WRITTEN ON March 12th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Power of Information, Transformational Government
Tom Watson spoke at the Trans-Gov Tower08 event, with a theme of open-source government. Apart from some website consolidation (which I still don’t quite get) he promises to do a number of ideal things:
– improving our online content, including minimum standards for the content of remaining websites
– Ensuring that all content held on government web sites is fully accessible to the major search engines.
– Embedding data mash-up into thinking across all of government not just the early adopters within departments.
– Driving through the cultural change in all our communications that sees the internet, mobile and other new media as the norm
– ensuring better innovation and much faster implementation. Build stuff small, test it out then iterate, iterate, iterate.
– capturing the skills, talent and energy we need for change – from within the public service and from outside. Over the next few weeks I hope to say more on this.
– using new media to engage more directly and more effectively with individuals and communities.
and the most frequent question my civil servants will hear from me is, ‘Why not’?
Tom’s prescription for this job seems to be the Power of Information, and I can think of no better basis.
I was also pleased to hear him speak sensitively about the Civil Serf position. Granted she transgressed, but the IdealGov principle is that if people complain about something it is because they still care. The civil service needs such people, and to draw on their energy. In a transparent, open, self-confident administration how big a misdemeanour would it be to describe life as you see it (without breach of confidence) and show you care? Anyway, Tom is now taking comments on some possible civil-service blogging guidelines, which seems the constructive response.
I spoke on day 2 in a session about channels.
I thought I spotted our new correspondent Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom there, but he must have left very early.
hey william
the bit about ‘Ensuring that all content held on government web sites is fully accessible to the major search engines’ makes me want to bang my proverbial head. it’s so so basic.
it’s just taking for-ev-er to get any attention to ‘findability’ let alone more ‘advanced’ concepts.
online marketing just isn’t ‘there’ in egov – it’s nowhere. the personnel make-up is one reason, who leads is another, what interests the egov crowd another. it’s all so disconnected from the rest of the web I’m banging my head again …
it would be great if people like yourself could look at this and comment – I know it’s not your terrain but whose is it? where in the egov universe is it anyone’s? there’s the problem in a nutshell – it’s nobodies job to bother. it is such a big gap and I’m going to start on elephant? room?
I’ll stop there …
best
Paul