DavePress

Amazon MP3 is go in the UK

Dave — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:28:25 +0000

Amazon have been selling downloadable MP3s in the States for a while now, and finally you can get them in the UK.

For those currently getting their legal digital music from the likes of iTunes, you should find the prices at Amazon much more to your taste!

Amazon also claim their downloads are DRM free, meaning you can use them on whatever software or playing device you like, and you can burn CDs to your heart’s content.

Lovely.

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Public Windows failure

Dave — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:01:43 +0000

Always a pleasure to snap one of these.

This was spotted yesterday morning, at Stansted airport.

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ICELE eDemocracy Guides

Dave — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:17:34 +0000

Alastair Smith at Newcastle City Council today brought my attention to the fact that the ICELE eDemocracy guides were no longer available. Effectively, the link to the page where they were distributed via the Lulu website no longer works.

Luckily for Alastair, and perhaps others, I saved the downloadable PDFs of the guides a while ago, and so now am happy to make them available here on DavePress for folk that want them:

I think I have them all, although four doesn’t seem that many. If you have any others I have missed, do let me know.

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David Wilcox interviews Clay Shirky

Dave — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:25:01 +0000

Great interview by David Wilcox with Clay Shirky - check it out here if the embed doesn’t work for you.

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Dave @ PSF

Dave — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:02:59 +0000

I’m going to be talking to a bunch of public sector folk on Thursday as part of a Public Sector Forums event entitled Public Sector Websites - Essential Issues for Managers, Developers and Others.

It should be a good day - as well as me, other speakers include:

Gavin Woods - Business Development Manager, BrowseAloud
Jack Pickard, Web Services Manager, Public Sector Forums
Dan Champion - Champion Internet Solutions
Simon Halberstam - ‘Weblaw’ & Partner, Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP
Simon Wakeman - Head of Marketing, Medway Council
Peter Barton - Lincolnshire County Council

My bit is on ‘Social Networking and other Tools of Engagement’. Here’s the blurb:

Dave will begin to identify what the social web can do, and help equip the delegation with the skills and tools that will enable them to succeed using those tools.

Should be a good day. If you aren’t already booked up, what are you waiting for?

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Who to follow on Twitter?

Dave — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:15:36 +0000

There has been quite a bit of twitterfuss over the last week about Mr Tweet, a hideously named service which analyses your current network and then suggests new people that you ought to be following, amongst other snippets of information.

To get your report, all you need to do is follow Mr Tweet on Twitter, and then you get a direct message when your feedback is ready. I’m still waiting for mine.

Other places you can go to find cool people to follow includes my Govwebby list, or the Twitterpacks wiki, which has lots of different feeds listed in a directory structure, whether by topic or location. Worth checking out.

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Another new DavePress look

Dave — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:25:16 +0000

I’ve given DavePress yet another facelift. This one is a lot lighter and hopefully more friendly too.

Personally, I especially like the ‘adverts’ in the top right corner, pimping my social media wares, such as my newsletter, ReadWriteGov and LGSearch.

There is still some tidying up to do, but I’m nearly there…

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Who would you like to see on Twitter?

Dave — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:34:06 +0000

Tom Watson is making a list of people who aren’t yet on Twitter, but who ought to be for all our benefit.

Stephen Fry (if it be he) has become an instant success using micro-blogging platfrom, Twitter. Life would be enriched if more of Britain’s treasured characters were sharing their daily thoughts with social networkers. So I’m compiling a list of the 50 well known people who should tweet. Good, bad, charming, rude, the rogues and the pious, you name them and I’ll write to them over Christmas to urge them to join Twitter.

Add your suggestions in the comments on his post.

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Wikipedia a bad example for enterprise wikis?

Dave — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:08:02 +0000

Helen Nicol writes an interesting post about how to get wikis taken up within organisations. Using Wikipedia as an example, she writes, is a bad idea, because it sets unrealistic expectations of the amount of content likely to be generated, and will also likely scare people away.

Unfortunately, many companies begin their wiki experiments by trying to create the definitive knowledge asset on, say, knowledge management. This is a big ask for people who’ve never had their own contributions edited by someone they don’t know. It turns people off, and prevents them from recognising the potential in wikis. They need to start with a simple and non-threatening activity like a progress report or lessons learned review. Even a shared agenda would help as I said in this post some time ago. Starting small will really help people gain confidence enough to start working on bigger projects like knowledge assets.

This taps into a real problem for those wishing to encourage the adoption of these tools within their organisations. Saying wikis are like Wikipedia (which they can be, but…) is a bit like describing blogs as online diaries (which they can be, but…).

As I often say, the best thing is just to start using something, with a freely available tool, whether a blog or a wiki or whatever and then use that to demonstrate what you mean to the unbelievers. Much easier than making people think they have to start recording the sum of all human knowledge, or start publishing their innermost thoughts on the web!

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Great comment on ReadWriteGov

Dave — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:53:47 +0000

Great comment left by Maureen Charles of Cambridgeshire County Council on the ReadWriteGov blog, acting as a real reminder of why I started arranging these events and the value they can have:

I was really impressed by the event in Peterborough. What resonated for me was all the ideas it gave for engaging young people. I couldn’t see straight away how to use them but the seeds were planted! After some creative thinking, I’m just now at the point where one idea is taking shape. Our participation worker who works with young people in care, has filmed them talking about their group “Just Us”. I’ve posted the video on “You Tube” and linked to it from the website. A start! Thank you.

No, Maureen, thank you.