My Designs for Blake's 7 Audio Adventures

I just want to throw in some nostalgia for any of you 70's kids whose children
love the new 'Doctor Who' but you LOVED 'Blake's 7' and like me get strange,
puzzled looks from them.

Here is one of my latest designs for the revived Blake's 7 - which with B7 Media I have been
working on for nearly 4 years now - If you want to find out more about it please
visit the following site, that I did for B7 as well as the designs.

We had a few 1a.m.'s with this project but good fun all the same.

Fans love it, which is the main thing.

www.b7media.com

Have Fun!

Scareymonster

The Context to Performance Reporting in Government

Reporting on performance across the government sector has traditionally been an internal process of providing static indicator reports of current state against baselines and targets to senior managers and elected officials. In parallel, there has been an external process of providing reports and data to a central government agency and an auditing body. Content of performance reports has often been driven by the reporting specifications of the central agency – as such the content and style of reports reflects the needs of this audience but rarely those of others.

However in recent years the situation is changing fast. There are increasing pressures on government bodies worldwide to demonstrate the effective use of public resources. There has been a widespread emergence of performance and results-based management approaches with renewed emphasis on results-oriented business planning, accountability and performance reporting. Agencies are now seeing the benefits of implementing these performance management practices.

How have these developments impacted on performance reporting? Internal reporting is becoming more sophisticated with the use of hierarchical scorecards to present a balanced view of performance tailored to different stakeholders. Visual markers and traffic-light colouring are often used to highlight underachievement and exceptions. Externally, public agencies are being actively encouraged to make their performance reports available to a wider citizen community. There are many challenges to this process not least how to present information to users in a way that is engaging, relevant, understandable and useful in the context of expectations that are rapidly becoming more sophisticated.

The context within UK government is covered in more detail at the following page, please visit for further details > Peformance Reporting and Mapping

Article Keywords - performance reporting, performance mapping, performance map, performance dashboards, performance analysis tool, statistical data presentation, statistics visualization, performance measuring, performance indicator reporting, data presentation methods, interactive reporting, performance mapping tools, development statistics software, performance mapping charts, area profiling

ARTICLE SOURCE - http://www.instantatlas.wordpress.com

Swine Flu H1N1 Atlases published with InstantAtlas

Wednesday, 06 May 2009

In this post we preview the first templates created with the new InstantAtlas V6 Single Map template, the first V6 template to be released. These include atlases created by the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health, Chile on the spread of Swineflu H1N1.

The West Midlands Regional Observatory have also been doing work with InstantAtlas V6. We showcase two of their new applications, one looking at the cultural economy of the region, the other at excess winter deaths. The latter presents work completed in partnership with Sandwell Primary Care Trust.

The month's Spotlight is cast on Performance Reporting and Analysis. We have selected three recent client examples using InstantAtlas present performance reports on key indicators and trends. In conjunction with this focus we are launching a new Resource Pack around Performance Reporting and Mapping of key indicators.

Finally we take a look at a new set of Data & Report Packs to support UK customers of InstantAtlas Server delivering a Local Information System or Data Observatory. These packs reflect interest from customers in streamlining data management tasks.

Featured Application

WMRO | New InstantAtlas Reports

West Midlands Regional Observatory

"InstantAtlas enables us to present data geographically in interactive maps to make it more accessible to our users. It helps to compare and contrast different areas within the region to determine which issues are affecting those areas the most. In particular, we have found InstantAtlas to be a useful tool in helping us to highlight key regional issues and challenges emerging from our State of the Region work, which is publicly available via our website. Other regional partners have also found the tool to be very useful. We are now starting to use Version 6 of InstantAtlas which offers some significant enhancements in areas like performance (we can now display LSOA level data for the whole region) and usability."

Naomi Winchurch, Researcher WMRO

Cultural Economy Atlas
Based on NEW V6 Single Map Template

Sandwell Primary Care Trust and the West Midlands Public Health Observatory (WMPHO) have jointly been addressing the area of excess winter deaths to inform the reducing excess winter deaths programme, an NHS West Midlands Investing for Health project. WMPHO provided the data on excess winter deaths.

The Investing for Health project also examines the relationship between excess winter deaths and fuel poverty. We helped to share this information by presenting data on excess winter deaths and the fuel poverty indicator through interactive maps. You can use the maps to view the data geographically.

View the atlases:

Excess winter deaths index and number of excess winter deaths PCT | Local Authority

Fuel poverty indicator at LSOA

Based on NEW V6 Single Map Template

Swineflu H1N1 | Outbreak Maps

Swine flu H1N1 Atlases

Following the latest pandemic outbreak of H1N1 flu from Mexico and into North America, organizations have been keen to harness InstantAtlas to get the outbreak data out quickly around the world to agency and public audiences. Some of the examples on the special presentation page make use of our new InstantAtlas Version 6 Single Map template.

