I have not been feeling great for a few weeks now – generally run down I think although occasional bouts of toothache aren’t helping. This week has been particularly bad – like wading through treacle whilst being quite grumpy. I apologise to everyone who has come into contact with me đŸ˜¬ Due to this, I’ve not managed to get a post out this week yet, so consider this a week note rather than a daily one. #
Having just had a moan, I do feel like I had a couple of breakthroughs in some of the more strategic, sector-wide work I am doing at the moment. Broadly speaking:
- Councils have too much to do
- Digital and tech is very much in the space where workloads could be shared without undermining the local magic that councils provide
- However, sharing all but the most commoditised of technology will require harmonisation and standardisation of process, and service design
- New models need to be found to incentivise the right behaviour – i.e. adopting standardised processes and technology.
- These could be led by councils themselves, sector bodies, central government, maybe even private sector suppliers. Indeed a mix of models is probably a good thing.
Not ground breaking particularly perhaps, but it’s nice to have a rather complicated thing summed up in a handful of bullet points. Need to write this up into a proper blog post. #
Speaking of that kind of thing, this report focusing on universities⬈ is basically exactly what I am taking about for the local government sector. We’ve never really had a nice, professional articulation of these ideas in this format, I don’t think. Anyway, lots to learn/steal here. #
An extremely useful looking AI risk assessment⬈ shared by the Wildlife Trust. #
Online collaboration remains a sticky problem in a lot of ways. MS Teams has become the default option in almost all use cases, but it’s a massive pain to configure a lot of the time. People end up resorting to email, still! I’m playing with a little bit of tech to fill that gap between email and Teams, when a quick – almost disposable – online group is needed. If you have a use case, drop me a line and I’ll show you around. (This isn’t a money making thing, more a localgov.blog style scratching an itch thing) #
This is great⬈, I like the idea of slightly asynchronous online events. #
Speaking of online events, Nick has one coming up later this month on the role of process management in cultural change⬈, featuring some fab council speakers. #
Dave, hope you’re on the mend.
I read Richard Pope’s Platformland while getting some sun last week and I think there’s a real template there for your first point about the sector. However, I came away feeling that getting the traction to do this sans some form of Local Gov GDS equivalent is going to run into the sand speedily. Sitting at the implementation end of the spectrum, and much as I like building networks of folk with a shared vision, this feels ridiculously hard. I think there’s so much good stuff in pockets of LG if only we could bring it together into a critical mass, but it’s exhausting and thankless (all views my own).