A colleague at work asked me today, “Where can I get the contact details of the local candidates for the Scottish Parliamentary Election 2011?” That’s easy, I thought. After a couple of hours digging tonight I have worked out that
NHTG11 – a personal reflection
Yesterday I spent nine and a half hours in a room with a group of hard-core coders and not only lived to tell the tale, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Firstly I should say thanks to Dr Bruce Scharlau of
Two great new Google projects
Two new Google projects crossed my radar today – and very interesting they both are, too. The first is Google For Non-profits. It offers the chance to reach and engage supporters, raise awareness of campaigns, improve operations, and a mass
Hack The Government Day – how will I participate?
This Saturday sees events to mark the third National Hack The Government Day. It will also be marked across the UK by events such as the one being run at Aberdeen University by Dr Bruce Scharlau. I’ve committed to going
How to stifle creativity
The post “How to Stifle Creativity In Local Government” over at http://welovelocalgovernment.wordpress.com is right on the money. I’d suggest some additions: when presented with a suggestion, tell them to find out how the private sector would do it, and prescribe
Books – more than one way to skin a cat
In the last couple of weeks I’ve read of two novel approaches to publishing books. If you are a fan of Cory Doctorow (http://twitter.com/#!/doctorow) then you’ll probably be aware of his long history of challenging traditional publishing models. Back in
Struggling to find images?
Are you like me? Do you struggle to find good quality images to brighten up web posts? Perhaps you can’t be bothered filling in forms to register for stick photography sites – or you find something in Google Images and
Social Networking – fairly recent bookmarks
Excellent presentation on social networks from @padday http://bit.ly/cxczIn “Anonymity, trust and openness on the social intranet” – http://icio.us/ierkz5 “A Brief Guide To Reaching Unbelievably High Levels Of Participation In Your Online Community” http://icio.us/dvpjsx “The Social Network: Facebook’s intriguing world revealed”
Open Data – some (mostly recent) bookmarks
Open Data The Open Data daily: http://paper.li/tag/opendata Birmingham City Council publishes electric vehicle charging points as open data KML with microformats: http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/evcp Legislation 2.0: Legislation.gov.uk http://j.mp/cV2MRu Great article on creating open data portals http://ldata.in/d406XB Hacking code as a new way
Open Data Masterclass – Aberdeen University 17 November 2010
Last November I attended an Open Data Masterclass at Aberdeen University. I took notes as the day progressed and these are shared below, sometimes quite skeletally, sometimes more completely. It was a very interesting and useful day and clarified and