Hyperlocal innovation: Google hangout for council reporting

parliament

Old style: Cameras keeping an eye on proceedings. Picture: UK Parliament on Flickr.

Google hangout – the video conference style service available on the Google + platform – may well have changed the way you do team meetings if you work in a distributed way as we do here at Talk About Local.

But how about for broadcasting your local council meeting? In an ambitious initiative, three bloggers at Lightmoor Life have recently done just that. Using multiple laptops they were able to stream the council chamber from different angles – even managing to hurriedly apply live captions to helpfully point out who’s who and their political allegiances etc.

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Google Reader to retire

The internet search giant Google has announced that it is to retire Google Reader on July 1 this year. Google announced in September 2011 that they would be having a ‘Fall Spring Clean‘ and shutting down some of their products.

Yesterdays announcement that Google Reader along with 7 other products were to be closed sees a continuation of the review of the Google Product estate. Since 2011 Google have closed 70 products, which is more products than some businesses ever have. Read more

CommsCamp13: Communications unleashed, gender issues and open data

Can communications professionals help reinvent what it means to be an elected representative? If that question strikes you as Sir Humphrey calling the shots in a Yes Minister style scenario, the discussion captured here on video about the role of the 21st century head of communication will be an eye-opener.

“Coach, mentor, leader, trainer, storyteller, data intelligence, listener, enabler, wheeler-dealer, an educator ” the list of roles which the group felt now makes up the modern day ‘comms’ job is daunting, with the rise of digital forms of communication adding ever increasing layers if complexity to the job in hand. Read more

Common Good and Open Data

I recently moved from Stoke-on-Trent to Scotland, so you will forgive me for writing a post that has a distinctly Scottish theme to it.

In Scotland there is a scheme called Common Good. The Common Good scheme or fund is where all the assets from the old town councils and burghs are held after they were disbanded in 70′s. The scheme is unique, as far as I am aware, in the UK. Read more

Res Publica Carnegie UK Trust event – Future of the Press: hyperlocal is it worth the hype? – a quick primer on UK hyperlocal

Map of UK hyperlocal sites - openly localSome people going to the Res Publica/Carnegie UK Trust event ‘Future of the press: hyperlocal is it worth the hype’ might be new to the area. So I thought a rudimentary primer on the UK hyperlocal scene might be helpful.  The following is informed by Talk About Local’s experience over several years working with people who run local websites all over the country. And running local websites myself.  I can’t hope to cover everything below nor to have a consensus text – if people suggest good stuff in the comments I’ll update the post to reflect and turn it into an FAQ maybe. Read more

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