WRITTEN ON Friday, December 18th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Government Procurement, Ideal Goverment - project, Ideal government IT strategy, Identity, Pertinent Art, Policies, Political engagement, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

It’s time to say what we want from government IT.
Let’s do this together. Let’s say “wouldn’t it be better if” about how tech affects transparency, costs and the quality of public services and how they affect our lives.
@ntouk and I have long since been fed up with what one senior Whitehall official yesterday called [...]

WRITTEN ON Monday, December 7th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Political engagement, We told you so..., What do we want?

In light of the Smarter Government launch Ive been racking my brains for that Morike quote. Can only find Hegel on the German Wikipedia
die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts)
But that’ll be it. As dusk beckons, Minerva’s owl takes flight. After many years, and with [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, November 27th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, What do we want?

@NTOUK and @williamheath are heartily fed up with half-baked government IT strategies.
Having to read the current proposal is the last straw. Modernising Govt promised the same in 1999. The 2009 draft Government ICT Strategy – New world, new challenges, new opportunities seems oddly detached from the pressing discussions under way about public services renewal. It [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, November 26th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Pertinent Art

Loved every minute I attended of the mypublicservices09 event. After Malmo09 that’s two DIY public-services events in two weeks. They feel natural, creative, fun and important.
It struck me that this time the powerful voices of the enegetic idealists were joined by a good number of public servants. Together we spoke of the same things in [...]

WRITTEN ON Monday, October 13th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Transformational Government, What do we want?, Wibbipedia/MindtheGap

Let’s admit it – three years into “Transformational Government”, amidst all the data nitwittery, nationalisation, general control phreakery and wars on terror and various forms of self-medication government has some quite exciting things going on thanks to technology.
It’s not just the online tax disc, is it?

How about
David Miliband blog
DirectionlessGov
Identity developments: Higgins, InfoCards, [...]

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 BY Adam McGreggor AND STORED IN Across the Board, Political engagement, What do we want?

As some people may have noticed, mySociety have recently launched another website. This one, WhatDoTheyKnow is a Freedom of Information filer, I’ll let you read the blurb on the site about how it works…
My efforts on this have mainly being collecting contact details for the ever-growing list of public bodies, to whom the Freedom of [...]

WRITTEN ON Monday, January 14th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Foundation of Trust, Political engagement, What do we want?

How I wish it were 1 April, but it’s not. Three jaw-dropping news items today, as parody becomes reality faster than we can make it up…

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 BY Philippe AND STORED IN Across the Board

The forthcoming trial of the mobile phone Oyster could signal the emergence of m-commerce in the Public sector.
As UK citizens are becoming more accustomed to cash-less payment systems like “chip and pin” and combined Oyster and credit cards, the market for m-commerce may be ripe. From a public sector perspective, authorities and particularly local [...]

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 BY Adam McGreggor AND STORED IN Across the Board, Political engagement

A thought (that I’ve been advocating for the best part of 15years) struck me, again, last night whilst listening to a Hansard Society Debate (the panelists were Sir George Young, Bart.; Polly Toynbee (The Guardian); Andrew Hawkins (CommunicateResearch); and Phil Cowley (Univ. of Nottingham))
It’s an idea which, if implemented would solve the issues that cause [...]

WRITTEN ON Sunday, October 15th, 2006 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, What do we want?

Among the articles prohibited from importation in accordance with the law of the People’s Republic of China are
Printed matter, films, photographs, gramophone records, cinematographic films, tapes (audio and video), compact discs etc which are detrimental to the political, economic, cultural and moral interests of China
I guess that rules out most Hollywood movies, and much rubbish [...]