Birmingham Metroblog a week old

The Birmingham Metroblog is now a week old and seems to be going strong. Hopefully we'll be able to keep up the momentum and maybe attract some more writers.

I've only managed 5 entries so far. One giving an over view of the Birmingham Wheel, one introducing the Council House Clock (aka Big Brum), the three attempts at Op-Ed pieces about the councils plans for the Central Library, the electronic notice boards in the bus stops finally being put to use on the 11 route and, today, an entry dealing with the new technology and access routes to services the city council have introduced and a quick look to the future.

Birmingham Metroblog Goes Live

The Birmingham Metroblog has gone live.

We actually started posting entries a couple of days ago but the organisers asked us not to direct people to the blog prior to the official go live. They wanted there to be a couple of days of entries for people to see when the blog went live.

Housing and Civic pride

Whilst searching for something else I came accross this very interesting, and above all largely correct, article on housing and house prices. I don't really agree with the wholesale ripping down of our towns and cities to rebuild them in a more civic light, but I do think that we need to build a lot more housing, especially social housing owned and managed by the local town/city councils and housing associations who have a mandate to provide affordable housing to those on low wages.

Ripping out the neo-slums that have arisen in the last century and demolishing the Big Blue Turd would be an excellent idea. Affordable housing (not Luxury apartments that mostly stand empty) and commerical areas where you can shop and be entertained on a reasonable budget would seem to be what is needed.

More on Corporate Blogging

I was sent a link to a report on Corporate Blogging. I've only had a chance to read a few pages so far (this entry is as much so I'll be able to find the lnk when I get home), looks fairly bland.

The report says it's fine to link to so long as you also linkl to the site's main page so here's the link.

I'll write more when I've read the rest of the article if I can be bothered.

We're all journalists now

Today's Grauniad had an article about New Media and citizen reporting today in the G2 section. It was mostly about how the bomb attack last week in London seems to have been a tipping point in the media due to the way most of the reporting came not from professional journalists but from members of the public using their mobile phones to take and send in photos and video. Very often these pictures would be on the TV news within minutes of being shot.

LiveJournal got a name check (along with a coment from 'The site administrator') in a section of the article about the rise of blogs. Blogspot wasn't mentioned.

This weekend

I've been installing Ubuntu 5.04 on one of my PCs (a P II 400MHz with 384Mb RAM which previously has SuSE 8.1 installed).

The install ran pretty smoothly, the hardware is pretty vanilla. Sound isn't working, it doesn't report any errors and seems to try to play the sound but nothing comes out of the speakers. That said, I've never managed to install any distro on any PC and have the sound work without a lot of fiddling and downloading of additional drivers.

I am finding that I'm having problems in that I'm having to fight the operating system to get it to do what I want rather than what it thinks I want.

I can access shared drives on my Windows XP boxes through the file browser app by entering the URI in the address box (i.e. smb://machine/drive) but it won't mount them (it doesn't have smbmount and the package manager doesn't list it as being in any of the available packages, I have all the Samba packages installed). Also whilst the installer found the second hard drive (and it would partition and format the drive) it won't let me create or mount any file systems on it. The box has a 6.2Gb drive (IDE master) and a 10.2Gb drive (IDE slave). It installed on the 10.2Gb drive to give me about 9.6Gb of file system space plus about 500Mb of swap.

The struggles will continue.

Birmingham MetroBlog

Sadly it looks like there's a shortage of people signing up to write for the Birmingham Metroblog, that or the people running the site are getting behind in checking/adding people. They said we need at least 10 contributors before we can get started.

You can apply here if you think you've got what it takes.

Not in Islam's name

Interesting article about most Muslim's fears following Al'Queda attacks.

I can't say I agree with everything in the article (I don't think that a withdrawal from Palestine will reduce the threat from Al'Queda one bit and it's clear from their actions elsewhere in the world that Al'Queda were transnational well before 9/11 and the resulting action in Afgahnistan) but most of it does seem to fit in with comments from my Muslim co-workers.

Here's some stuff about the history of Al'Queda

MetroBlogging

One of my friends on LiveJournal pointed out this too me. Apparently what it's about is blogs centred around cities (or at least geographucal locations) with reports from people who live there. They're trying to drum up some more contributors for the Birmingham (England) blog.

There is a LiveJournal community blog for Birmingham, but I don't think that's what they're going for here.

Gmail Ads

I use Gmail for most of my email and, as you may be aware, when you read mail in Gmail you get a few relevant text ads off to one side of the page, that's how the service is funded. Whilst they're easy to ignore occasionally one does catch my eye or I deliberately check them just to see what ads Google has come up with relevant to that mail.

