Hi Steve, great broadcast

Jim Hawkins's newsletter has the link to listen again.

John tha Bookman

If you're all patient, I'll snip out the middle section and save it as an MP3, but it won't be till the middle of the week, I've got the weekend with the kids and to save the government before then. (Thanks John.) # Posted by Steve at 24/6/06; 9:33:57 AM
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Listen again

I caught the programme.  Well done.  You're  a natural.  You've got a great radio voice and you sounded well briefed and talked sense.

You were a natural.  You sounded like you've been doing it for years. I wouldn't bullshit.  I fully expected you to start talking Mountain Ash Geek Speak, but you resisted.

There isn't a listen again link on the BBC's site, nor a podcast, so it's gone into the mists.
# Posted by Steve at 23/6/06; 4:24:01 PM
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Some feedback from my appearance on the radio

# Posted by Steve at 23/6/06; 10:40:54 AM
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studio

# Posted by Steve at 3/1/06; 8:17:47 PM
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Church Stretton

# Posted by Steve at 2/1/06; 11:38:12 AM
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Traditional Wrekin

Blogs for schools. Only it's cooler than that. It's blogging networks, like the blogfootball community, for schools. Only it's cooler than that. It's blogging communities for: schools, teachers, heads, pupils parents. Oh! It's a big mash up of blogs, RSS and people involved in education.

Initially, and to get it right, we're targeting one place we know and love—Walsall. Then we'll roll it out further.

We?

Yip. There is a real we. There's me, and... Legion! Would you believe he's a teach in Walsall? A blogger and a teach. He's been at me for ages about doing such because he says it's so damned easy, and schools' websites are so crap because they're so stone age and hard to write HTML just to update a change of teacher. Finally, I relented and can see the logic and grace in the idea.

See, we're not money grubbing capitalists, OK a little bit, but we're also philanthropic at heart. Wot wiv my socialism and Lee's good nature were after making a community that owns itself. Free from LEA and other shortcomings. Think about AVFC owning blogfootball, think of the "Oi! You're not saying that on our website, mate," as they hit the delete button.

Anymore blogging teachers out there? We need all we can find ;-)
# Posted by Steve at 26/8/05; 7:02:57 PM
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The latest wheeze

For all those olde worlde vanila flip page Manila bloggers. Go to your Editors only: ==> Prefs ==> News items ==> Switch on News items?

Click yes.


# Posted by Steve at 30/6/05; 4:46:21 PM
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Vanila to News items

Further to my last post and the points raised. Yes, we've been at the cutting edge of RSS all this time. I'd guess this would be expected since the chairman of the company that makes Manila, Userland, is the father of RSS. He developed it along with Netscape. But they faded away and left him to it. At that time in 1999, I was helping them. So, it would be fair to say I'm an uncle to RSS. (There were/are lots of uncles.)

The pinging of multiple services is new—I added it a few months ago, ASFAIK I'm the only Manila service that does multiple pinging. In the olden days it was enough to ping just weblogs.com as these services would take their info from there. But now, they want their own pinging. It's part of a land grab, the one with the biggest most up to date list of blogs may win something or so their investors think. So we ping as many as I can find. There's probably a lot more than I ping, but these will be small and still take their info from weblogs.com.

As I mentioned, the discussion group RSS is so cool and neat that it deserves it's own news item posting. So more on that later (when I have some more time.)
# Posted by Steve at 29/6/05; 8:48:22 AM
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RSS clarifications (cont.)

Pity. I'm 6-8 months late, at least, to this 'Office of the Deputy Prime Minister required e-provision.' They have to get at least a penciled plan by the 18th July to John Prescott. This means that they were looking around in January this year.

How do I know? I spent yesterday on the phone to 25 councils out of a very long list. All said this. 'You're too late, mate.'

