Micropost: Asset Based Staff Development

Posted on May 10, 2012 by JonoPatterson

Ok, so i’m vaguely in the middle of writing up a post about Asset Based Community Development. It’s going in a strange direction so i’m not completely convinced it will work yet! Anyway, I was in the middle of writing about ABCD when I had this idea, and going back to my earlier blog post about lightning talks I thought hmmm, this should be a micropost.

Essentially it goes like this

Asset Based Community Development is a community building process where you take a neighbourhood, you actually talk to the people ¹ who live there about the things they care about, the things they can do, the things they care enough about to actually use their skills to change. You build up this knowledge into an asset map of the strengths and opportunities within a community. That asset map then forms a basis for connecting skills, people and assets together to do more than they can do on their own.

The aim is to build up agency and connectivity within the community to a point where people actively start joining together to be more than they can be as individuals.

Build more connections

This is a great idea. There are hundreds of examples of this approach improving and strengthening communities. These range from neighbours sharing gardens right through to communities forming youth groups to actively reduce anti social behaviour.

Which led me to thinking about whether ABCD can be used within different kinds of communities, for different purposes perhaps. Could it be used within workplaces? What if I just substitute the word community with organisation? or with staff ²?

Enter Asset Based Staff Development

So with a simple twist of the words we have a slightly different concept. Nothing revolutionary, just a reframed vision.

So now, when it comes to organisational development, we stop thinking about the needs of the organisation, the skills gaps and resource deficiencies. We start thinking about the strengths of the organisation, the key skills and the joint working opportunities.

How do we do this? We ask Staff some simple questions:

What do you care about in our organisation? (What do you love, What are you concerned about? What are you interested in?)
Which of those things do you care about enough, enjoy enough ³ to actively do more of?
What skills could you provide to help do more of them?
What do you need to help you achieve this?

And to be fair these are examples – the aim is to start from a point of appreciative rather than critical inquiry.

We use this to build a map of the opportunities – groups of shared interests who want to join up, projects needing multiple, complementary skills, ideas without a team to lift them off the ground.

And finally – we just make those connections happen. Maybe its through innovation days, maybe its through free afternoons or maybe it’s just a chat over coffee ⁴.

I think the result of this could be a stronger, more resilient, more connected workforce. A workforce which builds on the strengths it already has, rather than tries to infill the weaknesses.

Its an easy process to twist

I suppose we don’t have to stop at staff. You could perhaps widen it to circles of any interest, though for me staff communities (especially in local gov) have a lot in common with neighbourhood communities. The range of interests and focuses is very diverse, the skills and strengths of individuals are often hidden behind the day job, and most of all, it’s very easy not to connect with the people outside your service.

What do you think? Could it work? Could we build better organisations just by mapping our assets before our deficiencies? The answer, for me, is yes ⁵ – and in some ways I have already experienced it via things like unconferences and ABCD workshops.

Notes:

Really! Talking to people! How Novel! ↩
the plural ↩
yes there will always be the unfun work to do too ↩
tea in my case, or it just isn’t on! ↩
yes yes yes yes damn yes ↩

Diamond Books and Turqoise Daze

Posted on April 13, 2012 by JonoPatterson

With Apple recently announcing their new ‘iBooks’ incarnation adding features like movies, links and other media types I couldn’t help but think of a book I once read. The book was The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson…

“As we discussed, [the Primer] sees and hears everything in its vicinity,” Hackworth said. “At the moment, it’s looking for a small female. As soon as a little girl picks it up and opens the front cover for the first time, it will imprint that child’s face and voice into its memory … thenceforth it will see all events and persons in relation to that girl, using her as a datum from which to chart a psychological terrain, as it were. Maintenance of that terrain is one of the book’s primary processes.” – Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age

The ‘Primer’ in the extract above refers essentially to an interactive book, an object that throughout the story accompanies the lead character Nell on her travels. During the story the Primer interacts with Nell, tells her stories to help understand events, encourages learning, and corrects Nells unwanted behaviour. Over time Nell is transformed from a struggling young street rat, into a very respectable little lady. All through the power of a portable device she happens to stumble upon.

: The Diamond Age Book Cover

To me the Primer does three simple things:

It accompanies Nell and observes what is happening in her life. It’s aware of the social situations and challenges facing her. ‘Context aware‘ if you will.
It adapts the stories it tells Nell to suit the situations it has observed – often using. It also teaches her new words and ideas which improve her ability to speak and interact ¹.
It interacts with Nell to create a learning dialogue – it talks, asks questions, points out improper etiquette, suggest proper ways to speak and reacts to her responses.

So a portable device with Adaptive, Context aware, Interactive technology. Hmmm the iPad has some semblance of all those features, though mainly based around location awareness ².

And the iPad/Apple boffins are making textbooks interactive, held in your hand, instantly available and filled with sensors and apps and whizzmagical things. How long before the books can use this combination of technology to react to their readers?

Lucy arrives home after class, she picks up her iPad Prime ³ and raises it up toward her face “Hello Lucy” says the book? “What did you do today?”

“I went to the Zoo with school and saw some penguins” says Lucy

“Wow, that sounds fun Lucy. Did you know that penguins live in the North Pole ⁴? There’s a video here that shows a baby penguin hatching out of it’s egg. Do you want to see it?”

- How I envisage my daughter E using first gen Primer technology

iPad Prime, or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

A lot of this is about the merging of technologies. Technologies that already exist in various guises ⁵. There are plenty of examples of adaptive learning already out there, and I imagine people are experimenting with using social contexts to power it. How long after that before tablets incorporate the technology? I do think this synergy is inevitable, wonderful and concerning ⁶ all at the same time.

For me then, the shift toward these technologies in recent years means that the Primer is definitely on it’s way to being somewhat plausible, if not already possible. And if it is, I wonder what the repercussions will be. The Diamond Age has a lot of subtext on society, learning, digital exclusion and inequality, all of which is certainly relevant today, nevermind tommorow!

Welcome to the Diamond Age…

“Sorry,” she said, “I got out as fast as I could, but I had to stay and socialize. Protocol, you know.”
“Explain protocol,” Nell said. This was how she always talked to the Primer.
“At the place we’re going, you need to watch your manners. Don’t say ‘explain this’ or ‘explain that.’”
“Would it impose on your time unduly to provide me with a concise explanation of the term protocol?” Nell said.
Again Rita made that nervous laugh and looked at Nell with an expression that looked like poorly concealed alarm.”

Notes:

there are some subversive aspects to this ↩
i’d suggest that being adaptive to audio and video is a much harder thing to do ↩
no doubt with 9G broadband or some other boringly named tech ↩
just seeing who is paying attention ↩
I studied context awareness in portable devices years ago even! ↩
as a parent I wonder the implications for my daughter ↩

Building Blocks and MOSAIC Tiles

Posted on April 5, 2012 by JonoPatterson

Booth map of Whitechapel

A few weeks ago I spotted Oliver O’Brien had blogged about using Booth style maps to present spatial data in a more user friendly way ¹. An example of this style of map is shown to the right.

Oliver mapped the ONS Output Area Classification (OAC), which is a free geodemographic ² dataset. I don’t make much use of the OAC at work, but I do use Experian’s ‘MOSAIC’ product instead which is very similiar ³. Experian produce the data at postcode level and household level.

