Tuesday, 11 November, 2008

Bookmarks for November 7th through November 11th

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

PermalinkBookmarks for November 7th through November 11th

eDemocracy08 today

I will shortly be heading down to London to eDemocracy08, Headstar‘s annual shindig for anyone interested in how technology and democracy can be improved by one another.

I actually have some involvement at this year’s event, having being generously invited by those friendly folk at Delib to share a panel session with Chris Quigley, Gez Smith and Steph Gray talking open source. Here’s the skinny:

Open Source in e-Democracy – How good can it be if it’s free?

Chair: Chris Quigley, Director, Delib

  • Steph Gray, Head of Social Media, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills
  • Gez Smith, Senior Consultant, Delib
  • Dave Briggs, Digital Enabler, DavePress Ltd

Over the last few years, UK e-Democracy has been characterised by small pockets of piloting and ‘innovation’, often to the exclusion of demonstrable impact and software sustainability. In contrast to this, the wider internet has seen an explosion of participative software, free to use and open to be redeveloped, integrated and customised to suit individual situations. This session explores the role of such open source software in e-democracy. Featuring perspectives from central government, local government and the private sector, the session will look at the benefits and drawbacks of the open source approach, the value of software vs knowledge, and what all this might mean for e-democracy in the future. In the spirit of open collaboration, it will also hopefully feature a good participative discussion too!

Now, if that doesn’t sound like something you would enjoy then you must be mental.

Before these things, I always struggle a bit to think of what I am going to say. Part of this is that I just don’t know in which direction the conversation is going to head, and so having something heavily prepared might mean I end up banging on irrelevantly and irrate everyone present. However, in an attempt to do at least some groundwork, I thought I would put my open source principles to the test and try crowd sourcing the topic with my buddies on Twitter.

I got some good stuff back:

  • podnosh @davebriggs open source lets you spend money on building community instead of wrestling with shitely restrictive software?
  • stevepurkiss @davebriggs 1.Dont give your freedoms away, make sure to use Free/Libre OSS (not just OSS). 2.Collaborate on projects. 3.Put something back.
  • peeebeee @davebriggs Could quote some anti-patterns re Sharepoint perhaps?
  • marxculture @davebriggs http://tinyurl.com/6f5uha [link to a story about the work done in Parliament on the Hansard prototype site, using OS technology such as OpenSolaris, MySQL, Ruby on Rails etc]
  • ssutherland @davebriggs OSS a good fit 4 public sector cos of vfm and likelihood of future proofing solutions. Sector still needs to grasp key OS issues
  • gavinwray @davebriggs How o s advocates can tackle attitude of ‘cheap/free must be low quality & unsupported; expensive & proprietary must be good’
  • waugaman @davebriggs COMPLETELY agree w @podnosh – also general OS community is wide/deep enough to allow 4 service/product of diff user/dev needs…eg diff in folks who use joomla v drupal or wordpress.com v .org
  • watfordgap @davebriggs and OS is a bit like twitter. Community of developers wanting to help fix problems and make code better for YOU
  • philoakley @davebriggs The promise of oss is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

I’ll try and work as much of this stuff in as I can. My own thoughts include:

  • Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it won’t cost you anything – using online stuff like OS blogging platforms such as WordPress, forums like phpBB or wikis like MediaWiki doesn’t mean that the project will be cost-free. No matter how open your platform, if you don’t commit resource to ongoing management and facilitation, it will fail
  • The difference between government deploying OS web software and desktop applications – the former is almost certainly easier to do
  • Taking an open source approach to working, whether in policy development or consultations, doesn’t mean someone else does the work for you. Linux has not many more than 160-odd active developers, OpenOffice.org just around 25. Millions of people use Wikipedia, but less than 4,000 are classed as very active contributors. WordPress has a large volunteer base, but there are four main developers who coordinate and validate the work of others

I’m sure more will occur to me over the course of today. Oh, and just to note – I wrote this post in WordPress, running Firefox on Ubuntu.

PermalinkeDemocracy08 today

Monday, 10 November, 2008

ReadWriteGov content now up

I have finally gotten round to posting up some of the content from the ReadWriteGov event in Peterborough last month.

Sadly there is no audio as the acoustics in the room, coupled with the lack of a lapel mic, meant the quality of the recording was, to be frank, piss-poor.

Click a person’s name to be taken to stuff from their session.

More of these events are being planned, so subscribe to the blog to find out when and where it’s next happening…

PermalinkReadWriteGov content now up

Saturday, 8 November, 2008

Online social media surgery

I love the social media surgery concept, which was pioneered by Pete Ashton in Birmingham, used by me at UK Youth Online and then turned into something amazing by Pete, Nick and others in Birmingham.

