BarcampUKGovWeb is back, back, baaaaack!

Tom Watson points us all to a new wiki for getting the next barcamp for UK (and elsewhere) government webbies going.

Sign up and start thinking about you could present about! I have already put down that I’m interested in running a social media surgery which worked so well at the UK Youth event in September, and which is being pioneered amongst the blogging community in Birmingham.

For a flavour of what went on last year, check out the aggregated stuff on the pageflake. For discussion of the event, last year’s Google Group is being used again.

I am really happy to promote and support this event as much as I possibly can – last year’s event had a tremendous effect on me, in the friendships I made and the developments I my career. It’s an easy and maybe glib-sounding thing to say, but I wouldn’t be where I am today without the Barcamp, and I encourage everyone to make as much of it as they can this time around!

Jeremy has now blogged it too.

It could be Rotterdam, or anywhere

Actually, no it couldn’t, because Rotterdam is a beautiful city, and I am having tremendous fun here with Nick Booth.


We are at an R4R event for residents groups throughout Europe, with two aims: to demonstrate the power of the social web, and to show just how easy it is to do.

We are armed with some basic kit: Flip Ultras and point and click cameras, as well as our mobile phones (don’t worry, in order to stave off bankruptcy for a little longer I’ve switched roaming off on my iPhone…). The point being that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on tech to be able to publish content online.

We’re running a blog here, in order to demonstrate how easy it is, which has been populated with some of the other work Nick has done with R4R.

Nick and I actually got up at 5.30 am this morning, and we have since used four forms of transport: taxi, plane, train and finally water-taxi. Here’s a pretty rough video of us getting on the water-taxi, with Maurice Specht, who generously guided us around.

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UK Online Centres want to collaborate!

I have just come back from a meetup in Birmingham of folk interested in the Digital Mentor concept and how we can all collaborate on a bid. I got to meet some great people for the first time, and catch up with some familiar faces.

Also present was Ben Brown from UK Online Centres, who had travelled from Bristol for the meeting. Great effort on his part, and also to UKOC for having the gumption to send one of their people to a pub in Birmingham to chat about working together with a bunch of strangers!

Anne Faulkner from OKOC has now posted a great comment on the Digital Mentor blog, sketching out how they see an open, collaborative bid, in co-operation with other organisations like Citizens Online and Ruralnet, working.

UK online centres and Citizens Online know this approach isn’t the easy option, but we figured that if we want to deliver a project about partnership and online collaboration, we should try to put it into practice as part of the bidding process. We think we need both breadth and depth in this project, and we’re interested in developing a framework which enables a range of organisations and individuals to share their expertise.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops, and getting involved where I can!

Stephen Hale now blogging at FCO

Simon Dickson reports that Stephen Hale, the FCO’s “Head of Engagement, Digital Diplomacy” is now blogging:

Makes sense for numerous reasons of course, not least as a means of setting a good example for colleagues. I mean, would you trust a ‘blogging expert’ who didn’t blog?

Stephen’s first few posts are all pretty interesting, and he’ll make a great addition to the Public Sector Blogs line up. I’ve now added him to the list.

Bookmarks for November 7th through November 11th

Stuff I have bookmarked for November 7th through November 11th:

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