Looking at what they are doing for community groups, and elected members, it's definite, that a blog (particularly one so sweet and powerful as these) are way over their heads. All they need is to allow these ordinary mortals to update a page. One stinking page! If they can do that, they pass. From what I inferred and read between the lines with some candid web managers, that is all they wanted to do—pass, keep their heads down, do their job and get away for the weekends. Sure some were going a bit further, with 3 or 5 pages that were editable. Some needed controls so that there would be a moderator reading anything first (thus, probably at least a 24 hour delay in updating a community page, and don't ask about bank holiday weekends.)

Not good.

My idea for engagement with citizens just wasn't on their minds, and they felt that a 1, 3 or 5 page 'site' would do that. They couldn't see further. These weren't strategists.

I suspect I was talking to the monkey not the organ grinder. Yes, I was talking to the person who would purchase or recommend purchasing decisions, but only to the specifications supplied in the Prescott brief.

It's Prescott himself I need to get at.

I guess I'll have to go through my local MP, one David Wright, I've done this before, but only in a support part. This is serious. Pity he's non-technical eshewing computers, even email.

I can see him 2pm, this Friday in Madeley.
# Posted by Steve at 28/6/05; 10:59:31 AM
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Councils aren't daring

I've been struggling with who to target next, and during some background research over the weekend I've found an area that I want to target. Namely, councils and weblogs.

A) because it seems to fit in with my philosophy
    Being a democratic socialist, I want people to have a voice, a loud one, to be able to discuss with their peers the big bad world, and their local street's issues.
B) they actually, really need to have it
    John Prescott's office of the Deputy Prime Minister, for whom I'm already an approved supplier, has laid down targets for councils and their delivery of e-services. Three of those milestones are my forte: multiple, bulk websites and content management systems. Councils need to allow community groups to create websites, also they need to have councillors update their own websites, and they need an easy to use content management system to maintain their main site.

Funny thing is, I found out about their requirement after I decided that I was to target them. See, I thought it a brilliant idea for councils to use 1,000s of blogs as feedback loops, where councils could talk with their citizens much more effectively.

And the really good bit, is that I have a competitor. Why is this good, because they'll help raise the issues with prospects, and if there's already someone doing it, it should be easier to sell.

First off the West Midlands councils.
# Posted by Steve at 27/6/05; 7:42:30 AM
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My new target sector

I understand that a few of you bloggers have RSS feeds zipping over your heads. Whoosh, whoosh, as you duck and think this doesn't concern you.

You'd have thought the same in 1996 onwards about the internet, and now look at you blogging like good 'uns.

If you let this go now, you'll be late again. Why not 'get it' here and now? I do, and I can explain, if I get feedback.

First point, if you have a blog, modern news item or olde worlde flip page, you have a feed. Think of that tonight down the pub, brag to your mates that you're ahead of Microsoft here—you have your own "RSS feed." It's there at /xml/rss.xml and had been for 5 frigging years.

What this means is, if I 'subscribe' to this feed, I don't have to visit your site to see if it updates, nor do I have to see your site in the 'blog radar.' I merely visit my aggregator page and see your updated news. Multiply this by all the blogFootball sites, and I'm saving much-o time. Add in hundreds of other sites and I'm saving much-o, much-o, much-o time. In fact, I don't have to visit any other sites at all. I just look in my aggregator page and all the news is there. If you haven't updated your site nothing is seen from you, if you do, it's there.

Think of this like your own newspaper. With the journalists or writers or topics you want to read. And only those you want to see.

Now, if some feed services are adding in 'what to do with kids on a weekend in Shropshire' or your credit card spending... Or if you were looking for a house, the latest ones to hit the market. Now your newspaper is bringing you EXACTLY what you want and need.

Every hour!

Please help me to get this into your thick brains! :-)) PLEASE ask if this isn't clear!
# Posted by Steve at 25/6/05; 5:26:22 PM
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Help me explain RSS

BBC: Lessons from Silicon Valley: "The 20th Century mass production world was about dozens of markets of millions of people. The 21st Century is all about millions of markets of dozens of people."

Not to forget the small tail, the business of one or two markets of dozens of people. If you are gong to run a business blog, for a small company, you only need a small community.

