The following post is entirely Hadley Beeman's (@hadleybeeman) fault. So much is, actually, when it comes to opendata and linked data - just Google her and you'll find it why. For the US orientated among you, Hadley is essentially our national lead on opendata in the UK, she's an American and she yay's. In public. Unashamedly. And that makes her just awesome because us Brits, frankly, we do not yay enough.
Anyway.
This tweet kicked off a waterfall of thoughts and feelings:
"Soundthing: Ambient music selection: just walking into a pub with your phone can bend the pub's playlist towards your Spotify prefs. #gsxsw"
The tag is also worth investigating - gsxsw was curated by Rewired State (Emma Mulqueeny) and held at the Guardian newspaper offices this weekend - it was a hack day with a bit of a difference. Hack days might be a Brit thing also - if so, Google it, there's some amazing stuff going from idea to actuality here at the moment under these banners.
So, the tweet led me to respond with the idea that not only would the pubs sound system bend to me and my mates Spotified taste in music, but that this would somewhere be recorded for future questioning - that somehow I would land in a new city and know where to find like minded music lovers because I could see on a map layer or something similar all the pubs which linked with my Spotify preferences by more than x percent, where I set the percentage. So, for example, and purely hypothetically (ahem) if I hated 80's music with a passion most people only reserved for politicians, I could avoid pubs which played any 80's music at all. Or, if I was ambivalent to ambient but absolutely loved techno, I could set the filter percentages accordingly and go and find my tribe. Or if I was feeling kinda brave and adventurous, I could change the settings randomly with a button and land somewhere entirely new and unlikely.
But, I thought, what if you took that further? What if you took that out of a pub environment, that linked data which told me where I should be depending on my musical preferences, and as Hadley suggested with food, you applied it to something else?
I'm going to segue a little and tell you a story, based purely on an experience I had yesterday. It's true and it's relevant, so bare with me a little if this comes across as self indulgent.
I've got quite severe tendonitis which flares up every now and again. It means my tendon contracts which then pulls on the muscle above it which dislikes it, which then has a knock on effect upwards again. Riding my bike fixes it, I've not ridden my bike for a bit thanks to snow and torrential rain. You try mountain biking in snow on tech Northern trails sometime. Anyway.
We went out for the day and parked up in Manchester, in a car park we don't normally use. The car park is essentially one of those 'this used to have something built on it (in this case Boddingtons Brewery), it now doesn't, someone decided to make money off the land by parking cars on it'. My other half led us towards a sneaky exit he knew which wasn't the official exit. Just by the exit out onto the street was a short but incredibly steep upward incline. My calf muscles combined have lost about 1/2 inch of flexibility. Lots of unladylike swearing ensued. For the next 30 minutes walking was faintly hideous. It eventually stopped when I relented and dived into a handy second hand bookshop to let them calm down a little and stop contracting.
It could have been avoided, those 30 minutes of pain, and I'll tell you how. Augmented linked data. Somewhere else out there, I have no doubt, is someone else with slightly broken calf muscles who's probably done exactly the same thing and was discomforted enough to want to ensure someone else didn't suffer the same ouchiness. Currently, there is no way for her to do that. Currently, there is no way for me to do that. I can't tell anyone. Putting it on a forum would be pointless, it would get lost in the noise. Putting it an email to someone would get me nowhere. I now know something about the environment in a car park in Manchester would could save someone else some pain and I can't share.
In each of our heads is data. We know things. Some of these things are small, so infinitesimally small that we might never think of sharing them or that they might be of worth to someone else, and some of those things are very big things. Some of those big things are only big to us and some of those big things would make the world a better place if we could share them with everyone.
Imagine, then, a way of sharing, if you wanted to, everything you ever knew about obstacles or opportunities. A world where on your GPS there was a layer you could switch on or off which linked in to the local councils database in the area you were passing through and told you where the major potholes were or into the local police database so you could know as a motorcyclist where the accident blackspots and blind corners were. Or, even, which gate you needed to slow down for as you passed it because the cows always came across the road for milking at 4:45pm and as a result the road would be slippy and possibly treacherous for the next few hours after.
Imagine a world where local knowledge was at your fingertips. Don't park down that side street because anyone who does gets broken into - or if you must remove the GPS suction circle from your windscreen because the only people who get broken into are the people who forget. Imagine a world where you knew which restaurants and pubs were genuinely child friendly because other parents had indicated it so and you could see this in real time when driving down a street without having to get your smartphone out of your pocket, because your GPS told you? No more relying on the restaurant owners claims to be child friendly when his definition includes a high chair but nothing else.
But most of all, to me, imagine a world where you could see issues before they arose. Where people with sensory overload problems could reference to other people with similar issues without ever needing to know their name, but only by linking with someone just because they have a similar intolerance, and following where they've been and had problems, but more importantly where they've been and not had any problems at all.
A world where I'd never have walked up the slope because someone with the same issue as me had a way of indicating somehow that people with x issue should use the gate on the flat at the other end, should walk the long way around, should not even think about attempting if in a wheelchair.
