Sarah Hartley

He strikes, he scores! Yes the fictional creation of a Sheffield footie fans forum has now found himself geek form and been featured in The Star, Sheffield as one of the city’s first purchasers of an iPad.

Terry Henfleet first came to the attention of The Star’s football pages when a spoof piece posted at the owlstalk forum concerning his ‘signing’ from Stoke was picked up and published as fact.

Since that time, an accompanying picture composite of Thierry Henry’s head, a fat bloke’s midrif and a pair of chicken legs for feet has, I’m told, vanished into internet mythology……..

Both Stoke and Sheffield Wednesday fans kept the gag running with a Twitter stream, Facebook page and various postings on forums.

But this weekend Terry reappeared wearing a geek shirt and proudly outing himself as one of Sheffield’s Apple fan boys.

In a piece posted on the Star’s website yesterday, news reporter Mike Russell writes;

“First in the Sheffield queue was 33-year-old Terry Henfleet, from Dinnington, who had been at the Apple store since 5am.

He said: “I actually had an iPad pre-ordered, but I decided to get up at 4.30am and come down to buy one for research – at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.”

And there’s a lovely picture of the guy with his prized possession too, prompting owlstalk to claim an exclusive on the first picture!

What happens to Terry next? Who knows, perhaps he’s due an appearance in the business pages before life in the fast lane finally takes its toll and the inevitable obituary is published.

Two very different experiences of Manchester media have been launched online today.

First a mighty map of the city’s online world was unearthed by journalist David Quinn – but has now been taken away.

Although not quite intended for public consumption, many of those featured on it (including me) had already been merrily clicking away and sharing on twitter this morning.

It’s a shame it’s now been removed as I’m sure the feedback and fault correcting being sent to creators Marketing Manchester will be invaluable before the public launch. I look forward to its resurrection……

In the meantime,  there’s a lovely bit of nostalgia from Andy Spinoza posting on HowDo about the heady past of the independent City Life magazine, back in the day.

“Now anyone can publish their views online, but back then DIY publishing meant a xeroxed fanzine or printed fortnightly magazine like ours, selling ads to theatres, nightclubs, bookshops and vegetarian wholefood co-ops as means of funding our own view, for our own readership, on this city. Even the cheapest fanzine could not give content for free; it was the means of publishing the content which cost, and that had to covered.”

• RSS feeds beat any branded iPhone or iPad news app | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog
  So what’s the alternative? Do it yourself, with friends

  Since the advent of the iPhone I’ve fallen back in love with RSS. With Google Reader’s mobile version (when in internet range) I can quickly read the 1,000+ feeds I check regularly. When out of range and on the London Underground I use the free NetNewsWire app which syncs seamlessly with Google Reader and works offline beautifully, as does the paid-for Byline app which shows pictures well and partially downloads online-only content too.

  (tags: rss apps journalism mobile tools)

• Data: Information is power | Media | The Guardian
  The impact on journalism is expected to be great. The Chicago-based web developer and founder of the neighbourhood news site EveryBlock, Adrian Holovaty, says it's going to be challenging but exciting for journalists. "As more governments open their data, journalists lose privileged status as gatekeepers of information – but the need for their work as curators and explainers increases. The more data that's available in the world, the more essential it is for somebody to make sense of it."
  (tags: opendata data journalism guardian news government education information)

A recent Freedom of Information request has unearthed new figures which show that the number of empty properties in Manchester has topped 9,000.

In my previous blog post, the question of how many properties lie empty across the city arose when a member of the audience at the Future Everything city debate claimed there were 4,000 in the city centre.

After a bit of rummaging around, it seems that was well off the mark – in fact the most recent figures show there are more than 9,000 properties (9,406 to be exact) across all the wards which have been empty for six months or more.

See here for the interactive breakdown by ward which shows the number of vacant domestic properties, notified to the Council’s Revenues and Benefits Unit in each of the 32 wards, of Manchester City Council as at 16 April 2010, which at that time had been vacant for 6 months or more.

And that’s a 50% increase since the MEN reported just three months before in February that there were 6,000 empty properties.

It should be noted that the way the ward boundaries are drawn makes it difficult to extract a figure of “city centre” as most people living there would consider it – for example, Ancoats and Clayton covers Rochdale and Oldham Road and Hulme covers the apartments on the Chester Road side of Mancunian Way.The ward defined as ‘city centre’ for these figures is a tight area which takes in Piccadilly.

