Hyperlocal and open data: Challenges in a UK context

| http://talkaboutlocal.org | hello@talkaboutlocal.org |

Federal Government District of Brazil delegation, MDDA, Manchester. November 2012.

Sarah Hartley@foodiesarah

Introduction

Talk About Local provides consulting, training and business services to help people understand local grass roots media.

Started in 2009 with funding from major broadcaster to explore new ways of providing public service content

Has trained thousands of people in how they can use simple online tools to find their voice.

Campaigns for greater access to information for all citizens with opendata

Stolen moped Grand Prixs c2002Bingfield ParkKings CrossMost Saturdays when Arsenal at homeEnd with traditional moped bonfire Pics – Mark Bailey

Hyperlocal sites- specific issue to address- isolated geographically or socially- reduction in mainstream news_ currently more than 600 UK sites- many campaigning

Work with individuals

Towards a local pubic data manifesto- published in September

Schools – help third parties provide decent school application information processes – publish data on places, intake and catchment areasHealth – better information to support tough decisions on local social care as local authorities assume responsibility – publish detailed expenditure and performance data on social care and create pro-actively transparent local health and wellbeing boards.Crime – people able to see that justice is being done in their community on issues they care about. Who is appearing in local courts for local crimes, what happens to them, sentences and when people are being released.Planning and built environment – citizens can’t get involved if they can’t easily navigate applications and case histories about nearby planning applications. People need to know what is going on near them to contribute to neighbourhood plans on an informed basis. Local planning lists and decisions should be published in real time as open data.Licensing – citizens need to be equipped with basic information to use new powers to control bars, clubs, pubs, adult venues, gambling venues. Publish as open data applications for all classes of alcohol, entertainment and adult services licences. Also data about the trends and (criminal) behaviour of the licensees and premises.Environment – inform people’s decisions about levels of pollution in their daily lives so that they can avoid or campaign to change it. Publish pollution levels data from all local monitoring equipment. Bins and recycling collections can often be baroque, publish timetables and services as open data.Transport – getting more out of largely fixed local transport infrastructure and shrinking services can only be done with better information. Publish local timetables, parking/waiting places, usage rates, subsidy and restrictions as open data.

Local authorities

Budgets shrinking drastically

Startling shift to mobile

USA mobile market about to pass 50% smart phone penetration

Council senior executives keep having bright ideasCustomers expectations keep

leaping ahead

Local procurement remains slow

Still locked into older CMS and complex web of transactional services Low risk low

cost innovation

Improvise

We all need to share the pain in an age of

austerity – the web budget is cut by 30%

Oh dear – I can manage as long as they don’t want any new stuff. But that’s not likely to happen.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mafleen/5280368304/sizes/l/in/photostream/

We need to talk to people online we can’t afford as much print or traditional consultation

Help people find their own voice online without me having a moderation and tech support liability

Give people skills not a platform

Talk About Local trains people to find their own voice online for their communities that they own and run

Camden Council, Broxtowe Borouch Council, Cambs County Council, Cabinet Office, NESTA etc

We need a mobile app for our staff to

communicate on the go as roving eyes and ears

of the council

Many already have own smart phones all have camera phones – need mobile and desktop solution for diverse use cases

Street reporting – n0tice new hugely flexible platform developed by GMG

Create noticeboard for area

Use employee phones smart or camera

All geo tagged

http://n0tice.com

Neighbourhood plans are coming. We need a something on the web to help residents work

to with planners to draw them up

Need to visualise built environment and provided shared work space for public and council staff as peers

Google SketchUp (now by Trimble) for 3D visualistion

Use Google Earth landscapes/terrain to insert visualisations

Use Blogger or Wordpress.com as the discussion space

Google Docs for drafting the plan and managing documents

Van Heckler http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=340952&page=14

Get me some Google glass goggle things

I saw this thing in Wired....

The in flight magazine had this amazing...

A new way of showing people what is happening to the place around them

New posts with geotags in your feed automatically upload to Layar – with click through to your site and ‘take me there’ directions

http://talkaboutlocal.org.uk/ar/

Talk About Local has a very simple approach to augmented reality – just paste in an RSS feed of content with geo tags and walk away.

Click, copy, paste forget.

Talk About Local provides consulting, training and business services to help people understand local grass roots media – please contact us for

help

This work funds our public service mission to help people in isolated or deprived communities find a voice online

Check out our new project helping the unemployed use a better online profile to seek work at http://networkingforwork.org.uk/

| http://talkaboutlocal.org | hello@talkaboutlocal.org |

Sarah Hartley@foodiesarah

Thank you! Any questions?