News from mySociety

Events

TICTeC gets into geospace

Illegal factories in Taiwan; how OpenStreetMap can be used to combat FGM; and whether fly-throughs really are the best way to understand how newbuilds will impact a community... the last TICTeC Show and Tell of the season dug into several different angles of geospatial technology.

You can watch these six short but fascinating presentations, and catch up on the audience Q&A, via this post.

Vacancies

Outreach and Networks Coordinator

The latest in a spate of vacancies as we ease into a small expansion here at mySociety: we're now seeking an Outreach and Networks Coordinator.

They'll help us ensure that the data and tech we're building around the climate emergency gets to all the right people — that's local authorities, civil society. journalists and researchers.

This one's a job for someone who loves to reach out and make new connections, all in the service of the planet! So please spread the word to anyone who might be suitable; and, if you'd like to know about upcoming vacancies too, sign up to receive our jobs newsletter.

Climate

Working in public

If you'd like to see what we're actually doing in our Climate programme on a day to day basis, you're in luck: we'll be putting out monthly notes so everyone can follow along. Do let us know if there's a useful resource we should know about, or a collaboration waiting to be forged! Read the first of our updates here.

Transparency

Auto-responses: nothing to be afraid of

When you send a Freedom of Informaton request, often you'll get an automatic response within seconds — and sometimes, it contains some worrying stuff.

We've unpacked some of the most common misguidance and misconceptions contained in these canned replies from authorities: see more here.

Explore FOI stats

To understand the effectiveness of Freedom of Information law in the UK, first you need data about the volume of requests and how they are being processed.

Fortunately, as mySociety researcher Alex explains, we can help with that.

What we're reading and listening to

• Sicilians wanting to know if they were under COVID restrictions had to wade through 197 pages of PDF files... until open data came to the rescue.
• Democracy Club pens a letter to John Pullinger, new Electoral Commission chair.
• Are voters influenced by the results of deliberative events like citizens' assemblies? New research from The Policy Lab.
• TheyWorkForYou's API allows for all sorts of projects: here's one of the more unusual ones.
• And for the map geeks: a project collecting photos of spots where latitudes and longitudes meet.

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