How I Build Cool Stuff for government

How I build cool stuff for government(and I’m not a back-ender)

A year ago

0

10

20

30

40

2005 2006 2007 2008

no meetups

LEARNING COOL STUFF

Then I went to:

• Web Directions• Jelly• Webjam• WSG

Then I went to:

• Web Directions• Jelly• Webjam

And met lots of cool people

0

25

50

75

100

2005 2006 2007 2008

meetups no meetups

LEARNING COOL STUFF

and learnt new dance moves

(FAIL)

one day I decided to build an RSS feed for our news

(CMS still didn’t have one)

One of the cool things I learnt...

but I didn’t know how to build a feed(properly)

Dapper

RSS feed Twitterfeed Twitter

Feedburner Email subscriptions

Stats

(So I used apps)

Dapper

RSS feed Twitterfeed Twitter

Feedburner Email subscriptions

iGoogle Gadget (So my Boss knew this stuff was cool)

}Stats

(So I used apps)

Then I got other people to build cool stuff for me

like this widget that shows water savings in real-time

Saving water is good

Widgets look cool

(its like watching a lava lamp)

(The Man In Blue)

and the Cultural Awards 2008(Agency Rainford)

If you want to know why it’s cool,

come and see my presentation tomorrow at WDS08

(11.45am)

I want more people in local government to build cool stuff

So me and Reem started the Local Government Web Network

and organised a conference

MeReem

So we could talk to other gov web peeps about building cool stuff

John Allsopp opened the conference

He showed this slide

How inconvenient!

I thought...

How inconvenient!that she had to stop her bike and get out her phone

I thought...

Official bike routes

Weather

Parks

Water fountains

Bike shops

Bike racks

Bike lockers

- Voice updates

- (i)Phone mounted to handlebars

Location based info:

Better!

“Old drain covers grrrrrr.

The slots run same way as wheels

- really dangerous”

Alerted to their location

Report them to council

Official bike routes

Weather

Parks

Water fountains

Bike shops

Bike racks

Bike lockers

- Voice updates

- (i)Phone mounted to handlebars

Location based info:

Better!

Useful

That stuff has already been built, or will be soon.

So what would be really cool?

IRON MAN

cool tracking system

So you don’t have to look down at the

phone

cool tracking system

Can someone build and Iron Man style bike helmet with in built location targeting system

that you can talk to?

But then hey, why would you be riding a bike?

(but that’s not the point)

There’s lots of cool stuff you AND government could do with public data

I want to help

You can help:

• Keep building cool apps (cos I can’t), so I and other (gov) people can use them :)

• Tell me if you’ve built something cool (especially if its using public data)

• Tell me if you want to work with us

• Or, if you want to teach us

www.lgwebnetwork.org

Some wise words

Some wise wordsTake all your 40,00 PDFs and put it on a web page

Take all your 40,00 PDFs and put it on a web page

Find someone who rides a bike

so they’ll support your idea

Some wise words

Take all your 40,00 PDFs and put it on a web page

Find someone who rides a bike

so they’ll support your idea

Just Build It.

Some wise words

Build stuff that your boss will use and that makes people go

ooh like a lava lamp

This is my dream

Want to help?