Puffbox

Simon Dickson's gov-tech blog, active 2005-14. Because permalinks.

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    Independent launches blogging platform

    The Independent‘s new blogging platform, Independent Minds, launched yesterday in a partnership with the now Russian-owned Livejournal. But unlike the Telegraph’s MyTelegraph site, it puts the journalists’ blogs on the same platform as the readers’. It’s a dramatic improvement (as you’d expect) on the very clunky, and frankly half-hearted blogging efforts they were doing on Typepad; and they also promise a strategic decision to ‘centre more on the writer than on the topic’ as they did before. The blogging content gets some high-profile space on the Indy’s homepage.

    On the face of it, it’s a fairly basic re-skinning of Livejournal’s community features; the deeper you click, the less it feels like an Independent site, and the more it feels like plain old Livejournal. Nothing wrong with that; it makes sense to use a well-established and relatively beginner-friendly platform. It’s a natural move for Livejournal as the new owners are reportedly keen to expand their relatively modest UK user base: their statistics page shows they have 315,000 UK-based users.

    Hmm… the Independent? Livejournal? There wouldn’t be a Downing Street connection there, would there? Former No10 web boss Jimmy Leach is now the Indy’s ‘editorial director for digital’; and Ben Wegg-Prosser, ex-head of the Strategic Communications Unit is Director of Corporate Development at Livejournal’s Russian owners, SUP. The two also worked together for ages at the Guardian (I think).

    It’s another signal of blogging’s steady progress into the newsroom: speaking of which, it’s well worth reading BBC man Jem Stone’s write-up of Robert Peston’s talk to the BBC’s College of Journalism yesterday. ‘Central to everything that I do at the BBC,’ he says.

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    Liveblogging the budget

    It was described earlier as the biggest moment in modern political history that wasn’t an election: probably a bit much, I’d have said. But it’s no surprise to see so many websites ‘liveblogging’ today’s Pre-Budget Report: the TUC, the Spectator, Liberal Conspiracy, Iain Dale, among many others. Sky News is doing something especially interesting, with its ‘Unplugged’ online broadcast offering live commentary and analysis: effectively a live video-blog, I suppose.

    Which rather begs the question, what should the Treasury themselves be doing? The Chancellor standing up in the Commons chamber, and (sorry) droning on for an hour or so, throwing numbers around like confetti, then BANG! a huge wad of paper lands on your newsdesk as he sits down – it’s simply not an effective way to communicate. There’s too much to take in, too many big numbers, too much jargon, in too short a space of time.

    I’m wondering if the Treasury shouldn’t be running an enhanced live video stream, with bullet points appearing as the Chancellor makes his announcement; and graphs / charts / etc in a second window. I’ve worked in the TV channel gallery on Budget day; it’s chaotic, as a hapless producer tries to make sense of it all, picking out the headlines in real time. Meanwhile, of course, the Treasury staff are sitting on copies of the full text of the speech, with all the advance notice they need to make a really good job of it. It’s not as if they aren’t doing the production work already, with a consumer-friendly leaflet being a regular output each time.

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    Barcamp is back

    At the time, January’s BarcampUKGovWeb felt like a breakthrough moment. Civil servants, specialist consultants, activists and volunteers coming together – on a Saturday, crucially – to share ideas and experiences, with the common objective of improving government web activity. And you know what? Looking back on it, you can trace so many good things from the past year, be they tangible deliverables or just personal connections, back to Barcamp. It worked.

    So let’s do it again. 🙂

    Announced last week by Tom Watson, we’ve set a date of Saturday 31 January 2009 for the second UK government Barcamp, and it’s great to see so many people rushing to sign up already. It’ll be the same basic Barcamp mix of talks, demos, discussions and (no doubt) drinks… with an expectation that everyone comes prepared to contribute, and ideally, to lead a session of their own. The more informal, the better: just stand up, and tell us about something you’ve done lately. And the truth is, in the past year, we’ve all done a tremendous amount worth talking about. This is our chance to share what we’ve learned.

    If you’re reading this blog, you’re the sort of person who should be coming along. Simple as that.

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    An MP's guide to blogs

    Labour MP for Newport West, Paul Flynn has apparently ‘been stripped of a Parliamentary allowance for making fun of other MPs on his blog‘, if you read today’s BBC piece on the subject. Flynn himself tells the story slightly differently, on said blog.

    I’ve had a similar run-in with my own MP, Newbury’s Richard Benyon (Con). Back in September, the first posting on his new blog made some undeniably party-political comments: he talked about Labour being in a state of ‘desperation’, and his boss David Cameron ‘[continuing] to look like a Prime Minister in waiting’.

