GoodGNUs

Yesterday’s ShropCamp event was a great success, attracting a diverse crowd of people wanting to work with Open Data and local government. In particular it brought in a far greater crowd of non-technical people than these events generally attract.

This is good news, of course - but it did mean a lot less awareness of data privacy and, in particular, data ownership.

Facebook

In the four sessions I attended, participants talked around issues of building Facebook pages, and getting their communities to come there. This brings up one or two issues I promised to address and link to, so here they are:

Going to the places where your community already is, and talking to them there, is a strategic decision, and a correct one. Selecting Facebook, and building your presence there is a tactical decision, and one not to be made without a clear understanding of the downsides.

I’ve covered a lot of this in an article in Linux User last year, introducing open social networks: Social networking: The good, the bad & the ugly. The article was aimed at a technical audience, although the discussion on data privacy and ownership is non-technical. However, to save you wading through it, let’s cover the main points.

Whose data?

1. Facebook is very good at importing data from your other networks, whether tweets or social bookmarks. It’s not so good at passing it back to the outside world. In particular your contacts as a user or your community as a group (those who “like” your page). Should you ever lose your Page, through inadvertently violating the terms of service, what happens to your carefully-nurtured group?

2. There is little privacy on Facebook. Although you can change your settings, few users are even aware of how much about themselves they expose to advertisers and others. If you are building a group of vulnerable users, it may be better to hold most of your discussions with them somewhere you can control the safety of the environment

But our users are on Facebook

There’s no easy answer - you must go where your community is. But go in with your eyes open.

Try and collect name / e-mail at least by persuading people to sign up for a minimal set of announcements (e.g. once a month), which should get the majority of your community to click through and register. That way, were you to ever lose your FB page, you have not lost touch with everyone.

Investigate federated & open social networks. GNU Social and Diaspora are not ready for mainstream use yet, but consider trying Status.Net a sort of federated Twitter, which will make the foundation of GNU Social) internally with staff and volunteers. You can set it to forward all posts to Twitter - and thence on to FB, your blog, and elsewhere - yet remain in full control of your data, and your privacy settings.

Postscript

You can read a little more at:

The Interview with Status.net’s Evan Prodromou.

See links relating to this & ScraperWiki which I mentioned at #Shropcamp

and for those who asked me for more about what I do: try this: -)

& the Complementary Currency Unconference.

Postscript:Political Facebook Groups Deleted On Royal Wedding Day

[added 30/04/2011]
“The Anti-Cuts Space London facebook group has been taken down without warning or permission. In the last 12 hours, facebook has deleted around 50 sites…” Read more here. Interesting comments, including additional groups deleted in the original article. Further coverage in The Guardian.

See also: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2011/facebook-takedowns:-burying-bad-news

& http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/FB_takedowns

And compare with FB’s tardiness in responding over many of the hate groups with pages on Facebook.

To re-iterate: play in somebody else’s walled garden and you play by their rules. If you want freedom of expression, and control of your environment, then you have to make your own. Listen to this:

A couple of chats recently - at North Staffordshire GeekUp and elsewhere - have turned to programmer education. My particular input to the conversation, reflected the same concerns I express in discussion over the male:female imbalance in Free Software projects, namely we need to enthuse people about IT early on.

In short, people are being turned off (or at least not turned on to) IT at an early age. Programming, and everything web, too, is creative. It should appeal in some way to nearly everyone.

Let’s get some real and fun IT education into Primary schools - don’t wait until it’s too late. I’d love to see playground games where kids take the part of bits moving through logic gates; 10 year-olds should be flowcharting how to program a robot to make a cup of tea; and kids - all kids - should learn how to program. It’s a skill that teaches valuable logical thinking.

Where to start on the programming? Naturally, every time a group of geeks discuss this there’s a mini language war, but choice of language makes a difference. Simply, don’t use a language that overwhelms: C is simple, but involves learning too much about computing for a 12 year old to dive in and start thinking about how to program; Java is just a mess, and too big.

I’d be fine with Ruby or Python, and perhaps a Lisp dialect like Clojure could be used - but now I’m reviewing Eloquent JavaScript, by Marijn Haverbeke [Kindle edition], & I think it could be adapted.

