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 Thursday, December 10th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Bad stuff, Data nitwittery, Identity, Official fibbing/bad stats, Pertinent Art, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data.
IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he [...]

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 Thursday, November 26th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Pertinent Art

The excellent emerging tradition (in the tradition of Eclectech) of pertinent art as constructive critique of ill-advised emerging policies continues:

(Tweeted by JP)

WRITTEN ON Saturday, November 21st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Pertinent Art

The winner of the Pertinent Art competition at the 1st popular European unConference was Open Rights Group’s Statebook.

Runners up included the Woberator from Holland, which breaks Ministries’ resistance to FoI requests by spamming them, and Evasori.info, the Italian mashup which maps tax evaders.

WRITTEN ON Saturday, November 21st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Pertinent Art, Political engagement

In another first for the Malmo09 First popular unConference on eGovernment, Britain’s most senior official responsible for ICTs addresses the people of Europe via video Twitter.

In his quest for a lingua franca he flirts with his fluent Farsi but, in an unexpected and courageous move, chooses to express himself in contempory Swedish. Exemplying the [...]

WRITTEN ON Saturday, November 21st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Pertinent Art, Political engagement, Power of Information

Ivo Gormley directed of the cult hit film UsNow which showed how crowdsourced and participative activity is changing life, from couchsurfing through football. It then asks the question what all this means for government. “Goverment is the most slow to change, which is paradoxical because they have the most to gain.”

WRITTEN ON Saturday, November 21st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Pertinent Art, Political engagement

The First Popular European e-Government unConference may have claimed another first with a presentation by a senior government Minister in PechaKucha format. Our adhoc replacement projector arrangement did not really do Mats Odell’s slides justice; you can see them here (pdf). The text of his talk is here (pdf). Many thanks to Mats and his [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, November 19th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Pertinent Art, Political engagement

With Ministerial and industry declarations echoing in the conference centre across town Donagh and I are in Garaget in uptown Malmo, preparing for the first popular European e-government conference. We’ve got plenty of “starting point” material and pertinent art. If and when people come tonight we’ll work out a running order together for the unConference [...]

WRITTEN ON Sunday, November 15th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Pertinent Art

Oh man. Our soon-to-be-LCC-accredited-Master-of-Design Donagh has brought the IdealGov themed “pertinent art” idea to life:

We’ll be voting on which ones we like best at the live and spontaneous 1st Popular European e-Government Happening in Malmo Sweden next week. Still time to send in your pertinent art ideas – either on the blog or mail [...]