    Good old political knockabout, nothing wrong with that… except his website proudly declared on every page that it is ‘paid for from his Communications Allowance’, which is explicitly not to be used ‘to promote, criticise or campaign for or against anyone seeking election’. To his credit, he made swift if superficial amends: I don’t see from a technical viewpoint how it’s possible for www.richardbenyon.com/blog ‘not [to be] connected to www.richardbenyon.com’.

    The point is this: as both Flynn and Benyon have said, playing by the Parliamentary allowance’s rules would have meant a ‘totally non-political, fence sitting and boring’ blog. With the cost of setting up a basic blog being so low, indeed zero in most cases, it doesn’t make sense to take a chance with the ‘Byzantine complexity of the House of Commons rules’ (to quote Mr Benyon, although frankly I’m not buying that; the rules couldn’t be much clearer).

    If you’re an MP, and you want to start a blog, here are the facts:

    • Most political blogs live on Blogger.com, a hosted service owned by Google, and free of charge. It’s not the most sophisticated platform in the world, but it does allow you total freedom to customise your pages… if you so wish. It’s good enough for Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale, generally seen as the #1 and #2 in the UK; they’ve gone to considerable lengths to design their sites. Others, like Lynne Featherstone, John Pugh, David Jones or Andy Love really haven’t.
    • Personally, I find WordPress.com a better blogging tool; but in its free, hosted incarnation, it’s limited in its scope for (full-on) customisation. See Tom Harris‘s top-rated blog, or the Lords Of The Blog group effort.
    • But there are other free alternatives. Adrian Sanders runs his blog on MySpace – hey, why not? Tory MEP Daniel Hannan has a blog on the Telegraph‘s website; and whilst his is technically on the ‘columnists’ side of the fence, rather than the ‘public’ my.telegraph.co.uk service, there’s nothing to stop you doing that either. It’s not ideal, but maybe it suits you and your situation.
    • If you want extra functionality, extra control or extra customisation, you’re looking at spending some money – but frankly, it needn’t be more than the price of a (very modest) dinner for two. Typepad used to be the service of choice for those who wanted to take things more seriously; their ‘pro’ service costs £75 a year, and gives you all the customisation and room for expansion you’re likely to need. Paul Flynn‘s site lives there, as does ConservativeHome, and the blogs of lobby journalists Benedict Brogan and Paul Waugh (among others).
    • These days, the (generally) preferred option – certainly in these parts! – is to download and run your own copy of WordPress. It’s free, and it’s the best; but you’ll need to pay a few quid to put it somewhere – say £22.99 a year from Eukhost; and running it yourself does take some effort. Tom Watson, John Redwood and Richard Benyon use it, as does the remarkably popular PoliticalBetting.com; but for a simple blog, it’s probably overkill. When you want to do something more, though, it’s perfect: ask Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and Jim Murphy.

    There’s absolutely no shame in using the free options; and if you decide you need more, for whatever reason, you’re looking at a couple of hundred quid, tops… with most of that going to the friendly geek who sets it up for you. I dare say many MPs could find that kind of sum down the back of their sofa.

    Spending a portion of your Communications Allowance on a blog is just The Wrong Thing To Do. And frankly it calls into question the purpose of the ‘totally non-political, fence sitting and boring’ Allowance in the first place. £10,000 times 646 MPs, times 4 years in a typical Parliament equals… no, don’t, it’s a terrifying answer.

    PS: By sheer coincidence, I note that the British Computer Society held its MP Website Awards today: winners were Derek Wyatt, John Hutton, Alan Johnson and  Kerry McCarthy. All Labour, for the record.

  • Ordnance Survey ban Google Maps

    If the police are infringing your copyright, I wonder who you call?

    The Free Our Data blog has done some sterling work lately, highlighting Ordnance Survey’s recent warning that it was a ‘breach of Crown copyright’ to display ‘any data created using Ordnance Survey base data’ on a Google Map. Yes, they did explicitly mention Google Maps.

    It’s now been confirmed by OS that the Metropolitan Police are breaking the terms of their OS licence, by plotting crime data on a Google Map. You might remember, I noted the significance of their use of Google Maps when it first launched.

    As the Guardian guys noted last week, ‘the OS is perfectly within its rights – indeed, it’s asserting its rights as required by its terms of business’ to make an issue of this. But it’s a perfect illustration of why OS is fighting a losing battle; and if the rules are going to prevent the government delivering on a timeboxed promise (specifically, the end of 2008), don’t be surprised if the rules get changed as a matter of urgency.

    The Pre Budget Report is on Monday, by the way. Check the small print.

    PS: It’s well worth reading what Ed Parsons – ex-OS, now the Geospatial Technologist of Google – has to say on the subject.

