Dave

Dave

  • Joined: January 6, 2026
  • Articles: 3216
  • Comments: 518

Helen Milner on open processes

I was delighted when UK online centres decided to make their bid for the Digital Mentor fund from CLG, inspired by the community initiative to take a policy initiative by the scruff of the neck over at DigitalMentor.org. Now the…

Snow business

The snow has made it a tricky week this week, with transport problems and the local school being closed. What’s more, just outside Cambridge, the snow is still falling on DavePress Towers. It’s quite pretty, mind. It’s hasn’t all been…

Weathering the storm with a blog

Looks you don’t have to have an environmentally friendly e-magazine to advise residents and local businesses about how to get through the recession. Carl Haggerty points to Devon’s Weathering the Storm site. Like Lincoln, they have got something up that’s…

Bookmarks for January 28th through February 1st

These are my links for January 28th through February 1st:

Localgovcamp

One of the real successes of Saturday’s government barcamp was the large turnout of local government folk, which was great to see. This has set me thinking that there must be sufficient numbers of peope who would be interested in…

Now, this is nice

Steph has posted about the work he has been doing getting the Power of Information Taskforce report online for interested folk to comment on it before it gets published. It’s a lovely piece of work: It is in fact a…

Barcamping today

This morning, over 130 people interested in the way government uses the web will be descending on London to, well, have a bit of a natter. There has already been plenty of chat on the event social network, and hopefully…

This is how it can be done

After all my moaning of recent times, a good news story. Lincoln City Council have released a site called Community Voice which links to all their ongoing consultations, with an RSS feed to keep up to date with new ones…

STOP BLOCKING

Steph has released some details of his short survey of the blocking of useful websites within the public sector. The following figures show the percentages of organisations which allow access to each type of site: Google 100% LinkedIn 100% NetMums…

Fantastic social reporting result

Just have to dash out a quick blog post on this as it’s just so brilliant! One of the presenters at today’s IDeA Performance event, Andrew Hudson-Smith of UCL (see Ingrid’s notes here and a video here) mentioned the use…

More IDeA social reporting

…is happening over at IDeA Performance. This is a great initiative by IDeA, trying to open up the training and workshops they provide to anyone with an internet connection. If you, or anyone you know, is interested in local government…

Social Media Exchange materials now online

As I mentioned in my previous post, in a few hours (must…sleep…) I’ll be running a couple of sessions at the Social Media Exchange. I’ve now finished my slides, and have put them up on slideshare. Rather than make your…

What should a council’s website look like?

Simon Wakeman presents a nice roundup of some of the new websites being launched, comparing Barnet and Cheltenham‘s latest efforts with the current poster-child, Redbridge. Generating an environment for residents to interact online with their councils will generate more engagement…

Democracy and knowledge

Great, meaty article in this fortnight’s issue of The London Review of Books by David Runciman: The wisdom of crowds: why the many are smarter than the few. We-think: the power of mass creativity. Infotopia: how many minds produce knowledge.…

Boris isn’t listening

Boris Johnson has hit Twitter! Marvellous. Only… As of the time of typing, Boris isn’t following anyone. Also, ‘under the auspices’? Jesus wept. Compare this to 10 Downing Street’s much healthier use of the service: Twitter doesn’t work as a…

Bookmarks for January 14th through January 21st

These are my links for January 14th through January 21st:

  • apophenia: Taken Out of Context -- my PhD dissertation - Danah Boyd's PhD dissertation. Well worth a download.
  • Government 2.0 Club - "Government 2.0 Club is a national organization that brings together leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share ideas and solutions for leveraging social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborate, efficient and effective government — Government 2.0."
  • Anecdote: Profiting from Collaboration - "Google and P&G are both known for their innovation capabilities and strict internal policy. Driven by market forces, they made an exception. They swapped about two-dozen staffers who spent weeks dipping into each other's staff training programs and sitting in on meetings where business plans get hammered out. This is terrific example of purposeful collaboration delivering results."
  • DELL COMMUNITY - Great example of taking a community approach to customer service.
  • McLuhan Program - Research - Current Academic Research - "Because language is intimately integrated within the human mind, any technology that processes language in one way or another may have strong effects in the way the mind processes that content. Though they may have deciding common points such as plot, period and characters, a film adaptation is processed very differently by the mind of the viewer, than by that of the reader. "