In my world, in my future, I believe these things will happen. I believe everyone will see through the same eyes I do - through eyes which see data layered across and streamed through reality in real time. One where my world is shaped by others experiences who are like me. One where there are no potholes to break your suspension and no steep inclines to break your muscles.
Don't tell me tech can't change the world for the better. Don't tell me maps don't matter and visualisation is pointless. Don't tell me these are pipe dreams. If no one dreams, reality will never be changed. Yes, thinking small allows people to JFDI. But sometimes, just sometimes, someone has got to think BIG.
Showing posts with label citycamplondon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label citycamplondon. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Waterproof post-it notes
Waterproof post-it notes don't exist. But if they did? Here's what I'd do. No barriers, right?
Imagine crowd sourcing taken to somewhere near the limits. Town planning. How many town planners actually live in the town they plan, I wonder. How many drive around the roads they one way systemise, how many use the ramps and diversions. Imagine if you could crowd source all the people who regularly use the physical infrastructure of the town or city where you live. All the footfall which passes across the pavements, all the people who pass through your local shopping centres shop doors. All the people who look for litter bins and can't find one, all the people who walk the streets and look for benches and can't find them. The people who cross roads and have to wait 10 minutes for a break in traffic, the people who walk along the darkened path and wonder why there are no streetlights.
Ask them. Open up your streets and ask them. Invite the curious, the residents, the armchair intelligent, the planning geeks and the planning bods from other Boroughs. Ask them to tell you where they'd like the bins to be. Where the pedestrian crossing should be moved to, why that sign is always pointing the wrong way and where the drop in the kerb is in absolutely the wrong place for the electric wheelchairs running over it. If waterproof post-it notes existed, by the end of the day, you should have a multi-coloured environment of suggestions and commentary, positive and negative, telling you exactly how the users of the world you've created feel about it when they try and interact with it.
Because waterproof post-it notes don't exist for the moment - why not use Google maps? It's got a zoom level accurate enough to suggest where a bin or a bench should be moved to. It's got a comment facility.
Just saying.
Ask. I think you might be surprised how many people would answer.
Imagine crowd sourcing taken to somewhere near the limits. Town planning. How many town planners actually live in the town they plan, I wonder. How many drive around the roads they one way systemise, how many use the ramps and diversions. Imagine if you could crowd source all the people who regularly use the physical infrastructure of the town or city where you live. All the footfall which passes across the pavements, all the people who pass through your local shopping centres shop doors. All the people who look for litter bins and can't find one, all the people who walk the streets and look for benches and can't find them. The people who cross roads and have to wait 10 minutes for a break in traffic, the people who walk along the darkened path and wonder why there are no streetlights.
Ask them. Open up your streets and ask them. Invite the curious, the residents, the armchair intelligent, the planning geeks and the planning bods from other Boroughs. Ask them to tell you where they'd like the bins to be. Where the pedestrian crossing should be moved to, why that sign is always pointing the wrong way and where the drop in the kerb is in absolutely the wrong place for the electric wheelchairs running over it. If waterproof post-it notes existed, by the end of the day, you should have a multi-coloured environment of suggestions and commentary, positive and negative, telling you exactly how the users of the world you've created feel about it when they try and interact with it.
Because waterproof post-it notes don't exist for the moment - why not use Google maps? It's got a zoom level accurate enough to suggest where a bin or a bench should be moved to. It's got a comment facility.
Just saying.
Ask. I think you might be surprised how many people would answer.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
These are my dreams, tell me yours?
If there were no barriers, what would I do?
One day they will be possible. If anything were possible, what would you do?
With thanks to Adrian Short for the bravery pill.
- I'd turn all libraries into digital but also physical hubs. Libraries are valuable assets taking up valuable space, usually somewhere near the centre of our towns and cities. Put a coffee bar in. Put a wireless network in. Invite people to use the space as temporary passing office space for start ups. Ask people to use them as digital training spaces for free. Stick a Social Media Surgery in there for good measure. Use the librarians as curators of locally relevant digital content as well as physical books which also still have their place, though funding restrictions will mean that no library will be able to stock everything, instead authorities will need to ensure book stocks can be quickly and easily distributed between locations. A lady called Jane kicked this idea off. Andy helped shape it. Someone called @amyrsward tripped it.
- I'd stick tiny little sensor pads at the bottom of all grit bins programmed to transmit a signal when the weight pressing on the sensor dropped below a certain pre-specified pounds per square inch. I'd stick a GPS transponder in there. I'd link it to a map on a supervisors dashboard so that he was notified visually when any grit bin fell below a pre-defined level. I'd use the mapping to progamme a route to all red flagged grit bins each morning to fill them up, taking fuel and carbon emissions into account. With thanks to Charlotte Gilhooly for collaborative joy.
- I'd use the underneaths of street sweepers and refuse trucks to attach a sonar device to, and then get that to report back on potholes in the road that they drive over. A lass called Caroline came up with this one.
