Taking back the Big Society

Taking back the Big Society

Ask people what they think the words Big Society mean and I’m sure a lot will say something along the lines of ‘David Cameron’s plan for people to work for nothing, in libraries for example. Sorry Prime Minister but some of us we’re using the term Big Society well before you jumped on the bandwagon and hijacked the term.

To me Big Society is just a collective term for when people help each other, I think all Open Data falls into the big society. I’m pushing out data which help other people in their lives. I help you, you help him and he helps her and so on. Society as a whole benefits.

I’ve just completed a small project for someone who I hardly know, never met but he wanted something for his website. A website that I use, so I though I’d give something back and help him out.

He had an access database of aircraft movements at Mildenhall and Lakenheath Air Force bases which he wanted to have on his website and for people to search it. He did have a trail with one company which wanted to charge his a lot of money to host one database. More than double what my hosting company charges for all my hosting needs.

So I have written a little script so he can upload his files to my server. I’ve also written a cheap and cheerful search facility and make it look something like his own website so it sort of blends in with it.

Finished it a couple of days ago, sent him an e-mail about it and he replied saying how grateful he was and he thought what I have done was superb.

Mr Cameron for me that is Big Society at work. Not people working somewhere for free but simply someone, i.e. me, helping someone else out, who in turn is trying to do something to help other people out via his website. .

Looking at the bigger picture

I was diagnosed with Diabetes back in July 2010, Scroll down and you’ll see the entry. Thought I was coping with it OK until Monday when I went to see the doctor who had my latest test results…

Lets just say it wasn’t good. He did read me the riot act and stress that unless I do something then I will loose my eyesight, have feet problems and all the other nice things can come with diabetes. Huge wake up call.

I brushed off my testing kit, bought some more testing strips. (Before you ask, yes I’m in one of those areas that don’t offer free strips/needles yet someone I know less than 30 miles away does get them for free) and started using them on Tuesday morning.

So this week I’ve made a real effort to check what I eat. I’ve cut out the sugars a lot. It’s the carbohydrates that do me it.

Was so disappointed with my reading last night. 13.0. To put this into context I’m aiming for a reading around the 7-8 mark. So yes that is very high. Back to the books to try and find out where I’m going wrong.

I decided to keep a diary of what I eat and compared it to my readings. To see what sends me over the top. My readings have been from 10.3 to 15.6 depending on the time of day. I’ve been checking myself first this in the morning and then two hours after each meal. I wrote out the diary and saw a pattern emerging. Yes my figures are high, but looking at the bigger picture and comparing readings maybe I am heading in the right direction?

First thing this morning my reading was 10.3, compare this to the 12.8 yesterday.

My morning readings were, today – 11.7, Yesterday – 14.5, day before 15.7

Afternoon readings, Yesterday 11.3, day before 12.0

Evening readings yesterday 13.0, day before 13.5

I really hope this is the sign that my new pills and increase in exercise is paying off. Even though all the figures are on the high to very high side. They are all reducing. Hopefully the salad that I have just had for lunch and the hit on the exercise bike this afternoon will reduce these figures even more. I’ll keep you posted. Remember don't look at one figure in isolation, always look at the bigger picture.

Talking in Public

At school we had to give a talk in front of the class on a subject of our choice about once a term. I used to hate it. However it was a skill that I feel that I should master if I’m going to get on in the business world. Luckily I have a good outlet to practice on.

I love aviation and I’m a member of a society called Air-Britain and where I used to live in Bournemouth we have our own branch of the society. OK so they are all my mates but it still involved getting up and speaking, trying to hold their attention for a whole evening etc. Being mates they of course heckle a lot and that has helped me too. I’ve now got to the point where I enjoy the challenge of talking in front of people. I still get as nervous as hell and I think that may affect my performance but its fun.

I have a love/hate relationship with the preparation. I’m giving my next talk on Friday night and I’ve spent practically all my spare time over the last two weeks preparing the talk. In some ways it’s been great. If I have had to research a particular subject then I always find that I learn something more about it when I’m preparing a talk. It is horrible feelings when you’ve got a whole section of a talk set out and then learn something that completely contradicts when you were going to say.

I know I have to work on my authority. Most of the time I’m giving a talk on something that I know more about the subject then my audience members but still don’t feel like I have a tone of authority in my voice to say look I know what I’m talking about here. Something I’m working on.

