What’s a physical hack jam? I’ve no idea really – but the description fits what we’ve been doing at the DCA for a couple of days. There’s been the computer coding usually associated with ‘hackdays’ and ‘geekups’. This time the programmers have been working with product designers using a laser cutter, a 3D printer, copius soldering irons as well as an array of power tools, hacksaws and glueguns. They’ve been moulding plastic, stripping wire, chopping wood and sticking things together to create physical products that connect journalists online and audiences to news and information in interesting new ways. And they’ve done so in little under 36hours taking time to socialise and sleep in between.

The results were encouraging. And the process is exactly what we should’ve been doing during the original Meld workshops. Back then I was lead to believe that making things was too difficult. Talking about making things was fine. Developing concepts was fine. Presenting ideas and refining them was fine too. But not making things. That wasn’t fine. It was hard. Coders (apparently) couldn’t code quickly enough. Building things was complex. We’d need too many specialists and they’d be incapable of understanding each other. So we focussed on thinking about what we’d like to make if building things was easy; if ‘coders’ could code quickly enough, and computer specialists did understand each other. Participants gave presentations. They refined their ideas. And they left.

How I wish I’d met the guys from the Product Design course in Dundee back in 2007. Jon Rogers lives to ‘build stuff’. He’s also inspired the people who work with him to do the same. The ideas are prototypes. Some are described as experience prototypes. Either way, the finish is professional and these demonstrators work.

The speed at which all this happens is nothing short of staggering. And yet the atmosphere is jovial, there’s plenty of interaction – even a bit of ‘geek swapping’ between projects so that skillsets are shared out to make sure work can be completed quickly. And the power of being able to engage someone with a physical working product, rather than just showing a Powerpoint or Prezzie, cannot be overestimated.

OK, so the scale of the ideas is a little limited to what’s achievable in 36hours in a lab. I’ll settle for ‘smaller’ ideas. I don’t mind drawing data from other peoples sources (think gov.co.uk) in order to demonstrate a concept. And I can live with the promise of future refinements.

There’s a background buzz of conversation in the bowels of the Dundee Centre for contemporary Arts. It’s accompanied by a feint whiff of hot solder and melting plastic. This is a tech jam Mozilla style – an organised event lasting 36 hours, bringing together journalists, coders, film-makers, geeks, programmers and designers interested in turning live data into physical objects. The theme is ‘News’. The idea is that self organising teams scrape data from the web, spot a story hidden in the data and then physically represent the story by creating an object that responds to the shifting live patterns of live data.

And data is everywhere. From education to energy, health and poverty, governments and NGO’s are opening up their datasets so that ‘anyone can look at patterns and create informed solutions to global challenges’. According to the Open Data Movement, more than 4000 API’s have been launched since 2005. In the UK alone Data.gov.co.uk contains more than 7200 datasets from seven governmental publishers, including 989 from the Dept. of Health and 784 from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The push towards transparency and a desire to open two-way channels of communication  between citizens and professional raises practical challenges for those who have traditionally taken on the role as intermediary between these parties.  It also raises questions around the identity and motivations of those moving in to that space.

The growth of the civic hacking community shows that those involved in the preparation, dissemination and interpretation of (open) data, on one level, identify with the roles and responsibilities traditionally associated with journalists and, in many cases, will assume that role.

The Hacks and hackers movement reflects a community built on a recognition of those shifting boundaries: Scattered through the worlds of journalism and technology live a growing number of professionals interested in developing technology applications that serve the mission of journalism. But the value and impact of that on the wider community – those who open-data is supposed to empower – and the broader agenda of developing and encouraging innovation is less clear.

Events like mozparty in Dundee are one attempt at bridging the gap between open data for its own sake and open data that performs a useful social function, informing and engaging the public in debate or activity that might lead to social change. These are small beginnings, but there are a growing number of sponsored events like mozparty. Once the participants who attend these workshops understand each other better, a process that will only come through dialogue and collaboration that comes through working together, there might be an opportunity to pool collective talent and build things that really make a difference to people lives.

