It’s just given loads of silly ideas about running our community shop as a co-op with discounts for members.
Silly programme.
I’d much rather sit at home and watch TV like everybody else, waiting for the Tesco van to pitch up with milk costing 19p per litre from Mr Farmer when it costs him 24p per litre to produce. It’s his fault for not being competitive enough.
No, Sainsbury’s should continue to dump 100s of tonnes of food a day, some of it perfectly good except for a torn label or past its display date, because that’s economic.
Why should I work for my community? It’s not like we all have to live in the same place, deal with the same snow, the same lack of services, disappearing bus service, Asda-isation of shopping and alienation.
Food miles? No, it’s all about Nectar points.
I’d much rather send the profits out of the village. And, profit it is. Feeling good about the place you live is no substitute for profit.
Silly programme. Putting silly ideas in to people’s heads.
At tonight’s parish council meeting, one of the councillors made what he might see as an unfortunate statement come 5 May, election day.
Another councillor said that the parish plan (pdf), agreed by the current council in 2008, should be reviewed at the forthcoming annual parish meeting.
The other councillor said: “Do you know, nothing in [the parish plan] has been done.”
Like a lot of public bodies, we pay for automated website testing/ranking. We use SiteMorse, which is one of the industry leaders. I know a lot of web managers swear by competitor Site Improve and swear at SiteMorse.
I’m not passing comment.
We got the results of the latest SiteMorse survey over the weekend and we’re rather pleased to come in at number 2 out of over 400 local authorities.
Number 2 is great, especially for our KPIs (!) but I’ll admit that it’s not the be-all-and-end-all.
SiteMorse tests amongst other things:
functionality: whether the site and navigation works
There’s no user testing, so usability and content don’t come under scrutiny.
SiteMorse is a good as far as it goes. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good snapshot of whether or not the site is technically robust. We consistently score in the top quartile so I guess we’re doing something right.
In a few weeks, we’re likely to get the results of the Better Connected survey from SOCITM (and a bit of a Twitterstorm!) As with SiteMorse (or any other testing, for that matter), we treat Better Connected as a guide. It’s a snapshot, by one reviewer on one day of the year.
Where BC scores is measurement against more objective scenarios. It tests content and usability. But, my experience is that the reviews against objective tests sometimes become too subjective, as reviewer personal preferences sneak in.
SOCITM says it cross-checks and reviewers argue long and hard before coming to conclusions. And, to be fair, SOCITM is willing to respond to grumbles from council webmasters.
There have also been heated arguments in the past over the validity of SOCITM/RNIB accessibility testing which more or less say all but a handful of council’s break the law. I’ll reserve judgment until I see this year’s results.
For our part, we’ve used both surveys to feed into our work improvement programme. But, neither SOCITM nor SiteMorse actually use our website on a daily basis.
There is no substitute for user testing from real people seeking service or information.
Local user testing can be quick and cheap, possibly better value. In the current climate, I wonder whether some authorities might start looking at the cost of services like SiteMorse and SOCITM subs.
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(Just to re-iterate the disclaimer on this site: any opinions here are mine and not necessarily my employers. Budget decisions are not mine!)
As my work colleagues know, I’m a bit of a TV snob.
X-Factor, Dancing on Wax or whatever is the latest flavour have passed me by.
Long ago in a galaxy far away, I used to watch Coronation Street, if only for the comedy value. Further back, Brookie was a favourite: Corkhills, the Grants, the snobs from the Wirral and the posh lawyer who fell down the stairs.
Twin Peaks, X-Files: devoted fan. And, like most of white, middle class Britain, Inspector Morse was must-see-TV.
Whilst living in the US, I must have watched every episode of Seinfeld three times. Best. Comedy. Series. Ever.
Nowadays, not much diverts my attention. Tastes change, and there’s not the same thrill of following a serial from episode one to the end of series three. There’s sport, older Simpsons …
(photo by dafyd, used under Creative Commons licence)
But, Monday nights – community meetings permitting – I become a Paxo groupie as the Balanescu Quartet‘s arrangement of the theme introduces University Challenge.
I’m there to cheer on any opponent of Oxbridge though I’ll root for Oxford Brookes (aka Oxford Poly). After all, my alma mater is less red brick and more white tile.
