Scottish Tech Map
docs.google.com
docs.google.com
We are a open site listing tech events around Scotland. Open means anyone can add an event, like a wiki. We can import data from suitable open sources, and most importantly we have many Open Data feeds. Our data is reused many times by many different people and sites.
We are about to celebrate our 4th birthday, and are the main listings site in Scotland. There is a great community around, and we are proud to be part of that (we are based in Edinburgh). Our software is Open Source to!
Give me a shout if any questions, Thanks, James
We're not just Scotland, we have a lot of events listed in Sheffield to.
It's an interesting one - looking at the site, we have more tech features in terms of working with events data. One of the big things we do that we haven't seen many others do is have a system where anyone with a user account can add and edit data directly. We think this is very important - if only one or a few ppl can work on events the burden on them to make sure it's kept up to date becomes very big. If this burden is spread over many editors, then "many hands make light work". (We also have several other tricks to make sure our data is kept up to date!)
That said tho, for a community site like this the community is more important! It's very interesting to see the variety of approaches that are taken. If people from an area want to talk about using Open Tech Calendar in their area or have feedback, do get in touch.
Freely editable google spreadsheet with information on where tech is happening in Scotland. Currently lists >300 companies and 90 groups/events.
What it's not:
- A startup/VC map.
Challenges:
- getting people to add/curate existing content (current theory: I think people browse mostly on phones, and can't edit without installing the Google Sheets app), as I can't put a lot of time into it.
- better quality categorisation of companies
- finding dev teams within organisations like local government
- identifying what's missing (my gut feel is there's easily another 300-1k companies to add, but most existing entries have come through business directories or searches on twitter for "developers/python/java/etc near me").
How it began:
The wikipedia article on Silicon Glen is short and out of date.
I was finding out about companies geographically near me in similar industries that I just wasn't coming across unless they were hiring.
I heard of Eden Shochat, who successfully crowdsourced the Israeli startup scene in a Google spreadsheet.
To add:
Try this form to add a company: http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3
And this form to add an event: http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83
Heres a curated tech calendar for Dublin, Ireland.
https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/dublin
The Dublin startup commissioner just launched this is week as well:
Basically a database of the Irish tech scene.
It speaks volumes for how well connected and supported the startup scene is there that Dublin has a funded "startup commissioner". We're lagging a lot behind in Scotland at the moment.
If anyone is ever in Glasgow and looking to meet the local community feel free to pay us a visit.
Optos was acquired last year by Nikon, and we're going strong and expanding into new tech for devices we're releasing this year and next.
We're hiring a few positions right now if shooting lasers into people's eyes to save their sight is your kind of thing: http://www.optos.com/en-GB/About-us/Careers/Europe/
It would be great to have more sorting options, particularly if I wanted to get back to the Granite city :).
Would like to see more Scottish robotics startups & meetups.
Perhaps you should consider adding the data to a simple WordPress site. I'd be happy to set that up for you on my server.
Try this form to add a company: http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3
And this form to add an event: http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83
That way, it'd be easy to submit and even easier to consume the data.
And if you kept the dataset open, people could reuse it in a bunch of useful ways.
* Tho last year we did start playing with a static site generator for fun, tho it's not production ready yet.
Besides a few small design niggles, I think it's great.
The data export (and the fact the data is in the public domain) is really useful. The lack of adverts (besides a little sponsor shout out) makes me much more comfortable contributing data here. I appreciate the OSM maps.
Honestly, you really don't need to go the static route. That was perhaps a more useful suggestion for the OP as they don't have any dynamic web infrastructure in place and it would offer a quick win in terms of usability. Same goes for Google docs - it was a good for the OP's situation but it's not necessary in your case, especially with your strong export functionality. Stick with dynamic, you've done a good job there!
If I could make a couple of little suggestions:
1. A few wee design tweaks might help: on desktop browsers the font size is really big in places (24px in the header explanation text), the background image is a little distracting and difficult to make out, and the max width of 1200px reduces readability a bit for some users). Nothing major, just some little tweaks.
2. I only found the site recently and wish I'd come across it before now. Do what you're doing here - keep reaching out to people in the community.