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    Two weeks with my T-Mobile G1

    The release of the first ‘Googlephone’ running the open source Android couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

    My Nokia E65 had served me well, but was getting a bit temperamental. I’d already handed all my email over to Google, and was keen to do likewise with my calendar needs (bye bye Outlook!). Plus, Google tends to just get it right, where Apple’s track record is a bit patchy in my experience. Of course I was going to get a Googlephone; and with my contract’s minimum period having just expired, why wait?

    Let me straight away: I like it a lot. A heck of a lot. But it’s not without its faults, some of them significant.

    The screen is beautiful, the interface is beautiful, the unit itself is pretty (rather than iconic). As you’d expect with Google, everything integrates neatly. When you power up for the first time, you’re asked for your Google Account details – and yes, thankfully, that includes ‘apps for your domain‘ accounts. Instantly, you’re looking at your Gmail inbox, with all the same contacts, and your Google calendar. Change something on your desktop PC, and it reflects instantly to the phone – and vice versa. That’s enough to make you love the phone itself.

    The keyboard is small but usable with practice. The web experience is excellent, with the browser firing up instantly. Google Maps is as good as you’d expect, with or without GPS. Oh yeah, and it’s good at making phonecalls too. Google’s contacts app has come in for criticism, much of it justified; but its integration with Gmail gives you a headstart, importing from Outlook was easy, and courtesy of Gravatar, I’ve managed to add photos for a remarkable proportion of my contacts with zero effort.

    But there are faults, some of which will resolve themselves over time. Others won’t.

    • Zoom. For me, the key to the iPhone is the multi-touch operation, which the G1 doesn’t have. So if you want to zoom in on a photo or a web page, you’re pressing zoom in/out buttons. It feels so primitive already.
    • Camera. Three megapixels is respectable, and the quality is fine. But jeez, is it slow to snap… almost unusably so. I’m seriously considering carrying a proper camera again; and that’s really not good enough.
    • Lack of homescreen widgets. If you’ve ever seen Nokia’s Widsets, you’ll recognise the horizontally scrolling desktop on the G1. Some aspects are cool: it scrolls beautifully, you can add shortcuts to individual contacts, and there’s widget functionality. But the selection of widgets is shockingly small: an analogue clock, a picture frame, a Google search box, and that’s it. No calendar view. No to-do list. No weather widget. I’m hoping this is just a temporary weakness, forgiveable since Android’s only been properly public for a matter of days. But still…
    • Lack of ‘send’ functionality. I’m amazed it doesn’t include the ability to send contacts or calendar events via SMS, Bluetooth, email or anything else. Yet.
    • Media playback. There’s a respectable ‘Music’ app, and there’s even some Flight of the Conchords in there to start you off. But if you’re hoping to stream anything other than YouTube, or playback video, you’re going to have to visit the Android Market and hope for the best. For now, you’ll be disappointed.

    There’s quite a lot to play with in the Android Market: a selection of weather apps, the barcode-scanning programs are fun, there’s a fantastic Twitter app called Twidroid, and who can resist (proper) PacMan? The big names are starting to appear – among them the Telegraph and MySpace, and others will follow no doubt (including MySociety, I hear?). Again, early days.

    Android is unquestionably going places, and there’s an undeniable thrill at being in at the very start, watching it all evolve. But I’d recommend steering clear of the ‘free on 18 month contract’ deals. Although there’s no mention of it in the T-Mobile publicity, my local shop sold it to me for £50 on a 12-month contract; by which time I bet better devices will be available, and no nastiness with unlocking / jailbreaking.

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    FT's bloggy new look

    Is it just me, or is the new Financial Times website design, being rolled out progressively this week, heavily influenced by blogs – and remarkably reminiscent of the Downing Street site?

    Whilst other sites seem keen to cram ever more into their homepages, the new FT homepage makes the site feel really quite small. Just ten ‘top stories’ in a list, sorted in order of importance; headlines and very brief excerpts, with timestamps, categories and related articles. There are still plenty of sections and subsections; but the primary navigation is mainly hidden behind dropdowns (Javascript-enhanced HTML blocks rather than traditional form dropdowns, incidentally). The page layout is (broadly speaking) three columns: fat, thin, thin – a configuration we’ve grown familiar with in the blogosphere.

    Gawker.com shares my take, and concludes: ‘the online medium continues to assert its precedence over print; even the rich love blogs; and bloggers all deserve to be paid more money’. No argument on any front there. 🙂

    It’s further evidence, in my mind, that the divisions between ‘blogs’ and ‘proper websites’, ‘blogging tools’ and ‘proper CMSes’ have disappeared, if they were ever there to begin with. Let’s just ignore the labelling. Blogs and blogging systems evolved as a means for writers to get news items up on the web quickly and efficiently. Guess what – journalists want to get their news items up on the web quickly and efficiently. So do (should?) press officers.

