BAApp: Walking Architecture is a searchable archive of buildings and tours from across Birmingham including historic, contemporary or conceptual architecture.

It’s an iPhone app built by Substrakt for the Birmingham Architectural Association in collaboration with RIBA West Midlands and the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association. It should arrive in the iTunes store any day now.

If you like that kind of thing, check out OpenBuildings and their mobile apps too.

Last year I announced Jobplot as a new creative jobs board for the West Midlands. The site’s now been rethought and redesigned. It now has:

• Talent profiles – if you’re a freelancer or run a company working in the creative sector (arts/culture/architecture/film/design/new media) then get yourself a free profile so people can find you  and maybe even give you some work
• Jobs board – self-explanatory
• Opportunities board – where you can find/post info on training programmes, funding, tenders, volunteering and the like

We launched quietly last week but already have (in no particular order) Women in Theatre, Meshed Media, Fullrange, Bright Space, Talis, Tomorrow People, Stickee, Dice Productions, Substrakt, Ryan DC, The Space Studio, Radio To Go, Ryan Killeen, Pikx Imaging, Created in Birmingham, Talk About Local, Adhere, Supercool, IE, Punch, Timelapse Movie Company, Creative Alliance and Marieanne Delaney.

Some of those are currently hiring.

What’s the idea?

When we set up Jobplot originally it was because we wanted to connect good people with good jobs. We’ve since set our sights a little higher.

For example, I can’t find a decent list of local illustrators anywhere. Or scriptwriters. Or sculptors, photographers or web designers. If I want to find someone then I have to either ask around or head for Google. Neither’s ideal and I’ve heard plenty of stories about companies working with others outside the region simply because they couldn’t find anyone closer to home.

Then there are the opportunities for funding and training, the tenders for work and all the other things that get circulated around certain email lists and message boards but go no further. Often the agencies and organisations would love for more people to hear about what they’re offering – people are just too hard to reach.

The idea is for Jobplot to try and solve a few of those problems.

It won’t be yet another directory though. We’ll make sure of that. To some extent we’re taking a leaf out of the books of Wired Sussex, Bristol Media and Manchester Digital, but we’re not copying them exactly.

Other things

Jobplot’s still being developed. We’ve got a to-do list as long as yer arm and a slate of things planned for Phase 2 (being launched in the new year). We’re keen to hear about any improvements that need to be made, so if you come across anything then please let us know.

In the long run, the idea is for Jobplot to sustain itself – ie, make a bit of money. In the new year we’ll have premium (paid) profiles which will come with a range of benefits. More on those nearer the time (but basic profiles will always be free).

Jobplot was originally set up by Meshed Media and Substrakt. Creative Alliance are now on board too, which makes it a nice example of an arts organisation working with private companies on a commercial project (not a bad idea given current circumstances).

I’ve put a bit more info about Jobplot on the Meshed Media blog in case you’re interested.

In conclusion

Get yourself on there.

Speakers include Andy Hartwell (Substrakt), Helga Henry (Fierce Earth), Eryka Isaak, Julia Higginbottom (Aquila TV) and Alexa Torlo (BCU).

There’s a little more besides so head for the website and the Facebook event for details.

Such Tweet Sorrow launched the other day; a retelling of Romeo & Juliet via Twitter. Telling stories via Twitter isn’t a new thing particularly, but the size and scope of this effort is what sets it apart. The RSC are behind this after all, and from what I gather rehearsals and workshops for this have been going on for aaaages.

Oh aye, and the Birmingham link is the involvement of Mudlark as producers, Substrakt as the website designers and Kate Beatty as the photographer responsible for the shots of the cast.

Exeunt omnes. Divers alarums.

Feeds.

Horrible, nasty words that scare normal folk and have them running from the internet to take refuge with their library cards.

They’re not that tricky though. I’ve been keeping track of hundreds of websites to find stuff to post here. Visiting them all daily would have taken too long and cost me my sanity, so instead I used RSS. Most competent websites have an ‘RSS feed’ sending out the latest updates. All you need to do is use an RSS reader (I use Google Reader, there are others) and you’ve got a time-saving one-stop-shop for all your favourite websites.

Anyway, point being, as I’ve sent Kate a file listing pretty much all my Birmingham RSS feeds I thought I’d put a copy here and share it.

The file is here. Import it into Google Reader by going to ‘Settings’ then ‘Import/Export’ and follow the instructions.

Disclaimer – for various reasons, not every Birmingham blog is in there and some that are are now defunct, etc and so on. Basically, this is not comprehensive.

Also worth checking out – last month Substrakt compiled a list of their favourite Birmingham blogs.

Inspired by the My Day Yesterday group on Flickr, I decided to have a go at condensing my Friday into a single 90 seconds movie

My Day (Friday) from deplorableword on Vimeo.