I do like the idea behind this new web service from the Department of Communities and Local Government which tells you about your Local Area Agreement.
Local Area Agreements (LAA) are negotiated between a local council (plus the local strategic partnership, like BeBirmingham) and central government. Together they create a list of key improvements [...]

Recruitment for government jobs is a great opportunity to demonstrate how letting data free can improve the quality of government. Why do I start with such a blunt statement. This post pointed me to the growing discussion here on Tom Watson’s site about how recruitment in government might be given the Power of [...]

This extract on skating over ideas and invest in some deeper thinking comes from a speech to new graduates at The Pacific Northwest College of Art. Susan S Szenasy , editor of the Metropolis Magazine told the students:
As artists and communication designers you can choose to be the
outriders of society. Like the scouts in [...]

When I speak to council officers and civil servants about community engagement the conversation often conjures up mental images of docking space stations.

The officers are sincerely trying to picture interesting ways to approach the community, connect with it, create an airlock where they and the community can talk and then back into their own orbiters, [...]

A chance to buy cards and support North Birmingham Community Arts biscuit buying. (Contact nbca@blueyonder.co.uk) Reminds me a little of graphiquillan’s Misheard Birmingham badges.

This piece by Stephen Fry in defense of the BBC is well worth a read:

What is the alternative, a ghettoised, balkanised electronic bookshop
of the home, no stations, no network, just a narrowcast provider
spitting out content on channels that fulfil some ghastly and wholly
insulting demographic profile: soccer mum, trailer trash, teenager,
gay, black music lover, Essex [...]

After the suspension of a civil servant for blogging Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson has finally got some guidelines up to help civil servants join the online conversation. They are based on the civil service code and a big conversation which was encouraged by Tom on his blog and evolved into Richard Allan’s task [...]

Dave Briggs has done an excellent job of tracking the pending demise of the Lichfield based ICELE: the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy.

A while ago I wrote about frustrations with organisations who wanted to get people blogging (great) yeh) but always on constrained platforms of their own making (which of course are likely [...]