Rootes Hall, University of Warwick, 1979
And, I can even answer some of the questions though I can never remember the name of the Inuit homeland – Nunavut.
The spread of protest, of ideas, of revolution has been rapid, thanks in part to technology. It’s mainly satellite TV, avidly consumed in a society where other forms of media are strictly controlled.
Closer to home, mobile and web technologies have been used extensively to crowdsource demonstrations such as the tax dodger demos.
Technology, in this format, has the power to coordinate and facilitate.
On a slightly less radical tack,the Local by Social conference examined how apps can help life be better and perhaps improve the effectiveness of democracy.
Bristol CC believes and has invested in technology. It has a vibrant digital hub and benefits from an excellently wired or wireless infrastructure. Oh, for such tools in North Devon.
That buy in is at both political and official level. And, the private and third sector is heavily involved.
We heard from the Leader, Cllr Janke, about a number of neat little apps that have been developed within the environment.
There are apps like Mobile Pie which combine environmental issues and food supply. The excellent Hills are Evil provides information on hill gradients and other obstacles for those with mobility issues: a better A to B if you use a wheelchair, bike or have to manipulate a pushchair.
Data is essential to make these apps work. There’s data in many sources, much of behind official walls or tied up by proprietory systems.
As Ingrid Koehler (LGID) explained, opening up data has the power to change the nature of governance. Connections between the citizen and data can help bring about networked governance. Data is out there on spending and there is scope for apps covering transport, news and decision making. But, that’s just the start.
The development of the Knowledge Hub promises to provide a huge resource for those working within the system. Communities of Practice is already a great way to share information and ideas. KHub, according to Brendan Harris, takes this to a new level.
KHub is web 2.0. It will reduce searching time, helping efficiencies. It will also offer tools such as an extranet to help create total places websites.
Carrie Bishop from FutureGov used a couple of familiar examples of how technology enhanced engagement. The way Cory Booker, the charismatic Mayor of Newark, uses Twitter is awesome, interacting with the public, dealing with problems and issues in a direct and personal way.
It’s not just about the technology. Leadership and transparency are essential to improve engagement.
Open data is about engagement not cost saving according to Emer Coleman, GLA’s director of digital projects. States are ordered; people are messy; data is a collision of the two. Three key messages:
transparency is not just about data, it’s a way to converse and helps move from a position of command to collaboration
state won’t do it on its own, there is a store of expertise out there
journey just being: put the data out there and see what happens, you can’t control it, the interesting stuff might not attract attention
A good point came up in discussion: it might be a good idea for areas perhaps lacking a core of external expertise to sponsor a developer in residence.
In the afternoon session, Clare Reddington from iShed reported on some local examples of how data had been repurposed into both practical and artistic ways. There are interesting ways in which data can be used to educate and interact without appearing as a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet. Attaching stories to data can make it engaging.
Rich Watts showed how social media – geolocation tools like Foursquare and Gowalla – can play an important part in social service delivery. Local authorities have a role to catalyse and aggregate information. As with other sectors, shifting the information asymmetry is important to democratise services.
data is not just for developers: we all use spreadsheets, maps, visualisation and… highlighter pens; there’s three levels involved – finding facts rebalances data asymmetry (extract); interpret information (report); creating interfaces
data does more than make apps
apps not just on line: postcode newspaper, games (bump game)
not just about utility: can be digital pamphleteering, asbo-meter vs. awe-someter
hacks route around problems; accessibility, accuracy, sustainability
understand how broke before you try to fix it: Freecycle emails, just filter rather than creating a brilliant app
think of working with data like cooking: experiment
Mike McCarthy from Overlay talked about the Hills are Evil a neat route planning app, design to alleviate “pain”. From geolocation data sourced from a number of official and user grabbed datasets, the app takes account of cobbles, drop curbs and hill gradients to help people with wheelchair users, cyclists, mums with pushchairs – anyone needed to take account of physical obstacles.
It provides visualisation based on the “pain” of obstacles: tweet “pain” with #painscale. Overlay are looking to expand coverage beyond Bristol and want to share the data, creating an API. Mike’s goal is to have a button on Google Maps, giving a filter based on the user’s needs.
