Simon Dickson, principal consultant at Puffbox, writes stuff about e-government, online news and politics. Some important people read it.

From my presentation to new civil servants

14 March 2010 0 , ,
On Tuesday this week, I gave a presentation at the Government Communication Network's foundation course for new entrants - talking about the current online and social media landscape, and highlighting a few specific implications for those working in government. I haven't received the feedback questionnaire summary yet; but the initial signals look encouraging. (Thanks Sue.) For [...] read on »
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BIS website grows up

13 March 2010 1 ,
There's a new website for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills - aka BIS - this weekend; and as I reported here back in November (sniff!), they're waving farewell to WordPress as their core publishing platform. The new site is built on Sitecore, and is appearing bang on the published schedule. Visually it's really nice: [...] read on »
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Tories promise IT skunkworks

11 March 2010 2 ,
If there's one commitment in the Conservatives' Technology Manifesto, billed as 'the most ambitious technology agenda ever proposed by a British political party', which makes my heart leap with joy, it's this: We will also create a small IT development team in government – a 'government skunkworks' – that can develop low cost IT applications in-house [...] read on »
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Defra’s new WordPress comment platform

8 March 2010 0 , ,
Over the last few months we've been doing a few little projects with Defra: first came the UK Location (micro)site, and I mentioned there was 'at least one more' in the pipeline. The second project emerged a few days back: a 'commentable page' platform, in the style (as Steph rightly observed) of the now-legendary Commentariat theme. [...] read on »
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Tories: always big City fans

8 March 2010 0
Hot on the heels of the BNP apparently (?) taking design cues from Obama, here's the new homepage for the Conservatives' website... and the Manchester City FC homepage, with which - you'd have to say - there is a remarkable similarity. For the avoidance of any confusion: one is returning to prominence after a long period [...] read on »
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Our modest microsite for UKTI

26 February 2010 2 ,
Monday saw a gathering of 250 leading figures from the world of business at London's Saatchi Gallery; and organisers UK Trade & Investment asked Puffbox to put together a microsite for the event. With minimal advance publicity, few official post-conference outputs, and no particular involvement for the general public, we felt the best approach was [...] read on »
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Cabinet Office’s open source fail

25 February 2010 0 , ,
A PQ from Conservative shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what her policy is in respect of the installation and use of (a) Internet Explorer, (b) Firefox and (c) Opera website browsers by Government departments. To which Angela Smith replies: Government policy regarding installation and use of web [...] read on »

The great WordPress / MU merge

24 February 2010 4 ,
A subject which keeps coming up in conversation just now is the planned merger of 'normal' WordPress with WordPress MU, the 'multi user' version. There's been both excitement and concern at what it might mean: but the latest report from Jane at WP HQ should be enough to calm anyone's worst fears. It was announced at [...] read on »

Flogging a dead horse. Again.

22 February 2010 1 ,
I feel obliged to note that LabourSpace, Labour's attempt to build a social network around policy discussion and campaigns, has relaunched. Again. It's less appalling - downplaying, quite dramatically, the voting up and down of campaign ideas which has failed over a two year period now to spark into any kind of life. But I'm genuinely [...] read on »
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BBC sounds death-knell for left-hand nav

17 February 2010 0 ,
There's a fascinating (and lengthy) post on the BBC's internet blog, setting the scene for a forthcoming 'post-2.0' redesign of its web presence. It's a design geek's paradise - global visual languages, grid systems, typography and colour palettes. Intriguingly, they start their potted history of the BBC website with a screenshot from December 1997. My own [...] read on »
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