Wellington Agile Barcamp, Sat 12th December

Asked by the awesome Scrum Coach, Sandy Mamoli, to do my little bit and spread the word - the details:

• 12th of December from 9.30am to 2.30pm
• Fronde, Queen's Wharf
• "After"-party at the Chicago bar

Site: http://barcamp.org/BarCampAgileWellington2

Registration on the site or per email: rsvpwn@agileprofessionals.net

Twitter: agileWelly

Have fun if you're going.

The Request: Let's Make Technologies That Make People More Human And Not Less

Brilliant (and funny)

Thank you TED on YouTube, once again

“© kiwiright”, Documentary About Copyright Laws

“© kiwiright” is a 12 minute documentary about how copyright laws have been contorted to benefit the financial needs of corporate rights holders and no longer benefits the public nor the artists who create the work itself. Employing a fair-use argument, “© kiwiright” intercuts interviews with New Zealand lawmakers and technologists with Disney clips defining and commenting on copyright law.
The filmmaker calls “© kiwiright” a "proof-of-concept" film remixing footage from other films released under Creative Commons licenses to build an argument against “guilt upon accusation” laws and to promote freedom of speech and expression.

For more information, visit:

creativefreedom.org.nz

eff.org/action

See the original Creative Commons works that "© kiwiright" builds upon at:

cyberlaw.stanford.edu/documentary-film-program/film/a-fair-y-use-tale

ripremix.com/

Guilty Upon Accusation In The UK - Say No

Here in New Zealand we were one of the first countries that the forces that be tried to implement the "3 strikes and you're out" law with regards to alleged copyright infringement via the Internet - in essence if you're accused 3 times by a copyright holder of illegally copying their work you will have your Internet disconnected by your ISP. I have no qualms with copyright holders protecting their goods BUT the issue is that the disconnection would occur immediately on the third accusation and before any evidence is produced and way before you have a chance to defend yourself - therefore you are guilty because someone has accused you.

In NZ the law was defeated by a concerted effort (called "#blackout"), a change of government and the support of many high profile supported including Stephen Fry.

Today Stephen Fry tweeted the following:

I'll keep at this till a million sign! We mustn't let Mandy do this WRONG thing. Please sign & RT:http://is.gd/50gQK #webwar #threestrike

This "3 strikes and you're out" law is now being introduced into Britain.

This is WRONG!

If you are a UK citizen or an expat living abroad I urge you to sign the online petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

ACTA

Whilst this law is being introduced into many countries (some successfully, some like NZ not) it would benefit all those concerned to learn more of the source of this "guilty by accusation", the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (which is now plainly not about counterfeiting) being negotiated by governments in secret.

Online Collaboration Tools – We Want Your Recommendations

Helping Ben on a project and the team would love to know your thoughts:

... part of a group looking at building a collaborative platform for data sharing for a local Government organization, it seemed logical to approach the project in a similarly collaborative way. Wanting to “eat their own dog food”, a joint group of individuals shared in the project; Mike Riversdale, Aaron Brunet and Ben all joined forces to work on a project initiated by a forward thinking local government staffer required to manage an extensive natural resource. The great thing about this particular project is that, without giving specifics out, it seeks to improve the management of a scare natural resource.

So please pop over to Ben's CloudAve post and let the world know YOUR favourite online collaboration tool: http://www.cloudave.com/link/online-collaboration-tools-we-want-your-recommendations

NZ Government Opening Up Their Data

As you are probably aware the New Zealand government have, through their Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), created a one-stop-shop listing all the data accessible from government agencies. Nice.

This initiative was almost entirely driven from the awesome work of a small independent group led by Glen Barnes and Nathan Torkington (http://open.org.nz) with the Open Data Catalogue as a “one-stop shop for locating government data”.

So where is this official site: http://www.data.govt.nz/

• Browse datasets
• Add a dataset
• Suggest a dataset

They are also using Twitter to announce new data sets: @Data_Govt_NZ

Nat posted up his views on the initial release and ComputerWorld have popped up an article today. Included is this quote from the totally switched on Jason Ryan ("State Services Commission communications man") which has quickly become my favourite about 'open government data':

“It’s not about the technology. It’s not about data quality. Or privacy. Or commercial sensitivity, or any of that stuff. That should all be dealt to as part of the everyday functioning of any administration,” Ryan writes.

“It is about accepting that we, the government, collect and manage this information on behalf of citizens and that it is our fundamental responsibility to make it available to them, in a way that supports the creation of public and economic value.”

Other NZ Government information can be found at:

• Statisphere
  
• DigitalNZ
  
• National Broadband Map
  
• Open Data Catalogue
  
• Koordinates

How To Tun A Great Barcamp/Unfonference Session

Spotted this over at the UX Barcamp group - Scott Berkun's, How to run a great unconference session

Perfect compliment to my wider How To Facilitate A Barcamp/Unconference

So Tweets Are The New Thing To Steal

It used to be blog posts but, hey, thieves have gotta get with the times as well you know!