And so, to the app workshops…
Despite coming up with the idea of a beach app with NDC colleagues Andrew and Steve, I chose to work on the democracy app about which I’ve already written. Other apps included:
Transport: parking key: ” put in your parameters, distance, prices, spaces, restrictions etc remembers where you parked your car”
Find local:“Allotmentville” surplus crops for redistribution, searchable, on a map, date specific
Coast app: mashup of beach and coastal data
Volunteering: matching volunteers to causes
Expenditure app: “the cost of stuff” creating dynamic comment; use the community to validate and highlight the good ideas; drive down the cost of FOI; makes consultation dynamic; encourages good news; allows comparables across authorities
It sounds like the Saturday hacker session fleshed out a lot of these ideas. I’ll leave it to them to report back.
Lessons from the day:
data comes in many forms
data can create conversations between the state and people
the conversation may be messy, but it is worth it in the end
release the data, shift the data asymmetry, let the community repurpose
let the developer community create the apps; but, the state can incubate and encourage development
messy data is better than no data: the community can help clean up the data
apps can be offline: much of the population may not have access to online apps
don’t fear open data and transparency, it’s a step towards improving democracy
Compared with what’s going on in Egypt and the Maghreb, my local political and community problems pale into insignificance.
But, that does not mean that we in the democracies should rest. Our system is not without its shortcomings.
Engagement in public affairs, in particular, is not what it could be. Turnout at elections, though better than the greatest democracy of them all, is poor. Many people either feel left out of decision making or have no buy in to the system, or both.
I’m unlikely to solve this with a blog post. And, the community driven applications for mobile/web that I was discussing in Bristol yesterday probably won’t be a revolution.
I believe that many people in government share the frustration of this disconnection and distrust. We do not want to be faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats. We want our fellow citizens to feel part of a local or broader community and empowered to enable change, to make things happen without obstruction from officialdom.
Maybe I’m deluded. Maybe everyone wants to sit at home and let life happen rather than make life happen.
But, I want things to change. And, I’m prepared to act.
I’m having difficulty finding the details online, but from the print version of today’s North Devon Journal, it appears that our village bus service has been severely hit as part of cuts to subsidised services. The service now looks untenable.
Currently, the bus – Beacon service no. 372 – operates three daily round trips between Bradworthy and Barnstaple. Two of those journeys call at all the villages between Bradworthy and Bideford, including Buckland. It sound like the early morning out and mid afternoon service is for the chop.
I’ve used the service off and on over the last four years. It’s used mostly by Petroc college students who will now get a dedicated coach there and back. The public services looks like it will be reduced to one service a day, Monday to Friday.
I can cope. But our older population, of course, will suffer.
Reducing the service makes it less convenient, less attractive. This will lead to fewer users. Ultimately, in a matter of months, I can see the service will no longer be viable.
You live in a village, you expect reduced access to services. But, when you lose what services you have, it’s a bigger blow. In the last five years, we’ve lost our post office, shop and Saturday bus service. Losing the last link to town is a kick in the teeth.
One of my colleagues recently expressed amazement that I had time to publish my own newspaper.
It was a slight disappointment to explain that rather than slaving over hot metal, it was teh interweb creating it for me (or any of my legion of subscribers).
Paper.li, if you’ve not figured it out yet, assembles articles based upon your Twitter profile.
You get an edition everyday: multiple sections, archives, multimedia. Each edition is a wild and wonderful mashup of the Twittersphere, a cross section of your social network.
It’s got a widget to add to your website though not to your standard Javascript-hating WordPress blog.
My paper doesn’t quite replace my other sources of information – Twitter, aggregators, Delicious and so on – but if I’ve had a day away from the web, it gives me a nice little digest of reading material.
At work, we’ve already come across our content picked up by other people’s papers. It’s giving our content a bigger footprint, so well worth monitoring. I’m even considering creating our own “paper”: don’t tell Mr Pickles!
When I was growing up, this was what futurologists said newspapers would be like in the 21st century! All I ask for is it to be delivered to my kitchen table in Berliner format.
Now, if you excuse me, I’ve got to put tomorrow’s edition to bed.
