We hope friends, supporters and indeed anyone who fancies it will join us for a festive drink at the Prince Edward pub in London’s Notting Hill.
When? 7.30pm onwards, Tuesday 11th December.
Where? 73, Prince’s Square, W2 4NY. Google Map
Who? Everyone’s welcome.
Why? Come and chat about any of our projects, becoming a volunteer, new ideas you have – or just enjoy a drink.
You can add your name, and see who else is planning on coming, on our Lanyrd page.
Image (CC): Kake Pugh
It’s high time for another mySociety pubmeet. If you’re in London on 31st of October, please do come for a chat and a drink at the Banker pub.
When: 6:30pm onwards
Where: The Banker, Cousin Lane, London EC4R 3TE. Google map here
The Banker has several separate areas – just ask for mySociety at the bar, or look for someone wearing a hoodie with our logo on it.
Why: No agenda, just a chance to meet and ask any questions, float new ideas, find out more about volunteering for mySociety… or simply enjoy a drink and a natter with nice people.
How: Just turn up. If you’re the organised type, you can add yourself to our Lanyrd page, and see who else is coming too. And if you like to Tweet, Instagram, etc, we use the hashtag #mySocial.
Image (CC): Steve James
Here’s a heads-up for those in local government who have a special interest in digital services. Tom, Director of mySociety, will be speaking at two forthcoming events.
LGA annual conference
Wednesday 27th June 2012, Birmingham
What do Digital by Default, the Government Digital Service and the open data agenda mean for local government?
The two key changes to the direction of government IT policy in the last two years have been the rise of open data, and the adoption of digital by default as a core goal. Both agendas were born centrally, and confusion about their meaning, motives and consequences has been rife in local government. mySociety’s director Tom Steinberg, who had a ringside seat in the development of these policies, will discuss the history and trajectory of these significant policy agendas.
Wednesday 27th June 2012
8:00 – 9:00 Breakfast briefing
Room 1, Meetingspace at 11 Brindleyplace, Birmingham
Full details of the LGA conference here.
Building Perfect Council Websites conference
Thursday 12th July 2012, Birmingham
How to become an internet-native council
Twenty years after the invention of the web, many councils and other public bodies are still only just starting to become ‘internet native’. In his talk Tom will talk about the management, attitude and structural changes that this transition entails, and will offer tips for overcoming the barriers.
Thursday 12th July 2012
09:45 – 10:30 Opening plenary
National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham
Full details of the Building Perfect Council Websites conference here.
We’d love to see you at either of these events – and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about mySociety, too.
If you’d like to keep up to date with the interesting ideas and technologies from mySociety, you can sign up to our local government mailing list here. We’ll send updates a few times a year and will never spam you.
Top image credit: Kevin Dooley.
Fancy a pint?
We’ll be in the Banker pub in London for our regular pubmeet on Tuesday 29th May – come and have a chat!
Everyone’s welcome and there’s no agenda, other than having a good time and meeting nice people.
The Banker, Cousin Lane, London, EC4R 3TE
6.30 pm onwards (note, this is earlier than usual). Here’s the Lanyrd page if you want to sign up and spread the word.
At least one of us will be wearing a mySociety hoodie (black, with logo as at the top of this page).
The hashtag is #mySocial. It’s taken its first tentative steps on Twitter, and has been known to make an appearance on Instagram. Where next?
Image credit: Atilla Kefeli
Over 115,000 Freedom of Information requests.
Almost 225,000 FixMyStreet reports.
Close to 3,000 public transport problems.
Every word spoken in Parliament since 1935.
So, what would you like to know?
There’s no doubt about it, mySociety sites store a lot of data. And once you have that much data, you can start finding the answers to interesting questions. Questions like:
- Which public bodies receive the most FOI requests?
- Which county gets the most pothole reports?
- Which train routes are people complaining most about?
- Which MP has spoken for the longest cumulative time in the history of Parliament?
There are less obvious questions, too – how about:
- Which regions of the country are most likely to include bad language when submitting a form online?
- How many times does the Speaker have to interject, “Order, order!” in an average week?
- Which words are most spoken in Parliament, and which have only become popular in the last five years?
- What topics do people submit the most Freedom of Information requests about?
- Just how often does a UK citizen get so fed up about dog poop that they take action?
We reckon there are almost limitless stories in our data, waiting to be teased out. Some of them will be surprising, fascinating, or just plain funny. Some may even be potential front page news. So, we’ve invited journalists who have a particular interest in data, or indeed in any of the areas we work in, to come and have at it at our first ever mySociety Data Hackday.
Not a journalist?
Journalists aren’t the only ones with bright ideas, so if you’re reading this and there’s a burning question that springs to mind, leave a comment below. Given all these reams of data, what would you be looking for? We’ll add the best ideas to our list, and we’ll be reporting back on everything we find out.
Actually, I am a journalist!
There are still a few places, so if you’d like to attend, please drop us a line. Note: we will expect you to get stuck in! We will run the data, but you may be sifting through the results, looking for significant stories, and sharing your findings. Bring a laptop, and plenty of ideas.
If you can’t attend, but really wish you could, let us know what data you’d like us to run, and we’ll add it to the list.
