GoodGNUs

What can I say? Speaking twice, on two different topics, in a week where I had major deadlines on three other projects is an unfounded faith in my time and project management skills bordering on wreckless! :^)

Somehow I survived, delivering a talk on the Monday session at Manchester’s Madlab, on the madness of Fractional Reserve Banking (though not having time to more than mention the alternatives), and on the Thursday, in Liverpool, on City of Abundance: Hacking the urban landscape for food.

Reviews of the Liverpool event are at:

http://www.mcqn.net/mcfilter/archives/liverpool/ignite_liverpool.html

http://bulletinthemessenger.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/ignite-liverpool-2010/

http://www.ldpcreative.co.uk/2010/03/ignite-liverpool-is-showcase-f.html

Ian Forrester’s recording of the Manchester event is up at:

http://cubicgarden.blip.tv/

Although not all of the talk videos seem to have uploaded correctly. As always with these events, there were a number of great talks - so I’m not singling out any!

It’s Good to Talk

Chief outcome? To be reminded what a great format the 20:20 or pecha kucha is. Distill a subject about which you’re passionate about to 20 slides, and talk for just 15 or 20 seconds on each. Not just a vehicle suited to the attention-deficient, but a challenge to the audience.

After all, it’s easy to switch off in a 40 minute talk and remember nothing afterwards, but five minutes done just right will push key points into your brain and leave you thinking about the subject days afterwards.

Could be a great marketing tool - sponsor a conference, and only demand five minutes’ attention in return. Just make sure that you follow up with a page of links and info somewhere memorable online, or take-away printed materials, for those hooked by your passion.

I’ll write up Ignite week more fully after the Liverpool event on Thursday night, but as Ian Forrester has put up a video of my talk on Re-Inventing Money at Monday’s Manchester event I’m embedding it below:

Thanks to Ian for filming the whole night - see the other talks at http://cubicgarden.blip.tv/

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 ;-)

It's behind you - robot fun at #bcMan2

This weekend saw the 2nd BarCamp Manchester - an unconference that carries on through the night. Like all unconferences, attendance implies participation, and therefore giving a talk. I gave three.

The first, on permaculture, sustainability, & forest gardens, was quite poorly attended - not something one worries about in general at barcamps, as there’s so much going on it’s impossible to be everywhere. However it did lead to some discussions late into the night on the disconnect between the techie community and those working for a more sustainable future (something we tried to address with #SmallSteps, & will return to in the future). Sorry, NO SLIDES, but plenty of info online.

My session with Paul Robinson of Vagueware on collaboration, co-working & virtual boards, entitled Profitable Collaboration for Freelancers, brought together freelancers eager to learn more about co-working, and to build better businesses through smart collaboration rather than taking on more employees. This is something the local tech sector really gets, but those paid by the government to support small businesses don’t seem to understand at all. It also made me realise I should probably get round to joining Fly-the-Coop.

Saturday night’s revels (which didn’t stop at all during the 6 hours I slept) meant Sunday morning started fairly quietly, but still brought a number of people to my third session, on organisation “for those who are really bad at it”. In this I count myself, which is why I have developed systems to allow for that, as well as adopting GTD. Conversations between two of the participants on this were still going on when I left the event an hour later.

Again, no slides, but this poster is more than tangentially related. Also, you can:
buy David Allen’s GTD book [affiliate Amazon link].

"Sleep is ones & zeroes"

Far better than running sessions is going to others’ talks, and hearing about things about which people are really passionate and knowledgable. Also the talks which lead to great discussions, leading you to new areas of familiar topics. Even better, the conversations in the bars & corridors, as BarCamp brings together 200 great people with so much to say.

There’s far to much to list the highlights, so I’ll just mention the very first session I went to on Saturday morning: the Surrealist writing exercise. This involved writing nouns (techie & abstract) & their meanings, then swapping them round with often startling results.

“

End of the first day: catching up on micro-blogging [CC by-nc-sa image from yajamesu

In my recent enterprises & projects I’ve tried to spread the work around as widely as possible - bringing in fellow freelancers to help with training, coding, illustration, and all sorts of technical bits & bobs. Sometimes this has been quite successful for all involved. Occasionally things haven’t worked as planned, but lessons are learned and I’ve never failed to gain something from sharing work.

Now I find myself stretched very thinly on a number of projects, mostly at an early stage, with none of the resources I had at M6-IT cic - so I find I would ideally like a shed load of people to work with. The catch? There’s no wage or fee attached to any of these projects. Previously I’ve always paid other freelancers well - up to £1000 a day. This time there’s nothing in the pot, though a number of projects look like they will bring in steady revenue to be shared. Read on for details under the individual projects, as I post details over the next few days…

[...edit...or months; more coming soon (early Spring?)...]

