So anyway, a week ago, Neil published a template for a departmental Twitter strategy on his own personal website, and on the Cabinet Office's new Digital Engagement blog. Somebody in SW1 finally spotted it - the Guardian? Press Association? - then next thing you know, it's everywhere. Incidentally, well done to the Daily Mail for inventing some extra details - it wasn't 'commissioned', Neil chose to 'open source' the piece he produced for his own purposes for the benefit of colleagues elsewhere in government.

Yes, Neil's document is lengthy; and he admitted from the off that it would seem 'a bit over the top'. But if exciting new tools like Twitter are to make it through the middle-management swamp of the Civil Service, they need to be wrapped in boring documentation like this. Whether or not it ever gets read, mandarins need to feel that your Twitter proposal has received the same proper consideration as the other (weightier?) items on their to-do list. 'Dude! This is so cooool! We should so be doing this!' will not get you very far.

Getting government to do cool stuff is 50% actual doing, 50% creating the opportunity for things to get done. Neil's document is aimed at the latter; and it would seem to have served its purpose already. Thanks Neil.

By the way... This provides an interesting case study in how news is made. It only becomes 'news' when one journalist notices. Then everyone else writes almost identical articles, usually based on the Press Association piece. Then it makes the broadcast media - starting with the Today programme. Expect the TV channels to follow suit later today.

On reflection, if you're going to put two of the most forward-thinking people in e-government into the same department, great things are probably to be expected. BERR (as was)'s Neil and DIUS (as was)'s Steph put their heads together on Monday afternoon, and on Wednesday, they launched a new corporate website for the newly-created Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It's based on WordPress, with a bit of RSS magic, and the help of a few (free) web-based tools. And it's brilliant.

Steph documents the work with characteristic modesty:

It won’t win any design awards, and the downside to Heath Robinson web development will no doubt be some quirks in reliability. But happily, we can say we haven’t spent a penny on external web development or licencing costs, and we got something up within 3 days. Compared to the static, hand-coded site DIUS had for the first 18 months of its life, it’s a start, and a little bit innovative too.

Actually, I like the design: it's forcibly simple, but that's no bad thing, and is something they should try to maintain in the long run. There may be quirks; but that doesn't make it any worse than some of the £multi-million CMSes in Whitehall. Yes of course it's work in progress, but isn't everything - or rather, shouldn't it be?

I can't think of a better case study for the power of open source, web tools, pretty much everything I bang on about here. And if my work for the Wales Office was any kind of inspiration, I'm delighted to have been a part of it.

Oh, and just for the record... that's now the Prime Minister's office and the Deputy Prime Minister First Secretary of State's department running their websites on WordPress. I'm just saying...