshops that will create brickfilms from your minifigure collection; and Mediafail workshops that provide a final resting place for your digital mistakes.
If you’ve got a suggestion for an event or would like to know more do get in touch at bitjam@me.com
Keep up with all the DATFEST news at www.datfest.org.uk
NOW TO MARCH 4th: Stoke your Fires http://www.stokeyourfires.co.uk/
Stoke Your Fires festival aims to be the creative heart of the West Midlands region for film and digital media in the eyes of artists, designers, producers and other industry professionals, critics, and of course the public.
Stoke Your Fires is a place to celebrate, innovate and stimulate exciting new work and creativity through these dynamic media but also provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, founding of new partnerships across commercial & public productions and a nurturing catalyst for career development.
The festival started in 2008, and has rapidly built an internationally recognised programme in animation and hopes to continue this across all genres of the moving image.
If you have any questions or would like to get involved please email info@stokeyourfires.co.uk
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Agile Stoke 2011
I wanted to revisit the predictions and hopes that Carl and I made last year, before 2011 got too far in. It was an exciting year, so busy that I feel like I've had very little time to write about it all, but there's something I'll try to change as a New Year's Resolution...
So with thanks to all the fab folk of the different communities on Twitter and elsewhere, and apologies for all the things I've missed, here goes:
Best was the tangible sense of a tipping point, as use of social media spread beyond the early adopters and started to become firmly embedded into many (not all yet) areas of Stoke life. There was the fantastic Teachmeet event at the new Sixth Form College, a really invigorating series of short presentations. Councillors and officers in the council are using Twitter with real confidence and we saw some firsts, like live tweeting from a council meeting and councillors tweeting each other inside them. Businesses and charities from what I think of as the mainstream establishment of Stoke life have adopted social media as well, which has a knock-on effect in raising the profile of the internet across the city and widening market access for the companies themselves. Jellifish and Boomerang PR are just two examples of local companies building up super success without having to plough millions into big city bases. A number of us enjoyed a trip down to Stafford with Talk About Local and had proper cross-county talks, leading to the establishment of local Race Online activities.
The maturing social media scene gave Stoke some great stories. Building on the platform of a mention in parliament right at the beginning of the year, Pitsnpots has grown up into a fully fledged Community Interest Company, Potteries Media CIC with the addition of 6 Towns Radio. Both of these are brilliant in their own right, but also vitally important for improving plurality in our local media. From the world of old media, the Sentinel is finding its digital feet, being able to amplify the stories that people are publishing through social media. If it could be bold enough to put more investment into combining old-fashioned journalism roles with this new wealth of local information feeds, it has a fantastic opportunity to build on its large and loyal readerships.
Four out of six of the towns now have their own well-established blogs. Just to pick on one, My Tunstall really shows what can happen when a man with the power to develop Drupal sites puts something together for residents with bees in their bonnet. Roads were adopted, huge amounts of money raised, stuff got cleaned and cleared up - it's the Big Society!. Tunstall has a lot of problems but is still one of my favourite towns and My Tunstall is a much-needed platform. I'd love to see every town and village in the city getting its own, which of course just depends on the people with the kind of passion these sites take being connected with the skills.
Last year we were dabbling in Ruby on Rails (which, like most of my pursuits in programming I didn't find the time to make much progress on) and this year's blog title picks up one of my current interests. Agile is a philosophy in programming that values (quote from Wikipedia):
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
I know, too many syllables. But squint your eyes a bit and substitute some key words and there's some good stuff in here.
2011 is going to be a difficult year for Stoke. We had a lot of plans - I'm one of the few people who makes a hobby of reading them (squinting my eyes and looking for the good stuff) - which now may or may not be abandoned altogether. Here, this doesn't just mean plans, it means land. From a low base Stoke has been hit hard by recession and cuts for a while but it's really biting now. Threat or opportunity looms, depending entirely on your perspective, knowledge and the various skills you might have had the fortune to pick up in your life. It will be a tough year for many people.
There's a lot we can learn from the culture of digital innovation, but more importantly this goes more with the grain of Stoke than many of the ideas that have been airdropped onto us in the last few decades. Generalising wildly as usual, we tend to value people and interactions over processes, things that work over endless documents and responding to change over following a plan.