I recently joined my UCLan colleague George Ogolo to organise a trip to Kenya for 8 journalism students. The idea was to hook up with NGO’s in Nairobi, visit Reuters, BBC and Al Jazeera’s news bureaus – and report on the considerable progress Kenyan women are making to bring about change in one of Africa’s most beautiful countries.

The stories that our students produced are all on the School of Journalism’s web site ‘Hotpot’.

What’s not on the website are the stories of how the trip changed the hearts and minds of a handful of young people affected by the lives of those they met to report on.

Kelly O’Connor came to Preston for a postgraduate certificate in Journalism having freelanced at the BBC over in Liverpool for the last few years. The PG certificate was just formal recognition of what Kelly had already been doing. She thought she’d end up as a reporter working for the BBC. I believe in part it was her experience of the people in Kenya that persuaded her to apply for the job of communications officer at Oxfam. Kelly will change the world from there!

Lauren Parker wants to make documentaries. She produced a number of TV packages for the Hotpot site whilst in Nairobi. She also uncovered a powerful new story that wood take far more time than we had available to us whilst we were in Nairobi. Working with UCLan staff and one of the NGO’s she’d met whilst on the trip, Lauren is following up her story in Kenya as part other documentary MA. She also has a full time job at BBC Breakfast to come home to – but I suspect Lauren will want to be a voice for the voiceless wherever she works.

Three of our undergraduates were moved enough by one story they have set u a charity to support girls in their education. The copy below is directly from their website: Padsforafrica

Emily Childs – second year Journalism student: “On our trip to Kenya I felt so humbled to meet such strong, determined women  facing conditions we would never have to dream of. These girls want to learn, and they’re being held back by something that’s so easy to control. I was shocked to realise the girls went without something as basic as pads – it’s something I’ve always taken for granted. I think that’s why it’s important for us to do this campaign, because a lot of women don’t realise the conditions these school girls face.”

Chloe Vinden – second year Journalism and Politics student: “The ‘Packet of Pads’ campaign is very important to me. Every woman, every girl, every female has a time of the month. Being able to have sanitary towels is something no girl should ever have to think twice about. If we can make a difference to some of these girls, then we’ve helped give them a chance to complete their education. If a girl has to miss a week a month because of her period, well that’s just unfair. No boy ever has to worry, and so no girl should have to either.”

Noella Kibwe – International Journalism student: “After seeing the things these girls have to go through and speaking to them, I felt like if I am in a position to help them then why not do it. We started the ‘Packets to Pads’ campaign because we feel like girls should be able to get the same education as boys. The campaign is important to me because I want to see these girls get far in their lives. They are girls just like us.”

Take one British Theatre company. Add one American Media research LAB and a pinch of seasoning in the form of a small grant from UK funding Councils and stir.

This is the recipe for what NESTA and the AHRC call ‘Audience deepening’ – measured by good old fashioned bums on seats or more interestingly, by levels of audience engagement.

That is where Punchdrunk Theatre came in. Punch drunk is a British theatre company, widely regarded as the pioneers of ‘immersive’ theatre. NESTA will be pleased to read that their current production, Sleep No More is merrily engaging audiences in New York night after night.

The MIT Media Lab is a US based corporately funded research centre focusing on the convergence of design, multi-media and technology.

In 2011, NESTA brokered the relationship between Punchdrunk and MIT funding UK arts organisations to develop links with technology partners. Simultaneously NESTA invited UK academic researchers to partner with these new collaborations to explore, harvest and then share knowledge that grew out of these relationships.

Punchdrunk has a reputation as an immersive theatre company, pushing the boundaries of theatre and the expectations of the audience creating new experiences with each piece. Founding director Felix Barrett says “I would still call Punchdrunk a theatre company, because I suppose everything we do is inherently theatrical.”

Their relationship with Media Lab is creating new sparks of innovation. Media Lab are currently trying to adapt their immersive production Sleep No More for an online audience connecting two physical worlds using some off the shelf technology and a high-tech mask worn for the performance.

