2009 – Page 14

26 Jan 2009

e-government, news

Lords say little about online comms

There’s something thoroughly disappointing about the House of Lords Communications Committee’s report on government communication, published today. There’s nothing inherently wrong in the conclusions it reaches, but with the greatest respect to Their Lordships, this same report could have been written a decade ago.

Online communication gets little more than a passing mention, and even then, it does little more than summarise things already in existence. The brief section on online doesn’t do much more than summarise the evidence given by the Citizens Advice Bureau – as blogged by yours truly at the time.

The highlight of the report’s conclusions is presumably the call for live streaming of the morning Lobby Briefing and ‘all major press conferences’; not a bad thing, of course. But the main reason for doing so is to make the government-media relationship more open and transparent, to ‘dispel any continuing myths about the Lobby and the sense of secrecy it still engenders’. In other words, it’s the preservation of the old established order by new means.

The Lords rejected Howell James’s concerns at a civil servant being put on camera every morning; but I don’t entirely accept that the media profile of the Chief Medical Officer or Chief Scientific Adviser represent appropriate precedents. The Lobby may understand the ‘rules of engagement’, where a civil servant is speaking on behalf of a politician; but I’m not sure the average viewer of the news would make any such distinction.

The way I see it, Mike Ellam isn’t Alastair Campbell. If we’re following the White House model, with televised briefings, surely we need to go the whole hog – and make the chief spokesman an explicitly political appointee. At least then, it would be clear where we all stand.

What’s most depressing is that these reports don’t come around very often; and online’s role this time round has purely been as a crutch for ‘conventional’ communication. We’ve missed the opportunity to say something really positive and exciting about the potential of online for true, two-way communication between government and citizen.
24 Jan 2009

e-government

barackobama, downingstreet, twitter

No10 leaps into Twitter's top 100
Twitterholic data shows No10's explosive growth in the last fortnight

One of the biggest successes in e-government this past year, and arguably one of the most surprising, is Downing Street’s use of Twitter. And thanks to a remarkable couple of weeks, the Prime Minister’s Office now finds itself in the Top 100 of the most followed Twitter accounts worldwide, as ranked (fairly reliably) by Twitterholic.com.

It’s been a model of social media usage. The account was first publicised (here, by me) almost exactly ten months ago: the initial tweets were, as with a lot of corporates, automated via the Twitterfeed service. But within a week, they were beginning to talk like ‘proper’ users; nowadays, of course, it’s perfectly normal for them to reply to comments and queries from other users – who seem genuinely stunned that someone at No1o is listening. It’s often been quoted as an example of best practice – and this week, I’ve seen several people (eg the influential Mashable blog) suggesting the Obama White House should use it as its model.

Growth in the number of followers has been steady rather than spectacular – until earlier this month, when things went into overdrive. Just ten days ago, they had just over 8,000 followers; the Twitterholic number quoted for today is more than double that… putting them at #96 in the world. But as I write this, the @downingstreet Twitter page reports a follower count in excess of 19,000 – enough to put them even higher in the rankings tomorrow, leaping ahead of internet ‘big names’ like Loic Le Meur, Dave Winer and Zefrank. (And even, dare i even say it, @wordpress!) Any higher, and you’re into serious celebrity territory.

When you see a chart looking like that, you’re inevitably trying to think what could possibly be causing it. I’m not aware of any rational explanation myself… and a quick scan of recent followers doesn’t suggest an influx of spam accounts. (Well, no more than usual.)

I can only offer a couple of suggestions:
- The Obama effect. There’s been a lot of speculation about what Team O might do with whitehouse.gov – and maybe that’s stimulated interest in what’s happening elsewhere. (I have to say though, the Canadian and Australian PMs haven’t seen anything like the same growth.)
- In the wake of Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and John Cleese – Brits are waking up to Twitter. Hitwise published data last week claiming Twitter’s UK-based website traffic (never mind other usage methods) was up 10-fold in a year, with – by the look of it – a further acceleration in the last few weeks. I guess the PM’s Office has made it into that category of Famous UK People You Should Follow When You Join: certainly if you look at the most recent followers, a lot of them are new Twitter users, and @downingstreet is among their first handful of follows.
It’s truly an amazing success story: and the secret is simple – it’s playing by the (evolving) rules of the medium. The No10 web team post a range of stuff: what they described earlier this week as ‘information mixed with colour‘ – same as every good Twitterer does. Sometimes it’s important government stuff; sometimes it’s the ‘what I had for breakfast’ of Twitter stereotyping. They ask for feedback; they respond to questions, where they can. There’s no lengthy clearance process; they trust the guys to be sensible, and it’s a policy that has worked. The fact that it’s all kept anonymous, and the fact that it isn’t actually the PM himself (and they make no secret of that), have not hindered things.

