Last night’s event at Fazeley Studios, looking at the many, varied and increasingly important uses of data went very well, thanks to a great turnout and some fantastic talks.

The talks

Dave Harte opened proceedings. Here are the slides from his talk ‘Timely Information to Citizens‘

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fchrisunitt%2Fdave-harte-at-dmapi&show_comments=false&auto_play=false&color=ff7700 Dave Harte at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Michael Brunton-Spall spoke about ‘Mashing up The Guardian‘ (or their data, at least).

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fchrisunitt%2Fmichael-brunton-spall-at-dmapi Michael Brunton-Spall at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Matthew Somerville covered his own and mySociety‘s dealings with data and mashups. He’s kindly uploaded his slides to his website too (featuring some lovely photos of Scotland).

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fchrisunitt%2Fmatthew-somerville-at-dmapi Matthew Somerville at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Paul Bradshaw rounded the event off, speaking about the inspiration behind Help Me Investigate and his own thoughts on ‘database journalism’.

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fchrisunitt%2Fpaul-bradshaw-at-dmapi Paul Bradshaw at #dmapi by chrisunitt

Other media

Christian Payne was on hand to interview Michael Brunton-Spall and Matthew Somerville using Audioboo:

http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf

http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf

A few blog posts have been popping up:

• Stuart Harrison has written a great round-up of the evening and also put all the #dmapi-tagged tweets from the evening into a Google Docs spreadsheet
• Tom Graham from Jadu has posted a write-up too
• Paul Bradshaw on the Online Journalism Blog – The Guardian kicks off the local data landgrab
• Jamie Garner has rounded up his tweets
• Tom Martin liked the cupcakes

And here’s a Twitter search for #dmapi.

What next?

There certainly seems to be an appetite for similar events, hack days and the like. As I said when summing up, keep an eye on Multipack and the Birmingham Social Media Cafe for future events. For a digest of other digital events in the region visit Digital Brum.

Also, the West Midlands Regional Observatory have just announced an excellent looking event called Sharing Information Digitally, taking place at Millennium Point on 7 October. There’s further info on the event see the WMRO blog.

Thanks

I’m indebted to a number of people who helped the event run as smoothly as it did:

• The speakers – Dave Harte, Michael Brunton-Spall, Matthew Somerville and Paul Bradshaw
• The sponsors – The Guardian, Barefoot Wine and (ongoing supporters of the BSMC) Screen WM
• Kate Manion at Fazeley Studios for providing the excellent surroundings and catering
• Will Perrin (of Talk About Local) for the initial introduction to the Guardian team

Thanks to everyone who attended too.

The Birmingham Social Media Cafe returns to Coffee Lounge on Friday 28 August, 10am to midday. I hope to see you there.