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.

Here are a few ideas that I noted down from discussions at the first hack/hacker/hacky coffee in Birmingham:

• 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.

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.

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.

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

dream of
today?

Happy Silver Surfers Day!

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.

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.

Ruby on Clay - what are your digital dreams for 2010?

Inspired by Socialmediageek, here are the things I would love to see happen in digital Stoke this year...

... the establishment of many social media cafes, where people can supplement in real life the connections they make online
... joining in the Global Twestival again
... 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 office (you know you want to!)? Google? Any West Coasters out there looking for adventures in a new UK base?
... 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.
... 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 but could be much more powerful with more links and more proactive socialness (things like volunteers roaming blogs and sites linking people and things to other people and things
... maybe we'll finally find the use for Google Wave some of us dream of :)

What else?

Watery Llama

Where Josiah Wedgwood, the Staffordshire Sentinel and every shopper from across Stoke-on-Trent came, so White Llama has followed. We find ourselves in Etruria, in a marina in the middle of Festival Park.

Etruria is all new-build, only appearing on the map some two centuries ago. Wedgwood named it after the influential civilisation where all the pots were made when he left Burslem to start a new factory. The air was cleaner in Etruria and it was handy for his new family home and the canal that winds along the ancient valley between Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle under Lyme. The commute to London, so swift by train, is slower by canal, with a staircase of locks between the marina and the station.

Some time later Wedgwood's factory was sinking and the smoke had caught up with Etruria, so it was off to Barlaston with Wedgwood and Etruria was left to be taken over by the fiery pools of Shelton Bar. In 1984 the site was developed for a national garden festival. This became Festival Park, a city playground with marina, pub, water park, cinema, disused Quasar, ski slope, drive-in restaurants and one giant shed for every clone store known to man. This sucks the six towns dry of shoppers, a tragic hurdle to those who wish to see Hanley become more like Birmingham. Stoke people go where the parking is free. The Sentinel did a Wapping and built its own shed on the old Wedgwood site, with giant printing presses that supply many of the daily newspapers to the north of the UK.

Not being connected with one of the old towns, Etruria's communities feel a little disjointed, but are well-established despite the upheavals of change. There are the old terraces with their last-remaining pubs across the dual carriageway, newbuild estates and then the friendly residents of the marina who seem to live in a parallel universe to the retail frenzy all around. All a little quieter since a high court order banned racing and cruising from Fezzer, ending this modern-day version of the towns' romantic monkey runs.

Inbetween all the sheds, behind Wedgwood's house and the ski slope, are hidden hilly grounds - permission to roam kindly granted by St Modwen - round every corner a faux-ancient ruin or soft green glade, totally ignored by everyone except the odd dog walker and grafitti artist. In front of Wedgwood's house a neglected relic from the Garden Festival: a thin ornamental tower of local brick and tile, two ponds, stone pillars and then a trail of water features leading the eye irresistibly, like a 1980s Taj Mahal, to Waterworld. If you tire of exploring Festival Park, there are the canals which lead in many scenic directions through Stoke's backs.

And so, despite not being a real place, Etruria has just about everything you could want.

Skypephone memory failure

I'm posting this here because the original post I found is no longer accepting responses, which affects future Googler's ability to help each other find the solution.

I had the same problem, which was that the memory was coming up as full all the time and stopping me from sending or receiving texts. After trying to move and delete everything I could, but finding it made no difference, I reset the java application settings and Bluetooth settings. I'm not sure which of those worked, but one did and I haven't had the problem since.

First notes from the Wave

(warning: this article contains a lot of geeky jargon)

So after months of waiting, hinting, cajoling and finally the age-old medium of pleading by lolcat, I finally got onto Google Wave. It was the lolcat that swung it and my friend Riaz, whose gift of an invite finally makes up for all those years bitching about my computer preferences. And I'm sure some of you are eager to hear my first impressions on how it could be useful for the hyperlocal blogger. Still others, I know, don't want me to say another word about it. I'll get some screenshots up as soon as I can find time - and in case you were leaping to ask, I haven't been given any invitations myself yet.

