Archive for January 2009
There's a pattern developing here
In 2004 (I think), the MySociety gang launched Downing Street Says - a blog-style presentation of the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman's twice-daily media briefings. It included an RSS feed, which the No10 site (at the time) didn't; and it included the ability to add comments. Oh, and it was built in WordPress.
Fast forward to 2009. Derek Draper launches LabourList. Some people didn't like the presentation, or the approach to comment moderation. So they went off and built Labourist: same content, arguably a better layout, and a more open approach to debate.
There is something deeply troubling about a quasi-official site, where content is provided by members of the Labour Government, edited by a former Labour party employee and where comment is allowed only by the handpicked few. LabourList.org requires registration and sharing of personal data in order to join their debate. Contributors are asked the screening question: “Are you a Labour Member?”. LABOURIST thinks this is just wrong.
That perception may or may not be fair; but that's not my point here. Some people (perhaps only one person?) didn't like how LabourList was working; and resolved to do it better. LabourList's copyright policy allowed him/her/them to republish it; so he/she/they did. The new site was up and running in a matter of days. Oh, and it's running on WordPress.
Then Dave Briggs notes the launch of Big City Plan Talk. Birmingham City Council has published a plan to 'revitalise Birmingham's city centre over the next twenty years'. (Frankly, it probably needs it; and I speak as a former - happy - Birmingham resident.) Their website even feeds into the Council's main Consultation Portal. But a bunch of Brummie bloggers felt it needed something more - clearer language, more straightforward commenting. So they did it themselves, within a couple of weeks. And what did they use? WordPress.
You know, I'm just saying...
BBC anger at DCSF data formats
BBC News website editor Steve Herrmann is not happy. In previous years, the Beeb site has carried full school league table data, as soon as the embargo is lifted at 09:30am. But not this year.
'This is because the government has tightened up on the media's pre-release access to official statistics,' he explains. 'In the past, we have generally got the official results a week in advance, under embargo, to compile and check tables. This time, we will have had sight of the data for just 24 hours.'
But, in fact, it's not specifically the reduced lead time that's the problem here. More accurately, it's the reduced lead time to deal with what DCSF chucks at them.
The school results that are supplied to the news media are not in a readily accessible form. In the case of the secondary schools, there are two large spreadsheets, each with a number of pages... Each sheet has dozens of columns, and a row for each school and college. Formatting the essential benchmarks from all this for publication, using computer scripts to interrogate the data, compiling and then proofreading them, takes hours of work.
In other words, DCSF are unable - let's give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment - to supply the data in a format which assists the end users (in this case, the entire national media) to do their jobs.
And it's led to an official letter of complaint - signed jointly by the BBC, Press Association and national newspapers - to the DCSF's chief statistician. 'With less than 24 hours' preparation time, it will be much more difficult to produce any meaningful analysis of the information and to ensure there are no errors,' they write. 'The result is that the main aim of the government and of our organisations - to provide an essential service to parents choosing a secondary school for their sons and daughters - will be thwarted.'
Statistical release procedures are a touchy subject; and school league tables are even touchier. Statisticians don't like issuing them, because people insist on doing nasty things like - imagine! - ranking them in order. Many schools don't like them either. But I can tell you for a fact, parents absolutely lap them up.
If DCSF, at whatever level, believes in the publication of this data, they need to make it easy for the major communication channels - the newspapers, and the BBC website - to republish it to their huge readerships. That clearly isn't happening.
LibDems' Featherstone on tech & politics
I mentioned the other day that MP Lynne Featherstone, a long-established blogger and the Commons's first Twitterer had been announced as chair of the Liberal Democrats' new Technology Board. In an article to be published by the New Statesman, she talks a bit more about her (considerable) experience with technology in politics. It's a balanced, pragmatic and insightful piece.
First, you don't have to know how to do the technology - you can get other people to help with that - but understanding what you want out of it and the new opportunities it offers is vital. Second, it helps bring political success - I wouldn't have got elected an MP without it. And third, as much of the technology has got easier and easier to do, getting the technical details right is - while still important - becoming less important compared with getting your mindset right.
I couldn't agree more... particularly with that final point. For all I bang on about good technical execution here, the fact remains that substance beats style. You could have the ugliest, most ancient-looking blog in the world - but if you're filling it consistently with good stuff, all such functional and aesthetic sins can be forgiven.