“In sport, agility is often defined in terms of.. an integration of many components each used differently”. (Wikipedia)
To stretch the analogy a little further, if the Agile priority is working software, and Tom Berners-Lee's working code, then perhaps ours is a working city. You can interpret that as you want. For me, it's a city full of opportunity, flourishing in every aspect, freer from life-limited illnesses and early deaths. Every town, village and community valued as part of a diverse, sustainable city. Utopian, maybe, and certainly complex, but the web and our own history both show us that revolutions are possible in a very short time.
It's easy to get bogged down in Stoke's problems (yah, no kidding, says my weary reader), but I hope we becoming known for playing to our strengths, not arguing over our weaknesses.
We made pretty good progress in these things:
... the establishment of many social media cafes, where people can supplement in real life the connections they make online [here's the link - Mike has sketched out a monthly schedule for this in 2011 and the more volunteers involved the better]
... joining in the Global Twestival again [we did! This year?]
... joining in the Global Twestival again [we did! This year?]
... that we can build on the knowledge of a few to spread understanding and innovation in online literacy, web applications, programming and development through peer-to-peer learning [much to link to here].
... that we hold more unconferences in Stoke and support more national and local conversations, giving people space to explore ideas and collaborate. Particularly for Stoke itself, I hope we can have some more time and space to think about how information and the web can be used more effectively for delivering public services, community empowerment, engagement in politics, employment and economic development
... that we make greater use of what is on our doorstep. I've been thinking I should develop and promote Social Stoke more - it's building into quite a nice little resource [1,162 links and counting]
... that we make greater use of what is on our doorstep. I've been thinking I should develop and promote Social Stoke more - it's building into quite a nice little resource [1,162 links and counting]
Still on the to-do list:
... that some big digital players come to Stoke and experiment with our empty spaces, our talented people full of potential, our blossoming enthusiasm for digital technology and our natural understanding of creative industry and community. The Director of Digital Engagement & his [now her] office? Google? [Twitter?]
... maybe we'll finally find the use for Google Wave some of us dream of [?]
What new ones shall we add?
Hopefully a few of us will be getting our voices together on 6 Towns Radio so if you have any predictions or hopes, tweet them or leave them here...
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Maybe it's not Facebook's fault
Like many people, I have mixed feelings about Facebook. When I say mixed, I mean mostly negative. The only good things on Facebook are all the people I like(™) there. Because of them, I spend a lot of time there. I'm happy to accept too, that there's some good things about the way it automatically makes links of cats and photos of my boat easy to share. It helps me keep connected with people in ways that don't require too much thought or physical movement, which is great when you're (1) far away from many of the people you've made friends with in your life and (2) lazy. Little warms my heart as much than designing a virtual cupcake for a friend on her birthday, or steaming in with a little fertiliser for my mum's enormous Farmville ranch.
Beyond that, I harbour lots of resentment.The way they tinker with stuff for no good reason. How you have to go through no end of dilemmas about friend requests from people you can't remember, didn't like much or who you don't particularly feel comfortable knowing in *that* way. The privacy stuff-oh-my-god-yes: you have to watch your privacy settings like a hawk, because Zuckerburg has just flicked the switch that allows your neighbour's cat to tell the local burglar that you are out. I dislike its blue borders and the sense it's got me, whether I like it or not.
Unlike Twitter, I can't choose the method I use to speak to my friends beyond web or mobile (both of which look pretty much the same), and I can't stop using it because many of my friends don't use anything else online. It's like having a flatmate who gets on your nerves but nevertheless you have to see every f-ing day and who insists on showing you their sunny holiday photos despite your clear, silent, disinterest. And who, while they're at it, rearranges the furniture while you're out.
What annoys many most of all about Facebook is the sense that it is becoming a separate internet of its own. A private island, locked away from the open web, with more users in the UK than any other site except comparethemeercat.com.
But in a sudden seasonal turn, I thought – what if we're being unfair on Facebook? It's not Facebook that's closed off Facebook. It's us. We, the collective we, have decided that if Twitter and Linkedin are public, Facebook is private. In theory (although I've never seen it work in practice), Facebook has the same capability for RSS feeds as anything else. People who don't change their privacy settings can have all their stuff broadcast as easily as if they'd tweeted it. Equally, of course, private tweeting is just as acceptable. There are no rules except those we create ourselves.