Wave is is a big learning curve. The official welcome does little more than tell you how to play Sudoko and gets you started on extensions with a nice little questionnaire. There are some incredibly useful guides out there, but you need to be willing to look for them and if you're the sort of person who gets irritated when you get given a load of free tools that don't work exactly as you think they should, well you might not like Wave.

Here's the most useful thing I have learnt so far that wasn't obvious: "with:public". Once you've got on, run around excitedly, stuck a pin on a map and pinged all your contacts who pop up when you arrive, the search phrase "with:public" will counter that terrible feeling that you're waving on your own and it'll give you the best way to start learning. After the reassurance that you're not alone comes the crushing weight of chatter, but just like on Twitter you need to be selective. And also perhaps more patient: the public waves are heavy on processing power and getting rid of them can be a bit slow because Wave is still quite buggy. It has fair crushed my poor ageing Mac.

Here's the key thing: Wave is an early version of a set of tools. Nothing more or less. You learn how to use it by finding out what you can do and then working out how you do it (and all the time bearing in mind that it might not work at all just yet). I'm rethinking my visions of it as an all-purpose control centre, although hopefully it will make publishing a lot quicker and easier as more robots and gadgets are adding. I don't see yet that it is an easier way of organising information than an iGoogle page. I think its real power is going to be in rich collaboration on focussed tasks. It's going to be ideal for groups who want to work together to speed up researching, writing and editing blogs. It's a fantastic environment for peer support and learning, once you've overcome the initial barriers. Conference reporting can be done much more accurately by crowds and the potential will be there to push all the content out to other sites immediately.

The big limitation, unless the interface becomes significantly clearer to those from a non-techie/hackie/adventuring background, will be that you wouldn't want to let all your friends loose on it just yet, else you'll get howls of anger on a scale familiar to anyone who has tried to get IE6 users onto a Ning. Normally I tell newcomers not to worry, they can't break anything but actually the scope to break a wave with all the powerful tools at your fingertips is pretty wide. Lower access levels might help with this, sort of entry-level waves where people can just edit certain sections, but that would be no different from a Google Doc or Mediawiki page. This would not be Wave at its most potentially powerful but it's probably a necessary step for the full opening of Wave to work well.

A better solution is that we need to work on the underlying culture shift that others have already identified the need for. Developing confidence in exploring, hacking, fixing and searching is going to be really important if people are going to be able to use collaborative systems effectively. It will also be a test in whether we can all get along and play nicely together. It will be interesting to find out how people work around limited web connectivity. Wave is going to be as big a success or disaster as we choose to make it.

Do It Better Yourself

The tools are at our fingertips and maybe a tiny bit of the world's frustration is beginning to ebb away as we enter the era of DIBY. Don't complain, have a go yourself. Whether that's music, newspapers, TV or institutional structures. It's "yes, we can" maybe just creeping into the edges of our society (best to do something while we wait for our Obama). Most recently, we've witnessed the storm over Birmingham City Council's website turn swiftly into citizen organising; fast and dirty reorganising of BCC's content.

It's good in many ways. First, and not necessarily foremost, councils and government are starting to realise that stuff just works better if we create it ourselves. Second, it has the potential to save them (/us) a fortune (even if they might need to pay someone a fortune to do it badly the first time round). Thirdly, the more people are involved in a service, the more they will understand it.

We can get out of the era that says one solution will work for thousands, even millions, of people. The version of the BCC website that is built by a few Birmingham hackers might only work well for them, but if that is so at least they have done it cheaply and it's just as easy for the next group to come along and do it themselves. While once we would have said "yes, but it's not my job to build that", we can now collaborate with others to spend a small amount of time building something that works for us. The time and cost of doing so is collapsing to the extent that it's easier to build a new way of finding what you want than to tortuously find it each time you need it. Much less frustrating.

It also gives people a way of proving themselves in a public arena. If the commissioners can stop taking offence when something goes down badly, if the raw material for every data-driven piece of work can be made available in an API, then it gives people a chance to build very valuable tools that can be further developed and replicated. Then the people who built them can be commissioned to do more.

Much smarter.

