ID cards and the database state 5 comments

Anyone who believes that the UK government is doing a sterling job in protecting our personal information, and that the recent lapses at HMRC, the NHS, the MOD, the ONS, The Driving Standards Agency….etc. are just unfortunate ‘one-off’ mistakes, or if you’re gung-ho about having a shiny new biometric ID card, then you probably shouldn’t visit NO2ID.

I’m sure you’ll make up your own minds though!

UKGovWeb barcamp event roundup. No comments yet

There’s probably not a lot more I can say about the excellent UKGovWeb barcamp event that took place at the Google offices on Saturday 26th January that hasn’t already been said by the raft of energetic bloggers that made up the majority of the delegates (or at least that was my impression). You can see a round-up of the day’s events at the Pageflakes site, catch up on the pre-and-post conversations at the Google Group, or check out the following blogs (with apologies to all I have missed out….can’t quite keep up with the blog-rate!). See Dave Briggs, Simon Dickson, David Wilcox, LLoyd Davis, Jeremy Gould, Tim Davies and Nick Booth, with photos on Flickr, websites tagged here and videos here.

It’s not really surprising that this one event has generated so much multimedia exposure, given the assembly of so many ‘Web 2.0 activists’, and I hope this will ensure some continued momentum for this particular self-organising group. I think Jeremy Gould summed this up quite well on his blog:

"We need to find ways to make partnership between those inside and those
around government easier – and promote it as as an alternative method
to trying to do everything ourselves. We don’t know all the answers
individually, but as a collective we can get closer to the ideal
solutions.

If we in government want to innovate more, we should also behave
more like innovators. The format and style of the barcamp was great and
encouraged collaboration and thinking differently."

Best keep an eye on Pageflakes for future developments!

Gov 2.0: Truly Transformative Government 2 comments

I attended the “Gov 2.0, or Truly Transformative Government” seminar held at Portcullis House yesterday afternoon. The event was sponsored by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and in partnership with the Oxford Internet Institute. The purpose was to look at how Government can exploit the success of the contemporary Internet.

The event preamble stated:
“Usage of government websites is on the rise but has yet to take off like Facebook, iTunes and many other spectacular examples. In this seminar we look at whether government and public services could engage the public in the way music, shopping contemporary Internet for the design of public services and public engagement? Attendees will have the chance to listen and question leading figures in the area from Government, academia and industry.”

I only attended session 2 (by choice – this seemed the more interesting session to me since it was more ‘end-user’ focused):

• Reinventing Government for the Intranet age – Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft
• Citizen redesign of user-centric government – William Heath, Ideal Government
• Small is beautiful: Re-engineering government from the bottom-up – Tom Steinberg, mySociety.
• There was a panel Q&A chaired by the Earl of Errol.

Jerry Fishenden

• Government systems set up as individual silos to meet needs of the individual departments and not citizen-centric.
• Example of young offender, who may be in and out of education several times, known to social services, then police and ultimately judiciary.
• Data on the individual held in multiple places and limited sharing of data/information.

William Heath

• Web 2.0 is anti-hierarchical. Potential loss of control
• Culture of assertive non-listening and spin in government
• The challenge for CIO’s is to manage up, not down
• IT suppliers are contracted to conform to stated requirements, not solve social problems.
• Lack of a clear customer voice
• Citizen’s have difficulty getting information from government that will help them with manage the complexities of living in today’s society
• Problems for the citizen – the Computer says ‘No!”

Tom Steinberg
Demonstration of FixMyStreet.

• Shows how existing datasets can be simply re-purposed.
• “World exclusive” demo of mashup enabling users to enter house price and travel time to place of work parameters to identify areas on map that match parameters. Many uses – e.g. those seeking affordable housing within required travel time.
• Don’t try and do culture change. Implement what the user needs – culture change will follow.
• Keep things (projects) small
• Heavyweight project management (e.g. Prince 2) can be the enemy. Need agile project management and agile development.
• Stop wasting money on training; if tools are worth using then training is unnecessary.
• Don’t spend 80% of budget on culture change – double your investment in the technology instead.

Quote of the day (non-attributed)
“There is a stench of failure in traditional project management in government – and quite rightly deserved!”