Insight Journalism, developed on the Digital Economy ‘Bespoke’ project is the method being used by all parties to gather data and feedback from audience members, performers, technologists and everyone involved in delivering Sleep No More in New York. The Insight team included:

Dan Dixon is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Technologies at the University of the West of England where he is programme leader for the BA course in Web Design. He has worked in the web industry and had roles as a senior consultant with social software company Headshift, as well as working for BBC’s online communities and as production director for new media agency Syzygy.

Paul Egglestone is Digital Coordinator at UCLan’s School of Journalism, Media and Communication. A former independent TV producer working for BBC, ITV and Sky on regional and network programming, he now focuses on digital storytelling. In 2010 he was identified as a leading innovator in journalism and media.

Jon Rogers is a lecturer at the University of Dundee – employed on the newly established IPD Product Design course, jointly run by the School of Design and Division of Mechanical Engineering. Jon has a PhD from Imperial College London, on neural networks and visual perception.

During a week of testing a series of video, audio and text stories were edited by the Insight Journalism team who produced a daily newspaper exclusively for Punchdrunk.  The final results – to be presented as a further series of news stories highlighting the specific insights drawn from the original newspaper stories – will be handed over to Punchdrunk and used to develop and deepen the virtual experience of the online audience participating in Punchdrunk’s unique immersive theatre production.

Hollywood has never been short of ideas about what the future of news might look like. We’ve all seen The Daily Prophet in the Harry Potter movies but now a collaboration between UK researchers and a printed electronics business is beginning to turn science fiction into fact.

Interactive Newsprint is a new research project led by the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and funded by the Digital Economy (DE) Programme.

Working with technology company Novalia and colleagues from the universities of Dundee and Surrey, the Preston-based project aims to revolutionise the way we consume media.  They are developing an entirely new platform for community news and information by connecting paper to the internet to create what is believed to be the world’s first internet-enabled newspaper.

The aim of the new technology is to bridge the digital-gap, giving people access to the internet through a new platform and also to encourage new forms of community news, communication and social engagement.

The platform is capable of capacitive touch interactions, which means that by touching various parts of the page, readers can activate content ranging from audio reports, web polls or advertising – all contained within the paper itself.

But the developments in printed electronics do not stop there. Digital devices and microphones, buttons, sliders, colour changing fibres, LED text displays and mobile communication can all be used in an interactive newspaper. Existing forms of local journalism and content are being used as part of the project to develop a range of interactive paper documents.

The team will test them out in both a lab and field setting to explore new forms of digital storytelling and more effective ways of connecting communities to the content they’re most interested in.  They have already set up two workshops in Preston to introduce a range of interactive paper prototypes to individuals, groups and local businesspeople.  These included a sample hyperlocal newspaper – dubbed Preston News, a music poster featuring a local music producer and sample classified ads page.

The Interactive Newsprint project’s design teams, journalists and user interface experts wanted to collaborate with Preston-based groups, organisations, businesses and individuals to identify how the technology could to meet their own needs or interests in the future.

Paul Egglestone, project lead and Head of Digital at UCLan, said: “We are actively prototyping and testing radically new forms of interaction between people and the internet that have not been seen before.  Through these workshops we are looking at how communities would develop this technology rather than how boffins in a laboratory would develop it. That’s such a strong element of what we’re doing.

“Being able to place the paper in the middle of the internet opens up a whole new ball park in the ways we can both tell stories, but also how we can collect data. Who’s holding the paper, who’s touching it, how are they interacting is part and parcel of the kind of stuff this project will explore.”

UCLan is continuing to work with Your Prescap, a local organisation that uses a wide range of art forms to support regeneration, social cohesion and community development, to foster community journalism.  Dundee and Surrey will now appraise the outputs from workshops and begin to establish common threads and themes that will be investigated further over the next few months.

As part of the project, the team are also taking their work to the world’s leading technology festival: South-By-Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. SXSW showcases cutting edge innovation and ideas in digital film, music and interactive media and describes itself as “a nine-day marketplace of ideas, relationships, and products for the Music, Interactive Media, and Film industries”.

On the 13th March leading UK academic and researcher on Interactive News, Dr Jon Rogers, will host a panel session with some outstanding talent from the music industry. The Mercury Prize nominated King Creosote and the award winning band Found will be joined by the world’s leading innovators in delivering printed electronics solutions, Novalia and award-winning UK based design consultancy, Uniform. Together, they will ask: ‘Can printed electronics save the music industry?’

