Puffbox

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

2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Code For The People company e-government news politics technology Uncategorised

api award barackobama barcampukgovweb bbc bis blogging blogs bonanza borisjohnson branding broaderbenefits buddypress budget cabinetoffice careandsupport chrischant civilservice coi commentariat commons conservatives consultation coveritlive crimemapping dailymail datasharing datastandards davidcameron defra democracy dfid directgov dius downingstreet drupal engagement facebook flickr foi foreignoffice francismaude freedata gds google gordonbrown governanceofbritain govuk guardian guidofawkes health hosting innovation internetexplorer labourparty libdems liveblog lynnefeatherstone maps marthalanefox mashup microsoft MPs mysociety nhs onepolitics opensource ordnancesurvey ournhs parliament petitions politics powerofinformation pressoffice puffbox rationalisation reshuffle rss simonwheatley skunkworks skynews statistics stephenhale stephgray telegraph toldyouso tomloosemore tomwatson transparency transport treasury twitter typepad video walesoffice wordcamp wordcampuk wordpress wordupwhitehall youtube

Privacy Policy

  • ,
    , , ,

    An idea whose time has come

    Crime mapping is front-page news today (in the Telegraph anyway). Most of the stories follow a predictable pattern: Ministers say it will inform the public, and make the police more accountable, but it’ll lead to house price chaos. Etcetera.

    But I’m finding myself infuriated by the Telegraph leader column which proclaims:

    The Conservative Party has appeared a little paranoid over the past year or two with its reluctance to set out detailed policies for fear of them being plagiarised by Labour. […] The latest was yesterday’s commitment from Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, to publish crime maps for England and Wales by the end of this year. This is based on the Conservative Party policy document Giving the Public a Crime Map (PDF), which was published in April and which formed a key plank of Boris Johnson’s successful campaign for the mayoralty of London.

    So.. did Boris Johnson cook up the idea, all by himself? Hardly.

    The project which first brought the idea to prominence was pioneering geek-journalist Adrian Holovaty’s ChicagoCrime.org, launched back in May 2005. It received global media coverage, on the web and in print; and was specifically mentioned as a case study in this government’s Power Of Information review, published in April 2007. (The project has since evolved into Everyblock.)

    Further, two UK pilot studies are being quoted in news coverage today. DNS records show that MyNeighbourhood.Info, run by West Midlands Police, was conceived as far back as 10 May 2006; the site itself was launched in September 2007. The West Yorkshire site, beatcrime.info, traces back as far as April 2004, with a launch in February 2005. (Incidentally… do those dates provide a clue as to the lead time needed to produce these sites?)

    So by all means, we can have pointless arguments about which UK political party first stole the idea from Adrian Holovaty if you like. It won’t get us anywhere. The point is, this is an idea whose time has come.

    The luxury of opposition is that you can throw ideas around, without having to actually implementing them. The burden of government is that you have to overcome the technical, legal and procedural hurdles to get the things out the door. And we’ve got ample evidence that this is happening already.

  • , , ,

    Crime maps by Christmas

    A Home Office press release this morning makes the explicit pledge: ‘Every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have access to the latest local crime information through new interactive crime maps. […] By the end of the year every police force area will produce crime maps which will allow the public to see where and when crime has happened, down to street level for some crimes; make comparisons with other areas; and learn how crime is being tackled by their local neighbourhood policing team.’

    On the face of it, that’s brilliant news. But five months to do this? That’s brave – especially when we’re looking at some pretty fundamental legislative questions, as highlighted on the Power of Information blog last week. The Guardian’s Free Our Data campaign blog has a few recent items along similar lines.

  • ,
    , , , , , , , ,

    Govt comms: better, but years behind

    Flicking across the news channels tonight, I bumped into recorded coverage of Wednesday’s Lords Communications Committee. You had the BBC’s Frank Gardner and Sky’s Tim Marshall, plus a couple of other senior journalists, giving their frank opinions on the state of media, politics and government. I only caught the last few minutes; it looks like I missed coverage of the earlier session with Nick Robinson and Adam Boulton.

    The session closed with each ‘witness’ being asked: is government communication getting better or worse, and how does it need to improve? Fascinatingly, the two TV correspondents referenced the world of multi-platform, multi-media, online-driven news.

    Frank Gardner told the committee: ‘I definitely sense a desire to be helpful. [But] they are still in about 1985, when it comes to being in tune with the modern, multimedia environment we work in. We live in a fast-moving media environment. Government departments generally are far too slow – unnecessarily.’

    Tim Marshall, never one to mince his words, agreed that things were ‘getting better since 2004, because things were pretty bad before that. The flow of information is much better, putting things on the internet, the Prime Minister’s conferences being televised, Lobby being on the record – these are all very positive things. But there are still not enough professional people [in media operations]. It’s people passing through for two years, sometimes they don’t want to do it.’

    Tim then quoted an email from an unnamed colleague, who had recently spoken to a conference of 60 government press officers. ‘I got the distinct impression they are several years off the pace.’ ‘We in the media have had to embrace the blogosphere, all this stuff,’ Tim said in conclusion. ‘We’ve had to, because it’s survive or die. It’s not like that in government press offices, and I don’t think they’ve quite understood 2008, and the multimedia platform.’

