How did I not know about this? Emulated Macs going back to the original, all in the browser: https://infinitemac.org/ Fairly pointless, but amazing.

“How to play Mundane Superhero” https://smithery.com/2023/08/03/how-to-play-mundane-superhero/ – looks a fun way to kick off workshops etc.

“Council Spotlight: Stockport’s Family Context tool” https://medium.com/ldcu/council-spotlight-stockports-family-context-tool-5cb0eb3e4e51

“Why Open Source Matters” https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2023/08/03/why-opensource-matters/

This is an extremely important thread for anyone wanting to understand the financial pressures felt across local government (and no, it’s not related to solar farms…) https://twitter.com/JackTShaw/status/1683415430126247936

Following on from my post about where we are with digital and technology in local government, I have been trying to put some thought into an idea around how to make this a bit easier for everyone involved. As is often the case, I am struggling with getting something small and quick done, against the knowledge that it might not be enough. As always I ought to be quaffing some of my agile mindset kool-aid, but it’s hard.

A thought is also very much in my mind: why is it me doing this? It really ought to be somebody’s job, rather than the hobby of a bloke in Spalding.

I have loved the album ‘original’ of this song since I first heard it, but when I came across this version, quite recently, I was absolutely blown away:

Lovely stuff from Simon at Adur & Worthing Councils: “5 Highlights from 5 Years of the Local Digital Declaration” https://medium.com/awc-digital-design/5-highlights-from-5-years-of-the-local-digital-declaration-f01cb2986103

Another good thread, this time on how we should be thinking about stuff published in ‘private’ online work networks: https://twitter.com/sharonodea/status/1686673530878840832

This is quite the story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-66384327

Not published one of these for a while.

Newsletter went out yesterday, with a long article I wrote at the weekend about the local digital declaration and where things are at: https://www.davebriggs.email/p/daveslist-volume-3-issue-7

Some great, addictive little browser games in here: https://kottke.org/23/07/your-favorite-addictive-flash-games-back-from-the-dead

Does the browser need reimagining? These folk seem to think so: https://arc.net/ – I don’t like the insistence on opening an account before you can do anything else.

Really excellent advice on ‘shadow IT’ https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/shadow-it

“Worldcoin: a solution in search of its problem” https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/worldcoin-a-solution-in-search-of

“The eternal principles of an (enterprise) app stack” https://cote.io/2023/08/01/the-eternal-principles.html

I sent a newsletter – https://www.davebriggs.email/p/daveslist-volume-3-issue-6

“Maybe the real design tool was all the conversation we had along the way” https://www.dxw.com/2023/07/maybe-the-real-design-tool-was-all-the-conversation-we-had-along-the-way/

Am consistently impressed with dxw’s blogging. Always authentic, always helpful. Very rarely sales-y.

Last weekend we started watching the Mission:Impossible films in order. Fair to say they are of variable quality. However, my favourite moment BY FAR is in the first one. Tom Cruise’s character needs to track down the identity of someone codenamed ‘Max’. He knows they sometimes use the internet. He opens his laptop, and with a sense of expectation searches Usenet for the URL ‘max.com’ and hits enter. The sense of disappointment on his face when this brilliant scheme doesn’t produce results is heartbreaking.

My piece about single customer accounts seems to have gone down quite well in most parts. My focus in the last year has mostly been on people and capability stuff, and before that on some of the trickier IT problems facing councils. It’s great that my current work in Lambeth is giving me the chance to revisit the ‘digital experience’ and challenge my thinking a bit: https://sensibletech.co.uk/should-you-develop-a-single-customer-account/

There’s lots of very good stuff in here from Coté: “Waiting for the close of open – how long can the 2000s spirit of open source and open APIs last?” https://cote.io/2023/07/21/waiting-for-the.html

“How Signal Walks the Line Between Anarchism and Pragmatism” https://www.wired.com/story/signal-politics-software-criticism/

“Delivery Needs a Strategy” https://jdosreme.medium.com/delivery-needs-a-strategy-94ef09954f36 (also why oh why do people still publish on Medium?)

Elon Musk has already had a company called X. It merged with PayPay in 2000, and then within months the PayPal people got sick of what a terrible guy he was to work with, and sidelined him. I dare say rebranding Twitter is the first step in what Musk hopes will be his great ‘I told you I was right’ project. He’s re-opening a 23 year old wound. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66284304

“Inside 4chan’s Top-Secret Moderation Machine” https://www.wired.com/story/4chan-moderation-buffalo-shooting/ (I wanted to read this so much I actually subscribed to Wired’s online edition for the privilege!)

