Yesterday we enjoyed a day out at the Headstar e-Democracy conference 2007. This was, I think, the third time we’ve been to this event, and every time it gets better and better. The new venue this year really gave the place a more professional feel, but more interesting than that was the demographics of the delegates.
Perhaps of necessity, this event sort of emerged from the National Project on… read more
Posted by Ben.
The BBC has set up a dedicated internet blog (all blogs seem to end up being about the internet, don’t they?) to ‘talk about issues raised by you about the technology behind bbc.co.uk, [their] mobile services and the BBC’s presence on the internet.’
I was particularly struck by their rationale, which touches on a couple of interesting issues around blogging as debate tool:
‘The… read more
At the e-Democracy conference in London on Thursday, there was as ever lots of talk of ‘innovative’ ways of connecting people and government, although pleasingly there was a different mood around this year on the idea, of which more later.
Anyway, came across this lovely website recently that makes the point really well that ‘the medium is not the message, the message is the message’. You can build the most… read more
Yesterday I was pleased to be invited to participate in one of a series of small Ministry of Justice workshops on the future of government public engagement. With the new government drive to put citizen engagement at the heart of activities, the Ministry is currently looking to put together a plan for the next few years, learning from experience in the government, academic and practitioner sectors.
Lots of interesting ideas came… read more
Maidstone Borough Council have decided to use Budget Simulator as part of their budget consultation process this year. As well as the standard functionality, Maidstone wanted to make some changes to reflect the realities of budget setting under government spending guidelines, including a new formula for calculating council tax change. It’s up and running at http://www.budgetsimulator.com/maidstone, so have a look and see what they’ve done!… read more
We should go to Jeremy Gould’s UKGovWeb barcamp because he has a lot of good stuff to say and because ‘this event should be of interest to all who work in the UK government digital media community: permanent civil servants, contractors, consultants, agencies, advisers, supporters, observers, and critics.
‘If you think you’ve got something to contribute to improving how government organisations use the web, then… read more