It looks like central government is starting to catch up with what local authorities have been doing for a while. Members of the public can now comment on forthcoming legislation: but not in as much detail as was possible on the Irish Broadcasting Bill (www.e-consulation.ie).
Subject: OpenTech 2008 - registration open
Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 02:33:16 +0100 (BST)
From: Sam Smith <<email obscured>>
To: <email obscured>
* Ticket reservations now open - Please Redistribute Freely *
Open Tech 2008
sponsored by BT Osmosoft
Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/
Open Tech 2008, from UKUUG and friends, is an informal
one-day conference about technology, society and low-
carbon living, featuring Open Source ways of working and
technologies that anyone can have a go at.
You can pre-register your ticket now at
www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration
to allow you to jump the queue and pay your fiver on the door.
The last two times we did this, we sold out in advance, so you
are strongly advised to pre-register.
With 3 concurrent sessions, The line-up features:
* Open Rights Group - 2 years, 344 days on
* mySociety - WhatDoTheyKnow.com launch, and other goodies
* Overthrowing Government on a Budget, Keeping Track of
the CIA's Rendition Flights, Tracking Arms Dealers
with Python and Bits of String
* Ben Laurie and friends on network security
* Danny O'Brien's Living on the Edge
* AMEE, and Open Source Solar Heating
* Saving money and reducing carbon through Green IT
* Getting people involved with online media
Totalling 60 talks across 3 sessions covering 9 hours, there's
plenty in the programme for everyone including Rembrandt, Pr0n and
Robot Monkeys, and all that's just in one session!
The full schedule is at
www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/schedule
You can pre-register your ticket now at
www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration
to allow you to jump the queue and pay your fiver on the door.
The last two times we did this, we sold out in advance, so you
are strongly advised to pre-register.
* Further information *
Sign up for your tickets online, and tick the box to hear from us, or
just send an email to join uf
<email obscured>
(your address will only be used to contact you about OpenTech and
will not be passed onto third parties).
- or you can email <email obscured> if you've any other questions.
We're also looking for volunteers to help out on the day.
In return for free early entry and our eternal gratitude,
we're in need of a few people to show up a bit earlier
and help us set the venue up. If you're interested, or
have random other questions, email us on <email obscured>
Open Tech 2008
Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/
Final programme may be subject to alteration. Thanks for reading!
Cheers
Ben, Etienne, Emily and Sam
your friendly OpenTech 2008 organisers
Many of you will know that Channel 4 is launching a £50m fund to invest in innovations in public service media over the next 2 – 3 years. It's called 4IP (IP in this context stands for innovation for the public) We're initially recruiting someone to be the Head of 4IP, plus some commissioning managers, and a finance / business manager. These roles can be found at channel4.com/4IP If you know of anyone who's suitable, please encourage them to apply. This is a big initiative for Channel 4, as well as the industry more broadly. We're recruiting fast, with the closing date for the Head of role at the end of this week. Give me a shout if you need more information.
Dave and others What we could also do is ask this site if they can "white label" themselves and then we could have http://www.patientslikeme.com/ citizenslikeme interestslikeme hobbieslikeme xxlikeme for anything you like This site ( as currently designed ) is really useful for anyone who suffers from health and well-being issues, and is eminently transferable to other lifestyle issues. Does anyone from America who has read this far, know this site as it came out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Of course at the moment, commerce wants to pull you into their site, and get you to register. I don't mind doing that for some things, but I'd rather reduce my number of usernames and passwords if I could.
Great idea Dave From: http://www.jonbounds.co.uk/blog/255/can-you-get-satisfaction-from-your-local-council/ I've been quietly impressed with Get Satisfaction<http://getsatisfaction.com/>, which is sort of best described as a "social customer service" site. Twitter <http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter>and some other big-name players on the internet use it for their official support channels - the idea of the site being that employees of the companies join in with discussion of "problems" that people are having. Some employees just join to help, others are granted "official" status and can speak on behalf of the organisation. Of course lots of problems that we have with products or services aren't really problems (or are well know and documented) - in these instances other users are happy to help (very much like unofficial forums for software). 'Users' are also welcome to point out possible solutions to anything - and of course they do. So, I thought, could this work for a local council? Imagine time saved by council officials if knowledgeable citizens helped answer questions, imagine the resources available (once someone had explained how to apply for a licence, the information would be there for everyone), imagine a monolithic body "joining the conversation". Rather than deciding to attempt to persuade my local council (Birmingham City Council - one of the largest in the UK) that this would be a good idea, I discovered that - as the site is "a space for an open conversation between you and other people with interests and passions in this organization." - anyone can set a company page up. So I have.<http://getsatisfaction.com/birminghamcitycouncil> I don't have anything to ask at the moment, but I'm hoping that it might get used. "Sometimes representatives from the company or organization may take part in the conversation too." says the blurb wouldn't that be great?