3. Slim down the terms and conditions a bit and adopt an open license. The footer says that event data is in the public domain, but this term is a little fuzzy and the legal meaning isn't always clear. On the terms page, you talk about a limited license. I'd suggest going with CC0 [0] for event data (it's like public domain, but with specific and universally understood legal meaning). And perhaps just state that all rights are reserved with regards to site name and logos. It makes things clearer for people who might want to use the data.
Don't worry, Open Tech Calendar will never go Static - there are to many features that just won't work. However, the static site was something we tried as an experiment to make us look afresh at this problem. We may carry on with it someday, but it has already driven a bunch of code quality improvements in the main app which is great.
If you are interested, could you join https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openacalendar ? This is for the Open Source software, and we discuss features and design issues there. Very happy to have any constructive criticism discussion there! But let me try and address some points very quickly now, tho it's late and I'm off to a hackday tomorrow! (That's the Excuses in :-) )
1. I want to recheck all font sizes - they've all been picked piecemeal. I do want to make sure the fonts are slightly large tho - while I have no problem with lower size fonts I know some people with vision problems do.
For the max width, do you want it wider than 1200px? We actually have just done some design work that touches on this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openacalendar/HvsKB3...
The image isn't really meant to be fully detailed, it's just to add a bit of texture. I was thinking of trying some different images, maybe it's time to!
2. Thanks! :-)
3. I would like to be clearer on the legal side, but I have some questions of my own about legal points and could really do with a discussion with a friendly lawyer! But rest assured I want the data to be open for all sensible uses.
Anyway, hopefully this makes sense. Please do join the email list or email hello at the site domain with more points. Thanks, James
I'll take a little look at the Google Group tomorrow and would like to give some feedback! I think the project is fantastic.
I've got a couple of little follow-up comments on accessibility...
One important thing to remember about visually impaired users is that they almost always have their base font size in their browser set high already, or are using a magnifier. So 150% of an already large font becomes an unusably ginormous font. While the intention is definitely good, it can have the opposite effect (I speak from experience working with both technical and non-technical family members who are partially sighted). A base size of 14-16px (depending on font), increasing to 1.5em or 2em for headers works really well, and doesn't overcompensate when visually impaired users have their own font magnifying solutions in place (as they most often do because they're needed for the vast majority of websites).
And in terms of the max width, I'd definitely take it down from 1200px. Long lines are harder to read [0 (also a really good example of readable width)]. Playing with the site in Chrome dev tools, "max-width: 54em;" works really well. It stops the right-aligned/floated elements being across a wide chasm from the left-aligned elements, and it keeps line lengths at a really readable limit. And by using ems instead of pixels, if visually impaired users have a higher base font size (which doesn't scale non-text elements with sizes in pixels), it won't distort the page layout.
I've come across people who don't - but still, maybe this is generally the way to go.
Thanks for your detailed feedback and encouragement. I've made 2 issues at https://github.com/OpenACalendar/OpenACalendar-Web-Core/issu... and https://github.com/OpenACalendar/OpenACalendar-Web-Core/issu... - but if you had time to comment on the Google Group that would be great :-)
I have the feeling it is pointless keeping such map from the perspective of Brexit. Soon Scotland will be off of Eu, and all these businesses will be facing very different realities in short time. I would refrain make business with companies with whom I'd face more taxes or red tape just because their countries would left the EU.
So what are we trying to do here? Explore more the Scottish market? The soon-to-be limited UK market?
I am lost. Could someone explain it to me?
I have a feeling it won't
Potential uses of the tool itself:
- Helping people find potential job opportunities in Scotland
- Helping tech companies in Scotland find other tech companies within Scotland
- Getting people excited about some of what's happening in Scotland. It's a small country but it has some $1b tech companies and lots more are on the way.
- Encouraging international companies to start divisions/design houses/engineering centres in Scotland due to the quantity of comparatively-cheap talent. This is happening a lot already.
If things are getting harder internationally for Scottish businesses (which I don't believe or expect for the tech industry), then surely this becomes even more important as those companies will want to partner more within Scotland?