2012

Gig Buddies Website/ App Project

(UPDATE Feb 2013: Applications have now closed for this project and are being considered by Paul and his team.)

Gigbuddies, the winner or CityCamp 2, are looking for an innovative and talented freelance app and web developer to develop the online element of our Gig Buddies project.  Gig Buddies matches people with and without learning disabilities through their shared love of music so they can go to gigs together.

The key concept is that we want to create a stand alone app and/or web app which will be easy to use for people with learning disabilities but aimed at a universal audience.

We have won some funding for this work and have the support of the CityCamp Brighton so we are now in a position to actually commission our development work.  As our resources are limited we want to make the best use of open source and free software but we know that this will take some clever development work and creativity in its own right!

We have an idea of what we want but we want whoever we work with to help shape what we are doing. Our goal is an app (Android and/or iPhone), or perhaps a website built on responsive design principles that:

1)      Enables people to sign-up and register as a ‘buddy’ (a dating site without the ‘Love’)

2)      Enables people to choose what gigs go to – aggregating information from existing sources

3)      Enables gig goers to post up short 30 second video reviews of their night out

4)      Promotes our work to a wider audience

5)      Is easy and intuitive to use.

We also want to produce a strong identity for Gig Buddies so we will be looking for someone with a vision for an eye catching design for the project and app.

We would like to hear from someone who can work with us to design the spec for our project and deliver it.

We have a budget of £5,200 (inc of any VAT) for this project and closing date is 28th Jan 2013.

Email us to make initial enquiries, paul@stayuplate.org

Please also email examples of any previous work.

www.stayuplate.org

Speak Out Trainers Promote Thumbs Up

City Camp funding has been helping Speak Out trainers with learning disabilities to promote the Thumbs Up scheme.

The trainers want local services to join and commit to good support for customers with learning disabilities. In joining the services will have access to training, advice and resources to help them meet the needs of people with learning disabilities.

City Camp has supported the trainers to get on facebook, use flipcam and a new zoom h2 sound recorder to help promote their message.

If your organisation hasn’t joined Thumbs Up yet there is more information about the scheme in this presentation.

For more infomation or to join contact the trainers email: traininggroup@bhspeakout.org.uk or visit our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bhspeakouttraining for more information2450-thumbsup-150px.

 

 

 

Digital Afterschool Club is back

An update on Digital Natives project from Mark Walker

I’m pleased to say that the Digital Afterschool Club will run after the half term break.

  • 3.30 – 5.00pm, Thursday 8 November until Thursday 13 December [parent's showcase event on 20 December]

It will cost £35, with a discount for anyone who is also attending the school’s Afterschool Club on the same day [just tell me when you book].

Booking forms are attached and circulating in school – it’s first come first served but I’ll do my best to fit in everyone who attended last year. If it proves popular enough we may also start another session.

Based on feedback from last year we will have a slightly smaller group this year and we are also trying out a partnership with the Afterschool Club, to see what links we can make to make the club more sustainable.

HELP NEEDED
We were really lucky last year because we had a couple of people who came along as volunteers. It means we have an extra adult [or two] in the room, which means the children can more easily work in groups. You don’t need any digital skills – although whatever you bring will be very handy – and you don’t need to come along every week.

Finally, if you haven’t seen it there is a video of what we did last term at http://vimeo.com/50851849. You need a password to view it, which is 1elmgrove

CityCamp 2.5 Discussions and Pledges

On Monday we had a full house at the Brighthelm Centre for CityCamp 2.5 to discuss digital inclusion. Starting with presentations from Paul Sweeting from Brighton and Hove Advice Partnership (link to Paul’s presentation here);  Paul Colbran, Chief Information Officer/Head of ICT at Brighton and Hove City Council and Catherine Howe Chief Executive of Public i (link to Catherine’s presentation here) which gave us an overview of the current state of the digital city. People then proposed discussions for the rest of the day and the agenda looked like this. The day finished off with reports back on what was discussed and pledges turning that into actions. Thank you to Bert for taking the photos and thank you to everyone who came and contributed to make it such an interesting day.

Reaching the hard to reach With welfare reforms we need look at people’s needs and interests and how digital media might help. The scale of benefit changes is massive. But we also need to deal with feelings of apathy. With refugee and migrant workers the only engagement that works is face to face. Digital work works when supported by a relationship of trust and the person who sends the message is based on a trusting relationship

Pledges

    • To set up an ‘Inclusion Doorstep Squad’ to help people understand the changes to benefits and rights and establish what digital issues (skills, knowledge and threats they face)
    • To connect with as many community groups as possible

Social housing and digital inclusion Give staff from council, community groups, volunteers the skills to pass on. Have digital champions out and about – promoting digital inclusion. Use the infrastructure that exists such as digital tv aerials. Is it possible to use Carelink alarm links? Library service – Council Connect – lots not heard about free service to access the internet – use it or lose it. Crowd funding – crowd funding platform to raise money for community projects (SpaceHive) It would be useful to have a directory of services that are available now for workers so they can pass on information.