- I'd make it so that everyone had the ability to book self service GP and nurse slots at their local surgery over the web to save on queuing and costs of telephone conversations.
- I'd create a conversational framework for GP's and consultants where auditable conversations could happen on whether people needed to be referred in the first place and ensuring that people were given the correct priority in the queue.
- I'd create wiki's for professional Networks in the NHS so that professionals nationwide could share best practice and knowledge. I'd stick a tunnel in there for 3rd sector so they could join in on the conversation too.
- I'd make all patient records digital, and enable comments on all entries in a record, accesible by the lead GP, any consultants involved in care and the patient themselves.
One day they will be possible. If anything were possible, what would you do?
With thanks to Adrian Short for the bravery pill.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Take a deep breath (part iii)
Taking the stabilisers off. Us public sector kids don't tend to spend much time 'facilitating' sessions. I've never actually attended a workshop either. So, perhaps it wasn't surprising that the digital inclusion session I suddenly realised I was facilitating on Thursday night wasn't quite the success it would have been had Nat been running it.
However.
We all got there eventually, thanks to Nat and a lovely chap from Birmingham. It's a difficult subject, because everyone agrees inclusion is important, but selling that when there's no longer a legal requirement to 'include' anyone in the conversation is a little tough. I don't think a conclusion was agreed because we over ran, partly due to my ineptness and partly due to no one knowing where the room was and people arriving 10 minutes after start as a result. Okay, okay, my appalling facilitation was mostly to blame and I am really sorry. I let important people down, the people we're not including.
On a personal level, I managed to speak in front of people I don't know without my voice disintegrating into that horrible breathy awfulness that usually happens when I speak formally in front of people. But it feels like a personal victory at the expense of lots of other peoples time and I am mortified about that.
Anyway. A public failure but Nat and the fab chap from Birmingham sat and gave their time and explained and it was taken on board and I watched how others did it throughout the day and I understood. Step back. I was the wrong person to facilitate that session because I care too much. That doesn't mean caring too much is bad, it means I was the wrong person to facilitate that session. Lesson learned.
Onwards to the second session. Open data. Frustrating. Enormously frustrating. Central government has issued a directive ironically called Inspire which contains its own definitions of the metadata which must be attached to that. The open data movement doesn't undermine this, it supercedes it. As the not actually present but really rather wonderful Adrian Short said at the time, because local government has a directive which defers openness to 2018, we instead need a motivation to open up our data early, a reason. I don't have the answers, but I do know there is a steady drip drop of open data leaking from Councils and they are the baby steps upon which great leaps will be built. It's the same story with everything else, let the trailblazers lead and prove nothing bad will come from being at the front and others will follow through choice. Positive re-enforcement. It's inelegant and clunky, but show Councils what can happen when you open data up and the incentive will be there to open up more.
It was also at this point which I became almost crushed under the realisation that not only do people outside of local government not know about the realities of working inside it, with our ancient tech, our lack of flash patches, our locked down systems which often don't allow access to social media (BwD is ahead on this score), our IT departments mired in procurement and protocol and Gov Connect Code of Connection paperwork, our directives, our GIS systems and our desperate determination to try and innovate around all these challenges and the hard work and ridiculous hours we pull in order to do this and do it well - but some really couldn't give a damn, either.
Futuregov get it. But there's been enough embarrasing gushing in here for one day.
So. I sat outside the venue, smoked too much, ranted at the boyfriend who doesn't work in local government either and isn't a GIS geek and felt disheartened, alone and isolated.
Then someone who wasn't even at City Camp London popped up. Adrian Short has done wonderful things with open data down in Sutton. In fact before we go there, and in a related unrelatedness of relatedness, I met Charlotte, aka @chargihooly on Friday and she left an impression. Ballcocks in grit bins linked to sensers which transmit when the ballcock has a pre-determined drop in pound per square inch pressure over a point to indicate to a central point when a grit bin is getting near empty wasn't what I thought I'd be discussing on a Friday night in London but it was one of those moments where two people fizz at each other unselfconsciously and together find the beginnings of a solution to a weirdass problem. I'm taking it back and I'm asking the question of our Head of Environmental Services. Implementation costs need to be balanced against savings in fuel and carbon emissions. I'll let you know.
Anyway, Adrian popped up, tweeted about mapping and data and it helped. Someone, even not present got where I was coming from. Brain rallied.
On to the Big Society session. More lip biting. Not alone this time either, Louis arrived, frustrated glances were exchanged. As usual, I sat in the middle of all the conversation and noise and understood where certain people were coming from in feeling like the government had come along and put a name to something they'd been doing for years, unrecognised, but also that you can't disavow belonging to something which has the potential to be a juggernaut driving social change for the better of us all, because of the political colour of the party putting the engine in the juggernaut. Wonderful ideas about voluntary brokerage services came out of this, about matching people with an hour to a charity or person who only needs an hour. I hope it comes to fruition because it was one of many ideas which were muted this weekend which I would actually use.
