Puffbox

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

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    Highfield quits BBC

    I’m sure other people will have much better insight than I into the departure of Ashley Highfield from his £359,000/year job at the BBC. Of course, he’s moving to a not-unrelated position, heading up Project Kangaroo, the video-on-demand joint-venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel Four. The success of iPlayer version 2 may or may not have been a factor… but isn’t it interesting how version 1 has become a dim and distant memory already been wiped from the history books? (See below.)

    The Guardian reckons Erik Huggers has been groomed to be his successor:

    “There’s a belief that [Huggers] was brought in specially and was being trained up for the job,” said (an) insider, who added that Huggers was well respected within the corporation. He makes stuff happen and is very hands-on. He is a very accomplished public speaker, has a very broad knowledge and will knock heads together.”

    The source also said Huggers may find it difficult to move from a very delivery-focused, practical role to the politics of the corporation’s top digital media job. “Ashley’s job is 85% politics, 15% doing things. It will be interesting to see how [Huggers] does.”

    Interesting use of the word ‘interesting’ there, obviously.

    I suppose it’s a high-profile vote of confidence in the internet as a medium for distributing TV, although it makes the recent spat between Highfield and the country’s ISPs all the more juicy. And it’s probably a good thing for the BBC to have a new hand at the helm.

    Update…

    Over on the BBC’s Internet blog, Nick Reynolds posts the full email to staff from Mark Thompson. (Thanks Nick.) Again, I note the prominent iPlayer reference. It’s amazing how this has become a great moment in UK media history, despite getting it (frankly) so wrong in its first incarnation.

    But hang on. I’m most amused by Thompson’s line about iPlayer receiving ’42 million programme requests in its first three months’. This figure seems to come from a press release last week, which proclaimed 42 million ‘in the first three months since its Christmas Day 2007 marketing launch‘. Crucially then, it seems we’re wiping the Microsoft-only, Kontiki-based, wait-forever-to-download product from the history books. Better remove all trace from the archives, guys.

    And for the record, has anyone managed successfully to watch programming on a Wii? I’m finding it stops every 20-30 seconds to buffer, making it practically unwatchable.

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    Ofcom blogging at last

    The only surprise about Ofcom launching a new blog, in support of its review into Public Service Broadcasting, is that it’s taken so long, with veteran blogger Tom Loosemore over there. (It does bear an uncanny resemblance to Tom’s personal blog, actually.) With electronic communications being part of its remit, and its stated objective to ‘remain at the forefront of technological understanding’, you’d have expected them to be an early adopter. (See thoughts from BBC man Nick Reynolds on a related subject.)

    This new blog is hosted on Typepad, which I used to recommend for people keen to run a ‘bog standard’ blog, especially if hosting was going to be an issue – but don’t any more. My experience is that people inevitably want ‘normal website’ features at some point, and Typepad really isn’t geared up for that. Not to the same extent WordPress is, anyway. (Another recent gov.uk launch on Typepad is the Dept of Health’s Diabetes blog, for whom Typepad’s instant availability was the primary motivation.)

    Meanwhile, across the blogosphere – I’m just a little surprised by the ultra-personal tone of David Miliband’s latest post: reflecting on Arsenal’s performance on Tuesday night. Well done for the attempt to tie it into European politics. And yes, for the record, I have to agree on the sentiments. I’m not sure we’ll see Philippe Senderos surviving the summer: occasionally he does OK, but that’s not really good enough.

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    Video on Flickr: what impact on YouTube?

    At long last, Flickr does video. And true to form, they just get it absolutely spot-on.

    The ’90 second limit’ thing initially feels restrictive, but it’s a perfect fit for their ‘photo sharing’ ethos. What impact on YouTube?, I wonder.

    Personally, Flickr feels like a more natural place for me to share my occasional personal videos; and of course, it’s attracting its fair share of corporate users, not least in HM Government (FCO, No10). But with a more generous time limit (10 mins), YouTube remains the logical place for ‘corporate’ video; and paradoxically, I don’t see too many of its core ‘kids with mobile phones’ audience migrating to Flickr, especially if video remains ‘pro users only’.

    By the way… this is my first post since upgrading to WordPress v2.5. And you won’t be surprised when I say, it’s fantastic. Looks gorgeous, and they seem to have refined the few annoyances of the last version (particularly Flash embedding).

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    Twitter etiquette for corporates

    It’s been amazing to watch news of Downing Street’s new Twitter account spreading round the planet. Reaction on blogs and Twitter itself has been a combination of ‘awesome!’, ‘boring!’ and ‘validates Twitter as a proper comms channel’.

    But it poses an interesting question. Should a corporate channel like /downingstreet be following other people, or is it purely a one-way service? So far, I can’t decide.

