LINK: “Service patterns could be big! (actually .. small)”

There’s a knotty systemic and cost problem with local authorities and other public service organisations delivering essentially the same core services in different parts of the country. We all recognise that we are often doing the same thing, but we are stuck doing it slightly differently from each other. The wise understand that standardisation (as we currently imagine the path to it) is impossible and undesirable, but it’s still true that we have unwittingly created a costly ‘bespoking’ market that commercial providers of one sort and another exploit.

Original: https://medium.com/@pdbrewer/service-patterns-could-be-big-actually-small-e5b393c8014e

LINK: “Blogging is most certainly not dead”

Social media is as compelling as ever, but people are increasingly souring on the surveillance state Skinner boxes like Facebook and Twitter. Decentralized media like blogs and newsletters are looking better and better these days…

Original: https://kottke.org/18/04/blogging-is-most-certainly-not-dead

LINK: “OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong”

By the time OLPC officially launched in 2007, the “green machine” — once a breakout star of the 21st-century educational technology scene — was a symbol of tech industry hubris, a one-size-fits-all American solution to complex global problems. But more than a decade later, the project’s legacy is more complicated than a simple cautionary tale. Its laptops are still rolling off production lines, and a new model is expected later this year.

Original: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop-education-where-is-it-now

Six themes for a good local government digital strategy

I recently went through the rather painful process of applying for a senior digital transformation role in local government and not getting it. I might write in more detail at some point about it all, but right now I am far too bitter about the whole experience.

As part of the process I needed to talk about what I think the key themes are for councils when thinking about the impact of digital on what they do and how they do it, and I thought I would share them here – just in case some people find it more interesting than the original intended audience did.

1. Digital service design

Meeting the heightened expectations of residents, communities and businesses means radically rethinking how services are delivered. This requires new approaches to change that meet the specific requirements of each service’s users, and in the long term working to prevent those needs from emerging in the first place.

2. Digital workplace

In order to deliver the change that is needed, people need to have the best tools possible available to them, whether hardware or software. This means looking at the whole suite of technology, from productivity tools to line of business applications and the devices they run on.  People also need to feel confident in using them, along with developing a customer-focused, commercial, flexible culture.

3. Digital inclusion

It’s vital that the services that many people rely on remain accessible to all of them. For some, using the internet will never meet their needs and so other forms of access will be needed. For others, there is much that councils can do to help them get the most from it.

4. Digital intelligence 

Local councils should have the best understanding of the people, communities and businesses in their area. Often, however, this understanding is limited by the inability to make the best use of the data held in siloed systems that do not share information easily or in usable formats. This needs to change, along with keeping up with obligations around data protection and information security.

5. Digital economy

To protect and grow the local economy in the future, councils must do all they can to ensure local businesses can thrive in the digital age, and attract new enterprises to base themselves locally. This means ensuring businesses have access to high speed broadband; the equipment, systems and skills to make use of it; and easy, simple access to the council services they need.

6. Digital civic infrastructure

True digital transformation in local public services involves not just putting existing services online, but radically rewiring the local system to take advantage of shared, common digital components. The Council should take a lead in stewarding this work, collaborating with all organisations that meet local people’s needs, whether central government, the health sector or community and voluntary groups on a digital platform for genuinely joined up service delivery.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Load more posts!