Posts Tagged London

Hail a London cabbie using Twitter

Posted by Josh Feldberg in All, Business, Cars on August 4, 2010

Next time you’re in London and need a cab, you might like to try tweeting @tweetalondoncab for one. Richard Cudlip, Karl James and a small circle of tech-inclined cabbies have spent the last year building up a black cab service on Twitter, and while Cudlip says they don’t handle more jobs than in their street-hailing days, it’s the data the service generates that is the really interesting part.

@tweetalondoncab's sticker

You can spot a tweetable London cab thanks to the @tweetalondoncab window sticker

There’s now 100 cabbies using tweetalondoncab and nearly 7,000 followers, which means they are nearing a critical mass where the service starts getting really useful with enough cabs to match the number of punters. The drivers are self employed and tweetalondoncab is a voluntary, cooperative project, but the founders want to build it into a business and are looking for funding. They’ve already met Channel 4’s 4ip.

So what’s the real advantage? The account acts as an aggregator for requests, and cabbies can also flag up their location. Interestingly, isn’t too far away from the courier update service idea started Twitter in thefirst place.

“We’re getting more and more bookings, and the quality of bookings is better, with longer trips,” said Cudlip, who says a few minor celebrities use the service because they find a direct message more discreet than flagging down cabs on the street. All the drivers are full licenced black cab drivers with ‘The Knowledge’ – and they now have a tweetalondoncab sticker in the window.

Full story on The Guardian

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Live case study (3): Using social media ‘To make London A Better Place’

Posted by Josh Feldberg in All, Local Government on July 7, 2010

Sharmila Subramanian

In the third of a series of guest posts Sharmila Subramanian from Face, the co-creation and planning agency, updates us on the latest ideas being generated from the ‘Co-Create London’ to improve the lives of people in London.

A lot can happen in five months.  Five months ago Cocreate London was set up as a way of gathering ideas from Londoners on how to make this fair city a better place.  Over the course of that time, we’ve received hundreds of brilliant ideas.  We’ve also seen England spectacularly fail in the World Cup yet again.  We’ve also pinned all of our naïve British hopes on Andy Murray winning Wimbledon.  We’ve also seen a mini-heatwave that has now evoked that typically British reaction: “it’s far too hot – when will it rain?”.

Most importantly, we also have a new government.  Moreover, this is a government who are dealing with the fallout from a severe recession, which will have a big impact on the lives of many Londoners for years to come.  It’s often easy to think of London as a wealthy city.  For all the expensive shops and moneyed people about, there are also many people who get by on not very much at all.  With the unemployed figure rising, and big cuts on the horizon, that number could get bigger very quickly.

A criticism often leveled at people in London is that they are selfish, and rarely think about others.  However, the number of ideas that focus on helping those who need a helping hand on Cocreate London would challenge that assumption.  It is these ideas I want to showcase, as they highlight the more altruistic, and caring nature of the people who live in this great city.

1) Free or subsidised travel for the unemployed so they can find work

A simple idea, but a resonant one, going by the number of people who voted for this.  Whilst Boris might have something to say about the cost, it can’t be denied that funded travel would be a boon to those seeking work.

2) Ensure new buildings have a provision for the homeless

It might not be as sexy as immersive flip book tube tunnels, but it’s hard to ignore the plight of the homeless in a city with so much empty housing. Wouldn’t it be great to ensure more new buildings could provide some provision for the homeless within the city?

3) Create short term rent shop spaces for budding entrepreneurs

Business rents in London are high, and this can often be an impediment to people trying to get a business off the ground. Levels of entrepreneurship always rise in a recession, so wouldn’t it be great to help out new businesses by giving them shop spaces they can rent by the week, in order to test their goods on shoppers without making a long term commitment?

This is just a small snapshot of some of the brilliant ideas on Cocreate London that put paid to the myth of the selfish Londoner. This is also only one of the many resonant themes that a process such as crowd sourcing can identify. We look forward to showcasing more of these themes in future posts.

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Live case study (2): Using social media ‘To make London A Better Place’

Posted by Josh Feldberg in All, Government, Local Government on May 31, 2010


Matt Simpson

Online Community Manager Matt Simpson

In the second of a series of guest posts Matthew Simpson (Community Manager at Face, the co-creation and planning agency) tells us how the ‘Co-Create London’ initiative is bringing about some novel ideas to improve the lives of people in London.

In London at the moment it’s hot, very hot. In fact it is so hot that I overheard someone on the tube this morning say that ‘it’s too hot, I can’t bear it’.

Weather is something that we Londoners love to have a good moan about. For the majority of the year we are subjected to indifferent greyness accompanied by a fine drizzle that seems to get you soaked without even trying. And then when the sun finally comes out everyone complains that it is too hot and wishes that it were a bit cooler. You can’t win really.

Unfortunately for us weather is not something we can change. I’m sure if we had the chance we would all give London a few more sunny days (but not too sunny), it would most definitely make London a better place to be.