Dr Rogers, Head of Product Design at Dundee University, said: “We’re going to debate and show prototypes of how printed electronics could save digital music in the context of connecting communities to record labels and artists. Printed electronics is an emerging technology with the potential to change how we interact.”

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A recent report exploring the contribution of Universities to enterprise and propsperity beyond traditional Knowledge Transfer and business incubation features the work of Meld - originally delivered in 2007.

Incase you missed it altogther at the time – ‘Meld’ was a collaboration lead by UCLan’s School of Journalism, Media and Communication. Funded through the now defunct RDA’s Northern Edge scheme Meld brought together SME’s from the creative industrioes sector,  freelance journalists and connected them to 3 major industry partners; Sky TV,Haymarket Publications and Johnston Press,  in a five day workshop delivered in Sandbox, UCLan’s creative industries centre.

The aim of Meld was to encourage journalists to work with interactive designers, programmers and games designers to develop new forms of none linear digital narrative story telling – or adapt existing software applications and technologies to create new methods of disseminating content. Meld was an exciting and useful ‘adventure’ into an interesting space between ‘geek’ and ‘hack’.

Simon Bucks, Associate News Editor at Sky News was delighted with the results

“I’ve seen more good ideas in a day at Meld than I’ve seen all
year”.

Meld Technology Director Andy Dickinson spent much of the week in the ‘blogosphere’ documenting the entire process with a series of regular postings. “The lab session provided rich source material for anyone engaged in the debate about the impact of digital on the future of journalism. No one has tried to do what meld did in quite the way it did it so there was plenty to post about’.

Catalyst is a £1.9m research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Research Council looking at how different communities use technology to make ‘the world’ a better place. It’s lead by Lancaster University and promises (mainly local) communities’ access to money, staff and facilities to build their better world.

At the obligatory launch event back in late November invitees were given a roadmap of the process which includes an opportunity for communities to bid for ‘launch-pad’ or ‘research sprint’ funding.
Three weeks later marked the real start of the project at the first Ideas Lab on December 14th. In contrast to the grey December day around 30 handpicked participants from voluntary organisations, community groups, Lancaster City Council, small businesses and academics met in a light, airy space at the Storey Gallery in Lancaster to kick the process off. Those present earned a place in the lab after submitting an idea for a community based project that broadly answered one or both of two big questions, framed by the research team;

• what stimulates people to participate in civic actions and why,
• and what next generation digital technologies best support how people want to innovate in a civic action setting?

Jez Hall was at the Ideas Lab. Jez is a community activist and director of ‘Shared Future’. He also works freelance for the participatory budgeting unit, a charity promoting citizen led democracy – which seems to fit perfectly with the aspirations of the research team. He came to the Lab with two clear ideas of what he’d like out of Catalyst. Both stretch way beyond building tech to the far trickier real world implementation raising the question of how citizens can improve their lot by co-designing, valuing and delivering activities within the social or public economy, to create a more sustainable, just, responsive society.

The Catalyst team are promising people like Hall the financial, human and technological resources to work with academic research teams on his projects. Project leader, Professor Jon Whittle from Lancaster University is keen to point out that the bulk of this resource will take the form of support from University staff offering their expertise in computing, environmental science, design, management and social science. However, there will also be smaller amount of cash for equipment and expenses.

The next step down the road requires community groups to submit a second, more refined proposal to the Catalyst team by 22nd December. At least they won’t be busy writing this funding application over the festive break.

Communities from across Preston came along to Interactive Newsprint’s first set of co-design workshops in the heart of the city in November. Taking place in the light and airy surrounds of community arts organisation Prescap, two afternoon workshops introduced a range of interactive paper prototypes to individuals, groups and local businesspeople.

We showed a selection of examples of how the paper could be used by Prestonians to receive a wide selection of community news and information. These prototypes included a sample hyperlocal newspaper – dubbed Preston news, a music poster featuring a local music producer and sample classified ads page.

