I don’t know what it is about this time of year but everything seems to be so busy. Perhaps it is the relentless approach of Christmas, the time when the world will end and by when everything has to be completed. Perhaps it is because we are well clear of the summer break and all … Continue reading North East Combined
Driving data to the average
Data is such a hot topic now. There are many good examples emerging of where it has been used to improve businesses as well as plenty of examples of when things have gone wrong. I was at a Digital Strategy and Business Intelligence Breakfast Meeting in Newcastle last week and one of the speakers, from … Continue reading Driving data to the average
North East Data Group part 2
This is the second part of the presentation I gave last week to the North East Data group at Campus North on what Durham is up to with Open Data. I am pleased to say that our elephant has given birth. Mother and baby are doing well and we are off and running. We are … Continue reading North East Data Group part 2
North East Data Group part 1
Last night I had the pleasure of presenting to the North East Data group at Campus North on what Durham is up to with Open Data. There were twenty or so people in the room and it was interesting how many of them I already knew. It was a story of two halves, with my … Continue reading North East Data Group part 1
Open journalism
I’ve never really thought about being a journalist. To be honest I’m not really sure what they do. Yes, I get that they write articles for newspapers, magazines and the broadcast media but I am assuming that they do more than that. Surely it is something to do with stories, finding them and writing about … Continue reading Open journalism
Office for Data Analytics
A significant group met at Sunderland Software City last week to move on the proposal for an Office for Data Analytics. I say significant but I can’t tell you how many there were. Perhaps there were twenty five or thirty. There was a photo taken if you need to count them. A smaller group of … Continue reading Office for Data Analytics
Opening open data
The world of open data seems elusive. It appears to be beyond my reach at times. I scrabble and scramble yet progress remains painfully slow. It is like a Kafka novel with obstacles at every turn. It’s not that we don’t have the ideas or the people to implement them. It’s that we are stuck … Continue reading Opening open data
Data Mill North
Today, a bunch of us went down to visit Leeds Data Mill. By the time we got there it had been rebranded to Data Mill North. The name offered a wider catchment area and allowed for a broader political scope yet this is not germane to the story. Data, both open and big has been … Continue reading Data Mill North
A SWOT analysis
Business Durham sponsored one of the work streams at Dynamo 16. It was held in three sessions. I led on the first one with help from Dom at Geek Talent and I helped Dom with the next two. It’s confusing but they were from the same company but two different Doms. Sessions two and three … Continue reading A SWOT analysis
Twenty six days of colour – Ivory #AtoZchallenge
Not all ivory towers are ivory. Not everyone that sits in an ivory coloured building, tower or not, lives in a state of privileged seclusion or separation from the facts and practicalities of the real world. Clearly, ivory towers come in all sorts of colours. County Hall may be seen as an ivory tower but … Continue reading Twenty six days of colour – Ivory #AtoZchallenge
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 