• It’s really annoying when ctrl-k doesn’t work as a shortcut to insert a link somewhere
• It’s the agile mindset that matters for local government (by me)
  • https://sensibletech.co.uk/its-the-agile-mindset-that-matters-for-local-government/
• Two wonderful bit of work (and blogging) by Essex
  • https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/05/12/testing-essex-gov-with-blind-and-low-vision-users/
  • https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/05/17/tales-of-the-private-beta-supertesters-user-research-on-the-new-intranet/
• Learning, More than One Way
  • https://postshift.com/learning-more-than-one-way/
• Bristol Digital’s user experience principles
  • https://bristoldigital.localgov.blog/2023/05/16/ux-principles/
• Making a modern digital council
  • https://www.themj.co.uk/Making-a-modern-digital-council/227884

• I survived my stag do at the weekend, although to be fair, it was a quiet affair. Just me, 3 of my old school mates and my 22 year old son. Wedding is next Saturday, so exciting!
• Despite being split in two following some local gov reorganisation, the digital folk up in Cumbria are still on their blogging A game
  • https://cumbria.localgov.blog/2023/05/12/public-health-health-wellbeing-coaches/
• Testing essex.gov with blind and low vision users
  • https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/05/12/testing-essex-gov-with-blind-and-low-vision-users/

• My birthday passed without incident. Some lovely messages from folk, and some delightful gifts, including some impressively chunky history books, those Penguin ones with the orange spines that look so fabulous on a shelf. Also Peter Rex’s book on Hereward the Wake, which I am really looking forward to.
• OneTeamGov for local government this morning, brilliantly facilitated by Kit Collingwood. Great chats and a lovely group to be a part of.
• Lloyd is continuing his own daily note experiment, and mentions mine, and now I am mentioning that, and so the circle closes. I guess what we are doing is similar to the Dave Winer view of blogging. I’ve just never got my head around using an outliner to do it, so will never go full Winer, I don’t think.
  • https://perfectpath.co.uk/2023/05/12/friday-may-12th-2023/
  • http://scripting.com/
• A terrific conversation with Chris Thompson, who is charge of computers and that at Northumberland Council. First time we’ve spoken properly, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

• It’s my birthday! 44 today.
• It turns out, little did I know, that the links haven’t been working on these notes for some time. No idea why but they aren’t properly being added to the posts in WordPress when I hit publish in Obsidian. I’m going through adding them in manually, which is a pain.
• Another thing lacking in the current setup is a way to tag posts, which might be a useful way to find stuff after I’ve published it. There doesn’t seems to be a way of doing that right now.
• Maybe I need a proper offline blog editor, but other than MarsEdit on the Mac – I’m mostly on a Windows machine during the day – do they even exist any more?
• I wrote a thing the other day about digital culture and mindset and how important they are to organisations wanting to do a bit better in this space. I published it on LinkedIn, which nows feels a bit eccentric and I should probably stick it on here too, or maybe on the SensibleTech site.
  • https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/has-your-council-signed-local-digital-declaration-what-dave-briggs/
• I quite like the look of Traffic by Ben Smith. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, these books about Silicon Valley companies. I particularly like it when everything goes wrong.
  • https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/678592/traffic-by-ben-smith/
• Lovely (football) story about Aberdeen beating Real Madrid back in 1983. Different times!
  • https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/may/10/alex-ferguson-aberdeen-real-madrid-1983-final-40-years-on
• ‘Condign’ means a punishment that fits the crime
  • https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/condign

• I’ve been rubbish publishing here for a couple of weeks. Been super busy, is my excuse. Nice to see one of my blogging inspirations Lloyd is trying something similar.
  • https://perfectpath.co.uk/2023/05/03/wednesday-may-3rd-2023/
• Books – am currently reading The Ruin of all Witches by Malcolm Gaskill, which is just terrific. I find the early days of the USA fascinating.
  • https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314807/the-ruin-of-all-witches-by-gaskill-malcolm/9780141991481
• 3 surprising observations about collaboration from developing the local gov IMS
  • https://www.dxw.com/2023/04/collaboration-local-government-income-management-system-project/
• Local Government Service Design Maturity Model – nice work by Newham Council and others
  • https://www.newham.gov.uk/ServiceDesignMaturityModel

• No note yesterday, it was a busy day launching our recruitment campaign
  • https://jobs.digitalbirmingham.org/
• Interesting article about a wonderful song
  • https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/apr/24/wayne-coyne-flaming-lips-do-you-realize
• Great win for Forest tonight! Danilo scored, which shows how much I know.
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65319930
• Got an enquiry about another council wanting to set up a blog on localgov.blog – this makes me happy.
  • https://localgov.blog/

• How Elon Musk Turned the Blue Checkmark Into a Scarlet Letter – I will never tire of stories that point out what a berk Musk is.
  • https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/elon-musk-twitter-blue-checkmarks-verification-lebron-james.html
• Leading Charities in a Digital Society
  • https://public.digital/2023/04/24/leading-charities-in-a-digital-society

• Government should publish user research for the public good
  • https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/opinion/government-should-publish-user-research-public-good
• The cult of bare minimum learning
  • https://postshift.com/the-cult-of-bare-minimum-learning/
• Glucomate – new app to help diabetics tracks their sugar levels
  • https://zachsim.one/blog/2023/4/19/introducing-glucomate
• The end of computer magazines in America – I used to love buying computer magazines in my teens. This was in the mid-nineties, and as a proud owner of an Amiga 500 all my pocket money got spent on magazines where the word Amiga was followed by Format, Power, Shopper amongst other things. The free stuff on the attached floppy disks were always a delight. I’ve not looked at a magazine rack in years, so couldn’t say what the situation in the UK is…
  • https://www.technologizer.com/2023/04/15/the-end-of-computer-magazines-in-america/

• I wasn’t sure about posting yesterday’s note, which was rather limited, mostly because of having a super busy day. But I thought the practice of publishing even short notes is a good one to keep up with
• dxw’s onboarding approach for new staff
  • https://www.dxw.com/2023/04/how-we-do-onboarding-at-dxw/
• Social media is doomed to die
  • https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/18/23672769/social-media-inevitable-death-monetization-growth-hacks
• A rather lovely vertically scrolling website, taking you on a tour of the atmosphere
  • https://neal.fun/space-elevator/
• I finished the Falco book a couple of nights ago. It was ok, 2/5 stars. I think the reason I didn’t enjoy it was because I just didn’t understand the main character. I get that the aim is that he’s a cynical, Marlowe style gumshoe transported to the Roman era. But while Marlowe is believable, and his occasionally idiosyncratic responses to things make sense for the character, I just didn’t find the same to be true of Falco. He just seemed a bit of a berk. Maybe I’ll give book two a go in the future, but I won’t be rushing to, I don’t think.
• Next up is March Violets by Philip Kerr
  • http://philipkerr.org/books/

• No time for notes yesterday, was interviewing all day. So impressed by the calibre of people wanting to work in digital and tech roles in local government. The sector has a bright future if it keeps investing in people like this.
• This guide to content audits looks pretty useful
  • https://lapope.notion.site/Content-audits-a-pragmatic-guide-ce6c08e8e1504f40a0a92370dd4817d7#108aee41ecf24506a432d4ebc9ca8ce5

If you have literally nothing better to do, you can browse the archive of these daily notes.