The data I used for the visualisation above came from a Manchester City Council response to a Freedom of Information request from Andrew Boyd for specific address information about vacant homes which was rejected by the council’s Revenues Contracts and Compliance Manager Dave Holden , on the basis that the level of detail would;

• The risk that publication would prejudice the prevention of crime by releasing information as to vacant domestic properties to the world at large, leading to the likely targeting of these vacant properties by those engaged in illegal drug use, gang activity, arson, vandalism, theft and anti-social behaviour;

• The risk that publication of this information to the world at large would lead to increased anxiety and fear of crime amongst residents of adjacent properties as a result of the likely targeting of vacant properties by those engaged in criminal and anti-social behaviour;

• The risk that publication of this information could undermine efforts by the Council, other housing providers and owners to bring empty domestic properties back into re-use in order to improve local communities and reduce crime and vandalism in areas where properties have been left empty and in a poor state of repair.

But even without the additional information regarding specific streets or apartment blocks, the release of the data provides an up-to-date insight into the ongoing issue and should provide a useful way of tracking the changes to the number vacant properties in the city going forward.

• #dendatameet: Why collaboration is at the heart of good data journalism
  "You have to understand how people will be trying to avoid you finding and scrutinising their data. At the moment you're in an arms race between the people in power and the people in scrutiny of power."
  (tags: data opendata journalism paulbradshaw den digitaleditorsnetwork)
• At the end of the day, they are journalism's worst cliches | News.com.au
  "I stick to the proposition that in reporting you should try to stay away from cliches . . . but I know how hard it is to stay cliche-free. And some cliches are quite descriptive," he says.

  "I get more annoyed by corporate speak because it is not descriptive and often is designed to hide the real meaning. 'Downsizing' is just another way of saying someone's been sacked."

  (tags: journalism writing news)
• Are blogs dying? – Viewsflow
  The technical ecosystem around blogs is disintegrating, being folded into other structures. Three years ago, I said at SXSW that there wouldn’t be many blogs around in ten years. That leaves ‘em seven years to continue to dwindle in interest and relevance.
  (tags: blogs, blogging, long-form)

One of the events held during the Future Everything festival in Manchester last week was a thought-provoking City Debate intended to spark conversation about the way Manchester develops.

It was an unusual format with participants answering a central proposition with short statements – and at times that proved to be a little unsatisfying in its depth – but far more importantly than that, it brought together for the first time some of the many and diverse individuals and groups who have a passion and an interest in what happens next for the world’s first industrial city.

The central proposition was; “Manchester, the first industrial city, has a long tradition of scientific, political and cultural experimentation. Our proposition is that it should become the first ‘experimental city’, adopting a systematically experimental approach to its development.”

I won’t re-hash what was said (myself and Louise and Nigel from the InsidetheM60 created this live blog where you can review what happened here ), instead I’d like to offer the following contribution to the debate – something I hope others feel compelled to do on their own blogs, in the comments here or elsewhere.

Broadcaster Jenni Murray chairs the debate

It seemed to me that the participants in the debate could be loosely divided into two groups.
The first I’m going to call the Make-do-and-Menders. Into this group I’d count those people who do stuff with what is actually there. They include speakers such as Patsy Hodson, the vice principle of Manchester Communication Academy who spoke so movingly about the horrifying real-life situation that one of her pupils finds himself in; it includes Colette Williams who wants to represent the issues of Moss Side without always having to define the area in terms of gun gangs and drugs; and it includes many people from the creative sector, represented in the debate by Kate Feld from The Manchizzle blog who would like to see empty pubs turned into art spaces.

Then there’s a second group that I’m going to call the Space-Racers. This camp see a new future and has a vision of how that could be built where there is nothing but the inner city equivalent of a moonscape. I’d include in here those who are building MediaCityUK with Peel Holdings; Susan Woodward who is championing the Sharp Project to provide space for digital entrepreneurs; then there’s people who have already changed the way the city looks forever such as Nick Johnson from property developer Urban Splash and all the layers of government from the city council to the MDDA.

Hearing each of them spell out their ambitions for the future of the city it would seem on the face of it that there’s little overlap there – other than passionate interest in the city all hold.

There’s also a very obvious disparity between the power and influence each of those groups possess with the power, land and money mostly being held by the Space-Racers despite the fact that the Make-do-and-Menders probably strike more of a chord with an evolving city population.

In fact one interjection from the audience showed up this difference of approach in stark relief. Commenting that it’s possible to buy a cappuccino on every corner but impossible to find an NHS dentist, the audience member also pointed to the fact that he’s bought into the city living dream when there were cranes competing on the skyline but now that had all stopped. He claimed the centre was left with 4,000 empty flats. (Note: I haven’t yet found evidence to back this figure but will investigate further).