    So, to any press officers who happen to be reading: it isn’t just the geeks saying this now; it’s the journalists you’re there to serve. They’re telling you – politely, positively – that you aren’t serving them satisfactorily. You need to play catch-up.

    PS: I’d never have found this if I hadn’t been channel-hopping at the right moment. The fact is, some of the most insightful and intelligent broadcasting in the UK is happening at weekends on BBC Parliament – and it’s a crying shame that we can’t find a better way to get it out there. The iPlayer is a start (and yes, this recording will thankfully be on iPlayer ‘soon’ – Monday I guess). But surely it’s crying out to be a TED-style podcast series?

  • ,
    , , , ,

    Sneak preview of new Number10 site

    Fresh from stealing the online show at the recent G8 summit, the 10 Downing Street digital comms team have given the Prime Minister’s new website its first public outing, with a few sneaky screengrabs popping up on their Flickr account. It’s quite a significant departure from the existing site, although if you’ve been following the travel-blog work I’ve been doing with them recently, you’ll instantly recognise its evolution.

    The most striking element is the prominent use of video, with a large playback window – not YouTube, FYI – occupying pride of place on the homepage. (It’ll be hard to avoid comparisons with Obama’s website in that respect – but with initiatives like TelegraphTV, we’re all heading towards the same thing.) The team’s activity on third-party sites, like Flickr and Twitter, is also brought to the fore – driven by RSS feeds from the originating sites, as I’ve done on the travel-blogs.

    You’ll note a much more streamlined navigation on the new designs – primarily because the new site has been stripped right back to its core functions, allowing the team to concentrate on the day-to-day work. The historic information remains popular, and keeps its place; but otherwise, it’s a sharp focus on news and communication.

    If it feels a bit bloggy, there are a couple of good reasons for that. In part, it’s a recognition of the role now played by blogs in national political life. The political anoraks who are likely to visit a Downing Street site are probably spending the rest of their time on the political blogs, so it makes sense to adopt the same presentation methods. And yes, as you’ve probably guessed, the underlying technology is WordPress.

    The new site has been designed and produced by New Media Maze, with occasional contributions from Puffbox. And of course, being WordPress-based, there’s plenty of scope to take the site forward in the coming months. We’re already floating ideas for new features.

    The team haven’t quoted a ‘go live’ date, but my understanding is that it’s in its very final stages of development, and they aren’t afraid of a ‘public beta’ approach. Watch that space.

  • , , ,

    WordPress and widgets as DIUS consults

    There’s no stopping Steph Gray over at DIUS. Last week it was a ‘commentable’ White Paper, driven by WordPress. Today, they’ve launched a remarkably deep consultation site on Science and Society. In his writeup, Steph is kind enough to quote my own work for the Ministry of Justice’s Governance of Britain as an inspiration. But he’s taking things at least one significant step forward.

    As with Governance (and indeed the new No10 site), there’s heavy reliance on third-party services, like YouTube and del.icio.us, with content being pumped in automatically via RSS. Steph’s following the Governance idea of using ‘famous name’ video clips to kick-start debate in the form of blog comments: both sites are in their earliest days, so we don’t have any meaningful evidence about its effectiveness yet, but it feels like a good way to work.

    Steph’s big step forward is on widgets. His starting point is that few people have an interest in every question raised by a consultation; but most people would have an interest in some of it. (Good call.) So using a simple tickbox form, you can pick out the questions you think your readers would have a view on, and create an embeddable (Javascript-based) questionnaire for your own site, feeding into the main database. Very smart.

    Here’s one I made earlier.

    Science and Society: your views

    Please visit the Science and Society consultation site to join the debate.

    It’ll be fascinating to see what kinds of responses this move produces. I’m still a bit wary of the whole Big Questions approach to consultation: my own feeling is that the constant, small-scale exchanges around a well-managed blog will build something more valuable. But if Big Questions are the way you’re going, this is a very clever way to drive them further.

    PS: Remember PlaySpace, the DCSF SimCity-esque consultation game? JonW wondered how much it cost; the answer’s in Hansard (well, TheyWorkForYou) this week. Good as the app is, there’s no getting away from the fact that ยฃ50,000 is a lot of money for a three-month consultation exercise.

  • , ,

    Capita to take over NHS Choices

    I see today that Capita has been named as the preferred bidder for the ยฃ60m+ contract to run the NHS Choices website for the next 3 years – ahead of the incumbent, the Dr Foster Intelligence public-private partnership, as well as IBM, Serco and TATA.

    According to Capita’s own press release:

    Capita will be responsible for the hosting, technical and content development of the NHS online presence and related digital services. A key focus will be on ensuring innovative engagement with citizens and clinicians to support a healthier nation.

    As many as 70 companies expressed an interest when the procurement exercise kicked off late last year. The current contract is due to expire next month.

    It’s clearly a big deal, and although I’ve done quite a bit of work lately for the Department of Health and NHS, I don’t know what the implications of a change would be. Anyone care to enlighten us all?

