links for 2011-01-14

* rigtmoveplaces is only intended to be light touch , to give a flavour, linking out to others with more detail
* rightmove want a rounded picture of an area, warts and all
* there’s no intention to have ads on the rightmoveplaces site – people will be referred there from rightmove.co.uk
* rightmove is genuinely interested in feedback from hyperlocals and wants to engage
* would hyperlocals be interested in having an RSS feed into the places site?
* rightmove has vast amounts of detailed data about local property markets that could be of interest to hyperlocals

These days, one of the best ways to ‘fight back’ against negative stereotyping of an area is to do what Pauline Sargent has done for Drimnagh – create and develop a simple hyperlocal website that presents a more balanced picture to the world and watch it rise up the Google rankings.

The meeting also agreed to develop a set of seminars around what I termed ‘the social economy of place’. The idea is to explore in more depth the nature of key aspects of community capacity. At the neighbourhood level what are the components of what David Halpern calls ‘Hidden Wealth’; those things beyond state and market which shape resilience and well-being? The RSA Projects team is doing some more thinking about this but the key dimensions are:

1. Don’t do engagement for engagement’s sake. Consider what real resources and actions you can take after you ‘engage’. If it is just ticking the consultation box, you might be re-enforcing ’participation fatigue’. Many migrant and refugee organisations feel burnt from endless consultation and no action.

On Tickles merchants offer discounts on a product or service, in return for a guaranteed minimum number of sales over a limited time period. The service is free to users, who sign up to receive local offers. They can then purchase a voucher online which they can redeem with the merchant, but only if a minimum number of people required have signed up for the offer.