    Let’s be realistic: Gordon Brown doesn’t want to know what your cat had for breakfast, and deep down, you all know that. But it’s the done thing on Twitter: everyone follows everyone else. It might make people feel loved, if they see their picture embedded into the No10 page’s sidebar. It doesn’t take much effort to add people, and hey – nobody’s forcing you to read it.

    Looking at it coldly then, I can’t help feeling it’s a pointless token gesture. But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – look at what’s happening across the Atlantic. Barack Obama has 19,000 followers and almost the same number of ‘following’ – each of whom gets to see their picture on his profile. Hillary Clinton takes the ‘follow no-one’ approach, and has a mere 2,400 followers. And which campaign gets plaudits for its voter engagement?

    Maybe that’s the point. Twitter represents a pretty deep level of ‘buy in’ to a person or a thing, much deeper than a blog subscription or email signup. You’re asking to know the minutiae on a real-time basis. By definition, it’s a more personal, touchy-feely environment. Maybe it’s the touchy-feely criteria which should matter most.

    What do the rest of you think?

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    WordPress says 'why not?'

    I’ve never made a secret of my preference for WordPress, the blogging platform which is steadily growing up into a formidable CMS. And having played around with the latest Release Candidate of version 2.5, I’m more convinced than ever of its merits. Sometimes I fear I’m coming across as a WordPress zealot. And whilst I wouldn’t be ashamed of that label, there’s a deeper motivation than just personal preference.

    When it comes to publishing online, WordPress can almost certainly do almost everything you want a website to do. If it can’t be done ‘out of the box’,  directly or with a bit of lateral thinking, there’s probably a plugin available, or it’s straightforward to hack together in the PHP code. If you can produce the HTML, you can turn it into a WordPress template.

    It’s free; the underlying software you require is free; and you can buy a year’s hosting for as little as £30 (seriously). It downloads in seconds, and installs in a matter of minutes (tops). No procurement, no process, no lead time. It’s quicker to do it than to think about doing it.

    The training requirement? As close to zero as it’s possible to imagine. If you can use Word, or even just basic email, you can use WordPress. And it automates so much of the mundane management tasks. And that’s before we consider the redesigned user interface of v2.5, which will be along shortly.

    So we’re at a point where the ability to publish something is a given. A basic blog could be up and running within the hour. A more sophisticated site might take a couple of weeks, but that’s still nothing in e-gov timescales. So now, if you aren’t doing something on the web, it’s not because you can’t… it’s because you won’t. Or as Tom Watson put it in his Tower 08 speech, the question has moved from ‘how’ or ‘why’, to ‘why not’.

    In theory then, it frees you up to think hard about what you’re trying to achieve, and who you’re trying to talk to. In theory, it takes you from ‘idea’ to ‘operational’ in a couple of weeks, before your enthusiasm has faded, and the idea has gone stale (or been superceded).

    No excuses. If you want to do something, we almost certainly have the tools to do it. So… how much do you really want to do it?

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    What my Eee says about Mee

    Asus Eee vs Acer 'laptop'The Asus Eee mini-laptop is the new Wii: the ultra-cool white gadget that clearly surpassed its manufacturer’s best sales projections. I was lucky enough to find one on sale in Tottenham Court Road a few weeks back, at list price too, and it was the guy’s easiest sale of the day.

    What makes the Eee special? Its portability: as you can see, it’s much smaller than a conventional laptop, and much lighter too. Its cost: just £219 for the most popular model, but it’s still fully-spec’ed. But most importantly for me… its boot-up time. You’re up and running in 15 seconds, online in about 30.

    And interestingly, it’s a conversation starter. Total strangers on the train ask me about it. I whip it out in meetings to take notes, and the conversation inevitably deviates for a minute or two. As Hugh MacLeod might say, it’s a ‘social object‘.

    When you’re living the freelance/consultancy life, things like this matter. The Eee allows me to quietly communicate a few things about my view of life and business, without having to say a word. It’s quick. It’s not unnecessarily expensive or extravagant. It’s adaptable. It challenges the norm. I’ve yet to say the words ‘very much like myself, actually’ – but I think the message gets through.

    Meanwhile, my former Big Ugly Laptop is gathering dust in the corner. Vista is a distant memory. Result all round, I’d say.

  • Next WordPress release looking great

    I downloaded the first ‘Release Candidate’ version of WordPress version 2.5 with a sense of trepidation. New functionality often means added complexity. But I’m happy to report, my fears were unfounded. It looks fantastic.

    The most striking change is the colour scheme: the ‘classic’ dark blue style is now joined by a more chilled, muted option – and, apparently, the ability to implement your own colour schemes too. I can see that being popular with clients: it won’t actually amount to anything, and I doubt I’ll be able to charge for it, but it will make the tool feel ‘theirs’.

    Most of the same options are in more or less the same places, but there’s been a bit of gentle juggling to put all the important things in the most prominent locations. They’ve done a fine job of improving usability without losing familiarity. Plus there are significant improvements to tag management and the media library, which are most welcome.