A quick overview of MOSAIC

MOSAIC is a dataset that classifies every household or postcode area into one of fifteen lifestyle groups, or one of sixty-nine lifestyle types.The types have names like ‘affluent singles in new build areas’ or ‘older people reliant on friends and family’ and a statistical profile of characteristics behind those names. The profiles allow you to make some broad assumptions about the nature, characteristics and interests of those people. It can be a useful research tool. For example by using the MOSAIC data and comparing it to Child Poverty, we’ve identified that some groups are more likely ⁴ to have children in poverty than others. This means we can then focus resource on these groups first, rather than blanketing everyone in Blackpool ⁵.

A challenge to present

When trying to provide a summary of MOSAIC for Blackpool at group level though, I have always found it challenging to present the information in a meaningful way to complete geophobes. At household level it becomes a blur of colour ⁶, while at postcode level it is difficult to relate the postcode districts back to individual areas and the postcode sectors can make some groups appear more important than others.

I have tried various approaches, from dot plots to thematically shaded postcode polygons or larger areas colour coded to the most prevalent MOSAIC type. The most useful to date ended up being a very blocky postcode sector image a snippet of which is reproduced below – each colour corresponds to a MOSAIC group. Messy, impractical to identify and a bit ugly (but functional) ⁷

MOSAIC by Postcode Sector

When I saw Oliver’s approach I thought it would be an interesting experiment to learn how to map data in that way, and to use the same approach to mapping MOSAIC household data particularly.

Learning and Doing, Breaking and fixing

The process is actually more straightforward than I realised, if you can get to grips with software like Quantum GIS, an open source geographic information system. Essentially for me it went like this (skip this if you have no interest in doing GIS work):

I created a new map layer using MOSAIC household data which was basically a single point for every household in Blackpool.
I added in map layers from the Ordnance Survery OpenData – specifically the ‘Vectormap District’ data which is a broadly detailed dataset containing building outlines, streets, landscapes, water features.
I tried to spatial join the building outlines to the MOSAIC household data (essentially ‘linking’ data in one dataset to the other). This means I tried to give every building a MOSAIC attribute which I could use to colour code the map. This didn’t work well! The problem being that the first ‘point’ encountered is used to join on – so a street with 9 Group A households and 1 Group B would sometimes be categorised as Group B. Terribly misleading.
Plan B then! – I added building references to every point – I then exported the data, and with a bit of industrial light and magic, identified the dominant mosaic type for each building. In the example above this would result in Group A being selected.
I then merged this new ‘dominant’ data set to the building outlines using Quantum’s join tool.
The resulting map then is a map of the dominant MOSAIC group for each block of buildings.

Et Voilà!

Results below. Image on the left is the basic point map. Image on the right is the new Booth style map after joining data together. Which works for you? ⁸.

Comparison of point vs infrastructure map [DISCLAIMER: Points are not necessarily accurate classifications of households

I think I prefer this to the raw point data and to the original postcode sector map. I feel I can connect better with the places and streets. If I have a criticism it’s that some detail is lost in the process. In the example above a lot of the ‘green’ households are lost – you could even suspect there was none. Again feel free to ask if you’d prefer to see full maps.

There is More to maps than colour

There’s a wider issue there. The point data is often falsely assumed to be really accurate – people often point out that their household MOSAIC type is wrong. The reasons for this are a) it’s not directly tied to actual people, but to idealistic profiles so it’s a mistake to assume everything in the profiles applies to every person in the group. b) it’s often a ‘best fit’ of data – which MOSAIC group is the closest match based on data available? c)in the worst case it may just be an infilled point where no data was available and so it’s been classed as the same as the neighbouring household. d) previous residents have written to Experian to demand they are given a more affluent group so they can get that new sofa on credit ⁹.

For me then, I prefer the blurring of the detail to create an impression of an area rather letting people reach false conclusions about individual households. Does aggregating point data make MOSAIC data appear less accurate than it is? Interestingly the debate went slightly the other way round on the spatial analysis blog – does applying OAC data to buildings make OAC appear more accurate than it is?

I think that one is a challenge for educators and presenters – asking people to think about the data behind the picture helps.

Notes:

See the wikipedia article on Charles Booth ↩
it classifies people by where they live and their social characteristics essentially ↩
but also very expensive ↩
relatively ↩
In theory at least though it isn’t always that straightforward ↩
Pointillism at it’s best ↩
Due to my own ignorance about copyright, I haven’t made full maps available but if anyone is interested feel free to ask. ↩
I’m not an expert in Quantum GIS – it would have been nice to get the street names to scale better and similiar with road lines ↩
Completely innacurrate and untrue. It was for the TV. ↩

Packtypes: Just another dog in the pack?

Posted on March 22, 2012 by JonoPatterson

So as part of ongoing change in the Policy and Transformation team that I work in, ¹ the old team Tinker ² has arrived and rolled up with a ‘let’s build a new team, let’s transform the way we work, let’s get to know our colleagues‘ cart. I actually always welcome tinkering with an open mind as it usually presents an opportunity to move in a potentially new, innovative direction ³ and to contribute thoughts usually held at the back of my head!

Packtypes logo

One of the opportunities we’ve identified for developing the teamwork side of things is to consider how well we know each other, what our personalities are like and how we might communicate with each other better. It’s the typical Myers-Briggs ‘understand yourself, understand your colleagues‘ type scenario.

We’ve chosen to use ‘Packtypes‘ for our team which is an approach to personality assessment / emotional intelligence that promises a lot ⁴ and delivers it all through a tiny deck of cards.

Essentially instead of going through a detailed psychometric questionnaire, the cards themselves are used to determine the type of person you are, expressed via the dazzling metaphor of some rather haggered looking dogs. I think it’s based on Jungian psychology (though the book never really explains the science – therefore failing to reach at least one of the ‘packtypes’ it promotes).

Step out of the curtain for second

I should probably say here that I don’t have any clue about copyright here ⁵ so I may be stepping on the wrong strand of the web by discussing it but hey, I only plan to discuss the process and my own results and I certainly don’t plan to completely criticise (or praise) the approach so i’m hoping they might let me off a little! ⁶. I also won’t go beyond the surface detail of the profile just in case.

Back to Packypes.

The deck of cards contains 64 positive words describing a personality trait like ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘challenging’. Each word is associated with an image of a specific breed of dog, printed on the reverse of the card. Each breed or ‘packtype ⁷‘ is associated with specific personality traits. The deck comes with a book on how to make sense of it all.

One type of Packtypes pack

With that in mind, the process of determining the ‘type’ of person you are works like this:

Take the pack of cards with the words facing towards you.
Select 12 words that best describe you in your chosen role (e.g. the ‘work’ you, the ‘home’ you, the ‘blogger’ you.)
Turn the cards over to find the 12 pictures of packtypes with their corresponding breed.
Sum the packtypes by breed (e.g. 4 hounds ⁸, 4 retrievers, 4 mongrels ⁹)
Interpret your ~~horoscope~~ reading using one ¹⁰ of the helpful books.

I jest with that last point. I found that the process really is quite interesting to do, and unlike a horoscope it was uncannily accurate. I’m sceptical by nature, so I became a little suspicious that the pack was designed in a way so that every reading will result in that uncannilly accurate feeling. However, it turns out you can also ‘packtype’ other people ¹¹ so we tried this in one of the team meetings.