  • , , ,

    MOD's news blog duplication

    It’s just over a year since the MOD launched ‘Defence News: official news blog’, not to be confused with ‘Defence News‘ on its main corporate site.

    The main ‘Defence News’ site is a full-on news service, publishing 3 or 4 substantial articles each day. There’s a proper (editorially arranged) ‘front page’, with articles tagged by topic and service… and each of those has a proper ‘section front page’ too. And an RSS feed. (Two in fact, although I think one’s just got more items in it than the other. Shouldn’t be necessary.)

    The code doesn’t reveal the technology they’re using, but there’s more than a hint of ‘blog platform’ about it. I’m really, really impressed.

    So it’s a little curious to have the ‘official news blog’ alongside. Hosted at Typepad, the same three elements appear every day: ‘Defence in the Media’, ‘Image of the Day’, and ‘Defence Diary’. Other categories – such as ‘For the record’ and ‘Pick of the web’ – seem to have been effectively abandoned.

    ‘Defence in the Media’ is a press summary: sometimes there’s a link to the originating article, or the source material mentioned in the report(s); more often, it’s a link straight over to the main Defence News site. There’s also a curious ‘Defence News Feed’ pointing to stories on external news sites: again, I can’t quite tell how it’s working, but there are signs of both automation and editorial selection.

    A PQ yesterday from Tory defence spokesman Liam Fox seems to be hinting at duplication of effort… and I’m inclined to agree. I don’t see much in the ‘news blog’ which couldn’t form part of the main Defence News site – to mutual benefit. And whilst the separate blog site should allow for greater experimentation, there’s no sign of it. (No use of comments, for example.)

    Meanwhile, also on the same Typepad account: two excellent ‘on location’ sites – one in Afghanistan, launched late last year; the other in Basra, launched in March. Again, it’s good use of cheap technology… and although the content can sometimes be a bit dry and ‘factsheet’-esque, I bet ‘the folks back home’ value the ability to see a glimpse of what’s happening whilst loved ones are away.

  • Radical plan to improve Whitehall

    Whitehall on a Sunday morning

    We took advantage of an encouraging weather forecast to take my toddler daughter into London for the first time on Sunday. We read her the Paddington Bear story on the train in, and after hugging the statue by Krispy Kreme, we headed down to Westminster to show her where Daddy sometimes works.

    As luck would have it, we caught the end of some military/veterans parade or other, making its way up Whitehall. Judging by the black, yellow and red flags, I’m guessing it was Belgium Day or something. (Help! – JonW?)

    Then something really odd happened. The parade continued up towards Trafalgar Square. In the few moments before Whitehall was reopened to traffic, it was one huge pedestrianised area. And it was beautiful. People went to look at the Cenotaph and ‘Women of WW2’ memorials up close, briefly lifting their status above that of a ‘keep left’ island. Quiet, gentle milling-about, as opposed to the usual game of Human Frogger. And no scrum by the Horse Guards’ sentry boxes.

    Right now, Whitehall’s a right mess. Noisy, messy building work up both sides. The panels tell you it’s all about infrastructure improvements, and removing street clutter (?). But I can’t help wondering how much if it is because of the introduction of big security bollards outside some of the main departmental buildings. It would have been wonderful if they’d gone a step further, and closed the whole lot to traffic.

    Would we get more done if we could adopt a bit of pavement cafรฉ culture?

  • ,
    , ,

    ID card debate hijacked

    I wonder if the Home Office is regretting its MyLifeMyID website yet? The Drupal-based website, aimed at 16-25 year olds (for some reason?), isn’t having trouble attracting traffic… but unfortunately, a large chunk of its traffic is using the site to actually organise an anti-ID Card campaign.

    This topic was always going to attract ‘undesirable’ use; and I’d personally have advised against an open forum model. But having made the decision to go ahead with it, I don’t think the requirement to fill in a complex registration form (age, gender, location, ethnicity) before commenting was smart.

    I still believe there’s a case to be made for an ID system of some kind, based on the potential benefits to public services, if the technical hurdles can be overcome – or at least mitigated. We need ministers (or officials?) to accept there’s a massive engagement task here, probably the biggest currently on the government agenda; and to embark on a slow, sustained process to demonstrate that all the issues are being taken seriously, and that individual citizens will see real, direct, personal benefits as a result of it. And to accept that the public’s answer may still be ‘no’.

    I’m not sure this site has done a lot to advance the cause.

  • , , ,

    They asked, Gordon answered

    Whether or not you like the answers he gives, the presentation of the ‘Ask The PM’ questions and answers on the Downing Street YouTube channel is really nice. The ‘split-screen’ treatment gives equal prominence to punter and premier; and one plays when the other finishes. Nothing too clever, but I really like it.

    The second round of questions has already opened: this time, on the specific topic of health. Worth noting a tightening of the editorial criteria: nothing party political, nothing over a minute.

    Meanwhile, over at the Governance of Britain site I developed with the Ministry of Justice, we’ve got the first of (what should hopefully be) a regular series of video messages, introducing debates around the constitutional renewal programme. Minister Michael Wills is great on camera: then again, he has a background in TV, and has plenty of practice.