Even so, it's great to hear that Lynne is preparing to move off Blogger, in favour of - well, guess... 
(To be fair, WordPress has been the LibDems' platform of choice for some time, with their various subject-specific blogs running on WP MU, and Nick Clegg's personal site on WP solo.)
So what's this Technology Board all about then? Lynne explains...
There is work that needs to be done to continue improving and expanding the party's use of technology, and in particular the internet, which falls into the category of getting more and better tools. There is a key job of work in tapping into the pool of expertise amongst our members and supporters in writing, improving and supporting our tools. But above all, it is a matter of changing the way we think and act, so that we more fully embrace the more open, more collaborative, more sharing outlook that is about engaging - not lecturing - and is, for an increasing number of people, an instinctive part of the way they lead their lives, and they expect others to also.
I'm watching with great interest.
Parliament's Twitter backchannel
From Cabinet Office questions and PMQs today... and that's before the debate on Segways tonight. So we're to assume that the nation's MPs were catching up on some serious geek time over the Christmas break then?
(Background pic from uk_parliament at Flickr)
PM orders Cabinet ministers to blog
Before you get carried away, it's the prime minister of Kazakhstan who has demanded that all his Cabinet colleagues get blogging. Reuters reports:
"I have opened a blog on the government website," Masimov told a government meeting. "So I order all ministers... to start personal blogs where people will be able to ask you questions that you must answer."
Masimov started his own blog last week with an introductory post that has already received 152 comments, some of which were complaints about the quality of tap water in villages. He has since ordered the cabinet to investigate the criticisms.
For the record, I'm not sure you can actually order someone to blog. I wrote something on this ages ago, referring to David Miliband's pioneering efforts: 'The channel is nothing without having someone willing and able to talk to (and with) us.'
But anyway... the Kazakh PM's website is running on BlogEngine.NET, not a platform I know well. There's embedded Flash video, comments on every (?) post, and a fair smattering of RSS icons. He's not exactly prolific, with only 5 posts on the site since the end of November, but he's getting plenty of responses.
If anyone happens to speak Kazakh (or is it Russian?), feel free to tell us all about the content. No Borat references required, thank you very much.
Social Mobility for bloggers
A quick nod towards today's New Opportunities (micro)site, in support of the white paper on Social Mobility. Most of it is fairly straightforward, 'pages in a hierarchy' stuff; well done, certainly, but nothing particularly special. There are a few points definitely worthy of note, though.
One is the root address: www.hmg.gov.uk - one of many domains pointing to the Cabinet Office's webserver. It's a very odd choice indeed; and somewhat ironic, given that the earliest government domains were hmg.gb. Presumably it's because of the cross-departmental nature of the initiative itself; that would also explain the use of that lesser-spotted HM Government logo.
Another is the inclusion of Flash-based streaming video, direct from the host site itself - as opposed to the usual embedded-from-YouTube method. It's quite a timely move, given COI new recruit Ross Ferguson's reflections on that very subject this morning. Here's one embedded example...
Streaming your own video can get expensive: at respectable quality, that's a lot of data eating up your monthly bandwidth allocation. But I suppose the DIY approach means you can customise the appearance, see the usage stats, and (crucially in this case, I suspect) get around corporate IT networks' blocking of YouTube et al.
Then there's the 'social media press release', which proclaims: 'We want to encourage debate online and offline about the issues raised in this document, and have made the following resources available for bloggers and journalists to use within their own coverage of the White Paper.' In practice that means a bullet-point summary, a dozen streamed videos for easy embedding, plus links to external resources and external coverage. It's a nice package.
To be honest though, I'm not sure the fluffy 'ordinary people' video content is right for this sort of thing. I don't see why anyone would want to include these case studies in their coverage. Surely you'd have a better chance with some pieces to camera from insiders / experts / Ministers? (Not that those are ideal, necessarily...)
As for 'social mobility for bloggers' - well, it's always amused me how easy it is to get yourself some profile in this business. If you can crank out a half-decent blog, people will find you, and your name will become known. There aren't that many people talking about the subjects I cover here. There's no magic recipe: just demonstrate that you know your subject, and it'll pay off. But that's enough career advice from me...