Today I got a news mail about OSHA and US congress being held accountable for the deaths of 4 workers at the Toledo I-280 bridge.

The two ads Google chose to show me were:

Hasta La Vista Arnie in 2006.
Mark Warner for President 2008.

Just struck me as interesting.

So, who is this Mark Warner person?

UNISON and Climate Change

For the past week (last Saturday to today, inlcuding travelling) ) I'm been at UNISON conference (2 days at Local Governement Service group then 4 days at National). Whilst I was there I drafted an article on climate change for the West Midlands region news letter, an article calling for a motion on climate change to be prioritised and passed. The article didn't get published (largely because it's crap and the fact that a much better one on the same subject was also submitted). I'm planning on rewriting it, to improve it and to take account of the fact that the motion was prioritised and passed, but for now it's below:

---

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW - will you be going to work on a snowplough?
(Stephen Booth, Birmingham Branch)

Climate change, we've all heard about it. Some of us first heard about it on Blue Peter back in the 1970s and 80s, others more recently on the news or in the publicity relating to films such as "The day after tomorrow", some even heard about it in 1954 when an observatory in Hawaii first started to collect world temperature on a regular basis. Whilst many of us will also recall being told that global warming was a myth, all authorities not funded by the multinational oil companies now agree that it is happening, anyone who has looked out of a window in the last decade can see for them selves that the climate has changed. Even the US National Academy of Science, a body currently funded by the Bush government, are talking about it.

Whilst estimates on how much the global average temperature will rise by 2100 (a year that some of the younger delegates could realistically expect to see, a year that many of the children currently sitting in the SECC crèche could certainly expect to see), it is agreed that it will rise by between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius. To put that in context, the last time the worldwide average temperature rose by 6 degrees 95% of the species on the globe went extinct.

Researchers drilling cores from the Greenland and Antarctic have found conclusive proof that rises in global temperature always go hand in hand with rises in atmospheric carbon, not just once or twice but dozens of times in samples they have so far extracted. The evidence points to the fact that whilst we're looking at a change over a very long period it is very probable that most of the change will occur over a much shorter period, a few years at most. It could start in 50 years times, it could start in 20 years time, it could have started yesterday, we don't know. Suddenly an issue that we thought our children and grandchildren might have to face becomes one that we ourselves will probably have to face!

So, what can we do? Many politicians would have you turning turning off your TV over night rather than leave it on standby and switch to low energy light bulbs. Undoubtedly that will help, I reduced my electricity bill by a bout 25% through such measures, but that would just remove a pebble or two from the landslide of climate change. Massive changes are needed to solve this problem, massive changes but ones that will have little effect on our standard of living although they will result in many more public sector jobs. Hmmmm, more public sector jobs. Well, we're UNISON, we like that.

About a third of carbon being put into the atmosphere is from transport, largely private cars and airplanes. Improvements in public transport, both road and rail, are necessary so that where ever you are and where ever you need to go there is a clean, safe, coordinated and integrated system to get you there whether you're traveling at 8am on Monday to work, 3am on Sunday to get home from a club or half way around the world to a conference or demo. Public transport means public jobs to build and maintain the infrastructure, build and maintain the vehicles, staff the stations and drive the vehicles.

Much of the rest of the carbon released is due to wasted heat from homes and businesses. The solution here is a widespread and comprehensive public works scheme to insulate not just new build houses but also to refit older houses to insulate them and reduce drafts (something which my landlord resolutely refuses to do, how about yours?).

Where can you go from here? Raise this issue at your branch, get it on the agenda and get them to inform the membership. Prioritise Motion 92, if you don't, and Bournemouth and Brighton disappear under the sea, we might have to meet in Scotland every year. And I'm talking Ben Nevis, not Glasgow.

---

PostScript: It would appear that John Hemming, MP (Yardley, LibDem), has had some direct experience of climate change. we can but hope that he and his fellows in the chamber can take positive action to halt the changes and reduce carbon emmissions.

PostPostScript: One very worrying thing I've heard is that a number of multinational companies have been meeting recently to discuss climate change, not to discuss how to stop or at least slow the changes but rather to work out how to survive and even profit from the changes. For example insurance companies have, apparently, been co-ordinating efforts to remove flood and extreme weather cover from their policies as such events are becoming common and resulting in payouts.

