Citizensheep. "Michael Grimes lives in Birmingham (UK). This is his blog about anything that he fancies."

‘Hyperlocal’ has been a buzzword in the online engagement community for about eighteen months, and to be honest it’s not one I’ve been comfortable with: why try and define a sub-category of ‘local’ which is itself pretty undefinable? I still have a bit of a problem with it, but yesterday it did become clearer to [...]

This discussion at yesterday’s Talk About Local un-conference was for bloggers and local websites wanting to report and discuss the imminent UK General Election. We heard that whereas it used to be the case (in broadcast journalism at least) that each political party had to be given exactly the same coverage, that is no longer [...]

So you’re keen to report on your local area. But what do you report on? In a session at the second Talk About Local un-conference, Ray Duffill sourced suggestions for finding stories. A brainstorm of the room (and subsequent discussion) came up with an abundance of ideas: Speaking to people on the streets, in the [...]

The first session I went to at yesterday’s Talk About Local un-conference was on the legal problems of managing sites that allow user feedback or investigate stories of public interest. It’s very depressing to hear of the crippling situations people repeatedly find themselves in, simply through a determination to get at the truth in the [...]

In yesterday’s interview with BBC Breakfast, Digital Inclusion Champion Martha Lane Fox rather worried me. She seemed to be advocating something because someone else had told her it’s a good idea, and not because she understands the issues herself. Martha Lane Fox: “… Government is going to move most of its services onto the web [...]

In response to Gordon Brown’s speech on ‘Building Britain’s Digital Future’, Ben Whitnall of Delib asked if interested parties would like to group together to take a lead: ‘let’s get some interested people together and help design the future of digital deliberative democracy for the government. It’ll be faster, better and, with any luck, more [...]

A lot has been going on recently with regard to digital inclusion and civic engagement. People keep publishing reports that I really ought to read for work, but just don’t have the time to; and even if I did, many of them are pretty impenetrable. So I’m going to spread the load. In April I’ll [...]

I’m concerned about the Digital Economy Bill so I’ve just sent one of those standard lobbying emails to my MP. I used the online form at 38 Degrees because it was easy, but I made substantial changes to the message (I would have added more but I was in a hurry, hence the convenience of [...]

Today I had a post published on the British Computer Society’s Savvy Citizens website, in which I ponder the challenges and opportunities that the internet brings for effective citizenship. I won’t re-post it here, as I’m sure the BCS would much rather you read it on their blog than mine. Suffice to say I flag [...]

In his Digital Britain Final Report, Lord Carter sets out his plan to keep Britain “at the forefront of the digital revolution”. But a revolution needs revolutionaries, who are driven by passion and not just economic incentive. Has this report overlooked the importance of people as volunteers, and the impact on their social contributions of [...]