Simon blogs about e-government, online news and politics.
Some important people read it. Here's his latest stuff.
From my presentation to new civil servants
On Tuesday this week, I gave a presentation at the Government Communication Network's foundation course for new entrants - talking about the current online and social media landscape, and highlighting a few specific implications for those working in government. I haven't received the feedback questionnaire summary yet; but the initial signals look encouraging. (Thanks Sue.) For [...] read on »
BIS website grows up
There's a new website for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills - aka BIS - this weekend; and as I reported here back in November (sniff!), they're waving farewell to WordPress as their core publishing platform. The new site is built on Sitecore, and is appearing bang on the published schedule. Visually it's really nice: [...] read on »
Tories promise IT skunkworks
If there's one commitment in the Conservatives' Technology Manifesto, billed as 'the most ambitious technology agenda ever proposed by a British political party', which makes my heart leap with joy, it's this: We will also create a small IT development team in government – a 'government skunkworks' – that can develop low cost IT applications in-house [...] read on »
Defra’s new WordPress comment platform
Over the last few months we've been doing a few little projects with Defra: first came the UK Location (micro)site, and I mentioned there was 'at least one more' in the pipeline. The second project emerged a few days back: a 'commentable page' platform, in the style (as Steph rightly observed) of the now-legendary Commentariat theme. [...] read on »
Tories: always big City fans
Hot on the heels of the BNP apparently (?) taking design cues from Obama, here's the new homepage for the Conservatives' website... and the Manchester City FC homepage, with which - you'd have to say - there is a remarkable similarity. For the avoidance of any confusion: one is returning to prominence after a long period [...] read on »
Our modest microsite for UKTI
Monday saw a gathering of 250 leading figures from the world of business at London's Saatchi Gallery; and organisers UK Trade & Investment asked Puffbox to put together a microsite for the event. With minimal advance publicity, few official post-conference outputs, and no particular involvement for the general public, we felt the best approach was [...] read on »
Cabinet Office’s open source fail
A PQ from Conservative shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what her policy is in respect of the installation and use of (a) Internet Explorer, (b) Firefox and (c) Opera website browsers by Government departments. To which Angela Smith replies: Government policy regarding installation and use of web [...] read on »
The great WordPress / MU merge
A subject which keeps coming up in conversation just now is the planned merger of 'normal' WordPress with WordPress MU, the 'multi user' version. There's been both excitement and concern at what it might mean: but the latest report from Jane at WP HQ should be enough to calm anyone's worst fears. It was announced at [...] read on »
Flogging a dead horse. Again.
I feel obliged to note that LabourSpace, Labour's attempt to build a social network around policy discussion and campaigns, has relaunched. Again. It's less appalling - downplaying, quite dramatically, the voting up and down of campaign ideas which has failed over a two year period now to spark into any kind of life. But I'm genuinely [...] read on »
BBC sounds death-knell for left-hand nav
There's a fascinating (and lengthy) post on the BBC's internet blog, setting the scene for a forthcoming 'post-2.0' redesign of its web presence. It's a design geek's paradise - global visual languages, grid systems, typography and colour palettes. Intriguingly, they start their potted history of the BBC website with a screenshot from December 1997. My own [...] read on »
Sites and projects we've worked on:
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Lynne Featherstone MP
Her old website was so outdated, it was almost charming. We migrated 6 years of content over to WordPress, with some groundbreaking presentation ideas; blogger Iain Dale called it one of the best political websites he'd ever seen.
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Wales Office
They started with the ugliest website in Whitehall, and no hands-on control of content. We gave them a little gem of a site, with full control in the press officers' hands, and features most Whitehall departments still can't match.
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DFID Bloggers
Perhaps our finest hour so far: a platform for staff of the Department for International Development to tell their stories from the front line. Lots of cool functionality, much of it behind the scenes, but it's the stories it features which make this site so great.
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10 Downing Street
We helped the Prime Minister's Office in their landmark move to WordPress; and we're happy to offer occasional advice on various aspects of digital comms.
PM's travel blogs: US, Brussels, Japan
Progressive Governance summit » -
WordCamp UK
We were proud to sponsor the first gathering of UK WordPress developers and devotees in 2008, and its even bigger and better successor in 2009.
About
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Meet Simon
Simon Dickson was the UK civil service's first web specialist, and has won several national and international awards for his work in government and media circles.
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The mission
Small, fast, innovative, cheap. Having seen both sides, we believe it's the only way to make good things happen in government.
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We ♥ WordPress
We didn't start out with the intention of being a WordPress specialist; but it's such a perfect fit for almost everything we do. Here's our 10-point guide as to why.