internet – Page 6 – Dave Briggs

Bookmarks for April 25th through April 30th

April 30, 2010

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

More plugins for securing your WordPress install – Useful guide for making WP a bit more impregnable.
Introducing the Hybrid Organisation –
Hacking UK Politics with IBM Middleware: open data, mashups, and uh… WebSphere – Cool looking mashup by guys at IBM described by James Governor
CIOs Brainstorm About Government 2.0: Good Ideas But Not Bold Enough – "So, why do government people insist to “build something” with web 2.0 rather than realizing that in most cases people self-organize and select the channel they want to use or the community they want to belong to? Why do they focus so much on “citizens” and so little on “employees”?"
Government Online | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project – Interesting statistics from the US on general e-government stuff.
W3 Total Cache – "The fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin. "
Social on the Outside needs Social Business on the Inside :: Blog :: Headshift – "The focus of my talk was the idea that hanging shiny social media baubles on the cold, hard external walls of a corporate organisation runs the risk of creating a false brand promise unless this work has strong internal underpinnings in the form of social business structures that can do something about the noise, insights and feedback that outbound communications generate."
Web 2.0 training materials – A fantastic resource from the Scottish Government Library Services. Great material, and a wonderful example of sharing.
CASE STUDY: How Walsall museum is cooler than Ben Stiller – More great work and great blogging from Dan Slee and Walsall Council.
WW2History.com – Launching 4th May, 2010 – "A multimedia resource on the most devastating conflict in history, brought to you by award winning historian and filmmaker Laurence Rees."

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.

DavePress podcast 1 – Anthony Zacharzewski

April 12, 2010

Spurred on by Robert Brook, I’ve decided to give podcasting a try. My podcasts are going to be short – around 10 minutes – chats with interesting people about technology, government, democracy and public services.

Here’s the first one, where I talk to the lovely Anthony Zacharzewski of the Democratic Society about his stuff, including the new TalkIssues site.

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/davepress/DavePressEp1.mp3]

If you can’t, or don’t want to, use the flash player, you can download the .mp3 instead or subscribe with iTunes.

If you have any feedback – or volunteer to be a participant in a podcast, please do so in the comments below, or email podcast@davepress.net.

For those that want to know, here’s how the podcast is produced.

Bookmarks for April 5th through April 10th

April 11, 2010

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

Social Media Security – "We have found a huge lack of accurate information around security issues and awareness of social media. This website aims to help educate users of social media of the threats, risks and privacy concerns that go with using them."
E-government is not a financial cure-all – "Whoever is in charge after 6 May, I expect the drive towards "smarter government" (or whatever catch phrase replaces it) to continue. There are simply no other tools in the box. But whoever is in charge will avidly wish someone had made a bolder start while the going was good."
bantApp.com: Bant Diabetes Monitoring App for the iPhone and iPod Touch – Interesting iphone app for diabetes management, via @robertbrook
Two models of open innovation – "Based on our recent experience of working on open innovation projects, and also building upon a great paper by Kevin Boudreau and Karim Lakhani, we have concluded that there are two distinct ways of doing open innovation – creating competitive markets or collaborative communities"
Let government screw up – "I have the opportunity to speak to groups across government about the benefits, challenges and potential costs of social media. In the face of institutional anxiety, I’ve argued that social media is a positive environment that encourages experimentation. In fact, online users are willing to accept mis-steps and stumbles from government organizati0ns simply because it demonstrates initiative and ambition, if not expertise."
Project Spaces: A Format for Surfacing New Projects – home – "The event format I'm calling Project Spaces has emerged from working with various collaborators to facilitate events for communities actively engaged and committed to finding better ways to do things."
Can Open Office Escape From Under A Cloud? – "I do see a future for Open Office in the enterprise — one that’s closely tied to integration with collaboration, content management, and business processes and facilitated by the likes of Oracle and IBM."
A democratic view of social media behaviours – Interesting action research post from Catherine – plenty to chew on here.
Digital exclusion, porn and games – "I wonder if – as with mobile phones – there’s a certain, influential generation that see the technology as being more than just a technology. And instead, a marker for a whole way of life they just haven’t accepted yet."
Social media measurement – Great stuff from Stuart Bruce – debunking a few myths and some marketing BS.

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.

Reconnecting public accountability

April 8, 2010

I like scrutiny – it was one of my first jobs in local government to help the process at a smallish borough council. The CfPS does a great job of supporting good practice in the area, and recently this is taking the form of providing advice and guidance around using online methods to engage people with the process.

Cannot find server: reconnecting public accountability is a recent publication looking into this area. The blurb says:

The Centre for Public Scrutiny has published a critical analysis of what internet communication technologies might mean for public accountability. Cannot find server looks at themes in public engagement, and democracy to establish whether emerging social media are likely to enhance or hinder accountability. In an environment where too few accounts of this subject matter adopt a critical position a balanced analysis of the issue was needed. By looking at examples (both hypothetical and real) this publication helps the reader to build an understanding of where social media should fit within a broader engagement strategy.

It’s well worth a read, and is a free download (PDF warning).

Bookmarks for March 30th through April 5th

April 5, 2010

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

The Collapse of Complex Business Models « Clay Shirky – Awesome stuff from Shirky.
Reflecting on my MSc research by Michele Ide-Smith – "By researching the attitudes and perceptions of authorities and citizens I hope to gain a better understanding of perceived barriers, threats and opportunities of using social media for community engagement"
Cinch – "Cinch is a free and easy way to create and share audio, text and photo updates using your phone or computer. Cinch enables you to capture and report on your experiences in a way that simple text just can't do. Using a simple interface, you can make and broadcast your content creations through Facebook, Twitter, CinchCast.com and more."
The State of the Internet Operating System – O’Reilly Radar – "Ask yourself for a moment, what is the operating system of a Google or Bing search? What is the operating system of a mobile phone call? What is the operating system of maps and directions on your phone? What is the operating system of a tweet?"
Penval’s Digital Inclusion Manifesto – Well done Paul Nash. This is what the digital inclusion debate needs – proper, thought through ideas. Genuinely constructive contributions. Not just people bleating about the problems.
tecosystems » Forking, The Future of Open Source, and Github – Is the future of open source going to be based on communities such as Apache and Eclipse or will it be based on companies that sell open source? Neither.
Dr Dennis Kimbro & his views on recruitment – Really interesting and thought provoking piece on talent management, and attitudes to it, in local government.
In quest of simplicty – "We expect IT to be complex and costly, but the lesson of the past 5 years in IT – where we’ve seen the consumerization of enterprise IT (“enterprise” is often a coy way of saying “this has to be complex and expensive – no questions!”) – is that IT can be both simple and cheap."
Law and social media – dull but important – "Social media throws up issues of privacy and identity which are far more complex when you have a complete record of someone’s time online and a also a need to balance the personal with the professional roles of an individual. "
Powerful petitions with real teeth set to bite – "Local people can now demand their councils take action on underperforming schools and hospitals, drink disorder, anti-social behaviour and other concerns under new rules giving real power to local petitions, announced Communities Secretary John Denham today."

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.

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