ETA: Lanyrd page here.
Image credit: Johan Nilsson
Our regular informal meet-up will be on Wednesday 18th April. Like last month, we’ll be at the Somers Town Coffeehouse near Euston for drinks and chat.
As always, everyone is welcome. There’s no agenda – just a chance to have a talk with mySociety staff, volunteers, and the other interesting people that turn up. It’s also a good opportunity to find out about volunteering, or ask questions about our work.
We’ll be there from 7.30pm and there’ll be at least one mySociety hooded top in evidence, so that you can find us easily (logo as at the top of this page).
Here’s a map.
As usual, our dedicated hashtag is #mySocial. Hope to see you there!
This month’s informal gathering will be on Tuesday 20th March at the Somers Town Coffeehouse near Euston (yes, despite its name, it’s a pub).
As always, everyone is welcome. There’s no agenda – just a chance to have a chat with mySociety staff, volunteers, and the other interesting people that turn up. It’s also a good opportunity to find out about volunteering, or ask questions about our work.
We’ll be there from 7.30pm and there’ll be at least one mySociety hooded top in evidence, so that you can find us easily (logo as at the top of this page).
Here’s a map.
As usual, our dedicated hashtag is #mySocial. Hope to see you there!
What is a mySociety pubmeet? Just an informal evening when we guarantee that a few of us will be in a pub, happy to chat about anything at all.
If you have questions about any of our projects, ideas for new ones, or want to find out more about volunteering, then you’ll be very welcome.
Where? This month, we’ll be in the Prince Arthur, near Euston Station. Google map here.
When? Wednesday, 22nd February. Feel free to drop by, any time from 7.30 pm to 10.30 pm. Maybe let us know that you’re coming, by email or tweet, so that if numbers start looking large, we can book a space.
We’re easy to spot – at least one of us will be wearing a mySociety hooded top, complete with luminous green logo, as seen at the top of this page.
Tell your friends The more the merrier! If you like your social media, you can use the #mySocial hashtag.
But I don’t live in London… We are planning on having pubmeets in other UK cities soon. Watch this space!
December 23rd
If you haven’t got a penny,
A ha’penny will do,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny,
Then God bless you.
We wish you all a merry and prosperous Christmas – and for those of you who are already feeling quite prosperous enough, may we point you in the direction of our charitable donations page?
mySociety’s work is made possible by donations of all sizes and from all sorts of people. Those donations help fund all the online projects we create; projects that give easy access to your civic and democratic rights. If that’s important to you, show your appreciation, and we promise we’ll make the best use of every penny.
Thank you for sticking with us through this month-long post. We hope you’ve found it interesting and we wish you the very merriest of Christmases.
We hope you’ll continue to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ – see our Contacts page to find individual projects’ social media links.
December 22nd
What’s behind the door? A letter to Santa.
Dear Santa,
We think we’ve been pretty good this year. We’ve tried to keep our local neighbourhood clean, help with problems, and aid those in need, so we’re hoping there are a few presents coming our way.
If you can fit them down the chimney, here’s what we’re dreaming of:
More publicly available data Of course, we were delighted to hear in Mr Osborne’s autumn statement that all sorts of previously-inaccessible data will be opened up.
We’re wondering whether this new era will also answer any of our FixMyStreet geodata wishes. Santa, if you could allocate an elf to this one, we’d be ever so pleased.
Globalisation …in the nicest possible way, of course. This year has seen us work in places previously untouched by the hand of mySociety, including Kenya and the Philippines. And we continue to give help to those who wish to replicate our projects in their own countries, from FixMyStreet in Norway to WhatDoTheyKnow in Germany.
Santa, please could you fix it for us to continue working with dedicated and motivated people all around the world?
A mySociety Masters degree We’re lucky enough to have a team of talented and knowledgeable developers, and we hope we will be recruiting more in the coming year. It’s not always an easy task to find the kind of people we need – after all, mySociety is not your average workplace – so we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably easiest to make our own.
Back in February, Tom started thinking about a Masters in Public Technology. It’s still something we’re very much hoping for. Santa, is it true you have friends in academic circles?
FixMyTransport buy-in - from everyone! Regular users of FixMyTransport will have noticed that there are different kinds of response from the transport operators: lovely, fulsome, helpful ones, and formulaic ones. Or, worse still, complete refusal to engage.
Santa, if you get the chance, please could you tell the operators a little secret? Just tell them what those savvier ones already know – that FixMyTransport represents a chance to show off some fantastic customer service. And with 25,000 visitors to the site every week, that message is soon spread far and wide.
Our monthly pub meets are proving to be a great place for friendly discussions and meeting new folk. The next one is on Tuesday the 20th, again at the Counting House pub. You are invited!
We’re generally to be found in one of the back rooms upstairs and at least one of us will be wearing a mySociety hoodie. We’ll try and tweet on the @mySociety Twitter account to say exactly where we are – it’s a big pub and it can be crowded early on in the evenings.
If you’d like to tweet about the night, or put photos on Instagram or Flickr, you can use the hashtag #mysocial.
7.30, Tuesday 20th September at the Counting House
50 Cornhill
London
EC3V 3PD
Map here. The nearest Underground stations are Monument and Bank.