Cabinet ministers to blog on LabourList
Much excitement over the weekend at the launch of LabourList, describing itself as 'the must read online forum for Labour minded people'. Edited by Derek Draper, taking three days a week (he tells the Mail On Sunday) out of his job as a psychotherapist, the site is keen to stress its independence; but nobody's doubting its official endorsement, and it's built and hosted by Tangent Labs who handle all Labour's official stuff.
Back in September, I was an observer at a fringe meeting at the Labour conference, addressed by Draper. As I wrote at the time, the discussion highlighted the fact that LabourHome was neither able to match ConservativeHome head-on; nor was it trying to. 'With no disrespect to the many valiant amateurs, in the room and on the web,' I wrote somewhat presciently, 'there's nobody of sufficient prominence taking on the Dales and Montgomeries, and fighting Labour's corner.'
LabourList pretty much delivers on that score, anyway. Looking down the left-hand column, it's like a who's-who of the left: household names like Piers Morgan, Ken Livingstone and Peter Mandelson; up-and-coming figures like David Lammy; insiders like Draper, Charlie Whelan, Philip Gould and Ben Wegg-Prosser; blogging veterans like Luke Akehurst and LabourHome guys Jag Singh and Mark Hanson... impressive stuff. Although of course, barely 36 hours after its launch, most of the content is still 'not published yet'.
Most interesting for me, perhaps, will be the involvement of two Cabinet ministers - Mandelson from BERR, and DFID's Douglas Alexander. Will they be able to touch on any aspects of their day jobs, in any substantial way, or can it only be party campaigning stuff? Of course, if Mr Alexander wishes to blog about his day job, there's a first-rate blogging platform ready and waiting.
Draper is quick to tackle any perception that LabourList will try to undermine the (occasionally troublesome) LabourHome. 'I want to make it clear that I don't see LabourList and Labourhome as being rivals,' he writes; 'quite the contrary, we should be comrades.' It could work out to be quite a useful double-act, actually - and at least it'll put a stop to the never-flattering comparisons with ConHome.
I'm inclined to share Jon Worth's suspicion about the choice of the Tangent Labs platform, though - 'proprietary software that was not designed for blogging', when WordPress would have done the job perfectly. On a functional level it's fine, I suppose; but visually it's pretty awful - and the URLs are just horrible. There are RSS feeds a-plenty, although most people won't spot most of them. And I wouldn't have shown all those comments on the homepage, pushing the second story way out of view.
One substantial plus point, though, is their up-front approach to moderation. You need to register as a member to comment, although you don't need to be a Party member. And once you're in:
If your comments are deemed to be offensive, they will be removed completely. [But...] In order to ensure an insightful, engaging debate we will also place other comments judged to be grossly unintelligent or obtuse or trolls in our trash can. These comments can however still be viewed by users by clicking on the “include trash comments” button under each post. We encourage anyone who has had a comment denied to repost their thoughts on their own blog, and leave a trackback instead. Although we might think a comment is inappropriate for our conversation that does not preclude you making your point elsewhere.
However, I'm really not sure about the inclusion of the 'Latest News from the Prime Minister's Spokesperson' on the homepage: the divide between Government and Party is difficult enough, without drawing attention to it like this. And I'm genuinely a bit shocked to see a prominent promo for FixMyStreet - alongside similar promos for the TUC, Unite, and a couple of other Labour Party initiatives. What's the MySociety line on that, I wonder?
Mandelson's opening piece is very significant, with implications beyond party politics. 'The Labour party itself is now moving to the forefront of new media and online campaigning,' he declares - er, OK, go on. 'The world has changed since 1997. Now, no-one has been more identified with message and campaigning discipline than myself, something that makes me rather proud... But when it comes to new media we have to recognise that the days of command and control are over. Instead we need to learn to embrace and engage.'
[I'm assuming, by the way, that the Second Life thing was solely to give the newspapers a pretty picture to print; otherwise it's a screengrab of a half-empty site. And yes of course, I fell for it too. But I can't believe the party is seriously converting its minimal funds into Linden dollars.]
So, let battle commence. Last week, the LibDems announced the formation of a New Technology Board 'to oversee the party's online campaigning' ahead of the next general election; it's to be chaired by blogger and Twitterer Lynne Featherstone. Plus of course, the Tories under Cameron have been trying to mark out this territory as their own for some time. Is this a win-win-win situation for those of us trying to evangelise to government?