So tomorrow night my main subjects I will be talking about are the Tannkosh Airshow in Germany, Museum of Naval Aviation in Florida and the Warner Robins Aircraft museum in Georgia.

I might as a little ‘treat’ to a friend do a small bit on how London Underground numbers its tube trains. We had quite a discussion about this when we were in London last. He’ll cringe at it but it will be funny.

Finally I’m also going to reveal for the first time a new website I’m working on, get their feedback and hopefully get them onboard with it.

What's in a name?

It was the day after the Dutch Air Force show and me and my mates were heading down to the museum aircraft museum at Soesterbourg. As it didn’t open until lunchtime we had a morning to kill. A friend had done some research into locations of aircraft that are now used for display and other purposes. There was one on display at the gate to an Air Traffic Control centre. One used in a display at a children’s theme park and a couple more which seemed to be scattered around a field. There purpose still isn’t clear to me.

He used a variety of websites to locate these aircraft and that is when the thought struck me. Why not do one website with details of all these aircraft on it. Now there is no way I could keep all the information up to date, so there would have to be some form of user interaction. So why not make the whole thing a user generated website and totally embrace Social Media.

It’s an idea I’ve been toying with the past six months or so. Lack of time meant I didn’t do much with it but as I recently resigned as webmaster of the Bournemouth Aviation Museum I decided to get this project up and running. Writing the code is well on the way and next week I’m going to show some sample screen shots at a talk I’m giving to the members of a local branch of Air-Britain.

My one bog issue I have is what to call it. Now me and all my friends refer to such aircraft as ‘Migs on Sticks’ This was a phrase coined by a Russian lady called Olga. A friends runs aircraft spotting trips all over the world and Olga is his Russian Tour guide for when he does he annual trips to Moscow. She helps with the organisation and all the paperwork needed for a aircraft related trip to Russia. On these trips they like to visit aircraft memorial and the like. So on days when they are not at airports, Olga says that they are looking for Migs on Sticks. The name has stuck and now many of us use that name to define any aircraft placed on a pole or mounted for display purposes,

I’d love to use that name but I don’t want to fall foul of the MiG aircraft company for using their name (though I’ll use a small g rather than a capital G). The site will of course state that it has no connection with the MiG aircraft company. Asking for permission isn’t really an option here. We are talking Russia, even in this day and age, no-one dares to make a decision in case it’s the wrong one and they end up in their bosses bad books. Also the site will cover all aircraft not just MiG’s but many of us in the aircraft enthusiast community know that a Mig on a stick won’t necessarly be a MiG. Is it worth calling the site what I really want to, or shall I play safe and call it some generic?

FlickR and the creative commons.

This blog is in response to a Dan Slee blog of a couple of weeks ago. For those who don't know him, Dan is a much respected Local Gov figure and his blogs are always worth a read. He has earned this respect by me and a lot of other people across the country for his knowledge and understanding of Local Gov, content strategies and Social Media. In his blog he listed 20 things he learnt at the recent UKGovCamp and such is the power of the man, many other people have followed his lead and done their list of twenty things as well. In Dan's list I agree with 19 of the things. However there is one thing I do disagree with. Dan stated that he wished for a council to put all their photographs on Flickr under its Creative Commons licence. Sorry mate but I don't agree with that.

Correction, I cannot find the original blog post where Dan made his comment… I'm not even sure that it was Dan that said that now, apologies if it wasn't you Dan. If anyone can find the original source then please let me know. Anyway as the bolg is already written and with less than 30mins till #weeklyblogpost's have to be in, here's the blog anyway.

Two thing are in issue here, FlickR and the creative commons licence. I've never been a fan of the FlickR website. I really don't like that way they organise and display their photos. Their groups system means the name of the photographer gets lost along the line. If I see a nice photograph I want to know who took it so I can look out for more of their work. I've got a few photographs on their myself from my days when I helped out at the Bournemouth Aviation Museum, but for my general photography I am in the process of writing my own photo gallery to host my photos in the way I want.

I won't be releasing any of my photos under a creative commons licence for all and everybody to use. I have had requests in the past for permission to use my photographs on websites and magazines and I have been more than happy to grant this permission. But I've still retained control over my photographs. It has taken my time and money to produce those photographs why should I be expected to just give them away.