Now, with all those people listening, what would you do with them?
23 Jan 2009

e-government

browsers, coi, consultation

COI browser guidelines: consultation works!

The final version of COI’s browser testing guidelines have emerged, and it’s simply wonderful to see a shorter, tighter, more standards-centric document than the draft I reviewed back in September. In fact, looking down my bullet-list of specific recommended changes, all of them seem to have gone into the final document. Cool.

The revised document is based on the principle of a ‘testing matrix’, showing ‘must test’ and ‘should test’ for versions of each leading browser, on Windows, Mac and Linux. Effectively it’s a direct lift from the BBC’s Browser Support Standards document (which, for the record, I highlighted in my response). You’re advised to review your matrix at every major website redevelopment, or at least every two years; and to publish your matrix on your site, within a ‘help’ or ‘accessibility’ section.

It includes a forceful statement in support of web standards in the very first paragraph, backed up by a full page on the subject (paras 17-24). But the 2% rule remains: ‘Browsers used by 2% or more of your users must be tested, and any issues resolved’, as does the insistence that you support Mac and Linux even if they don’t reach the 2% threshold. (And thankfully, the contradictory references on this have been removed.) There’s even a proper section on mobile devices – although I’d probably have made specific reference to the iPhone / iPod Touch; sadly though, nothing about games consoles.

And – hooray! – there’s a black-and-white statement that things don’t have to be pixel-perfect, killing off the draft’s notion of ‘semi-supported’:

There may be minor differences in the way that the website is displayed. The intent is not that it should be pixel perfect across browsers, but that a user of a particular browser does not notice anything appears wrong.

Quite simply, the final version is just so much better than the original draft. It stands as a great example of the benefits of opening these things up to the wider community. Who’s this Obama fella anyway?
22 Jan 2009

e-government, politics

barackobama, foi, transparency

The Obama memoranda

It’s well worth reading the two memoranda issued by President Obama yesterday, on – ironically, given yesterday’s events – FOI and transparency. There’s nothing about them on the White House website (???), so I’m grateful to this Washington Post blog.

On Freedom of Information:

In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike. The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.

The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.

It’s almost impossible to pick out highlights from the memo on ‘Transparency and Open Government’: it’s all good. But if I really had to pin it down:

My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public.

Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information… Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.

The choice of language is deliberate and forceful. Well worth bookmarking these documents, and quoting them whenever possible.
21 Jan 2009

politics

labourparty, tangentlabs

Ed Miliband wants your email password

Today’s big event on LabourList is Ed Miliband’s piece on the launch of LabourSpace.com. He writes:

Today I am launching Labourspace.com – the Labour Party’s campaign social networking site. I hope it will provide a unique home for organisations and people to host and promote their campaigns – and to bring their ideas to the attention of Labour ministers and the wider Party.

Before anyone writes about this great new initiative: I direct readers to this piece I wrote in March last year, on the subject of ‘Labourspace: great idea, awful execution’. This site has been around for at least nine months, possibly longer – and any tweaks since last March have been minimal. Its domain was registered as far back as August 2006. So we shouldn’t be judging this site by its potential: we should be judging it by its impact over those nine months.

It isn’t pretty. The most popular campaign on the site is ‘Proud of the NHS at 60’ (in 2008): a massive 16 people appear to have endorsed it in the last 4 months. And when you click on ‘Labourspace winners’ to see which campaigns have been ‘brought to the attention of senior Labour politicians’… you see a promo graphic. Ouch.

Jon Worth wrote something on this last week, wondering: ‘Is anyone except a party hack going to use the tools that Labourspace.com offers? Sadly I think that the answer to that is a no.’ I (still) agree. And in these days post-Facebook’s explosion, the exponential growth of blogs, and everything else – surely it’s less likely now than it was a year ago.