# Posted by Steve at 23/6/05; 7:26:20 AM
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The long tail

I've been asked how my marketing has been going, who I've been calling and what do I say. I thought it would be appropriate to put my emailed replies together into a post.

How's you marketing going? Good, it would be better if I could get the buggers to stop prevaricating and start the work. Got a lot of quotes out there, and bigger appointments further out.

Hate cold calling though. Well, that's not true, once I've started and 4 coffees later it's really good fun—I do laugh. It's just that I'll do the dishes, clean the toilet and other essential things before I take the deep breath and start on the phone.

Who are you calling? I've got a Shropshire Star Directory of Telford Biz. Details www, email etc.. I'm only calling those without a www. Most say, "computers? We don't use them?" Or, "too busy to need a website." Or, "just getting one done..." But a few have said, "erm, we have been thinking about it..."

What do you say? I've read all the books, written a long script and objection handling... But I simply say, "Hello, my name is Steve Hooker from shropblogs, we build websites, based in Telford."

"Do you have a website?"

"Do you want one?"

One of the sales managers at Telewest, who'd walked the walk for years, selling anything and everything door-to-door, once advised me, "find out what they want, and give it to them." I printed this out in big letters and stuck it on the wall for a bit. Got to try and word that into my direct mail letters.

Once I get to see the main man, I tell them about word of mouth marketing, mini communities, constantly growing websites and Google, and that usually gets their interest.

This is why I want to direct mail them. Never, ever, ever done one of those. The gist will be "five page websites bad. Pictures of happy customers good."

Lot's of people pay a small fortune for a five page website, and they pay it up front with a credit card! Silly billies.

Nearly finished my Shropshire Star directory, looking for fresh lists.

Once, I've got some more regular stuff, I'll go after the big beasts here in Salop. Try and get them to bite on a 1,000 blog community for their employees/suppliers/customers.
# Posted by Steve at 10/6/05; 11:03:03 AM
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Cold calling

Technology is key to communications: "Paul Masterman, Head of Communications at Shropshire County Council: For many in local government, communications stands or falls on whether you can get a local journalist to a cabinet meeting or scrutiny panel. Let me let you into a secret: you won't. In Shropshire we realise the best communication is unmediated -- in other words, we communicate directly to local people and do not rely on the press to do our talking for us. "

I'm going to rattle this geezer's cage. Too right I am. It's great to preach directly at your customers, but remember that table for two? Where's the feedback? Discussion groups are OK, but when people have a blog, they think harder before firing off a rant. Ownership.

And what about an aggregator for every person in Salop? Hell, there's only 220,000 of us. With a 1% take up that's only 2,200. But think of that, 2,000 Salopians blogging about tourist attractions, subbing to feeds from all over. Oooo! It'd be anarchy in information! Wonderful— filling up Google with a ton of real people writing real stories for the sheer pleasure of it all.

It'd make Shropshire a real person place. Which it is.
# Posted by Steve at 9/6/05; 8:49:57 PM
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Ah-ha! A prospect!

Anybody have access to any mailing lists? Next week I'm going to start scanning in a printed directory of Telford businesses. It's going to take a bit of time ;-(

And I thought I'd ask if anybody has a list of businesses that I could mail shot. Preferably, businesses in the West Mids area and small biz at that, though, I suppose this beggar can't be too choosy.
# Posted by Steve at 9/6/05; 12:48:35 PM
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Mailing lists?

# Posted by Steve at 18/5/05; 4:22:27 PM
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Further up the hill

# Posted by Steve at 16/5/05; 12:11:11 PM
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Shrewsbury Regatta

# Posted by Steve at 16/5/05; 11:58:59 AM
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Running up The Wrekin

Shropshire Podcast May 2005: "The May Shropshire Podcast, music from Terrapin Trainstation, a Shropshire grumpy old man, 2 men in pub, and an interview with Matthew Green MP"

# Posted by Steve at 3/5/05; 7:47:09 PM
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Shropshire Podcast May 2005

Bit of a contentious discussion on a local mates blog. About the Fathers for Justices campaign seemingly to allow fathers access against mothers wishes. I wanted to rise above some of the wailings and posted the item below. Perhaps others would need to post there too.

