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New City Lit training on data journalism and digital publishing

City Lit in London has posted details of two one-day training courses I will be giving this summer. An introduction to data journalism on Saturday 16 July will be an updated version of the course I gave at City Lit in January. It will include how to deal with data, research techniques, FOI requests, processing data and how to graph and map it.

On Saturday 13 August I will be delivering a new course, an introduction to digital publishing, that will cover blogging, podcasts, online video, e-books, print-on-demand publishing and promoting what you produce. Each course costs £59 or £20 for concessions.

I also run customised courses on handling data, for in-house training by media and other organisations. There’s more information on the training I offer here, or please get in touch if you would like to discuss this.

Ending 50 years of NHS IT hurt

It was fun to write a piece for Computer Weekly’s 50th anniversary on NHS IT from 1966 to the present, but a depressing pattern emerged. One part of the NHS brings in some state-of-the-art computing; most of the rest of the NHS carries on regardless; progress is not, on the whole, made. The National Programme for IT showed that imposing complicated IT systems from the centre tends to fail, but so has letting the local NHS do its own thing. Continue reading “Ending 50 years of NHS IT hurt”

Coxit map: council reorganisation that breaks up Oxfordshire


Oxfordshire is an odd place. The rural district councils are strongly Conservative; Oxford itself is strongly anyone but the Conservatives. The trend in local government is towards unitary councils which do everything, but how would that work in Oxfordshire?

The simplest model would be a unitary Oxfordshire Council (as in Cornwall and Wiltshire), but Oxford and rural Oxfordshire are politically chalk and cheese. The next option would be to turn the city into a unitary and merge the rural districts into one or more unitaries.

However, a plan from Oxfordshire’s five lower-tier councils endorsed by the county’s MPs is a bit more complicated. Oxford City Council would become a unitary and the two districts in the south of Oxfordshire would merge – South Oxfordshire and Vale of the White Horse already share offices and services. Continue reading “Coxit map: council reorganisation that breaks up Oxfordshire”

The libraries that offer sexual health services and cancer support

Coventry’s Central Library runs health-related events and a mental health drop-in service, reaching people that the NHS can’t

How Coventy City Council works with a local NHS trust to provide advice on sexual health and cancer in its libraries. Continue reading “The libraries that offer sexual health services and cancer support”

Why tech firms fear Brexit: immigration. Lack of it.

Many people will vote for Brexit because they fear immigration. UK bosses of tech companies I have spoken to for The Register will vote against it because they fear lack of immigration. And the one I found who will vote for a British exit from the EU thinks that Cameron’s deal is bad partly because it tries to restrict immigration.

Continue reading “Why tech firms fear Brexit: immigration. Lack of it.”