I don't intend to change the way I use Facebook. It's the place where I go to say things that are way too dull to unleash on the open web. I like checking in on what old friends are having for tea, or who had a baby this week. Although I'm too paranoid to put much up that is genuinely private, it's still got photos of things that I don't want to share with everyone by default. But, having made that choice myself, it's not very fair to pin the blame on Facebook for holding closed data about me. The other choice would be to open it up completely. I could connect with everyone I've ever known for any length of time in a mission to create a complete, open social web of my life. But I don't really feel like doing that. If I do anything to reconcile my use of Facebook with the desire for a complete, open web, it'll just be to nudge some of my friends who are posting up Facebook content that really deserves a wider audience into blogging, or tweeting.
One of the things I have hazy memories of from history study was the concept of private and public spheres. This was a dividing line between men and women that, we learned, emerged in the Victorian era. Women spent most of the twentieth century trying to hop over the fence back into the public sphere. As a(n) historian, I now ask, how do we make these collective decisions? Looking back, will we find that Twitter = Public sphere & Facebook = Private sphere was a permanent decision, or will it shift once again?
Only time will tell. But in the meantime, I open up it up for the last few hours of your holiday entertainment – are we being unfair on Facebook? Discuss.
Friday, November 05, 2010
Coproducing our future
November's coprodnet conference in Manchester left my head full of stimulating ideas and renewed excitement about what can be done through collective action.
There was a lot to take in and digest. It was also clear that the word itself is open to wide debate and interpretation. I'll leave that to other people and just share one of the stories I learnt a lot from.
A story from Harare
"We realised that we cannot just sit and wait and hope... You are planning to build a house for me and it's not a house that I will like... the people who can get the paperwork will get the house and then they will just sell it"
Five years ago Zimbabwe embarked on a clearance programme. This was not clearance in the English sense, with bland notices, tense discussions, placards and compulsory purchase orders. This was just bulldozers with the label 'Drive out rubbish'.
"There are different circumstances in different countries, but being poor is being poor".
The story from Zimbabwe was one of hope and great achievement in circumstances that don't get much worse. We heard that the Zimbabwe Homeless People's Federation were doing some amazing things:
- built a membership of over 40,000 people
- supported neighbourhood savings and credit schemes
- negotiated for land and built houses
Their story is just one of many members around the world of Slum Dwellers International and they were able to get support from this and other NGOs and universities to make a difference.
How did they do it? How did they get so many people involved? The first step they described came as a surprise to me, but then I may not have been thinking about the real problem.
1. The group had to develop recognition. The urban poor weren't seen by anybody, their settlements were given different names by the authorities and they were told (forcibly) that if there wasn't work for them, they should return to the rural areas. Before they could do anything else, they had to organise in order to establish their right to exist.
2. They then gathered and recorded information to support their case for recognition. Things like how many people lived in their settlements, its history, the names they were using, what the community wanted and needed. This meant they had their own resources to take to the table: knowledge and information.
3. They built up local savings networks. 80% of their members are women and the clubs are based on very small networks. Once the banks collapsed, they stopped taking their money to them. Now they can save a little bit of money each day and make use of a revolving fund for crisis loans and income generation ideas. Most importantly, the tiny resources of the individual can be matched with the larger fund and in turn contributions from other organisations. As well as their savings, people can contribute sweat equity and their own skills to buildings.
4. With knowledge, money, information and the pooled resources of their community, teams identify land and begin negotiating with whoever owns it. They are now coing from a different position. They stopped saying yes to any offer ("bad land" far away from from the city centre) and made the point that the urban poor had a right to live close to the business district because they didn't have cars.
5. They draw on expertise and training as and when it is needed for legal services and building design. Sometimes they pay for this themselves, in other cases it is funded by the NGOs. This means the housing they build will be what they want.
6. A fundamental consideration is health. The networks share information, teach each other and "give each other the courage" to get tested for HIV.
The network is made up of small circles who save and learn, forming a community that in turn draws on the knowledge of other places around the world.
It was a joy to talk to Davious and Catherine from the Zimbabwean People's Federation. I'm sure there's a lot more to the story, many more hurdles and problems than we had time to talk about, but it was inspiring to hear their story and see their determination to build better homes for their communities.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Mysteries of Sneyd Green
"AUCTION" it says in pink printer-ink on a poster taped to the door of the exceptionally well-priced off-license that lies within the snaky roads off Milton Road.
No more details except the time and location - which, apologies, I forgot to Twitpic - and "Vendor's arrive at 2pm".