Empty shop count

I did a rough count of empty shops for this survey in Queen Street in Burslem last night - I had to move along quickly because we'd just read about the new Naan Bakery in Waterloo Road and had to shoot down there to try them (mini-review: they were delicious).

Before that I had tried to count by the Google map and got depressed. I'd estimate that 15 market stalls have gone since this satellite view was taken - there are none left on Queens Street. 2, sometimes 3 stalls come to St Johns Square now selling fruit, vegetables and flowers. Please support them.

View Larger Map

In Queen Street there are 25 shop units and 27 buildings if you count the Wedgwood Institute (empty) and the School of Art (full). To get it to 20 I will take out the council-owned shopfronts around the market, all but one of which has been empty for a while and currently being refurbished. Their successful tenants have tended to be web or design companies, but the majority of them have struggled to be filled and have contributed to a perception that the council is not letting non-creative shops open. While this has proven to be negotiable, greater flexibility by the council to fill the shops up at a rent that reflects the risk shopkeepers are taking would be a positive thing for the town. Having said that, a fruit and vegetable shop in St Johns Square closed again fairly soon, showing that even when the one thing opens that everyone says we need, our shopping habits may not bring us back into Burslem often enough to keep it going.

That leaves us with 14 units that are occupied and six that are empty. At one end the empty ones are the old Woolworths and the Old Wives Tale building and at the other the large Cooperative department store, most recently a Mark One. The council-owned shop units mentioned above take up about a quarter of the street, as does the Wedgwood Institue which did house the library and, once, a full centre for arts and science. The library is now a much smaller service in the School of Art, with hardly any of the space that used to make it a welcoming place for people of all ages to go and spend time reading or using the internet. Inbetween these is the 1909 Central Hotel building which has been defaced by red shutters for several years. Any local ex-land surveyers that might be knocking about providing small business support could probably make a good guess at the actual amount of empty square footage in the street.

The occupied shops overlooking Swan Square (the opposite side of which is all closed) are an estate agent, the well established Kismet and the Queens Head. Then the live-work units house 5 shops (I think) and 10 more creative businesses above - all are full, giving the town arts and crafts shops, Beslem the internet cafe and Unity, which just won a national social enterprise award. The success of this development is the model for the plans for the Mark One store and hopefully with similar management it will work just as well.

Past the School of Art there is a hairdressers, an insurers and a butchers, all long-established, locally owned businesses. Then a card shop, a Wrights Pies and a pizza chain. A sixties block has a small Boots, Dave's fabulous electrical shop, an opticians and a travel agents. Opposite those there is a large sports equipment shop, recently expanded and a pharmacy. Just after the empty Woolworths the unit is occupied by the marketing suite for the new flats being completed on the corner of St Johns Square.

An overly long response, I know - and possibly innacurate as I'm not the best counter; all corrections welcome. It's left me with a real sense of the mixed picture in Burslem. Some things have worked and can be built on, but the overall emptiness of the street gives a sense of loneliness that has a psychological effect on most people who visit, particularly those who remember when thousands of people flocked in from the surrounding factories for lunch, which was only a few years ago. This leads to generalised statements that spreads widely that Burslem has nothing to visit. The line that you can't buy groceries in Burslem, while not completely accurate (the butcher and grocery shop on Swan Square both sell some), sticks even if someone tries to change it.

The divides between traditional trades and the arts are gradually breaking down, mainly where trade links are formed between the two and the increase of creative people living in the town will help bring back regular trade for the small shops. There are businesses for very different audiences operating successfully side-by-side. There is also a great deal to be admired in the tenacity of many of the business managers who have stayed in Burslem as much of its wealth left and retain good customer bases and provide niche services promoted through word of mouth.

I haven't counted Market Place, which is actually the main street in Burslem, but that would be the subject of a whole other epic post. In case you were thinking of visiting, it has several banks, pubs, takeaways and a post office. There are also plenty of nice takeaway choices in Waterloo Road, including a traditional oatcake shop and a range of Indian food.