I packtyped my colleague and somewhat surprisingly, despite choosing a completely different set of words, the profile turned out very similiar. He did the same to me and again, a broadly similiar result to my own self assessment. Perhaps not so easily dismissed then.

I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?

So i’m sure your now itching to know ¹²: what type of person was I? That, my friend is a story for another day though…

Ar, ok go on then. Having followed the process I came out with the following 12 words: analytical, imaginative, enthusiastic, resourceful, caring, considered, original, rational, principled, genuine, understanding, trusting. I turned the cards over ¹³, and was quite surprised with the initial results. The book says that numbers are important, so in order of size I came out with 3 Coachdogs, 2 Retrievers, 2 Pointers, 2 Hounds, 1 Mastiff, 1 Terrier, 1 Sheepdog. A very varied mix!

But what does it mean?

A good question! The book suggests you ignore the 1′s (At least to begin with). So in order of relevance:

Coachdog (my dominant influence): Relationships, empowerment, consensus
Pointer (lesser influence): Analysis, facts, working out the right answer
Hound (lesser influence): Creativity, ideas and unearthing new opportunities.
Retriver (lesser influence): Process, Principles, Trust and continuous improvement

The book also comes with a neat diagram reflecting where these breeds lie on an axis of facts and certainty through to new ideas and risk taking, or people and emotion through to results and action. You can use it to map where your personality supposedly sits as each dog lies in a given position. I sketched mine on my phone.

That blob is the me inside of me

Surprising to me, I spanned a wide range on the diagram. It suggests that the people element is really important to me, that I ground myself in facts and certainty but that I am still open to new ideas and risk taking. If you want to communicate with me you should go with the benefits to people first, though it helps to be a new idea, and be grounded in robust research.

The risk taking / new ideas side is relatively new to me. I will secretly admit to having done packtypes before and previously I very much fell in the bottom left corner. So it has changed since that time. I wonder how much the new aspects have come from my recent attempts to grow?

This is the great thing that I like in packtypes. You are free to redo it, to learn new things, to change yourself and redo it. Want to be more results/action? Feel free to make your way there. So long as ultimately you remain honest to yourself when picking the cards it should be reflective.

Overall this time I do think it’s feasibly accurate assessment of my broad personality. I look forward to doing it again at some stage.

A few extra thoughts

In discussions with my colleague we agreed that there was a lot of subjectivity in choosing the words. I interpreted ‘challenging’ in an entirely different way for example. There are also complexities around priming (what happened before you packtyped?), avoidance (would you really call yourself ‘inspirational’?), and team pressures (do you want to pick words in front of your colleagues?).

So that is packtypes in a very brief nutshell

I’ve purposely avoided getting into the depth of it in this post. I think that its only fair that packtypes get to keep their hard earned copyright. At £40 a pack on their public facing store though, it’s there to try and it sort of fits to me in the very nice – ‘cheap enough not to dissapoint if it’s a gimmick, but if it does deliver then it will pay itself back the world over‘ area. Do you really need a pack of cards to transform your relationships? Probably not. Is it fun and interesting to try? Yes, it is! Will it help me in my work? Most definitely. I’ve already got my manager begging for his dinner ¹⁴.

Notes:

Soon to be Corporate Development & Engagement Team though that’s unconfirmed and may change (I actually like it more I think) ↩
“A tinker’s debt is always paid: Once for any simple trade. Twice for freely-given aid. Thrice for any insult made.” – Patrick Rothfuss ↩
innovation doesn’t happen without space ↩
actually it promises an awful lot – like transforming your entire existence from it’s clearly boring one to your potentially awesome, better, one ↩
any weekly blog clubbers want to take up a challenge to lay out the rules? ↩
Seriously – if you are a copyright terrier you are welcome to contact me if discussing this is not allowed. I will amend, obfuscate, remove or otherwise! ↩
it is just a metaphor so associations with real dogs should really be avoided ↩
If you get 12 hounds, Elvis appears to sing a classic ↩
Not really a packtype ↩
yes, there’s more than one! You can get books specifically for parenting, teaching too ↩
You can packtype anything apparently. Like a block of tasty cheese ↩
either that or fleas ↩
a little apprehensively to be honest, there’s always the worry that your results might disturb you I think. ↩
come on! it had to end with a bad dog joke! ↩

Train-ing to overcome.

Posted on March 15, 2012 by JonoPatterson

[Note: This blog will sometimes contain more personally reflective articles. Feel free to not read. To fly over with your RSS reader. To avert thine digital eyes and wait for the other stuff. Otherwise, carry on.]

Today I will take a train.

This may seem a somewhat normal thing, trivial even. Certainly not a topic attached to significance for most of us. So perhaps I should probably start by way of an explanation…

Why does this post exist?

This post exists because I have a genetic condition. Over the course of my existence this condition, the results of a very tiny mutation of my DNA, has come to define me as much as I define myself. Some people move forward through rejection of their afflictions, “Look beyond this. This is not me,” but I have chosen to move forward by embracing it, “This is not the only me, but it is an important part of me.” This condition has shaped who I have become as much as anything else that my upbringing, my experiences and my curiosities have subjected me too.

This condition is called Muscular Dystophy. If you don’t know what Muscular Dystrophy is, it is essentially a genetic mutation which results in a lack of, or malformation of, a protein which is needed to maintain healthy muscle tissue.

For me this has been a slow process through which I have lost the ability to walk, and over a longer time am losing the ability to do more and more.

None of that is the point of this post. It is just the explanation for it’s existence. It is there simply to say that the train has never felt a straightforward choice for me. I came to terms with my condition a long time ago, battling my way past a heart full of fire and a head full of fear. I live a very happy existence ¹ with a wonderful family around me.

“It feels sometimes an external thing, a purposeful thing that is being done to me rather than simply happening. I often find the universe pushes in directions I don’t always want to go. If I am to change this and choose my own path I must find a way to try and overcome this irationality.”

By way of explanation then, I am not a functional human being in the physical sense.

the Scene is Set, back to the point!

The point of this post is that I have been trying to grow recently. I have been making time within myself to accept that my limitations are a part of me and that they can be an asset rather than a deficit. I feared them before I think, I let myself get away with a somewhat weaker, perhaps slightly lazy, aspect which allowed others to help me, to carry me forward in the current, rather than to use it as a force to drive onward ². This blog is one part of trying to grow, as is stepping out of my comfort zone and into a slightly bigger world…

“If I am to succeed, I must force myself to rethink how I operate in a world built for people that are not like me.”

So when I was recently asked to attend a meeting in Manchester ³, I found myself asking different questions ⁴ than I usually would. My usual routes here would be to look for family members to support me, to catch a lift in that direction and to catch one back, or even just to avoid altogether. Sometimes this makes sense and will continue to do so, but my new question, something i’d generally discount, was: “is this an opportunity to try the train again?”

A brief stop to remember.

Just so you can understand the mental alarms that rang in my head with this question, my previous experience with trains was way back in 1995ish. Travelling in a wheelchair in 1995 was, to put it mildly, ‘a total flippin nightmare ⁵.’ Things went wrong, carriages were awkward, tiny. Toilets were impossible. People forgot you were coming half the time. The only way it worked was to travel with somebody. The train just never made sense to me as an option.

