About Brum

The Grauniad put out an insert with today’s paper, in association with the EC and Advantage West Midlands, focusing on the range of innovation, development (and redevelopment) and diversity within and around Brum and the rest of the County. It’s a very interesting read, and doesn’t smack of “look at our area, come and invest now please, aren’t we great” so go and pick a copy up!

 It has some interesting factoids in it too – like, for instance did you know that the first steam engine was perfected in the area of Birmingham which is now called Handsworth? And, did you also know that Birmingham is set to become the first majority ethnic community in 15 years’ time (due to the relative population growth of non-native communities versus incumbent British citizens?)

Nope, I didn’t know that either. Go buy it and read it for yourself, it’s a worthwhile read for anybody interested in our fair city.

…As apparently they’ve just decided to take delivery of a new VRA (Voice Risk Analysis) system for their Benefits helpline, in an effort to reduce fraud (often indicative of lying, just how polygraphs work) by detecting stress in a caller’s voice. Rats.

In the first three months of a pilot scheme in Harrow, north London, that began in May, 173 housing benefit and council fraudsters were exposed, saving the council £110,000.

…

VRA is used only in conjunction with questioning by call operators who have been trained to detect deception, says a spokesman for the Capita Group, which owns the technology. It works by measuring “micro-changes” to the frequency of the human voice and relaying to the operator, in real time, the level of risk that the speaker is being deceptive.

I’ll reserve judgement on the efficacity of this scheme - however, I’ll be amazed if the helpline staff can even hear callers, given the shocking condition of some of Birmingham’s antique telephone lines!

Remember: lying: baaad. Birmingham City Council knows all… They’ll be installing those fancy mirror-style TVs in your homes next so they can broadcast inspiring promotional content to you!

While many may not know who these guys are, The Persuaders a design agency based in the Midlands who’ve done a slew of work for a variety of companies, including the BBC and (ironically) Digital Central, an Advantage West Midlands organisation who in turn produce their own content and sites.

The Persuaders did a CMS-based site for Digital Central, and I never realised this until I found my way to their almost without realising who they were! I thought it was highly ironic given that Digital Central is supposed to be able to do its own in-house web and content design (and indeed, they have, I’m working next year for a company whose entire online presence has just been bolstered by the rollout of a new ‘Digital’ site, complete with promotional tools and online retail facilities).

Makes you wonder why Digital Central didn’t just design their own site in-house… Anyways, the Persuaders site is a very fine piece of design, and makes an interesting few minutes of perusal just checking it out, seeing who they’ve designed material for – you might have actually engaged in some of their content without even realising it.

This made the news sites a while back now, but I’ve had it in one of my Opera tabs for a long time and never bothered to note it down on here. It seemed appropriate that I reference it, even though others have done so long before myself.

It’s a music video made as a promotional tool for the council and as such works quite well – it’s got some great montages of the sights in and around Brum, and the song’s pretty good to boot. The BBC site’s got it available for streaming on their Birmingham LocalTV subsite (and the accompany article, with a link to the video, can be found here).

Something I hadn’t noticed until I just had the video playing in the background – so I could only hear the sound – was that after the song finishes, and the credits roll, there’s a bloke heard speak very quietly in the background of the audio. I don’t think (well, I hope not!) that this was intended, but I don’t have a copy of the video on DVD so I can’t verify against the original version, so either the BBC kit had a dry wire or ground loop somewhere in the signal path, or the video was VERY poorly mastered!

What he says is quite amusing, too… If you’ve got very good ears, or you just turn the volume all the way up (the scientific method), this is what you’ll hear:

<guitar fades out>

“And join me to meet the mushroom picker who doesn’t mind working in the dark, and having compost dumped on his head… Join me to meet the mushroom picker who doesn’t mind working in the dark, and having compost dumped on his head… That’s right, join me at Warwick University where we meet a mushroom picker who doesn’t mind working in the dark, and having compost dump-”

Make what you will of that, but either which way, it’s an amusing easter egg! I’m feeling generous, so I clipped the audio and attached it as an MP3 for your enjoyment, though you can just watch the video in its entirety on the BBC web site if you think I’m having you on. Take a listen: Warwick University Mushroom Pickers?