There are very limited options to buy clothes anywhere in Burslem now and little evidence that the customers of the stores that used to be Kwik Saves, now B&M and Home Bargains, come into Burslem to shop. That might change if the road connections can be made more pedestrian-friendly. The other change the council could make is to allow short stay parking for free, as *everyone* has been asking for years. This would make it a lot easier for people to call into the town. Without wishing to make sweeping generalisations, there is a marked contrast between the success of Burslem-led initiatives and those led by national businesses or the Civic Centre. I'm not sure that much has really worked in Burslem's favour since Federation in 1910 and so conclude that the return to town centre management is the right thing to happen. As the new regeneration board establishes itself and helps broker relationships between the townspeople and the management staff, we are seeing better communications leading to good take-up of projects, perhaps most markedly the Townscape Heritage Initiative project which is returning many buildings to their original beauty.

As the Arts & Cratfs Festivals twice a year continue to show but as most of the population remembers, Queen Street thrives when it is full of people. It has all the basic businesses in place to become a lovely little shopping street again. It needs everyone's support to help it grow.

Summary: 20 shops counted, 6 empty, 15 missing market stalls.

Little Ducks appeal

Babies having basic supplies should be the least we'd expect in Britain.

Little Ducks are the kind of small, local charity run by volunteers that many people never hear about and they help parents and babies at a point of crisis. Now they are in urgent need of donations to see them through into, hopefully, a funded future.

If you can, please help: http://www.justgiving.com/NCTLittle-Ducks/

Sentinel story: http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Appeal-help-save-vital-work/article-1211859-detail/article.html

Little Ducks website: http://www.nctlittleducks.org/news.php?article=0

Please think about whether you can help by donating money or equipment on the evening of August 3, or simply by spreading the word about their appeal.

Shifting sand

Sending round the creative editor freelance job role for the North Staffs Creative Economies Forum (NSCEF) today, I realised how much the landscape is transforming. When the role was first included in the forum's strategy, it was thought of as 'Creative Times Editor', someone who would put together a regular publication to share information and build the profile of the creative industries in North Staffordshire. For a long time, electronic communication by anything other than email (and that mainly to professionals) was a limited option, you simply couldn't rely on enough people spending the time online to find websites.

As we've been finalising the job spec, we've kept the 'old media' option open but it is clear the role has to be a lot more flexible to take account of the different likely media that we'll be operating with. They will have to share information and stories, but this could just as easily be through a photostream on Flickr as a tabloid paper picked up in music shops. Crucially, the audience has grown dramatically over the last 18 months, with creative workers - and those people who you simply might call creative - connecting through social websites and gatherings such as Talk to Elvis, the Talking Shop and HeadTalk, amongst others. The emphasis, you might note, being on talking. In a place where people come from so many different directions, the talking is really crucial to developing the collaborations and networks that we were lacking. If anything, our circles of conversation need to widen even further, to more diverse groups.

Stoke-on-Trent can sometimes be portrayed as a bit of a desert, culturally-speaking, with many attractive but neglected buildings and a sense of sadness. There's a bit of an ebb and flow in the city, but it's still fair to say that if you don't know about what is going on, it's just in a place you can't see. The creative networks and organisations are more accessible now as most of them have some sort of presence online and there is growing use of online tools. If anything, there's an abundance of meetings, new exhibitions, ambitious startups and mature businesses finding new niches. Hopefully, with the creative editor and the beta launch of the Creative Central web portal (hopefully in the next month; I've seen previews, it looks very beautiful), the scene will become clearer, making it easier to navigate, participate - and let us not forget, make a living, in North Staffordshire's creative industries.

A brief guide to Social Media in Stoke-on-Trent

So, I was asked to write something to sum up Stoke-on-Trent's social media 'scene'. Tempted as I was to respond "Hey! Stoke is messy! Back off with your straightjackets and your simplification agendas!", I understand that a clean link makes life easier. And since my idea for Andrew Stott is at number 7 (7!) in the ideas list, we'd better start presenting our tame, helpful side. Let us begin.