In fact, lets examine that for a second. I wore two heads this weekend, one as a local government rep (thought not local to London), and as an ex-London resident. I'm not an innovator in the sense everyone else there was. In fact I'm not sure I'm an innovator any more. I contributed no ideas this weekend, mostly because I simply either couldn't get a word in edgeways, couldn't hear the discussion or couldn't get over the intimidation I was feeling. All my fault, it's important to note, but impenetrable. I had the ideas. I have the ideas. I just can't express them yet. What I need, of course, is someone to ask me questions, very many questions, relentless strings of them, to help me pull everything out of my head, but no one has the tie to do something so utterly pointless and self indulgent and selfish. So I need to find another way. It will come.
Anyway, of all the workshops I attended, the Big Society one was the most interesting and the most inspiring. Good expressions of collaboration, understandings of small cogs in the bigger picture. Good points about volunteering to gain experience and being looked down on. Interesting conversations about ladies who lunch too.
Onwards again, via a breather and a much appreciated conversation with Ingrid Koehler on......well there are some things which are not for blogging but it helped. It really did. Thank you.
Onwards to Procurement. I landed in that room entirely because there was no other session which really appealled. I probably shouldn't have attended but I wasn't aware of the correct protocols at the time. I really shouldn't have opened my mouth. Bad mistake. Huge mistake. I accorded some people the expectation of my mostly positive experience in environments like that recently and got slapped down quite neatly. Not the brightest end to the brightest of days, really. I wanted to explain how ridiculous the procurement process is, that peoples experiences of it from the outside is appalling. I don't think I can be arsed, to be honest. If you're interested, ask Dominic. It is ridiculous thought.
Evening. Exhausted. I've worked 10-11 hour days every day for about 2 weeks and bits and pieces on weekends too. I'm ill. That's not an excuse, that's a statement of fact. I'm temporarily disabled in random ways which mean that all the changes in lighting on Friday, for example, meant I emerged from the room the presentations were being held in struggling with staying upright and shivering madly. Just one thing which contributed to a frazzledness which led me to sit down and watch Pseudo and just switch off for a while. I heard conversations about me moaning about things being impenetrable and not making the effort and just died a little. If you take nothing else away from this post, take this: disability, diversity, whatever you want to call it, is not always visible. This weekend cost me more than money.
So. What did I learn? Well. I met some amazing people. People who inspired, who are role models, who I will keep an eye on in future to see where they go and what they achieve. I have many ideas about what we can do to bridge the gap between perception and reality. I have help with that already. I have faith that the projects which were pitched today and won will come to fruition and start to change the world in little ways. I have a renewed belief that we're doing cool things up our way, and big relief to be home. It's going to be a while, I think, before I jump into the fire again, but I did it. Costs aside, it was worth it.
However.
We all got there eventually, thanks to Nat and a lovely chap from Birmingham. It's a difficult subject, because everyone agrees inclusion is important, but selling that when there's no longer a legal requirement to 'include' anyone in the conversation is a little tough. I don't think a conclusion was agreed because we over ran, partly due to my ineptness and partly due to no one knowing where the room was and people arriving 10 minutes after start as a result. Okay, okay, my appalling facilitation was mostly to blame and I am really sorry. I let important people down, the people we're not including.
On a personal level, I managed to speak in front of people I don't know without my voice disintegrating into that horrible breathy awfulness that usually happens when I speak formally in front of people. But it feels like a personal victory at the expense of lots of other peoples time and I am mortified about that.
Anyway. A public failure but Nat and the fab chap from Birmingham sat and gave their time and explained and it was taken on board and I watched how others did it throughout the day and I understood. Step back. I was the wrong person to facilitate that session because I care too much. That doesn't mean caring too much is bad, it means I was the wrong person to facilitate that session. Lesson learned.
Onwards to the second session. Open data. Frustrating. Enormously frustrating. Central government has issued a directive ironically called Inspire which contains its own definitions of the metadata which must be attached to that. The open data movement doesn't undermine this, it supercedes it. As the not actually present but really rather wonderful Adrian Short said at the time, because local government has a directive which defers openness to 2018, we instead need a motivation to open up our data early, a reason. I don't have the answers, but I do know there is a steady drip drop of open data leaking from Councils and they are the baby steps upon which great leaps will be built. It's the same story with everything else, let the trailblazers lead and prove nothing bad will come from being at the front and others will follow through choice. Positive re-enforcement. It's inelegant and clunky, but show Councils what can happen when you open data up and the incentive will be there to open up more.
It was also at this point which I became almost crushed under the realisation that not only do people outside of local government not know about the realities of working inside it, with our ancient tech, our lack of flash patches, our locked down systems which often don't allow access to social media (BwD is ahead on this score), our IT departments mired in procurement and protocol and Gov Connect Code of Connection paperwork, our directives, our GIS systems and our desperate determination to try and innovate around all these challenges and the hard work and ridiculous hours we pull in order to do this and do it well - but some really couldn't give a damn, either.