Parliamentary e-Petitions - Politics lite? Tuesday 20 May, 6-7.15pm, House of Commons Richard Allan, Government Affairs Director, Europe, Cisco Systems Bethan Jenkins AM, Member, Petitions Committee Rt Hon Greg Knight MP, Chair, Procedure Committee Andy Williamson, Director, eDemocracy Programme, Hansard Society Chair: Pete Picton, Online Editor, The Sun This event will debate the implications of the Procedure Committee's recent report on e-Petitions, discuss what the next steps might be, how the process might work to ensure that the public are engaged and to limit disillusionment with Parliament. To register please click <http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/themes/hansard/forms/event.aspx?event=Parl iamentary%20e-Petitions%20-%20Politics%20lite?> here or visit: www.hansardsociety.org.uk/events Please forward this flyer to any colleagues or contacts you think may be interested.
Hi, Scottish Parliament debates, written questions and MSP pages are now available on www.TheyWorkForYou.com Here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/scotland/ (built by My Society's Edinburgh based volunteer Mark Longair http://longair.net/mark/ ) -Ella Ella Taylor-Smith International Teledemocracy Centre Napier University 10 Colinton Road Edinburgh, EH10 5DT Telephone: +44 (0) 131 455 2392 Fax: +44 (0) 131 455 2282 Email: <email obscured> http://itc.napier.ac.uk This message is intended for the addressee(s) only and should not be read, copied or disclosed to anyone else outwith the University without the permission of the sender. It is your responsibility to ensure that this message and any attachments are scanned for viruses or other defects. Napier University does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result from this email or any attachment, or for errors or omissions arising after it was sent. Email is not a secure medium. Email entering the University's system is subject to routine monitoring and filtering by the University. Napier University is a registered Scottish charity. Registration number SC018373
Group Members concerned about public access to public data may be interested to see this News Release (below) from the Scotland Office about the publication of the voting data from the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections. So far as I am aware, this is the first time data at Polling District level have been published for any public elections in the UK. This has been made possible only because the votes were counted electronically: paper ballot papers scanned, images interpreted to votes, vote numbers counted. The question of publishing the ballot data (STV preferences) from the 2007 Scottish Local Government elections remains outstanding. Perhaps the Scottish Government will now be encouraged to go ahead with full publication. The City of Glasgow Council published the full STV ballot data for their 21 wards on their website on the day of the counts (4 May 2007), but they are the only Council that has done that. James +++++++++++ Scotland Office 30 April 2008 Sub-constituency election results for the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections - data http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/our-communications/documents.php?doctype=pubs The May 2007 Scottish Parliament elections were counted electronically which meant that, for the first time, it has been possible to hold information on results at a sub-constituency level. The Minister of State for Scotland has agreed to the release of these data which are provided below as the following Excel tables. 1. Lookup table for cross-referencing between polling stations, constituency and polling place. 2. Aggregation list showing which polling stations have been combined 3. Table of constituency election results at polling station level (by constituency) 4. Table of regional election results at polling station level (by constituency) 5. Table of cross-tabulated elections results, i.e. across constituency and regional contests, by constituency. This table compares voters' choice of constituency candidate to their choice of regional candidate or party Please also read the separate commentary for full explanation of the data published here (Word doc, 34 KB): http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/uploads/Commentary%20-%20%20data%20released%20on%2030%20April%202008%20(2).doc If you have a query about release of these data, please contact Sheila Scobie [<email obscured>]. Open Data to be released 30 April 2008.xls (Excel file, 2 MB) http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/uploads/Data%20to%20be%20released%2030%20April%202008.xls
Delib have re-launched Citizen Space aim: to aggregate all the latest, greatest and most interesting stuff going on in the world of democracy, campaigning and politics and share it with the world. http://www.citizenspace.com/ Current campaigns include Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls Chicken Out! http://www.citizenspace.com/citizenspace/?p=48 And there are links to useful tools that could be used for e-democracy type stuff http://www.citizenspace.com/citizenspace/?cat=4 -Maybe the people at Delib have other bits of this they'd like to highlight as being particulalry special to UKIE listees.... And if you like this, check out the delib news letter which is confusingly labelled January 08 http://www.delib.co.uk/newsletter/january08