It seems that what we may be looking at is much of northern Europe, Asia and America being frigid beneath an ice sheet (similarly for similar lattitudes in the southern hemisphere) whilst equatorial regions are parched. The fertile zone is due to be reduced to a narrow band bordered by fire and ice.

Lin Homer quits

It was announced in yesterday's Evening Mail that Lin Homer, Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council, has decided to quit her post and join the Home Office to deal with Asylum Seekers. Ms Homer joined the council after a long search for a new chief exec following the exit of Sir Michael Lyons. She has been in the firing line on a number problems such as reports of poor performance in the city's Social Care and Health department and the recent postal vote issues. When Ms Homer joined the council her coming was heralded by fears generated by her record of outsourcing public services.

Councillor John Hemming (now John Hemming, MP) was reported as pleased for Ms Homer and wished her well in her new post.

Careful who you link to

Just found this (WARNING: page contains banner ads which include partial nudity and mild sexual content) whilst checking out referers to some of my web pages (someone who linked to one of my pages also linked to this article). Basically the US congress seems to have passed a regulation that adult content sites that feature content from or link to other such sites must ensure that models on those sites are of legal age.

Whilst there may be issues around the practicalities of this (e.g. what if a linked site features a new model without notifying sites that link to them, what constitutes a link (would an aggregated RSS feed count as a link) &c) the principle does seem reasonable. To take an analogy, if I own a bar and one of the staff knowingly serves an underage person with alcohol or sells a person who is of age with an alcolholic drink knowing that they intend to pass it to an underage person then I would be legally responsible and could be fined.

Is this an exercise in irony?

The BBC is reporting that the Respect Coalition candidate for Sparkbrook, Birmingham, in the recent elections is mounting a challenge to the results. She claims that some people were prevented from voting. Given the past behaviour of some of the parties in the Respect coalition in that same constituency the phrase "That's rich" comes to mind.

I live in that constituency. The Respect coalition campaigners (especially the JFK (Justice for Kashmir party, now renamed People's Justice party), a party who campaign mainly on the issue of handing the Kashmir region of India over to Pakistan) would routinely harrass voters outside the polling station (usually targeting white voters, the area is majority Asian) and follow them into the polling station, right up to the pollbooth, to continue to harrass them. Complaints to the officials in the polling station would result in a shrug from them and accusations of racism from the from the campaigners.

This year I avoided the harrassment by getting to the polling station before the campaigners were organised.

One more step towards gender equality

It's just been on the BBC breakfast news that 42% of bankrupts are now women. Appartently the root cause is that now women are more likley to take out debts in their own name (either because they are staying single or they are just doing it for themselves) rather than making/letting their husband taking on the responsibility for the debt.

They also talked about how women are more likely to take career breaks and to stay in a lower salary job because the employer has 'family friendly' policies. On a related note I remember at a recent UNISON education one day conference it was stated that women are far less likely to attempt to negotiate a higher salary or request training that will allow them to advance to higher paying jobs. One of the speakers (a woman) said that she had found that often female workers saw requesting/organising training was something that was done for/to them where as male workers saw it as something they do for themselves. I suspect that this has a lot to do with early life training and parental expectations (girls were expected to be pretty and play nicely whilst boys were expected to go out and have adventures).

Discipline in school found to improve exam results

A Birmingham head teacher inproved exam results 12 fold by introducing isolation rooms for disruptive pupils. Basically kids are 4 warnings then they get put in the rooms during the school day for upto 3 days. The school in questioin (Ninestyles) was always known for being very rough and a bit of a dumping ground for problem pupils. When I was in school at Langley (not far from Ninestyles), 1985-87, it was widely known (or at least believed) that a Ninestyles pupil had a far better chance of going to jail than to 6th form, let alone university.

The isolation rooms sound a lot like the pindown rooms that were briefly used in the 1980s before they were banned.

Keeping the policians honest and dealing with voter apathy

On one of the communities I frequent someone posted an entry asking for ideas on the perenial problem of how to keep politicians focused on representing their constituents and dealing with voter apathy.

Here's my response:

Unfortunately the only things I can think of are long term things and require the people to actually get off their arses and engage with the system.

• Hold you representive accountable. Go to surgeries/advice sessions, tell them what you need/want done and what you think they should be doing. Write to them using FaxyourMP.com or WriteToThem.com so that their responsiveness will be tracked and look at their past record using TheyWorkForYou.com. Find out if they have a blog or journal (for example John Hemming, the new MP for Yardley in Birmingham, has one on blogspot). Read it and comment as appropriate.
• Before the next election write them and tell them what you think of them and if you will be voting for or against them and why. Further, write to them at least once a year to tell them what you think of what they've done over the past year or what they did over a particular issue.
• Get active. Communicate with others in the area. Campaign on the issues important to you. Wave placards, distribute leaflets, join a union or pressure group, put up posters, write to the local newspaper &c.

