Puffbox

Tony Blair – who, as you may have missed in the news coverage of recent days, is actually still Prime Minister – has been at it again, with a new message on YouTube. Off on a tour of new school buildings, I’m told he actively volunteered to do another quick video piece, reflecting on the government’s major capital investment programme. His two-minute ‘talking head’ clip was unscripted, and was done in a single ‘take’ – exactly as it should be. He’s getting good at this… timing, eh?

A warm welcome to Jeremy Gould, the Department for Constitutional Affairs’s internet development manager, who has just started his first ‘work blog’. Jeremy’s got a hectic couple of days ahead, as DCA transforms itself into the new Ministry of Justice (which still sounds really odd). The new site goes live on Wednesday, and Jeremy promises ‘a vast improvement on the current incarnation, both in visual look, quality of editorial and technical build’.

He’s actually doing some remarkably brave stuff for a civil servant… indeed, I can’t immediately think of any civil servants who put their name to a blog about their work. Hope he doesn’t get told off for it… disclaimer or no disclaimer.

I received a tip-off late last week about the launch of Downing Street’s channel on YouTube. I had a lot to do over the weekend; so I didn’t write it up immediately – and I’m very glad I waited.

When it launched on Friday, it was a curious mix of mini-documentaries, recent speeches, clips of TV appearances, and miscellaneous public events. Mostly material we’d already seen on the pm.gov.uk website, and (interestingly) not all of it featuring Mr Blair himself. Here’s one example featuring Douglas Alexander – a man reportedly not especially enamoured of Downing Street’s more ambitious web efforts of late. A little in-joke, perhaps? 😉

Then suddenly, whilst we’re all off enjoying our Bank Holiday, two video messages welcoming Nicolas Sarkozy to the top table of European politics: one in English, l’autre en francais (and longer too). And interestingly, at the time of writing this, the French version has had five times more traffic. We see a Prime Minister not only prepared to take a bit of a presentational risk… but to say as much in the opening few seconds. It’s hard work making him out at times, to be honest: the intonation isn’t quite right in places, and the style suggests it has been professionally translated from an English original. He doesn’t seem too comfortable with the jokey opening. But regardless, full marks to him for having a crack at it.

The direct-to-‘webcam’ chat, the domestic setting, the open-necked casual shirt… this is classic YouTube material, albeit with slightly better production. And it actually works.

Why is he doing this? Partly, one imagines, because he’s in winding-down mode. Partly to ensure he can claim to have been the first PM to embrace ‘narrowcasting’ video like this. But also, one suspects, because it’s a chance to communicate directly avec le peuple francais. The French media won’t be interested in another message of congratulation from another world leader: Sarkozy probably had over 100 waiting for him this morning. But the French public might… even if it’s only to watch a rosbif struggle heroically with their language. This is very astute use of the medium.

Can you imagine this continuing after transition? I very much doubt it. But good on the web team at No10 for using this opportunity to lay down precedents. Going first in Civil Service circles is next to impossible; but it’ll be so much easier, and perhaps even expected, when the next Cabinet minister decides to address the people via YouTube.

As people realise the channel exists, it’ll undoubtedly get criticised for the inability to add comments to videos, and the inability to embed (the majority of) the videos into others’ pages. The former is understandable: it’ll just be the usual pointless point-scoring. The latter is harder to justify, and will cost them visibility. (I see the French one can be embedded, though.) Maybe the policy will soften in time.

It’s going to be an interesting week in British politics. We’re expecting an announcement of historic proportions before next weekend. They couldn’t be thinking of breaking the story on YouTube… could they?

I hear that we could be seeing more Prime Ministerial activity on YouTube in the next couple of weeks, following the disappointing Party-led efforts. With government business largely on hold for the local elections, and with the staff presumably in limbo ahead of The Great Transition, I’m told the web team at Downing Street is working quietly on its own YouTube channel, to launch in the next few weeks. Things like ‘blogs’ and ‘wikis’ are reportedly on the horizon, too.

There’s a real buzz around No10’s web activity, sparked principally by the e-petitions system. Having worked in several large Whitehall departments, where progress was agonisingly slow, I’m jealous. Downing Street is small, powerful and answerable to no-one (other than the electorate). If Tony Blair approves your idea, there really isn’t anyone who can overrule that. This means they can be more ambitious, more daring. And e-government is all the better for it.

(As an aside, I hear that a remarkable number of petitions are ‘incorrect’ – protesting about something that isn’t actually there to protest about. Of the ‘five most popular open petitions’ currently listed on the site, three are materially inaccurate. So whilst 63,000 people are demanding that the government should ‘change the current student loan interest repayment, to deduct payments monthly not annually’ – apparently, it already is deducted monthly, and always was. Rather than kill the petition, they’re leaving it active… but adding a note to the top, explaining the situation. I guess if you still sign your name, you’re effectively saying that you need a further explanation – and indeed, your emailed response will come in due course.)

But of course, there’s no avoiding the shadow of Blair’s likely successor in all this. Gordon Brown has, in the recent past, been described as a deluded control freak, a Stalinist who feels ‘serious discussion about priorities… is just not worth it and they will get what I decide.’ Doesn’t sound promising, does it? As Blair’s people follow him out the door, to be replaced by Brown’s people, will this sudden enthusiasm for online engagement survive?

Downing Street doesn’t actually do anything for the citizens; but at risk of stating the obvious, it sets the tone for the many departments and agencies who do have front-line activity. No Whitehall department would ever have built the e-petitions site, for example – but now it’s a reality, and they have to deal with it (and the two-way communication it generates). A Prime Minister’s Office which really gets all this is an asset for the whole public sector. Let’s enjoy it while we can.

