Retweeting the consultation tweets

Today I spotted two anouncements from local authorities with regards to consultations with young people.

From Nottinghamshire County Council:

“We need your views on our plans for children and young people – http://tinyurl.com/bknp4p“

From Fenland Council

“Survey: Young people in Fenland – tell us what you think about our Youth Council site http://tinyurl.com/c227f6 – http://tinyurl.com/cou9t4“

What was interesting is that both these alerts came through Twitter. I then retweeted these out to the Plings Twitter followers – which is a bit like forwarding on an email, but without (yet!) the negative conotations!

monitter.com allows you to track Twitter posts by keywords

At the time, I wasn’t even following either of these councils, and so didn’t have them in my own feed – but using a tool such as Monitter enabled me to keep tabs on keywords that were mentioned in Tweets.

This can start to get really powerful, given the fact that Monitter, and Twitter, enable RSS feeds to be taken.  Hence, you can start to follow keywords (ie: “young people”, or “positive activities”) across multiple sources, which could include Blogs, News Alerts, Google Searches – which can all be aggregated together.  This was the nucleus for our initial news project, so expect some updates on that over the coming days…

The radio times metaphor

Yes, I know – I like my metaphors! I take responsibility for the Plings Bank, Fish where the fish are and other sayings around the project. Some work, some really don’t!

Recently we have been meeting lots of local authorities as part of the DCSF Information & Signposting Project. There is a common theme around getting information together from various sources and providers, and then presenting that back. Linked to this is a theme about validity and quality – especially if people are not quite sure about a piece of provision.

radiotimes.com screenshot - what's on tonight?

During these discussions, we have used the reference of the Radio Times (or any other TV / Radio schedule listings).  In such a content, each and every channel has its own brand, terms and conditons, delivery method and – obviously – content.  A schedule such as Radio Times enables people to check what is on one channel at a particular time / day, but also across several or all channels at a particular time.  Plus – we can clearly see, or find out about – the difference between BBC1 and channel XYZ on cable.  Finally, the listings also enable people to editorialise the content – pick up any newspaper or magazine and different programmes will be featured according to proirities and audience.

We started to look at this through our work with SCHED* recently.

When thinking about the youth offer and the role of the various providers and authorities – we can begin to see how some of this can be transplanted:

• Our key aim is to aggregate activity information together so that people can access it easily – both locally, but also regionally and nationally – The Schedule
• We also want to maintain and support the local brands and initiatives – The Channels
• Giving people the opportunity to feature, talk or highlight a particular channel or event is key – The Interfaces 

We will no doubt explore this over the next weeks.  

Ill also try to avoid speaking too much in metaphors

People Powered Plings!

I really like the new (beta) BBC topics service. Choose from the ever growing list of topics and the BBC will magically arrange content from several places and sources into one page:

This reminds me of the work we are doing with Plings at the moment, evident in the Stockport page we have up live. This page is not static, but calls several data and feed sources to generate the content at one go. So – currently we are calling Events held in Plings, Images in Flickr, News in the Pligg (via Google Reader and Yahoo Pipes), Volunteering Opportunities in Do-It, Podcasts in Radiowaves, Bookmarks in Del.icio.us and even census data from a text file!

We also worked on a way to dynamically switch between Manchester and Stockport – which we will put out soon. This calls in new feeds, but in the same parameters. David did us proud with that!

Whilst that sounds great, there are two underlying issues around this:

1. Reliance on external web services and sources
2. Keeping data and feeds up to date

The first point is typical of where we are at now. A few years ago, we may have tried to build our own Flickr, Deli.cio.us and Digg for example – but why bother?

The second point is more interesting though. This reminds me of the growth in People Powered Search Engines that are now around – including the terrific Mahalo (which I always miss-spll btw!). Mahalo works in the same aggregation-led way but the content that is put together is usually contributed by people:

Each page seems to have a manager, with contributions made by various people. This is like wikipedia, but not like it – as the content that is generated on a page can change according to the feeds and time of day, etc.

It strikes me that building a similar People Powered Search Engine could be an answer to the Places to Go, Things to Do issue (and perhaps other youth work related topics, but we have to stay focussed here). We have a clear idea as to the trusted sources and places where content might be – the next step is to get people to find, tag and flag it… no mean task, but certainly one that is achievable.

Neutral Aggregation Platform

I attended the Open Knowledge Foundation conference, to see some really interesting presentations from those in the field of opening up information (which is much more than code).  A particular relevant talk was from Gavin Starks from the AMEE Project – Avoiding Mass Extinction Engine.

AMEE is a platform through which data on carbon emissions are collected from a wide range of sources – government, organisations and individuals. This sets a standard for such data, which is then made available via an API, to developers and publishers – who in turn make it accessible to the people using their sites.  Hence, the Google UK carbon footprint project is underpinned through the AMEE platform:

Whilst on a local authority scale, Hertfordshire County Council and partners use the data to provide an online tool:

One of the arguments put forward by AMEE is that by having a neutral platform through which this data can be made available – it is far easier for comparisons of carbon footprints to be made, as the base data is standard and verified.

Behind the scenes, AMEE can also aggregate – completely anonymously – user data and actions, thus being able to chart the reach of pledges and impacts across all developments.

There are certainly some real pointers for Plings in this approach.