Futuregov get it. But there's been enough embarrasing gushing in here for one day.
So. I sat outside the venue, smoked too much, ranted at the boyfriend who doesn't work in local government either and isn't a GIS geek and felt disheartened, alone and isolated.
Then someone who wasn't even at City Camp London popped up. Adrian Short has done wonderful things with open data down in Sutton. In fact before we go there, and in a related unrelatedness of relatedness, I met Charlotte, aka @chargihooly on Friday and she left an impression. Ballcocks in grit bins linked to sensers which transmit when the ballcock has a pre-determined drop in pound per square inch pressure over a point to indicate to a central point when a grit bin is getting near empty wasn't what I thought I'd be discussing on a Friday night in London but it was one of those moments where two people fizz at each other unselfconsciously and together find the beginnings of a solution to a weirdass problem. I'm taking it back and I'm asking the question of our Head of Environmental Services. Implementation costs need to be balanced against savings in fuel and carbon emissions. I'll let you know.
Anyway, Adrian popped up, tweeted about mapping and data and it helped. Someone, even not present got where I was coming from. Brain rallied.
On to the Big Society session. More lip biting. Not alone this time either, Louis arrived, frustrated glances were exchanged. As usual, I sat in the middle of all the conversation and noise and understood where certain people were coming from in feeling like the government had come along and put a name to something they'd been doing for years, unrecognised, but also that you can't disavow belonging to something which has the potential to be a juggernaut driving social change for the better of us all, because of the political colour of the party putting the engine in the juggernaut. Wonderful ideas about voluntary brokerage services came out of this, about matching people with an hour to a charity or person who only needs an hour. I hope it comes to fruition because it was one of many ideas which were muted this weekend which I would actually use.
In fact, lets examine that for a second. I wore two heads this weekend, one as a local government rep (thought not local to London), and as an ex-London resident. I'm not an innovator in the sense everyone else there was. In fact I'm not sure I'm an innovator any more. I contributed no ideas this weekend, mostly because I simply either couldn't get a word in edgeways, couldn't hear the discussion or couldn't get over the intimidation I was feeling. All my fault, it's important to note, but impenetrable. I had the ideas. I have the ideas. I just can't express them yet. What I need, of course, is someone to ask me questions, very many questions, relentless strings of them, to help me pull everything out of my head, but no one has the tie to do something so utterly pointless and self indulgent and selfish. So I need to find another way. It will come.
Anyway, of all the workshops I attended, the Big Society one was the most interesting and the most inspiring. Good expressions of collaboration, understandings of small cogs in the bigger picture. Good points about volunteering to gain experience and being looked down on. Interesting conversations about ladies who lunch too.
Onwards again, via a breather and a much appreciated conversation with Ingrid Koehler on......well there are some things which are not for blogging but it helped. It really did. Thank you.
Onwards to Procurement. I landed in that room entirely because there was no other session which really appealled. I probably shouldn't have attended but I wasn't aware of the correct protocols at the time. I really shouldn't have opened my mouth. Bad mistake. Huge mistake. I accorded some people the expectation of my mostly positive experience in environments like that recently and got slapped down quite neatly. Not the brightest end to the brightest of days, really. I wanted to explain how ridiculous the procurement process is, that peoples experiences of it from the outside is appalling. I don't think I can be arsed, to be honest. If you're interested, ask Dominic. It is ridiculous thought.
Evening. Exhausted. I've worked 10-11 hour days every day for about 2 weeks and bits and pieces on weekends too. I'm ill. That's not an excuse, that's a statement of fact. I'm temporarily disabled in random ways which mean that all the changes in lighting on Friday, for example, meant I emerged from the room the presentations were being held in struggling with staying upright and shivering madly. Just one thing which contributed to a frazzledness which led me to sit down and watch Pseudo and just switch off for a while. I heard conversations about me moaning about things being impenetrable and not making the effort and just died a little. If you take nothing else away from this post, take this: disability, diversity, whatever you want to call it, is not always visible. This weekend cost me more than money.
So. What did I learn? Well. I met some amazing people. People who inspired, who are role models, who I will keep an eye on in future to see where they go and what they achieve. I have many ideas about what we can do to bridge the gap between perception and reality. I have help with that already. I have faith that the projects which were pitched today and won will come to fruition and start to change the world in little ways. I have a renewed belief that we're doing cool things up our way, and big relief to be home. It's going to be a while, I think, before I jump into the fire again, but I did it. Costs aside, it was worth it.
Take a deep breath (part ii)
City Camp Ldn. I went because of many things. Futuregov fascinated me. Dominic Campbell inspired me. The concept made a little bit of my soul glow just a little bit brighter, the hope that people might convene and make things easier, not only for us local govvies, but also for the residents we are trying to serve in the way they'd like to be served? Couldn't resist.
