Departmental websites: gone by Xmas?


My attention has been drawn to the commitment on page 42 of yesterday’s Budget 2012 document.

from 2014, new online services will only go live if the responsible minister can demonstrate that they themselves can use the service successfully

It’s so simple, it’s brilliant. And quite funny too.
But don’t overlook the non-highlighted bit which follows. It’s a commitment, the first I’m explicitly aware of, that:

all information is [to be] published on a single ’gov.uk’ domain name by the end of 2012

In other words, the Single Domain will at least be ‘dual running’ with all departmental websites within 9 months. But it’s surely more likely, given that efficiency is a key selling point of the Single Domain strategy, that we’ll see all departmental websites closed by then. There was no deadline mentioned in the Martha Lane Fox report of November 2010, or in last October’s ICT Implementation Plan.
Update: blogging on the GDS’s WordPress.com-based site, Mike Bracken adds some clarification:

We’re working with colleagues across Government to get all information for citizens and businesses (what’s currently covered by Directgov and Businesslink) published on GOV.UK by the end of this year and this gives us the hurry up. We’re also working towards migrating Departmental sites onto ‘Inside Government’ but that will take a little longer, with a more gradual transition as current contracting arrangements for individual Departments come to an end.

History lesson

My first workplace: photo from Wikipedia

I began my career at the Foreign Office, joining what was known as ‘Guidance Section’. Its job was to be the in-house newswire service for British embassies far and wide. The day started by editing down a daily news summary and press review, based on BBC World Service scripts; at the click of a button on a VT100 terminal (look it up), these were delivered to hundreds of British diplomatic missions by the best means available. Could be fax, could be telex, could be telegram, one or two had something called E-Mail. Cutting edge stuff for 1995, believe me.
We would spend the rest of the day gathering news items from around Whitehall – press releases, transcripts of speeches, whatever. We’d edit these down to the essential, decide which embassies would be likely to receive media enquiries on the subject, and send it out to them. Then, at lunchtime and 5pm, we’d produce a ‘shopping list’ from which embassies could request anything they were interested in, but hadn’t already received.
Departments were generally more than happy to work with us: often we’d get significant announcements ahead of delivery, so that Our Man In Wherever could have a head-start. The one massive exception was the Treasury, on Budget Day.
They would send an official on the short walk up Horse Guards Avenue to our office in the Old Admiralty Building, just by the Arch. He or she (usually he) would have the Chancellor’s speech on a floppy disk. He would sit stony-faced in our office, one of few in the building to have a TV, whilst we all listened to the speech. When the Chancellor’s bottom touched the front bench, the speech having been delivered to the House, he would hand over the floppy disk. And finally, we could begin the work of reformatting the text file, editing out the party-political bits, double-checking it, then sending it out.
Today, any Embassy press officer who’s interested will be reading the same advance press coverage we all are. He/she will watch the speech live – CNN, BBC World, streamed online, whatever – before hitting the Treasury website. And he probably won’t get a single call asking for a copy of the speech.

When is an 'official' Twitter account not an official Twitter account?

Much consternation in certain political circles this afternoon, as Boris Johnson renames his Twitter account… and takes a quarter of a million people’s details over to his election campaign HQ.
Johnson was elected on 4 May 2008. His first tweet came on 8 May 2008 (‘Setting up social marketing accounts!’) – although it’s not entirely clear what username the account used when it was created. In January 2009, though, he changed that username to MayorOfLondon. And the account has been quoted since at least May 2009 in official City Hall press releases, as his official account. Or in the case of that May 2009 press release, ‘the Mayor’s Twitter site’.
Before today’s change, the URL associated with the account was http://www.london.gov.uk/ – and the biography read:

City Government for Greater London under the auspices of the Mayor of London

Could it have sounded more official?
(Something similar has happened to his Facebook account too; facebook.com/borisjohnson is now adorned with BackBoris2012 logos, and contains no history prior to 17 March 2012. And yes, that Facebook URL has similarly been promoted in the past as his official presence.)
In response, there’s a statement on the BackBoris website:

As some of you may have noticed, earlier today Boris changed the name of his Twitter account from @MayorofLondon to @BorisJohnson. While the name of the account may have changed, rest assured that the account is still – and has always been – controlled by Boris.
No City Hall resources will be used to update or maintain the account – that would be against the rules. Given we’re now in the official election period, this change is being made so there can be no question of Boris using official resources to campaign.
Of course, those who no longer wish to follow the account are welcome to “unfollow” at any time.

