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Okay I'm going to try and organise another Small Business Hangout for next thursday, 10th May 2012 at 11:00am (AEST).

Same deal applies, basically it's a change for people who work primarily online to catchup with other like minded people to shoot the breeze, swap notes and generally build up a network of people like us.

So if you're interested and you have a G+ account, please circle Collaborynth on G+ and let me know. I'll add you to the Small Business Hangout circle.

I meant to write this last week however things have been a little busy at Che Collaborynth.

Last week the Councillors at Wollongong Council were presented with a report on the viability of recording the meetings of the Council. The report recommended against the proposal based on the following:

• Legal Issues: The report concluded that by recording the meetings, the Council was opening itself up to getting sucked into potential defamation proceedings if a Councillor managed to put his or her foot in it. In fact the report argues that the idea of making the Council more transparent through recording the meetings is in fact a legal liability.
• Cost Issue: In the report, a number of different case studies were presented on those Councils that already record/stream their meetings. The case studies detailed how much the setup costs were, ongoing maintenance and so on. While the case studies had setup costs ranging between $5,000 and $79,000, the report puts the setup costs (without any actual details) for Wollongong at between $33,000 and $57,000 with ongoing costs of upwards of $29,000 per year.

The Councillors voted against the advice of the report and Wollongong Council is currently investigating how best to implement video/audio streaming of the meetings.

So, how exactly can a Council stream their meetings without having to fork out $57,000?

Well for a start, we have to realise that Council meetings aren't and shouldn't be Hollywood productions, you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment to get High Definition 1080p imagery and 5.1 surround sound. Instead you need the following:

• 1 Laptop: This is your source machine, it either records the meeting or sends the vision and sound to your streaming service
• 1 Camera: Positioned correctly it should take in all Councillors.
• 1 Audio System: Some Council Chambers will already have a system installed. In that case all you really need is a cable to take the audio from the system to the laptop.

Leaving aside the Audio system, the above shouldn't cost more than $2000 - $4000 at the most.

There are a couple of different ways you can go here.

If your Council hosts its own website you can simply load the resulting recordings onto your own web server, link to them and away you go. Shell Harbour Council does this and it seems to be working.

However if you wish to stream your meetings in real time then you're going to need to have a look at either managing it yourself (including purchasing software, training users and so on), or taking advantage of one of the many third party solution providers.

You're probably looking at an average of maybe $4000 a year for streaming via a third party service (if you don't want to use the free, advertising supported services).

After that your costs are going to be maybe a day setting it up and working out the kinks in the system.

To be honest though, I get the feeling that the biggest challenge to streaming or recording Council meetings isn't cost. Sure it's used as a way to put people off, but the real fear appears to be of legal consequence. The Wollongong Council report reflects a certain school of thought that says "Open == Trouble". In fact it's in the first paragraph of the Legal Issues section of the report:

An expected benefit from the introduction of webcasting would be to enhance the perception of Council transparency and accessibility.  However, the legal opinion is that this activity would increase both Council and Councillor risk in relation to defamation actions.

This isn't new thinking either, and it's going to be a lot harder to fix than simple cost issues.

When I'm not working on site with a client, I work from home. This is great because it allows me flexibility in the hours I work and so on.

However it does tend to remove a bit of that human element that people need.

So I thought I would see whether the Hangout feature on Google Plus would work in allowing those of us who work virtually to get some face time with people who share the same issues. It would allow us to chat, swap notes, experiences and possibly network.

If you're interested let me know on Google Plus (I'm +James Purser by the way) and I'll add you to the Small Business Hangout circle I'm setting up.

I'm looking at holding it at 11am next Thursday 19th April. (That's Australian Eastern Standard Time) or 12:00am UTC.

Collaborynth now has a page setup on Google+. I'll be using it both to do the business thing, but also to experiment with the various tools available.

The first experiment I would like to try is to setup a regular Google Hangout for people involved in Local Government.

