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Full-text feeds on BBC blogs

It’s great to see the long-awaited improvement to the BBC’s blog infrastructure coming fully on-stream. I’m hearing reports of long, long hours being worked this week; and the inevitable post-launch debugging work continues. The Beeb’s Jem Stone describes the full horror, and scores extra points for an obscure Guns N Roses reference. But I’ve spotted one [...] read on »

On tour with the PM

I hinted that there might be more online initiatives coming out of 10 Downing Street; and true enough, next out the world-famous door is a bit of on-the-spot blogging from Gordon Brown’s trip to the United States later this week. For the first time on a foreign visit, a member of the No10 web team is [...] read on »

How to live-blog a summit

I think we got away with it. The remit for the week had been pretty straightforward: design, install, build, populate, edit and operate a website for the Progressive Governance Summit of 20-ish world leaders. So yeah, I’ve been busy. It became an exercise in ‘web 2.0′ - open source tools, free online services, RSS feeds, and [...] read on »

‘Gov 2.0′ in US presidential campaigning

I’m grateful to Jeff Jarvis for a detailed post on ‘government 2.0′ (although it isn’t a term he used, nor should he have). He points to two recent proposals from the Democrat candidates for the US presidency. I hadn’t heard Hillary Clinton’s suggestion, back in January, that government should actually be required to blog: I want to [...] read on »

No10 man’s blog raised at PMQs

With civil servants’ blogging habits such a hot topic, I can’t avoid mentioning the reference casually dropped into PMQs by David Cameron this afternoon. There is a new strategist, a man called David Muir. Yes, I have done a bit of research—he is the chief strategist and on the internet he has listed his favourite book. [...] read on »

The hunt for Civil Serf continues

It looks like I wasn’t the only e-gov person to get an email this afternoon from the Daily Mail, asking if I knew who Civil Serf was. No, I don’t. And given the treatment which the Mail handed out to DFID’s Owen Barder, I wouldn’t be inclined to tell them, even if I did. But [...] read on »

Nine Lords a-blogging

Very interesting to see the horrendously-branded Lords Of The Blog, a new group blog co-written by nine peers, each promising a couple of items per week. Prime mover Lord (Clive) Soley writes in his introductory post: MP’s and Peers need to find new ways of engaging with the public. A blog is not the complete answer [...] read on »

Civil Serf suspended

I’m reluctant to write this solely on the basis of a piece in the Mail (on Sunday?), but it seems Civil Serf has been identified and suspended by DWP. Investigators hunting for the blogger summoned her to a meeting last week, when it is understood that she denied responsibility. She was told she was being [...] read on »

Civil Serf: Simon’s video for BBC

I got an email from the team behind BBC News 24’s Your News show during the week, asking if I’d record a contribution as part of a piece they’re planning about - guess what - Civil Serf. So here it is, as a Puffbox first-play exclusive. Nothing you probably don’t know already, but hey - a [...] read on »

Civil service blogging guidelines

I guess you might see it as kneejerk; I prefer to see it as responsive. The Civil Serf affair has brought the matter of civil servants blogging to a head, and now is absolutely the right time to work out the ground rules. At lunchtime, Tom Watson publishes a ‘for starters’ list of bullet points on [...] read on »