Link roundup

I find this stuff so you don’t have to: Integrate Your Apps | Zapier – Sync the Web – An ifttt for business web applications. Potentially vey handy. What Organizations Can Learn from "If This Then That" (IFTTT) – Nice…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Are open standards a closed barrier? | Government Digital Service – "Fresh out of a roundtable discussion on the Open Standards: Open Opportunities consultation, Linda Humphries discusses whether open can really…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Nelson Mandela Digital Archives – "Our aim is to locate, document, digitise, and provide access to all archival materials related to Nelson Mandela. This is a work in progress. Here…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Ministry of Lorem: filler text generated from UK government press releases – Bonkers but strangely compelling site from @lesteph Social media can help riot-hit communities recover – "In all the…

Skunkworks videos

Today I came across two useful videos featuring Mark O’Neil – a CIO in central government and the guy that heads up the government skunkworks – talking about his work. They can be found via the UKauthorITy site: Skunkworks: How…

Too busy for Twitter?

A common risk associated with public bodies engaging online in spaces like Twitter is that there’s too much interaction to cope with. It’s something that often gets raised when I am talking with clients. E-government bulletin covered the issue recently:…

Government IT costs – the bloggers’ view

Once again, the quality commentary on the latest reports into government IT spending is coming from blogs. Simon Dickson: The real story, such as it is, is the Committee’s apparent recognition that the current process – reliant on a small…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. The Case Against Online Participation and Government As A Platform – "the question is: should we just give up and consider open government and government 2.0 an interesting, nice-to-have, but…

Crowd sourcing ideas with WordPress

For a customer, we at Kind of Digital have been putting together a prototype system using WordPress to crowdsource ideas from the public. We’ve done plenty of reading about previous attempts at this sort of thing, and hopefully have avoided…

More notes on mobile apps and government

I still haven’t really got my head around mobile apps and their use for government services. However, James Coltham wrote up some excellent notes from a meeting up in Scotland on the subject recently: There is definitely a groundswell of interest,…

Micro-participation at ShropCamp

Continuing my current obsession with micro-participation, I ran a session on the subject at yesterday’s excellent ShropCamp. Basically I chatted through what micro-participation is and what it tries to achieve, where it came from etc. Then I gave some examples…

More on micro-participation

There was an interesting response to my post on micro-participation, in a number of spaces – which goes to show the value in seeding your content on sites other than your own! The most active conversation was on GovLoop where…

The need for micro-participation

A theme I’ve been returning to on a regular basis in the talks I’ve been giving lately has been about the need for government to make participation easier. I’ve blogged in my usual half-assed manner about the participation deficit before,…

Bookmarks for February 23rd through April 4th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Reaping the benefits of shared services – Interesting interview with @terryhuggins on the shared services arrangement between South Holland and East Lindsay councils. UK IT Strategy Sets the Pace for…

Elements of local digital ecosystems

Apologies for using the word ecosystems – I just couldn’t be bothered thinking of anything less naff. So earlier I blogged about the ways NESTA identified that government can help support local digital activity. I mentioned that there are many…

Local digital impact

I’m increasingly interested in how creative collaborations between small suppliers, public services and organisations from other sectors can come together to solve problems in an open innovation-y sort of way. The digital arena is probably one of the best places…