I wrote about why I don’t think single user accounts are a good thing for local councils: https://sensibletech.co.uk/should-you-develop-a-single-customer-account/ – also sent as a newsletter https://www.davebriggs.email/p/daveslist-volume-3-issue-5

Matt ‘Jukesie’ Jukes is looking for work. You should hire him! https://digitalbydefault.com/2023/07/20/whats-next/

I keep seeing this image popping up in various online places, and it sums up exactly where a lot of local gov is when it comes to Ai, machine learning etc:

“Better government tech starts with people. New Jersey shows how” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/13/new-jersey-digital-unemployment-insurance/

Love this quote from the above article: “smart digital investments must start with people”.

“This is my new thing after five years of talking with large companies about digital transformation: it just takes a long time.” https://mastodon.social/@cote@social.lol/110751957148905976

Delighted to see another local gov blog launching today! https://warwickdc.localgov.blog/

Some lovely stuff in here: https://waxy.org/2023/07/vote-on-the-tiny-awards/

Maddening but brilliant, like a reverse Tetris: https://vividfax.itch.io/fudge

Another newsletter went out today: https://www.davebriggs.email/p/daveslist-volume-3-issue-4

“Teaching agility, not Agile™” https://medium.com/@rchatley/teaching-agility-not-agile-a69ed6644682

Ooooooh: “Open Working 101” https://medium.com/we-are-cast/open-working-101-f8fa10385061

Daughter was telling me this morning about dog and cat based ASMR videos, and I said I really don’t think that was what TBL had in mind when he invented the web and she said dad, you’re so old.

Ben Unsworth, talking about digital transformation in local government. What’s not to like? https://open.spotify.com/episode/5dwqlqSqoRlZ1zJiB8xr9t

Stockport Council asks “How can we use data to help support people to leave hospital when safe and appropriate to do so?” https://www.digitalstockport.info/how-can-we-use-data-to-help-support-people-to-leave-hospital-when-safe-and-appropriate-to-do-so/

The Digital Inclusion Toolkit is looking for sponsors. If you can, you should: https://digitalinclusionkit.org/digital-inclusion-news/sponsor-the-digital-inclusion-toolkit/

Am stepping things up a bit with localgov.blog. Have coerced Steph Gray into helping me migrate and upgrade the whole thing, and set up a Basecamp site (still my favourite online collaboration thingy) to get all the users in one conversation to help me understand better what they need.

My Bluesky experience so far has been mostly terrible. I really don’t like the website interface – it feels like something I might have put together myself. Notifications fail to clear, and the same posts are always just there for some reason. I don’t follow enough people, is no doubt part of the problem.

It was our son’s graduation yesterday. So proud! But also, how did that happen? I’m so old!

On Saturday we watched the new Indiana Jones film. Very silly of course but it did capture some of the fun of the originals, which I was just mad keen on when I was a kid.

I used ChatGPT to build myself a simple flat file homepage to point to the various places I exist online. It’s remarkably easy to just feed it a few prompts and then tweak as necessary. Am sure I will keep fiddling, but it’s a start, and was so easy! https://www.davebriggs.xyz/

I really agree with Terence Eden on this https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/discord-is-not-documentation/ – and not just because I personally find Discord impossible to navigate!

I think this is true of a lot of online communities too – there’s that concept which was spoken about a lot 15 years ago (remember Wikipatterns? https://stewartmader.com/wikipatterns/ ), but now not so often, of online community ‘gardeners’ – people who’d tidy conversations up, retrieve and keep the good stuff where everyone could find it, and not allow knowledge to be lost or forgotten.

Viola the Bird is quite a strange thing https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/nAEJVwNkp-FnrQ

Said this a few time this week – you can do amazing work with a good team, good culture, plenty of enthusiasm and terrible tech. With great tech and rubbish everything else, not so much.

Have made it onto Bluesky, just in time for it to die probably. But if you are there, come say hello! https://bsky.app/profile/davebriggs.bsky.social. Thanks to Jukesie for the invite code 🙂

This is good from TPX Impact – feels like we need a lot more of this kind of analysis across local gov: https://www.tpximpact.com/knowledge-hub/insights/harnessing-potential-social-housing-technology/

It’s almost like we need something kind of Gartner-esque but focusing on the technology and services providers working with local government. We ask why the same old vendors are so successful, but really, why wouldn’t they? Where’s the independent advice coming from?