A visual oxymoron? (Note that this wasn’t the train I used)

Back to the floor

So a little later on, when it came up again as a discussion with my manager. I suggested the train. It seemed a good idea and I went with it. I would go on my own on a train and back again. I wasn’t sure what I expected the reaction would be, I imagined in my head concern perhaps some doubt in there, a little redirection maybe ⁶. However, on top form, he simply said ‘ok.’ ⁷.

Booking the tickets took me through a rather long and winding conversation, mainly me asking for every bit of information possible about boarding, wheelchair seating, dimensions of the toilet, whether the doors are automated ⁸.

Ok job done, train agreed, tickets booked, meeting confirmed. Easy.

Well no, not quite

A few days later I had another discussion over the phone. This had started to take a different path. It started sort of like this:

“Hi John, how are things”

“Ok, a bit nervous, anxious about taking the train you know. I keep thinking of all the things that can go wrong but that really that misses the point.”

And on it went. A little bit of anxiety had crept in, a little fear. The call continued with me identifying problems and issues, but ultimately remembering why I was doing this, finding grounding again again and moving on:

“I was thinking, thinking back to you know, what we discussed, earlier. In the team meeting, about the two scenarios. About, about operating on the worst case, when actually the reality case is probably not that bad. I keep thinking, well that really, what is the very worst thing that could happen? But then I think, back in reality, there really is no case, no, you know, situation that I wouldn’t be able to resolve on my own. I mean I have a phone, and there will be people everywhere.” ⁹

I suppose this is the real point of this story. If it is anything, It is this: a little voice lives in your head somewhere. It is a quiet one for some of us. It says, “go” when the louder voice says, “stop.” It says, “why not?” when the louder voice says, “oh no!”. That little voice is worth listening to once in a while and it is the voice I am trying to listen to more.

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t consider myself anything like knowledgeable on dealing with adversity, or fear, or caution. This is just what I learned and this blog exists to leak these things ¹⁰.

I wish I could, I wish I could, am I the only one who thinks I should?

Another obstacle overcome then. Another chance to ditch the idea skipped. Now I wish I could say that I spent last night sleeping soundly. I wish I could say that after deciding to live by the little voice and not the big one, the reality case and not the worst case, that I didn’t wake up this morning with a belly full of marbles. It would be a lie. A huge big lie.

It’s taken some serious attempt at willpower to drive me to this point. I’m surprised I made it this far to be completely honest. I am forcing myself over the edge, a little frightened of falling. Nobody said growing was going to be easy though.

Onward, upward, downward, skyward. Don’t look down please.

I still don’t know too. I still don’t know what will happen. Perhaps I will discover that my condition prevents this attempt at independence. Perhaps I will meet obstacles I hadn’t thought of. But I will challenge my assumption first and perhaps I might just find that the world is a little less intimidating than it sometimes seems.

Today I took the train… ¹¹ ¹².

“I think I have a solution. It is simple really. I will dare myself to step forward each time and challenge the world to stop me each time. This is how I will train myself to overcome.”

Notes:

Certainly much happier than some! ↩
Practically, I accept that some of this must remain. There are just some things I cannot do. ↩
Somewhat ironically, on asset based community development which considers assets before deficits ↩
yet again! First an unconference, then a blog, then this. Whatever next? ↩
It really was! ↩
better solutions ↩
Sometimes good management is not trying to manage at all ↩
Panicked, clawing, me? Never… ↩
I have a terrible habit of transcribing myself ↩
Thanks to Phil Jewitt for the leaking terminology. It fits well! ↩
And, for anyone who cares to know, it was absolutely fine! Like being 6 again! ↩
and, for anyone who is all about the detail, the meeting was on ABCD and I met some really quite interesting people ↩

The Incidental Researcher. Case 1: Women in Technology

Posted on March 8, 2012 by JonoPatterson

So the weekly blog club theme this week was “Women”. Hmmm. Well I’ve lived with my wife ¹ for many years but I still can’t begin to claim to understand her. We also have a much younger lady (age 2.5) ² who, despite having carefully observed from the tiniest of nothings, I am still starting to misunderstand!

A bit stumped then. But it did get me thinking about something that many people comment on but i’ve never truly looked at: “Women in Tech.” A few weeks ago at LocalGovCamp NW the idle comment was made that their appeared few women in the room ³. It’s sat there in the back of my head ever since. Tickling away a little but mostly under control. It seemed a great case for the incidental researcher.

Wait, what is this “Incidental research” Nonsense?

Incidental Research is the best way I have to describe research that happens on-the-fly, over the space of a few hours in a quiet evening or morning to add just a little bit of depth to that minor nagging idea you have, or that question that lingers longingly to be answered. It’s the google search which results in a dataset ripe for a brief analysis, it’s the journal search for a relevant academic paper to read.

The incidental researcher does not care that he doesn’t know anything about the subject

Incidental research is usually based in ignorance. In this case entirely. I really have never thought about women in tech or lack thereof. I have observed it though. From college onwards, the path of computer science that I followed was mostly devoid of females. I think there were 3 women in the IT GNVQ course I took at college, and even less than that on the Computer Science degree. Postgrad faired a little better … at least 4 or 5 ⁴.

I never really thought about it much, but after recent comments, and feeling a little like I could know more I thought i’d try to learn a little more.

The Incidental Researcher is not looking to be an expert

I’ll point out here that the aim of this approach is not to understand the depth and scale of the problem – these are objectives for a full research project. The aim is to explore a little and to pick up a few helpful thoughts that might just help steer a future need to discuss, investigate or explore further. It’s about learning something new for the sake of it?

Incidental Method 1. What is the first question to try and answer?

This bit of the approach is simply about finding one question that should be relatively easy for me to answer. For me it was this – I know there are tech jobs, I know there are fewer women working in them than men, I know the path to work is education ⁵ – so my first question was: How many females are graduating higher education with qualifications in technology related subjects? Simple. The incidental researcher can investigate this easily.

I went to the Higher Education Statistics Agency Website ⁶, browsed for statistics and found just what I was looking for – a table of “Qualifications Obtained by Gender“. The fist challenge after looking through the data though was to decide what qualified as a ‘tech related’ subject. I have been fairly simplistic here and selected Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering/Tech related subjects. ⁷

The results, charted below show that just over 75% of all qualifications in these subjecters were obtained by males. Just under 25% are obtained by females. Hmmm. It seems that one reason for the lack of women is that there are fewer women obtaining these types of degrees.

: HESA 2010/11

A little more educated there then. A little disbelief too – is the gap that big? I have checked a few times just to make sure but it does seem to be correct. And I am more than open to critique, rebuttal. The incidental researcher also recognises he may be out of his depth.

The incidental researcher follows the leads

I decided that I wanted to know more on whether this gap remains as wide in the labour market. There are other routes into employment than getting a degree you know ⁸. So I looked at the Labour Force Survey next.

Query: Number of Science, Research, Engineering and Technology Professionals in England by Gender
Results: Males: 1.065 million. Females. 0.219 million.
Really. Source: ONS (via NOMIS) 2010-11

Right then. At this point a brief tally of some other evidence incidentally obtained.

Is there an issue at GCSE level perhaps, are females performing more poorly with Maths and English GCSE’s included? No:

Girls continue to outperform boys: 61.9 per cent of girls achieved five or more A*-C grades at GCSE or equivalent including English and mathematics GCSEs compared with 54.6 per cent of boys.