Social networks are a good way to access Stoke. Physically, the place doesn't make a lot of sense. Mentally it's a bit, well, tired and emotional. Stoke *is* messy - and by the way, when I say Stoke I might be talking about the city itself, North Staffordshire, the Potteries or just Burslem (though probably not Fenton), and I will give no explanation - but with a willingness to spend a bit of time in the conversation, Google and some good social connectors, you can find just about anything you're looking for here. It'll be an adventure.

The pioneers
When I landed back in the city four years ago, there were very few local websites, but a couple of them remain rich resources: ThePotteries.org and Creative Stoke. Although the original site doesn't seem to be up any more, Mindblogging was a great early UK (Early. In 2006. I know, what were we doing?) example of digital mentoring for specific groups. D'Log's other site, www.middleport.org.uk, sadly didn't survive the housing clearance, while Mike Wolfe's blog abruptly ceases in May 2005 but still remains live, an early example of consistent, engaging blogging - something that we're all now trying to persuade elected representatives to do more of.

Local Edition, now an ex-newspaper, still has many of the best pieces of writing and art you'll find online (I can say that, I edited it) about northern Stoke, while Stoke Sounds, a spin-off that took on a life of its own, is one of the best centres of writing and photography on our brilliant music scene. By the way, if you have a bit of time and some speakers, start a tour here of Stoke musicians and bands on Myspace - you won't be disappointed.

The bloggers
David Elks, the Evening Sentinel's Jo Geary, has helpfully compiled a list of blogs which I won't try to surpass and pitsnpots also has a list of a few more of the political ones.

The Tweeters

Stoke has a vibrant and growing Twitter scene and its early adopters were all involved in making sure Stoke had its own Twestival. Oh, is that me at number one? I hadn't noticed...

Digital communities
Facebook, though not big enough in Stoke user numbers to warrant having its own network or advertisements, is nevertheless keeping people from the Potteries in touch. We even have our own gifts app, a dialect group and a man paying tribute to Tunstall.

Flickr's Stoke group has been running for several years and is very active, with over 200 members, regular meetups and a collection of thousands of amazing photographs.

Though only going since late 2008, Blurb Online has amassed over 300 members and is a great showcase for the area's creative talent. It has also become a centre of organisation for Wasted Space amongst other cunning schemes and a very well-stocked events section. And because creative social websites are like buzzes, you won't want to miss Culturing Stuff, started by the evil geniuses behind Sex Up Stoke and Shop Caretakers.

Real-life gathering points


Bitjam has been running since 2006 and is always drawing in new people to get involved in its mixture of music, art and creative expression which is quite unlike anything you'd expect to find at the Rigger.

Talking Shop and Head Talk are regular gatherings for artists and other creatives - both are very welcoming and friendly.

We have a fledgling Ruby on Rails School meeting on Tuesdays at Beslem in Queen Street, when people can make it, it also has an email list for remote participation.

Some Fridays at 11 we have a social media cafe (OK, we call it that because we don't want to be left out, but it's just coffee on a Friday). Sometimes lots of us show up, sometimes nobody. Indeed, much like the remains of Burslem market (please buy your fruit and flowers there if you can). This article suggests we really should do a proper one.

Plenty of artists are now use blogs to add value to their work, such as Tomorrow Longton and Big Red Studio.

Though not directly digital, the Burslem Arts & Crafts Festival has a lot of creative workshops, photographers and musicians about and is well worth a visit.

And as this post was going to screen, I heard Keele University are having a Tweetup!

The campaigners
Online comment and blogging about local politics - the Sentinel and pitsnpots, I'm lookin' at you - have a passing resemblance to the boxing ring or bullfights of old, but that is not dissimilar to our real life arenas. Both sites have people working hard to maintain spaces where people can have their voices heard and enter into debates. Online networking and the connections made through discussion sites have, in my view (and it has been challenged) been instrumental in increasing the sense of empowerment and community expertise amongst those people who are active online. HAVOC and a string of Save our Schools websites (such as Save Trentham High) got the ball rolling and the Coachmakers Arms is gathering quite large numbers of signatures on its Number 10 petition.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the very best story about a social media campaign in Stoke (I await your challenges) is of Steve from Goldenhill whose friends whipped up a campaign to save his house.