A take on Twitter that is worth sharing if only for it’s remarkable length: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2023/7/6/how-to-blow-up-a-timeline

I’m getting some good reaction to the regular blogging here, and I think the newsletter is going alright, although it’s early days for that. What I have not done in a while is any longer, advisory type blogging, which usually gets posted over at https://sensibletech.co.uk/ – and I probably ought to do some of that soon.

Another newsletter went out this morning: https://daveslist.substack.com/p/daves-list-vol-3-issue-3

ClassicPress is WordPress like it used to be https://www.classicpress.net/

For years I lived in Evernote. This by Harry McCracken captures some of what made it great https://www.technologizer.com/2023/07/09/for-your-eyes-only-my-unedited-2013-time-magazine-story-about-evernote/

I knew vaguely of Vivian Stanshall, but I definitely know more having read this: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/12/on-best-behaviour-he-was-a-joy-the-lost-archive-of-english-pop-eccentric-vivian-stanshall

I like this! “Build your own “On This Day” page for WordPress” https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/build-your-own-on-this-day-page-for-wordpress/

I had the pleasure earlier this week to speak for the first time to Doug Belshaw. I have been following Doug’s stuff online for years and always found it useful and interesting. Never actually spoken though, so it was lovely to do so. I recommend it! https://dougbelshaw.com/about/

I just can’t help myself. It’s like a sickness https://t2.social/davebriggs

Episode 2 of our daughter Jade’s podcast is out. It’s all about the job of being a social media manager at an agency. It’s good! https://shows.acast.com/the-social-sisters-podcast/episodes/episode-2-what-does-a-social-media-manager-actually-do

“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I’ve read more about David Foster Wallace than I have David Foster Wallace. This is a great piece: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n14/patricia-lockwood/where-be-your-jibes-now

Ben Thompson on Threads and the state of social media: https://stratechery.com/2023/threads-and-the-social-communications-map/

Just published my newsletter – a few opinions and a lot of links (and the usual photo of a daft dog) https://daveslist.substack.com/p/daves-list-vol-3-issue-2

“Reviewing the Local Digital Declaration 5 years on: Update on the discovery project” https://dluhcdigital.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/03/reviewing-the-local-digital-declaration-5-years-on-update-on-the-discovery-project/

On reflection, my honest view is that, 5 years in, councils that have signed the declaration really ought to be doing an awful lot more of the things they signed up to do. The declaration’s content is fine. It just needs to be acted on.

Here’s a council that actually is acting on the declaration: “Establishing an Agile Delivery Management Community” https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/07/07/establishing-an-agile-delivery-management-community/

This is one of those articles that goes after a sacred cow or two, and is pretty excorciating in places. I don’t agree with much of it, but it sure is a useful challenge: “Beware the Digital Whiteboard” https://www.wired.com/story/beware-the-digital-whiteboard/

Such a good job going at such a good council: https://ats-adurworthing.jgp.co.uk/vacancies/244465?ga_client_id=d7e337cd-2454-49b5-9dc7-3ef60845d457

Some lovely reflections from Lloyd: “What was all that about then?” https://perfectpath.co.uk/2023/07/10/what-was-all-that-about-then/

A decision I made when I took my current gig at Lambeth was just to do 4 days a week, so I had a day a week to pootle about doing other things. The first of those days is today and ngl it feels a bit odd!

I was around when this idea was first being mooted, and it’s brill to see it live. It’s a genuine digital age capability that can be slotted into many a service, making life easier for service users as well as making the back office a bit more efficient. What’s not to like? https://www.madetech.com/blog/evidence-saas-product/

I love this definition of ‘legacy’ from Coté: “Software you need to change, but are afraid to change” https://newsletter.cote.io/p/how-to-use-chatgpt-at-schools-to-help-students

“10 years on – what’s changed for the 21st Century Public Servant?” https://21stcenturypublicservant.wordpress.com/2023/07/06/updating-the-21st-century-public-servant/

“Perhaps we’ve been wrong to frame public service digital as a way to save money” https://jasonkitcat.com/2023/07/07/perhaps-weve-been-wrong-to-frame-public-service-digital-as-a-way-to-save-money/

For a few years now, I have been advising councils not to seek savings through digital work, but to use digital to make the savings they were demanding from their services anyway tolerable for their service users and staff.

This means being more creative about how to fund digital work, beyond simple invest to save capital spend.

