I gave a quick presentation to the new members of the Council’s Innovation Forum, on the uses of social media in Local Government. It also covered the LGID’s Community of Practice platform, as well as a little glimpse into the future of the replacement, the Knowledge Hub. Apologies to Ingrid Koehler for stealing a few of her piccies!
Tags: CoP, Knowledge Hub, local government, Social Media
Well, whilst the snow’s been hard on everyone the past few weeks, I’ve been really under the blanket here. However, spirits have been kept up and it’s been a good few days. I finally got out with the camera and took some photos, of which I’ve edited one which I’m intending to use as a Christmas card. For now though, I’ll just share here. It makes you want it to be Christmas already…
So bear with me, this may be a little tenuous, but it’s a strand of my thinking and I just want to follow it to the end. I was flicking through sites of other bloggers (Dave Briggs, and also Kate Bennett if you’re interested) and then decided to change my theme – I’ve been tired with the green/black grunge thing that was going on for a while so selected a new theme. Then I flicked back to Dave’s page. Then back to mine. Then back to Dave’s. Unwittingly I’d selected the same theme. As an aside I decided to keep it, just because I could and I liked it, but that’s not the point.The point is it got me thinking – are we constraining the potential of the internet?
Well, I realised that I haven’t been blogging for a while now. I think it’s because partly in my head I see it as a bit of a frivolity.
Anyway, firstly, there have been some big developments in the Policy/Work sphere. First off, Newcastle City Council has approved it’s first Citywide Climate Change Strategy. It’s quite a big feat, as it sets out a large number of work streams that we’re kicking off, but it’s by no means comprehensive. It does include both mitigation and adaptation measures though, which is great.
I’ve also been pulling together some ideas for a public event on writing a Movement and Accessibility plan for the council. The more I do event prep, the more I realise I love it. Although it’s a lot of work, the end results will be great, and hopefully will make a big contribution to people being able to access the city more easily, bringing health and environmental benefits too. Photos will be up here following the day, which is currently looking to be in January…
I’ve also been pushing ahead on trying to sort out a Wind Turbine or Solar Panels for the house. I had a site survey done with Aegis Energy, but it looks like a Wind Turbine might not be possible. I’ve written a letter to Eden District Council to see if an application might be rejected out of hand. The other alternatives are to approach the school, or consider solar p.v. I’m still not decided on the best way forward. I don’t really fancy a massive project, which the community route would likely turn into. But I also don’t love the idea of P.V. as much. Although it would definitely pay back through Feed-in Tarrifs, they’re likely to be rebalanced by the Government, and they’re not as green. The process for making them is not as environmentally friendly and they don’t produce as much power. Anyway, I’ve decided not to close off any avenues for now.
I’ve also made a bit of progress with the AlstonOpenData project. The dataset’s massively improved now, and I’ve decided that the best way to do the mapping is through Tableau Public, as it will take all the effort out of coding a web-portal. The downside is that I now need proper Lat/Long. co-ordinates for all the locations. A bit more work but the easiest thing might be if I take my phone and go take all the GPS co-ordinates in Alston. If you’re interested in a sneak peek of what the end product might look like, you can see my work through Tableau Public so far here….
Finally, I’ve begun to compile a list of tools that I use as part of my work. I’ll try and keep it updated as I go, but it’s listed on the menus as ‘what I use’. Until later, ta-ta!
Tags: climate change, Feed-in tarrifs, solar p.v., wind turbine, work
I think that over the past year or so, I’ve been clinging on to the impossible idea that despite moving up to Cumbria, life would continue pretty much as it did when I lived in Norwich, and when people were still around. Over the past few days though, I’ve come to terms with the fact that it isn’t, and that realisation has made me pretty happy.
Tags: becca, dad, growing up, internalising, Nenthead, Personal
For a while, I’ve been looking for some free software which would do bubble charts to plot relative sizes. Not necessarily on an axis, but with the ability to categorise. Well, with IBM’s Many Eyes, I think it’s done the job. I took the expenditure data from Newcastle City Council’s 2010-11 budget report and added it in to a visualisation: here’s the net result:
As I’m on a free wordpress account (scabber I know!), I can’t embed live scripts otherwise I’d put it on here (full link here). But yeah, you just create the dataset, upload and visualise. Simple, and a great way to encourage accountability.
Tags: accountability, bubble chart, data, guardian, local government, portfolio, visualisation
Since I discovered the continuous shooting mode on my Fuji Finepix S5500, I’ve always wanted to try to use it to create the types of panoramic photos that you see for sale at nature sites (my first parallel is with those long shots of the grand canyon). Well, whilst I was standing on the beach in wales, I thought I’d have a go. The results you can see weren’t half bad:
My first attempt at a panoramic photo, taken in Anglessy, Wales
The shots were taken using the camera without a tripod so I thought it wasn’t going to work at all. Instead, I just lost quite a bit of height from the blending process in photoshop, but I’m still proud – definately one to put up on the wall…
