[EU-lobby-data] additional notes conference call & updated planning document

Fri Oct 5 15:09:29 UTC 2012

Hey guys,

sorry I haven't added anything ont he doc so far, but the comms were 
really busy and we cannot have a proper meeting before 15th so it's only 
then that I have more clarity about what we can do.

As I said putting more budget should be possible.

In terms of names, I was thinking:

openlobbying.or / openlobbying.eu
openlobby.org / openlobby.eu

I'll circulate other ideas if any...

Have a nice weekend all

Natacha
On 27/09/2012 16:19, Olivier Hoedeman wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> here's my notes from yesterday's conference call, with action points 
> in bold (Friedrich's action points were already circulated yesterday). 
> I've also done a limited update of the planning document. The next 
> conference call is *Tuesday October 9, at 11 o'clock* (Timo, does that 
> work for you?
>
> _- update on progress re programming and data normalisation _
> For the launch on December 4th we will focus on getting the features 
> that are on the test version of the website 
> (http://lobbydemo.pudo.org/) in perfect shape. Other data sources 
> (expert groups, etc.) and tasks will be added at a later stage. For 
> some of these data and tasks we will try using crowd sourcing to get 
> the data normalisation done. We will need to add several tables, such 
> as a list of corporations, lobby consultancies and law firms with 
> lobby offices in Brussels (so people can search and find out which 
> companies are doing lobbying in Brussels, but are not registered); 
> *Erik will update the tables* we used for the ALTER-EU report in June. 
> We will not try to do a table of trade associations at this stage, but 
> perhaps later (same with NGOs, thinktanks, etc.). For the data 
> normalisation work that needs to happen before December 4th, we will 
> *organise a working session in the Mundo-B building*, probably in the 
> second half of October. Friedrich will work on getting the 
> datacrunching features ready over the next weeks; we'll have a 
> stocktaking moment in mid-October.
> _
> - the contract with web-designers_
> We will ask Timo to *meet with the web-designers* (TacticalTech) to 
> reach an agreement on what they can do for us in time for the website 
> launch. After the deal is clear, there will be *a technical meeting* 
> in Berlin involving Friedrich too. About the looks of the website, we 
> would prefer it to fairly neutral, inviting and easily-accessible; we 
> need the website to be simple and very user-friendly so people will 
> feel like using it. In terms of task division between TacticalTech and 
> Friedrich, TacticalTech will only do the presentation, whereas 
> Friedrich takes care of data and programming.
>
> _- venue for December 4th launch_
> CEO has reserved the Maelbeek room in the Residence Palace in 
> Brussels, which has moveable seats so we can do both a press 
> conference and a workshop. Olivier and Natacha will *consult with 
> colleagues* in CEO and FoEE, including the media officers, about the 
> format of the launch event.
>
> _- what will the name of the website be (plus domain name)_
> We have so far used the (domain) name lobbytransparency.eu, but we 
> should finalise the decision on this important issue, also thinking 
> about how the name works for social media like twitter.
> lobbytransparency.eu is quite neutral; we could also consider 
> lobbyingexposed.eu (Olivier's proposal) or openinterests.eu 
> (Friedrich's suggestion) or another option. It might be good to 
> include the term lobby or lobbying as this is what the website focuses 
> on. We will discuss this issue within our respective organisations and 
> *circulate new ideas before the next conference call*.
> _
> - budget and cost-sharing arrangement_
> Natacha and Olivier will *make a detailed budget and suggestion for 
> cost-sharing* between CEO, FoEE and LC.
>
> _- which basic texts (about the project, background reading, etc.) do 
> we need to prepare for the website?_
> Olivier will *make a proposal for which basic texts we need before the 
> next call and also for some first blog stories* to have ready December 
> 4th. We may want to ask for external help with the writing of the blog 
> stories, for instance asking Ester to work on this on a freelance 
> basis. We will first see how much money we have available.
>
> _- do we add a cyber-action component from the beginning?_
> Cyber-action (i.e. inviting website visitors to write to Commissioner 
> Sefcovic to call for improvements in the register) will be added later 
> and could be run on other websites rather than the crunch-website 
> itself (i.e. ALTER-EU). We will try to *add a feature so people can 
> 'subscribe'* to news about specific companies and lobby groups.
>
> _- Hackday _
> Friedrich and Erik will participate in this event in London on 
> November 22-24, where we might be able to get help with developing 
> further features for the website.
>
> You're all warmly invited to *add tasks to the planning document* and 
> to *add your name to tasks* for which you can take responsibility.
>
> friendly greetings
>
> Olivier
>
> On 09/26/2012 04:09 PM, Friedrich Lindenberg wrote:
>> ACTIONS FL:
>>
>> * Set up meeting with TTC/LC in Berlin (who are the current contacts?
>> Lucinda and Marek?)
>> * Create stub entries for non-existing register entries and those that
>> have been expelled
>>     * Sample Expelled: white & case ?
>> * Ping Erik re lists of non-registered known companies / consultancies
>> * Feature: Subscriptions - needs notion of activities
>> * Facet by country - or compare with another register?
>> * CSV/Excel download support
>> * More info for Erik re Hackday (see below for abstract)
>>
>> * Get IRE account:http://ire.org/resource-center/
>>
>> Links to current data-cleansing tools:
>>
>> Mark up connected entities:
>> http://pybossa.com/app/openinterests-entitymarkup/newtask
>> De-duplicate the canonical names:
>> http://nomenklatura.okfnlabs.org/openinterests-entities
>>
>> (Separate tutorials to follow on both of these)
>>
>>
>> RE HACKDAY (Please consider any refs to ERDF removed):
>>
>> Journalists, designers, coders, data wranglers, policy reasearchers
>> and interested citizens are invited to the "Track the EU Money
>> Hackathon" in London, during 24-25 November 2012.
>>
>> As a journalist and citizen, to understand institutions, policies and
>> commitments, you have to look where the money goes. EU publishes
>> information on its spending but this data is difficult for journalists
>> and citizens to make sense of. Browsable databases that allow people
>> to easily find information about recipients of EU funds, tools and
>> platforms that allow people to create their own visualisations of how
>> funds are distributed in the EU and mobile applications that let users
>> acquire information about EU programmes and opportunities are
>> necessary tools for approaching the complex issue of EU spending.
>>
>> Some of the challenges that the working groups will be approaching
>> during the hackathon are:
>>
>> * Who are the major influencers of EU policy-making?
>> * EU funds for corporations: How does the EU fund corporations? Who
>> are the biggest recipients on EU funds? How can we match company data
>> to EU spending data?
>> * European Regional Development Funds (ERDF): Who are the major
>> recipients of ERDF?
>> * Can we get the data for all ERDF projects and map them?
>> * Making EU lobbying data accessible to journalists and the public:
>> Can we build an EU lobbying news app?
>> * How can we map farm subsidies recipients across Europe?
>> * What data tools and platforms can help us better understand the
>> financial crisis in Europe?
>>
>> This hackday is organised by the European Journalism Centre and the
>> Open Knowledge Foundation with partial support from the Knight-Mozilla
>> OpenNews programme.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> eu-lobby-data mailing list
>> eu-lobby-data at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/eu-lobby-data
>
>
>
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-- 
Natacha Cingotti
Lobby transparency and corporate power
Friends of the Earth Europe
Tel: +32 2 893 10 23
Fax: +32 2 893 10 35
Skype: c_natacha
natacha.cingotti at foeeurope.org

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