The big advantage with JavaScript is that every computer contains a runtime for it - and one with which most kids are familiar - the Web Browser.

The recent GeekUp thread on programming prompted me to try Fizz-Buzz in JS, and there’s little cruft in the language to stop you getting straight down to it:

<html>
<head><title>Fizz-buzz</title></head>
<body><script type="text/javascript">

var count = 1;
while (count <= 100) {
  if (count % 3 + count % 5 == 0){
    document.write("fizz-buzz");
  }
  else if (count % 3 == 0){
    document.write("fizz");
  }
  else if (count % 5 == 0){
    document.write("buzz");
  }
  else{
    document.write(count);
  }
  count += 1;
  document.write(" &nbsp;&nbsp; ");
}

</script></body></html>

So what do people think? Anyone interested in helping to write a course for 8 to 13 year olds to learn programming? Using JavaScript? Want to do it in another language? What should we teach and what should we miss out? Let me know in the comments…

JavaScript is available everywhere that the Web is.

EDIT

Please join the conversation at http://teachyourkidstocode.org/wiki/ as we try and get something going - all ideas welcome :-)

To MadLab, yesterday, for the Together Works AGM. Together Works is the social enterprise network for Greater Manchester, and the AGM was a chance to network, then take part in a debate on the future of Social Enterprise in the current climate of cuts.

The panel included Social Entrepreneur Dave Dawes, who started with a strong denouncement of grant-dependency in the sector: “Grants are evil, corrosive - they will destroy you. They are precisely the same as heroin”

“What amazing sculptures would Michaelangelo have done if hadn’t been dependent for 4 years on an income stream from the Pope for the  Sistine Chapel,” he continued.

All of us in the room had been involved at one time with voluntary organisations that had, if not sold their soul, at least severely switched direction for the sake of grant funding. However not all social entrepreneurs have completed a change of mindset to meeting a market’s needs - Dawe’s provocative phrasing drew a stark picture of the effective choice.

Embracing failure

Fear of failure was another key topic as one speaker seemed to say that if you got your market right you wouldn’t fail - forcing me to point out that all sorts of things could make an enterprise fail, but that was a fact of life. You recover and move on.

What’s important is not letting fear of failure stop you trying again (and again).

In that vein I mention here that following the disappearance of the two best people I had to launch a new Social Enterprise for voluntary sector Cloud Software, I’m working on new plans for two projects that had been on the back-burner.

Anybody looking for a new project, feel free to get in touch. I’ll post more here later as things develop.

I’m going to put up another collaboration post soon, as I’m having a lot of trouble finding people to help out on various projects. However Dilbert may have encapsulated the problem…

Back from giving my new “Free Software in the UK Voluntary Sector, and why you should care” talk to Manchester Free Software Group. A small audience, but a nice rambling debate over many fields, and good real ale at the Lass, so all-in-all a good evening.

Before travelling up to Manchester I spent a day not listening to Election news (okay, mostly not listening - I tuned in to the Daily Politics Election Debate), and working on websites - always a nice break from pure SysAdmin work. One WordPress site, and three Drupal sites. Not necessarily a good idea.

Drupal is, admittedly, far more complicated than WordPress, but has a lovely modular construction, and is easy to theme and style, so working on just one WP site (out of a total of 4 websites) actually doubled my workload, as I struggled to find ways of doing things on the (admittedly) easier platform.

Counter-intuitive

Why was I doing 3 Drupal and 1 WordPress site? Good question. The three Drupal sites are voluntary efforts for local voluntary groups: they could grow and scale in unpredictable ways, and Drupal offers the simplest way to start, and to grow, without holding you back if your needs suddenly become somewhat complex. Despite its higher price-of-entry (even the text-editing interface for the end user needs to be added manually, never mind the work of adding a custom content type to replace the lamentable standard calendaring), Drupal installations are easily repeatable, easily customisable, and so flexible that grown SysAdmins often weep with the simple joy of it all.