But, these prototypes are just the beginning. Attendees then generated their own ideas of how the paper could be used, based on our prototypes, but taking them in new and innovative directions.

The aim of the workshops was to not only show three early-stage demonstrators, but for our design teams, journalists and user interface experts to collaborate with Preston-based groups, organisations, businesses and individuals to identify how the technology could to meet their own needs or interests in the future.

by John Mills (This post first appeared in www.interactivenewsprint.org)

Community reporters from Callon and Fishwick take the stage at the Victoria & Albert museum to talk about their role in the Bespoke project. Steven Robinson AKA Dub P and Darren ‘Dhee’ Burr joined researchers from Dundee, Falmouth, Surrey and UCLan at the London Design Festival where the project team are exhibiting work developed in a unique collaboration with residents from Preston’s Callon and Fishwick estate.

Using a new approach to participatory design called Insight Journalism designers studied stories created by a team of community reporters from the estate. Dub P and Dhee Burr, regular contributors to the ‘Newspaper!’ and local news website BespokeNews reflected on their involvement in Bespoke telling a busy auditorium about the importance of making sure that projects like Bespoke deliver real benefits to the people participating in them.

Singling out the Viewpoint as a good example of design that represented the aims of Bespoke community reporter Dhee Burr explains, ‘Viewpoint grew out of the journalism. As we went round the estate talking to people about life in general it became obvious that people didn’t feel connected to those who made decisions about their lives. This story came up a lot so the designers built a machine that allowed people from the estate to ask a question and other residents to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by pushing a large button on the front of the machine. Loads of people used it’.

Three Viewpoit machines were installed at different locations across the estate. The first in a a small shop near the estate, the second at the YMCA on the estate and the third at Contour Homes – the housing association that owns properties on the estate.

Paul Egglestone who headed up the Insight Journalism process in Preston was also at the V&A and shared Burr’s enthusiasm for Viewpoint. He said, “Viewpoint works because everyone who’s involved, from the families on the Callon and Fishwick estates, to the councillors, housing officers, and researchers, understand the importance of commitment and communication. For example if someone asks a question about whether dog fouling is a priority issue for the area then the recipient knows it must be answered quickly and honestly. Their answer is not only communicated to everyone but is followed up to ensure promises are kept.”

‘For me, Viewpoint is the project’s defining moment. It represents the difference between empty political rhetoric and grass roots reality. Rather than connecting the community to a formulaic, centralised and faceless bureaucratic process it links people to people enabling everyone to change things for the better’.

For Steve Robinson it wasn’t the designs so much as the project itself that had the biggest effect on him. Steve talked about what it felt like to work with designers as they built a larger than life statue of him to promote his music production featuring local artists from the estate. Whilst he’d been excited about the process as the idea became reality he explained how `Bespoke’ had given him a new set of skills and enabled him to find work as a video maker and renewed his passion for the estate.

Viewpoint was one of the most successful designs to evolve through the process of Insight Journalism on the Bespoke Project hosted in Preston.  I liked it because Viewpoint combines two basic elements of journalism; content and design. The former comprises gathering the sort of information people need to make better informed decisions about issues that directly affect them – whether it’s housing, vandalism, plans for a new community centre or where a litter bin should be placed on their street. Like all grass roots journalism it strives to ensure that decisions are open and transparent. The design should create a vehicle which gives this journalism and the community it represents a voice. But it’s a voice which is not only heard but loud enough to demand a suitable response. A considered reply which shows a genuine understanding of what’s needed.

Some were rightly sceptical about Viewpoint’s aim. Would it simply raise expectations and fail to deliver any tangible benefits?

Viewpoint works because everyone who’s involved, from the families on the Callon and Fishwick estates, to the councillors, housing officers, and researchers, understand the importance of commitment and communication. For example if someone asks a question about whether dog fouling is a priority issue for the area then the recipient knows it must be answered quickly and honestly. Their answer is not only communicated to everyone but is followed up to ensure promises are kept.

For me, Viewpoint is the project’s defining moment. It represents the difference between empty political rhetoric and grass roots reality. Rather than connecting the community to a formulaic, centralised and faceless bureaucratic process it links people to people enabling everyone to change things for the better.