Worst of all… the ‘tell your friends about this campaign’ feature still works the same way: it wants you to hand over your personal email account login and password, so it can bulk-import your contacts, and help you spam them. I couldn’t believe this back in March, no matter what ‘do no evil’ promises they wrapped it in; and I’m stunned they haven’t had a rethink on it. Just insane.
21 Jan 2009

politics

foi, freedata, mpexpenses, parliament

Let freedom of information ring

It would appear that the plan to exempt MPs and Lords from Freedom Of Information provisions has been ditched. The Mail’s Benedict Brogan is trying to unpick what just happened:

Gordon Brown claims that Tories have pulled out of a cross-party deal to introduce the change. The suggestion from No10 is that up until yesterday the Tory and Labour Chief Whips were agreed that the Tories would vote with Labour in favour of the scheme. In effect the accusation is that David Cameron took fright when he realised what that would mean for his stand on transparency. The Tories are expressing mystification, suggesting that there was no deal. So either it’s embarrassment for Dave because Brown has revealed that the Tories were ready to back the exemption. Or it embarrassment for the PM because the Tories have forced him to back down.

Arguably, it doesn’t matter. A bad thing has been averted, and we – the citizens of the Internet – should take some credit, and pride in that. ‘Today we stopped moving in the wrong direction. Tomorrow we start moving the right way.‘ Not Obama’s inauguration address, as I initially assumed; that’s from Tom Steinberg’s blog post on the subject. 🙂

But it’s been a depressing couple of days, watching this come to a head. The potential implications, if such stories are true, aren’t pleasant to contemplate, if (like me) you believe it’s inherently a good thing for the country to know what its leaders are doing, and why. The two parties conspiring, behind the scenes, to get the measure through, undermining any claims they’ve ever made about transparency – and, while we’re at it, any claims of affinity to the Obama message:

As president, Obama will restore the American people’s trust in their government by making government more open and transparent and by giving regular Americans unprecedented new tools to keep track of government officials, who they are meeting with, who is giving them money and how they are spending taxpayer dollars.

It would have been sheer hypocrisy. As a small business owner, I have to be able to present receipts for every sum I try to claim back from the public purse (in the form of the Tax Man) as expenses incurred in the course of my work. I’m not allowed to deliver a top-level summary under either 9 or 26 headings. And quite simply then, MPs should have to do likewise – and be seen to do so.

And let’s give due credit to the Liberal Democrats here. It was Jo Swinson who tabled the (relatively poorly supported) EDM on Monday; and Nick Clegg had imposed a three-line whip on his MPs to oppose the move. Their credentials are reinforced today.

UPDATE: The story is evolving. ‘Tory HQ are desperate to claim that there was no deal or collusion between their backbenchers and Labour over the issue,’ says Sam Coates at The Times. ‘The decision, apparently made in the 45 minutes between the mid-morning lobby briefing and the beginning of PMQs, looks shambolic at best – but the Conservatives’ ire has been fuelled by what was said (and left unsaid) at PMQs,’ says Niall Paterson at Sky News.
20 Jan 2009

e-government, technology

barackobama, innovation, tigr

Technology, Innovation and Government Reform

In case you miss it in all the festivities… here’s a video posted by the incoming Obama administration on the change.gov site, introducing us to the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform (aka ‘Tigger’) team.

Some of the names might be familiar: Vivek Kundra, for example, is the guy who swapped Microsoft Office for Google Docs on the District of Columbia’s 38,000 desktops. Watch the video, and recognise the soundbites: ‘process has trumped outcome’… ‘government is way, way behind in terms of how it disseminates information, how it interacts with its citizens’… ‘mashing up data’… yeah yeah, we’ve heard all this before. Many of us have said it before, ourselves.

Except that these guys are in power now.

Technology, innovation and government reform… in that order. Sadly, of course, it’s only to give a cool acronym. But hey, we can dream.
20 Jan 2009

technology

There's a pattern developing here

In 2004 (I think), the MySociety gang launched Downing Street Says – a blog-style presentation of the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman’s twice-daily media briefings. It included an RSS feed, which the No10 site (at the time) didn’t; and it included the ability to add comments. Oh, and it was built in WordPress.

Fast forward to 2009. Derek Draper launches LabourList. Some people didn’t like the presentation, or the approach to comment moderation. So they went off and built Labourist: same content, arguably a better layout, and a more open approach to debate.

There is something deeply troubling about a quasi-official site, where content is provided by members of the Labour Government, edited by a former Labour party employee and where comment is allowed only by the handpicked few. LabourList.org requires registration and sharing of personal data in order to join their debate. Contributors are asked the screening question: “Are you a Labour Member?”. LABOURIST thinks this is just wrong.

