A final posting on Miliband’s Defra blog. ‘The new mechanisms for political engagement and dialogue represented by this blog are needed more than ever,’ he writes. ‘It may take some time for new service to be resumed, but please watch this space.’ Strangely reminiscent of the last time he signed off… he was up and running again before the day was out.
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Miliband to FCO: right man, right place, right time
I’ve a feeling David Miliband may prove to be a very good fit with his new department.
The Foreign Office was actually my first employer: I spent five years there in the mid-to-late 1990s, through what we should probably call the ‘web 1.0’ phase. I took it from a one-man effort (the one man being yours truly) to probably the most highly respected (and certainly the most trophy-laden) in Whitehall.
The promise of free, instant global communication naturally went down well with the Diplomatic Service – although I have to admit, most of my best work was done in the early days, before the whole internet thing came to senior management attention. FCO’s Travel Advice information is something UK citizens, at home and abroad, really do want and need; the daily supply of speeches and transcripts are an important ingredient of international diplomacy.
So now we’re into ‘web 2.0’, and by happy coincidence, the FCO will be headed up by someone who (as catalogued here continuously) ‘really gets it’. I do know that FCO is working on plans for a site relaunch early next year; they recently bought the Morello content management system ‘in a deal worth ยฃ1.47m’ over five years. They received a specific mention in Tom Steinberg’s recent report, naming them as a department which should do more in terms of information sharing and audience engagement, and I know they’re considering how to respond.
Miliband’s instinct for a more transparent and inclusive approach will sit well with FCO’s concept of ‘public diplomacy’. Foreign affairs is much more about persuasion and negotiation than most ministries’ activity.
So what fate awaits his ministerial blog, currently housed at Defra? With more UK casualties in Iraq this morning, he probably has more pressing concerns this time than website migration.
PS: Miliband just arrived at King Charles Street, and spoke of being ‘patient and purposeful, listening as well as leading’. And so it begins.
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So who's getting Miliband?
A lot of speculation this evening about the fate of Britain’s most web-friendly Cabinet minister, David Miliband, in tomorrow morning’s reshuffle. Miliband’s profile is certainly ‘on the up’ – but then again, environment is certainly the hot topic (pardon the pun) at the moment. A stronger Defra, perhaps with energy policy moved over from DTI, might be an effective promotion without the hassle of moving offices. But a couple of hacks, including the FT and Newsnight, have chucked in the possibility of a move to the Foreign Office. Again, given the international element in Miliband’s existing remit, it could be a logical and natural step up. (‘Energy security and climate change‘ is one of the explicit objectives of the FCO.)
Why would readers of this here blog be bovvered? Well, it’s my understanding that the first instruction Miliband issued when he walked through the door at Defra was to move his blog over from his former department (ODPM). Which Whitehall web team, if any, is going to have an even busier morning than expected?
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Why web services rule
Tory MP Quentin Davies defects to Labour. The guys at theyworkforyou.com update their listings almost immediately. And without me actually doing anything, my RSS-plus-Google-Map mashup now shows: Grantham & Stamford, MP: Quentin Davies, Party: Labour. Thanks to all concerned. ๐
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Puffbox map app proves its power
Regular readers will be all too aware of the NewsMap mashup application produced by my consultancy operation, Puffbox. The concept was to produce a tool to let journalists create interactive maps in a matter of minutes (ish), to tell stories where geography was a key element. Such as the current flooding story.
So I’m delighted to say that our first client, Sky News has used it to put together an interactive map of Yorkshire, dotted with photos and video clips. And I have to say, they’ve done a fantastic job of it. There’s even a coloured polygon!
Ah… I love it when a plan comes together. ๐
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British politics as Tetris
I’ve only just come across a remarkable website, Electoral Calculus which ‘predicts the next British General Election result using scientific analysis of opinion polls and electoral geography’. The mathematical detail of it all only serves to remind me how much of my Maths A-Levels I’ve now forgotten.
But the most striking thing on the site, and one I’m quite inspired by, is their constituency map. Each constituency is drawn to be the same surface area, as they are all roughly the same population (70,000 ish). And startlingly, it’s all done as an HTML table with background colours on the cells.
The overall effect is something very close to Tetris. But it still looks appreciably like a map of Great Britain, and it would make a great basis for some election-night online maps. It may not be too early to start thinking of this.
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News Knight: funnier than I feared
I enjoyed ITV’s new News Knight a lot more than I expected. It’s clearly trying to be a British answer to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, with a bit of Have I Got News For You thrown in. And whilst a lot of the humour is derived from hearing the familiar voice of authority, Sir Trevor McDonald reading out some truly ludicrous lines, some of it genuinely made me laugh. I wonder how long that can last, though?
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Sky News in your Vista sidebar
I’m very impressed to see the new Sky News sidebar gadget for Windows Vista. A very easy install process gives a little Sky-branded box on the edge of your screen, with the latest headlines from five different feeds. Click on a headline, and you’ll see a summary of the item in question, with a link to the full story. If that sounds like an RSS feed, guess what. But the addition of photos takes it a step beyond the normal, dry RSS experience.
It’s not without its problems: they’ve only given themselves 20 characters (ish) per line, and just two lines. If a longer headline stretches into a third line, it’s going to get unceremoniously cropped – and flicking through the headlines displayed as I type this, roughly half get trimmed. One or two, you could probably forgive. And I can’t see any way to tweak the refresh rate.
But hey, full credit to them for delivering this. Increasing the potential points of access for the service is exactly the right thing to be doing, especially when it’s little more than an RSS feed (and, one assumes, entirely automated). And it doesn’t do any harm to do this before the competition: I can only find unofficial gadgets for the BBC site.
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BBC's web principles
This list of the BBC’s fifteen web principles, posted by Tom Loosemore, will be invaluable in my client work. It’s amazing how easy it is to make people accept something, if you say ‘well, that’s how the BBC does it.’ Of particular interest:
- Do not attempt to do everything yourselves.
- Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.
- Accessibility is not an optional extra.
- Link to discussions on the web, donโt host them.
A bit on the evangelical side, maybe, but absolutely sound advice for anyone in this business.
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MPs, Blackberries and prime-time TV
A couple of interesting ideas in the proposals from Jack Straw‘s Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, published today. They reckon they can ‘revitalise’ the Commons by, among other measures, having ‘a new weekly 90 minute debate in prime time on a big issue of the day’, and allowing MPs to ‘use handheld devices in the Chamber to keep up to date with e-mails, provided that it causes no disturbance.’ More info in the press release.