I think there is a lot of value in having an online equivalent, just a place where people can ask questions about this stuff and hopefully get some answers from anyone who is browsing at the time. So I have started to build something.

It’s is very much early days, but the prototype site is at socialmediasurgery.com. It’s (obviously) built in Drupal, and as far as I have got so far is repurposing the blog function to act as questions, and comments as answers. Sophisticated it ain’t.

You can add a profile with some details of who you are in it, which might help you get the answers you need, or decide whether you trust the people providing them. There is also a simple rating system in place for answers, so if a response has one star it might well be worth taking with a pinch of social media salt.

Beyond changing a few colours, I haven’t got near to theming the site, I thought it far better to get the features in first. So if it looks like the default Drupal theme, it is. I will get round to changing it at some point.

Other stuff I want to get in:

  • Make the voting system more sophisticated for answers, so the top rated ones float to the top, say, or at least are displayed in a sidebar somewhere
  • Have some kind of karma system, so people who provide well rated answers get some kind of authority rating
  • Ability for users to mark a question as something they are also having problems with

…and probably loads of other stuff too.

So that’s it really. Please let me have any feedback or suggestions, but otherwise, let people who might benefit from the site know about it, and of course do register yourselves in case you can help someone, or get some help yourself…

PermalinkOnline social media surgery

Friday, 7 November, 2008

Digital mentors picking up speed

Things are starting to pick up with the digital mentors initiative, which is a part of the digital inclusion programme supported by the department for Communities and Local Government.

There is now the option to express an interest in tendering for the money to run the pilots, which is a reasonably healthy £900k. To help support this process, there is a workshop being held at BERR on Victoria Street, London on 19th November between 3 and 5pm.

Further developments have seen UK Online Centres, one of the obvious candidates to put in a bid, reach out to the community being developed at www.digitalmentor.org through a blog post by the Managing Director of UKOC, Helen Milner. This is great news – rather than use their own website to push out messages, UKOC are going where the people are to enable collaboration on their bid. Helen wrote:

We all obviously share a passion to ensure that the digital mentor programme is a success, and that it embraces the best of community development and technological innovation. I’m keen to discuss ideas for the programme here on this blog so that we can use open innovation principles to develop a bid together.

Do come to the blog, the wiki and the email list and help out in any way you can.

David Wilcox as ever has his finger on the pulse, and has produced an excellent summary post over at Social Reporter, including pointing out the exciting news that Ruralnet are also keen to be involved. He writes:

UK Online Centres have the local presence, experience and capacity to head up a bid, so I hope they are willing to do that. Ruralnet also have a strong track record through their work with Net:Gain and DirectSupport. Together with independent trainers, consultants and activists we can put together a strong core team, with an oppen invitation to others to join.

There seems to be some real coming together over this: an acknowledgement that a) no single organisation or individual has all the right answers to meet this challenge; and b) that this is too important a project to be allowed to go wrong.

By working together, we can make sure this succeeds.

PermalinkDigital mentors picking up speed

Bookmarks for October 30th through November 6th

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 30th through November 6th:

  • Change.gov – Obama's pre-inauguration website. *Great* URL!
  • Sunderland Community BarCamp – Sunderland Council appear to be hosting their own Barcamp. Crazy!
  • Innovation Catalyst | The Young Foundation – "Despite all the good work of the last decade in local government, there is still a need within the sector to develop new approaches to delivery if we are going to meet the challenges facing public services both now and in the future."
  • The cynicism at the heart of the communities agenda – "With this in mind, the proposed duty on local authorities to "promote democracy" is not only a curiously bloodless way of engaging the disengaged. More worrying is the notion that democracy can be imposed by diktat. This authoritarian bent to the communities agenda reveals a thinly veiled attempt to paper over the exhaustion of politics and the increasing isolation of a clueless and desparate political class. "
  • Demos | Publications | Network Citizens – "humans are social animals, spinning intricate webs of relationships with friends, colleagues, neighbours and enemies. These networks have always been with us, but the advance of networking technologies, changes to our interconnected economy and an altering job market have super-charged the power of networking, catapulting it to the heart of organisational thinking."
PermalinkBookmarks for October 30th through November 6th

Tuesday, 4 November, 2008

Busy, busy

Sorry for the light blogging of late, but I have been jolly busy of late, not least with moving house. I’m now resident in Cottenham, near Cambridge. Do come and say hello if you are ever nearby.

