The image above is some of the feedback from asking my friends on twitter how Groundwork might use the service.   The group I was working with were a little surprised (“wow”) by the speed and quality of the input from a network tool like this – so to Laura, Michael, Jon, Dave, Alice, Katie, Paul and Charlotte thank you – even amongst your number there was evident support and affection for the major national community and environmental charity.

The session was a general get-the-juices-flowing-see-whats-possible-start-to-get-your-head-around-whats-out-there 90 mins and to that end I think the one clear factor that emerged was that a bit of rss is needed in Groundwork towers.
The group I was working with manage grants for one of the projects and have to record and evaluate what’s being achieved, so the possibilities of digital media in terms of capturing what happens and starting a conversation about applications etc are self evident.

The conversation that really aroused my interest though hapened at the end once most people had floated away.

What if you use something like google maps to publicly share every single application you get?  You put all of them on the web and tie them to a map.  Green for approved red for rejected.  How will this change the dynamic betwen the grant givers and the apl;licants?  Will such transparency improve the system or weaken it?

It got me thinking about social media and market forces.  My A Level economics teacher frequently told me that a perfect market means everyone has perfect information.  Imagine a market for funding bids where everyone who is applying knows about every aplication that has happened, where they took place, whether they were approved and if not why not.   Could that improve efficiency in the distribution of grants?

The folk in East Anglia might understand that their area is already saturated with approved grants – so seek support from another fund or change their plans.  Groups in Northumberland might see there’s a real opportuntiy because their patch is under represented. Those who write the applications can see exactly what others have been saying so it will give them a realistic level of confidence in their ideas.  Those who hand out the grants can be more easily held to account – or better still the minds of the public can be put to helping them constantly refine and improve their decision making.

Sit around it a conversation about the rights and wrongs of particular grant applications and you can begin (with careful nurturing of the online community) to crowdsource a sense of where people want to see their money being spent.

Now don’t expect Groundwork to do this tomorrow – or even at all.  It is a big cultural leap for any organisation and it may not be that useful or warrant the effort.  This was simply one of those conversations that went deep down into the possibilities and cultural impact of social media.  But I share it as an idea. What do you think?

Last month I mentioned the launch of an incredibly bold project to use online collaboration to help engineer a means to dramatically reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere, undoing the damage that industrialisation has done to our climate. It revolves around the idea of mixing lime with seawater on a grand scale. Cquestrate is using open source online collaboration to create a technical solution which is free of intellectual property restrictions.

I want to return to blogging on cquestrate partly because the idea needs as many of us as possible to talk about it in the hope that out there specialists in

• Geology
• Mining
• Bulk Transport
• Lime Manufacturing
• Chemical Engineering
• Ocean Chemistry
• Economics
• Law
• Environmental Assessment
• Energy
• Open Source Development

can pitch in their ideas.

Things have also moved on in the last month:

Founder Tim Kruger has now given up his job to concentrate solely on this one big idea.

Using information that’s come from the web contributors cquestrate has commissioned specific research into the energy balance of the process and the environmental impact of adding lime to seawater.

The idea has been submitted to the 500,000 Euro Picnic Green Challenge, with a shortlist expected on September 9th.

Tim is finding a lot of international interest:

• It’s interesting to see a non-English speaking country providing
  the 3rd highest number of visitors and that’s thanks to an excellent
  article on the German website Jetzt.de
• Within 24 hours of the project launching publicly someone had translated the press release into Spanish.
• Another Spanish article appeared on Neofronteras.com
• Lenta.ru ran an article in Russia
• The French version of Gizmodo featured Cquestrate and there was also a discussion in a French forum
• We’ve also come across mentions in Japanese and Dutch.

The site has a strong Birmingham link having been made by Maverick in a project driven by Antonio Gould and Chris Unitt who says:

For me, there are three particularly great things about Cquestrate:

1. The idea itself. If it can be shown to be feasible then this could be huge. When I read the line in the Cquestrate presentation about carbon dioxide potentially being taken back to pre-industrial levels I nearly fell off my chair.
2. The ‘open source’ approach. Giving away knowledge of this
   magnitude and asking the global community to contribute is a great way
   to tackle the problem. People have responded well and it raises the
   question of which other problems could be tackled in a similar way.
3. The project is heavily reliant on the internet as a social space
   where information and ideas can be shared. It’s a relatively new area
   to be working in (and as far as we know unheard of in science circles)
   and it fascinates me. There are interesting questions around how we
   get people involved, how we communicate and which are the best tools to
   use to allow that exchange of information.

On that last point one thing I’d like, out of curiousity is a page on the site which just shows us comments – even divorced from their specific page they have a curiosity. Take Pierre:

We can reduce very much the cost of calcination of calcareous CaCO3 as this :

The CO2 émitted from calcareous calcination is very hot ,we can take this hot CO2 for heat new calcareous powder before introduce it in the furnace.

There are loads of brilliant folk out there and cquestrate wants to create a space where they can safely change the world.

This morning Terence Eden was walking through Waterloo Station when he was stopped and searched by the proactive anti terrorism unit. Part of a random search pattern. This film may be ten minutes long but it is worth watching.

With this being the summer and most of the folk I know (including my kids) on holiday I’m battling procrastination more than ever. The real question in my mind is should I work or should I no[sic].

Whilst trying to decide whether I should watch the Channel four programme on Castleford or pootle on the webs my mind wandered to David Barrie. Lo and behold his blog throws up the most exquisite piece on procrastination including quoting from my favourite song (The Clash – and not I’m sure if I should stay or go so I’ll probably do the one which requires the least effort) and a link to what I can only describe as the flow chart of faff.

Right. Back to “randomly browsing”, which these days seems to also involve watching my partner sit on the sofa working, next to my diligent daughter who’s reading another book whilst following LitteLaura on twitter as she polishes off another couple of websites.

Double Meh.

Steve Dale is pleased to report that the Office of the Third sector is to create online Communities of Practice to help Local Government and the Third Sector work together.

To support local authorities and their partners, OTS and IDeA will be establishing an on-line Community of Practice and linking with work of the Government Offices in the regions and Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnerships. The on-line Community of Practice will allow members to share good practice and ideas, discuss challenges and solutions, and to identify and explore ways of working together.

News Release and details here.

You can find it here, including a load of video (some of which I would like to embed but can’t see how to) and an explanation from the blogging chief exec about what is changing.

One of Birmingham’s greatest recent cultural exports has finally found a venue in Birmingham. Birmingham based Stan’s Cafe describe their enormous show over on their site:

As you approach this former metalworking factory you will be given a grain of rice. This grain is you. Inside lots of people are waiting for you, billions of them, each represented by a grain of rice. 112 tonnes of rice – 6.7 billion grains – one for everyone on the planet.

As you explore the extraordinary landscape of rice hills and mountains stretching out in front of you, you discover every pile represents a different population and that together these piles tell hundreds of stories, stories of the world’s people and politics, history and current affairs.

This breathtaking show has amazed adults and children alike, from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Madrid to New York City and now it is coming home. Shocking, up-lifting, thought provoking and funny, Of All the People In All The World will change the way you think about the planet we share. Come and find yourself.

So from the 13th September to the 5th October you can visit this astonishing performance for the modest fee of £2.50 at Birmingham’s AE Harris Factory, B3 1SZ.

Before then you can add a statistic to the performance – just think of one grain of rice represents one person and give them your numbers here.

Like Dave, Laura and Tom I’ve just signed up for October 15ths Blog Action Day. 2,000 or more blogs, one day to alleviate poverty – what can we do?