Here was a handy piece of research the social technologist Benjamin Ellis gave me today: US government use of blogs. Handy of course if you work in the arena of UK government digital engagement and are trying to get a feel for what’s around.
Thanks Benjamin
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Digital, Digital Engagement, Government
Today I was kindly asked by The Engine Room, great builders of entrepreneur and SME communities themselves, to share 10 tips in 7 minutes at their lunchtime event Pecha Kucha Inspired Learning and Networking.
More details of today’s speakers here
The audience made up largely of entrepreneurs and SME’s, I chose Community Building – free and cost effective tips to help deliver your business objectives by building a community.
Here’s the slides with notes: Community Building V02
Categories: Capability building · Uncategorized
Tagged: Community, Community Building, Entrepreneur
This month Rewired State are gathering the best of british young developers to play with government data and create applications on the largest hack day of its kind.
Rewired State was created to help government officials experience the projects, utilities and tools that can be easily and swiftly developed in a safe environment with government data by the best of British talent.
Rewired State is a not for profit organisation who work with the community for the benefit of ‘coding a better country’.
On 22 and 23 August in Google’s shiny new offices in London Victoria we will gather 50 young developers (15-18 year olds) to gather with developer mentors to create applications from cleared non-personal data sets.
For all further information please go the website www.rewiredstate.org/young
Categories: Uncategorized
National Hack the Goverment Day??
What?! I hear you cry, what about the security of our information? Well, read on..
Over 80 benevolent hackers* gathered to play at The Guardian’s media suite with public sector data for one day only to see what useful, interesting and downright provactive services and sites they could create.
At the end of the day 29 complete hacks were presented in two minute pitches to all geeks present, Press, government and Guardian team. The quality, completeness, speed and usefulness of their hacks was astounding. View the individual projects here and the pitch footage here.
What I found most interesting was Government, Guardian and 4iP commitment to offering funding, development platforms and commitment to making this an annual event, after all the purpose of the day was to demostate what could be done in the day by creative minds having access to the data and hoping government would take notice.
See www.emmamulqueeny.com for more details.
*Hackers in this context means friendly developers
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Public Sector, Rewired State
Whilst snagged in rush hour traffic this morning, frustrated and willing the road to clear, a spotted a lollipop lady in the cut from Wandsworth to Putney, jigging from leg to leg and waving at random cars. It made me laugh and I waved back.
In these times of financial doom and gloom, with darker evenings creeping in, sneak in the odd simple pleasure, it’s surprising how good it can make you feel.
I was made to stay in bed on Sunday morning, with a cup of tea and the papers, just heaven, a real luxury with a young baby, and very welcome as I had got in at 4.30am and was hungover.
Every time I go home to Devon, I pass the red cliffs at Exeter and it makes me grin to know I’m on my way home. I get great pleasure from watching moving water, driving through Dartmoor or seeing great splashes of green. Two years ago I bumped blindly into a passerby making my way to work, distracted by catching snowflakes on my tongue, it made us both howl.
So the question this week is: What are your simple pleasures?
Categories: Uncategorized
‘Do one thing every day that scares you’ Wear Sunscreen tells us.
As an interactive event producer and sometimes coach I am quietly confident that only when we are pushed out of our comfort zone can real change happen. Only when we take a risk and succeed do we vibrate with a sense of achievement. (Oh yes there are other ways to make us pulse, but not quite in the same sense, wouldn’t you agree?)
How often, in our busy lives do we proactively take risks, or even invite a little more randomness into our lives? It doesn’t have to be life-threatening. It can even be as simple as taking a new route home or looking at a situation through another perspective. We are not talking Dice-Living a la Luke Rhinehart here, although the Dice Man does have his merits.
Paula Reid, one of life’s true adventurers inspires me on a number of levels, check her out in Honouring. Celebrating after a successful event and several beers, Paula introduced me to AQA (Any Question Answered) a text service that eloquently answers your random questions. We asked AQA for a dare that I had to perform and we were in the middle of the bars in Canary Wharf on a busy summer weekday evening. AQA challenged me to ask the next person of the opposite sex if they’d like to marry me (Fine. I stand up on stage for a living, this isn’t really going to phase me). However, if they said yes, I had to jump for joy (OK). If they said no I had to roll on the ground……(oh dear). My team made me ask 5 people.
The question this week therefore is: What was the last random thing you did?
Categories: Random play · Risk taking · Uncategorized
Tagged: AQA, Challenge, comfort zone, Dares, Dice Man, Wear suncreen