I've only been to BarCamp Blackpool and the NWEGG conference before this. Ever. It was an intense experience, a little overwhelming, a little intimidating, but always challenging and therefore worthwhile. I don't see battling with things to be negative. I refuse to accept that trying to get your head around something is negative. Sitting saying nothing and then going home and bitching is negative.I don't do that. Ever.
Day 1. Started at the RSA, a beautiful building which remined my of the Courtauld Institute down at Somerset House. Same feel to the public spaces. Imbued with history, absolutely not my taste in art. Ah well. Plenty to distract from the art, with such luminaries as Kevin Curry, the creator of the City Camp 'brand' and Dave Worsell from GovDelivery. The note on my iPhone which I tapped on madly during these presentations say:
We need to create and focus on good in BwD not bad. Small things. Positive things. We tend to focus as a race on the negative, why not the positive? Small things, little wheels turning, like Boris' bikes. Fetes, carnivals, community events - can these be digital to reduce cost? An avalanche of small things creates the magic of the whole.
Barcelona website - nab ideas for the town centre website.
Harnessing those that care. Where are they and how do we use them and does digital inclusion mean a bigger army? Older people, for example, might have the time and willingness to help but not the know how or the access. Free eyes and ears to contribute.
Check out Fon for distributed wi-fi (I honestly didn't know about this, why aren't we all doing this? It's like seeding)
Don't see what we always saw, can we podcast bwd differently? The weird, wonderful, different and bizarre. We are diverse and different and many colours and backgrounds and interests, can we use that to create a sense of community by acknowledging what makes us different from everywhere else, turn challenges into positivity. Create treasure hunts through the town which are on apps but replicated on web so no one excluded by the tech? Can we sms broadcast in specified small catchment areas for example? Turn our town in differently layered space to explore for people? Do they care? How do you know when people want to engage? Is this a worthwhile way of spending public money and which directorate does this fall into?
By the time we got to John Tolva, Director of Citizenship & Technology at IBM, there was no brain left for spirals and instead I sat and let his machine gun delivery seep into my psyche. I grinned. I grinned some more. Someone who is so passionate and enthusiastic about his world, about changing his town planned world that he can't get the words out fast enough. Tripping and darting those words came out, relentless and fast, the slides seamlessly changing and progressing. It was one of the most exhausting presentations I've ever seen, but also, one of the most inspirational. And I am not, nor ever will be, into planning.
Somewhere in the midst of this the Chief Exec of the RSA, Matthew Taylor hosted a sofa interview with Caroline Pidgeon, Steve Reed and Paul Osborn. This was where the actuality of a Twitterfall behind the panel collided sharply with the ethics of such things, and two camps emerged, with Dominic Campbell having the rather horrible task of deciding whether it was morally right to be discussing peoples words behind the place they were speaking them, when they couldn't actually see them. An unenviable decision, to be fair. My person viewpoint? If you say stupid things I disagree with on something I know from personal experience, I'll call you on it. If you say something brilliant, then I will congratulate you on it. Equal opportunity of outcomes generated by the user content being produced.
I still stand by something which came out of this panel. If I contact a Councillor by Twitter, it does not mean I do not care about the issue I am contacting them about. It means Twitter has given me a voice I never felt I had before, and I am flapping my wings, using the tech to allow me to ask questions. Eventually I will ask the questions in reality. But for now, Twitter is my happy place and many others too, and to dismiss it as squawking is indicative of a collective viewpoint which does not use the tech, has no knowledge of the tech, wont try and understand the tech and therefore derides the tech, because that's easier.
I'd have admired him more if he'd asked the audience why they preferred to use it to talk to their Councillors and what was wrong with the exisitng systems of communicating with Councillors which means us, the residents, are not using them, but turning to Twitter instead.
Then, Nat McDermott spoke about Inclusive Culture and I smiled again. Nat is like a cross between a butterfly and a nuclear reactor. The projects she has been involved with cross in places with places I've worked and therefore know about, which helps. But you know that moment when someone speaks and a room pays attention and you know, you just know, that this is going in, that people are taking notice and that because the subject is quite dear to your own heart, you sigh a big sigh of a relief and just grin?
Yeah. Woman is amazing. Empowering disadvantaged groups to test their skills in communicating online in safe and accepting places before going out into the big wide world and using those skills to play with everyone else is just genius. Seriously inspirational and the highlight of the Friday for me.
Then it was time for socialising in the beautiful vaults of the RSA. I met a compound bow wound tight in the form of CEO of a company responsible for a website which helps compare womens clothing sizes but who also seemed to produce documentaries or films and whose name I never quite caught, and Louis Moseley who left an impression so complicated and profound that it's a little difficult to actualy explain. It's not often someone floors me, nor renders me almost speechless. It's not often I am disquitened yet so inspired. It's not every day I get gobsmacked by someones politics and it's not every day I have to examine my own reaction to the colour of someones politics really damn carefull and admit to some prejudices of my own and try and resolve them. To say an impression as left would be an understatement and I am slightly saddened that I am unlilkely to ever see him again, but if that's the calibre of mind and perception which Eden Valley is benefitting from, then bits of Cumbria are indeed in safe hands, something which was confirmed by a rather more local lady than I.