Of course, it’s not the fact that future City Hall resources will be used; it’s that past City Hall resources have already been used to build up a significant following. And the last line is somewhat ill-advised, in my opinion.
I’d be very interested to find out from people at City Hall – or indeed, from HM Government’s Deputy Director of Digital Engagement, Emer Coleman who used to be City Hall’s head of digital projects – as to whether City Hall thought it ‘owned’ the account on behalf of the office of Mayor.
If the account was always personal, Boris should have used his personal name. By using the name of his elected office, the natural assumption is unquestionably that you are following the individual in his/her elected capacity – as was the case with the Prime Ministerial Twitter account.
Here’s a tip. If you’re working in a government web team, I strongly advise you get something in writing to confirm who exactly owns any Ministerial accounts – rapidly.
Update: a climbdown of sorts. Boris has tweeted:

To be clear- @borisjohnson will only be used for discussing mayoral duties. To follow me on the campaign trail, follow @backboris2012

And in a post on the BackBoris2012 website:

‘As he entered the campaign he was determined to ensure there was no confusion between him as Mayor and him as a candidate and therefore changed the name of his Twitter account.
‘He did not expect this openness and honesty to have created such hysteria.
‘So in case there is even one Londoner who has a problem with what he did, he will not use that account for the campaign and instead can be followed from the political front on @BackBoris2012.’

Has he reverted back to being @MayorOfLondon? No. But the username hasn’t been abandoned – someone, and you have to hope it’s someone close to Boris and/or City Hall, has bagged it. Hopefully for safe keeping. We don’t want this happening again, do we.
Updated update: Somewhat inevitably, Boris has – pardon the pun – backed down. He’s now reverted to using @MayorOfLondon as his account name, and the BorisJohnson account has gone blank again.

People like intranets' names

I’ve just started work on a project to build a first-ever intranet for a small UK government entity. I’ve been waiting for ages for an opportunity to put BuddyPress, the semi-official WordPress add-on which promises a ‘social network in a box’ experience, to the test… and this is it.
It’s still early days in the thought process – but the plan is to make heavy use of BuddyPress ‘groups’, to generate a personalised real-time view of activity in the areas in which you have a specific personal interest. Each team or department would be a group. Each cross-departmental project would be a group. There might also be groups based on physical location, social activity, union membership and so on. Some would be mandatory (eg ‘all staff’); some would be open for anyone to join; some would be invite-only, or totally hidden.
The BuddyPress ‘activity stream’ filters itself automatically according to each signed-in user’s group memberships; so your homepage (tbc) view would consist only of updates – news, forum discussions, events, document uploads, new members etc – from the groups you belong to. No two users’ views would be identical. It’s easy to see how powerful this could be; and in a post-Facebook world, it shouldn’t be an unfamiliar concept.
Anyway… I started preparing wireframes yesterday, and hit an immediate question. What should go in the ‘logo’ space, reserved by convention in the top left corner?
Most intranets I’ve had the misfortune to use in the past have had names. But I wondered, did people actually use those names when referring to them? When asked ‘where can I find that document?’, would people generally answer: ‘On the intranet.’ or ‘On [insert name here].’? Personally, I’d instinctively say the former myself; but after 17 years in this business, I’m used to the fact that I’m not ‘normal’.
So I asked Twitter. And to be honest, I was surprised by the response.
Almost without exception, people responded that yes, their intranet did have a name… ranging from the fairly dull (‘Cabweb’ at the Cabinet Office) to the fantastic (‘Narnia’ at the National Archives!) to the quite unfathomable (one digital agency chose, er, ‘Agnes’). And yes, people used the name in common parlance.
One or two people reported failed attempts to name their intranet: but the names they mentioned – ‘[organisation name] Online’, or ‘The Hub’ – seemed very generic. It’s almost as if people will make an effort to use the name, if you’ve clearly made an effort to make one up. If the name seems half-heartedly conceived, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the staff don’t buy into it.
I’m not claiming any scientific validity for these results; but I’m left in no doubt that I’m going to have to think up a name.