Month: January 2008

Online collaboration does work

Despite now working in further education, I’m still involved in the predominantly local government based Communities of Practice social online collaboration platform, which is developed by the Improvement & Development Agency. For a quick run through of the whys, whats, wheres and hows, Steve Dale’s presentation from Online Information 2007 is as good a place to start as any.

[slideshare 200879 communities-of-practice-in-local-government-final-05-dec07-slideshare-version-1197474073591885-3]

I currently facilitate a few communities on the platform, principally the Social Media and Online Collaboration one, where we discuss the latest and greatest online innovations and muse dreamily on how wonderful it would be for our bosses to allow us to use them. Another is the Public Sector Knowledge and Information Management network – which could be significant as the management of knowledge becomes an ever-more important issue for public bodies.

If there is anyone reading this blog who might be interested in either of these communities, do sign up. It’s tremendous to see people engaging with social web tools to work together, and to share their knowledge and experience. This stuff really does work, people.

Best British football ground…

…is of course the home of the mighty Reds, at least according to The Guardian:

1) The City Ground, 1935 – present

Why on earth Nottingham Forest’s board want to move away from the City Ground is be££££££££££££££££££££££yond m£££££££££y k£££££££££££££££££££££en, sorry, a key on my computer got stuck for a moment there. There’s more than enough space for paying customers as it is, and in any case, the place is a magnificent reminder of the glory days. Forest might be a third-tier club now, but the shining modernity of the Trent End Stand, overhanging the river, is positively top-class and qualifies the ground as the most idyllic of any in the country. Meanwhile take a walk round the other side of the ground past the souvenir hut – club shop it ain’t – to the cramped car park, and the place positively reeks of the 1970s; you can almost see the ghosts of Brian and Peter unloading crates of ale to feed the squad before a big match. And across the river … Meadow Lane. To move from here would be sheer lunacy, and madness to boot.

Quite right, too.

10 Cool WordPress themes

WordPress

One of the many reasons why WordPress is such a super publishing platform are the many themes which are freely available to give your site a professional look and feel.

1. Envy – WPDesigner.com

Envy theme

Envy is a bold and bright theme with plenty of different elements to help you personalise it.

2. Insense – BloggingPro.com

Insense

Insense is a really classy, professional looking theme, which is just as useful for putting together a WP powered static site as it is a blog.

3. PhotoPress – Performancing

Photopress

Perfect for photo or video based blogs.

4. Elite – WPZone.net

Elite

Smart, darker theme. Sometimes themes with a black background can cause problems when inserting images – especially those with a transparent background. But Elite is still pretty smart looking.

5. Illacrimo – LifeSpy.com

Illacrimo

Again, very professional looking, and the one I’ve used a few times in the past.

6. Bluvision – lucianmarin.com

Bluvision

A bit like Envy, in that it has lots of space for you to personalise your site’s appearance.

7. Simpla – Ifelse.org

Simpla

Nice, clean look – perfect for a personal blog.

8. Glossyblue – NDesign Studio

Glossyblue-1-2-screen

Glossyblue is a theme I used to use on LGNewMedia. It’s really rather lovely. I notice Tim Davies uses it for his Drupal-based blog.

9. Gridlock – Hyalineskies.com

Gridlock

Gridlock is a perfect theme for non-blog WordPress sites.

10. MistyBlue – Romow

Mistyblue

The theme I used for FEconnect, and I stil have a soft spot for it 😉

A sense of place

The Birmingham Bloggers meet last night went well, with a good turnout and some exceptionally high-quality discussions on a variety of topics. I found myself burning up with jealously a couple of times as people talked about the exciting projects they were working on. Jon Bounds has a nice little write-up. Nick was an absolute gent as always. I met Stef for the first time, and was blown away by some of the stuff he is doing, mashing up social media services.

One thing that came up was that ‘Birmingham Bloggers’ is too narrow a title. Something based around the term ‘social media’ might be best – maybe a Social Media Club, like Lloyd runs in London?

Much of the discussion was around how bloggers can help improve the image and raise the profile of Birmingham, especially in the light of the second city’s total exclusion from this Guardian write up about city bloggers. A number of possible solutions were discussed, with the general feeling that a planet of Birmingham based bloggers would be a good idea. I’m going to have a look at putting this together.

On the way home I thought a Birmingham based customised search engine might help. brumsearch was born this afternoon 😉 I like building things and being (hopefully) helpful.

But this focus on the geographical element of the meeting – discussions around promoting Birmingham through social media – left me feeling pretty isolated. I live in Kettering, an hour’s drive away, but work in Coventry, just down the road. This meeting is the nearest thing I can get to as a group of people who dig new media.

Charlotte, who also attended, wrote along similar lines:

The thing about a meeting like this is that it is hard to figure out why we’re getting together. I guess to meet and share with a bunch of folks with a similar pursuit…

I came away feeling pretty down about the whole thing. These guys were so enthused about where they live and what they can do to improve things… But I don’t have that sense of place, not about Birmingham (obviously) nor indeed anywhere else.

FeedDemon 2.6 problem

There’s a bug with FeedDemon 2.6, I think.

Whenever I click the little orange RSS icon on the FireFox address bar to subscribe to a new blog, it tries to open a new FeedDemon window. Every. Single. Time.

This is a pain in the neck as I am never sure if I have actually subscribed to a feed or not!

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