View Special Presentation

Client Spotlight | Performance Reporting examples

NHS Community Health Profiles

The Association of Public Health Observatories was commissioned by the Department of Health in 2005 to produce Health Profiles. Health Profiles provide a snapshot of health for each local council in England using key health indicators, which enables comparison locally, regionally and over time.

View Report

Norfolk Performance Scorecard

This Instant Atlas report was created to demonstrate how you can present and track a defined set of Performance Indicators (PIs) at a small area (Ward) level. It is an example of an interactive dashboard or scorecard. Two areas can be compared to review current state against target. It can be used to present performance at a much more localised level to enable communities to understand priorities and, potentially, get involved in setting targets.

View Report

Yorkshire Futures: Monitoring Progress in the Region

This report was developed to complement the annual Progress in the Region report created by the Regional Observatory. It provides an interactive picture to explore inter- and intra-regional performance patterns and trends.

View Report

InstantAtlas Resource Packs

NEW - Performance Reporting and Mapping

The value of utilising geography in performance management and reporting is becoming widely recognised. Incorporating geography into performance allows you to:-

1. Understand geographic levels of variation and inequality particularly where there are targets to 'narrow the gap';

2. Rapidly benchmark areas of interest with geographic and statistical neighbors;

3. Identify 'problem hotspots' and target policy and practical interventions more effectively;

4. Make performance reports more relevant and useful to area-based managers and elected officials by delivering performance profile reports using their own geographies; and

5. Meet the rising expectations of your citizen audience by making reports more personalised and useful to citizens.

For more information on the use of InstantAtlas for Performance Reporting see our online Resource Pack

Classroom Training in InstantAtlas

Due to high demand from our customers InstantAtlas are now offering a new and comprehensive classroom based training package. These will be more cost-effective than on-site training. IA Classroom training courses are hosted in our Edinburgh office.

For further details please contact Sophie Lloyd

Latest Product News

InstantAtlas V6 | NEW Single Map Template

The new 6.0 version of the Single Map Template is now available.

This new release delivers significant improvements in performance, presentation, style and functionality. V6 is written to take advantage of Adobe's Flex technology for developing Rich Internet Applications (or RIAs).

To find out more about V6 and when the other V6 templates will be available please contact support.

InstantAtlas Server | NEW Data and Report Packs

CLICK TO VIEW PACK OVERVIEW PDF

OCSI (www.ocsi.co.uk) We are launching a set of Data and Report Packs in partnership with OCSI to support nationally published statistical data, in response to interest from customers in streamlining data management tasks.

With nationally published data - we are (1) adding intelligence to the data through creation of rates, ranks and suitable comparators; (2) enhancing supplier metadata where necessary; and (3) most significantly we are including a range of outputs (Profile Reports and Data Views) built by OCSI which you can then customise if you wish.

Further details of these new Data and Report Packs are available in our Pack Overview (see left to download). Detailed specifications of the packs are available on request - contact John at john.maslen@geowise.co.uk.

Seminars & Conferences

Where to see InstantAtlas

BURISA 2009 Annual Conference

"Location, location, location - Whither Geographical Information"

14th May 2009 - Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, UK

This year's BURISA Conference is the ideal opportunity to catch up with progress and issues in geographical information, demystify the jargon and look ahead to future developments.

URISA's Second GIS in Public Health Conference

June 5-8, 2009 - Providence, Rhode Island, US

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is hosting the second specialty conference to explore the many uses of GIS for public health access, processes, and decision-making. – Click here for Further details of the Conference

North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)

2009 Annual Conference - June 13-19, 2009 San Diego, California, US

This year's conference, "Charting the Course to a New World in Cancer Surveillance" will highlight new directions in cancer surveillance with current and future technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as innovations in bioinformatics and genetics as these impact the cancer data collection

InstantAtlas will be demonstrated at these conferences, if you wish to be given a demo at the event email us at marketing@geowise.co.uk

Local Information System Resource Pack from InstantAtlas

GeoWise has been compiling a set of freely available resources to support those with an interest in understanding and implementing a Local Information System or Data Observatory. Our experience comes from more than 30 implementations of InstantAtlas Server, our off-the-shelf solution for LIS and Data Observatories, across local government and NHS organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

You may already have seen some of these resources but we thought it would be easier to access them through a comprehensive digest. The online videos below are now available in a more accessible format to make them easier to view.

The LIS Resource Pack should be of value to two audiences:

1. Those in the early stage of their thinking about management of local intelligence, more evidence-driven processes, and partnership-based data exchange.
2. Those who have set up some form of LIS but are looking to improve data management processes and better integrate with other corporate processes.

The Resource Pack includes direct links to all of our LIS related online seminars and LIS documents. The two most recent seminars include a comprehensive review of the Norfolk Data Observatory and an overview of the development and launch of BHLIS (Brighton & Hove Local Information Service) for the Brighton & Hove Strategic Partnership. The Resource Pack also includes links to relevant documents, reports and web sites.