This is a lovely piece by Giles Turnbull and I will be first in the queue for the book when it emerges! https://howteamsremember.com/

“I created Clippy”:

I’ve signed up for and downloaded Threads. I don’t like the lack of a web interface, if I’m honest and it makes a mockery of my no-social-media phone policy. Hopefully one will come soon. It’s also full of a lot of “suggested content” that I’ve not chosen to see and there’s no apparent way to turn that off. Which is a turn off.

John Gruber’s take seems to hit all the nails on their heads https://daringfireball.net/2023/07/threads

“The Local Authority Data Explorer
for the Office for Local Government (Oflog)” https://oflog.data.gov.uk/

“New recurring payments and webhook features available through GOV.UK Pay” https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/05/new-recurring-payments-and-webhook-features-available-through-gov-uk-pay/

I wonder if there’s a tweak to Betteridge’s law of headlines that states that when the headline ending in a question mark is related to AI, the NO answering it is even more emphatic than normal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

“Bringing Digital Skills to Public Purpose Organisations” https://public.digital/2023/07/03/bringing-digital-skills-to-public-purpose-organisations

Someone asked me about CRM today and I was able to point to my answer from 2018 which is still broadly what I think: https://da.vebrig.gs/2018/06/15/do-you-need-to-buy-a-crm/

New newsletter out today, which I have switched to Substack. It does feel like building personal networks through things like email might be the answer to the breakdown of more public social media like Twitter etc https://daveslist.substack.com/p/daves-list-vol-3-issue-1

Anyway, I would be grateful for any feedback.

The best non-fiction tech books of all time – https://www.theverge.com/c/23771068/best-tech-books-nonfiction-recommendations

I can’t believe the above doesn’t include Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy or What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff!

Haringey Council have launched a new blog on my localgov.blog service, chatting about their website redevelopment project. Do check it out, and if your council wants a free blog, you know where to find me. https://haringey.localgov.blog/

I do need to have a think about localgov.blog and what I ought to do with it. Right now it’s fine and it ticks along quite nicely, but there are improvements that in an ideal world I would like to make. Currently though, am not sure the effort would really be justified!

I still haven’t reinstalled any social media apps on my phone, and I am still ok with it. Am I spending less time on my phone as a result? Maybe, but think I’m browsing the open web a bit more than I was.

This is infuriating: https://neal.fun/password-game/

Whenever Catherine Howe posts, it’s usually a good idea to read it: https://curiouscatherinehowe.medium.com/taking-the-red-pill-c30839bedb7f

More Twitter woes: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/07/03/everything-continues-to-be-going-just-great-at-twitter

“So where are we all supposed to go now?” https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/3/23782607/social-web-public-apps-end-reddit-twitter-mastodon

This is a good and challenging read on what even is an online community these days “The End Of Platform-Centric Strategies” https://www.feverbee.com/communityeverywhere/

Yet another note taking application for me to tinker with: https://www.qownnotes.org/

THIS from Dave Winer: “I wonder if now what I’ve been trying to do with RSS, blogging and podcasting, get underneath the bigco’s and live on a plane that doesn’t require any one of them, makes a bit more sense now.” It sure does http://scripting.com/2023/07/03.html#a143645

More fedi-fun: run your own YouTube clone with PeerTube. Sounds like a good way to bankrupt yourself if you aren’t careful – https://joinpeertube.org/

“Marc Andreessen Is (Mostly) Wrong This Time [about AI]” https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-marc-andreessen-labor-politics/

First day in my new job over. Am enjoying the feeling of getting to know my new surroundings, and using that new job motivation to start various balls rolling.

Jukesie on ‘minimum viable unconference’ https://digitalbydefault.com/2023/06/30/minimal-viable-unconference/

“Twitter bug causes self-DDOS tied to Elon Musk’s emergency blocks and rate limits: “It’s amateur hour”” https://waxy.org/2023/07/twitter-bug-causes-self-ddos-possibly-causing-elon-musks-emergency-blocks-and-rate-limits-its-amateur-hour/

I do really enjoy podcasts, and I love that it’s remained an open system. But in terms of them paying for themselves, it worries me slightly that all the ads on podcasts are for other podcasts, which doesn’t seem awfully sustainable.

What if failure is the plan? https://zephoria.medium.com/what-if-failure-is-the-plan-2f219ea1cd62

Another one! Argh! https://t2.social/

“AI and the automation of work” https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/7/2/working-with-ai