I think F4J have done a good job bringing the problem into the public eye. Sometimes such direct action is necessary.

However, I do not know F4Js aims.

I hope it is merely that there is a problem, and attention is needed.

It comes down to the lack of money available to investigate. I am sure there are some bad fathers associated with F4J and/or with access. As, there are bad mothers having their way with the courts.

With such a judgement of Solomon much more severe penalities and sentencing needs to be applied to witnesses and parents. Family, friends, neighbours should be forced to give testomony. The truth must be found. Justice must be done far better than it is now. Undoubtably.

The cruelty of courts and the softness of children. How awful. I am recently split. Good relationship now, 3 or 4 nights with me, 3 or 4 with her and her in the next street. We are all happy and with no need of externals.

If justice could be known to be crystal clear accurate--the truth be out, with harsh penalties for perjury, thorough investigations, more would avoid it. Common sense would prevail, deals done amicably. IMHO.

Wonko, I worked with you for a year. I knew part of your story. Fuck me, I did not get the horror, till I read it in print. I can vouch for your credibility without retort more fear from your recorded evidence. Such real Dads should surely be banned for 100 miles. But forever? I do not know. Could they be penitant, reformed? Probably not in Wonkos violent fathers case. He has no respect for himself, let alone his kids. Society should completely protect kids from scumbags, genetically linked or not.

What party is F4J saying fathers should campaign for? This is surely about money for the family courts. Or, is it about societies blind eye? Let us not be distracted by individual cases, they should be properly settled in our courts. What is the big political answer? # Posted by Steve at 18/4/05; 11:06:02 PM
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Fathers 4 Justice - the other side of the campaign

The Shropshire Star, 225,000 people are supposed to be reading this... Difficult to tell if there has been a big increase in people typing in the address (assuming they use the right URL in the first place).

Just a few things to correct from the news item.

• We're at shropblogs not shropblog—it's plural, as there's lots of them.
• The first 30 are not free. The first 30 days are free—a try before you buy.
• And the price isn't £49.99 but £49.88—11p cheaper ;-)

Moreover, I notice the two other stories that are on the same spread. A piss take about online shopping and Tescos promo. And an internet strangler: he looked up how to do it on the net. And then my article with the errors. Oh well, it hasn't been a ground swell that I hoped. Nothing actually. Hardly a 'blogging revolution.'
# Posted by Steve at 13/4/05; 5:23:07 PM
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We're in the paper

I've still 11,000 frigging leaflets in the boot of my car, with the school holidays, fire fighting servers, and a modicum of paid work I've not had the time to drop them. I've not painted the car—a very close friend said she wouldn't ride in it :-(

So, I'm hoping that a PR item in the Shropshire Star will do the trick. A PR pal wot wrote it first, and I've padded it out, I'm just about to send it back to him for editing and submitting and I thought I'd ask my little world out there, what they thought? Yeah, I know it's waaay too long, but I figure the PR dude will cut it or the journo who picks it up.

Get blogging!

JOIN THE  WORLDWIDE ‘BLOGGING’ REVOLUTION, SHROPSHIRE PEOPLE URGED

Individuals, families, community groups and clubs across Shropshire have been urged to take advantage of broadband and the internet to join the 10 million-plus people worldwide who already have their own blogs.

“Blogging is a great way for everyone to keep in touch with friends and family throughout the county, country and world,” stresses Dawley-based community group website specialist, Steve Hooker, a blogger himself for five years, who has recently launched ShropBlogs dot org which "will grow into an organisation of everybody and everything in Shropshire" Giving people and clubs their own low cost/low hassle web-logs (blogs).  "One day, everything you want to know will be on the internet, including ordinary things from ordinary people. My family certainly appreciates my personal site, seeing my kids grow up these last few years from afar. I’ve also got a political site, a business site, a Big Brother site... I write about lots of things. Over the years, I’ve built a reputation in my little world, I’m easily found in Google, for lots of different subjects, I see them in my referer hits.