Two responses from the panel summed up these different realities; 1. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing and could be turned to social housing and 2. Building work is still continuing, the push for city living continues!

So I started to think about each of the groups in terms of a Venn diagram and to attempt to identify what exists in that shared space in the middle. How those two groups could actually work together so that the creativity and energy of one is actually facilitated by the power and money of the other?

It’s an interesting space to consider and one which soon brings up issues of motivation. What motivation is there for these groups to work together? Is there sufficient reward and visibility for the the Space-Racers in such collaboration? Is there enough opportunity for inclusivity for the Make-do-and-Menders to get on board? Will a new framework for organisation or even legislation be required to operate effectively in that space?

They’re issues which no doubt sit heavily on the shoulders of those in power with responsibility to deliver – but it’s time that conversation was heard outside the corridors of power.

If the debate started at Future Everything does nothing else, then I hope it sparks some further discussion, yes, but more importantly, comes up with some mechanism for meaningful input from the rest of us.

These are my notes, with some links for further reference from the first day of the conference strand of the Future Everything festival which consumes Manchester’s creative and digital sector for a few days in May every year.

There were so many different events going on across the city, it would be impossible to distil things into one blog post, so this is intended very much as a personal snapshot of two aspects – the challenges around opening data and the new future possibilities of the semantic web………..

AM
I was involved in facilitating two panels during the morning, both on the topic of open data and both with panels of leading thinkers in this area.

From the first, Moving the Immovable, a gauntlet was laid down for those of us looking at these issues from a Manchester perspective as William Perrin from Talk About Local included some examples of success in this area from Birmingham and challenged the home audience to act now.

The examples included the remarkable BCC DIY – a very quickly created website to deliver council services started to shame the council’s expensive and lengthy delays in providing a useable ‘unofficial’ version and a survey of parking ticket hotspots carried out in conjunction with HelpMeInvestigate. Challenging the audience to start right away by issuing hundreds of FOI requests it was an invigorating introduction to some of the approaches individuals or groups can make.

His full presentation is here;

The audience was treated to a different approach in a case study from London – the DataStore – with a presentation from Emer Coleman which also highlighted some of the pitfalls as well as talks from lawyer Jordan Hatcher and Rewired State’s James Darling.

The second panel discussion, The Rewards and Challenges of a Transparent Culture, ended up being so over-subscribed we actually had to turn people away!

Easy to see why when looking at the diverse backgrounds of those involved – Tim Dobson, recent PCC in Manchester for The Pirate Party, lawyer Jordan Hatcher, GP Amir Hannan, entrepreneur Chris Taggart.

The presentation which prompted the most questions from the audience in the auditorium, and debate everywhere else I went afterwards, was the passionate Dr Hannan. A local GP (Tameside and Glossop NHS Trust) he detailed the work he’s carried out to open up medical records to patients, allowing them to see their notes, become informed about the medications prescribed and treatments available so that they become fully involved in the process. His views that “a doctor, a patient and a computer in a room provides three experts” was certainly refreshing and inspiring. (InsidetheM60 blog reports further on this here.)

Speaking from the point of view of someone who has worked (tirelessly) to open up council data to local audiences, Chris Taggart of OpenlyLocal gave a talk about the culture of failure and the need for organisational mindset change.

His full presentation is here.

PM

Onto semantics. I should stress here (although I’m sure that will be quickly blatantly obvious to many!) that I’m certainly no authority on this subject so I took it as a rare opportunity to hear from some people who are.

I admit much of it was brain-jangling for a simple hack, but there’s no getting away from the fact that those of us who make our livings from publishing stuff online, need to wise-up as the world wide web moves from a ‘network of documents’ to a ‘network of data’.

And listening to some of those coming at this from a science point of view, it seems that day might not be far off at all……

I found Manchester University’s Prof Carole Goble particularly inspiring and accessible as she spoke of the challenges facing scientists in orchestrating and interlinking datasets and it was fascinating to hear how exactly the same issues face this community – how best to collaborate and share information.

And just as is happening in many other sectors, she made the point that the new generation of scientists were for the first time digital natives – something that will inevitably make a change in how business is done in the future.

She provided the following links for further exploration of this topic during her presentation;

vivoweb.org – describes scientists, semantic web

Alzheimers forum – a scientific discourse ,semantic way

Danah Boyd www.2010

Finally, the mini keynote from Nigel Shadbolt provided a clear and accessible look at the work he and Tim Berners-Lee have been carrying out with the UK government.

He lit up that idea of the shift from a web of documents to a web of linked data.

“It is still a set of simple protocols, really disarmingly simple – you should give objects of interest their own URLs.”