WordPress, on the other hand, works better out-of-the-box, particularly for the end user(s) who will be maintaining content on the site, and so is the obvious choice for low-cost sales to clients wanting rudimentary content management. Obvious choice? Well, obvious doesn’t always mean right. In this case Drupal, the counter-intuitive choice, would have been more efficient - even had I charged my WordPress rate for it (which is half the price of my cheapest Drupal rate), for I’d have got the job done more quickly alongside the other Drupal sites, without thinking my way round WP theming and which modules got around the limitations of the originally-blog-based design.

The lesson learned? Love your tools for the job they do, but charge for the end results, not the use of the tools - less pain all round, however wrong it seems. Tomorrow, more web: Quick, someone book a place on one of my courses before I’m seduced to become purely a web developer ;-)

Saturday saw the annual Chorlton Big Green Festival, one of the country’s largest Green Fairs, and this year blessed with a stall from Manchester Free Software (MFS).

Those of us volunteering to staff the MFS Stall had a great time - not just enjoying the vegan food and drink of the Fair, and catching up with old friends from Manchester’s numerous environmental groups in attendance, but from several hours of talking to the general public about software freedom.

While MFS membership is heavy in Unix admins and programmers, the group is about the philosophy of software freedom, not playing with technology - thus we all enjoyed engaging with the public on why freedom matters in software. Passers by ranged from committed Ubuntu users to those without a computer at home, yet nearly all were responsive to the principle of software built on values of community, education, and sharing knowledge.

Freedom in the 3rd Sector

Indeed, it continues to remain a puzzle why so many in the charity sector actively campaign against Free Software solutions, and promote the sector’s continued reliance on an unsustainable model of dependence on a few tax-subsidised, private companies.

These are issues I hope to tease out a little in my talk on Free Software in the UK Voluntary Sector, and why you should care, at MFS’s 20th April meeting. I’d welcome people with a wide range of views to come along and debate the issue afterwards.

At recent events, when I meet new people, we naturally ask each other “What do you do?”. I’m failing quite badly at summarising my activities, so thought I’d briefly list current projects here, for reference:

1. Gaia University - IT strategy, project management, & SysAdmin, in a programme to gradually upgrade every online aspect of this international sustainability university over the next few years.
2. Social Media & the Accessible Web - the Profitable Conversations courses highlighted on the courses page. Got off to a good start last year, now lining up a number of courses around the North West for the Spring.
3. Hackspace North West - 10 months ago I started bringing people together whom I thought would be interested in getting spaces off the ground. I have done very little on this as fortunately it turned out there were plenty of people also wanting local hackspaces, and they’ve gone on to work towards getting them going. Latest steps in Shropshire & Staffordshire.
4. Credit Unions - Free Software solutions
   Should have been going a long time ago, but a key personnel hiccough has delayed things. Now we’re on the move again, and I’ll be posting announcements on the project here very soon.
5. Other financial software & local currencies…
   Next step is looking for partners to take the core of the Credit Union software, and adapt it for 3rd Sector book-keeping needs. This is something VCOs have been crying out for.
   We’re also talking to those involved with Complementary Currencies in a number of countries - something just beginning to gain ground in the UK after a brief flurry of LETS in the 80s.
6. Cloud Computing for the 3rd Sector.
   Voluntary Groups can’t host sensitive data in the USA, and don’t want to be advertised at by Google. Hoping to work with Fossbox on this, and looking for a sponsor to host the 1U server I have that was donated to the project by Blue Fountain.
7. Permaculture
   I studied for my Permaculture Designers’ Certificate in 1993-94, while also studying for the Royal Botanic Gardens’ diploma at Kew. It was the wrong time, and once back home in Montgomeryshire there was little or no work. Now I find a resurgent interest in sustainable design, and am following recent speaking engagements with more practical work.
8. IT Recycling
   M6-IT cic had a great success here, with Richard Rothwell’s Supported Family Computing project reaching dozens of families with recycled hardware, Free Software, family training, and local support, as well as broadband for people previously blacklisted by the ‘phone companies.
   Search for partners to replicate this has been unsuccessful, but it’s been a privilege to lead workshops on community recycling with ArcSpace in Hulme, Manchester, with an interesting and enthusiastic crowd of local activists.
9. Web
   Preparing new sites for local sustainability groups, campaigns, and VCOs: some Wordpress, blog-based, mostly Drupal CMS. I miss Plone, but it’s unsuitable for the quick and low-resourced sites I’m doing now.
   When a few more get finished I’ll put up some portfolio pages.
10. Blogging?
    I’m developing a horicultural/ethnobotany blog I started designing some time ago, and a *nix introductory blog for NetBook users. Once I can get a 30 hour day I’ll push these through to publication. :^)
11. Journalism - Linux User & Developer magazine recently commissioned me for a few articles. The first of these, on Arduino boards and open hardware hacking, hit the shelves a few days ago.
12. In Transition - the two towns nearest to our village are both in possession of new groups moving towards Transition Town Status. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some very interesting people, and get a chance to begin to investigate local food and power solutions.
    It’s certainly easier to work totally locally, than try to bring people together at a distance as I did at FACT’s Small Steps to Sustainability workshops. More soon here, and on Twitter.

