ColaLife.org

Simon Berry’s ColaLife campaign is a truly wonderful thing, a real example of using the groundswell to develop an idea into a campaign and then, hopefully, into action.

I was always at a bit of a loss, wanting to help out more than just joining the Facebook group, but not knowing really what I could do. Other than build websites, of course…

So that’s what I did. ColaLife now has an external web presence, so people can find out about it without being a Facebooker. I made the site deliberately simple to navigate, hiding the blog bit away and relying on images to help get the message across. Another great example of WordPress as CMS…

We’ve imported all the posts from Simon’s personal blog onto the site, so it can become the central repository for all things ColaLife. In the meantime, do register your support by joining the FB group and the Google email group.

Should web and ICT be the same?

Really interesting post from Paul Canning, discussing the recent assertion by Richard Steele, SOCITM’s President, that web should be just another part of IT within organisations.

Paul says:

Web skills are very specific, you need to be across a lot of terrain. You need to understand SEO, usability, web content, have good people skills, be across various and ever changing IT, visual design, accessibility, marketing, PR … Even the very best IT managers don’t have this skill range so they can’t make informed decisions or informed choices across the range of issues which constitute good and most importantly successful web.

Good stuff from Paul, and of course I agree with him, being a web and definitely not an IT person. Indeed, I would a couple of bits to Paul’s list about webbies needing to be excellent communicators, and maybe a real interest in policy is important too.

Google Maps API

I have had a really great idea for a little site that I think will be of use to quite a few people in the UK. Trouble is, it relies on using the Google Maps API, and I haven’t a clue how that works, despite my recent best efforts trawling through the documentation.

The basic idea is pretty simple: a homepage with a zoomable map of the UK on it , with markers on the map which when clicked display information about that location. I’d like eventually to be able to show people directions from their address to one or more of the markers too, but that can come later.

I’m guessing that, given there is plenty of information to be handled, a MySQL/PHP/Google Maps integration job might be on the cards. Again, beyond me at the moment, but I just need someone to point me in the right direction.

Can anyone help?