It the same with photographs taken by Councils to which Dan is referring to. Someone at that council has obviously taken a great deal of time and public money to produced a set of photographs. Time and money spent going out to get take the photographs and all the editing and so forth done back in the office. This is something that most councils won't do. In these times of cuts, corporate photos libraries are an extravagance that many are not willing to invest in. To my mind it would be very hard to create a business case that could justify the huge outlay for little reward that a corporate photo library created by a council would involve, Unless of course the council tries to sell those photographs, to try to recoup some of the huge costs. But of course they will then be competing with the professional photography market.

My local newspaper, and I'm sure other around the country, has made a big thing about its collection of photograph. You have been able to have copies of Echo photographs for many years. Indeed many years ago when my brothers appeared in photographs in the newspaper my mum went down to their offices and ordered copies of those photographs. Buying of photographs was never hugely publicised, not like it is these days. Newspapers are now in the situation where people expect their websites to cover the news stories. Take the example when certain national papers introduced a fee for anyone reading their articles online. The decision came under some negative comments from users expecting everything for free.

Anyway, back to the Echo. Having their articles on the website must mean that their sales of the printed paper is going down and so it seems that they are pushing there photography side much more than they used to. They are also producing more books, based on their huge back catalogue of photos. A catalogue that they would not have had if they released photographs on creative commons licensing years ago. Whilst I don't know if the photographs have saved the paper, I‘m sure it is helping.

My views on copyright theft has hardened since I've been talking to my sister-in-law, who is a published author and have been planning my own detective series based in Bournemouth. I aim to spend a long time planning and writing these books and I am not going to give them away. I've even heard comments from people about the price of e-books, kindle books etc But there is no printing and shipping costs, so why aren't they next to nothing to buy? Well the author still spend many hours writing it, paying an editor to edit it. Agency costs etc. You can't expect them to give it away after that.

I digress, back to photographs. Ian Hislop made what I consider a very important statement to the Leeveson inquiry into Journalism. I can't remember the exact words so this isn't a direct quote. But he said something like 'We live in a society now that expects everything for free, that's why we have no film industry to speak of and a bad music industry'. Would flooding the market with free photographs help the professional photography business?

I'm reminded of an article I once read about the flower markets in the Netherlands. Growers selling their flowers for export all over Europe. I see Dutch registered Lorries nearly every day in Bournemouth, supplying the local florists. In the article the reporter asks about what happened to all the flowers that don't get sold. Surely they get donated to a local Hospital or the like. Certainly not was the reply, they just get destroyed, sounds harsh but that's business. If people knew that flowers were being delivered each day to the hospital for free, no-one would buy flowers for their sick friend and relatives in that hospital. If they gave them away it would instantly kill their own business and put them out of wok. Which would end up meaning that nobody would have flowers.

Aren't all artificial pitches Astroturf?

Something I learnt the other day. Astroturf is a brand name for one make of artificial pitch. I learnt this when chatting to a leisure centre about their website. Their artificial pitches are not Astroturf ones and so cannot use the name Astroturf on their website. This will of course mean they loose out on hits to their website, loose out on bookings for their artificial pitches and thus loose money. Why, because so many people think Astroturf is just another name for an artificial pitch and will Google Astroturf when trying to find an artificial pitch to play on and so they might never discover their local leisure centres artificial pitches..

Rhod Gilbert and Becky Betts

Whilst I don’t know the full story or what they are proposing but I have read headlines in the media about proposed changes to BBC Local Radio. Now I do hope it doesn’t affect Local Radio too much. I’ve only just re-discovered Local Radio thanks to the internet.

Used to listen to my local station a lot as a child, but became less interested in their Middle of the Road music. There was other stations with output more directed at late teenagers. And I of course I was restricted to just one station. BBC Radio Solent in my case. I of course always listen to their football coverage, especially when travelling home by car from an AFC Bournemouth home game.

Nowadays things have changed due to the internet and digital TV. Via the web you can listen to any BBC radio station, anywhere in the country. This opens up many more programmes. However you’ll need to do a bit of research to find out when the best programmes are. Unless you buy copies of the Radio Times from every area around the country,

I have two favourites at the moment.

Saturday 11am BBC Radio Wales - The Rhod Gilbert show.
I love Rhod Gilbert and love his off-beat programme. Very funny.