Here at Co-Create London HQ changing the weather is not the only unachievable request we’ve been faced with. Over the last few months we’ve been gathering Londoners ideas on how to make London a better place on our website www.cocreatelondon.com. We’ve received hundreds of ideas and are currently in the process of trying to make some of them a reality see previous Co-Create London blog .

However for every robust and tangible idea we’ve received there have been three or four amazing but ultimately unachievable ideas submitted. It is these ideas I wanted to take a look at in this post as although they may not be immediately possible there is some method and magic in the madness.

1) Tube Tunnels Become Giant Immersive Flip Books
Wouldn’t it be nice if the walls of the tunnels were covered in series of pictures that vary gradually from one to the next, so that when the train goes through the tunnel the walls become animated?
The thought of a tube tunnel coming to life was amazingly appealing. Unfortunately for this idea there were far too many big social/practical issues that were seen as a better use of money. This idea has been shelved for the time being but not forgotten.

2) Oyster Cards Make Music
Instead of the Oyster machines making the same beeping noise when you go through, each one has a different musical note, such as a piano key. Apparently in Japan each tube station has its own musical note when you enter and exit the station. This idea takes it one further and makes music when people enter and exit the station. The creator of this idea went above and beyond when entering his idea and made a little video about how it would work, check it out.

3) Magical Mystery Tours
Unmarked buses that will take you to an undeclared but interesting (and little visited?) London location.
Again we loved this idea, it would be great to take people to some of London’s lesser-seen sites… without them even knowing. Again though, it was not seen as a priority; for the time being it is on the sidelines but we’d love to make it a reality!

4) Rent-A-Dog
Establish rent-a -dog stations near London parks and green spaces and offer ‘well being walks’ with man’s best friend…
Sadly due to lack of space in the city not everyone can have their own pets, and this idea would give people sometime with a furry companion.  It’s a lovely idea but would it work? We didn’t think so.

5) A Swimming Lane System on Oxford Street
People who want to walk slowly and browse walk on the inside of the pavement, while people in a hurry walk on the outside. This would stop all the pushing, shoving, barging, dodging, frustration, pain etc that walking on Oxford Street causes!!
Oxford Street is a pain to get through especially at Christmas and weekends, but can you feasibly introduce a walking system and implement it properly? How would people cross the road? Definitely an area to explore, but this idea isn’t quite right.

Crowdsourcing is amazing for getting fresh ideas, like the ones above,  but it is even better for identifying areas and themes that are important to people. It is the latter that we will be exploring in our future blog posts.

Oh and by the way, in my very humble opinion, there is no-where better to be than London on a Sunny day!!

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Live case study: using social media ‘To make London A Better Place’

Posted by Josh Feldberg in All, Government, Local Government on May 10, 2010

Francesco D'Orazio

In the first of a series of guest posts Francesco D’Orazio (Head of Face, the social media strategy and planning department of Face, the co-creation and planning agency) explains how the ‘Co-Create London’ initiative is using social media to speak to residents to improve life in London.

London is one of the biggest cities in the world; it is a massive player in the world’s finance, fashion, business, party, retail and social media industries. It’s a place where dreams can be made and literally anything can happen! But even though London has an unlistable amount of good points and amazing opportunities, it’s not perfect.

So on 24 February 2010, to compliment the launch of The Hub, we also unveiled a new initiative called ‘Co-Create London’. This is aimed at addressing the Capital’s main issues and annoyances by listening to the people who know the City best – the general public. Whether they’ve lived In London their whole life or just passed through, Co-Create London is asking people to answer a very simple question – ‘What Would You Do To make London A Better Place?’.

In just 3 weeks we’ve had loads of buzz worldwide; people have approached us from other countries asking about rolling it out in their cities and we have been covered across all the London blogs.

To date we’ve received over 300 ideas and 3000 votes on a vast range of topics including transport, crime, poverty, education and the environment.  A couple of weeks ago we ran a Co-Creation workshop bringing together Londoners who have contributed to the Cocreatelondon.com website with experts to turn their ideas into positive and real solutions.

The aim is to continue the process of idea generation through crowdsourcing and co-creation workshops as well as to spend time honing concepts into well thought through solutions that can be implemented. These will go to a public online vote, with the idea that the solutions obtaining the most votes will be presented to London Mayor Boris Johnson.

The outputs from the workshop, which were presented at the London Co-Creation Hub launch, can be seen below.

BeSpoke Lanes – Cycle Paths running along side railway lines.

Cycling in London is very dangerous and a lot of people are put off the pedal as they are scared of cycling on the streets. Railway lines provide direct access to the city and some of them have enough room to incorporate a cycle lane running alongside them.

BeSpoke Lanes work as cycling highways running alongside railway lines. By paying a small amount via your Oyster card at the beginning of your journey you can access the BeSpoke cycling lane.

Enterpride – Turning disused properties & spaces into accessible cultural & retail hubs.

London is full of disused and run down space especially post recession, why not allow these spaces to be occupied by start up businesses, artists, creative individuals and educational workshops.

Swap Stories – A Book Swap System for London Underground

Public transport is boring; Swap Stories makes your commute more interesting and lets your imagination go on its own journey!

To check out all the Co-Create London ideas and submit your own visit Co-Create London

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