Pledges

  • If you are out and about and engaging with people – help them to get an email account
  • Promoting council connect
  • Set up a Directory

What’s Metro wifi about? This was a session explaining how citywide wifi would work. There were no pledges.

BME and new communities Need real communication and trust before we begin with digital communication. We need to become a trusted source of information There are particular barriers faced by migrant communities, particularly those with insecure immigration status. There is not a lack of skills and expertise in migrant communities – they use these technologies eg for communication to family elsewhere in the world.

Democracy and politics Discussion of the nature of power and politics and how to increase participation and get more people involved. But be more wary about just hearing the majority voice. We need to listen to minority voices as well. Is democracy about votes or about collaborative leading to consensus?

Pledges

  • Make progress with neighbourhood councils more visible
  • Constructive support for these projects is more likely to make them democratic
  • When making decisions we want information decisions can be made in an intelligent way
  • Briefing for people taking first democratic steps online – how to do it (could Demsoc do this?)
  • Take part in Police and Crime Commissioner elections

Social networking for the elderly Discussion of what a network is, a social network, open or closed? Ideas of projects were discussed from showing people how to use Skype to more complicated things. Stressed the difference between talking and doing

Pledge

  • To set up something similar to Digital Education Brighton  for anyone interested in things for the elderly – elderly, support workers, companies with products etc can sign up and run sessions. Sign up and we will have first meeting next month

Future of Local media Local media is changing profoundly and can’t fix local newspapers. We need something so that everybody finds out what is going on. An open and inclusive community conversation to inform decision making

Pledges

  • A lot of people are already online talking about the community and we should look at again at finding out what is going on already
  • See how inclusive it is and then seek out the voices that aren’t out there
  • Turn that into a persistent resource to be an effective, critical friend of decisions but still being part of the community.

Council services and access The conversation was around the council’s customer promise to be easy to reach. They aim to maintain service through lots of methods eg; phone, letter, online. Some services are good online and some are not and they need to be careful about how to manage that. And look at the people and the way they like to use services. No one size fits all and sometimes we do need a face to face discussion Use existing infrastructure and physical networks like the libraries. Council officers need to be less risk adverse. They worry a lot about doing things right and should sometimes think about doing things differently How do we include democratic feedback into council priorities and council principles? What is the driver for services? Cost? Excellence? Customer service? need? We need to share experiences and see how other councils and community and voluntary groups have done things to give the best service for residents

Pledge

  • Everyone to give feedback on council services
  • We will listen and respond in a better way and maybe have a ‘meet your council officers day’

Pleasure not pressure People should go online for pleasure not because they feel pressured to. Ask what people are interested in and show people these things online. Examples given were poetry and gardening. It may be a one off experience or a lifelong love but there is nothing lost. No one should be forced to be online but we should provide help to those who are disadvantaged by not being online. There is a responsibility on the rest of us to keep them included. Some people don’t care that they lost money – they would rather be offline than save the money. They feel that the internet is a sterile invasion of their privacy. This is an exercise in humanity and the interaction between people. An important relationship is the interaction between grandchildren and grandparents

Pledge

  • Help friends and family online and with online things.
  • Campaign for access to the internet should be a human right

Community run wifi Future of the internet is 4G and this will need expensive new kit But it is about making it affordable to people. Came up with the term #comunifi which is about sharing wifi networks within a community

Pledge

  • Set up a meeting to look at piloting a simple initiative to share internet access between houses

Role Community and Voluntary Sector and Communities Discussion of the use of digital inclusion to reduce service user isolation and the role of community and voluntary sector. There is a need to increase the skills of community and voluntary practitioners to help with this.

Pledge

  • To explore a cross sector network on digital inclusion, collaboration and crowdsourcing issues and ideas.

And the next steps? We will encourage people to come back and report on progress with pledges at the monthly meet ups (usually third Thursday of the month), and share progress and experiences on the blog. And we will be following and offering help where needed.

If you would like to know more about any of the discussions, pledges or about CityCamp please do contact us.