    The only real disappointment is in page management. I’m surprised they haven’t come up with a ‘drag and drop’ method of handling page hierarchy; we’ve had ‘drag and drop’ sorting of sidebar widgets for a while, and it’s not as if the necessary Javascript isn’t out there. (In fact, whilst I’m no expert, I suspect most of the necessary Javascript is already inside the WordPress package somewhere.) There’s a note on the page authoring screen which says: ‘We know this is a little janky, it’ll be better in future releases.’ – but there’s no indication of whether that means ‘the next release candidate’ or ‘the next full version’.

    I’m not brave enough to move any production sites over to the release candidate just yet; but suffice to say, I’ll be upgrading as soon as I can. The WordPress development blog says it’s ‘basically done and stable, and could be released today’ – so expect it to emerge imminently.

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    BBC finally embedding video

    BBC embedded Flash playerSteve Herrman, writing on the BBC’s Editors blog, is absolutely right: the move to video embedded on the page is ‘quite a significant moment’ for the Beeb’s website. Except that, judging by the first visible example, it’s got issues. It’s either failing to buffer, or returning an error message.

    As explained in more detail on the Internet blog, the move to Flash video means faster processing for them, better quality for international users, and better usability for everyone. Clips will all have their own ‘permalink’ pages on the site, which makes for easier linking – but if you’re thinking of embedding clips on your own site, you’ll be disappointed.

    It’s a welcome improvement from the Beeb: the News site’s use of video was starting to look ridiculously dated, when compared to the iPlayer… or indeed, to competitors like Sky, who went down this route almost a year ago. But I think Sky still has the edge in terms of usability. The Beeb’s pages already feel too long to me; I doubt many people ever read to the bottom of a story. By embedding video at the top of the page, as they seem to be doing, it pushes the text content even further down. Sky’s ‘rich sidebar’ treatment gives the best of both worlds.

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    Tom Watson's 'mashed up' speech

    OK, I’m an idiot. The lengthy and fair-minded piece I wrote this morning about a speech by Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne at the RSA was a year late.

    Osborne made some interesting points about the need ‘to recast the political settlement for the digital age.’ And now today, there’s an email doing the rounds (see Nick Booth’s piece) pointing out similarities between this 2007 speech and the one made by Tom Watson on Monday. Amusingly, it condemns the Watson speech as a ‘mashup’. But hold on. Surely it’s entirely in keeping with the whole ethos of open source, to take good ideas and build on them? Didn’t you say mass collaboration was a good thing? 🙂

    OK, I’m being churlish. But this points to the biggest single hurdle in ‘politics 2.0’, or whatever we’re calling it. Inevitably, roughly once every four years, every politician’s worst instincts will come out as they fight for power or survival. You can’t blame them. That’s the adversarial, winner-takes-all political system we’re currently stuck with.

    And that’s ironically why we need the apolitical Civil Service to take a lead on use of these collaborative technologies.

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    Independent review wants free ID cards, minimal biometrics

    I’m surprised how little coverage I’ve seen of the long-awaited report by Sir James Crosby (ex boss of Halifax/HBOS) into ‘Challenges and opportunities in identity cards assurance’, published last week by the Treasury. (See press release, full doc as PDF.) It makes a number of interesting proposals, none of which merited a specific mention in the press release.

    Absolutely correctly, Sir James says the potential of any such scheme ‘lies in the extent to which it is created by consumers for consumers.’ He points to a ‘fundamental’ distinction between ‘identity management’, where systems are built for the benefit of the database manager (ie government, in this case); and ‘identity assurance’, which ‘meets an important consumer need without necessarily providing any spin-off benefits to the owner of any database’.

    The national security aspect becomes a pleasant side-effect. As he rightly notes, ‘a consumer-led universal scheme would better deliver on national security goals than any scheme with its origins in security and data sharing.’

    Effectively, he calls for a ‘Chip and PIN’ card with a photograph on it: three independent factors – something you have, something you know, and something you are’. ‘It is the combination of such independent factors, rather than their technological complexity and individual strength,’ he writes, ‘which largely determines the resilience of the verification process.’ Well, it’s certainly got simplicity in its favour.

    He says explicitly that ‘full biometric images (other than photographs) should not be kept‘; that the scheme should be operated independently of Government; and that it should be provided free of charge. But no matter how welcome and compelling his recommendations might be, there’s little sign of the Home Office swaying.

    If you’ve got any interest in this subject, I urge you to read (at least) the executive summary of the Crosby report. It’s the most articulate and balanced review of the subject that I’ve yet seen. And it’s a subject we all need to care about. Nothing right now cuts as deeply to the heart of civil engagement – both in terms of what it is, and how it gets rolled out. And the signs aren’t yet good.