I really believe that the voters need to engage with the political system and keep contact with their representatives. If enough of us ask questions and challenge the waffle and untruths then maybe we can keep our politicians honest. Also, maybe, if people make themselves aware of the local issues they can campaign on the things that are important, not just whatever the person with the megaphone is ranting about.
 
 

Blogging for business

After months of negative stories about companies firing bloggers for the contents of their online journal, BusinessWeek magazine are telling business to harness the power of blogging. Rather than seeing blogs as just a source of leaks and employee griping, companies should encourage positive blogging.

Blogs can be a useful as a grass roots tool for raising awareness. The frequent interlinking between blogs means that the readership of a comparatively minor blog can jump quickly as links to it spread and that blog posts frequently get Google PageRank scores that, so called, Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs) can only dream of. Indeed the comment spamming that any of us that have had a popular blog for some time have seen often comes from SEOs trying to promote the sites they have been paid to 'optimize'.

The article suggests that businesses leverage blogs to promote their company. No doubt the marketing departments will quickly grasp on to this and start producing hundreds of blogs loaded with advertising. They always do miss the point like that. Who do you think invented spam? Yeah, that's right. Marketeers. It was the marketing department of a large law firm.

So, what will be sucessful corporate blogging?

I think somethin that shows a degree of sincerity. Not something loaded with adverts and product promotions, something containing real information about the company that doesn't look like it was passed through some marketing droid for spin and polish. Look at the the blogs of the likes of Jonathan Schwartz (of Sun Microsystems), Simon Phipps (also of Sun Microsystems), James Gosling (Sun Microsystems but the Java side of the business), GoogleBlog (Google, a digest from the personal blogs of many Google employees) or even Chris Pratley. All the blogs I've mentioned are from techie people because I'm a techie person and so I'm interested in what they have to say (I also read Wil Wheaton dot Net and many others (look to the right hand side of this page for somemore)). None could be considered advertising or marketing department driven, that's a big plus for me.. Pratley is just talking about the project he's working on. Schwartz talks about new things Sun is doing, similarly for the others talk about their work and the projects or products they're involved with. But in amongst the company stuff is the people interest stuff that puts a human face on the technology. That brings readers in and keeps them coming back.

Another thing that the article talks about is that it gives the company a chance to engage with the customers. Handled right this can be very useful, handled badly (i.e. by the marketing department) it can be a disaster. In her book The Popcorn Report US consumer/business writer Faith Popcorn talks about companies that have handled it right, and those who didn't. The key thing is what happens when things go wrong, when a poorly quality controlled product is shipped or a foodstuff gets contaminated. Companies that handled it badly let the marketing department go on a damage limitation exercise to hide the problem, minimise it, lie about it, say it was just a few isolarted cases. In the long term it hurt those companies badly. Those that handled it well engaged with the customer, admitted there was a problem and then explained how they were doing it. Sure those companies were hurt in the short term but they quickly got back with consumer confidence in them and their products higher than before.

I realize that I've been hard on marketing departments, but it's from years of experience of dealing with them. There's a marketing mindset and it's a bad mindset. It's a mindset that encourages people to place 'position' and spin over actually producing a product that people can use and will want to use.


 
 

Tories set to decimate post-16 basic skills training

The Tories have a statement in thier policy, a deceptively small one, that they are going to cut a large chunk of the funding to post-16 basic skills (e.g. literacy, IT &c) and 'soft skills' (e.g. assertiveness) training. If they get in and go ahead with this The the first effect will be that a large number of people involved in delivering such training will lose their jobs, the longer term effect will be a gradual widening of the educational gap in people over 16. Many people, especially those who went to school under the Thatcher/Major regimes, were failed by the educational system in this country, many now lack training to advance in their careers and the basic skills to get that training (and often their confidence has been so destroyed by the failure of their school education that it is difficult for them to even ask for the training). The long term effect of the Tory policy will be to further marginalise these people and deny them the opportunity to advance and improve their situation.

Political leanings

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 29
Conservative -26
	Liberal Democrat 52
UK Independence Party 0
	Green 52

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.



You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and foxhunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

---

This is worrying, I'm a dedicated Labour supporter. I've only ever voted LibDem where Labour didn't have a chance but a LibDem vote could keep the Tories out.