puffbox

Summit microsite ready (phew)

It’s been a bit of a bumpy ride, as you may have picked up from stories on other blogs, but we’ve finally got the Progressive Governance summit microsite ready for the start of proceedings tomorrow morning. The discussion papers are up, the comment facility is switched on, the live streams are configured and ready. And my alarm is set for 5am.

I’m not sure if I’m excited or nervous at the prospect of the ‘live blog’. I’ve done similar things in equally high profile situations, running the live text commentary for a couple of Mr Brown’s Budgets whilst working at Sky News (1998, I think - wow, ten years ago)… but I’m effectively appointing myself the Prime Minister’s Online Spokesman for the day, which is kind of nuts now I think about it. And very trusting of them.

It’s bound to attract more than its fair share of malicious and frivolous participants. But it’s a first, certainly in UK government, and almost certainly globally (unless you know better?); and it’s another innovation to add to the list. I’m particularly looking forward to using the CoverItLive tool. Full report to follow, naturally.

• Alan in Belfast at 9:52 pm on 4 April 2008

  Deep breaths … and relax. Now set a second alarm.

• Alex at 9:09 am on 5 April 2008

  It’s brilliant - well done!

• Podnosh Blog » Archive » UK Government starts live blogging summits: at 9:20 am on 5 April 2008

  [...] Simon has just started the first official live blog of a UK summit here. Now press accredit a bunch of other bloggers (if you haven’t already). [...]

• Nick Booth at 9:30 am on 5 April 2008

  Bleedin marvelos. I hope you have remembered that man cannot live blog alone.

• feelByte // tech blog at 10:21 am on 5 April 2008

  [...] sul sito ufficiale è presente un Live Blogging e lo streaming video dell’evento grazie a Simon. Un ennesimo come all’estero i blog stanno avendo un impatto sul modo di fare [...]

• Simon at 1:17 pm on 5 April 2008

  Thanks everyone… I’m currently winding down after two full cafetieres over the course of the morning; will write this all up later. It’s going to make for a fantastic case study.

• Changing Climate: live blogging the Progressive Governance summit : Open to persuasion… at 7:47 pm on 5 April 2008

  [...] was a courageous decision by all concerned to innovate rapidly in this fashion; a decision fully justified by the outcome. [...]

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