    In my own work, once the decision is made to use a blogging tool (ie WordPress), certain design decisions are basically inevitable. But it’s very interesting to see the FT choosing to make many of those same design decisions, without any (apparent) requirement to do so.

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    New head of govt comms

    PR Week is reporting that Matt Tee, currently chief executive of NHS Direct, has been appointed the new Permanent Secretary of Government Communications; a formal decision is apparently due later today.

    It’s an intriguing appointment: Tee’s background is very different to that of his predecessor, Howell James. He came into government (proper) from a business development role at health information company Dr Foster, which already had close links with the NHS. He’s a former head of news at DTI, and was acting director of comms at the Department of Health in 2006 and 2007, whilst Sian Jarvis was on maternity leave. He joined NHS Direct in July 2007; and in the last couple of weeks said he was ‘disappointed’ at having to shelve plans for foundation status.

    He’s well connected, judging by his Facebook friends anyway – among them his predecessor in the job, Mike Grannatt, and Cabinet Office minister Liam Byrne. And it’ll certainly be good to have someone with hands-on experience of online: Dr Foster ran NHS Choices (until recently), and DH was steadily moving to its new platform during his tenure. Plus, if memory serves, he’s a fellow Arsenal fan? I certainly remember a Matt Tee contributing to the Arsenal mailing list and Arseweb website in the early/mid 1990s.

    But I’ll also note that Health has come in for particular criticism in evidence to the House of Lords Comms committee over the summer: there’s quite emotive language in Computer Weekly editor Tony Collins’s write-up of his appearance; whilst Times health editor Nigel Hawkes saying relations were ‘not particularly good’:

    They are even discouraging you from developing a relationship of trust with an individual press officer. … Very often big announcements will be so extensively trailed that by the time the report actually appears I cannot persuade my news desk it is of the slightest importance. That leads to bad reporting. … I find [the DH press office] are just useful for getting the line; I would not use them for anything else.

    There have been big improvements in communications with the public through websites and participation events and so on. Big efforts have been made there but there is still an understandable reluctance to acknowledge that sometimes policies are not working. If there were more willingness to acknowledge a policy did not work so they will do something else, then they could build a bit of credibility with journalists and be taken a bit more seriously by them.

    Update: appointment now confirmed by the Cabinet Office. Interestingly they’ve used the same pic I used… and if you look at the source code of this page, you’ll see exactly where I found it. 😉

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    Declining trust in politicians

    The Committee on Standards in Public Life has published its latest survey of public attitudes towards public servants; and if anything, there’s a slightly more negative tone to this set of results, compared to previous surveys in 2004 and 2006.

    For those of us who see engagement as a key area, there are some interesting numbers. 59% say it’s extremely important for public office holders to be in touch with what the public thinks is important; but only 28% said most/all MPs were, with Ministers faring even worse at just 20%. Three quarters say telling the truth is extremely important; but only 22% think most Ministers do, and MPs don’t do much better at 26%.

    I’m surprised at the relatively low importance placed on MPs and Ministers explaining the reasons for their actions and decisions; but even in these days where Ministers have infinitely greater capacity to state their case, the survey shows a trend of increasing dissatisfaction. Then again, the same data shows we’re less likely to believe them anyway.

    The survey also asked about news sources, with a whopping 70% saying they never look at websites with a political focus. However, as the report notes, among regular internet users, it was actually the 65-and-overs who were most likely to look at political sites (22%). You’d rightly expect readers to be more likely to be men, have degrees and read broadsheet newspapers; but there’s something intriguing about ’13 per cent of those with a political party affliation [reading political sites], compared with 9 per cent of those without one’.

    You can download the full 130 page report from the Committee’s website; there’s bound to be some data in there to enrich your next PowerPoint presentation.

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    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 a ‘blogging expert’ who didn’t blog?

    Stephen has already touched on the FCO’s choice of the rather obscure Roller blogging platform – ‘because of the ease with which we could integrate it with our web platform’. His latest post reveals something I hadn’t previously appreciated: ‘we opened up the blogs over the summer so that any member of staff with a valid business reason could start an official blog’.

    That’s a remarkable move in itself, and perhaps unexpectedly, puts FCO on a par with hi-tech companies like Microsoft – but I’m still in two minds about the wisdom of people blogging in a personal capacity on an official platform (generally speaking). My instinct remains that corporate blogging is best done on a project basis, with more personal stuff (again, generally) kept separate.

    In that respect, we should all be grateful to FCO for testing the water here; we’ll only find out what works – if anythying – by trying it, and they’ve certainly got the Boss most likely to give them the freedom to experiment.