As a footnote to all of this......and without embarrassing someone too much, don't be sure your tweets are ignored if you don't get a response. Seems some people are causing ripples in places they'd never have had any access to, before Twitter came along. I must confess to grinning like a loon upon discovering this, because no one I know but have never met deserves the curiosity quite so much.
So. Day 1. I went to bed with Clay Shirky (I'd never heard of him before), a pounding head, but a hopeful heart.
I've only been to BarCamp Blackpool and the NWEGG conference before this. Ever. It was an intense experience, a little overwhelming, a little intimidating, but always challenging and therefore worthwhile. I don't see battling with things to be negative. I refuse to accept that trying to get your head around something is negative. Sitting saying nothing and then going home and bitching is negative.I don't do that. Ever.
Day 1. Started at the RSA, a beautiful building which remined my of the Courtauld Institute down at Somerset House. Same feel to the public spaces. Imbued with history, absolutely not my taste in art. Ah well. Plenty to distract from the art, with such luminaries as Kevin Curry, the creator of the City Camp 'brand' and Dave Worsell from GovDelivery. The note on my iPhone which I tapped on madly during these presentations say:
We need to create and focus on good in BwD not bad. Small things. Positive things. We tend to focus as a race on the negative, why not the positive? Small things, little wheels turning, like Boris' bikes. Fetes, carnivals, community events - can these be digital to reduce cost? An avalanche of small things creates the magic of the whole.
Barcelona website - nab ideas for the town centre website.
Harnessing those that care. Where are they and how do we use them and does digital inclusion mean a bigger army? Older people, for example, might have the time and willingness to help but not the know how or the access. Free eyes and ears to contribute.
Check out Fon for distributed wi-fi (I honestly didn't know about this, why aren't we all doing this? It's like seeding)
Don't see what we always saw, can we podcast bwd differently? The weird, wonderful, different and bizarre. We are diverse and different and many colours and backgrounds and interests, can we use that to create a sense of community by acknowledging what makes us different from everywhere else, turn challenges into positivity. Create treasure hunts through the town which are on apps but replicated on web so no one excluded by the tech? Can we sms broadcast in specified small catchment areas for example? Turn our town in differently layered space to explore for people? Do they care? How do you know when people want to engage? Is this a worthwhile way of spending public money and which directorate does this fall into?
By the time we got to John Tolva, Director of Citizenship & Technology at IBM, there was no brain left for spirals and instead I sat and let his machine gun delivery seep into my psyche. I grinned. I grinned some more. Someone who is so passionate and enthusiastic about his world, about changing his town planned world that he can't get the words out fast enough. Tripping and darting those words came out, relentless and fast, the slides seamlessly changing and progressing. It was one of the most exhausting presentations I've ever seen, but also, one of the most inspirational. And I am not, nor ever will be, into planning.
Somewhere in the midst of this the Chief Exec of the RSA, Matthew Taylor hosted a sofa interview with Caroline Pidgeon, Steve Reed and Paul Osborn. This was where the actuality of a Twitterfall behind the panel collided sharply with the ethics of such things, and two camps emerged, with Dominic Campbell having the rather horrible task of deciding whether it was morally right to be discussing peoples words behind the place they were speaking them, when they couldn't actually see them. An unenviable decision, to be fair. My person viewpoint? If you say stupid things I disagree with on something I know from personal experience, I'll call you on it. If you say something brilliant, then I will congratulate you on it. Equal opportunity of outcomes generated by the user content being produced.
I still stand by something which came out of this panel. If I contact a Councillor by Twitter, it does not mean I do not care about the issue I am contacting them about. It means Twitter has given me a voice I never felt I had before, and I am flapping my wings, using the tech to allow me to ask questions. Eventually I will ask the questions in reality. But for now, Twitter is my happy place and many others too, and to dismiss it as squawking is indicative of a collective viewpoint which does not use the tech, has no knowledge of the tech, wont try and understand the tech and therefore derides the tech, because that's easier.
I'd have admired him more if he'd asked the audience why they preferred to use it to talk to their Councillors and what was wrong with the exisitng systems of communicating with Councillors which means us, the residents, are not using them, but turning to Twitter instead.
Then, Nat McDermott spoke about Inclusive Culture and I smiled again. Nat is like a cross between a butterfly and a nuclear reactor. The projects she has been involved with cross in places with places I've worked and therefore know about, which helps. But you know that moment when someone speaks and a room pays attention and you know, you just know, that this is going in, that people are taking notice and that because the subject is quite dear to your own heart, you sigh a big sigh of a relief and just grin?
Yeah. Woman is amazing. Empowering disadvantaged groups to test their skills in communicating online in safe and accepting places before going out into the big wide world and using those skills to play with everyone else is just genius. Seriously inspirational and the highlight of the Friday for me.
