GoodGNUs

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?

• Digital inclusion, disabled audiences and web accessibility through personalisation
  “Government Digital Inclusion Champion Martha Lane Fox was the Big Thinker at COI last week. She announced the launch of her campaign to Race Online for 2012, which aims to get more people online particularly from socially excluded groups.”
  (tags: inclusion digitaldivide community excluded cohesion accessibility bbc web government disability disadvantage)
• Words & Eggs
  (tags: vintage retro typography illustration graphics blog resources art design)
• grain edit · modern graphic design inspiration blog + vintage graphics …
  “Grain edit is focused on classic design work from the 1950s-1970s and contemporary designers that draw inspiration from that time period.
  “Site content includes interviews, articles, designers’ libraries as well as examples of rare design annuals, type specimens, Ephemera, posters and vintage kids books from our bookshelves.”
  (tags: design art graphics blog advertising typography vintage posters graphicdesign retro illustration)
• SoyPrint Toner Cartridges
  “For every SoyPrint toner used, you save 2-3 litres of petroleum, and you keep 6 pounds of heavy plastic and a pound of metal out of landfills. This environmentally friendly SoyPrint black laser toner cartridge replaces HP item number 92274A and is compatible with HP 4L, 4P, and 4MP machines.”
  (tags: ecofriendly biodegradable printer peakoil officesupplies soya)
• Natural Economy - Resources - Reports
  “A suite of reports on Green Infrastructure looking at a number of issues; Green Infrastructure development based on the need expressed within the Region, the opportunities for GI to deliver sub-regional economic plans, an assessment of the CITYgreen computer model for estimating economic benefit, an outline strategy for linking green and grey infrastructure, and a collection of pioneering work on the economic benefits of Green Infrastructure”
  (tags: green eco reports economy northwest environment habitat naturaltourism)
• The 7 Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing | Copyblogger
  “Harsh Reality #2: You’ve got to give (some of) your best stuff away”
  (tags: socialmedia marketing tips blogging strategy advertising advice)
• 7 Mantras For Maverick Entrepreneurs | Sterling Performance | BNET
  “Throw out your business plan.” Like it :-)
  (tags: business advice entrepreneur socialenterprise marketing mentoring)
• BE LEGAL: Six things a hyperlocal blogger really should know about the …
  “…the potential for danger in the ice field of libel law is terrifying”
  (tags: hyperlocal blogging journalism law legal libel media socialmedia defamation advice)
• Geek Hub
  The Hub for UK Tech Events & Groups
  Born from ‘Wheres The Geek’, we decided on a brand change partly because we’ve shifted focus a little and partly because people kept moaning about the grammar!
  (tags: tech events geek geekup hub portal)
• Bespoke: Tailor-made local news
  “THE Bespoke project is an innovative collaboration between a number of different academic and commercial bodies around the UK, including the universities of Central Lancashire, Surrey, Newcastle, Falmouth and Dundee, the Lancashire Evening Post and Nokia Research.
  “Highly skilled Bespoke project members work across a number of different disciplines, and include anthropologists, product designers, engineers and mobile applications developers – as well as experienced multi-media journalists.

  “We are currently arranging a series of digital storytelling workshops with members, users and clients of groups and organisations as diverse as the Ablaze Youth Group, Callon Kids Community Club, Contour Housing, Fishwick Rangers Youth Development Scheme, Preston FM and Preston College’s Elev8 initiative, as well as individual members of the public”

  (tags: digitalstorytelling community hyperlocal collaboration journalism radio media film)
• #ECOSYS
  “demonstrate that virtual collaboration can drive social innovation, adapting our collaboration process for improved results as experience is gained”
  (tags: socialmedia collaborative socialaction innovation socialenterprise)
• Winston Churchill’s Short Guide to Life: 6 Essential Fundamentals
  “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” “I never worry about action, but only about inaction”
  (tags: inspiration advice churchill life positivity positivethinking lifehacks)
• Same ol’ g? Think again: A visual study of the lowercase g
  lowercase “g”
  (tags: fonts typeface typography design art)
• Recycling Lives; the recycling charity (Reg. No. 1116562)
  “In a purpose built facility Recycling Lives provides a multi-agency approach to addressing the causes of worklessness and homelessness through the provision of employment opportunities and skills-training, opportunities for new business incubation, and a strategy for reducing landfill waste”
  (tags: recycling socialenterprise homelessness community regeneration training NEET unemployment)
• A climate deal is like trying to halt the rains in Cumbria | Paul …
  There is some hope, but not much. The depressing reality of “An economy predicated on constant growth cannot be the engine of a change that urgently demands less of it”
  (tags: climatechange consumption capitalism peakoil sustainability future)
• Monbiot.com - The Population Myth
  Population Control / Reduction = “Way too many of you, just enough of me”. The world can support a huge population, just not on a European/US consumption pattern
  (tags: environment climatechange sustainability development poverty monbiot consumption hypocrisy noborders malthus overpopulation)

