I had a fun chat last week with Richard Godfrey of Syncity. Richard, like me, has a big interest in how local councils use technology, particularly acknowledging the need for more traditional IT to be modernised alongside the sexier digital stuff.
In this video we talk about good digital and technology strategy, what levels of digital confidence people in senior positions need, and what’s happening in smart cities. It’s well worth 45 minutes of your time!
LocalGovDrupal is an open source implementation of the classic Drupal content management system hat has been developed by councils for councils, with the help of some funding from MHCLG.
It is, by my reckoning, the best example I have seen of open source use in local government, largely because councils are contributing to the project as well as consuming it.
16 councils are now involved and conservative estimates calculate that millions of pounds have been saved compared to using commercial off the shelf alternatives.
What is great is that councils are using those savings to invest in other things to make their websites better, like content design and user research.
Will Callaghan has been the main driver of the project and he gives us some of the background, while Kate Hurr talks about the progress Cumbria Council are making in implementing LocalGovDrupal. We also talk a little bit about pies! 🥧
I honestly can’t praise this project enough, I think it’s brilliant, and a wonderful example of the benefits of open, collaborative working, and sharing and re-use of technology across the sector.
LocalGovDrupal is an open source implementation of the classic Drupal content management system hat has been developed by councils for councils, with the help of some funding from MHCLG.
It is, by my reckoning, the best example I have seen of open source use in local government, largely because councils are contributing to the project as well as consuming it.
16 councils are now involved and conservative estimates calculate that millions of pounds have been saved compared to using commercial off the shelf alternatives.
What is great is that councils are using those savings to invest in other things to make their websites better, like content design and user research.
Will Callaghan has been the main driver of the project and he gives us some of the background, while Kate Hurr talks about the progress Cumbria Council are making in implementing LocalGovDrupal. We also talk a little bit about pies! 🥧
I honestly can’t praise this project enough, I think it’s brilliant, and a wonderful example of the benefits of open, collaborative working, and sharing and re-use of technology across the sector.
I had enormous fun last week chatting with Ben Proctor from Data Orchard about the concept of data maturity in organisations.
Data Orchard have identified 5 stages of data maturity, each of which describe the extent to which an organisation uses data to improve the way it works. The stages are: unaware, emerging, learning, developing and mastering.
In this half hour or so, we discuss important topics such as:
why using data is a cultural, not a technology issue
what some of the technology barriers can be
what steps needs to be taken for an organisation wanting to be data mature
the state of open data in the UK
why bats are interesting in a data sense, much more so than newts
Ben mentions are few projects and things during the conversations, here they are for your convenience:
A cool tool built by Jean-Baptiste Robertson which links openstreetmap.cymru, Wikidata and and Wikipedia and is so awesome thanks, in part, to the efforts of the National Library of Wales
I had enormous fun last week chatting with Ben Proctor from Data Orchard about the concept of data maturity in organisations.
Data Orchard have identified 5 stages of data maturity, each of which describe the extent to which an organisation uses data to improve the way it works. The stages are: unaware, emerging, learning, developing and mastering.
In this half hour or so, we discuss important topics such as:
why using data is a cultural, not a technology issue
what some of the technology barriers can be
what steps needs to be taken for an organisation wanting to be data mature
the state of open data in the UK
why bats are interesting in a data sense, much more so than newts
Ben mentions are few projects and things during the conversations, here they are for your convenience:
A cool tool built by Jean-Baptiste Robertson which links openstreetmap.cymru, Wikidata and and Wikipedia and is so awesome thanks, in part, to the efforts of the National Library of Wales