Q&A (abstract)
Q: Government systems and technology designed to manage highly complex processes – e.g. tax, with incremental change in response to changes in law. Need for

A: Yes, but why can’t HMRC have simple “submit tax form” button on their website?
A:  Government already have most of the personal tax details from previous returns – why can’t they issue tax returns largely completed – citizen then note any changes, sign and return.

Conclusion
Some good presentations, and good insights into what is wrong with Government’s use (or misuse) of technology. Nothing really new – the Government can’t do agile project management, is crippled by over-large and over-complex projects and only listens to itself! Systems and datasets are designed and developed for one specific use and can’t be (easily) re-purposed. The user (citizen) remains a distant – and often annoying – dependency who generally can’t be trusted to manage any aspect of his/her life.  Government knows best and will continue to think for us.  In the mean-time, those who live and work in the real world and understand the frustrations of dealing with government departments will continue to strive to be heard and must rely on the handful of innovators and entrepreneurs in the private sector to make small and incremental improvements to their lives.      

UKGovWeb barcamp event No comments yet

I’m looking forward to attending the UKGovWeb barcamp this coming Saturday 26th January – though  not quite sure what to expect, this being my first barcamp event. However, I’m encouraged by the fact that  the organisers (and primarily Jeremy Gould) have done this sort of thing before and have avoided getting bogged down with over-prescriptive planning at the expense of delivery. Judging from the list of  presenters and topics noted on the barcamp wiki and the very active forum discussions in the Google Group,  there is enough creative energy to carry the day and make it a worthwhile learning and sharing experience for everyone.

Time and scheduling permitting, I will be presenting and discussing the work I’ve been doing these past two years in introducing social networking and Web 2.0 technologies into local government in order to  improve inter-authority collaboration and provide learning and sharing opportunities. The ultimate objective being to improve council services through smarter ways of working. The following is a brief synopsis of what I will cover:

"Social tools and technologies are changing the
KM landscape, making it far easier to connect with peers and experts,
and facilitating far more effective knowledge sharing and
collaboration. We are moving beyond the factory model of ICT, which
focussed on centralisation, standardisation and storage to a more
diverse and less regulated environment.

For some, this provides the opportunity to break out of the silo
working practices so prevalent across the public sector, and encourages
a more productive and collaborative approach to online knowledge
sharing. Others see this as undermining the integrity and quality of
established (and centralised) knowledge repositories and best practice
procedures, and equate social networking with purely leisure and
entertainment activities.

Early in 2006 I set about persuading the Improvement and Development  Agency (www.idea.gov.uk) to develop a  social networking/social media platform for local government. This was eventually launched (www.communities.idea.gov.uk)in
September 2006. The underlying purpose was to see if Web 2.0
technologies and social media applications would encourage staff
working in local authorities to share ideas, best practice and policy
initiatives across the sector, without being inhibited or constrained
by geographical location or boundaries (e.g. the local council’s
boundary). Given that most councils were being squeezed by lower
budgets on the one side, and pressure to improve services on the other,
the only way many of them could drive through any further efficiencies
was through smarter ways of working – which is how this overall
initiative was promoted.

Despite some resistance from the more senior tiers in local
government, who are still wedded to the traditional ‘command and
control’ methods for managing staff and services, the overall strategy
has been remarkably successful. The platform was launched in September
2006, and membership has grown from nothing to over 7000
registered members – and still growing. There are over 200 active
communities on the platform (which is free to join for public sector
employees) with representation from nearly all the 400+ councils in
England and Wales.

The key challenges in developing the strategy (and still to be entirely overcome)  were:

1. moving from a culture of knowledge repositories
(people-to-information) to one of knowledge collaboration
(people-to-people),

2. introducing a sceptical and mature staff demographic to the
concept of virtual collaboration using social computing/Web 2.0
facilities and

3. creating, developing and growing effective communities of
practice in local government, where command and control systems are
prevalent." 

I would be interested in hearing from anyone at the barcamp who has tried a
similar approach for encouraging shared learning, or is considering
doing so in the environment they work in. I’m happy to share the
lessons I’ve learnt, and anxious to pick up any hints and tips from
those who have already trodden this rocky path.

I’m particularly interested in any anecdotes from delegates on how they have addressed the three points mentioned above.

