Archive for October 2009
WordPress to power new Press Assoc network?
The Press Association is the engine which powers the UK news machine. In effect it's a cooperative owned by the UK's regional and national newspapers. It has noticed that, as funds get tighter, its members have stopped reporting on local democracy - council meetings and the like. And it's working on a proposal to fill [...] read on »
New site for National Student Forum
Today sees the launch of the latest little site we've built on behalf of - or more accurately, in collaboration with - BIS, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills. It's a pretty straightforward WordPress build for something called the National Student Forum: a panel representing HE students' interests, whose latest annual report was published [...] read on »
Credit where it's due
The BIS All-Stars have produced something relatively small-scale in support of their new consultation on credit and store cards: but it works remarkably well. Working with plain English consultancy Simply Understand, they've boiled the classic 80-odd-page goverment consultation document down to just 10 (and done a nice design job on it too). But then they've [...] read on »
FCO's modest redesign
The Foreign Office relaunched its corporate website over the weekend - always a brave move. You're met by a very striking news-y homepage, with large-format high-impact (and high maintenance) imagery: it works very well indeed, but is the sort of homepage which takes a lot of editorial effort, and presumably a photo budget of some [...] read on »
Hansard Society event on Twitter in politics
What can you say about Twitter? They came in their dozens to the Hansard Society's event at Portcullis House to find out from a panel consisting of blogger Iain Dale, MPs Jo Swinson and Kerry McCarthy, and Tweetminster founder Andrew Walker. I hadn't expected to learn a lot: I've been using Twitter longer and more [...] read on »
We care a lot
One of my bigger projects this year has been the website for the Care And Support green paper, aka The Big Care Debate. Basically, the country is in desperate need of a new funding model for long-term care of the elderly and disabled: and in July, three funding options were put forward for consideration. And [...] read on »
Thoughts on MyConservatives
A bit pushed for time just now, but I wanted to jot down a few thoughts regarding the launch of the Conservatives' new community platform, MyConservatives.com. I hope they make sense. It's built on an open-source platform - specifically Drupal. Almost certainly the right choice: after all, Drupal describes itself as 'community plumbing'. For those [...] read on »
Tom, Tories and Timing
Tom Steinberg's blog splutters back to life after more than two years asleep, to confirm reports that he will be advising the Conservatives on IT policy. 'I've been asked to advise the Tories on IT policy,' he writes, 'and I've accepted.' He's clearly sensitive to the issues this raises as regards his 'day job' as [...] read on »