If you are a journalist, blogger or developer interested in the possibilities of public data I’d be very happy if you came to a Hack Day I’m involved in, here in Birmingham on Friday July 23.

The idea is very simple: we get a bunch of public data, and either find stories in it, or ways to help others find stories.

You don’t need technical expertise because that’s why the hackers are there; and you don’t need journalistic expertise because that’s why the hacks are there.

What I’m particularly excited about in Birmingham is that we’ve got a real mix of people coming – from press and broadcast, and local bloggers, and hopefully a mix of people with backgrounds in various programming languages and even gaming.

And apart from all that there should be free beer and pizza. Which is the important thing.

So come.

The day is being organised by Scraperwiki and we’ve already got a whole bunch of interesting people signed up.

You can register for the day here.