Sunday 9am BBC Radio Norfolk – Treasure Quest
Do you remember the Treasure Hunt with Anneke Rice, well this is BBC Radio Norfolk’s version. A huge following from ranging from ‘The People of Norfolk’ as often the over excitable Norfolk ‘Anneka’ (Becky Betts) calls everyone, to people as far away as Tenerife and Canada. Being from Hampshire I think I’m one of the more ‘local’ non-locals is that makes sense. They have a facebook group which we all discuss the clues and the programmes (social media in use there – great stuff). I’ve learnt more about Norfolk. A place I have family and as a result visit a lot. So overall it’s a jolly fun way to spend a Sunday morning.

What to write about (#weeklyblogpost week 3)

Those who have followed my blog over many years might be surprised by me suddenly starting to blog again and with strange subject matter to… please let me explain.

There was a conversation amongst my twitter friends about blogging and how it was difficult to maintain the enthusiasm to blog and was anyone reading them anyway. It was my old mate Dan Slee that suggested that we form a weekly blog club. We would all blog once a week and submit it to the blog club for all to read. The idea quickly spread and there are many of us who are now members.

So now I have three sets of readers of my blog. Well I think I may have more than three people reading this but sometimes I do wonder. ;)

First group are all my regular readers who have know me for years. Second group are mostly the people who I have know on twitter for a while, who know me but not as well as the first group. Then of course there are people who have only just met me through the blog club.

I like the idea of the blog club but don’t want to alienate my regulars. Do my new friends want to read about how I eat too much carbs on Monday and made myself ill. I think it was that, I must have forgotten that I’m a diabetic. Of course there are just getting a first impression of me.

Similarly do regular readers want to hear my rants on social media stuff…. Maybe but I’m sure they want to hear about how I am etc.

Or maybe I’m trying to please all the people all the time. I should just stick to blogging what I like and hope that all of you find something of interest at some point… maybe.

Twitter bringing the world together?

When I first started using Twitter, I soon got very bored of it. This was in the very early days of it before it became a bit more mainstream. I wasn’t following many people and I wasn’t being followed back. I gave up.

Then went to a conference and met up with some guys from Stratford-upon-Avon council who were raving about Twitter. I gave it another go. I followed them. They followed me back. I saw they had followers from other councils and so my network increased. I now have two accounts, (one normal and one for my beer friends) and I'm loving it..

But I do feel that I may not be making the most of it. The people I follow and follow me all have something in common with me. Either we both work for Councils, or we both love technology, or both have a love of aircraft, trains, buses or beer. And all on them are UK based.

When I was younger I had a pen-friend in the Netherlands, we used to chat about things in our respective countries. OK we were both aircraft buffs as well, but I hope you get my point. I was learning about other cultures etc. Twitter is used all over the world. There are many people from many different backgrounds and cultures but yet I still have only followers who are like me in some way. I'd be interested in know the break down of your twitter followers. Do you play "safe" like me or take the plunge and try and make friends with people from lands far, far away

Open letter to the National Trust

This is my first blog for the #weeklyblogclub on twitter. More of which later.

I thought I’d start with an open letter to the National Trust. I love the National Trust and think they have some of the bestest places in the whole country. However I do have a problem with the membership fees. Let me explain

I used to be a member of the NT. I join under their get 12 months for the price of 9 offer, which they still have for direct debit membership. So an initial £62.63 (current price) was paid). However the next year the price went up to the full amount (currently £83.50). Now I do not begrudge paying this amount for myself and my fiancée to become members of the NT. However it is a lot of money to fork out in the one month the membership is due. Especially as my membership was due in December. With Christmas as all that it was a tight month money wise anyway. So unfortunately I did have to eventually cancel my membership.

Since then I have spoken to a couple of people in the National Trust about doing some sort of quarterly direct debit. I already pay for a few magazine subscriptions this way and the National Trust already have a direct debit system in place but this is only paying annually rather than quarterly. However I appreciate that there are issues with a quarterly direct debit scheme. Extra admin and the possibility that people will only pay for the two quarters covering the summer months and cancel their membership for the winter months. So I have though of a solution.

People joining the National Trust pay for their first years membership up front. For me and my fiancée that’s £62.63. Then in 12 months time, people can opt to go on to either half-yearly or quarterly direct debit payments. Thus ensuring people don’t just join for six months at a time as they pay for the first year up front. Also in the case of half-yearly payments it could be done that the first of these payments comes out in the autumn. Thus ensuring that in order for people to make the most of this money they have to join for the next 6-months as well. National Trust get extra members like myself with not much admin overheads. Everyone’s a winner?