For furthere details on LIS please vist http://www.instantatlas.com/lis

InstantAtlas - Free Trial

You can order a free 30 day fully functional evaluation version of InstantAtlas desktop. Two options are supported - both are available in the UK and internationally. The evaluation version is currently only available in an English language version.

Option 1 | Complete Form Below and Download the Free Trial Online

Option 2 | Request CD Version of Free Trial by Post - CLICK HERE

Presenting Statistics On Web Sites

Develop best practice for presenting statistics on the Web | InstantAtlas Presentation

Presenting Statistics On Web Sites

View more presentations from scareymonster.

InstantAtlas E-bulletin

In this posting we feature the C4EO Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services web site and their recently published Progress Maps, which aim to assist users to understand "what works": evidence that has been shown to improve outcomes for children and families.

The Spotlight is cast on international Socio-economic Development, we have selected three recent client examples from Europe, where InstantAtlas has been used to present and report on key economic indicators and trends.

We have updated the Local Information System Resource Pack (at www.instantatlas.com/lis) with some new documents, in particular a supplementary report to the generic LIS business case report from North East Lincolnshire. This provides additional business case material collated from customers and links to material that has been published since the North East Lincolnshire report was written.

I hope you find this posting of great interest.

David Carey

Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Application

C4EO - Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services

The Progress Map is an interactive web-based tool. It aims to help professionals access and apply the "what works" evidence that C4EO has collected, which has been shown to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families

The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services (C4EO) has used InstantAtlas as a core component of the interactive, web-based tools it is developing to help professionals access and apply the 'what works' evidence collected by the Centre to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

Using InstantAtlas (with excellent technical support from Geowise) has allowed us to develop and launch complex, interactive tools in a very short period of time. Though it is still early days, feedback so far has been overwhelming positive.

Jez MacDonald | Web Development Manager | Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)

The CEO4 Progress Map is available from http://www.c4eo.org.uk/Progress_Maps

Client Spotlight – Socio-economic Development

Observatory, Álava, Spain

The Observatorio Social de Álava was created as a tool for sharing information on the activities of social services in the historic territory.

View Report

Statistical Office of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

The new online maps for Schleswig-Holstein make it possible for different audiences to gain a quick overview of the structure and trends in each district.

View Report

Blackpool Council, United Kingdom

This Instant Atlas display was created to show viewers custom ranges rather than dividing the data into equal intervals or quantiles for the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 and its seven domains of deprivation. –

Read on

View Report

InstantAtlas Resource Packs

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

InstantAtlas is now well-established in the United States and United Kingdom and used by state health departments, regional and local public health authorities. It is ideal for presenting data values and trends in a spatial context to internal and external audiences. e.g. demographic data, epidemiological statistics, health indicators.

InstantAtlas serves equally well as a tool for monitoring performance of health resources and presenting survey results. Departments of Health in ten US States are implementing this software.

We have included some recent BRFSS examples on our website some of which are live operational applications, others are demonstration samples to show the power and flexibility of InstantAtlas

For further details visit our BRFSS Examples

Crime Mapping – Amethyst Project

The Amethyst Project is part of the crime reduction partnership in Cornwall. The Cornwall Crime Explorer is aimed at a non-expert end-user audience across the local partnership and external citizens. It illustrates a number of good practice concepts including easily understandable categorical classes, use of recognised colour shading and extensive descriptive metadata notes.

The atlas is based on the Performance Analysis Template in stand-alone mode with statistics being published quarterly by crime analysts using Excel. It offers a cross-cutting view of a range of indicators, in this case crime types, with the flexibility to view trends in a pop-up line graph.

Read the New Amethyst Case Study

Business Benefits for LIS Development

We have updated the Local Information System Resource Pack (at www.instantatlas.com/lis) with some new documents, in particular a supplementary report to the generic LIS business case report from North East Lincolnshire.

N E Lincolnshire Data Observatory Report (PDF)

Seminars & Conferences

Where to see InstantAtlas

"Location, location, location - Whither Geographical Information"

14th May 2009 - Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, UK

This year's BURISA Conference is the ideal opportunity to catch up with progress and issues in geographical information, demystify the jargon and look ahead to future developments.

URISA's Second GIS in Public Health Conference

June 5-8, 2009 - Providence, Rhode Island, US

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is hosting the second specialty conference to explore the many uses of GIS for public health access, processes, and decision-making. – Click here for Further details of the Conference

North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)

2009 Annual Conference - June 13-19, 2009 San Diego, California, US

This year's conference, "Charting the Course to a New World in Cancer Surveillance" will highlight new directions in cancer surveillance with current and future technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as innovations in bioinformatics and genetics as these impact the cancer data collection

InstantAtlas will be demonstrated at these conferences, if you wish to be given a demo at the event email us at marketing@geowise.co.uk