An auction for what? Would the reckless bidder be raising his hand for fine art, cast-off Doulton figures or repossessed homes? Cars?
Meat strikes me as a distinct possibility.
In Burslem some years ago, the meat van was one of the Friday fixtures, with a man attached to a loudspeaker whipping the ladies up into a frenzy to buy his shrink-wrapped cuts covered in all manner of sauces. This was replaced later by a meat lottery at a local pub, apparently equally crowd-pulling.
I wonder but dare not ask. Does anyone know?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Web apps for healthcare
At the moment I'm trying to gather some communities stories about health and other aspects of wellbeing as part of a WEA Stoke community involvement project. Later in the year we hope to bring together some willing developers to help build these tools.
- A sort of Mapumental for choosing GPs, where GP data can be visualised on a map and information highlighted depending on what is important to the user, for example by satisfaction ratings, language, whether particular languages are spoken, how appointments can be booked etc.
- A text service where you send your postcode and the phone numbers of the nearest 5 GPs who are taking on patients are sent back.
- A map of hospitals showing waiting times, ideally in real time or by trend.
If anyone knows of these tools already being developed, knows data sources or would like to have a go, please speak up.
One more useful pointer for anyone developing content-rich website was this: the vast majority of people finding your website through a search are looking for the most basic information, such as opening times. So keep it simple.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
A social media strategy in brief
1. Get accounts where the people you want to reach are*
2. Start joining conversations. Always link back to a clear 'About' page
3. Share stuff.
* If your IT department blocks the sites you think will be useful, add these steps:
0.1 Get a laptop
0.2 Get a mobile broadband account
0.3 Proceed to step 1.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Social Stoke nears 1000 links
At the time of writing, Social Stoke is only three away from reaching its 1,000th bookmark. What will it be?
The aim of Social Stoke is to build open, reusable lists of all the websites in Stoke-on-Trent, plus a useful resource bank for people in the city with ideas, products, resources and services from outside the city. It has been created using Delicious, a free 'social bookmarking' tool owned by Yahoo. Since then many alternative bookmarking tools have been suggested, but Delicious has become a habit. It was born, as so many things are, out of irritation. Every time I tried to find a business in the city on Google, I got some reputable business listing website which failed to link to the website itself. Many businesses, it turns out, spell their website name wrong on their vans, leading only to frustration for those (like me) who note them down to look up later. So this site has become an archive of some of the obscure local services we have here, at least those that have got online so far. The site also has a spin-off blog with links to such useful stuff as what people are saying about Stoke-on-Trent on Twitter.
The tag cloud has become a reflection of the state of digital use in our city. Many more of our towns and villages have a presence than was the case even a year ago. Longton, for example, has a blossoming range of sites for its residents associations and others who love it. The tag cloud shows that we still have numerous potteries - and there will be still more to add. Hopefully by looking at what others in the city are doing, it will be easier for groups and small businesses to start their own sites. It's exciting to see how many more local people and organisations are using Twitter, and well.
There is, however, a lot missing because the cloud follows the interests and whims of its volunteers. If you have a mildly compulsive streak and would like to add to the tag cloud, you can do so by signing up to delicious and adding bookmarks, including the tag 'for:socialstoke' and any tags you feel should also be included, for example place and topic.
You are welcome to use the lists as well as add to them. Perhaps you would find it useful to have a list of other residents associations on your own site, for example, or different businesses. If you have a site that allows it, just take the RSS feed (intro to this here) of the list you're interested in and it can be added to your own site, or you can follow new links using feed readers.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
A nostalgic tea towel for my generation
We were the kids who listened to
Together in Electric Dreams
And dreamed.
We copied pages and pages of code
and if we were lucky, got a BASIC ping pong game.
Our life's work was stored on a 32kb floppy disk
We waited, thrilled, around a dot matrix printer
and got our Ataris to speak to us.
Campaigns for gadgets and colour TVs took years
We accumulated boxes and boxes of videos, cassettes and defunct machinery
(that we can't bring ourselves to throw away)
We read about email in magazines,
but in our schools
internet access was barred.
We messed about with
wires and bits
of grey hardware.
And one day we heard the
screams and high notes
of a dial-up connection
And we waited.
And one day,
we were connected.
It makes me wonder:
What do the young
Together in Electric Dreams
And dreamed.
