Archive for 'foreignoffice'
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 »
Wireframes? Specs? Ha.
I've added a lengthy comment to Stephen Hale's recent blog post about preparations for a much-needed redesign of the FCO's blogs.fco.gov.uk site. Unfortunately, the FCO's platform did horrible things to the formatting, so even if it's only to make it legible, I thought I'd echo one of the more controversial points I made in that [...] read on »
Jimmy Leach returns to Whitehall
News from the Foreign Office: they've selected Jimmy Leach, former head of digital at 10 Downing Street, currently 'Editorial Director for Digital' at The Independent, for the recently-advertised position of FCO's Head of Digital Engagement. He's due to start in February. It'll be great to have him back: as I've written previously, I think he [...] 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 »
FCO seeks new head of digital
Another senior digital job pops up: this time, it's the Foreign Office looking for a Head of Digital Engagement. It's a Senior Civil Service band 1 position, a 2-year fixed-term contract with a salary up to £90k (plus London weighting, plus 6 weeks holiday!), managing the 30-strong team based in London, Washington, New Delhi and [...] read on »
Ed's Pledge: when Ministers go it alone
One of the few international set-pieces between now and the next general election is the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in mid-December. And the UK's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is trying to drum up support among the population for - er, well, let's not dwell on details. 'A deal' of [...] read on »
Time called on top UK blogger
In February, The Times named the blog written by Philip Barclay and Grace Mutandwa, staff at the British Embasy in Zimbabwe, to be one of the UK's best. And rightly so. Some of the stuff they've written has been the most moving I've ever read on a blog. But while Grace is a local, Philip [...] read on »
FCO blogging on blogging
It's great to see the Foreign Office's Stephen Hale raising his head above the parapet, and blogging about his job as 'Head of Engagement'. (Quite a job title, by the way.) Makes sense for numerous reasons of course, not least as a means of setting a good example for colleagues. I mean, would you trust [...] read on »
Scottish Sec Murphy to keep 'blogging'
Well, here's a first. Government press officers haven't been the most enthused by new media. I'm told that's changing, slowly but surely. But it's quite startling to see a press office announcing a blog which hasn't even been launched yet - and even better, syndicating the content via press release! Clearly the Scotland Office are [...] read on »
Full launch for Met crime maps
Wednesday saw the formal launch of London's crime maps, which first appeared in beta only a couple of weeks back. Don't call it '1.0' though: the source code declares it's actually 'beta 1.02'. As before, it shows areas colour-coded for the rates of 'burglary, robbery and vehicle crime', based on comparisons with 'the average'. Yes, [...] read on »