- (DfE: GCSE and Equivalent Attainment by Pupil Characteristics in England, 2010/11

Are there fewer females obtaining qualifications? No! Slightly more females than males even. (HESA 2010/11)

What are females doing instead then!? Subjects allied with medicine, business and administration and education degrees it seems. Is this a blatant stereotype proving true: Nurses, Secretaries and Teachers? Probably not – a lot of my female colleagues have business degrees, my wifes colleagues are all health specialists and Teachers are Teachers. However as thematic areas these are the subjects were females appear to be leaning. (HESA 2010/11)

I stopped looking at raw stats here. I’d followed the leads to a broad conclusion that females are under-represented and that a fair chunk of that is partly related to what qualifications they obtain. There is so much more depth below this that a real research project would look at but that is not the aim. I instead went and looked for some discussion about why.

Incidental Method 2: Open paper, cut out eyeholes, use them to see the world anew.

This method is simple. Go to google scholar, search and read what is interesting to you. I started with “Girly girls and geeky guys.” ⁹ This article started with the stereotype cleche that it has to be sexy and chique or it’s not a career for women.

“Women employed in the Australian Information Communication Technologies (ICT) industries have been presented on the cover of a 2006 calendar as semi clad Information Technology (IT) screen goddesses. On International Women’s Day 2008, school aged girls were informed by a very pink website that ‘tech girls are chic not just geek’. Such strategies are implemented as a response to gender and occupational stereotypes associated with the ICT industry, which may make it unappealing for women to pursue an ICT career path, such as ‘geeky, lonely male nerds’ being the norm.”

I didn’t buy it. Neither did they. They go on to say:

“It is proposed that the characteristics of the [new] industry allow an opportunity to further redefine existing and perhaps ‘rusted’ stereotypes, by not only presenting a wider range of images of the professionals but also one that articulates non gendered (i.e. non feminised or sexualised) traits such as skilled and passionate people.”

Stereotypes are important influence then.

Manchester Girl Geeks Editathon - Girly Girls?

The incidental researcher likes to get a feel for the whys and the hows.

It’s this sort of reading that the incidental researcher enjoys. It’s not about reading the citations forward and back, establishing contradictions and critically analysing technique but about following that gut feeling and passion to understand ¹⁰. As long as it’s interesting, doesn’t base itself on completely fallacious evidence, then read it or discard it. It’s up to you. Just enjoy the research.

I also enjoyed these quotes from “Revisiting Women’s Participation in Science and Technology“ ¹¹:

“There are, however, barriers preventing the full engagement of women in science and technology: the lack of interest among women to pursue engineering and technology- related disciplines at universities indicates cultural influences that often regard these fields as the preserve of men. Even those women who pursue higher qualifications in engineering and technology face discrimination: in many places where women are equally competent, the man is given precedence in employment opportunities as he is regarded as the bread-winner.”

And:

“Government’s role is crucial in bringing about these changes, through providing an adequate social infrastructure and policy environment which facilitate women’s entry into the fields of science and technology. This could include measures to support the professional, personal and family needs of women through their education, career development and their employment. The exact nature of policies and measures to achieve this aim will differ, depending on the cultural environment and the level of economic development. “

So that’s it. That’s where my nagging question led me. Over the space of one evening, and the frantic pacing of a lunchbreak, I learned that Women really aren’t in Tech jobs, That there are stereotypes influencing why and how, and that it is crucial that governments continue to develop policies which facilitate the pathways for women to take up tech jobs if they want to.

Incidental Research Case 1: Women in Technology. Case Closed.

Notes:

truly a brilliant woman ↩
Also brilliant. ↩
though I will point out that once everyone arrived there was a much better balance ↩
Hmm, perhaps not then ↩
Or so my mother has always told me ↩
which would be ripe for opening up more data! ↩
with more time you would be much more selective. There will be niche subjects under the other major categories that would reflect a better measure ↩
Sorry mother ↩
Geneve, Anitza and Nelson, Karen J. and Christie, Ruth J. (2008) Girly girls and geeky guys. In: Investigating the Theory and Practice of Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace, 12-13 June 2008, Surrey, United Kingdom.” ↩
incidentally, one of my favourite quotes is: ” The art of research is the ability to look at the details, and see the passion.” ↩
UNU-IAS Report: Revisiting Women’s Participation in Science and Technology, Emerging Challenges and Agenda for Reform, United Nations University ↩

Micropost

Posted on March 1, 2012 by JonoPatterson

I just signed up for #weeklyblogclub. The deadlines are apparently noon so that’s erm about 15 minutes from now. So not really time for a full post.

An idea I wanted to try though, after #localgovcampNW, was whether the idea of a ‘lightning talk’ could be transferred into a social media / blog format. E.g. on twitter it might be – “Within 10 tweets, describe an idea you currently have or want to talk about” and on a blog it might be – “write down any idea that you have in just 10 minutes.”

What’s the point? Why not write a bigger post?

I think, for me, the point is not to care about getting it right, fact checking, editing, and fixing typos. It’s about raw capture of an idea as it’s flowing out.

It let’s you change direction too…

Here’s another idea – lightning Google Hangouts. I literally just read @LouiseBrown’s blog post on her experience of them and it made me wonder. Could a collective of Twitter users suddenly “Hey, this Friday, I’d like you all to jump into a Google Hangout and you’ll be given 10 minutes free talk to drop an idea out there.” It could be recorded and shared straight afterwards.

But what’s the value?

The value is that these sort of microposts, google hangouts, twitterings, or whatever media formats used, are immediately captured, immediately stored and referenceable straight away to everyone else. The ideas persist, are re-useable, discussable, debatable.They can also ‘reference out’ to material in a way that is perhaps difficult for traditional speaking. (Though not impossible – I have seen links brought on screen by a facilitator as the individuals speak)

I’m not sure it will work!

And neither am I, but if you’ve made it this far then you have technically just read a micropost. I did it in 10 minutes. I haven’t stopped typing. It’s an idea, captured raw. Thoughts are more than welcome!

A brief note about the value of blogging

Aside

OK, I’ll admit I’ve only written two blog posts so far. This is not enough for me to feel anything near an expert or that I’m contributing to anyone’s understanding of anything. However I’d just like to note that the value for me is far greater than just sharing my own thoughts.

I’ve reported on two conferences and in doing so it’s helped to consolidate my understanding and knowledge, and too reflect on what I am learning in attending these events.
It’s making me read more from others across localgov – namely having strolled through the #weeklyblogclub twitter posts.
It’s creating a record for me to refer back to easily and demonstrate continual professional development
In a way it’s driving me to actually try harder and find more meaning in what I do.

I might just have to try and carry on. It is a little time intensive though, but I have chosen particularly wide topics to post on! A few smaller practice posts might help.

InstantAtlas User Conference 2012

Posted on February 23, 2012 by JonoPatterson

I recently went along to the GeoWise InstantAtlas User Conference at Rochdale Town Hall, in the Grand Hall ¹. I thought I’d blog on this with a bit of ‘who said what’ but hopefully add in a little bit more thought about it in the wider context of local information systems(LIS) ² and research tools. I will of course have to mention InstantAtlas a lot, but a lot of the points being made are transferable I think.

Rochdale Town Hall

If you haven’t come across InstantAtlas(IA) before ³ it’s currently one of two things:

If you are like me and you have a very small budget for research software then it’s a desktop GIS tool which creates various interactive atlases (like this one).
If you have a much larger budget, then it leans more toward a data storing, profile generating, atlas creating server software (like this one).