On being British
It isn't every day you get writers like Stephen Fry and JK Rowling, Oscar-winning film producers and Nobel Prize-winning scientists contributing to a government website. But it does happen.
Governance of Britain is a site I built a year ago, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. Plans and circumstances have changed a few times since then, which frankly haven't helped with establishing the site; and there's word that things might be changing again. But it contains a few features and functions which I'm particularly proud of.
This week saw us uploading a clutch of new contributions from high-profile public figures on what it means to be British. We've already had pieces from, among others, Trevor Phillips, Dame Evelyn Glennie and Nicole Cooke (pre-Beijing, by the way), as well as what you might call 'the great and good'. A couple of them are even in video form. Comments are open; it'll be interesting if such 'citizen-friendly' material can generate large volumes of feedback.
Each contributor has approached the subject in a different way. Some are short, some much longer. Some are very personal, others clearly 'the official line' from an organisation they represent. Some are quite academic, others quite provocative. Well worth a quick click through. I'd particularly draw your attention to Lord Puttnam's video: a one minute piece to camera, well-delivered by a natural communicator.
API promised for 2011 Census data
Chances are, you missed last month's publication of the Cabinet Office's white paper on the 2011 Census. 'Modern times demand modern approaches,' declares Sir Michael Scholar, chair of the UK Statistics Authority: you'll be able to complete your census form online, and 'all standard outputs will be publicly accessible online, and free of charge, from the National Statistics website (whatever that is - as I understand it, the name disappeared in the UKSA rebranding).'
The Census represents a marvellous opportunity. We're now many years into the post-web world, and online is now the main distribution channel for data. We've got several years to learn from the best practice of others, be they fellow statistical organisations around the world, or heavy-duty data disseminators like the financial markets. There's no issue as regards a business model: the commitment to free availability has already been made. It's an open goal.
Unfortunately, I probably wrote something almost identical to the preceding paragraph seven years ago, when I started working for ONS as Web Editor in Chief, full of optimism at what magic we could weave with the 2001 census data. It didn't last; there was virtually zero consideration of public usage in the output plans, and I couldn't persuade the key people of the cultural shift happening outside. There were some blazing rows. I left ONS in 2004; it says something that the website I built as a six-month stopgap in 2002 is still their main web presence - reskin aside, almost exactly as I left it.
A quick skim through the white paper provides little reason to restore my optimism. It has more to say about printed books of preformatted tables than it does about electronic methods - there's no fleshing-out of what 'online dissemination' might mean. Instead, there's a commitment to produce CDs and DVDs... seriously? in 2012?
But there may yet be hope. Back in December, ONS quietly launched a 2011 UK Census Output consultation - based, remarkably, on a Wiki platform. They've published initial survey findings from 500+ respondents, half of whom were in government; it's a bit disappointing to see so little input from potential new customers (only 2%), as opposed to the 'usual suspects'. Yet a clear majority of this normally conservative (small 'c') audience said they would be happy with electronic output alone.
And hallelujah! - elsewhere on the wiki there's even mention of an 'intention is to support a variety of electronic dissemination options through the use of an internet-based API [said on another page to be 'publicly-available'] that can access the full range of aggregated Census statistics.' There's even a link to a list of the API calls to be offered - but it 'does not (yet) exist'. Many a slip twixt cup and lip, as they say... but they're undoubtedly talking the right talk here, and perhaps that's all we can ask at this stage.
My only plea is that they remember the huge potential value for new users. Things have moved on dramatically since 2001; I can think of countless websites which would adore a system they could hook into, with fantastic potential benefits to ordinary web users. The wiki's list of planned response formats betrays the 'insiders first' instinct again: nothing your average masher will be familiar with. Consult your community by all means, guys; but recognise there's an even wider potential community these days.
- PS: It's not the Census group's first venture into social media: two years ago, they took part in the Hansard Society's Digital Dialogues initiative, with a blog centred on consultation on small area geography policy. Ten blog posts in three months (over Christmas) isn't great, and the Hansard Soc was politely critical of the blogger's failure to engage with the readership, and the organisation's failure to take the initiative forward. Interestingly, the site has been wiped from the record books: the Hansard Soc's graphics have been replaced by Flickr errors, and the onsgeography.net domain name appears to have lapsed. There's always web.archive.org though...
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