“As anyone can see at the All Friends Round The Wrekin site, blogging is perfect for clubs and organisations wanting to keep members actively and dynamically informed; everybody can quickly gather opinions and add thoughtful feedback; giving real people the chance to make their views widely known and understood. People actively discuss those mutual interests with the very like-minded people they've always wanted to (socially or professionally).

If there's ten million blogs there's probably ten million reasons to blog. People write books, run businesses, have affairs, mostly people like to keep a record of something about themselves, perhaps for posterity.

“Unlike a traditional website, a blog is highly interactive and you don't need any clever skills. If you can surf the web, you're in," says Steve. As an individual, you can publish family details, photographs, thoughts and experiences for your friends and relations. In turn, they can add their own messages, news and views on your site at the touch of a button.  "And you have a complete record and editorial control, with god-like powers. It can get quite powerful if you dive in, mostly people just go for the push button publishing, that's certainly the way to go at first," says Steve.

“Your blog will give you an excellent diary of your family growing-up,” Steve explains.  “It enables you to sound-off about topical issues with like-minded old and new friends - or even wind them-up !  It’s far better than a simple photo album because you can actually discuss things and it's all in your very own website, your home in cyberspace, rather than having to send endless e-mails or leave bits on other sites.

You can even cast aggregator searches out into the blogosphere, that's the name for those 10,000,000 bloggers, their pages and their conversations: look for your name, a specialist hobby, a sports team, a product review—anything. Certainly a good way to check out that digital camera you were thinking of buying on eBay—the latest deals can come to your site! The nets are cast once an hour, so it's ever changing, pulsing with people talking, telling, thinking. You can also tune into the usual suspect newspapers and get their headlines, though the blogosphere is usually faster with current affairs—good stuff is passed around very quickly.

“You can control who’s allowed access to the site,” he adds, if you want to limit it to just a few friends and family, you can do that. You can even limit to you and your significant other, and be secure in your sauciness, if that's what you wanted, people do.

“You can use it from any computer, anywhere, you can even publish by email so you could probably blog from your mobile phone.

And it’s so, so simple. Be warned, though, blogging is very addictive !” Which is why there's such an increasingly high number of people getting the craze, once you start and see how easy it is, it's great fun to let off steam, change the world, or have a good old moan.

At http://www.shropblogs.org Steve Hooker has everything you need and helps with how to do it.  There's an on-line design and set-up service for under £50 with freephone support and whatever bells and whistles you want. Alternatively, he promises to set your blog up for you with an hour of instruction and tuning for just £65.  Now that’s what I call website service !! Mind, he can talk on his chosen subject, and then some, an affable Welshman, who been there and blogged it.   Steve can be contacted on 0800 849 6413 or at http://steve.shropblogs.org

# Posted by Steve at 7/4/05; 12:27:50 AM
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Plan B

He said this month's was coming and true to his word...

"The April Shropshire Podcast, music from Terrapin Trainstation and Julie Wareing, a Shropshire grumpy old man, the genuine Shropshire accent with Housman, beer, and a sound scene ghost tour of Bridgnorth"

Too tired to listen in tonight. But I'll have it playing tomorrow. # Posted by Steve at 5/4/05; 10:51:06 PM
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Shropshire Podcast April 2005

I've seen one several times before: http://salopblog.typepad.com/salopblog/ It seems to be a travel blog around Shropshire and has linked to my Wrekin Friends site once before. Decent sort of blog, I guess.

The other is new to me and new to the internet only just over a month old. Political in scope and a little (make that a lot) right wing. http://www.online-shrewsbury.co.uk/

I haven't heard of The Royal Society of St. George before found via the above blog. But being Welsh, and thus a foreigner, I'm sure it'll be racist.
# Posted by Steve at 4/4/05; 9:30:18 AM
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Two more Salopian blogs found