Daily notes

Daily note for 21 September 2023

I newsletter-ed and LinkedIn-ed about something I have been working on recently to help local public services increase their understanding of digital working and culture at scale. It’s an e-learning course which explains digital, user centred service design, agile, data and technology, all in a way that is rooted in the local public service context. Take a look, to see if it might help you.

What I learned in year three of Platformer – “Has the Substack revolution come and gone?”

Undertaking GOV.UK’s largest software infrastructure project – big, difficult things can be done without too much fuss, if approached in the right way.

Recoding America – “why government is failing in the digital age and how we can do better”

John Naughton reviews the recent Elon Musk biography.

How I use my RSS reader – love this sort of stuff.

I added a ‘now’ page to this website, explaining what I am working on at this moment in time. Thanks to Steve for the idea.

This morning I attended Lloyd’s first ‘parade’ via Black Elephant. It’s an interesting approach to online community building. I got to meet someone new, who I would never normally have had a chance to meet, and it provided an opportunity for some personal reflection and sharing – something I’ve been working on myself, so it came at a good time. The experience has also got my mind racing a bit about online communities, and what makes the good ones really tick.

Daily notes for 19 September 2023

Redesigning the DDaT Capability Framework.

Can data help me solve this problem?

Dorset Council claims progress with roll out of digital social care records.

“Elon Musk: Social media platform X could go behind paywall” Shoulda woulda coulda. People need to stop reporting on what this man says and focus on what he does.

“Why Voice Failed as a Platform”. Definitely this: ‘It is too difficult to use voice interfaces for more than just a handful of purposes.’ Setting alarms? Yes. Almost anything else? No.

More scray Chrome stuff.

Daily note for 18 September 2023

If I had one bit of advice for ‘IT’ people it would be to stop referring to “the business”. It’s just so WEIRD.

I newslettered again.

Laura Hilliger, Doug Belshaw and Matt Jukes all on the same podcast? 😍

This seems an interesting approach to sharing capacity and capability around digital stuff in local gov.

I have enjoyed every John le Carré novel I have read, with the exception of A Perfect Spy, generally considered his best, which I have never managed to even get a third of the way through. I tried again at the weekend and gave up. No idea why it doesn’t click with me.

Lauren Pope on how to do a content audit (thanks Steph!):

Daily note for 14 September 2023

These notes have been a bit less daily of late.

I’m chatting to a couple of smaller councils at the moment who are looking to significantly refresh their websites. It struck me that there really ought to a be a go-to playbook on the steps to go through, to avoid utterly pointless wheel reinvention. Of course, there isn’t one, so I am recruiting people to help me put it together. Do please join in!

As an aside, it’s quite interesting using Trello as a means of doing pretty much everything in a collaborative project, including using specific cards as discussion threads, and so on. It’s a remarkably flexible tool, really good at almost everything (except managing projects, ho ho!)

I newslettered yesterday, mostly about the concept of ‘legacy’ in local government tech and what to do about it.

“Focusing on just outcomes leads to whacky tech decisions” – more along the ‘it’s not not about the technology’ lines.

“Lessons for implementing digital health technologies”

I quite like this distinction: “Federation vs Small Pieces Loosely Joined”

Lots of stuff coming out about how Chrome is increasingly unethical as a browser, what with its data collecting and whatnot. Mark, amongst others, is using Firefox, which as a suggestion feels delightfully old school to me. Handily, Mozilla have just published a guide to switching from one to the other.

Daily note for 12 September 2023

“It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy” – somewhat concerning.

Love this, eccentric bringing back to life of ancient, almost useless technology. Beautiful.

Lovely reflections from Tim Davies, someone I don’t speak to much these days but remember very fondly from the wild west early days of social media and whatnot.

Lloyd on networks, connections and location – and why we need Dopplr back.

Lambeth are in the seat for this Local Digital Fund project on building control. Worth keeping an eye on. (Again, though, why oh why Medium?)

James Herbert reflects on recent engagements around data, and what lessons can be drawn. Definitely worthy of a mull.

As Rob on Twitter says, these five points from TechUK about ‘care tech’ feel a bit sticking-plaster-y.

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