Puffbox.com

Adventures in government, politics and open source. Mostly WordPress-related.

Simon Dickson, principal consultant at Puffbox, has been blogging about e-government, online politics, and WordPress since 2005. Some important people read it.

Archive for 'libdems'

Puffbox site wins election award

8 June 2010 3 , ,

Front left: back of my head. Front right: back of Mark Pack's head.Puffbox is proud - and a little bit relieved - to announce that our work with LibDem MP Lynne Featherstone has been named 'best use of digital by a candidate at the general election'. read on »

Lynne Featherstone making a splash

lfsplashWhen we launched the new Lynne Featherstone website back in September, our plan was always to add some new functionality once the campaign finally began (properly). One such feature went live tonight: 'splash pages', managed purely within WordPress. I've developed a new custom page template, which - as you can see - expects to be [...] read on »

Our new site for LibDems' Chris Huhne

huhne500With the election now well and truly underway, it's high time I blogged about the latest website Puffbox has built for a high-profile Liberal Democrat - this time it's home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, as he looks to defend a wafer-thin majority in Eastleigh. We were approached by Huhne's team late last year: they'd seen [...] read on »

Lib Dem leaflet is memorably Marvellous

7 April 2010 0 , ,

marvellousOnly my most dedicated stalkers will remember my rant a year ago, regarding a by-election in Thatcham South and Crookham, the council ward where I live. I was complaining about the lack of information on the contest, which was eventually won by a lady rejoicing in the name Marvellous Ford. I wrote at the time: [...] read on »

SEO as a political campaigning tool

21 March 2010 1 , , ,

haringeycouncil-seoI've mentioned this before, but it still brings a smile to my face. One consequence of the rebuild of Lynne Featherstone MP's website, which we launched last September, has been a marked improvement in Google performance. And it's arguably my greatest personal triumph that if you search Google for 'haringey council' - the top suggested [...] read on »

LibDems' Ning-based social network

18 November 2009 2 , ,

When the new LibDems website was launched a week or so ago, there was also mention of 'a new social action network site called ACT', which promised the ability to 'join groups, organise events, watch videos, talk politics and join in campaigns... to mobilize an online community that reaches beyond the boundaries of formal party [...] read on »

LibDems relaunch website

4 November 2009 0

There are quite a few surprises in the new Liberal Democrats website, launched today. First of all, and quite a relief, is that it's not predominantly yellow / gold / orange for once. Secondly, curiously, is that it's been built - and is apparently hosted - in Belfast. We'll come back to that in a [...] read on »

Presenting the new website for Lynne Featherstone MP

We're proud to unveil our latest creation: a new website/blog for Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone (or try this link if the DNS hasn't rolled over for you yet). It's taken a good few months, and has thrown up challenges on a scale I haven't had to tackle before. But equally, it presented several opportunities [...] read on »

Nick Clegg's off-the-shelf redesign

11 May 2009 2 , ,

There's a new look to NickClegg.com, 'the official Leader's site for the Liberal Democrats', powered - as noted previously - by WordPress. And it isn't yellow, not in the slightest. In fact, it took me quite a while even to spot the party's bird logo, concealed in each instance behind signatures or other graphic elements. [...] read on »

Reality check: democracy inaction

18 March 2009 14 , ,

Every now and again, you come across something which reminds you that, for all our great progress in e-politics, we still can't do some of the absolute basics. Tomorrow there's a by-election where I live: the Thatcham South and Crookham ward of Thatcham Town Council. It's not a big deal, perhaps, but it's another chance [...] read on »

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