Here’s a couple of morsels to chew on before I can get back in the blogging swing of things:

  • I’ve started work at DIUS! I’m doing two days a week working for Steph Gray, building WordPress sites and helping implement some other social media goodness, including some training for civil servants. Should be fun!
  • Since moving to Cambridge I have wanted to see if a similar social media scene could be started here as is happening in London and Birmingham. Maybe the coworking collective could be the start of that.
  • Tomorrow (Wednesday 5th November) I’ll be at Public Sector ICT 2008 near Northampton with Steve Dale, running a social web workshop which no doubt will feature the beautiful game at some point.
  • I haven’t forgotten about ReadWriteGov and I promise that some content from the day – which was a rip-roaring success, by the way – will go up on the blog soon. Before the end of the week? I should hope so. Also, look out for some new RWG events near you soon!
  • Public Sector Forums are running a GovWeb type event on the 4th December in Edgbaston. I’ll be talking about social web stuff there. It will be great – so do sign up for it. More details on that soon.
  • Finally, welcome to Twitter, Bracknell Forest Council!
PermalinkBusy, busy

Tuesday, 28 October, 2008

Bookmarks for October 25th through October 28th

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 25th through October 28th:

PermalinkBookmarks for October 25th through October 28th

The UKGovWeb Twitterverse

The real value of Twitter is in the network, and if you are just starting out with it, and don’t have many people to follow, or much of a following yourself, it can seem a bit quiet, depressing and pointless. As you build up your network, though, suddenly things change and it becomes a vital communication tool.

So, if you are a public sector worker wanting to make the most of this great network, you might need a bit of help tracking down some people to start following and interacting with. Here’s that help! I’ve tried to break the various groups up into categories, to help you find who you want.

If I have missed anyone out or put them in the wrong place, please let me know in the comments! There’s gotta be more tweeting politicians, surely?

Central Government Official Feeds

Civil Servants

Local Authority Official Feeds

Local Authority Web Teams

Local Authority Officers

Other Public Sector Bodies & Officers

Politicians

Freelancers, Consultants etc

PermalinkThe UKGovWeb Twitterverse

Monday, 27 October, 2008

ReadWriteGov is this Wednesday!

This Wednesday sees the first of hopefully many ReadWriteGov events taking place at Peterborough City Council.

It’s going to be a great day, with some excellent speakers, all of whom are working within the public sector trying to get things done. They are:

  • Dominic Campbell who will be speaking about the work Barnet Council are doing to better connect with their citizens
  • Steph Gray from DIUS who will be talking about making social media projects happen in government
  • Hadley Beeman from the London Deanery who will be discussing her project to get social networking and collaboration happening in the health sector

If you would like to come, there are still one or two places available – find out more here. Tickets are jolly cheap for this sort of thing, at just £25 for public sector folk.

Even if you can’t make it though, you can still receive some ReadWriteGov love. For instance, you can visit the blog, where after the event we will be posting content from the day, including presentations from speakers, audio, photos and maybe some video too.

We also now have a Twitter account, through which you can hear about what is happening and pass comments or ask questions during the day. Unlike a lot of events that offer this kind of thing, I really will be tracking what people are saying and making sure the less offensive questions get asked!

Just follow @readwritegov to join in!

PermalinkReadWriteGov is this Wednesday!

Saturday, 25 October, 2008

Bookmarks for October 22nd through October 25th

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 22nd through October 25th:

PermalinkBookmarks for October 22nd through October 25th

Wednesday, 22 October, 2008

New Zealand Gov blog

The New Zealand State Services Commission has started a blog – you can find it here. In their words:

We’re aiming to build thought leadership around significant work programmes, including Authentication, Strategy and Policy and Web Standards, as well as providing a best practice example of how to effectively manage social media as part of public sector communications. Other agencies ask us for guidance in setting up their own blogs – what better way to help them than to give a clear demonstration of how we do it, and the policies behind our thinking? We’d like to look at how the public and the Government can interact better through the use of new technologies. We’re interested in issues around identity, privacy, accessibility, intellectual property, e-government guidelines and Web 2.0. If you have thoughts or feelings in this area, you’re our target audience, whether you work for the government or not.

They have some interesting posts up already, including one on gov ICT strategy in the current unsettled financial situation:

Long term fiscal pressures need long term investment and expenditure responses. In New Zealand government ICT we have a unique window of opportunity in the next 2-5 years arising from the replacement of “legacy” transaction processing systems implemented in the 1990s. We can redesign systems and re-engineer business processes across agencies to meet the expectations of the information age.