We copied pages and pages of code
and if we were lucky, got a BASIC ping pong game.
Our life's work was stored on a 32kb floppy disk
We waited, thrilled, around a dot matrix printer
and got our Ataris to speak to us.
Campaigns for gadgets and colour TVs took years
We accumulated boxes and boxes of videos, cassettes and defunct machinery
(that we can't bring ourselves to throw away)
We read about email in magazines,
but in our schools
internet access was barred.
We messed about with
wires and bits
of grey hardware.
And one day we heard the
screams and high notes
of a dial-up connection
And we waited.
And one day,
we were connected.
It makes me wonder:
What do the young
dream of
today?
today?
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Favourite places
There is one car park in Stoke-on-Trent that I don't shudder at the thought of parking within. Just one where I happily put my pound in the machine for the sheer joy of just throwing the car into a space and leaving it for two hours.
When I sweep in, I can look around at a vista that takes in Tunstall's epic Catholic church, the orange and brown rooftops of Chell, Stanfields and Acreswood, Port Vale and the Hamil Road flats, Burslem's mixture of new and old buildings, Wolstanton a world away beyond the lakes and forests and finally back to Tunstall market and old high street. In the foreground the metal-shard-ceramics structure makes a nice centrepiece to the new retail development upon which the jury is still out but is certainly popular with our city's shopping multitudes. The carpark is an empty oasis of calm before one negotiates the familiar crowds of Tunstall Market and its kind traders.
I will not tell you where it is, you will have to find it yourself.
When I sweep in, I can look around at a vista that takes in Tunstall's epic Catholic church, the orange and brown rooftops of Chell, Stanfields and Acreswood, Port Vale and the Hamil Road flats, Burslem's mixture of new and old buildings, Wolstanton a world away beyond the lakes and forests and finally back to Tunstall market and old high street. In the foreground the metal-shard-ceramics structure makes a nice centrepiece to the new retail development upon which the jury is still out but is certainly popular with our city's shopping multitudes. The carpark is an empty oasis of calm before one negotiates the familiar crowds of Tunstall Market and its kind traders.
I will not tell you where it is, you will have to find it yourself.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
UK Local Gov Camp 2010
As the far-right descended on our city for a spot of light rioting, it was a joy to get away from it all for the day at Google's Headquarters and listen to some very clever people at the Local Government Barcamp. Huge amounts of content is available via the Twitter feeds (hopefully this, and the videos from the day, will be captured and edited). These are some pretty raw notes and thoughts to which I'll add more when I'm on a better broadband connection and have had more time to read through everything else. I've started gathering links on delicious to add to any others with the same tag here: http://delicious.com/tag/ukgc10
The first session I went to was a chance to learn where people are from and how they are tackling the challenges of the modern world. “I'm not here officially, that's how well we're doing”. It is clear that interest in online communication is growing throughout councils and the case that they should be talking to people out there is clear enough, the challenge is how. Much of the conversation is moving beyond barriers and towards solutions. The barriers are going to take a long time to break down, but here are a few ideas from the councils here today:
don't ask for permission: workers within councils have made great links by using social media and then demonstrating the positive outcomes. This may be easier said than done and it is sad to note that a culture of fear is pervasive for many.
you have to start somewhere: using social media is harder if you are not familiar with the space and conventions. You can't get good at it without starting.
there is always risk, but take care to explain what you are doing and why. Most organisations see the benefit of engaging with the public and well-meaning, thought-through engagement has demonstrable benefits. Things can and will go wrong, but in order to innovate we have to be able to fail.
think about using social media for internal collaboration as well as external communication – a closed space may be a good way of developing trust and social media skills. There are plenty of free platforms that don't have to be public.
find hard figures – councils are probably most interested in cost savings, so make comparisons with other areas of spending. For example, if you are piloting a Twitter account (which costs nothing), track the number of tweets and the number of followers, plus examples of engagement like replies and retweets and compare it to the cost of a mailout or leaflet drop.
Use external tools and systems instead of waiting for the IT blocks to come down. By working with your social networks, you can get a lot of help. Mobile internet is making most social websites accessible wherever you are, so you don't need to be disconnected. “Once you start a hub, people join and help”.
“If you've got the passion, use it and ask the rest of the network questions when you need help”.
