These are my links for July 23rd through July 30th:
Legislation.gov.uk – Incredibly useful webiste from the National Archives. All you need to know about UK legislation – and available as linked data!
GovMetric: Enabling you to understand how customers see your service delivery – GovMetric enables you to listen to the Voice of the Customer across all contact channels, to prioritise which areas to improve and to measure improvements through near real-time reporting. Click on the sector tabs on the right to find out more.<br />
If you have access to YouTube you can see how one of our customers, East Herts Council, has made 18% efficiency savings using GovMetric.
6 Key Metrics for a Social Media Measurement Dashboard – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – Because there aren't any truly robust tools that go beyond monitoring social media to measuring your social media efforts, you'll likely need to create your own dashboard for now. This website gives six key metrics that should be part of your social media measurement dashboard.
What is the Knowledge Hub? – I'm grateful to my friend and colleague Dave Briggs for posting some information about the Knowledge Hub – a project that seems to have consumed my very existence for 18 months now, and getting closer to becoming reality. It will take online Communities of Practice capabilities to the next level by linking data intelligence with conversational space. Watch this space!
As some of my regular readers will know, I’m involved in a major new project to deliver the ‘next generation’ community of practice platform for UK local government organisations, see previous blog posts about the ‘Knowledge Hub’. The current platform has been (and continues to be) a huge success, with over 63,000 users and more than 1,300 active CoPs, working towards various outcomes but with a common goal to improve public service. These will eventually be migrated to the new platform when it goes live early in 2011.
The new platform will use open source software and delivered using an agile development process (a series of Sprints and Scrum workshops), which means incremental but rapid delivery of features and enhancements. More about this in a future post.
Having been heavily involved in the architecture and design of the current platform, I was caused to reflect on some of the key design characteristics that need to be considered as we progress to the new platform. In fact, we should be able to learn from the mistakes (yes, there were quite a few) in the design of the original platform and ensure these characteristics are optimised for the new environment. Not all of this is hard-wired stuff, but it should cause developers and system administrators to ponder on whether their design solution will support the usability and sociability requirements needed to encourage community engagement, collaboration, reciprocity of knowledge and an inherent trusted community space. Understanding the users and their needs is a key starting point.
Users typically want to know whether they can find and do what they want, when they want, and that their interactions are comfortable. The eight questions that follow raise the typical concerns expressed by most users. The answer to these questions provides heuristicsfor developers, system administrators and community moderators/facilitators. In conjunction with guidelines, they are useful for guiding the development process and planning evaluations. They will be used as we begin the development and design for the Knowledge Hub.
User Questions
Usability Concerns
Sociability Concerns
1. Why should I join this community?
Does the community have a clear and meaningful name? Is there a clear description of the community’s purpose? Is the content attractively presented (design, colour, graphics etc.? Will the site be updated regularly
What title and content will communicate the community’s purpose effectively and attract people?
2. How do I join or leave?
Are the instructions for registering clear? Is it a short procedure? Is there a statement ensuring privacy and security?
Should this be an open or a closed community? How sensitive are the issues and participants?
Do we want to control who joins?
3. What are the rules?
Are policies clearly and concisely worded and appropriately positioned?
What polices are needed? Should a facilitator guide and enforce rules? Do we need disclaimers ort other statements of intent?
4. How do I read and send messages?
Has appropriate support been defined and provides (e.g. templates, emoticons, FAQs, single messages or digests for listservers?
Is support needed for newcomers? Should the system facilitate sending private and group messages?
5. Can I do want I want easily?
What capabilities will best meet communications needs (e.g. different formats for information, such as Web pages , FAQs, content variation; search facilities, effective help at the appropriate level; private communication, etc.)?
What is the best way to ensure that the community is a congenial place, one where people can do what they want to do? What are the communication needs of the community?
6. Is the community safe?
What are the best ways to protect personal information, secure transaction processing, support private discussion, and protect members from aggressive behaviour?
Will the community need a facilitator to ensure appropriate behaviour? What level of confidentiality and security is needed?
7. Can I express myself as I wish?
Will users need, want or expect emoticons, avatars, content icons, a seamless link to private email, Web pages etc.?
What kind of communication capabilities does a community with this purpose require, and how should they be supported?
8. Why should I come back?
How often and by what method should content be changed (e.g. news, broadcast, provocateur to stimulate discussion, etc.)?
What will entice people to return on a regular basis?
These are my links for July 16th through July 21st:
Inspirational Uses | London DataStore – The GLA itself is doing some of the most inspirational stuff around opening up government data – the London Data store is a model for sharing data and working with developers to make sure that data is opened and shared in a useful way.<br />
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But they've also been collecting examples of inspirational uses of London data. Useful, visually pleasing or just really, really interesting (and sometimes all three).
- Peer Assist – Peer Assists are events which bring together individuals to share their experiences, insights and knowledge on an identified challenge or problem.
Video Sitemaps – Get Started with Video Sitemaps – Sitemaps help get your videos indexed and improve their visibility in Google Search. Better yet, they’re easy to implement and can be used by anyone with videos on the web.
10 Tips for Corporate Blogging : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum – There is a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to improving corporate blogs, but here we've narrowed down the key elements that companies should focus on. Here are 10 tips for corporate bloggers hoping to make a positive splash in their communities.
These are my links for July 7th through July 15th:
Martha Lane Fox want all citizens of working age online – A noble aim, but is it a realistic target? After all there is:<br />
(a) no budget<br />
(b) no incentive for retailers to provide cheap or subsidised access<br />
(c) dogged reluctance from some to use the internet (even if it was free)<br />
(d) little support for novice users once they are connected<br />
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I bet the phishing sites and spammers will have field day if the target is achieved. All those new (and naive) punters. Come to think of it, they really do have an incentive to see this target met – maybe they are a source of potential funding?
