Started the day at Colston Hall (which has to be the best Bristol City Council meeting venue) for a gathering of 30-40 Bristol digital companies and organisations, kindly convened by Mike Bennet of Bristol Media, on behalf of Bristol City Council’s IT and Communications Teams.

The aim was to start a conversation about the Council’s plans for a new website – and in particular, how it can be used to best effect once it arrives.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early…. to be at Filwood Community Centre to help with the Council Leader’s input into the media coverage of the Bristol Digital TV Switchover – but from what I saw and have subsequently heard, things went pretty well.

I thought the presentations from Paul Arrigoni (IT Director) and Peter Holt (Comms Director) were refreshingly honest, open and engaging. I keft with a real sense that Bristol CC wants to engage with people who have an interest in what “the Web” can do to help transform the Council and the city. And in the world of Connecting Bristol, that is really quite a breakthrough.

There is some Twitter/Blog coverage of the event here.

As Tim Berners Lee calls for Governments, Scientists and Institutions to make their data openly available on the Web and Government launches its Open Data Portal this afternoon we held the first meeting of our Innovative Data Projects group – this is just one of the new “20-20” projects that the the recent Council Budget meeting agreed £1million funding for.

Barbara Janke the Council Leader came up with the name (so best not change it) but the working title is “Opening-up our Data”, which nicely sums up what the group is all about…or not?

Because, as with any innovation-type project in Local Government, there are justifiable worries about staff capacity (“what if we are over whelmed by the demand”), timescale (“we have so many priorities”), legality, procurement and public reputation.  The last is always a particular concern…

“What if we free up our data and people use it against us?” and “What if people use data in  ways that we did not think of and cannot control?”

I find this type of reasoning quite interesting.  Some council colleagues perhaps do not recognise that Public Sector employees are generally held in about as much public esteem as… er, bankers?  In my mind, being open and honest with data can only help us to build trust and confidence.

Anyway, by the end of the meeting all anxieties had been voiced and enthusiasm had triumphed – everyone was pretty much in agreement that opening-up Council data is a good thing to aspire to.

Thanks to Peter Holt, Paul Arrigoni, Clare Reddington, Rob Scott, Alex Minshul, Sarah McMahon and Carolyn Hassan for attending and contributing so eloquently.

Peter Holt, who is Bristol City Council’s Director of Communications suggested that I blog the whole thing.  So I feel duly empowered to report back on our progress. Keep an eye out here.

Enterprise Europe Network South West is holding an event for organisations looking to get an understanding of the future opportunities for European R&D funding for ICT projects.

Attendees will learn what European funding is available for ICT projects and will get advance notification of the likely call contents. The event will also give attendees the chance to meet with regional and national support teams and network with potential partners and experienced FP7 participants.

The event will be of interest to businesses, academics and other interested parties working in the areas of:

• User friendly mobile and wireless devices. Including the engineering of multi-core architectures.
• Web and Internet Research to support, new generations of smart phones, of networked sensors and of convergence around IP.
• Service Research underpinning Cloud computing: “Software as a service”, “Platform as a service” and “Infrastructure as a service”.
• The Future of the Internet, including digital media and content.
• ICT for the lower carbon economy. E.g. Smarter energy grids, low consumption lighting etc.
• E-Health and systems related to an ageing population, sustainable health and social care systems.

For more information on this event contact GWE Business West Events on 01275 370849 or email events@gwebusinesswest.co.uk.

A further full day event outlining how to form a consortium and write a proposal will be held on the 25th May at Bristol Marriot City Centre. Information and online booking for this proposal development event is available here.

This event is now sold out. You can add your name to the waiting list at greenopenandsocial.eventbrite.com and we will release tickets on a first come first served basis if they become available.

If you are not able to obtain a ticket you will still be able to follow and interact with the event via a live stream. The webcast will be shown at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/green-open-and-social.

To follow and interact with this event on Twitter use the hashtag #GOS

Bristol is an unorthodox city. This is certainly true when it comes to ICT. The city is home to businesses, public bodies and community groups who are leading the way in open source and energy efficient uses of technology and who are exploiting the power of social media to engage the city’s communities.

