Open Source is freedom of Choice, not necessarily a cheaper option.
I was speaking to a Windows Support engineer on the phone last week who uses linux for some aspects of the enterprise needs. He asked me if I use Open Source Software because it is cheaper than the alternatives. I told him no, it’s for the freedom of choice.
I have the freedom to install, configure the software and to adapt it for my needs. I can also choose to make any modifications available to anyone else by contributing it back. Well I don’t as I’m not a coder, but I can feed back any problems that I have as a bug report, and can ask someone else to code it and get them to contribute their code back.
Admittedly Open Source can be cheaper if you think of the code itself not costing anything. However nothing is free, time and therefore money will have been spent creating and modifying that code. To have adequate technical support and installation businesses should be prepared to value the product and the support provided. With Open Source you have the freedom of choice. You can choose to look at the online documentation and the wealth of technical books out there to implement what you need, you can also choose to support the Open Source Product. Or you can choose to hire an experienced professional (or even pay for training in house) to implement and support the product for you. Saying a product is cheaper can be interpreted that the product is somehow lesser than the competition. I do not feel that this is always the case, superior products can develop from close contact between developers and their clients. This is the value add that Open Source can bring to the table.
At the end of the day, whether a product is Open Source or proprietary, any business needs to consider how critical the product is to their business processes and invest in the product accordingly. I’ve come across excellent installations of Windows Server/Exchange with full shared calendering and other communication enhancements, but I’ve also some across some very basic and flaky installations of exchange that just handle the email. It all depends on how it was installed and how good the documentation is. Yes, and experience is also needed in order to support it.
It’s about the experts you hire to install and maintain your business software and information. At the same time businesses also need to consider investing in training. There is always a risk that you may loose the person to another role, but if you don’t train your employees then you can restrict yourself to any new starts that tick the technical boxes rather than the people boxes. You can get loyal employees that come back or never leave but any business needs to be prepared to invest in them as people. Not just the training but in building a group dynamic.
Any investment into any new technology needs to be paid for in some way. People have to eat, if you want professional support and some one to take your problems away from you so that you can concentrate on your business then you have to at least pay a bit for that time. Larger support companies like for example a large hosting provider cannot afford to hire someone who knows everything about the client and cares enough to help them. It’s not in their business plan, if a business want’s technical expertise and hand holding then it has to be paid for. Most people will not need to contact them either, until somethings gone wrong, or a task needs to be carried out. Then be prepared to wait and be charged while you wait to be connected.
If you have an Open Source product that you use and you have the spare cash, consider a donation to that friendly developer who’s taking your bug report and improving your product. They will appreciate that effort.
Friendly Technical experts have to eat too you know.
Social Innovation Camp Scotland
I’m reviewing my notes from helping out at Social Innovation Camp. Mainly routing Brett where he needed to go and registering web-domains for the projects that needed them.
It was interesting looking at the projects that came out of the ideas submitted to the camp. Already the projects are gaining momentum after the final presentation. There was one winner, although a few of the other projects are already looking at ways of keeping going.
Other people have blogged about the projects already.
I took some notes of what I thought about each project and I’ll put them down just now.
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Fixthebuses
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Angelfish
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Wee Day out
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Flocklocal
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Citipedia
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MyPolice (Winner of Social Innovation Camp Scotland 2009)
Website link : hitch ‘n bitch
Also called hitch ‘n bitch. It’s a mechanism for getting realtime information for where the buses are. You text a number with with the format of
fixthebuses@gmail.com <route no> <current location>
It will return how long it will take for the next bus to be there and will also give you the time for the next bus on your route to be there.
You can also do this with the web interface. What the web interface also does is allow you to complain about how long the bus is taking or what you think about the bus service. So it can be a feedback service as well.
However as the fixthebus team pointed out, this is not a technical problem, the data is out there. The problem is that the data is locked up within the transport providers own systems. They are unwilling to open up that realtime data as they see that data as valuable commercially. The team got the live data by scraping the data. It was not based on timetable data. Admittedly you could use the timetable data and compare it to the actual realtime data.
This service could be valuable to the bus companies and the local council to pinpoint problem routes. Not just interms of how late the bus is, it could take passenger comments about how unsafe they feel at certain times of night. It could look at how traffic at certain times of day affects the bus routes and become a planner to advise passengers of alternative routes.
Brett and I have watched this team put all this together in such a short while. The texting service was live for the presentation. It only covered the Edinburgh area at that point, although I feel that it could expand nationwide.
What’s more you can help! Yes you can, how can you help? Campaign for the Freedom of live bus information. Not just the timetables say where they should be, but where the buses are at any given point in time.
Is a community microlending project. There are other successful microlenders out there so they did have some good precidents. They seemed to concentrate more on the design, business plan and marketing then they did on the technical part. So while I liked the concept of encouraging local people to lend small amounts to local businesses to enable them to improve the local community, I’m not sure that it technically followed the remit of social innovation camp.
One part of the presentation I found interesting was to get people that were savvy with computing and social networks to be place in each participating community would be connectors and would guide people who were not familiar with the technology on how to use it. I was reminded of Brett’s Internet Tours that he told me about back in the mid nineties.