 

Gig Buddies Update

An update on Gig Buddies from Paul Richards

Since City Camp in March I’ve felt a bit like the character Rhubarb in the classic children’s TV cartoon ‘Roobarb and Custard’. In every episode he always disappeared off in to his garden shed and worked on a crazy invention, and you never knew what it was going to be until he had finally finished and opened the door. I’ve felt like the last six months have been a bit like that, there’s been loads of things happening behind the scenes which has largely involved writing funding bids. We were also asked to be part of the Good For Nothing ‘Summer Of Love’ weekend camp in June where a team of lovely people gave up their weekend to help with techie things like a Facebook app, social media marketing ideas, branding ideas, a funders pack and press release type things.

We also had a trial run in the Brighton Festival Fringe where we had some ‘buddies’ come along to the launch of a new compilation we’d put out (Wild Things 3). However, we don’t want to properly publicise what we’re up to until we know that we have the funding in place to employ a part-time project worker.

And the good news is that we’ve just heard we’ve been successful in our grant applications meaning that we’re hoping to reveal what we’ve been building in our ‘shed’ within the next month or two.

We’ve also just heard that we’ve been successful in being part of the National Council for Voluntary Service’s Crowd Funding Challenge 2012. We’re new to crowd-funding but it looks like a potential great way to sustainably fund Gig Buddies. You can follow our weekly challenges and progress on twitter. #crowdfunding2012

There’s still a bit of banging and sawing to do but we’re not far off now!

Digital inclusion day – final agenda

Here’s where we’ve got to (click to enlarge)

The purpose of digital inclusion: a view from the Council

In advance of Monday’s CityCamp Digital Inclusion event, here are some thoughts from Council staffer Sophie Cox, on the purpose of Digital Inclusion.

The purpose of any activity on digital inclusion should be to improve people’s life chances by enabling everyone in the city to access and use technology. One of the council’s roles should be that of a leader and facilitator of a multiagency group who are able to provide services.  At present the council considers working age people to be the priority group for receiving services to support digital inclusion.

There are 4 clear work streams

  • Service Improvement – improving services to the public through the use of digital technology
  • Learning – providing skills and education to those requiring it in order to access digital services
  • Equipment/Infrastructure – provision of hardware and infrastructure to improve access to digital services
  • Communications & Engagement – signposting individuals to online services and telling them where they can get help

But…

  • People don’t know what is available, who provides what service or how effective it is, so perhaps an audit of what is already available and how effective the current provision is should be conducted
  • In order to make sure we are able to provide the right level of service to those who need it most, it could be helpful to pull together information that exists across the city to really understand the scale of the issue in Brighton and Hove rather than rely on national data sets. 
  • Equipment and infrastructure could to be separated into two separate themes as they are separate issues

Metro Wireless – the Council’s ideas

At the CityCamp digital inclusion event on Monday, Paul Colbran from the Council will be talking about their ideas for Metro Wi-fi. In advance of that, he sets out what it might mean for the city. 

Metro wireless networks have been in existence in the UK for a number of years with varying degrees of success. Early deployment of town centre wireless networks was based on the delivery of public internet access via laptops with the user paying either a monthly, weekly or daily subscription.

This model was very prescriptive and in most cases was relatively unsuccessful. However as access to the internet via mobile handsets and PDAs increases justification for a privately funded metro wifi network has increasingly moved away from a chargeable subscription model for internet access towards a value added free service with revenue being derived from sponsorship, advertising and other digital services with additional charges only being levied for specific downloads such as games and music.

Despite this move away from a charged to a predominately free service there remains a major barrier for the private sector, how do you deploy a metro wide wifi network when you require numerous potential sites at street level.

To address this problem approaches have been made to local authorities to use council assets including street furniture to support the delivery of such a network. However such potential engagements have previously founded on out dated subscription based models or on the banks of a business case which has required the local authority to financially guarantee the sustainability of the network on the back of delivering public services. An approach which because of procurement processes and existing contracts has been almost impossible to realise.

  1.  The User Experience – Why City Wireless?

In terms of the end user greater emphasis is now being placed on delivering free access to the end user through a variety of commercial models including unlimited free access to local information including tourism. Moreover beyond this user experience it is anticipated that multiple commercial services could be delivered to mobile handsets and digital screens all of which could generate a potential revenue stream including:

  • Location Based Advertising – Retail/Cafes/Hotels/Tourist Attractions
  • Sponsored Web Links
  • Mobile Payments
  • Mobile Vouchers – local retailers/restaurants
  • E Tourism – Interactive tour guides
  • Portal for Local Advertising -
  • Community IPTV – Mobile Content

In this respect it is envisaged that by supporting the delivery of a digital platform Brighton and Hove City Council could perform the role of enabler in enabling and promoting the following:

  • Visitor Experience: delivery of a digital experience to mobile handsets whilst visiting Brighton and Hove.
  • Retail Experience: support the Brighton BID and the Business Forum -opportunity for retailers and other businesses to advertise, present promotions etc This commercial strategy would not be focused on the major retailers but would have a menu of commercial options which would suit all retail businesses in Brighton and Hove.
  • Economic Development: support local Digital SME’s, attract inward investment
  • Social and Economic Value: support moves towards channel shift and contribute towards addressing digital exclusion through the availability of free wifi connectivity.