What have I missed? Please leave a comment, Tweet using #followstoke or, you know, speak to me...

Many reasons why the Director of Digital Inclusion should have a base in Stoke-on-Trent

1. High speed rail links - less than 90 minutes from London and within easy distance of most other cities and the world.
2. We've picked out a nice empty building for you right by the station.
3. The best place to deliver digital inclusion is from somewhere with real issues of exclusion
4. We *get* social networking: Stoke-on-Trent has the lowest levels of 'anomie' in the country. Where we need investment is in the interconnections and the links outward. You'll be able to help with that.
5. You'll have an amazing array of creative talent, two universities, a flexible workforce and a fledgling developer/social media community on the doorstep who can help build the engaging little apps you'll need.
6. We were at the forefront of an earlier round of globalisation, connecting ideas about science, trade, religion and evolution and developing efficient infrastructure. We also created wealth while still campaigning for human rights.
7. Stoke station is five minutes from Longport station, a ten minute walk from Burslem, the best town in the world, where you'll want to have your lunch most days and take your visitors for dinner and drinks. With a government department around, we expect the train frequency will improve immensely, connecting this Pathfinder area to other cities much more effectively than is currently the case and improving the prospects of the regeneration plans for the area.
8. We're very friendly and very passionate, but we'll also keep you on your toes - no cosy consensuses here.
9. Many other cities have thriving social media movements, but try and choose the best and it'll all kick off. Stoke is unassuming, but quietly confident, and everyone can get there relatively easily.
10. Here's how cool the building used to look (and it's pretty similar now, but with cars)

And if you agree, please vote!

Plucky Focal needs our help!

Focal Radio, based in Stoke on Trent, started broadcasting to the area at the beginning of November and was saved from administration in February by businessman Mo Chaudry.

Now the multi-millionaire has made the decision to shut Focal with the loss of 23 jobs.

Station Manager, Verity Hilton said “I told the staff about Mo’s decision on May 8th. They have worked relentlessly through this difficult time to sell advertising and obtain investment. Although the station has 23 members of staff, the majority of them are freelance and once again they face the possibility of not being paid for the work that they have done. This is a fantastic station with a growing listenership and it would be a tragedy if it had to close. Focal Radio has received interest from listeners who would like to own a share in “their” radio station – but we need to ensure that there is enough in the pot to buy the equipment off Waterworld Holdings and re-pay Mo for his investment.”

Focal Radio was partly the brainchild of Potteries broadcasting legend Sam Plank and he has personally paid the staff since May 13th in an attempt to keep the station broadcasting while an investor was found. “ I am saddened over the way the situation has developed,” said Sam. “However, there is now a golden opportunity for the listeners of this area to invest in a radio station that is truly theirs and looks positively at what happens in their patch! I would love to hear from anyone that feels they can help us move forward at this moment in time! We are now shouting “Broken Arrow!”

Broken Arrow was a call sign used in Vietnam to alert available troops to support quickly and that is exactly what the team at Focal Radio hope will happen over the next 24 hours.

Anyone who feels they can support this venture - from as little as £10 - should contact Focal Radio on 01782 574580 or 07888 730061.

"I'm on it"

I have an old friend, Nick, who is somewhere close to finishing his first degree despite being only 16 (or something). We met on Wikinews where, with a whole lot of others, we would occasionally write big stories and otherwise quietly work on discussing and revolutionising how news was put together. Wikinews is still a great project with potential that has never been quite unleashed.

Nick had a nice little phrase that I remembered in passing the other day. When you asked the wikisphere for help with something he'd post "I'm on it". And off he would go to sort something out, or build a new thing.

In real life I try, and usually fail, to respond as swiftly when I'm asked to do something. After all, it's not the quizzical look or the discussion about whether that's the right thing to do that's useful, it's the doing it. Online, the thinkers and the doers have a more equal power relationship than has been the case in the last few decades of organisations and that's possibly what makes the collaborative web so effective.

It's even easier to help each other out now than it was in 2005, with little calls for help being swiftly answered on Twitter. I don't even think Nick is on Twitter, but I hope he'll be pursuaded one day.