Simon Perry

I'm presenting at Journalism.co.uk's News Rewired tomorrow.

Here are some notes to accompany the presentation.

All our (OnTheWight) historic JSA reporting

• May 2015

• June 2015

• Aug 2015

• Sept 2015 - Report by hand - graph automated

• Oct 2015 - Report by hand - graph automated

Netflix reporting questioned

Netflix stock had 7:1 stock split

Reports questioning if algorithm got confused

I love what the group behind #Discourse have done. A very usable, mobile-first, open-source discussion forum. It's learned from the world of Social Media and has created a great tool.

Well, this afternoon I discovered a new feature that you all could find helpful.

Fixing the off-topic comment problem

One of the enduring problems with discussion forum (and it's the bane of an forum admin's life) is that discussion threads go off-topic. ie A conversation starts about one thing, then someone raises a point in a Reply that isn't directly related to the main discussion.

I did this myself in a private discussion thread just recently.

Reply as linked topic

Well, the very clever people who have written Discourse have anticipated that and have created an easy way of handling it.

If you put your mouse over a comment, 'Reply as a linked topic' appear on the right of the page (screen grab below)

Once this is done, it simply takes you to new topic that doesn't muck up the original thread, but creates a link, so you can find out where the discussion came from originally. 

All very neat isn't it?

(This is the screen it takes you too)

The links from the presentation made at the What's next for community journalism? Conference at Cardiff University

• Live reporting 2007 from council chamber - Different method these days
• Live snow disruption coverage - School closures and Transport - via Google spreadsheets
• Armchair auditor - take hard to understand data and making it understandable - Private Eye
• Election coverage National election and Local elections - beat council, BBC to results
• Dedicated mobile version of the site - loads in two seconds
• Whatsapp distribution - avoid Facebook throttling
• Live stats in corner of office
• Automated created journalism - Open data, fed through a  programme, to 'write' an article

Following guidance from Sarah Hartley, who's chair of the panel that I'm speaking on at the first Journalism Enterprise Summit (#JES2015), below are a list of things that we've tried over nearly ten years of running our Isle of Wight News publication, OnTheWight.

Sarah impressively boiled down her speaking guidance to three points: What have you done?; What have you learned by doing it?; and, What are you doing next?.

Below are the first two. They're made up of our experience, of course others may have had completely different outcomes.

If they don't make sense, or need more clarity, do get in touch.

I'm lending a hand at Open Data Camp (#ODCamp) this weekend by helping people Network while at the event.

The goal of this Network, or Speed-dating as some of the #ODCamp crew have called it - to help people coming to the event to get the most from it, not only in the sessions, but by having fruitful conversations between sessions that will serve to stimulate, or perhaps grow into collaborations. This could be swapping ideas, have questions answered, building collaborations.

There's 130 people going to the event, so there's no real way of me getting to know them all, no matter how much research I carry out in advance.

It got me thinking about ways/systems to help people self-network - Peer-to-Peer networking, if you like (Ah, P2P, that takes you back doesn't it?).

Easy discovery of people's interests

In last night's organisers' Hangout, it popped into my mind about how coloured stickers were fantastically effective at the late-90s First Tuesday networking events for joining mutual interests. There it was a simple two colours - One for I have money to invest, the other, I have an idea looking for investment.

Chatting the initial idea over with the others, it wasn't quite right. Having applied more thought to it, Open Data Camp isn't that simple, there's a lot more areas/interests. Given that you'd end up needing a look-up chart for what each colour meant, defeating the point.

During a phone call with Chris Gutterdige today we kicked the idea around and I think have formed the start of an interesting idea.

Self-declaring your #Intro via Twitter

Before the event, on the way there, or during the event, if #ODCamp attendees Tweet out one/a few Tweets about themselves, How they're connected to Open Data and what their looking for, the P2P networking can start online and hope fully flourish at the event when they meeting in person.

Essentially you're creating a bit of data about yourself.

Examples are often the best way - So I might Tweet

@simonperry #ODCamp #Intro I use open data in our journalism at @OnTheWight 

#Intro your interest

Another might be the equivalent of the colours badge stickers, but much more flexible a mix of the things that you do and your interests.

@simonperry #ODCamp #Intro #Creator #Consumer #DataGeek #Analyst #Hyperlocal

Other tag labels might be #Visualisation #Dev #LinkedData #Tables #Graph

Perhaps the area you work in - #Gov #Charity #biz #Social #Hyperlocal

#AskMeAbout - What your interested in sharing

Chris suggested #AskMeAbout - if there's an area of Open Data that you've got a strong knowledge about and are willing/keen to share. 

@cgutteridge #ODCamp #AskMeAbout #LinkedData

or

@cgutteridge #ODCamp #AskMeAbout Organisational Open data http://odcamp.org.uk/open-data-and-auto-discovery/

#WLTM - People you'd like to meet/chat with

The last idea was for people that you know that you like to meet up with. This one is lifted from dating/small ads - #WLTM - Would Like To Meet.

