Postbureaucrat

Note (July 2017) I’ve fixed a couple of links affected by link-rot. The survey tool doesn’t survive modern anti-iframe defences and https mixed-content warnings, but the results are still historically amusing. Thanks all for a great response to the Social Media Test Suite survey – in just over a week, 55 people helped out sharing…

OK, it’s time to be a bit subversive. We have the Civil Service guidance on participation online, and yet in organisations across the UK, public servants and others are being prevented from engaging online at work thanks to restrictions placed on their internet access by their IT providers. Some of these are well-intentioned: designed to…

The challenge for ‘government 2.0 sites’ (a phrase I feel slightly dirty for using) which aim to engage beyond the core stakeholder audience, is to come up with an experience which fits with the content of the policy, builds credibility with visitors and provides value to the policymaking process. You can have all the comments,…

So you want to get started in social media? Maybe you already follow a few blogs, use Facebook to talk to friends, but want to take it to the next level? Or in the current climate, you’re looking to add an attractive new skill to your CV to demonstrate that you’re one of the new…

I’m not going to store up humiliation for myself by posting predictions or New Year’s resolutions for ’09, but from where I’m sitting, I’d say the big theme will be Less. And I’m not being entirely pessimistic. It goes more or less without saying that we’ll all be working smarter and leaner, assuming fewer staff,…

“Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.” Lev Grossman, Time Magazine Photo credit: Stephen McLeod Guido Fawkes is switching to a reputation and…

Second up in my series of four promised posts is a quick pointer to something we’re doing at DIUS towers. We’ve been experimenting for a few months now with how to use the social web for engagement in policymaking and have some successes and failures under our belt. But what’s the difference between a success…

I’ve been musing recently on an interesting quandary: why aren’t advocates of public participation and engagement more successful in engaging the policymakers who design consultations? Why is it that we continue to live in a world of PDF consultation documents, when so much research and – let’s be honest about this, government money – has…

I  get asked from time to time for examples of how social media is being used in government, not just at DIUS but elsewhere. From mentions on Twitter or in blogs I follow, I can generally reel off two or three examples of X. But for a while I’ve wanted to have a more structured…

Quick plug for something I’ve been contributing to elsewhere: we’ve been working with the TUC and Get Safe Online to launch a new toolkit to help improve workers’ Internet security awareness and skills. From the press release: While employers are improving their Internet security systems, their good work could be undermined if they fail to…