A couple of customer experiences in the last few days got me thinking about systems and processes. I’ve also seen this post pricking the notion of transactional websites.
Hands up who uses webforms that fire off emails; the forms not talking to your customer relations management system.
As a consumer, I’m with the Tesco Mobile man says: “All I want is a no frills service at a good price.”
However, as someone partly responsible for what the customer doesn’t see, I want systems that streamline things for the frontline staff as well as a proper interface between the front end and the back end.
I applied for a temporary event notice yesterday to an unnamed local authority (hint, I don’t work there).
I have an inkling what their back end system is like. It’s probably very efficient and helps the licensing team get the job done with minimum fuss and at a competitive rate.
However, what I saw was:
no web form to apply (Hello, EU Services Directive!)
an 8 page pdf application form, poorly thought out in terms of me filling it out (a form field Word document would do; hey, you can do fields in pdfs too!)
I had to download the form, squeeze in my details with black pen and take two copies: one as my receipt (!) and one for the police.
Oh, and I had to pay by cheque.
Meanwhile, when parking at Tiverton Parkway at 6.30 am on Saturday morning, I used my account with a certain parking scheme.
The system:
recognised my phone, car and registration
knew my credit card details (which I verified by giving the 3 digit code on the back of the card)
took my payment
sent me an SMS confirmation immediately
sent me a receipt by email immediately
I can have a guess at what the back end systems of the service provider look like. I’ll also wager that the system was more expensive than the local authority system, but I’ll also bet it’s providing much better ROI.
It certainly provides a better customer experience. Made me forget the pain of paying £4 to park.
I’m not sure where I’m going here, except that I’m probably about to have a pop at local authority system providers, non-strategic decision making and disconnected e-Government initiatives. I’ll refrain.
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Disclaimer: the suppliers mentioned here may or may not supply my employer. Any link is incidental. This is not a testimonial for their services.
Already a significant proportion of #ukgc11 participants have blogged, tweeted or otherwise shared their experiences. I’ve skimmed through a lot of blog posts about sessions I missed as well as those I attended. There’s even extensive video including shots of me butting in so rudely in Andrew Beeken’s video tutorial. Sorry, Andrew!
So excuse me if some what’s here is repetition, but I want to get down thoughts to share with colleagues back at work. I’m also trying to draw out some personal actions.
Flickr and other neat tools
Dan Slee from Walsall BC has blogged and spoken extensively about using Flickr in local government. He teamed up in session 1 with Andy Mabbett who talked about Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap and how public sector organisations can tap into these enthusiast run projects. Together this was a session about how government, not exclusively local government, can utilise social media to engage with local or other groups.
Walsall BC has tapped into the local Flickr group where people post a range of photos relevant to the locality. Dan explained that many localities will already have groups established though there are plenty of councils that have established their own.
The Walsall group meets regularly and the council has engaged with it, invited members to the Town Hall on Saturday mornings for discussion and photo shoots. Walsall has since last summer used group photos on its website. Using local, Creative Commons licensed material can potentially save thousands in photographer fees.
Andy said that councils can also use Flickr as a photo store allowing others to consume. He said that councils should make use of Creative Commons licenses so that others are free to use, subject to attribution (depending on the licence selected). This also allows use on Wikipedia.
On the flip side, Wikipedia Commons is a good source for free to use photos on council websites etc. (We’re doing this to a limited extent with Wikipedia and Flickr where we can’t source our own content.)
Councils need to know about Wikipedia both as a consumer/reuser and to protect reputation. Wikipedia has rules about the subject of an article editing that article. If it’s purely factual, edits can be made. Andy explained that the best course of action is to use an account that identifies the editor as a representative of the council and to use the article discussion facility. As with other socmed tools then, engage online. I guess you can always take the discussion offline if necessary.
The OpenStreetMap project is probably less known than Flickr and Wikipedia. The project’s aim is for individuals to “map” the globe. Andy explained that the project is about collecting data; the mapping is an incidental by-product.
We can assist by opening up datasets.