@simonperry #ODCamp #WLTM Others in news and those interested in Open Data for social good

@simonperry #ODCamp #WLTM #Dev interested in data in journalism

All searchable

Of course this all bring the advantages of search-ability. If you want to meet up with people at #ODCamp who work in a particular field, they'd be easy to find and therefore connect to at the event.

Let's give it a go!

I don't know - this all might be a complete daft idea, or it might be something quite useful. Either way, let's have a play at ODCamp - if it's doing to work anywhere, this is a good place to start.

Of course, if you have any thoughts on this, want to meet anyone at #ODCamp, or just want a general chat about Open Data, just come and say hello.

(These thoughts were gathered back before Christmas, but following some discussion on Twitter with Kathryn Louise Geels, I thought I'd publish them.)

'Twas the night (or two) before Christmas

Two days before Christmas day, the Department for Communities and Local Government put out a notice of a consultation with a foreword by Eric Pickles MP, who runs the department.

It's titled 'Councils and media invited to bring statutory notices into 21st century' - something that many in the hyperlocal world have been encouraging for quite some years. Given this, hopes were initially high.

Having read the documents, I find it hard to see this as a serious attempt to really change things or open the market to others such as new small media organisation.

It comes across to me more as an attempt to transitions the local media groups into bringing Statutory Notices into the digital age, while maintaining their central role in it - possibly giving council/government a bit of a price reduction in the process, by threatening a little competition to them.

Here's why

Below is a few chunks of text from "Statutory Notices for the 21st Century: Invitation to express an interest in becoming a pilot" (PDF) that led me to this.

• "We may invite an independent person and officials from (list of five-ish names including) ... News Media Association ... to assist in the evaluation of Expressions of Interest. " 
  (News Media Association: The self-proclaimed "voice of national, regional and local news media organisations in the UK"  )
  
• "We think that it is likely, given the timetable, that a pilot will need the co-operation of a number of partners to be successful, particularly the local authorities and newspapers within the pilot area."
  

• "You will need to meet the assessment criteria set out earlier but when finalising recommendations for the Secretary of State we will also consider the overall number and nature of Expressions of Interest to achieve an appropriate balance across the pilots of ... different media groups, and ..."

Conclusion

Leaving aside the just-before-Christmas timingss of this, none of the above sound particularly healthy to me, especially the first, where a rep from the trade body of the current local media companies could well be involved in deciding if new competition are allowed in. Seems deeply flawed.

Tim Bourne (a friend and past colleague) raises the question of local news being decimated in the UK. Interesting points brought up on his recent personal experience.

Here's my response/take on it

I think the address of the Ealing Gazette's editorial office says it all Tim - It's 8.5 miles away, in middle of Hammersmith. That's not a local paper. That's a team trying to gather together goodness knows how many papers spread around a wide area, away from where they actually are.

It's past management decisions to centralise editorial to increase profits that enabled Hyperlocal news to flourish in the UK in the first place. Hyperlocal news providers are based in the community.

Agreed income have been hit by classified revenue loss, but past withdraw of editorial away from the areas they cover started the rot.

(Thanks for kind words about OnTheWight BTW)

(Summary of my Tweets, plus a bit)

Big strategic shift for Twitter. How they hope to become the Fabric of all Mobile Apps by giving easy to use tools to developers.

Twitter's @Fabric four areas: Mobile Analytics, Ads and Twitter function. Actually creates code in Android development.

Also Digits - Sign up for any mobile app using your phone number, not your email. Helpful overseas where many don't have email.

All of the tools are free, with the obvious upside for Twitter - Dollars from MoPub ads and loads of mobile analytics data.

Challenge: Rebuilding trust of developers

Of course, one of the biggest challenge for Twitter and @Fabric is to regain developer trust - shattered by Twitter previously by getting them to develop Apps to help Twitter grown, then to launch their own to crush developer's work.

More info on Twitter's @Fabric

Fabric's own info | Twitter's own summary of Fabric functions | Wired on Fabric

This talk at GigaOmLive illustrates why Internet of Things (#IoT) data privacy is vital with the control and flow of the data these #IoT devices produce needs to be under the individual's control not just free flooding to companies.

Where (at 5:06) they're casually talk about 'The Voice of the Product' - What they're actually saying is that the thing you purchase and put in your home spends its time reporting back to the maker, delivering data connected to you and how you're using their product.

Unsurprisingly the Xively boss, Michael Simon, says 'The Voice of the Product', "Creates value where companies could never imagine." Darn right - they're find out loads about you, to then sell to other companies and work out what else they can sell to you.

I've been doing some work with Southampton Uni on their Digital Marketing: Challenges and Insights MOOC.

Yesterday we did a live chat using Google Hangouts. Lots of good and interesting points from some top practitioners and academic. The video is live for you to catch up on