I’ll try to link out to example atlas types as we go.

The order of the day then: get users in a room, show them how great other users think your software is, feed them, show them how great other users think your software is. Add some non-users to generate perspective ⁴. I exaggerate but it sets the scene…

Tablets, Business Intelligence and Usable Information Systems

First up, Tom Hobson from Locus Insight came to talk generally about the potential for improving on the use and usability of InstantAtlas. Tom started by suggesting the tablet market will become a more important audience, and came armed with some interesting statistics from Gartner:

“33% of Business Intelligence functionality will be consumed by hand held devices by 2013″

and,

“20% of the US own a tablet 9% purchasing them in the Christmas just gone”.

I’ve no doubt there’s some truth to these but I think it’s important to remember that there are a mix of audiences at play here and that “Business Intelligence” is subtly different from “Research” or “Data.” Someone did later ask the question, “Is there any evidence that communities are using hand held devices for this purpose?” Tom admittedly honestly that there wasn’t ⁵ but that there was evidence it was being used in business.

He went on to demonstrate that while InstantAtlas is commonly used by local authorities and public health organisations for presenting demographic statistics, it can be used to bring business intelligence data to life too. He supplied useful examples of performance data and stock inventory and suggested that the ability for InstantAtlas to display bubble plots and points-on-polygons (example) might be underused. (Though as a minor critique I believe that done badly, points-on-polygons can end up more confusing than helpful).

Content, Usability, Functionality

Tom spent time identifying the usability needs of InstantAtlas deployments. His Venn Diagram highlighted the factors he thought important to a good information system and he suggested that the ‘usability’ is often the neglected element in local information systems.

Tom’s solution was to make sure that typical visual nudges (see Tufte) are used to improve the experience: signposting, metadata, clean design.

I think this Venn works as a basic summary though I do have urges to surround it with words like ‘context’ and ‘purpose’ because a system can do all the above and still fail because it doesn’t have a reason to be there. Reminds me a little of the trifecta checkup proposed by Kaiser Fung for charts too.

Information systems can fulfill business needs too

Steve Halsall from CACI came up next and I was childishly amused that he opened with “CACI has 3 key strengths ⁶” though his corresponding slide had an image of a circle cut into four pieces ⁷. So easy to do! He talked generally about the role of Desktop IA and how it fills an internal gap CACI identified between their internal software (insite) and their end user audience.

Steve’s case studies identified how IA can be a helpful tool for business reporting in the private sector particularly if considered a deliverable product – year-end stats to senior managers, a reference tool for targeting advertising, consumer catchment and gravity models – which I think added some credence to the comments made by Tom in the previous presentation. The use of InstantAtlas as a ‘deliverable’ is actually quite interesting and an area I want to explore more. It’s the idea that the customer ‘takes ownership’ of a usable product that I like.

The Value Of LIS and The dangers of overeating at the OCSI all you can eat buffet

Tim Healey from Coventry City Council gave a really enthusiastic discussion about their LIS, Facts about Coventry which is powered by InstantAtlas Server. I liked that he built on the initial ideas presented by Tom Hobson around usability and meant that he was showing in practice some of the clear ideas about metadata and signposting. He demonstrated a great Double Map (example) to show how relating two datasets helped support targeting of GP referral services. Sadly I can’t find a link to it but it shows one of the things that I really like about InstantAtlas – it is not just a presentation tool but it can actually be a really valuable analysis tool too.

One of Tim’s most pertinent points was about overdosing on data – the slow loading of IA when faced with large XML files, but also how it is possible to be overwhelmed by too many indicators. Lovingly referred to as ‘over-eating at the OCSI all you can eat buffet ⁸‘.

Other Authorities, Similar Challenges, Improved partnerships

Andrew Phoenix (unconfirmed as I was a bit lazy with the scribble and cant read it!) for InfoTrafford came up next and brought in wider discussion of other data approaches happening in the wider Greater Manchester area – namely the DataGM open data work. He touched lightly on future plans to bring in opendata from DataGM into InfoTrafford which seems like it could be an exciting development. It would have been great to hear more on the thoughts for that as my current view is that when connecting data starts to happen easily and effectively opendata will have reached maturity.

There were some relevant points about the partnership effect that the local information system has had in bring partners together on data and intelligence. This was underplayed a little but I do think that it helps establish LIS as a force for improved delivery and communication on services. Also worth noting that Trafford’s Chief Executive has been bought into the idea of an LIS from the start. Unsurprisingly, this increased buy in helped drive the project forward.

A lot of his other points and examples followed previous customer experience so to save space I’ll increase the pace a little, but please don’t take this as playing down the value of this and the remaining customer presentations ⁹.

ChiMat made a great point after the presentation about using the profile tools in IA to full extent. I followed up on their links and have to admit that their Service Snapshots really feel nice to read through.

A brief aside while we eat lunch

: Rochdale Grand Hall
(colleagues from Nottingham and Tameside I believe)

I’ll be honest here, I’ve never found InstantAtlas servers particularly easy to use. They all do well in functionality and the data retrieval is there, but I often find the websites it’s embedded in difficult to navigate and use. The profile tools are way underused often stagnating into a list of data than an interesting discussion and analysis of it. It is certainly getting better (see ChiMat example above, and Wolverhampton later) but for now I still think that both Facts About Coventry and InfoTrafford demonstrate these elements in certain areas.

Saying that, it still does a better job than many of the other information systems out there…

The highlight of the day – data engagement

Graham Lally (@exmosis part of @OCSI_uk ¹⁰) jumped up next to talk about Data Engagement as a developed process rather than a phrase which has so far been quite loosely thrown around. For me it was one of the highlights of the day. He appeared to have spent some time at UKGovCamp pondering this with others and they had identified some principles for quality data engagement. I think the idea seems really positive and as I won’t do it true justice I’ll simply repeat the five principles and then ask you to go-and-read the corresponding OCSI blog post:

A good lead into the issues came from a story about Graham’s Dad being a librarian ¹¹ and the general roles of libraries – i.e. holding content, having multiple uses and users. Then the role of the librarian to guide, find, suggest, support and evaluate. So how can LIS borrow from the analogy of librarian and library in a clear structured way. What role does it play?

So here, in 5 steps is what they propose quality data engagement looks like. A ‘Charter for Data Engagement’ if you will:

Demand driven. (Action: Choose data) – i.e. selecting data that is fulfilling a demand, making sure that the data is actually suitable, ensuring it answers the questions asked.
Metadata and context is included. (Action: Help people understand the data) – i.e explaining sources, providing glossaries, definitions, explanations about why and how.
Support conversation. (Action: Help people to talk about the data) – i.e. talk about the data – go to conversations rather than starting them in a sterile space, make webpages shareable, blog, use e-mail, social media. But also be open to the responses. I think that it is actually currently quite hard for the public to ask basic questions of data when they have them.
Support skills and capacity. (Action: Help people to use the data) – i.e. provide examples, signpost out to best practice, support on technical aspects, encourage use and participation.
Collaborate. (Action: Help improve the data) – i.e. work with people on evaluating the data, identifying whats wrong and making it better, work to improve it.

To me there’s a clear value in running this kind of social, pro-active approach to engaging about data. (I felt ‘data’ could easily be substituted with research or with business intelligence). In the end, no one needs to be alone with the data so get in there and intervene, debate and stimulate the conversation, the use, and the value.