Just posted about the Zimbabwean underground Civil Action Group Sokwanele's online presence which may interest. They are "a civic action support group driven towards the use of non-violent actions to bring democracy, justice and freedom to Zimbabweans." Sokwanele means 'enough is enough' in Ndebele. The non-violence is very important with comments regularly deleted or edited. They are not affiliated with the MDC. They're making very good use of online tools such as google maps, flickr, action contact database, blog and cartoons. Much of this also happened in Kenya but I think they're doing it better and it's in one place. http://www.sokwanele.com/ 'Eggs, potholes and Robert Mugabe's last days - we hope' http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/2008/04/eggs-potholes-and-robert-mugabes-last.html
Hi, During 2007, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust commissioned Stuart Wilks-Heeg of the University of Liverpool to undertake an independent, evidence-based review of electoral processes and procedures in the UK. The task of the review was to establish the extent to which available evidence highlights potential threats to the integrity of UK elections. For our purposes I'm going to highlight 3 of the findings: * The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion. * There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time. * Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required. here's the summary: http://www.jrrt.org.uk/Purity%20of%20Elections%20in%20the%20UK%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf here's the full report: http://www.jrrt.org.uk/Purity%20of%20Elections%20in%20the%20UK.pdf Here's an overview from the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7370025.stm This might also be a good place to note recent articles about the costs of last year's Scottish elections, which used electronic counting: "the vote cost nearly £40m to administer, compared to the £17.15m cost of the same vote in 2003," "The figures show that £9m of the £40m cost was given to DRS, the company which provided the electronic counting machines at last year's poll. A further £3.5m was spent introducing the electronic system" These excerpts are from the Scotsman: http://www.scotsman.com/politics/40m-cost-of-Scottish-.3976689.jp?CommentPage=1&CommentPageLength=1000 Ella Taylor-Smith International Teledemocracy Centre Napier University 10 Colinton Road Edinburgh, EH10 5DT Telephone: +44 (0) 131 455 2392 Fax: +44 (0) 131 455 2282 Email: <email obscured> http://itc.napier.ac.uk This message is intended for the addressee(s) only and should not be read, copied or disclosed to anyone else outwith the University without the permission of the sender. It is your responsibility to ensure that this message and any attachments are scanned for viruses or other defects. Napier University does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result from this email or any attachment, or for errors or omissions arising after it was sent. Email is not a secure medium. Email entering the University's system is subject to routine monitoring and filtering by the University. Napier University is a registered Scottish charity. Registration number SC018373
> Also, which local political parties do not allow their members to blog unedited/moderated by higher ups? I can only speak for my party, Liberal Democrats, where this kind of moderation would be against fundamental liberal principles (although I am aware of one illiberal instance some years ago). Council group policy is decided by the Liberal Democrat councillors - a process that will not be without disagreements. Each council group will have its own standing orders, but the usual pattern is to ask everyone to respect the majority decision, but always with a conscience clause in place. We certainly don't have a whip. It would be unthinkable for anyone to check my blog before it goes out, but on the other hand if I used it to campaign against my own group's policy then I would expect the group to be pretty cross about it! The council group as a whole can apply sanctions to anyone who acts against the interests of the party, but it is a pretty serious step to withdraw membership of the group, so these things are usually resolved internally. Finally, it may surprise you to know that there is no national Liberal Democrat Party! Instead, the Liberal Democrats (note plural) is a federation of local parties, usually based on constituencies. So at a national level, policy is decided at conference by delegates from the local parties, and can't be overruled by the Leader. That means that party members are never told from the centre what to think or how to vote. In fact, the term 'higher-up' has no meaning. We are Liberal, after all. Mary Mary Reid 020 8397 1396 www.maryreid.org.uk
In mine we have 30 councillors, who have all been offered blogs as a replacemnt for the councillor.info sites we piloted. We had two active members on councillor.info and now seven inactive on blogs... My local council, as oposed to the one I work for offers them nothing, as far as I can see. In North Yorkshire, which has seven districts, one unitary and one county, the one I work for is the only one currently with anything on offer, as far as I know, and they're not used... You can take a horse etc...