A number of resources are already available and a resource point is currently under development by iDEA, so if you need examples of strategies or evaluations, have a look round and you might find an example to work from. These might include acceptable use policies and acceptable behaviour guidelines that might already exist, but may need updating to enable council workers and councillors to more effectively engage in conversations in their community whether offline or online.
Some quick suggestions for councils from the session on local content:
Don't publish newspapers – think about how you might stimulate the creation of websites and give people the skills – embrace the people talking about you and treat them equally to the press – open up your data so people can build useful things with it.
I then got a little insight into some of the development platforms that people are using to build those tools, including the data.gov.uk site which is built in Drupal. While this is completely not in my area of knowledge, it was an exciting learning experience. There is clearly masses of choice for the home developer to learn about and the communities building the tools are collaborating on new modules all the time. Hopefully someone has uploaded an photo of the platform comparison the group discussed.
Afterwards I asked Rufus Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation if he could make some suggestions of access points for the curious beginner. He said that Python is a fairly easy programming language and that if people just want to make a start with data they could help collaborate on wheredoesmymoneygo, which doesn't involve programming skills, just the time to delve around council websites finding information and adding it to spreadsheets.
Back into my comfort zone, we had a session on how conversations – especially a mass of messy conversations – can be turned into action. This was introduced from the point of view of the private sector, for whom Promised Community undertake consultation processes. We heard a positive vision from Harry Metcalfe, creator of tellthemwhatyouthink, of a “friendly and collegiate” atmosphere of constant consultation. We started to unpick the difficult dilemmas like whether we ask people at the right time and whether we genuinely want 'everyone' involved in decision making.
A few good suggestions emerged, including:
Good outcomes are more likely if all relevant communities are involved at every stage. They are more likely to be content with the decisions and feel that there is transparency in the decision-making. This is difficult, particularly in tense political climates, and heavy on resources. Leaders and political representatives should be encouraged to write or communicate through video regularly.
Feedback mechanisms can solve smaller problems. For example, users of Patient Opinion can highlight problems that can then be fixed, or if health workers have permission to give a direct explanation this can allay anger
We are moving from a time when our only communication channels were the media, meetings and one-to-one contact, to individualised information feeds, opportunities to publish everywhere and the wide availability of free tools that make virtual collaboration not just possible but easy. Could greater self-expression, reflection and dialogue lead to healthier communities?
Finally, a stimulating discussion about data got us thinking about the future. Which datasets still haven't been turned into tools? What would be the dataset that the government really regrets releasing? Which future data-driven tools will have massive public impact and which will make their makers rich? Is data the new oil?
This final metaphor bought forward some interesting points. The service economy around information is easy to see and won't be threatened by the free availability of information, which lowers entry barriers for those who want to develop services. Data's value is not necessarily in its raw form, but in the connections people make between them and the more open source datasets that are developed – for example filling in the gaps in compatability and tagging - the more advanced our tools can become. As well as data, demand will rise for content, particularly government-produced content that can be presented in more effective tailored ways if it is available to reproduce.
It was a fascinating day with a strong mix of different actors. The most encouraging thing to see is the rise of collaboration and a widespread development of confidence. While last year, many of the conversations at gatherings like these were about the problems, this year was much more about the work that has to be done. As well as meeting many of the lovely people who I already know through Twitter, I came away with lots of new contacts and new leads for local skills development. This is how we can build bridges between the areas where this stuff is still either totally unknown or vaguely known and terrifying, to the collaborative organisations and individuals who are keen to get their hands dirty and start building useful things. It's a massive learning curve, but one we will have to face for the rest of our lives.
The first session I went to was a chance to learn where people are from and how they are tackling the challenges of the modern world. “I'm not here officially, that's how well we're doing”. It is clear that interest in online communication is growing throughout councils and the case that they should be talking to people out there is clear enough, the challenge is how. Much of the conversation is moving beyond barriers and towards solutions. The barriers are going to take a long time to break down, but here are a few ideas from the councils here today:
don't ask for permission: workers within councils have made great links by using social media and then demonstrating the positive outcomes. This may be easier said than done and it is sad to note that a culture of fear is pervasive for many.
you have to start somewhere: using social media is harder if you are not familiar with the space and conventions. You can't get good at it without starting.
there is always risk, but take care to explain what you are doing and why. Most organisations see the benefit of engaging with the public and well-meaning, thought-through engagement has demonstrable benefits. Things can and will go wrong, but in order to innovate we have to be able to fail.
think about using social media for internal collaboration as well as external communication – a closed space may be a good way of developing trust and social media skills. There are plenty of free platforms that don't have to be public.
find hard figures – councils are probably most interested in cost savings, so make comparisons with other areas of spending. For example, if you are piloting a Twitter account (which costs nothing), track the number of tweets and the number of followers, plus examples of engagement like replies and retweets and compare it to the cost of a mailout or leaflet drop.