Then it was time for socialising in the beautiful vaults of the RSA. I met a compound bow wound tight in the form of CEO of a company responsible for a website which helps compare womens clothing sizes but who also seemed to produce documentaries or films and whose name I never quite caught, and Louis Moseley who left an impression so complicated and profound that it's a little difficult to actualy explain. It's not often someone floors me, nor renders me almost speechless. It's not often I am disquitened yet so inspired. It's not every day I get gobsmacked by someones politics and it's not every day I have to examine my own reaction to the colour of someones politics really damn carefull and admit to some prejudices of my own and try and resolve them. To say an impression as left would be an understatement and I am slightly saddened that I am unlilkely to ever see him again, but if that's the calibre of mind and perception which Eden Valley is benefitting from, then bits of Cumbria are indeed in safe hands, something which was confirmed by a rather more local lady than I.
As a footnote to all of this......and without embarrassing someone too much, don't be sure your tweets are ignored if you don't get a response. Seems some people are causing ripples in places they'd never have had any access to, before Twitter came along. I must confess to grinning like a loon upon discovering this, because no one I know but have never met deserves the curiosity quite so much.
So. Day 1. I went to bed with Clay Shirky (I'd never heard of him before), a pounding head, but a hopeful heart.
Take a deep breath
I am writing this on the train as I travel home from London. See, even I haven't lost the novelty of being able to type that sentence.
I spent Friday and Saturday in the company of bright young things (well all ages actually, but their demeanour demands they are referred to as bright young things) as part of City Camp Ldn convened by the rather lovely people of Futuregov. I would like to make it absolutely clear at this juncture that I really do think the Futuregov crowd are stars - frustration may have been in my tweets from the event over the last two days but the frustration has never been with the organisers.
Someone also commented that they hoped I was being paid to attend the event. I wasn't. He was referring to my rather public confusion at some aspects of the event. I feel it necessary to explain something to those who are new to this blog and me. There is no bullshit here. No facades and no fakery. I am an honest person, I wear my heart on my sleeve and at 33 years of age this is unlikely to change. It allows me to connect with people on rather fabulous levels, it allows me to know who is shiny and who is not. The very public wrestling with the world that I do on Twitter is intentionally there and it's there for a reason.
I am not alone in the way I feel. I know this from speaking to other people. Therefore if I vocalise the things I am struggling with, it means others who are less comfortable with being quite so open don't need to. Also, hopefully, somewhere out there is someone reading this blog and my tweets who can see the things I struggle with and also the things which fire my imagination and who is wondering if they could stick their head above the parapet too. In transparency, maybe there comes an encouragement, to try, to dip a toe in the water?
I don't know. I do know I unsettle some people. But I also know that if I don't ask questions, don't persist, don't be relentless in this, then I will just give up everyone and everything as a bad job and I don't want to do that. I don't for a second believe I can change the world. I just want to. There's a difference. I'm not arrogant or egotistical, not deluded or deceptive. I know what I know, I am honest about what I don't, and I expect people to be civil if they can't manage friendly.
Having got all that out of the way, which feels negative even though it shouldn't be, I think I'll start a separate post on the weekend. I suspect it's going to turn out to be a bit of an epic, for ewhich I apologise.
I spent Friday and Saturday in the company of bright young things (well all ages actually, but their demeanour demands they are referred to as bright young things) as part of City Camp Ldn convened by the rather lovely people of Futuregov. I would like to make it absolutely clear at this juncture that I really do think the Futuregov crowd are stars - frustration may have been in my tweets from the event over the last two days but the frustration has never been with the organisers.
Someone also commented that they hoped I was being paid to attend the event. I wasn't. He was referring to my rather public confusion at some aspects of the event. I feel it necessary to explain something to those who are new to this blog and me. There is no bullshit here. No facades and no fakery. I am an honest person, I wear my heart on my sleeve and at 33 years of age this is unlikely to change. It allows me to connect with people on rather fabulous levels, it allows me to know who is shiny and who is not. The very public wrestling with the world that I do on Twitter is intentionally there and it's there for a reason.
I am not alone in the way I feel. I know this from speaking to other people. Therefore if I vocalise the things I am struggling with, it means others who are less comfortable with being quite so open don't need to. Also, hopefully, somewhere out there is someone reading this blog and my tweets who can see the things I struggle with and also the things which fire my imagination and who is wondering if they could stick their head above the parapet too. In transparency, maybe there comes an encouragement, to try, to dip a toe in the water?
I don't know. I do know I unsettle some people. But I also know that if I don't ask questions, don't persist, don't be relentless in this, then I will just give up everyone and everything as a bad job and I don't want to do that. I don't for a second believe I can change the world. I just want to. There's a difference. I'm not arrogant or egotistical, not deluded or deceptive. I know what I know, I am honest about what I don't, and I expect people to be civil if they can't manage friendly.
Having got all that out of the way, which feels negative even though it shouldn't be, I think I'll start a separate post on the weekend. I suspect it's going to turn out to be a bit of an epic, for ewhich I apologise.
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