Disruptive Proactivity

SpinDifferent - US Election Edition

2008-07-17T18:54:00.000+01:00

SpinDifferent.com lets you compare what the Whitehouse, Downing Street and UN are saying on any issue you like. SpinDifferent.com — Election Edition (www.spindifferent.com/election) does the same thing for Obama and McCain (and the Whitehouse). Put your search term into the site, and you can see what each of the three say, and how often they talk about it. www.spindifferent.com/election.

"Communication is a force for good"

2008-07-16T22:59:00.006+01:00

"Communication is a force for good" says Gordon Brown. Recently, Labour ran a consultation on policy, and some within the Labour Big Tent processed the documents for CommentOnThis.com which was then linked from the Labour Party internal website for their members. Apparantly it's a pirate website (insert obligatory Yarrrrrrrr!). While communications may be a force for good, it's how you use

mySociety Manchester

2008-07-09T22:28:00.000+01:00

Meet up with the some of the friends of mySociety in Manchester for a social evening in the pub in Manchester. First Monthly meet up is on the 16th July 2008 (third Wednesday of the month, and probably the same from then on) in the Briton's Protection by the Bridgewater Hall (map). From roughly 7:30 until around 9 - but the times are as informal as we are. Informally covering the

"Are you democratic revolutionaries or just another interest group? "

2008-06-24T08:35:00.002+01:00

Matt Leighninger asks PdF attendees. Worth a read, probably more so as replies appear over the next few days.

OpenTech 2008 - 5th July

2008-06-23T14:38:00.003+01:00

there will be some interesting announcements: * Ticket reservations now open - Please Redistribute Freely * Open Tech 2008 sponsored by BT Osmosoft Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/ Open Tech 2008, from UKUUG and friends, is an informal one-day conference about

traffic to BNP and UAF online.

2008-04-09T22:23:00.003+01:00

The below contains a number of questions, and few answers. A few weeks ago, a chunk of my Saturday was taken over by reading this pamphlet, the bulk of which is a well written article, with a sensationalist top level headline about the BNP. Looking below the headline, we can check alexa (which they didn't use) and find that the traffic matches what they reported from their (commercial) sources:

NUS draft new constitution

2008-04-09T17:00:00.007+01:00

There was a proposal to replace the constitution of the UK's National Union of Students which didn't pass, but hasn't yet died (it's just resting...). I've put a copy up on CommentOnThis.com. This isn't the current constitution, but a somewhat controversial proposal to replace it. I'll put the current one up if someone sends me a copy.

Comment on This in Minnesota, US

2008-04-01T17:47:00.003+01:00

I got an email from someone at the Minnestoa Environment Protection Agency asking for a copy of the CommentOnThis code; and this is what they used it for internally on their intranet:

Moving on from Power of Information

2008-04-01T12:12:00.001+01:00

This is going to be very good.

OpenTech 2008

2008-03-30T13:27:00.002+01:00

Just a reminder that the OpenTech call closes tomorrow, although we'll probably leave the form up and working for a few days afterwards while we finalise the programme. So if you want to offer a talk at an informal, low cost one-day conference on technology, society and low-carbon living, featuring Open Source ways of working and technologies that anyone can have a go at, go for it.

Some meandering thoughts on "The Vision Thing"

2008-03-30T13:08:00.007+01:00

Amongst friends of a friend, there's a conversation going on about "the vision thing" and how their (IT) industry has lost it's way: original post, a reply, roundup. Paul comments that most of the pitches he hears are derivative - but 95% of everything is crap, and you find a good pitch, generally you don't have time to listen to any more. More so when you consider that there are so few new

introducing theyServeForYou.com

2008-03-15T16:45:00.011Z

One thing I've been working on recently is a method for doing the TWFY-thing on pretty much any committee of any type that takes minutes of meetings:

DirectionlessGov heckled?

2008-03-13T14:26:00.000Z

Amusing, but not suprising...

Interview about Spin Different

2008-03-06T00:08:00.002Z

Maybe I shouldn't reply quite so quickly to interview questions. More tea anyone?

Manchester Withington, and "the infighting is so vicious as the stakes are so low."

2008-03-03T17:01:00.003Z

I've talked previously about doing something about constructive engagement in my constituency of Manchester, Withington. In the 2005 election, it was won by the local students getting out to/the vote, and engaging and winning on something close to the merits of an argument and the issues. But is it no longer more important to be right than it is to win? The current crop of young, local LibDem

Direct.gov.uk Terms and Conditions

2008-02-22T18:24:00.001Z

Anyone got any ideas for some fun we could have with this on www.directionlesgov.com

RIP Chris Lightfoot - 1978 - 2007

2008-02-11T23:38:00.000Z

He's missed as much today as he was a year ago. "He wandered into differing disciplines, made a mark, and wandered on again like a giant that had no idea he'd just trodden on a village."

When is St Petersberg (not) the same as Leningrad?

2008-02-08T23:46:00.000Z

If you've not already read it, see Tom Longley's first post about this before not having a clue what's below. Although I'd strongly recommend that you don't read the linked report unless you're very interested in specifics - it's really not pleasant reading. Tom asked some people to take a look at the documents, and see what we could think of doing to fix it up into more useful ways. The

Islam in English Law

2008-02-08T12:37:00.000Z

I've put the text of Rowan William's "Islam in English Law" lecture into commentOnThis. www.commentonthis.com/islaminenglishlaw

Manchester Withington

2008-02-05T11:51:00.000Z

Having just moved to a new flat in the south of Manchester, I now find myself living in a highly contested constituency (the libdems won by 600 votes, and there's a highly fluid student population). Locally, there's already a very energetic site run by local labour activists (www.johnleech.org.uk), a labour PPC (http://www.lucypowell.net/home/about) and should be interesting when the next

Data Handling Procedures in Government: Interim Progress Report

2007-12-21T18:06:00.000Z

The UK Government report "Data Handling Procedures in Government: Interim Progress Report" is now on CommentOnThis.com.

Pledgebank

2007-12-08T20:17:00.000Z

A great article about pledgebank which also shows how great Heather is :) Is anyone interested and motivated in increasing the accessibility of the minutes of a local organisation? I need a couple of people like that to help with a new project.

CommentOnThis:

2007-10-29T18:18:00.000Z

A new document on CoT: The Government Reply to the Fifth Report from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee Session 2006 - 2007. HL PAPER 165 — Personal Internet Security. For why it matters, see the Light Blue Touchpaper blog at Cambridge

Takedown requests

2007-10-03T22:22:00.000+01:00

So far, TheGovernmentSays.com has had two (informal) requests to take items down. Neither of these were from the Government, but for items in other related data sources (one from the bailii feed, one from the petitions feed). Of course, we don't store whole articles, just an extract of these items (the cache is only for GNN sourced articles). In general, my principle is, if there are legal

More WriteToThem.com users' deprivation statistics

2007-09-21T21:49:00.000+01:00

I've previously taken a look at who writes to their MP, looking at the deprivation of the place in which they live, after an MPs comments about internet availability. I've now rerun the process for MEPs and Councillors, and got some different results. While the deprivation of the area in which you live makes very little difference to whether you write to your MP, it does make a difference over