An online notebook
Dave Rogers answers the question Just what is ‘Test and Learn’?
Lloyd writes up his experience of new, location based social network thing Mozi. Just like it’s 2008 all over again!
Anything that helps me (and others) understand Wardley Mapping better has to be a good thing. Here’s Will Larson’s Rough notes on learning Wardley Mapping.
A lot of people seemed to like the idea of the ‘Institute of Digital Public Services’ (IDPS) – admittedly a few didn’t, but not enough to convince me it isn’t an idea worth pursuing!
How on earth to get something like that off the ground though? I must admit I am well outside my comfort zone with things like this. Findings funders, setting up governance arrangements, creating legal entities. Not really my wheelhouse.
So, as is often the case with one of my ideas, I think about how it could be bootstrapped with minimal effort and risk. Of course, that means there’s a higher chance of it not being as effective, but I have to work with what I’ve got, right?
So how about this:
So, cost = low, risk = low, impact = probably also low. But it would be a start and maybe enough to get serious people interested in doing it properly.
Thoughts?
Where’s the centre of gravity for conversations about how we can and should be leveraging the digital revolution for the benefit of society through our public services? I think about the flurry of activity when James Plunkett kicked off a debate a few months ago⬈ about ‘local GDS’ or the more recent excitement caused by the publication of Richard Pope’s <a href=“https://anatomyofpublicservices.com/”>Platformland⬈. Going back a few years, Mark Thompson has tried to get conversations going with a number of different analogies, whether Lego⬈, Heart FM, or Tesco⬈.
But these discussions are never sustained, and they never seem to make it past conversations and into ‘test and learn’ (to quote Philippa Newis⬈!) to identify which of these ideas might work better than others.
It feels like an institutional gap that an ‘Institute for Digital Public Services’ would fill. A home for the discussions. A place for convening and curating of ideas and practice. A way to consider the full breadth of public service, from central government to local government, with health and blue light services and everything else in-between.
Most importantly a place where the concepts and the theories can be prototyped, experimented with, and new things learned, with practice being developed and adopted along the way – turning ideas into reality.
Am thinking again about the structure of my blogging here. I’d much rather than the individual paragraphs in these daily notes existed as posts in their own right, as well as being collected together for the whole day. That way I could publish each item as soon as I type them in, rather than waiting til the end of the day. Main inspiration here is Dave Winer⬈, while Coté⬈ does it but keeping the posts separated rather than presented as daily collections. #
Richard Pope (again!) on services that work harder⬈. #
Dave Rogers: Toxic Technology⬈. Not come across this before (how!?) but Sarah Drummond⬈ linked to it so thanks to her 🙂 #
Paul Maltby: Why public sector procurement needs a serious rethink to deliver on the promise of AI and tech⬈. #
Sharon Dale⬈ shared TidyCal⬈ on LinkedIn – basically Calendly⬈ but more flexible and a lot cheaper. I have set mine up here⬈. #
Patient records and the NHS App⬈ – or why this stuff is really, really hard. #
Southwark Council⬈ have made some interesting design decisions on their new LocalGovDrupal website.
A week note from Catherine Howe⬈ should always be celebrated. #
A gobbet from a piece I’m drafting for a project:
Consolidation, harmonisation, standardisation… call it what you will. The opportunities however are boundless, but to take them we have to all agree on the central premise: councils have too much to do, and everyone will be better off if they can focus on what really matters to local people.
4 ideas for the digital centre of government⬈ from dxw. #
The role of Transactive Memory Systems in great teams⬈ by Emily Webber.
Daniel Wegner introduced the term ” transactive memory System” in 1985 as a counter to more negative perceptions of group behaviours.
Transactive memory is like an index of where to find things rather than knowing them yourself.