Open data good – plus open comms even better

The Data.Gov.UK project to open up government data for re-use to public benefit has produced a flurry of comment ranging from geeky ecstacy to scepticism about how far it can be used in practice for better service development. On Twitter of course. There’s even mainstream suggestions of dis-benefit.  The Telegraph started it’s report:

Communities could find themselves being “ghettoised” by a new Government website which will provides facts and figures about every aspect of life in Britain, its creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee has admitted.

Dominic Campbell of the consultancy Futuregov was in the thick of the commenting. In favour of the project, but irritated by the inward-looking way the discussion was going. (read more...)

Social media for public services: how about an Open Innovation Exchange?

The Crowdsourced Council event earlier this week was for me interesting at three levels. First for the idea expressed in the name – that councils should use a variety of different methods to find out people’s opinions, engage with (read more...)

Open government isn’t easy

The Politico blog offers us an update on the Obama Administration’s open government initative to be transparent, participatory, collaborative. On the one hand the call for federal employees fell a bit flat – possibly because they didn’t get official instructions. On the other hand the public brainstorming produced, among other things, further campaigning for marijuana legalisation. “End the Imperial Presidency” got most votes. Will Downing Street be tempted to emulate?

Asking people how to run open government (US only)

In January US President Barack Obama circulated memos to public agencies saying Government should be transparent, participatory, collaborative. Yesterday senior adviser Valerie Jarrett announced on the White House blog how that will be put into practice …. through an open process:

Today we are kicking off an unprecedented process for public engagement in policymaking (read more...)

Join us for the social collaboration game at SHINE

If you want to find out how social technology can be used collaboratively to solve neighbourhood problems, do join me and colleagues for a lively session on May 16 in London at the SHINE unconference for social entrepreneurs. You’ll find details here.

“If you want to do it quickly, do it alone. If you want to do it well, do it together.” – African proverb.
Join the Social Collaboration Game on day two of SHINE. Everyone’s talking about the advantages of collaboration, open-source working and social technology to drive through social change. But how do you make it work in practice? Based on real life problems that SHINE participants are facing, get ready for a two hour game where you’ll have to crunch problems, make quick decisions and find ways to work together to get the job done. You will be doing that within the framework of an imagined but realistic neighbourhood where people are trying to tackle problems innovatively as recession bites. There’ll be competing interests to balance, barriers to getting what you need from partnerships,…

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Common Purpose: the perils of being closed

Some years back I went on a course run by Common Purpose, during which over a year a group of us made visits to schools, prisons, newspaper offices and the like, and took part in discussions all in the pursuit of civil leadership.
It was pleasant enough, and a chance to meet people from different sectors and professions, but I was never clear quite how we became “leaders” (or that I wanted to).
The Common Purpose founder Julia Middleton evidently had strong views on how things should be done, so it definitely wasn’t in my experience a very bottom-up sort of organisation. There was an online system which Common Purpose “graduates” were occasionally exhorted to use, but it was (and is) very Web 1.0 and behind a login.
Back in 2004 I did have some discussion with staff about how blogging might be useful as part of their communications and work with groups … but the open style didn’t appeal. I said I couldn’t see how you could develop innovative projects for public benefit unless you were prepared to engage publicly, and wrote Effective civil leadership won’t develop behind a login.
Last year the then manager of the online network contacted me and others to say the organisation was being targeted by critical bloggers, and accused of being a secret society promoting a whole range of evils. What should they do? My advice was simple – open up, start blogging back. Encourage your staff and graduates to do so. Still didn’t appeal. (see correction at the end of his post)
I’ve just received a note from Common Purpose alerting me to a programme tonight on Radio 5 live (podcast here), with an accompanying article on the BBC site, quoting former naval officer Brian Gerrish, who leads a campaign against Common Purpose:

It’s a secret society for careerists. The key point is that the networking is done out of sight of the general public.
If you actually look at the documented evidence as to what Common Purpose is doing, they are clearly not just a training provider. They are operating a highly political agenda, which is to create new chosen leaders in society.

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Government needs advice? Just open up and ask.

The blog of the IDeA Strategy and Development Unit may sound dry, but it provides an open window into the workings (and not workings) of local government. It is about Policy and Performance.
The other day there was a great post on the 10 local government social media myths including “it’s all about the tools”, “it’s only the young who use social media”, “It’s too hard” and “It’s easy” … all neatly disposed of.
Ingrid Koehler has an insightful piece on Does digital inclusion mean social inclusion? and I have now just seen Read on if you dare! from Ingrid’s colleague Adrian.

Are you brave enough to read on? You are about to read reports of a meeting at CLG (Department of Communities and Local Government), so if I accidentally transcend the bounds of confidentiality, you may have to crunch on a cyanide tablet. Or I might have to self-destruct. However, since it was about providing information to the public, any over-concern with secrecy would be less likely to attract the attention of the secret than the irony police.

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How Open helps a big player learn collaboration

Bids are now in for the £900,000 Digital mentor programme, including one from the Voicebox consortium whose open approach I enthused about recently.  I tried to explain there why I thought that constructing the bid through open meetings and a blog site produced better ideas and (read more...)

If you believe in open collaboration, support Voicebox

The deadline is nearing for submission of bids to Government  to run the Digital Mentor network throughout the UK. I’ve no doubt who I think should win – the Voicebox consortium headed by UK online centres.
It’s partly that they have a lot of the necessary skills – but even more because of the way that they have put their bid together, by doing the whole thing in the open. (read more...)

Is live streaming invasion of privacy?

Excellent launch last night of The Digital Health Service at a Demos event, where founder Gavin O’Carrol explained workshops and other services to help us toward wellbeing rather than stress in using technology. Digital whiz Joanne Jacobs used her netbook to livestream to Mogulus, provoking interesting discussion on openness vs invasion of privacy, because Joanne didn’t ask, just did it. That’s good for a workshop. Tweets here.