Lessons:
Flickr is an excellent resource for sharing, storing and engaging; use groups to tap into local networks
don’t forget that Wikipedia authors will have something to say about you; monitor, discuss if there are factual or reputation issues; reuse material where appropriate
share data with OpenStreetMap and let the volunteers do the mashing
Cheap and effective video production
Next up was Andrew Beeken, City of Lincoln‘s ever active and innovative webteam. Andrew had been asked to give a presentation on cheap and cheerful video production for councils (applicable to other bodies too, I should think).
Andrew showed a couple of examples that he had put together for the council. He took the view that video was particularly useful for “how to’s” for new services as well as the obvious openings and news items. Lincoln use the content on the web and on video screens in council reception areas.
We had a good discussion about the benefits and downsides of cheap options and how to overcome some of the cultural obstacles that many have and will face. Video is not core, but with good planning and a small investment, Andrew showed how he’s delivering great value.
In the margins of the day, I had conversations mostly about open data, WordPress, Digital TV and the under performance of proprietorial systems. It’s both encouraging and depressing to hear that we’re sharing many of the same problems, in Whitehall, town hall, unitary, district and met councils. But, the #ukgc11 team is working hard to innovate and change.
3 Simons and WordPress
After lunch, I went to the 3 Simons presentation about how WordPress has developed from a blogging platform to a true CMS.
The new Defra site is a thing of beauty. We got some insight how WordPress is being used. To the viewer it looks and feels like a coherent site. But, it is effective a multi-user, with ownership of the various sections. So it’s a proper permissions based CMS.
Defra took a brave leap in launching this project. The site replaces a legacy site built with 1995 technology. What WordPress and the team at Puffbox have created may not be groundbreaking in technological terms, but as a proof of concept for the next generation of government websites is a revolution. As revolutionary as anything else is the use outside hosting.
Lessons:
open source can work, but it’s not free
if you’re going to re-launch, re-invent
Sex, drugs and social data (I think that was the title)
It wouldn’t have been 2011 without a session on open data. I missed out the sessions covering some of the more nuts and bolts stuff. Instead, I went to Hadley Beeman‘s session on making data social.
At the outset, I have to say that the session assumed that we’ve already got all this data out there. Of course, there are still plenty of public bodies which haven’t even thought about their data publication strategy save for meeting the government edicts on expenditure publication.
Hadley was concerned though with how data will be consumed. What are we expecting people to do with it? There’s bunch of numbers that will frighten away your average punter.
Hadley wanted the data to tell a story. There were plenty of views around the room on how we might do this – from using visualisations to getting data embedded into the school curriculum to freeing it up to a Wiki.
Lessons:
everyone needs an open data strategy (what, why, how, who and when)
what stories can data tell?
Blogging
To round off the day, Ingrid Koehler led a session on blogging for the community. For me, this was the best session of the day. Some of the public sector’s most conspicuous bloggers were present, which led to a great discussion.
David Allen Green, one of the non-government participants, summed up some of the essential elements of successful blogging:
use short paragraphs
linking
credibility
I think there was a recognition around the room that blogging is a great tool within the public sector as it helps share best practice and ideas. (I’d have liked a little more discussion about using blogging as an outward conversational tool, but I sensed the session wasn’t going to go that way.)
Communities of Practice came up in discussion as it has the facility (poorly used) to host blogs. There was some thought that those slightly nervous about publication should try it out in this closed loop.
Towards the end, Louise Kidney spoke about the #lgovsm Twitter discussion group and ways to capture the thoughts that come out of the Friday slots. From all accounts, it’s already a phenomenon and well worth following.
Ingrid has summarised the conclusions neatly on her blog.
Lessons:
(see Ingrid’s blog)
otherwise, I will blog (and cross post on CoP)
I’ve got an action at work!
That’s enough content (ed.)
I’ve now spent about 48 hours reflecting on Saturday. It’s time to go back to work. It might be difficult now that some of that energy has dissipated. But, there’s some actions to follow that I hope will keep the day reasonable fresh and relevant:
share the experience with colleagues (share posts, links)
make incremental changes
encourage others to take part in future unconferences
To the best of my knowledge, there were no political or elected participants at Saturday’s event (I might be wrong). I know this is an inward discussion to many extents (though we had non-gov types from suppliers to consultants and at least one lawyer), but I do think we need to expose some of the great things being discussed to our political masters.
Posted by Pete McClymont 
Allotment 5½ 