Postbureaucrat

Personal blogging by Steph Gray, former digital agency founder and erstwhile bureaucrat

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Digital people by the ounce

February 5, 2015

Five years ago, I rememberĀ being in Government trying to buy an enterprise licence for Huddle, an innovative UK cloud-based project management tool. In those days, the technical co-founder himself would pop round our office to sort things out, and it took days of internal negotiation with IT colleagues to reassure them that using a secure…

All the news that’s fit to print

August 19, 2013

It’s silly season, so here’s my contribution. A few months ago, my mouse hand slipped and I found myself the owner of one of Berg’s Little Printers, a small thermal printer which prints on receipt paper and connects to the internet. It delivers ‘publications’ like the weather forecast, a crossword puzzle, or a quote of…

Introducing CommentariatGOVUK

December 21, 2012

It’s almost Christmas, we skipped the 24tips this year, so I thought I’d release a cheeky little mince pie of a WordPress theme in case others find it useful. Today’s seen the launch of the latest little site on our Read+Comment platform, designed for fast-turnaround, flexible publishing of documents for comment. DCLG wanted a site…

The GOV.UK team

October 17, 2012

What’s most interesting about today’s launch of GOV.UK isn’t the savings, nor the focus on user needs, nor even the remarkable (for Government) technology stack it’s all built on. What’s really interesting is the team that built it. When Alan Mather or Dan Harrison describe the eDelivery Team c.2004, you get a sense of the…

Infographic: Should I Post This Update?

April 13, 2012

The Teacampers were on good form (and vast numbers) yesterday, to discuss the vexed question of social media guidance for civil servants which the GDS Digital Engagement team are currently drafting. It’s to their great credit that Emer, Lou, Jane and colleagues are developing the guidance in the open, in consultation with those inside and…

The next step

February 1, 2012

In May last year, alpha.gov.uk emerged blinking into the limelight. It was the product of a true skunkworks operation – a few guys (and they were mainly guys) – tucked away on a disused floor of a government building in south London. The site had rough edges, but it pointed in an exciting direction: Satisfy…

Farewell @neillyneil

January 11, 2012

So he’s off. Neil Williams, head of digital at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills today swaps pinstripes for his dress-down trademark hoody and joins the growing team at GDS. To be fair, he’s been there on and off for nearly a year (as his colleague remarked to me yesterday: ’emotionally, he’s been gone…