Puffbox

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

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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‘idea’ to ‘operational’ in a couple of weeks, before your enthusiasm has faded, and the idea has gone stale (or been superceded).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.

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    Stop what you're doing and sign up

    I’m not sure I need to waste my time explaining why you need to go to TheyWorkForYou and sign up to MySociety’s campaign to Free Our Bills – or rather, to have Parliamentary data marked up in mashup-friendly XML. Just compare ‘proper’ Hansard to TheyWorkForYou, and imagine the same process being done on all Parliamentary paperwork.

    You may or may not be interested in the intricacies of XML parsing, or even in the uglier workings of the Houses of Parliament. But the fact is, TheyWorkForYou has become a living case study for what we want from e-government. It’s the best-practice example everyone quotes. And if they can persuade/force Parliament to work with them, it sets a valuable precedent for everyone else.

    Quick update: Tom Steinberg has been in touch to say it’s not a petition, it’s ‘an action list, proper online campaign style’. Duly noted.

    And when you’re done there… log into Facebook (come on, you remember) and join the campaign to allow clips of Parliament on YouTube. Useful in itself, but helpful to MPs who want to show their constituents what they’re up to. My thanks to Lynne Featherstone for the tipoff.

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    Set the Census data free

    One particularly difficult phase of my career was my time with National Statistics, in the aftermath of the 2001 Census. I tried, and ultimately failed, to persuade the organisation to recognise the tremendous asset they held in Census data, and to make wide public access a priority. I’m proud of some of the (relatively modest) things we managed to put out, but overall I’m disappointed at the many opportunities that were missed.

    I remember my frustration at how everything was driven by very narrow ‘stakeholder consultation’, which ultimately resulted in the same old people asking for the same old things. The potential for civic engagement ranked well down the list of organisational priorities; the possibilities for data mashing didn’t even register. Despite the huge sums of money spent on countless consultancies, the end product was – ahem – somewhat underwhelming.

    So when I discover that the 2011 Census outputs are the subject of the latest blog-based consultation, part of the Hansard Society‘s Digital Dialogues programme, of course I’m interested. And I think we all should be.

    Two dates to bear in mind here. It’s nearly a year since the publication of the Mayo-Steinberg Power Of Information report, which called for ‘a strategy in which government … supplies innovators that are re-using government-held information with the information they need, when they need it, in a way that maximises the long-term benefits for all citizens.’ And just as importantly, we’re probably five years away from the first publication of census data.

    This must be the first Census to take a truly web-first, and arguably even an API-first, approach to publication. Several reasons:

    • Because it’s a one-off event, for which we have several years to prepare.
    • Because if you think the world is web-first in 2008, just you wait and see what 2013 looks like.
    • Because outsiders – from Experian to MySociety – will almost certainly do a better job than the Civil Service (sorry).
    • Because it doesn’t actually prevent government doing the ‘old school’ thing itself, if it wants. In fact, if you think ‘API first’, it’ll probably result in the ‘old school’ outputs coming together easier and quicker too. Be your own client.
    • Because to have any validity, the Census requires the goodwill and engagement of every person in the country. It’s one of the rare occasions where every resident puts something into a national kitty. Even if it’s only symbolic, this should be the prime example of the state giving something back to them in return.

    This is one government consultation where the geek community (by which I mean us, sadly) should bring its influence to bear. We all know it’s the right thing to do; but they won’t do it unless there’s a sizeable, quantifiable demand. This would be a huge symbolic victory for openness and democratisation. This is our chance.

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    'Gov 2.0' in US presidential campaigning

    I’m grateful to Jeff Jarvis for a detailed post on ‘government 2.0’ (although it isn’t a term he used, nor should he have). He points to two recent proposals from the Democrat candidates for the US presidency.

    I hadn’t heard Hillary Clinton’s suggestion, back in January, that government should actually be required to blog:

    I want to have as much information about the way our government operates on the Internet so the people who pay for it, the taxpayers of America, can see that. I want to be sure that, you know, we actually have like agency blogs. I want people in all the government agencies to be communicating with people, you know, because for me, we’re now in an era–which didn’t exist before–where you can have instant access to information, and I want to see my government be more transparent.

    Meanwhile, Barack Obama told an audience at Google:

    I’ll put government data online in universally accessible formats. I’ll let citizens track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts. I’ll let you participate in government forums, ask questions in real time, offer suggestions that will be reviewed before decisions are made, and let you comment on legislation before it is signed. And to ensure that every government agency is meeting 21st century standards, I’ll appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer.

    The concept of universally accessible data formats will/would be music to some people’s ears, of course.

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    First MP on Twitter (?)