I'm about to go away for the weekend so I can't give figures now. However, there are a couple of papers on MPs blogs and one on councillors blogs in an upcoming special issue of a journal called Information Polity. We've been told it will be out in May. When I get back I'll try and pick out the relevant stats and post. Councillors is significantly less than 25% - probably around 2%, though it depends on how you define a blog and varies from one council to another. Off the top of my head there are 50-60 MPs who blog. I'll also dig up some findings on the moderation issue - which are quite interesting. Most self-moderate to stop it being an issue but there have been some problems - more so at local than national level it appears. Best Wishes, Scott> To: <email obscured>> From: <email obscured>> Subject: Re: [UKIE-EDem] ICELE's BLOGINABOX goes Beta> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:30:02 +1200> > Does anyone know how many local councillors, MPs, MSPs, MEPs, etc. from the UK blog?> > Any percentage estimates?> > Also, which local political parties do not allow their members to blog unedited/moderated by higher ups?> > Steven Clift> > > Member profile for Steven Clift:> http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/stevenclift> > >
Guestimate 25% Not heard of direct editorial control or clearance processes but perhaps it goes on
Does anyone know how many local councillors, MPs, MSPs, MEPs, etc. from the UK blog? Any percentage estimates? Also, which local political parties do not allow their members to blog unedited/moderated by higher ups? Steven Clift
Giles Turnbull wrote: > And the disclaimer, right at the foot > of http://www.readmyday.co.uk, is probably the most all-encompassing > I've yet seen: > > "Bloginabox does not accept any responsibility." At last, an artificially intelligent sociopath!
On 25/04/2008, Cruickshank, Peter <<email obscured>> wrote: > Today, The International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) went Live with Bloginabox, the successor of the hugely successful ReadMyDay blogging service. It's more user- friendly and looks even better than before. > It's a shame that bloginabox.co.uk is forwarding to readmyday.co.uk (and not the other way round). And the disclaimer, right at the foot of http://www.readmyday.co.uk, is probably the most all-encompassing I've yet seen: "Bloginabox does not accept any responsibility."
I found this via ICELE's news feed: eTools news Published: Friday 25th April 2008 Today, The International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) went Live with Bloginabox, the successor of the hugely successful ReadMyDay blogging service. It's more user- friendly and looks even better than before. We have been listening to our users of ReadMyDay, other bloggers and local authorities and the improvements in Bloginabox will make it so much easier for councillors and local authority leaders to get blogging and discuss local issues with people in their area, online. Fraser Henderson, ICELE Centre Manager commented "It is great to see so many civic leaders blogging and that popularity and interest in their online presence is on the rise. We have developed Bloginbox to build-on the success of Readmyday and feel that we can now offer a complete, unique solution that builds-in good blogging practice. We are also expanding our new blog directory on a daily basis and hope to have the most comprehensive list of local authority blogs in the UK". The service is based on blogportal technology provided by 21Publish GmbH who partnered the innovations. Leif Koch, Managing director added "Providing an easy-to-use yet comprehensive blogging service is pivotal when targeting civil leaders. By adding domain registration and opening the platform to existing blogs, local authorities with packed schedules now have an even easier way of promoting their blogs and reaching out to their citizens. Being a powerhouse for Web 2.0 services, we are glad ICELE again has confidence in our expertise and experience for running eDemocracy services." Bloginabox is easy to use and for people without any technical know how. The service is packed with lots of help and guidance to assist you in creating that perfect blog entry including a 'getting-started' guide. More at: http://www.icele.org/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=258 This message is intended for the addressee(s) only and should not be read, copied or disclosed to anyone else outwith the University without the permission of the sender. It is your responsibility to ensure that this message and any attachments are scanned for viruses or other defects. Napier University does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result from this email or any attachment, or for errors or omissions arising after it was sent. Email is not a secure medium. Email entering the University's system is subject to routine monitoring and filtering by the University. Napier University is a registered Scottish charity. Registration number SC018373
Kerill Dunne wrote: > Yahoo! For Good. Give and get cool things for free, reduce waste and help our planet. Plus find > > The command is: digest on Sent to: <email obscured> Cheers, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org and DoWire.Org