Dashboards and OPMLs

We had a great meeting a couple of weeks ago with Megan Griffith and Karl Wilding from NCVO (and David Wilcox), where we discussed amongst other things the future of ICT Foresight.

One of the things we wanted to do was map the people, organisations, initiatives, events, places/platforms and ideas that were involved in shaping the future of the third sector. We had a very low tech approach on the day - colour-coded post it notes (pics to come). However we thought by pulling this together online it could be shared, added to, tracked and reused by everyone involved.

To do this I've taken the post-it notes and with Clancy's help transcribed the list and then gone chasing after websites and more specifically RSS feeds to create an OPML file.

What's an OPML?

An OPML is text file that contains a list (or outline) of other bits of information - in this case RSS feeds. Because it follows a standard format, it means you can export it and import it into other readers where you can actually read the content.

The idea of an OPML is important because it ties in with some of the comments that we've had on the site about what ruralnet|online should be from David Wilcox and Paul Webster and some of the work Dave Briggs has done for the barcampukgovweb

An OPML is a great way of accessing a pre-formed 'community' of like-minded people spread across many different platforms (even if they don't know they are a community?), all posting and commenting in many different places. Instead of just a static file that has to be manually updated, I found Grazr which is a place where we can easily update the list and share it using a widget. In the widget you can get a taste of the feeds and what's going on, but if you want to import the list into your own reader, click on the little book icon to go to the Grazr page dedicated to the list and click on the 'Data URL' to download it.

So here is the question of the day - should ruralnet online be:

• Maintaining the OPML file for people to use in their own Pageflakes/iGoogle/Bloglines?
• Providing content - blogging, commenting and animating the discussions that are tracked by the OPML?
• Be an interface (dashboard) where the OPML is displayed (eg the BBC beta homepage)
• or a little bit of all of the above?

(PS if you're not on the list and think you should be - leave a comment!)