For the past few months a team of volunteers have been running Social Media Surgeries at the Birmingham Voluntary Services Centre in Digbeth. The evening sessions are designed for local voluntary groups to come along and get advice on a range of social media technologies; blogging, Twitter, podcasting.…….etc.
Pete Ashton’s video below shows how popular these events have become
Social Media Surgery for Voluntary Organisations from Pete Ashton on Vimeo.
While getting ready for work this morning I was watching Breakfast News on BBC 1, one of their features addressed the view that science is no longer fun. The Government has gone as far as launching a campaign to turn perceptions around. Yes it may be fun for the scientists and those based at NASA and Area 51, but for school children and joe public it is reportedly quite mundane. Or is it?
If there’s one area that many commentators think social media can make significant impact on it’s democracy and participation. You only have to read Clay Shirky’s notion of ‘cognitive surplus‘ to see exactly how much power people think can be released. Whether or not you think Shirky over-plays the argument social Media spaces are indeed packed full of people with passionate causes and a desire for change.
But there’s evidence here in Birmingham that citizens want to control the space and the terms under which they participate. The City is currently consulting on the Big City Plan, a strategy to help shape how the city centre is organised. There’s plenty of ways to engage with it, via post, through the facebook group, or at the online consultation. However, a group of bloggers have now decided that the original document was just a little too, erm, overly-intricate, for general consumption so have taken it upon themselves to do a plain english translation.
The Airbus that collided with a flock of birds last week in New York, and ended up (by the amazing precision of the Captain and his co-pilot) safely landing in the Hudson River, is what everyone is talking about. Very rarely do planes, which have to land prematurely due to failed engine(s), have a happy ending in which everyone (155 people) survives with little more than bumps, bruises and shock.
Picture of Airbus floating in the Hudson River
Many saw images of the dramatic incident, along with accompanying explanations, across the world before the newsrooms broadcast anything. Janis Krums, a New Yorker, who happened to be on one of the ferries that was despatched to the stricken plane to start to rescue the passengers, took a birds eye photograph of the Airways Airbus on his mobile phone and posted it straight onto his Twitter profile. At the same time, professional news photographers and cameramen were still trying to locate where on the Hudson the actual plane was!
I read with interest a piece on new gadgets and the development of a new charging pad. Imagine a home totally cable free. No trailling wires or unsightly cables, sounds like an internal designers dream.
The new gadget the PowerMat is a wireless charging pad which uses magnetic induction to transfer power into your portable devices (laptops/ipods/mobile phones etc) when they’re placed on top of it.
Fabulous idea, I’d like one for my hair tongs my digital camera and my kettle next please.
I recently went on SEO training, for those who are sick of acronyms or are just curious, this stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is a way to improve the volume and quality of traffic on the internet to your website by learning how to present your pages, and supporting web accessibility as a whole. It has a lot of similarities with online marketing, and the training will usually include overviews of how to improve your online presentation and audience engagement.
More - SEO? Bless you!
Children benefit from having a computer in the home
For a number of years, I was involved in taking coach loads of Birmingham teachers down to the BETT show in London so that they could view the latest educational technology products, resources and best practice. The potential of technology in transforming the way children learn and interact was just starting to be unveiled.
Technology has moved on at a pace since those early days and in Jim Knight’s opening address on Wednesday at this year’s BETT show, it is all too clear the reliance and acceptance that we place on technology as the norm for enhancing the learning experience for students both in and out of school. More - Taking learning home in Birmingham
2008 saw a lot of movement around the opening up of public data and particularly in relation to location based services using that data. We’d already seen some positive signs with the commission of the Power of Information report back in 2007 and last year saw the innovative Show Us A Better Way competition.
It was very interesting to see that all five ideas which Show Us A Better Way are hoping to help develop are ones which use geographic data, especially as there have been so many issues with public sector bodies “misusing” Ordinance Survey data and derived data. Anybody interested in this would find it useful to take a look at the Guardian’s Free Our Data campaign. Of course, a cynic might think that the whole competition was devised to apply pressure to open up OS data to public bodies. More - 2009 - A Public Sector Data Explosion?
I found an interesting site which allows you to compare the fuel costs and CO2 emissions of all new cars by make and model. So if you’re thinking of buying a new or a nearly new car why not see which ones would save you the most, and save the planet too.
The site doesn’t say much about alternatives to car transport such as car-sharing, or public transport but I guess it’s a good start. I’ve started walking to the station in the morning - though that’s more to do with the fact I’ve eaten well over fifteen mince pies this Christmas! Any little change we each make can collectively make a major difference to our planet.
When it comes to digital technologies this statement could read in any number of ways. As is the norm at the beginning of any year, there have been many predictions on what will join the market next. This could be the next high tech smartphone, broadband package deal or connection speed; or how technology will evolve through public use e.g. increase of mobile phones being used to access the internet, 3D television or achieving a broadband speed of 100 mbps.
Digital Birmingham is a Birmingham City Council initiative and part of a city wide strategic partnership of more than 30 public, private and voluntary organisations
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