Use external tools and systems instead of waiting for the IT blocks to come down. By working with your social networks, you can get a lot of help. Mobile internet is making most social websites accessible wherever you are, so you don't need to be disconnected. “Once you start a hub, people join and help”.
“If you've got the passion, use it and ask the rest of the network questions when you need help”.
A number of resources are already available and a resource point is currently under development by iDEA, so if you need examples of strategies or evaluations, have a look round and you might find an example to work from. These might include acceptable use policies and acceptable behaviour guidelines that might already exist, but may need updating to enable council workers and councillors to more effectively engage in conversations in their community whether offline or online.
Some quick suggestions for councils from the session on local content:
Don't publish newspapers – think about how you might stimulate the creation of websites and give people the skills – embrace the people talking about you and treat them equally to the press – open up your data so people can build useful things with it.
I then got a little insight into some of the development platforms that people are using to build those tools, including the data.gov.uk site which is built in Drupal. While this is completely not in my area of knowledge, it was an exciting learning experience. There is clearly masses of choice for the home developer to learn about and the communities building the tools are collaborating on new modules all the time. Hopefully someone has uploaded an photo of the platform comparison the group discussed.
Afterwards I asked Rufus Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation if he could make some suggestions of access points for the curious beginner. He said that Python is a fairly easy programming language and that if people just want to make a start with data they could help collaborate on wheredoesmymoneygo, which doesn't involve programming skills, just the time to delve around council websites finding information and adding it to spreadsheets.
Back into my comfort zone, we had a session on how conversations – especially a mass of messy conversations – can be turned into action. This was introduced from the point of view of the private sector, for whom Promised Community undertake consultation processes. We heard a positive vision from Harry Metcalfe, creator of tellthemwhatyouthink, of a “friendly and collegiate” atmosphere of constant consultation. We started to unpick the difficult dilemmas like whether we ask people at the right time and whether we genuinely want 'everyone' involved in decision making.
A few good suggestions emerged, including:
Good outcomes are more likely if all relevant communities are involved at every stage. They are more likely to be content with the decisions and feel that there is transparency in the decision-making. This is difficult, particularly in tense political climates, and heavy on resources. Leaders and political representatives should be encouraged to write or communicate through video regularly.
Feedback mechanisms can solve smaller problems. For example, users of Patient Opinion can highlight problems that can then be fixed, or if health workers have permission to give a direct explanation this can allay anger
We are moving from a time when our only communication channels were the media, meetings and one-to-one contact, to individualised information feeds, opportunities to publish everywhere and the wide availability of free tools that make virtual collaboration not just possible but easy. Could greater self-expression, reflection and dialogue lead to healthier communities?
Finally, a stimulating discussion about data got us thinking about the future. Which datasets still haven't been turned into tools? What would be the dataset that the government really regrets releasing? Which future data-driven tools will have massive public impact and which will make their makers rich? Is data the new oil?
This final metaphor bought forward some interesting points. The service economy around information is easy to see and won't be threatened by the free availability of information, which lowers entry barriers for those who want to develop services. Data's value is not necessarily in its raw form, but in the connections people make between them and the more open source datasets that are developed – for example filling in the gaps in compatability and tagging - the more advanced our tools can become. As well as data, demand will rise for content, particularly government-produced content that can be presented in more effective tailored ways if it is available to reproduce.
It was a fascinating day with a strong mix of different actors. The most encouraging thing to see is the rise of collaboration and a widespread development of confidence. While last year, many of the conversations at gatherings like these were about the problems, this year was much more about the work that has to be done. As well as meeting many of the lovely people who I already know through Twitter, I came away with lots of new contacts and new leads for local skills development. This is how we can build bridges between the areas where this stuff is still either totally unknown or vaguely known and terrifying, to the collaborative organisations and individuals who are keen to get their hands dirty and start building useful things. It's a massive learning curve, but one we will have to face for the rest of our lives.
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