I’m also interested in hearing views about how important the
technology is in encouraging communities of practice or interest to
develop.

You can follow the planning for this event (and presumably the outputs from the day) on the aggregated Pageflakes page that Dave Briggs – "the Web 2.0 dynamo" – has set up.

I’ve found Nemo! No comments yet

One for the kiddies…

Public Sector Social Media Meet 1 comment

Dave Briggs has posted details of an event being arranged on 26th February as part of the Community of Practice for Social Media & Online Collaboration. This will be of potential interest to anyone working in (or for) the public sector who is using – or thinking of using – social media/social networking applications to support improved collaboration shared learning. The event is both an opportunity to see and learn how others are applying Web 2.0 technologies in their departments and as a showcase for anyone wishing to contribute information about their pet project. I’ve been a member of this particular CoP since Dave started it off and can highly recommend it to anyone who is currently struggling with the breadth and scale of the technology options available to them in this particular domain. Full details of the posting here:

Members of the Community of Practice for Social Media and Online
Collaboration are meeting up at the Learning and Skills Council
National Office in Coventry on 26th February 2008 between 10am and
3.30pm for a day of Web 2.0 fun and frolics, including:

• The benefits of using social media in the public sector, real life examples
• Building social web sites: blogs, wikis, forums and social networks
• Making social online video
• Group discussions on where the potential is for social media to
  make a real difference and a "how do I?" : Matching tools to problems
• Future developments of the CoP

If you aren’t already a member of the community and you feel it would be worthwhile attending please join us here and sign up on the wiki to say you’ll come.

Web 2.0 – The Sharepoint Fallacy 2 comments

I guess most people choose the conferences they attend with care. There’s nothing worse than having shelled out good money (my own in most instances since I work as an independent consultant) on a 2-day conference when you realise within the first day that the general level of knowledge and expertise is at best equivalent to your own, and at worst, somewhere below your own level of competence. In other words, you’re not going to learn anything you didn’t already know. I accept there are still networking opportunities to be had, but this doesn’t always compensate for the time and money you’ve already invested in attending the event.

I was intrigued therefore by the recent avalanche of fliers and emails I’ve received since the start of the New Year advertising conferences on the general topic of ‘Web 2.0 in Government’. Even more intriguing was that most of the speakers seem to be from various (UK) government departments, and not – as I might have expected – renowned and acknowledged experts from academia or the private sector. Please excuse my cynicism, but I’m not sure how much I would have gained from one particular session entitled “Web 2.0 – was is it?” that was being led by a senior civil servant from the Home Office.

On digging a little deeper into the backgrounds of some of the ‘expert’ presenters, I found a fairly common theme – they have all implemented Sharepoint somewhere within their departments (usually their Intranet).

I find this slightly worrying from a professional point of view since some delegates at these conferences may come away with the perception that Sharepoint is an exemplar for Web 2.0 technology. I’ll admit that Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 – or MOSS 2007 – is a quantum leap ahead of its predecessor (Sharepoint 2003), but if anyone seriously thinks that the integration of a few collaboration tools and an improved content management system make this a serious contender for ‘Web 2.0 application of the year’ then they are sadly misinformed.

I can’t quite put my finger on why (once again) Microsoft have got it so wrong, other than they have taken a simple concept (networking and collaboration) and made it so complex to implement. What would take weeks to set up using MOSS can be implemented on something like Ning in a matter of hours. They also appear to have missed (or misunderstood) the difference between teamwork collaboration (which MOSS can do fairly well) with the development and support of communities of interest or communities of practice etc. In particular, the cost and complexity of using MOSS for supporting unbounded communities would be phenomenal – and why would anyone bother to even contemplate doing so when there are ‘proper’ Web 2.0 products out there such as Ning (previously mentioned, Community Server, Blogtronix or the hundreds of others too numerous to mention?

Maybe it’s a case of re-applying the old adage that “no-one ever got sacked for buying IBM” to Microsoft. However, I feel that some organisations will be regretting their choice very soon, and particularly if they really want to exploit the ‘community’ approach to learning and sharing – as we’ve done for the communities of practice in local government.

So – choose your conferences well. Unless you adopt a blended learning approach, where conferences are just one of many information sources, you may not know when you are being misinformed!

Social Network Analysis – measuring the immeasurable. 4 comments