Lovely post from Luton’s Ben McCartney on the improvements he and his team have been making to the service desk at the council.

Government customer services to be modernised with help of industry experts: The government is launching CustomerFirst, a new unit within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, to modernise public services and improve the experience for millions of people who…

A roadmap for modern digital government: Our plan to build a modern digital government that works for you – making life easier, driving growth and delivering smarter, more efficient public services

Wow – Microsoft Copilot blamed by Chief Constable for Maccabi Tel Aviv ban: The incident and subsequent review have reignited debates about police decision-making, community engagement, and the balance between public safety and fairness in policing high-profile events. It has…

Wise words as always from Catherine Howe – Change is a layered thing: There is an alchemy to taking stuff you have already and turning it into something different but I think that’s the essence of organisational change. You are…

📅 Daily note for 26 January 2024

Remember my course! It might be really helpful for you or a colleague! Excellent podcast about what Iran is up to these days. Giles thinks learning materials in organisations ought to be better quality, and of course he is right.…

[RL] Starting the ‘Reading List’

Finding time to blog is tough, and while I enjoy putting together the Five for Friday posts, you may have noticed that even doing those is tricky. To get myself back into the habit of regularly posting, I’m going to…

The strategy graph

I rather like this diagram that appeared in a post talking about Microsoft (which is well worth reading in and of itself). It describes all the elements that make up what an organisation is and does. At the top, there…

Problogging

I’m hugely envious of folks like Shawn Blanc and Ben Thompson. Their job is their blogs! How lucky is that? This year I’ve really got into the content-producing swing of things – dunno if you’ve noticed. With this blog settled…

Bookmarking

I’ve started properly bookmarking again, using Pinboard. If you want to quickly see the latest things I’ve bookmarked, they are in the right hand sidebar on this blog – just below the email subscription options. Alternatively you could look at…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. cpsrenewal.ca by Nick Charney: Mapping Internal Policy to the Hype Cycle – "I've been thinking a lot this week about how organizations issue policies to govern the use of new…

Options for curating online content

Curation is an answer to the problem of information overload. There’s so much stuff online these days – how do you read it all? Or rather, how do you decide what’s worth your attention? A way for an individual or…

Starting up DaveMail

I had a go at doing an email newsletter once before – put a signup form here on the blog, got quite a few people to subscribe, and then never got round to sending a single issue. Useless! Part of…

Local TV

I think it’s fair to say that DCMS’s plans for Local TV are mostly terrible. Luckily, people who know a lot more about it that I do are writing it all up. I enjoyed these three posts on the LSE…

Bookmarks for April 28th through May 18th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Local Government Graduate Gripes – "How would a networked, open, innovative, tech-enabled, social recruitment scheme for government work?" 10 things Alpha.gov.uk gets wrong (Part 1) | Helpful Technology – Nicely…

Bookmarks for April 6th through April 27th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. How to beat Apple – Interesting read. Micro-Participation In Online Consultations – NIce summary and contribution to the discussion. Coté’s People Over Process » 3 Tips on Scaling Agile Development…

Bookmarks for February 23rd through April 4th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Reaping the benefits of shared services – Interesting interview with @terryhuggins on the shared services arrangement between South Holland and East Lindsay councils. UK IT Strategy Sets the Pace for…

The end of the IT department

37 Signals’ David Heinemeier Hansson: When people talk about their IT departments, they always talk about the things they’re not allowed to do, the applications they can’t run, and the long time it takes to get anything done. Rigid and…

Bookmarks for January 10th through January 24th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. #UKGC11: Flickr, Wikipedia and Open Streetmap for local authorities – Great write up of an interesting session from @abeeken Reworking the public sector | Public sector pm – Notes on…