Civil servants and the social web

I spent an interesting morning last Friday at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, attending a meeting of ‘civil servant bloggers’ – not many of whom, it turned out, actually blogged – to discuss the recent guidelines for online participation. It…

Large female required

I was delighted to be a part of the winning pub quiz team at WordCampUK, not least because it meant that I won a wicked cool dark green WordPress tshirt. I asked the now-legendary quiz host Jon Bounds for a…

Telegraph switches to Google Apps

Been busy at WorkCampUK so haven’t been following my feeds that closely, but my eye was caught by a post written by Shane Richmond, Communities Editor of the Telegraph’s web presence: I’ve been testing Google Apps within the Telegraph for…

Reflections on WordCampUK

I am typing most of this on the train back from Birmingham, where I have been attending WordCampUK, a two day conference on all things to do with the greatest online publishing platform, like, ever. It was great to meet…

Simon Dickson at WordCampUK

Quick notes on Simon Dickson‘s presentation at WordCampUK: Make big change happen in a small way Didn’t intend to be a WP fanboy, but it just turned out to be the best way of doing things Need for a WP…

SEO for WordPress

Here’s some notes from the session at WordCampUK on SEO for WordPress, presented by Nick Garner of Betfair. Will tidy up later with more links and stuff. you can’t hold your website users’ hands the whole time. SEO can make…

More DIUS innovation

Another bit of top notch, innovative digital participation work has come out of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and again it is WordPress magic. This time though, there are all sorts of different bits built into it. Steph…

The need for community managers

Marshall Kirkpatrick, at ReadWriteWeb wrote a piece that caused a certain amount of flurry yesterday, asking whether startups need community managers: A community manager can do many things (see below) but the most succinct definition of the role that we…

DavePress inc.

I’ve finally done it. Today I handed in my notice at work, and once that period is up, I will be freelancing: peddling my social media wares to anyone that will have them. Actually, that isn’t strictly true. Here’s some…

A GovWeb group blog?

There has been quite a lot of interest in the Public Sector Bloggers site I set up recently (and which I really must get around to updating soon), which has been very gratifying. One of the issues with it –…

Blogs vs. email

I’ve touched on this before, talking about people liking email more than things on the web because they see email as work and the web as messing around, having fun. It’s interesting because while on the one hand people are…

WordPress 2.6 out now

The WordPress development blog has announced the release of a new version of the world’s best blogging software. Some of the big improvements include: the ability to compare versions of posts, wiki-style, tracking who changed what – great for multi-user…

Consultation Update

Last week, two different consultation exercises were launched by two Whitehall departments, each tackling the issue of how to engage people through the web slightly differently. Firstly, there was DCLG with their blog/twitter/forum combo; second was DIUS, with their funky…

Should web and ICT be the same?

Really interesting post from Paul Canning, discussing the recent assertion by Richard Steele, SOCITM‘s President, that web should be just another part of IT within organisations. Paul says: Web skills are very specific, you need to be across a lot…

What is a ‘Digital Mentor’?

One of the ideas in the Communities in Control white paper, published last week by the Department for Communities and Local Government, that has attracted a fair amount of attention is that of the ‘Digital Mentors’. Here’s what the paper…

Online conservation

Charles Leadbeater – he of We-Think fame – has a piece in this week’s Spectator called ‘The web is the most conservative force on Earth‘. Given the publication this article was appearing in, I wasn’t sure where it was going,…

Setback for public sector bloggers

Paul Canning brings to our attention the case of a sacked blogger at the Welsh Assembly. As reported at WalesOnline: AN Assembly Government civil servant who was sacked for running a political blog is taking his case to an Employment…