And this on government officials and Wikipedia:

Superficially, Te Ara, an encyclopaedia run by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, seems to be a competitor of Wikipedia: they offer the same service. However, unlike consumers of shoes or cars, consumers of information need not (and seldom do) choose one or the other: their produce is complementary and their relationship is mutually beneficial. Wikipedia relies on sites like Te Ara as references for their content, and Te Ara relies on sites like Wikipedia linking to Te Ara as a resource, in turn directing traffic there.

Good stuff and well worth subscribing. Wouldn’t it be good to have an agenda setting ‘official’ blog for government at all levels in the UK?

Found via the Connected Republic.

PermalinkNew Zealand Gov blog

Bookmarks for October 17th through October 22nd

Stuff I have bookmarked for October 17th through October 22nd:

PermalinkBookmarks for October 17th through October 22nd

Monday, 20 October, 2008

Twitter, qwitter and keeping up with your followers

Qwitter is an unusual service in that it fills a need that probably doesn’t exist. It simply tells you that someone has stopped following you on Twitter, and what your last tweet was before they did the deed, in case it might offer a clue why they did it.

This is such a tiny, niche service that I can’t believe anyone is actually going to make use out of it. I’ve signed up, just because I am interested. Am I likely to take any action as a result of someone not following me? Probably not.

Mike Butcher at Techcrunch says this of the Ireland based service:

Now, you can’t secretly unfollow friends or associates anymore. If someone unfollows you, you’ll know and you’ll be able to ask them why. That means it may break up a few twitter friendships. Then again, it may even improve a few. At least you’ll be able to ask someone why they unfollowed you. Maybe people will will learn to use Twitter in a smarter way?

Seeing Qwitter did make me want to take a bit more of a look at the people I follow and those that follow me, though. As of writing, I follow 274 people and am followed by 520. The main reason why there are so many followers is down to spammers, in the main. I keep my updates public and don’t bother blocking obvious spam followers – I just can’t be bothered.

I did think about how I could check which of the people I follow actually follow me in return. A quick question to Twitter resulted in a couple of responses:

Of which the best is Karma. It lists everyone connected to your account, along with whether you follow that person, if they follow you, or both. It’s a really easy way of spotting people you really ought to follow, or of figuring out why that person never replies to you.

Oh, and I just have to finish a post about Twitter with this:

Yeah!

PermalinkTwitter, qwitter and keeping up with your followers

Sunday, 19 October, 2008

ColaLife Campaign Video

Some news from the ColaLife campaign… as part of the submission to Google for the 10^100 competition, a 30 second video has been created. And it’s lovely:

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Please visit the YouTube page and mark the video as a favourite, give it a 5 star rating and embed it in your own blogs and social networks. The more that people know about this remarkable initiative, the better.

PermalinkColaLife Campaign Video

Rewriting the rules

John Naughton‘s Observer column on ten years of blogging is a delightful read:

This openness to immediate criticism and/or rebuttal is another revolutionary aspect of blogging. What we are seeing, wrote Clay Shirky some years ago (available online at http://bit.ly/fkxik), is nothing less than the ‘mass amateurisation of publishing’. What’s happening is a radical shift from the old ecosystem in which publications (newspapers, magazines and books) are filtered and edited before being published, into a world in which anything can be (and is) published.

All that remains is for English departments in universities to start studying blogging styles, for example the way in which accomplished online writers use hyperlinks. If you read the work of established bloggers or contributors to slick online publications such as Salon or Slate what you see is a move from having hyperlinks clumsily embedded in a document to the use of links to provide an ironic counterpoint to the main line of the piece. It’s all very, er, postmodern. But what do you expect? It is 2008.

PermalinkRewriting the rules

Friday, 17 October, 2008

Do councils need a website at all?

Simon Wakeman poses a potentially controversial question on his blog:

One idea that’s been playing on my mind for the past few days is whether a council needs a website at all.

Initially this might seem like complete heresy. Surely a public sector body providing services to local residents needs a website to help them communicate and provide online services to their residents?

But do they need a website in the sense that we might see a traditional “destination” website – a place where people go to find out information and do council stuff online?

One of the things that is making me challenge some assumptions is the increasing focus on place in local public services. For the uninitiated this means that there’s much less focus on the organisation providing particular local services (eg council, police, primary care trust…) and more on the organisations working together to provide services in a coherent way that suits residents and businesses, not service providers.

So why a council website alongside a police website alongside a primary care trust website?

He goes on to make some further really interesting points. Well worth a read.

I’m also thinking I need to add Simon to the Public Sector Bloggers list…

PermalinkDo councils need a website at all?