2.    The Opportunity for BHCC

Despite this previous background of limited private sector ambition and outmoded business models the increasing demand for more public space metro wifi in the United Kingdom and the emergence of new commercial offerings from leading telecommunication companies now offers a real opportunity for local authorities to embrace metro wifi opportunities by becoming the catalyst for deployment, not through investment or financial tenancy, but by providing access to your assets including street lighting through a concessionary agreement and in doing so:

  • Develop a long term partnership through a public service concession which is excluded from the scope of the 2006 Public Contracts Regulation.
  • Generate long term revenue through an annual rental and revenue share agreement.
  • Enable the development of a digital platform to support business, retail, tourism and community engagement.

Therefore in the case of Brighton and Hove and subject to more detailed evaluation the opportunity exists through partnership to deliver a metro wifi network within Brighton and Hove which be driven by commercial opportunities from the private sector rather than reliance or even an expectation that the public sector will directly use this network to deliver council services.

3.    Benefits and Commercial Value

In terms of benefits these can be defined in a number of ways some of which can be directly quantified in terms of potential revenue streams, whilst in other areas the creation of such a digital platform will deliver benefits which are less tangible in commercial terms but potentially will add value to the way public services are delivered, the way in which digital inclusion is addressed and local business benefits from improved broadband connectivity.

Business and Community Benefits:

  • Support Economic Development and Regeneration with the consequent link to non-financial benefits: With an increasing need for modern and flexible infrastructure to support modern business the instigation of a Metro WiFi Strategy by the local authority will send a positive signal to business, attract inward investment and indirectly deliver a network which could support training, education and other council and community services.
  • Tourism:  By delivering a platform which would support retail and tourism and enhance the visitor’s experience to Brighton, this would enable BHCC to deliver a co-ordinated digital experience.
  • Retail:  As a key sub regional shopping centre the provision of a digital platform within the centre of Brighton would offer a unique selling point for retailers in with a view to attracting new visitors and increasing footfall.
  • Catalyst to address Social and Digital Inclusion: Create a channel through which digitally excluded communities can start to be enabled (IPTV, Training and Education). Whilst difficult to quantify at this stage there is evidence to suggest that digital inclusion can start to have a financial benefit in terms of reducing social funding to support individuals and communities. In this respect this has become a key driver for local authorities in challenging and addressing the “digital divide”.
  • An Enabler for Community Engagement: As the internet now constitutes such an important means of engagement at both a local community and local authority level, the availability of a network which will offer a degree of free access offers the opportunity for the effective delivery of local government information and a platform for sharing community related content. As more end users start using smartphones  with a wi fi capability (projected 75% usage rate by 2014) this type of strategy will become increasingly relevant.

In terms of the recommendations detailed in this report these overall benefits are particularly reflected in the following areas:

Digital Wireless City

  • Address social inclusion and community engagement through free access to a walled garden portal containing council content and information.
  • Support inward investment with the development of local digital SME’s who could exploit the city centre digital platform (applications, software design)
  • Support retailers in the city centre – promote Brighton as a digital destination. Deliver a platform for retailers to interact with consumers, advertise and promote via the web.
  • Commercial opportunities through advertising – promoting attractions and events.
  • Platform available for potential future use by the public sector in supporting the delivery of public services

Commercial Benefits

From BHCCs perspective the direct commercial benefits can be generated from three direct channels one from a rental/concession fee, revenue share and thirdly from how the Council can exploit the digital platform through advertising and sponsorship.

CityCamp 2.5 Speakers

We now have the speakers for CityCamp 2.5 confirmed as

The event is now full but there is a waiting list here.

We just wanted to highlight to CityCamp regulars that City Camp 2.5 replaces the regular third Thursday meet up for September (so third Thursday evening becomes a third Monday, all day.)

Plan for CityCamp 2.5

Here is the plan for CityCamp 2.5. We are just finalising speakers – but don’t wait to book your tickets!

10.00    Introductions

10.15    Speakers – some background on digital inclusion

11.30    Round-the-room and Q&A

12.00    First discussion session

1.00      Lunch

1.45      Second discussion session

2.45      Tea and Coffee

3.00      Third discussion session

4.30      Pledges

5.30      Final remarks

6.00      Over to the Jolly Butchers

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