Puffbox

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 »

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 »

Over the last couple of months I've been working with Steph Gray and his BIS colleagues to build a modest little family of websites which could have far-reaching consequences. As Steph notes on his own blog, I've long been musing openly about seeing corporate websites as clusters of smaller websites: making a virtue of the silo [...] read on »

Delighted to note the Ministry of Defence's decision to publish its new green paper in commentable form, using a restyled version of Steph's Commentariat theme for WordPress. The MoD have been doing some excellent, if a little underpublicised, work with blogging tools - Defence News and a blog from Afghanistan, both running on a Typepad account; [...] read on »

A bit out of the blue, this morning saw a revision of the UK government's open source policy. And whilst it still doesn't quite endorse the notion that open source solutions are fundamentally better solutions, it does ratchet up the expectations. Last year's revision to the 2005 policy statement introduced a subtle - but, I thought, [...] read on »

One of my longest-running projects has been the consultation around Care and Support, and the creation of a National Care Service. It's been a huge engagement process on many fronts, moving through numerous phases - and the website has reflected that, with frequent changes, additions and updates. The latest enhancement went live last week - and [...] read on »

A hearty congratulations to Stewart Kirkpatrick whose project to launch a new online national newspaper for Scotland got off the ground at the weekend. It's called the Caledonian Mercury, and its rather ambitious mission statement is 'to revive Scottish journalism by using the internet rather than railing against it.' If you remember the days when, inexplicably, [...] read on »

One department making steady steps into WordPress has been Defra: it started with a 'public beta' blog on third sector issues late in 2008, then a Commentariat-based consultation in mid-2009. I've been working with them since late last year, and the first fruits of that relationship are now starting to appear. First to go public is [...] read on »

I'm glad my former Microsoft colleague John McGarvey reminded me of Conservative shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt's proposal of a £1m prize to develop 'the best new technology platform that helps people come together to solve the problems that matter to them'. That's what happens when you announce things over the Christmas holidays. The plan is [...] read on »

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 »