P2P Board

But first, an alternative. Dave Thackeray, at http://wordandmouth.com/2009/09/ultimate-business-advice-free/, suggests setting up a “virtual board” to troubleshoot & share ideas with your peers. Put simply, you find some fellow (social) entrepreneurs, and meet up every month or so to kick round the problems that are bothering you. In a group of 6, 8 or 10, someone is bound to come up with a solution that hadn’t ocurred to you.

It’s certainly something I’d love to try. I’ve been doing this informally to some extent I guess at #OpenCoffee events, co-working sessions, and many other places - but a reliably regular version with a good set of people sounds very appealing. Practically speaking, Manchester looks the best bet - but if anyone’s planning this in any other town I regularly get to [North West England, N Wales, W Mids], then please count me in :-)

A short introduction & discussion of social media tactics for your organisation. For more details contact Vicky Sinclair at Arcspace

This isn’t an in depth course, but will be tailored quite closely to the needs of participants. There will be more training running at Arcspace in the last 2 weeks of October.

By the way, 10am at Urbis on the 29th is Open Coffee Manchester - hope to see a few old faces and some new ones there :-)

Most days I’m either sat at the keyboard, or I’m out and about and meet a handful of people. Few enough that I can usually remember who they are, as I file away business cards & write short follow-up e-mails the next day. Some days are different.

At networking events (OpenCoffee, Social Enterprise events,Unconferences, etc.) you can easily talk to a dozen interesting people in a morning, or twice that in a day, with whom you find a common interest, and think you may be collaboratig with at some point. How do you keep track of these conversations until you have a chance to follow up? How do they?

Tick the Boxes

Time for a bit of DIY. I printed off a form with tick boxes for all the likely areas of conversation (relating to projects with which I’m involved), and for follow-up action or contact. After a conversation you add the contact’s name, & tick the relevant boxes, as well as making a copy and handing it out to them.

Here’s one I did for the Ubuntu Launch party last month, at BBC Manchester:

Aide Memoire    Fri 24 April 2009

Tonight, at the Ubuntu Jaunty Release party at BBC Manchester,
I talked to @RichardSmedley about:

• Third Sector IT
• Cloud computing
• Hackspace NorthWest
• “Small Steps to Sustainability”
• Permaculture
• Co-working
• Credit Unions
• A new website
• Consultancy work

__________________

I will be:

• Commenting on http://goodGNUs.org/
• e-mailing rs@m6-it.org
• phoning +44 (0)77 94 56 07 14
• following twitter.com/RichardSmedley
• following Identica.com/RichardSmedley
• connecting to http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsmedley

Notes

So, there you go. A bit Heath-Robinson? It’s a simple, low-tech solution to an organisational problem. If it works for you, please feel free to copy and pass on. If you think it’s a daft idea, feel free to laugh, laughter is healthy :-)

Below is the text of an e-mail I’m sending to various groups with which I’m involved. Please feel free to copy & re-post, Dig/Reddit/social bookmark, Tweet it, link to it at http://www.goodgnus.org/2009/04/more-hackspace/ or just talk about it to anyone who might be interested in joining in the hackspace fun :-)

Hackspace - a place for hacking. Playful invention with hardware, from Arduino to 3D printers. As one of the hackspaces puts it: “We’re looking to create a hackerspace where anyone interested in technology, or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and collaborate.”

There are hackspaces all over the world [1], and now the UK. A new group [2] is trying to set up hackspaces in London [3] & Birmingham [4].

Why not the North West you ask? Well, I asked anyway ;) - so now we have a NW group - come and join the mailing list [5].

Where?

Members of Liverpool LUG have expressed an interest, and want to tie it in with planned workshops & the local arduino community. In Manchester the local coworking group are interested in sharing the space. In Stockport we’re looking at a storey of a nice mill building [6], and hoping to find a community of people to join in. In Bangor there’s a social enterprise start-up that would integrate very well with the space.

Join in

If you’re in N Wales or NW England, and interested in creative, fun (or profitable) things to do with computers, or would like to link such things with social action, perhaps, join the list. These things will only work with *people* - I’m committing a little time to help get these off the ground, but it’ll only work if we all muck in.

What next?

If you just want to follow what’s happening follow us on Twitter [7], sign up & lurk on the Google Group, or wait until we set up an [announce] mailing list.

[1] http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hacker_Spaces
[2] http://www.hackspace.org.uk
[3] http://london.hackspace.org.uk/
[4] http://groups.google.com/group/birmingham-hack-space
[5] http://groups.google.com/group/NW-hack-space
[6] http://twitter.com/broadstonemill
[7] http://twitter.com/hsNW