At this event you will:

• Hear thought leaders from BT, Wikimedia and Sirius explore how “Green”, “Open” and “Social” media/technology/computing can help position Bristol as one of Europe’s leading smart, digital cities
• Understand how Bristol organisations are successfully putting these principles in to practice
• Experience an interactive theatrical performance that will tell the Green, Open and Social story
• Network with like-minded people, organisations, innovators and champions
• Hear about the City Council’s new Innovative Data Projects programme/competition

The event is free but numbers are restricted so booking is essential. We expect demand to be very high so reserve your place now at greenopenandsocial.eventbrite.com.

If you have any contacts who you think might like to attend the event why not download our pdf flyer and email it on to them.

#GOS

Dr Lorraine Hudson, Bristol  City Council’s Climate Change & Built Environment Coordinator, and Stephen Hilton from Connecting Bristol, are speaking at this afternoons ICT4EE event in Brussels. The event will focus on how ICT can contribute to reduce carbon emissions across the EU, with the Bristol representatives speaking in the Smart Sustainable Cities session.

The event is being webcast live this afternoon- you can watch and interact here.

On Tuesday 23rd February from 2pm Bristol City Council will meet to decide on next year’s Budget. This includes a proposal from the Cabinet to invest £1 million to encourage Bristol’s economic recovery after the recession through digital growth and making Bristol a green capital, encouraging a low carbon economy.

The Budget meeting will be webcast live on the Internet – last year’s meeting received over 3,000 views. This year the council will be piloting an online discussion forum where viewers can make comments and discus the meeting, and expert commentary will be provided to help viewers follow the meeting.

People can watch the meeting at www.bristol.gov.uk/webcast and access all the background reports of the meeting. Viewers will be able to make a comment from the webcast site or using twitter and hasthtag #bccbud.

There’s been a fair bit of coverage in the press about Cambridge City Council’s apparent proposal to buy 46 iPad’s for its Councillors. The story has lost some of its traction since Cambridge reveiled that the proposal revolved around using notebook and tablet devices and didn’t refer specifically to media’s current ‘hot’ gadget, the Apple iPad.

The Council’s stated aim was to take a greener approach and use the technology to reduce paper, printing and waste disposal costs associated with committee reports. The Head of Policy and Planning at Cambridge believed that the financial and carbon benefits of deploying the technology could outweigh the relatively small financial outlay.

One of the most interesting things to emerge from this story though has been the way some people still view new technology as scary and threatening while others view it as an extravogant and glamorous perk.

A small, affordable laptop would do the same job, though it certainly wouldn’t be as exciting a perk for the councillors.

Matthew Sinclair from the Taxpayers Alliance

I do not think we need fancy technology to do our job.

Councillor Lewis Herbert

The Department of Health are looking for ideas that ensure people’s experience of care services is a good one, and that help them feel they are able to retain their personal dignity and self respect. The Bright Ideas Grant is open to anyone to apply, individuals or organisations.

One of the ideas currently under consideration is Memory Box Movies. It involves creating a personal life-story film/DVD of an individual in care which includes their memorabilia, photos and favourite music in addition to their personal documentary-style interview. As well as being useful to older people in residential care, the service might also be used by younger people with terminal illness wanting to leave a personalised film for their loved ones to treasure.

Pete Taylor from Knowle West cares full-time for his son who has a limiting health condition.

Pete was given a free, “no strings attached” recycled council computer and no-frills Internet access as part of our Digital Neighbourhoods programme.

In this video Pete talks about the amazing impact that being on line has had on his life and on the way he cares for his son.

Since appearing in this film, Pete has taken his “computer life style” one step further and has signed-up to a commercial broadband deal.

Pete is just one of many people who want to become connected via Knowle West Web, part of the Digital Neighbourhoods programme, which is a partnership between Bristol City Council, Knowle West Media Centre and Citizens on Line.

During the coming year, we aim to extend the reach of this project in Knowle West and in other parts of the city.

There is an incredible amount of useful and important information held by various bodies across the public sector. Much of it could be accessible under Freedom of Information legislation if you know how to ask for it.

MySociety has been building websites to improve civic and community life since 2003. As well as launching WriteToThem, PledgeBank and HearFromYourMP they built the No 10 Downing Street Petitions Website and FixMyStreet. More recently they launched WhatDoTheyKnow, a site designed to help you make Freedom of Information requests, read what other people have been asking, and see what replies they’ve been getting. MySociety are also using the site to campaign for improvements to freedom of information law.

Bristol City Council has received 123 requests through the system to date, ranging from enquiries about plans for the new stadium to traffic light changing cycles.