• The Hedon Blog
  Another of the remarkable hyperlocal blogs at #TAL09 - wish I had time to bookmark them all!
  (tags: blog local hyperlocal socialmedia tal09)
• Talk About Local » Un-Conference
  Great event yesterday, will blog tomorrow :)
  (tags: TAL09 conference events local hyperlocal socialmedia blog socialnetworking unconference)
• Pits’n’Pots – The Radical Press
  “For the news that matters in Stoke-on-Trent”
  (tags: blog hyperlocal tal09 potteries midlands)
• Pesky People
  “Pesky People is also going to be a campaigning website being developed to highlight how to complain about terrible access to websites. It will inform people of their rights, giving creative means to complain. It will cause trouble, it will change habits, it will empower. It will be fun. It’s totally run by Deaf and Disabled people.”
  It was my pleasure to meet PP’s Alison Smith at #TAL09
  (tags: tal09 blog accessibility webstandards webdesign web)
• Blog Local - lifting the lid on your local community
  Blog Local aims to lift the lid on your local community. Our sites act as a hub of local information, views, events, reviews and loads of other good stuff that comes bubbling up from under the surface. We open up local information and put it in your hands. To see an example of what we do, check out http://www.blogpreston.co.uk/
  (tags: blog local hyperlocal tal09 web2.0 socialmedia socialaction)
• Democracy Club: Transparency through volunteering
  Democracy Club is a new, independent network of volunteers who want to help internet-savvy transparency groups like mySociety and The Straight Choice to hold election candidates and representatives to account. Constituency volunteers wanted!
  (tags: democracy mp parliament westminster accountability sousveillance web2.0 socialmedia politics tal09)

Why am I planning to run low-cost courses on website & social media strategy? Because there is a need: not just a need for good websites, and communication strategies for social media, but just getting across the basics of awareness of accessibility.

Local groups

Yesterday I toddled around a hall in the next village, looking at the displays about local community groups. As well as trying to fend off the siren call of joining two of the local choirs (why are the rehearsals always on my busiest evenings?), I got to have some great conversations about the use of technology in local community groups.

Everyone now recognises the importance of having a good web presence, but it’s the next step that causes the problems. Groups that have got a Wordpress account have probably taken one of the simplest routes to having an easy-to-maintain, and reasonably accessible site. A more common route seems to be to buy shrink-wrapped, proprietary, create-your-own-website software. And here the problems start.

WYSIWYG?

Inside these cans-of-worms is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get - a dangerously misleading acronym when it comes to Web MarkUp) interface that churns out spaghetti HTML. Some at least try to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS, the Web Standard way, since 1999, of separating layout from content), but often in a rather perfunctory and inconsistent manner. The real problem comes with the more inaccessible MarkUp.

In the bad old days TABLES, a way of laying out data in tabular form, started being used to layout designs in precise ways for webpages. Given similarly-sized screens they do this layout job, but not only can they fail quite badly on mobile devices, they are a disaster for screenreaders. A sighted user can quickly scan a page by sections and headings, and a blind user can do the same with well-structured webpages. Inaccessible designs don’t allow the user to skip from section to section, and leave the screen-reader user bogged down in the site, having to read every word to get at the information.

The user story

With one group that had taken such an approach I gave a 10-minute impromptu workshop on the user experience of visually- & mobility-impaired users as they navigate websites that do and don’t conform to Web Accessibility guidelines, and accessibility design beyond simple box-ticking. It was very well received, and made me realise the need to reach ever smaller groups with basic information.

I had been planning a simple introduction to communication with websites & social media for local Start-Ups, social enterprises, and small charities. Now I’ve pared down the costs to reach the smallest groups, and, naturally, accessibility is at the heart of all of the information - not a bolted-on afterthought.

Courses are being planned in Manchester and Cheshire, but I’m happy to bring it to anyone in the region. See the courses page for more information.