change – Page 4 – Dave Briggs

Bookmarks for March 16th through March 18th

March 18, 2010

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to.

comment.ofqual.gov.uk – Lovely commentable document style consultations from Ofqual
MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy – Institute for Government – "Influencing behaviour through public policy explores how behaviour change theory can help meet current policy challenges, such as how to reduce crime, tackle obesity, or ensure environmental sustainability."
How Not to Run an IT Project: A Case Study – Well worth a read.
Open Election Data project – "A new project to help local government open up their election results"
MIT TechTV – The Future of Government/Citizen Engagement – "From the Mayor of Newark's tweets to the President's online town halls, technology has already changed how the public engages with their government. In a world of ubiquitous broadband, this interaction can radically change how government operates and develops policy. This panel will explore how broadband can transform government/citizen engagement."
10 Search Engines to Explore the Deep End of the Invisible Web – I'm not sure how useful this actually is, but it's kinda interesting.
Local by Social – "This document outlines how local authorities can use social media to achieve more for less. It also highlights the risk to councils if they ignore the technological advances of social media and the people using them."
Socialtext: The 5 Most Critical Requirements for Enterprise Social Software – "How do you choose the Enterprise Social Software solution that will produce the greatest benefits for your company? In this white paper, we will show you the five most critical requirements for success."
Carnegie UK Trust – Democracy & Civil Society – Making good society – "Making good society, the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society, argues that civil society has been pushed to the margins in key areas including politics, finance and the media and that this must change."
Case studies of corporate (social) learning – Great list of examples

You can find all my bookmarks on Delicious. There is also even more stuff on my shared Google Reader page.

You can also see all the videos I think are worth watching at my video scrapbook.

Technology is not the thing

December 6, 2009

Last week I spoke at the Online Information conference. It was a session about Twitter, where Karen Blakeman did a great job explaining the whole thing, and how organisations can make use of it. Then I stepped up and told a few jokes about government is – and should be – using Twitter.

Here’s the slides, for what they’re worth. Try and imagine a pillock gurning at you while you read them, it’ll provide some context.

Twitter and government

View more presentations from davebriggs.

Now, there is a thing here, and this is what it is: I don’t like doing tool-focused talks. One reason is that people get the impression that I am saying that everyone should be on Twitter, say.

To be swearily honest, I really couldn’t give a shit whether you use Twitter or not. I might write things that make it easier for you, but I would hate to feel like I’m making promises that it will change your life, or transform your organisation. It probably won’t. Things don’t tend to work that way.

I’m not trying to distance myself from Twitter, here. I still use it a hell of a lot, and my life would be poorer without it. The point I am making is true of any single technology, and goes back to the idea that, actually, the interesting things about the internet and its effect on society – and government – has nothing to do with computers.

Instead of encouraging people and organisations to use Twitter, or whatever, I want to encourage them to listen, to collaborate, to be transparent and open, to take notice of the things their employees say, to be flexible and agile and able to react quickly to changing circumstances.

Technology makes this easier. It provides a platform where it can all happen. In some cases it might be the key that unlocks the door to all this activity. But technology is not the thing.

An open transition

December 6, 2008

Another Saturday evening post about how the internet can have a positive effect on the way democracy and government operates. This one is straight from the US.

An Open Transition is a site set up by a coalition of folk including Lawrence Lessig, Mozilla and the Participatory Culture Foundation. It states:

President-elect Obama has made a very clear commitment to changing the way government works with its citizens. To this end, we offer these three principles to guide the transition in its objective to build upon the very best of the Internet to produce the very best for government.

Those three principles are:

No Legal Barrier to Sharing
No Technological Barrier to Sharing
Free Competition

There’s also a video explaining things a bit more:

It will be interesting to follow this one, and see what influence it might have.

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