Twitter link: weedayout
Now the idea of listing accessible toilets did touch me as my mother is disabled. When I was visiting South Africa it was interesting noting what attractions we could and could not wheel her wheelchair to.
If you have to care for a severely disabled person then you will have to plan any days out around what toilet facilities there are.
Wee day out is designed to map accessible toilets throughout Scotland. However this is no mere listing on googlemaps. What this will also do is enable feedback to those toilet owners and to other disabled users. So if your toilet is locked and the key to open that toilet is up a flight of stairs in the security guard’s office, it’s not very accessible is it! This tool will enable disabled users and their carers to feedback pictures and comments about sites with accessible toilets. This will also mean that other sites that aren’t listed on existing accessible maps but do have accessible facilities can be listed.
Accessible attractions can also be listed as nearby to the toilets, after all you would not go on a day out just to go to the loo!
Twitterlink : flocklocal
Flocklocal is the idea of utilising flashmobbing to do good. It’s purpose is to utilise impulse volunteering. The domain is flocklocal.net.
The only data that is stored on the site is your email address and your avatar. No other data will be collected. The team wish to encourage impulse participation by publicity with career fairs, facebook, twitter etc.
So when you logon to flocklocal you can register yourself as a volunteer or register a local project or event that needs people. The flocklocal team demonstrated that concept by setting up a flock for a local garden project.
Twitterlink: citipedia
Utilising google maps and a unique interface to allow people within communities to target unused spaces within cities and towns. You can enter in where the area is and then select various components to plan a park. Each park component like a see-saw or a pond has a cost associated with it.
Utilising this tool you can start to create a plan for the public space along with costings and use it as part of a campaign to get the derelict space used for every one rather than creating yet another soul-less estate of lego houses.
Twitterlink : mypolice
- MyPolice is designed to be a feedback service about the police. It came out of a very personal incident to the team leader as a friend’s flat had been broken into and she did not feel satisfied with the way that the police liased with her about it. The police do not always respond well to complaints, although by the same token the public can also use this mechanism to provide compliments about a police station or officer.One person had felt powerless to complain to the Police after a protester was jailed for 7 days without charge for doing nothing more than peaceful protest.
The public will be able to leave details of their experience with the police and the stories will be mapped to the given location of the stories. People can leave a name or be annoymous. Others can comment on the stories.
There will also be a local page where people can read existing stories about the local policeforce. There will be moderation on the stories and these will be sent on to the police. They have planned for ethical guidelines for the moderators.
MyPolice wish to get the word out to victim support, CIB etc. They feel that the site must be independant of the Police, but they wish to work closely with Police Organisations.
The Police are of course concerned that some people may plant false stories or negative feedback.
As the Judges deliberated, I was chatting to one of the team members for mypolice. She was already thinking of alternative options incase they did not win. She felt that they would need a cooling off period and then would try to raise funding. One thing she and I both wondered was how long the losing projects keep going. I remembered that useful visitors seemed to be moving along. Certainly compared to the last winning project the good gym.
Here’s the video that thepeoplespeak produced about this camp.
While I’m glad that MyPolice won, I was really rooting for fixthebuses. This is because before I learned to drive I took alot of public transport from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and used it for getting about in Aberdeen. So anything that can aid the use of public transport and is a simple text service I love the idea of.
I did enjoy the weekend and would be interesting in helping out at another camp in the future.
SICAMP will be happening in Central Eastern Europe and also in Austrailia.
SICAMP Twitterlink: sicamp
Social Innovation Camp Website: http://www.sicamp.org/
@Social Innovation Camp
I’m presently sitting in the Saltire Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University. This weekend it’s hosting Social Innovation Camp Scotland. This is the first Social Innovation camp hosted outside of Social Innovation Camp’s Headquarters.
But what is Social Innovation Camp? It is a project designed to link up various professionals such as designers, entrepreneurs and computing experts with people who have ideas to fit a specific social need. The idea is to help the outside community, and should utilise social networks and mobile technology. In the words of their Social Innovation Camp? It is a project designed to link up various professionals such as designers, entrepreneurs and computing experts with people who have ideas to fit a specific social need. The idea is to help the outside community, and should utilise social networks and mobile technology. In the words of their twitter bio:
“Bit of an experiment in using social tech for social change”
The camp picks six ideas that have been submitted by the public. You can see this particular camp’s six ideas here. The teams are made up by what people are interested in. People can move between the teams over the weekend. They then have 48 hours to get their idea up and running with some marketing and some sort of online application.
Here is the winning presentation from the last camp. The Good Gym.
The Friday night was a getting to know you affair with the Saturday being the start of the proper work. They will have until 14:00 hours on Sunday to discuss the strategy for their
I’m involved as Gladserv has offered a years hosting as a prize to the winner. We are also providing additional services for this camp.
So far we have:
- Made sure that developers can tunnel out of the restricted point to get to their developer areas
- Registered two domains fixthebuses.com and citipedia.co.uk
- Set up 3 virtual machines for 3 of the teams
It’s only just past mid-day now.