That perception may or may not be fair; but that’s not my point here. Some people (perhaps only one person?) didn’t like how LabourList was working; and resolved to do it better. LabourList’s copyright policy allowed him/her/them to republish it; so he/she/they did. The new site was up and running in a matter of days. Oh, and it’s running on WordPress.

Then Dave Briggs notes the launch of Big City Plan Talk. Birmingham City Council has published a plan to ‘revitalise Birmingham’s city centre over the next twenty years’. (Frankly, it probably needs it; and I speak as a former – happy – Birmingham resident.) Their website even feeds into the Council’s main Consultation Portal. But a bunch of Brummie bloggers felt it needed something more – clearer language, more straightforward commenting. So they did it themselves, within a couple of weeks. And what did they use? WordPress.

You know, I’m just saying…
14 Jan 2009

e-government

bbc, datastandards, dcsf

BBC anger at DCSF data formats

BBC News website editor Steve Herrmann is not happy. In previous years, the Beeb site has carried full school league table data, as soon as the embargo is lifted at 09:30am. But not this year.

‘This is because the government has tightened up on the media’s pre-release access to official statistics,’ he explains. ‘In the past, we have generally got the official results a week in advance, under embargo, to compile and check tables. This time, we will have had sight of the data for just 24 hours.’

But, in fact, it’s not specifically the reduced lead time that’s the problem here. More accurately, it’s the reduced lead time to deal with what DCSF chucks at them.

The school results that are supplied to the news media are not in a readily accessible form. In the case of the secondary schools, there are two large spreadsheets, each with a number of pages… Each sheet has dozens of columns, and a row for each school and college. Formatting the essential benchmarks from all this for publication, using computer scripts to interrogate the data, compiling and then proofreading them, takes hours of work.

In other words, DCSF are unable – let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment – to supply the data in a format which assists the end users (in this case, the entire national media) to do their jobs.

And it’s led to an official letter of complaint – signed jointly by the BBC, Press Association and national newspapers – to the DCSF’s chief statistician. ‘With less than 24 hours’ preparation time, it will be much more difficult to produce any meaningful analysis of the information and to ensure there are no errors,’ they write. ‘The result is that the main aim of the government and of our organisations – to provide an essential service to parents choosing a secondary school for their sons and daughters – will be thwarted.’

Statistical release procedures are a touchy subject; and school league tables are even touchier. Statisticians don’t like issuing them, because people insist on doing nasty things like – imagine! – ranking them in order. Many schools don’t like them either. But I can tell you for a fact, parents absolutely lap them up.

If DCSF, at whatever level, believes in the publication of this data, they need to make it easy for the major communication channels – the newspapers, and the BBC website – to republish it to their huge readerships. That clearly isn’t happening.
14 Jan 2009

politics

libdems, lynnefeatherstone

LibDems' Featherstone on tech & politics

I mentioned the other day that MP Lynne Featherstone, a long-established blogger and the Commons’s first Twitterer had been announced as chair of the Liberal Democrats’ new Technology Board. In an article to be published by the New Statesman, she talks a bit more about her (considerable) experience with technology in politics. It’s a balanced, pragmatic and insightful piece.

First, you don’t have to know how to do the technology – you can get other people to help with that – but understanding what you want out of it and the new opportunities it offers is vital. Second, it helps bring political success – I wouldn’t have got elected an MP without it. And third, as much of the technology has got easier and easier to do, getting the technical details right is – while still important – becoming less important compared with getting your mindset right.

I couldn’t agree more… particularly with that final point. For all I bang on about good technical execution here, the fact remains that substance beats style. You could have the ugliest, most ancient-looking blog in the world – but if you’re filling it consistently with good stuff, all such functional and aesthetic sins can be forgiven.

Even so, it’s great to hear that Lynne is preparing to move off Blogger, in favour of – well, guess… 🙂 (To be fair, WordPress has been the LibDems’ platform of choice for some time, with their various subject-specific blogs running on WP MU, and Nick Clegg’s personal site on WP solo.)

So what’s this Technology Board all about then? Lynne explains…

There is work that needs to be done to continue improving and expanding the party’s use of technology, and in particular the internet, which falls into the category of getting more and better tools. There is a key job of work in tapping into the pool of expertise amongst our members and supporters in writing, improving and supporting our tools. But above all, it is a matter of changing the way we think and act, so that we more fully embrace the more open, more collaborative, more sharing outlook that is about engaging – not lecturing – and is, for an increasing number of people, an instinctive part of the way they lead their lives, and they expect others to also.

I’m watching with great interest.