The whole approach shares a lot in common with elements of a good communications plan – a document that scopes out a whole comms campaign from start to finish. Why not do the same with data – a ‘data engagement plan.’ What are we going to collect, how are we going to discuss it, what will we do after? In a way, any good researcher/analyst will do most of this already but often in isolation and the above to me is about adding in a layer of social activity which surrounds the work and fulfills wider needs.

I also think that there is more to ‘collaborate’ than just improving data but it is a developing idea so I’ll let it slide for now. My homework is going to be to write a data engagement plan and see if it has any value ¹².

And Back to Customers

Back into some user presentations but given earlier comments I did start to find that I had heard some of it before and couldn’t help but feel that a more interactive session would be useful ¹³ – a demo of how to use the latest features perhaps, or some group discussions and ideas sharing. I hope Geowise take note of this and perhaps consider it next year.

The Cumbrian perspective

Rebecca Raw from Cumbria County Council jumped up and talked for a while about their use of Desktop IA. I enjoyed that she was using it in a similar fashion to me, in producing very themed atlases (Child Poverty, JSNA) to focus the attention on work underway. She discussed how IA was a little better than the interactive tools they’d previously experimented with. Their approach was starting to strain with maintaining the data and they have begun to use linked Excel books so that they are only updating data in a central sheet. Again Rebecca identified the organisational benefits it was having – policy makers actually referencing atlas data in their discussions.

One more round at the circus

Finishing off the Customer Presentations (*whew*) Debbie Turner – Wolverhampton in Profile – jumped up with another IA story ¹⁴. Two things jumped out really clearly – Debbie had done user-testing every step of the way (*applause*). I think this really shows on their implementation of IA server too – probably the most usable IA site I’ve seen. She also had a consistent vision that I think as the presentation went on everyone could relate to and the atmosphere in the room felt as if everyone was relating to her journey to deliver – a vision to tell ‘the Wolverhampton story’ in a consistent and clear way.

So what comes next, Mr Peltenburg?

And then we come to Jon Peltenburg, a super technical and development honcho at InstantAtlas. Jon ran through a 2011 review of IA developments, and their development roadmap for 2012. Of course for the technical and web geeks (like me) the highlight was a demo of their alpha-version HTML 5, tablet focused atlas. I say tablet focused because Jon highlighted it has no right clicks and menu based selections. It looked good – I think they should put this alpha online and get feedback now. Jon was also honest about the atlas’ position and purpose likely being an addition to, rather than replacement of existing functionality and tools. Adobe announcing withdrawal of Flash development on mobile devices was also a clear driver.

Jon talked about the next version of IA – v7.0. Essentially they are adding in a new tool called ‘report builder’ which will be better than ‘profile builder’ – it’s more WYSIWYG and more usable than. I didn’t immediately see the difference to be fair but it’s never been part of the desktop version really. (it will be a feature in the next desktop version too though). If it works it will start to fix my aforementioned issue with stagnant profiles I hope.

It will also include open data support in the form of CKAN API integration ¹⁵. I’d actually really likely to see IA go the other way too. It would be nice to see IA server given an API that perhaps allows people to embed just the map or extract just the table (in OpenData format) from an atlas. I often will rejig and export parts of an atlas to create something very simple to embed.

Example of a rejigged atlas

What if i wanted it to embed something similiar but interactive on a webpage?

If OpenData and InstantAtlas are your thing, then the open data work is in it’s infancy and they are looking for ideas on what might work. (Import data direct via sparql query or json perhaps?)

Another announcement was the release of IA community – a hosted, report building version of IA built around the developing ‘report builder’ module. Jon implied that the audience wasn’t the users in the room, so I wonder – who is it? Who will be making these profiles and how. Honestly, I got the sense of a voluntary org putting one together to support their lobbying work or community organisations identifying local needs. It could be a really great idea. Ala the Tableau Public style ¹⁶.

I’ll admit that I actually look forward to these IA feature releases and roadmaps. I have used the software for 2 years and every significant release has offered increased value of some kind, not just fixes. They also always seem to be looking ahead and linking to current trends ¹⁷.

Design for the audience not the ringmaster

Finally we had Pierre, with the difficult final slot. He used a few user surveys which had been carried out by IA server users (though the response levels were upsettingly low – 56ish users for one) and based his presentation on a theory around which IA tools fit best with which types of users. I felt I couldn’t buy into it wholeheartedly – my view is that if your audience is toward the non-technical, non-statistical end of the spectrums then actually perhaps other methods are needed. (Back to the Data Engagement Planning Board)

And thats a wrap but lets do an encore for the imaginary fans

A lot of presentations covered, but here are some of my overall thoughts (applicable beyond InstantAtlas):

Don’t just make a data presentation tool. Instead make a usable experience, embed it in a strong context and signpost things to do with it.
Consider how tools can be deliverable or ongoing services in their own right, rather than a means to an end.
Unsurprisingly, buy in at a senior level makes the biggest difference in delivering something like a local information system. I can’t say how often I hear this but it is always true.
Engaging people about data and research can follow some basic principles and the addition of a social layer to the research process can only be a good thing.
Basing LIS and GIS outputs on a vision (like ‘telling the wolverhampton story’) or a theme (like ‘childcare sufficiency’) is a strong magnet for creating synergy with partner organisations and colleagues.
Don’t underestimate the wider organisational and partnership value that an LIS supports. Actually, make this part of the objective for having one.
Not everything is about InstantAtlas either. It will never be all things to all people. It does have flaws.
People should really use systems more and respond to the user surveys people put together. We need your views folks!

I also really appreciate any company who puts on a free conference to bring users together so I’ll just end by saying thanks to the InstantAtlas team for making the effort (especially David Carey who was very welcoming and helpful).

This is my second ever public blog post. Still learning about length and pace… a bit shorter perhaps next time or part 1/2 style. It’s taken ages to write, edit and format this – to the point I begin to doubt if people will make it to this paragraph – but if you do, thankyou!

Notes:

One of the more inspiring meeting locations I’ve been too ↩
Software to manage, analyze and disseminate information ↩
An increasingly rare thing now that they are international ↩
ideally ones who are also, secretly, users ↩
To me it’s always a good sign when people are willing to say ‘no’ ↩
Fear! Surprise! Ruthlessness! ↩
…and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope! ↩
OCSI produce data packs for InstantAtlas ↩
Every contributor adds value in my book, even if it just is building toward consensus and confirmation ↩
I happened to sit next to them and they were very nice folks ↩
Unresolved question. was he really? I thought he was presenting on behalf of a colleague and began to think he might just have borrowed for effect ↩
And if it doesn’t I’m probably doing it wrong ↩
No, not a roundtable – do they ever even work? ↩
I’m John Patterson and I am an atlas-a-holic ↩
I only vaguely know about this so i’ll refrain on commenting ↩
note to self: must use Tableau for something ↩
Yes, a complement but don’t expect a pile of chufty badges or anything ;p ↩

LocalGovCamp Adventures

Posted on February 13, 2012 by JonoPatterson

So, as a first post I thought I’d cover the #localgovcampnw event, an unconference in the BarCamp style held for LocalGov bods at the Prescap Arts Centre in Preston. I attended this as a result of following up on an e-mail from work by my colleague exemplar ¹ @microwavedrama (L Catherine M) pointing me toward the registration site.