Hope that helps fill a gap until I renew my calls-for-collaboration posts, too. As to Networking events, maybe I should print this list on a postcard?

I’m travelling back from the Connecting 2.0 Communities event held this afternoon and evening at Madlab, in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. An MDDA-sponsored event to give technical and social media advice to community groups. I was arm-twisted into giving a short talk, so rapidly prepared an item on Social Media tactics and strategy culled from our 3hour course.

Firefighting IT problems? Get some IT strategy in your Org!

However the first speaker, Matt Haworth, did such a great job on exactly the same subject, with the wonderful local example of Manchester’s  Lesbian & Gay Foundation’s viral response to US hate adverts, that I mentally ripped up my improvised speech, and settled on the least interesting topic under the sun: IT Strategy. IT Happens, I told the unfortunate audience, it drops from the sky as meteorites of randomly-funded PCs, and volunteer-coded websites, and leaves organisations busy fighting fires as IT fails to do what it should, instead of concentrating on delivering the front-line services for which they have so much enthusiasm.

So, what’s to be done? Organisations with chronic IT problems tend to be those which don’t just lack an IT strategy, but often don’t really realise how essential it is to any modern organisation. These groups usually lack IT expertise not just in staff and volunteers, which is understandable, but in their boards of governance, too. In an age when hardware and software is effectively free, IT funding should first go into bringing in outside help to assess an organisation, and help to draught its strategy; something that would pay for itself in a very short time.

Back in my M6-IT days (and before that at BVSC’s MOST project) we ran courses on IT strategy for decision makers in Voluntary Sector groups. In both cases we relied on carrot and stick from partner organisations to bring in attendees who most needed the courses. What can be done? I’d love to hear ideas for reaching groups (other than springing them on an unsuspecting audience like today ;), otherwise third sector groups will continue to fight fires, instead of using IT to grow and support their organisations.

FeedingManchester #3

Just back from Feeding Manchester #3, an attempt to co-ordinate everyone in the business of sustainable food production in the city, and keep the city council and its ambitious plans for local food on track. Although I do a bit of sustainable and community IT in Hulme, and social media training in the Northern Quarter and elsewhere, I was really there on behalf of Congleton Sustainability Group and of Sandbach Re-Imagined, to see what could be learnt.

And while yes, there was a lot to be learnt (which you’re probably best finding - as it appears over the next few days - on the Kindling Trust website), and I was able to offer some points (despite my rural perspective ;)  - the best thing I heard today has to be comments from Lydia of Sustainable Levenshulme Underground Gardeners, that many of these local efforts to tidy up one’s patch and grow food there for the community are oppositional, and “kind of naughty”, and the fun can go when the authorities are involved, as it’s no longer “fun and a bit deviant”.

If you’re based in Manchester, and concerned with local food, you might like to join in before Feeding Manchester #4 in the summer but, wherever you are, stay naughty, and happy St Valentine’s Day ;-)

Thanks to Michael Sparks, on the GeekUp list, I was recently reminded of this wonderful XKCD cartoon.

Not only did it make me smile, but it reminded me that “now” is always a good time to stop in an argument on an e-mail list, thus freeing up no end of useful time :-)