Archive for May 2010
Review blasts Birmingham’s ‘£2.8m’ website
Some fine detective work by Nick Booth aka Podnosh, to uncover Birmingham City Council's report into the development of its reported - but denied - £2.8m website (mentioned previously here). The executive summary's list of recommendations makes for painful reading: The new CMS 'requires further work before it can be said to function effectively for [...] read on »
Commentable Coalition plan
Out of the blue last week, I got a call from COI: was I available for an immediate, rapid turnaround WordPress job? I was a bit startled, and detail was lacking; but since this was precisely the kind of rapid-response thinking I've been trying to foster around WordPress for a couple of years, I couldn't [...] read on »
BNP switches to Drupal
I've written here before about the British National Party's website, and its impressive use of WordPress - and more recently BuddyPress, the add-on which turns it into Facebook. So it's only fair that I note how things have changed in the past few weeks: the site now appears to be running on Drupal, and has [...] read on »
Time for a consistent government brand
Point one: producing documents is hard work. Producing documents in government circles is even harder. Too hard. I remember once hearing of another European government - Denmark, was it? - where they had a policy that documents and publications had to be closed down two days before publication. In the UK, we have allowed ourselves [...] read on »
Our emergency theme helps Defra relaunch
The biggest surprise about the transition to the new coalition administration is how few surprises there actually were. A quick tour of the departmental websites reveals, for the most part, the exact same websites that were there before - albeit a little lighter on content, and with new faces in the About Us section. It's [...] read on »
Oi BBC, don’t you dare diss my legacy
The BBC published a very nicely balanced, sober article yesterday by Brian Wheeler, noting the 'web revolution sweeping Whitehall'. It's been widely retweeted around the e-gov community, and is being seen as highly complimentary of civil service efficiency. Which makes it all the more curious to see the pictures they've chosen to illustrate the story: [...] read on »
New Cabinet’s online footprint
I make it seven members of the new Coalition cabinet with Twitter accounts: although of course, some have been more personal than others: Nick Clegg William Hague Vince Cable Chris Huhne Eric Pickles Danny Alexander Jeremy Hunt It's worth noting that only Hague and Pickles have been active since polling day; and judging by one [...] read on »
XMI mini speaker: a lifesaver
Last Christmas, I decided to 'crowdsource' my wishlist. As a well-settled man in my late 30s, there wasn't much (in the price range!) that I really wanted; so I decided to look down the various Amazon bestseller lists, and choose anything with even a modicum of appeal at the £10-20 mark. I ended up with [...] read on »
Why WordPress is a good fit for government
One way or another, it's going to be a momentous week for UK government. A lot of people will be leaving their Whitehall offices on Thursday evening, not quite sure who they're going to be working for - in terms of the boss, and the organisation - on Friday morning. I've had calls from literally [...] read on »