Steve Dale at KIMPS09 | The best of Knowledge Management Information Site – Steve Dale is developing the Knowledge Hub for IDeA, as reported here socialreporter.com However it is proving difficult to explain to people that it isn’t just a big knowledge warehouse. Steve reflects on how to explain, at the KIMPS09 knowledge management conference.
Armchair Auditor – Armchair Auditor lets you see how your council spends your money. Sometimes you want a high-level view of how much money is being spent by each council service or paid to each supplier. Other times you want to examine the details right down to individual payments. Armchair Auditor lets you do both.
inkdroid › the 5 stars of open linked data – Tim Berners Lee explains the 5 stars of open linked data, where each star represents a further step in the journey towards publishing data which is compliant with open linked data standards. Also a neat and simple description of linked data, ontologies and vocabularies using a packet of chips (crisps) to illustrate the points.
It’s taken a while for me to get around to posting an update to my “Knowledge Hub Part 1” post, mainly as a result of being fully immersed in the technology procurement process these past several months. This phase is now almost complete and we will shortly be starting on the actual development of the Hub, so now seems to be an opportune moment to remind everyone what this Knowledge Hub thing is, and to give a first airing of the accompanying video (commissioned from Learning Pool (thanks guys). The following is brief summary, partially lifted from an explanation I produced for http://www.local.gov.uk/knowledgehub – and in plain English as far as I’m able:
What is it?
The Knowledge Hub is essentially the next generation development of the highly successful local government CoP platform (a previous project of mine). It will replace the existing infrastructure with new open technology facilitating integration with mainstream social media applications (for example Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN) and the rapid assimilation of new applications and web services as they emerge. This will enable, for example, much better personalisation and permeability of content. In addition Knowledge Hub will provide facilities that allow data on performance to be combined and shared (so called “linked-data”) potentially providing the framework to deliver the wider move to transparent government
Why is it important?
As the UK moves towards economic recovery it is expected there will be greater demands on local government to:
continue to demonstrate cost-effective delivery methods
be ‘fleeter of foot’ in gathering and using sector knowledge, not only to learn from others’ experience but also to accelerate the development and implementation of innovative delivery.
The strategy is based on the premise that knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work can be found within the local government community. Unleashed, this knowledge an be collectively focused on excellent public service delivery.
The overarching outcome of the Knowledge Hub programme is that by 2012/13, the culture of local government will be one of collaborative knowledge generation. This will involve everyone learning, sharing and problem-solving using a technology platform provided by LG Improvement & Development but owned by the local government sector.
While a working title of “Knowledge Hub” is being used it is perhaps more appropriate to use the metaphor of a dynamo-powered light, which shines brighter and illuminates the way more clearly the more involvement there is from participants and users.
What is the scope?
The Knowledge Hub will comprise three interdependent elements:
(a) Technology:
This includes the systems, software applications, hosting and service support.
Support for and development of culture and user behaviours that will foster the dynamic evolution of knowledge sharing and innovation through improved evolutionary networks of collaboration.
Some of the key features
The Knowledge Hub will not replicate or replace any similar initiatives currently being used, developed or proposed by individual councils or partnerships. Rather, the KHub will bring together information about innovation and good practice from any number of these sources to help the development of the whole sector.
It will be a web-based service and will be accessible through any device with web capability, including mobile phones and PDAs.
The technology and systems will support ‘agile’ development, allowing new functionality and services to be added quickly.
It will find and follow people with same/similar interests, leading to opportunities for collaboration coproduction and partnership working.
It will provide visualisation tools, e.g. ‘heat maps’ showing emerging trends and ideas.
It will enable performance data to be shared between councils for comparison and benchmarks.
It will have a ‘serendipity engine’ which will identify related ideas and themes.
It will aggregate and integrate conversations and content from different sources and enable key themes to ‘bubble up’ to the top.
It will support open standards and be available as an open platform with a published application programming interface (API) enabling third party developers and social innovators to create new applications, widgets and mashups.
These are my links for June 18th through July 4th:
Design Issues for the World Wide Web – These statements of architectural principle explain the thinking behind semantic web specifications. These are personal notes by Tim Berners-Lee: they are not endorsed by W3C. They are aimed at the technical community, to explain reasons, provide a framework to provide consistency for for future developments, and avoid repetition of discussions once resolved.
UNICEF seeking a CoP facilitator – A topic close to my heart having developed the CoP platform for UK local government (http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk). With over 1000 facilitated CoPs working towards improvement in public services, there may be some facilitators looking for a new or additional challenge for a very worthwhile cause.
Open data – Salford City Council – Salford has a range of open data feeds. A lot of these are around council decisions and council meetings. The requirement to publish this information has been overshadowed a little bit by the announcement of the requirement to publish all expenditure over £500. So it's great to see Salford's example of a nice clean page with lots of different feeds covering governance arrangements, job openings, councillor information and an always useful "what's on" listings.
Seeing Standards – The standards represented here are among those most heavily used or publicized in the cultural heritage community, though certainly not all standards that might be relevant are included. A small set of the metadata standards plotted on the main visualization also appear as highlights above the graphic. These represent the most commonly known or discussed standards for cultural heritage metadata.
Martha Lane Fox appointed as UK Digital Champion – Encouraging letter from the PM. I just hope that MLF doesn't get ground down by the bureaucracy of government. The 'Big Society' agenda requires speed and agility to develop some momentum.