This might seem an odd thing to say but I’m really not very good at social. So attending events like this is always quite a big deal for me. It’s not uncommon for me to sign up to things thinking, “this’ll be great for my personal development / a good networking opportunity,” but finding myself trying afterwards to find any excuse not to go. I keep forcing myself to in the belief that some of my introvertive tendencies might reduce.

After a rushed breakfast the Patterson family ² all jumped into the van and headed off to Preston despite it feeling like the Sun had gotten bored and abandoned the Earth for a while ³. I found the Arts Centre fairly quickly and was flagged down by Catherine who was already scoping the building out.

Once inside, there was an interesting lift solution which involved riding a cardboard floor to the upper level and then hoping that sheer reverse momentum would open the door before a timer locked it and it had to be released again. I didn’t realise that this lock mechanism existed the first time round, which might later have saved @_garilla (Garry Haywood) from the slightly embarrassing situation of setting the fire alarm off by pressing the ‘wheelchair refuge’ button…

After that I was in. Into a completely different type of conference which was immediately noticeable. No ordered sets of tables. No real sense of social formation even. Just a bunch of people in a big room apparently armed with nothing but laptops, ipads, smartphones, curiosity and friendliness. There wasn’t even a sense of leaders / organisers / alphas or experts. It was almost like everyone just decided to go and have a nice sit down in the same building at the same time on the same day. Very refreshing.

Catherine, being an experienced camper, quickly introduced me to @tech_geek_girl (Liz H) and a bit later @TawdryMe (Duncan H) who become my co-conspirators and good company for the day. And a brief chat with @ColetteWeston too which was interesting. For me, meeting a few nice people early on, definitely made it a more comfortable day!! I.e. no introvert wobblers hiding in a corner on facebook / twitter / blogs. (Thanks to you all)

The conference started with a whimper of IceBreakers involving who we were and why we were there in one word. *mumble*JohnPattersonIdeas*mumble*. I hate Ice Breakers but they are a very necessary evil and it did work in warming a few people up before the pitches.

I won’t mention the full itinerary pitched / on offer but as a flavor-of-the-day I ended up at:

OpenData and Equalities [@microwavedrama]
Digital Inclusion and Learning [@kevupnorth and @kateididntquitegetyourfulltwitteraccountsorry]
Wikipedia for Local Gov especially museums and libraries [@pigsonthewing]

OK, I’m being a little selfish now as I would usually go into each of these in depth, but this time I thought I’d jump ahead and sum them up by choosing ten random thoughts that I came out of these LocalGovCampNW sessions with. Actually the real reason is because I er, hadn’t planned to blog ⁴ about it so took nothing but mental notes. If you want coverage of what was said, I’d recommend the excellent blog posts #1 and #2 by @markbraggins who covered things in quite a bit more detail.

I will add that these are all my interpretations of qualitative views, albeit from people who know what they are talking about (or at least were effective enough in convincing me that they did).

Getting data out there is equally as important as turning it into a discussion / communication / engagement opportunity. Seems like there’s a triumvirate of things to do: a) publish data alongside reports b) publish your interpretation of the data c) engage with people about it. – Engagement being a big theme of the day to be fair.
People will use data / findings in their own ways – making a great website, publishing pretty graphics definitely helps engage but at the end of the day if people want open data they probably don’t want your interpretation. People will take what they need or want from your info and an important part of putting it out there is letting it go.
Microlocal sites are out there and will call you out if you leave them to it. It’s better to be open and engaging about everything so you can debate issues than to sit quietly in a fortress made out of PR press releases and glossy reports.
The culture of an organisation strongly determines opportunities for effectively doing points 1-3 above. It also determines how easy it is to just get on and be innovative. There’s a relationship between how easy it is for: Staff to provide data; Staff to use and share data; Staff to work together; Staff to feel secure, and the level of innovation being observed. I, being a data geek, don’t think about this side of things enough.
Comms strategy/culture (not comms teams per se) can be one of the biggest barriers – there seemed a bit of discussion around how comms culture is often very defensive/reputation orientated, particularly when politics become involved. Transparency and Openness are sometimes better though as they can reduce innate paranoia that councils are hiding things. I suppose that even if findings are uncomfortable they create debate on solutions.
There’s a lot of potential in offloading information to Wikipedia – a) it ranks high in search results so people are more likely to find it than have to ask it ask for it. b) the community can share and reuse it c) in some cases – local history particularly – communities can be stimulated to take over the production and curation of content. From a tourism perspective – QR codes can provide some useful info when used strategically (planted in museums and on public structures). Though @TheBplTower ignored by tweet to place a giant QRpedia code on their shiny new LED heart. Complete side point: Apparently Monmouth is wikipediavizing the entire town!
There was a general debate about digital inclusion / exclusion (heard anything about ‘digital by default’? – I hadn’t) and how to build up community learning – vaguely relevant but I think what’s interesting from research angles is the engagement and understanding of communities needed to do it effectively.
I got one brief opportunity to mention ‘social network analysis’ in Local Authorities (an idea I blatantly stole from my manager but did credit him with) – it went down quite well as a general idea but it was near lunchtime and no depth was achieved. Maybe i’ll be brave and pitch it as an idea for a session next time.
OpenData formats require strong internal working relations and agreement on processes. E.g. in Catherine’s session someone pointed out that it wasn’t/shouldn’t entirely up to her to do it properly – web people should be involved in making it open formats too.
I found it interesting how the digital inclusion agenda keeps asking the question – “should people opt in to technology?” – the principles of freedom would suggest no but practically it feels like a technological form of poverty not to be digitally literate – it’s a bit like “should all school children have to go to school?”. Being completely new to the debate I’ll admit naivete on this one.

All good stuff. If anything, the digital inclusion session was a little too big and became stories from the main voices – though this was nice in a way. The session on Wikipedia was fantastic though we did seem to just gawk while @pigsonthewing enlightened us. I also left with homework to actually edit Wikipedia… ⁵

This was the end of the event for me. I rapidly exited to meet with the rest of the Patterson’s and go home. A big thanks to the organizers who I hope will do it again next year, or perhaps in the summer this time.

A Bonus – My Post-Event Reflection.

I think there’s an issue for me around how to mobilize my ten points locally though. Sort of feel that my workplace is the wrong Council to try anything of the above in. {Disclaimer: This isn’t a criticism of my employer – we are simply at a different point of the journey}. At the same time, I also sort of feel it’s the right Council to try it in because the team I work in should be the team that agitates against the status quo in order to build capacity for dealing with future challenges.

From a personal view what’s interesting is how it got me to consider how I might need to develop myself into being able to take ideas forward. Maybe this is my question – How do I change my own behaviours to move things in a positive, innovative direction and be comfortable with it within myself, my organisation. Yes I will stop as I’m rambling now but it would make a good unconference session? “openness and transparency: self targeted behaviour change within organizations…”

PS. This is my first ever public blog post – I think I have a lot to learn but I hope in the meantime it was useful or at least mildly distracting.

Notes:

a completely made up title ↩
Why the whole Patterson family? Often and for various reasons, it works out easier to co-ordinate a day trip for my family with a work related event to save on the complexities of arranging transport for a wheelchair user. More on this another time. ↩
hence why I am, very trendily, wearing a coat in all the photos ↩
to be fair I didn’t even have a blog ↩
I did it! I’m thinking Wikipedia should form another blog post though ↩