Archive for the ‘e-Government’ Category

2011 UK Census

I had a meeting at the end of last year with a colleague who is working on promoting this year’s census. The census collects data that a lot of government funding is based on (as well as being an opportunity for deeply conformist types to think they are sticking it to the man) and so councils are obviously keen to ensure that as many people fill it in as possible. This year’s census is the first one that can be completed online, which is one reason why my colleague was interested in how she might promote it through social media

More – Promoting the census with social media

Placing the User at the Centre

Digital Birmingham are taking part in an EU funded Project Net-Eucen which is aiming to place the User at the centre of design and innovation.  We are interested in hearing from people who have some knowledge of User Centric Innovation or Design from different backgrounds.  Ideally from, academia, the public sector, private sector, volunteers who will assist us in shaping the future of a social issue or problem. More – User Centric Innovation

6 October 2010 – Rich Mix, London E1

See IT in action demonstrates how councils and partners can use technology to transform the delivery of public services, improve outcomes, and help achieve more for less.

This is a free event, on Wednesday 6 October 2010, supported by Communities and Local Government, local authorities and civil society partners.

It is a must-attend day for all those who commission or manage local public services, who are looking to make their work more efficient, cheaper, and targeted at supporting those most in need. It is your opportunity to ensure you are ready, well informed and have the contacts necessary to meet the challenges facing those delivering today’s public services.

For more information and to register, please click here.

I received a fab little video this morning from LGTV in which Martha Lane Fox was being interviewed on the benefits of being digitally included, as part of her ‘Race Online’ campaign.  Its great to see someone so close to Central Government sending out such powerful messages. Take a look at the full interview here

We’ve been looking at the Nesta – Make It Local call for local authorities to release public data in a linked way.

Make It Local

“Make it Local aims to encourage collaboration between local authorities and digital media developers, to provide innovative, web-based services for their communities.”

Friends will know that this gets us very excited.

It certainly seems to have enthused a lot of other people too, judging by some of the conversations online and offline I’ve been having in the past week or so. And, having attended WMRO‘s excellent Open Data: Challenges and Opportunities event the other week I’m sure that the region is going to be entering some great bids. More – Nesta – Make It Local event this Friday

France & Germany line up to bash Internet Explorer

Here’s a link to the article that might be of interest to you!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/18/browser_hole/

I’ve just read an interesting article from the BBC site which makes reference to London’s attempt to free up some of the public sector data in order to see how people might use it.  Birmingham is doing a similar project called Timely Information – but I hadn’t realised until now that 4ip Channel 4′s innovation fund are offering a £200,000 reward for the best of the ideas that come out of the mashup.  If I were a hacker, that would give me another good reason to work into the small hours.  And when you’re analysing the released datasets, why not check out the Council’s ‘Be Heard’ database.  This is an online portal for all of the City’s consultation.  Eg. what people want.  Hackers, you have the data, and you also have a font of information from the public, on what services they need or would like to see developed. Check out the piece from the BCC here

Well, it may be 5 years too late but at last Central Government has decided to catch up with the times and revise the primary school curriculum to include Internet Safety and prepare our children for the digital age.

It has long been the belief of IT educationalists that there is no point in restricting young people’s access to the wealth of information held on “t’internet”.  But, wouldn’t it be better preparing our future generations by providing them with the knowledge and understanding of not only the benefits, but the dangers of “t’internet” and enabling them to make informed decisions and judgements for themselves.  Because we all know, if you tell a young person not to do something … the likelihood is that they WILL go and do exactly what you’ve told them not to!

In Birmingham we are currently trying to find ways of measuring our usage of Social Media tools. Suggestions we have are based very much around measuring the number of times an organisation Tweets, how many followers it has, how many comments are on its blog, what the analytics are, etc.

Now, my level of interest in such things hovers somewhere around zero, to be honest. But the discussion did make me think about another way in which we could categorise our use of social networking tools, particularly in relation to other means of communication.

For instance, if we look at how widespread the adoption of a communications tool might be, we see quite a range. Most organisations right now have individual enthusiasts who have set up their own social networking presence, often without the knowledge of the wider organisation. We can compare that with a communications tool such as the telephone which is available to anybody who has contact with the public. And in between these two ends of the range, there’s another which is typified by one or more employees within each section or department being given the responsibility of using that particular tool. More – Social Media and Councils: A Fragmented Adhocracy?