For those of you who don't know, a Hangout is a video conferencing facility that Google provides within the Google+ framework. It allows up to ten people to participate, and through its Hangouts With Extras, allows for things such as Screen Sharing, collaborative document editing and so on.

Last year, there was a weekly twitter chat event called #localgovchat. It was a good way for people to catch up and discuss a range of topics related to technology and Local Government. What I would like to do with the Hangout is take that a step further. What I would like to see is a regular hangout where not only can we gather a group of people together for a chat about issues relating to tech in Local Government, but also present an opportunity to see presentations from experts within the field, case studies and so on.

If you're interested and you're on Google+ please circle me or the Collaborynth Page and let me know.

Just as 3D printing is changing the way we look at manufacturing, it's changing the way medicine approaches different problems.

In this episode I talk to Scott Summit from Bespoke Innovations about the work his company does  with artificial limbs and I have a look at some of the other ways that 3D Printing is changing the way the medical world turns.

Audio:

MP3

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Okay here's an idea that I've been tossing around for a little while now.

What if we setup an official Open Government Foundation type thing. This would have three roles:

- Effectively lobby government for the development of more open and transparent government
- Provide independent advice (NOT vendor locked) to all levels of government on development of Open Government intitiatives
- Develop and aid the Open Government community in Australia through things like conferences, workshops and a place to share experiences and ideas.

Essentially it would be a point organisation that can take the message of Open Government both to the government itself and the wider community.

That's it in a very rough nutshell, would appreciate thoughts

By the way here's a link to the Sunlight Foundation in the states, which is partly what I've been thinking about replicating:

http://sunlightfoundation.com/about/

Here are some numbers for you:

Mobile market saturation - 100%[1]

Smart phone saturation - 50%[1]

Mobile Enabled Council Sites: 5%[2]

So here we are in 2012, pretty much everyone has a mobile phone, half of them have a “smart phone” that is capable of accessing the Internet and all the magic contained there in, and yet, if they try and peruse their local councils online presence, by and large what they are going to get is frustration as they try and navigate a site designed for PC viewing on a screen the size of their hand.

In doing some research for this post I did a quick straw poll amongst my twitter followers (I know, hugely scientific and accurate huh?) about their experiences in accessing their local governments websites on a mobile device. Out of those who responded, no one reported coming across a mobile friendly website and everyone expressed frustration at trying to get to the information they were seeking. Now admittedly this isn’t anywhere near a scientifically accurate sample size (six people responded), however I am reasonably confident that these findings would be borne out by more structured studies.

It’s not all doom and gloom. however. The fact that people are using their mobile devices to try and access Council information is actually a good thing, and it shouldn’t be viewed as a problem. Rather it should be seen as an opportunity to provide a more streamlined and effective source of information for their constituents.

So what should you do?

• Well the first thing I would do is have a look at your Councils website on your phone. Try and find commonly looked for information such as:
  • Council Opening Hours
  • Library Opening Hours
  • What bin should you put out
  • What events are on
  • Contact details for the Council/Library
• Commit to including a mobile interface in any revamp of your current site. It’s not an optional extra anymore, and should be included as a core part of any new Council website.
• If you’re not able to commit to a whole site revamp, see what you can do about tacking a mobile interface onto your existing site. Start small if you need to, say with your Library services and then build up from there.
• Above all, don’t be afraid to experiment. Work out what works best for your particular situation

People are getting used to the idea of being able to pull out their phone and “Find out stuff(tm)”, whether it’s what’s on TV tonight, whether they got paid or which bin to put out this week. Local Government needs to recognise this and work with it. Just as Councils are recognising the value of Social Media in facilitating communications with their constituents, they need to understand that the Internet is becoming increasingly mobile and plan accordingly.

[1] http://www.zdnet.com.au/mobile-about-to-hit-the-wall-339331874.htm

[2] http://lgwebnetwork.org/sites/default/files/TheStateoftheWeb2010%20(3).pdf

Over the past five years, activism, like everything else in our lives has been changed by the rise of the Hacker/Maker culture. I have a look at two examples of those who build and use new tools to achieve what they couldn't do only a few years before.

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