And he provided this address to explore more; Map.psi.enakting.org/how.

One of his ideas caught my attention too – just as with the original web, once we have the semantic web there will be unintended use, and misuse.

After the conference sessions I was doing some searches and reading around this subject and found this TED talk from Berners-Lee from last year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM6XIICm_qo]

Today’s meeting of digital editors from across the country is a special event to discuss various issues around open data and is being held at the offices of North West Vision and Media in MediaCityUK, Salford.

A live blog has been set up via CoveritLive which you can see updated here as the event gets underway from 1pm.

The progamme is detailed here.

The hashtag for the event is #dendatameet

This week is surely the busiest so far in the 2010 digital media calender for Manchester.

While the central focus will undoubtedly be this year’s Future Everything festival, there’s also some great events in the run up too.

Here’s a quick run down of what’s booked into my diary – feel free to share any other events from your diaries via the comments below;

Tuesday: Manchester Social Media Surgery. 5:30pm-7.30pm.
The theme is: ‘What businesses can learn from how social media was used during the 2010 UK elections’.I shall be scrubbing up to be on the panel of surgeons alongside;
Adrian Slatcher, Senior Digital Development officer, MDDA – Chair
Katie Moffat, Social media consultant, organiser of Manchester Twestival and Manchester Digital council member
Nigel Barlow, freelance journalist, co-founder of hyper-local news site for Manchester, Inside the M60
Matt Hackett, Manager, Digital & Marketing Recruitment Team at Orchard
It’s all free and taking place at the offices of the Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) Lower Ground Floor, 117-119 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6ED.

Wednesday: Digital Editors’ Network. 12:45 PM – 5:00 PM.

The bi-monthly get together of digital editors from newspaper groups around the country is moving from out of its usual setting at Uclan in Preston and heading to the offices of Northwest Vision & Media at Media City in Salford Quays for a special event to consider open data.
Speakers include:Julian Tait (from #smc_mcr and FE), who’s working to make Manchester the UK’s first OpenData City, , Paul Bradshaw, author of the Online Journalism Blog and convenor of the HelpMeInvestigate project and my colleague Martin Belham from The Guardian. Again, it’s free but places need reserving. Follow the link above.

Thursday: Future Everything and Social Media Cafe
The conference element of Future Everything get underway in earnest. The major theme of the day will be around data. I’m delighted to be chairing a panel discussion between 12pm and 13:30pm at the Contact Theatre to look at the rewards and challenges a more transparent future might bring. The expert panellists are OpenlyLocal’s Chris Taggert, IP lawyer Jordan Hatcher, GP and patient records holder Amir Hannan plus recent Gorton PPC Tim Dobson.
The rest of the day’s conference events are detailed on the ‘timetable’ found on the right-hand side of this page.

Social Media Cafe
Due to the FE event, our monthly get together is going global for May with live hook ups to Brazil and Canada. It’s an expanded #smc_mcr which is teamed up with Northern Digitals for a one-off special event – the Global Digital Cafe.Through high-speed synchronous data links, we’ll have the chance to expand our reach out of Manchester.
On the Ning’s blog, Josh says;

“Sit on a sofa alongside a counterpart from Sao Paulo, Brazil using the GloNet Front Room. Or try out the Talking Boxes for a beer and a chat with someone from Vancouver, Canada. Members of Manchester’s digital community will be in both locations, hosting the local interaction for FutureEverything so keep your eyes peeled for faces you recognise.”

Friday: City Debate and Gala
The City Debate: A special event exploring the future of Manchester. 3-5.30pm at Manchester Business School.
This promises to be a fascinating debate coming as it does in the aftermath and chaos of the election. Described as “an ideas event for evangelists, cynics, digital artisans, policy makers, property magnates, media vultures, urban planners, you, and me.”
It puts up key figures working today to build Manchester’s future who will be asked to give their vision. Each will reply to the FutureEverything Proposition, a statement about the future of the city region commissioned from leading international thinkers. A studio audience will then debate the future of Manchester.

Future Everything Gala FutureEverything Award Gala: Friday 14 May, 6-8pm at Manchester Town Hall
Sees the awarding of the debut award of £10,000 cash prize, and the FutureEverything trophy recognising outstanding innovation in art, society and technology.

In fact the week has turned out to be such a worlds collide mix of social media, journalism and digital networking that I’m taking some time off from the day job to make sure I don’t miss anything!

Which means, I’ll be blogging regularly here, and at other locations, as well as keeping everything signposted on twitter @foodiesarah.

I look forward to catching up with plenty of you over the week, on and offline.

Useful hashtags #mansms, #futr, #dendatameet, #smc_mcr