    LibDem MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, Lynne Featherstone was one of the first MPs to start blogging, back in October 2003; she now reckons she’s the first MP to start Twittering, having tweeted (?) for the first time this morning. You’ll find her at twitter.com/lfeatherstone.

    Of course, it all depends on your definitions. As Stuart Bruce will testify, Alan Johnson’s (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign for Labour’s deputy leadership used Twitter although never strictly for MP-related business; and someone has posted a few tweets under the account ‘GordonBrown‘ – one or two of which, I have to say, made me laugh out loud.  Plus our own Justin Kerr-Stevens has dragged a few ministerial statements into the Twitterverse by proxy, courtesy of his twitter.com/hmgov RSS mashup.

    Twitter seems to be everywhere suddenly, just at the moment where Facebook (for me at least) has gone deathly quiet. Hitwise analyst Robin Goad presents plenty of data on the supposed slowdown of Facebook’s stellar growth in the UK, but doesn’t attempt to draw a definitive conclusion.

    The points I made in a piece back in January seem just as valid now, and I’m seeing a lot of people making the same switch from Facebook to Twitter. It actually came as a bit of a shock when I spotted just how many friends and contacts were following my Twitter updates, especially when I’d done nothing to promote their existence.

    Organisations would do well to look at how Twitter can slot into their online comms approach. It could be as simple as a sequence of ‘new news release’ alerts to a specific Twitter account. Not strictly in keeping with the medium’s personality, but better than nothing. And anyway, if it’s a well written news release, the first sentence should stand alone as a summary – and should therefore be perfect as a ‘tweet’.

    Insanely late update: just for the record, it looks like Lynne was actually beaten by Tory MP Grant Shapps. Lynne joined on 22 March; Grant joined a fortnight earlier.

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    No10 man's blog raised at PMQs

    With civil servants’ blogging habits such a hot topic, I can’t avoid mentioning the reference casually dropped into PMQs by David Cameron this afternoon.

    There is a new strategist, a man called David Muir. Yes, I have done a bit of research—he is the chief strategist and on the internet he has listed his favourite book. It is called—[Interruption.] Is his favourite book not the following? It is called “The unstoppable power of leaderless organisations”. If the Prime Minister cannot make a decision, and if he cannot run his office, why does anyone wonder why he cannot run the country?

    How could Cameron possibly have uncovered this? Well, David Muir included the book on a list of ‘books I really like’, in the sidebar of his Typepad blog… hastily password-protected upon the announcement of his appointment, but still visible via Google’s cache.

    The FT’s Westminster blog calls it a ‘nice bit of point scoring’ – and wonders how the book’s message of decentralisation squares with the perception of a Stalinist Prime Minister. How indeed. Meanwhile of course, Clay Shirky – in town to promote his new book, ‘Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations‘ – is being invited round to tea by Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson. There’s a thread here.

  • 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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    The hunt for Civil Serf continues

    It looks like I wasn’t the only e-gov person to get an email this afternoon from the Daily Mail, asking if I knew who Civil Serf was. No, I don’t. And given the treatment which the Mail handed out to DFID’s Owen Barder, I wouldn’t be inclined to tell them, even if I did. But on the bright side – if they’re asking, they clearly don’t know yet. Probably just as well.

    I’ve worked out what troubled me about the Mail’s reporting of Civil Serf’s suspension. They have reproduced a remarkably detailed account of Serf’s meeting with ‘investigators’; details which, I’d say, reflect badly on the individual concerned. I’d have thought such details were confidential, at least until the completion of any investigation. Breaching confidentiality? I’m not smiling at the irony in that.

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    Nine Lords a-blogging

    Very interesting to see the horrendously-branded Lords Of The Blog, a new group blog co-written by nine peers, each promising a couple of items per week. Prime mover Lord (Clive) Soley writes in his introductory post:

    MP’s and Peers need to find new ways of engaging with the public. A blog is not the complete answer to the feeling of alienation from the political system that many feel today but it is part of the answer. In the 1950’ trade unions and the church played a bigger role in informing people about their political rights and duties. That has gone and the conventional media has been unable to replace it.

    The selection of participants is rather curious – mainly LibDems and cross-benchers, if I’m not mistaken – but there are a few recognisable names and faces. And as ever, it’s early days, etc etc.

    The site is hosted on the WordPress.com service – as, coincidentally, is another HMG blog site I’m hoping to launch before the end of the week. If you’re only looking for standard blog functionality, and aren’t too precious about design, it’s hard to argue with the WordPress.com offering: just $10/year to map your own domain instead of ?.wordpress.com, $15/year for the right to use your own CSS styling, if you aren’t impressed by the dozens of available themes.

    It won’t give you absolutely everything you want; but it’ll do most of it, and it’ll take care of all the hassle-y bits too.