Last summer I made cynical noises about Citizen Calling, the Home Affairs Select Committee’s idea to let The Kids voice their opinions on the criminal justice system. The Hansard Society has just published its report into the exercise, and it’s not good. Expectations were low to begin with, but the Evaluation Report (PDF) admits that the eventual response was still ‘disappointing’. That’s quite an optimistic choice of words.

In total, 12 messages were submitted via mobiles to the website by just eight contributors including two pieces of photographic evidence (see Appendix C). Additionally, a further five comments were made in response to the submissions.

Of the 101 people who registered with Citizen Calling just over half (52%) completed the pre-consultation questionnaire… At the end of the process those registered were asked to complete a post-consultation questionnaire asking about their experiences with the consultation exercise and the value they placed on them. Unfortunately very few people (12) completed the post consultation questionnaire thus negating statistical analysis.

Not surprisingly, there was general disappointment with both the quantity and depth of responses which were regarded as limited, especially when compared with the traffic and the interest in the pilot website generally. Given the quality of evidence submitted, the pilot was felt to have had little direct influence on the inquiry and the Committee decided not to request further evidence through an oral evidence hearing.

So what went wrong? The report blames a lack of promotion, highlighting in particular the need for active involvement by the MPs themselves; an ‘unfulfilling user experience’; ‘general scepticism about the point of contributing’; ‘cumbersome’ video uploading technology; and ‘costs of participation’.

Wouldn’t it have been better to just throw something up on YouTube? The report says: ‘the critical mass that was making (social networking) sites relevant was only beginning to develop after the pilot had been funded, project initiation documents had been agreed and the pilot was gearing up for launch. We also felt that there was a potential risk that inquiry content may have been too disaggregated and that the Select Committee needed a neutral, advertisement-free space to experiment.’

Ah well, I suppose at least we know not to do it this way again.

I know he’d be attacked for being party-political on a .gov.uk site… but don’t you just wish David Miliband would write something on his blog about what is the biggest talking point in British politics just now? Isn’t it quite surreal for him not to mention it at least? It’s this kind of sterilty which gave his blog a bad name in certain circles. Although, for the record, not here. I know all too well the opposition (active and passive) which Miliband will have faced in having a blog at all. And it’s actually developing a more natural, personal tone of late.

All joking aside, it’s quite an interesting and well-reasoned experiment in social networking:

A ‘Text Pal’ scheme run by Norfolk County Council to give much-needed peer support to young carers has been so successful that it has been extended to include a safe online chat forum. Due to the popularity of the Text Pal scheme, where volunteer ‘Text Pals’ and young carers are both provided with a mobile phone to text and call each other free of charge, Norfolk Blurb – Norfolk County Council’s website for young people – has launched an online version of the service. Sharing a similar format to social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace, Text Pal online, which will go live at 12pm today (Friday March 23), enables users to hook up and exchange messages within a safe environment, as all messages are moderated prior to being published. It is hoped that more young people will use the Text Pal network to gain vital peer support and to use Text Pal as a safe alternative to the thousands of un-moderated social network sites available.

Oops. Apparently the DirectgovKids site I mentioned a fortnight ago has only been launched today. But unless she’s hiding behind semantics, Beverley Hughes (or more accurately the DfES press office) is having a laugh if she really thinks ‘this is the first time children in the UK have been communicated with directly by Government through an online site.’ I can think of a handful without really trying.

SOCITM, ‘the professional association for public sector ICT management’ aren’t doing themselves any favours by publishing so little information about their annual e-government survey, Better Connected. I’ve seen very little mention of it, and it was published almost a fortnight ago. Indeed, virtually all the coverage I’ve seen so far has been critical of the report and its methodology:

Better Connected is failing to accomplish anything other than paint a gloomy picture of play and upset Local Authority rulers and those of us really making an effort. When does it get positive?

Lee Pilmore

BC’s assessment of the accessibility of local authority websites is fundamentally flawed. Admittedly this is a reflection of the use of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 as the instrument of measurement, but it’s flawed all the same.

Dan Champion

Socitm clearly doesn’t have its members’ interests at heart with the publication of this idiotic report. The time, effort and resources wasted in its production would have been far better spent helping web managers improve things rather than creating a meaningless yardstick with which to beat them.

Ian Dunmore, Director of Public Sector Forums (quoted by 24dash)

Way to go, fellas. Hiding your report behind a paywall, with absolutely nothing in your website’s News section (including this startling press releases area) is no way to win friends or influence people.

Ooh, The Digital Age… sounds all sci-fi, doesn’t it. Actually it’s the latest ‘Focus On‘ report by National Statistics, this time looking at the use of ICT (information and communication technology) in the UK.

If you’re looking for a common thread, it’s probably the growing digital divide, as the ‘haves’ become more and more reliant on it, leaving behind a diminishing rump of ‘have nots’. Nearly half the households in Great Britain have digital TV and internet and at least one mobile phone… but 8 per cent don’t have any of those. But there’s loads of statistical goodness in here, so you’re best off having a good browse around for yourself.

(Quick disclosure: I originally conceived the ‘Focus On’ concept during my time at National Statistics. But that was ages ago. And what you see online now was only meant to be phase one. But I digress…)

Meanwhile, technology has been given a boost in the annual review of items making up the ‘shopping basket’ for calculating inflation. DVD recorders, satnav and DAB radios are in; VCRs, ‘ghettoblasters’ and portable TVs are out. More in this press release (PDF), or if you’re brave, in this lengthy article (PDF).