Month: June 2009

Digbeth formally called Birmingham's Digital District

Whenever a minister comes to call it pays to have something to announce, so later today Birmingham City Council’s deputy leader Paul Tilsley will tell Lord Carter that:

I am pleased to announce that Birmingham will create a ‘Digital District’ that brings together the innovative, learning and creative sectors enabled through a next generation hi speed broadband infrastructure. Spanning several hundred acres from the creative industries in Digbeth, our science and technology sectors at Birmingham Science Park and our world class developments at Eastside, it will provide an exciting environment for our creative industries and young entrepreneurs. The digital district will act as a showcase and business demonstrator to attract new businesses and inward investment and offer a strategy for economic recovery. It will provide a digital infrastructure that captures the ambitions of the Digital Britain Report, where the creative and digital media sectors and knowledge intensive businesses are able exploit the potential that high bandwidth conveys through the creation of new and exciting media content and job opportunities.

Very nice. That’s where I work! Does that mean that Digbeth will get better mobile phone reception and something as high tech as a cash point?

"Government of the web, not just on the web" Digital Britain Report

“Government of the web, not just on the web”

is a critical sentence in today’s Digital Britain report.  Digital Britain is udoubtedly wide ranging, but if you’re interested in how the internet affects how we gover ourselves then you’ll want to skim through the Executive Summary (pdf -why?) until you hit point 74 and then spend some time reading Chapter 8: The Journey to Digital Government (also pdf).

So what does “Government of the web” mean?

1 Transactions: first it’s how we use the internet to do business with government (CH 8 point 16):

We propose starting a Digital Switchover of Public Services Programme in 2012. We will need to consider in more detail the ramifications of switching each service to digital but an initial list might include:

  • Student loans
  • Companies House registration
  • Personal tax returns for higher rate taxpayers
  • Electoral roll registration
  • School registration
  • Redundancy advice processing
  • Debt advice

It’s not a list that leaves my heart  a flutter.  Many digitally literate folk will already do some of these (which suggests, as ever, literacy is core).  However to force people to do some things that are core to many lives, such as school registration, only online will also encourage digital literacy.  Such ambitions are  only possible because of the policy to ensure everyone has access to broadband by the same time (even though it’s a very modest 2Mbs speed).

2 Procurement:  sounds dead yawnsome, but the paragragh 26 (CH 8) of the report wants to make it easier for smaller more innovative businesses to win government IT contracts. If that works it may accelerate the use of open source software and faster development and encourage the growth of some fine small businesses.  The simplest example of this is the 10 Downing Street website, built on wordpress at far lower than expected cost.

3 Data: Let me just quote the report.

Government has accepted the vision of the POI report, and set out in its paper of 13th May 2009 a series of initiatives aimed at achieving the principles of Open Information, Open Innovation, Open Discussion and Open Feedback as outlined below. Government is still working on some of these recommendations and an update on progress is planned for the Summer.  The Cabinet Office will take a leadership role in catalysing this change.

That’s progress, the interim report didn’t even mention the Power of Information Task Force.

That’s about it.  The report has moved slightly beyond an understanding that Digital and Government is simply about transaction, but no far.  It is fundamentally about democracy.

Stuff I've seen June 15th through June 16th

These are my links for June 15th through June 16th:

  • Digital Britain – final report – The Digital Britain Final Report is one of the central policy commitments in the Government's Building Britain's Future plan and draft legislative programme.

    Building Britain's Future sets out the practical action we will take to build a stronger, fairer and more prosperous country. It focuses the energy and mission of the government in the year ahead on three clear priorities:

    * Cleaning up politics and reforming our democracy
    * Moving from recession to recovery and planning for a strong economy in the future; and
    * Reforming Britain's public services.

  • Social Innovation Camp | The Young Foundation – Great ideas: Social Chain Gangs Flash-mobbing with a purpose. This tools aims to get a bunch of people together to get something done, whether it's cleaning up a local park, helping your neighbours move in, a quick spot of gardening – fast.

    Now all we need is the people who'd like to help.

  • ASH-10 » Digital Britain needs real Digital Literacy – Pete Ashton: "I’m able to read online news for free because I can hack a URL. Can you?"
  • #iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners – The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through twitter.
  • The Stone Tapes: Feed me! – How my iPod feedreader rendered the latest blog entries from https://podnosh.com/blog/

Things I've spotted June 14th from 17:10 to 21:15

Here are some o the things I’ve been reading June 14th from 17:10 to 21:15:

  • One Page Guide to Google Groups E-mail Lists : Tim’s Blog – Even with all the amazing social web tools available out there – e-mail remains a key communication tool for most people.
  • CHANGEit IdeasFund for Young Creatives | VCS Matters – CHANGEit, which is an organisation that recognises, supports and rewards young people who want to, or have already spoken up and taken constructive action about something they want to be improved, changed or created in their community has announced that it is seeking applications to its new £50,000 IdeasFund.
    The aim of the Ideas Fund is to support creative enterprise and seeks to promote new and exciting ways of working between young people and organisations that are driven by and for young people
  • Imagine: School Design for the Future. – Imagine’ is a database which captures school design best practice from around the world. Architects and researchers from the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield [BDR] have conducted a critical analysis of over 150 schools, highlighting excellence in design according to different themes. It considers integrated ICT, environmental design and flexibility for space and learning.
  • The growth of social lending – Third Sector Foresight – Anyone heard of Twollars? Well they're a new online 'currency of appreciation' that you can use on Twitter to reward positive actions. Each Twitter user automatically has 50 Twollars in their account. So they're great news for VCOs as people can give Twollars to the charity of your choice and once the charity has created an account, they can sell their Twollars to businesses and people who support their cause and want more Twollars. So, Twollars are designed to go back into circulation.
  • ASH-10 » A Local Blogs Blog for Birmingham – Over the weekend it became apparent to me that I couldn’t keep all the local blogs that have sprung up in Birmingham straight in my head. I was also aware that what defines a “local blog” is somewhat, well, ill defined. so I started Local Blogging Birmingham, a quick and dirty Tumblr blog to record them as I find them and add a bit of commentary.
  • ASH-10 » Towards a Theory of Yurtification – I superimposed a photo of a yurt on a volcano but fits current thinking about the digital divide and needs to be considered when thinking about these things.

    So that’s my Yurtification theory. In short, the pyramid will be softened, Mongolian style.

  • Videopress | DavePress – Well, VideoPress looks like it might be worth looking into. It’s been created by Automattic, the guys behind WordPress and various other cool things. It’s a video upload and hosting service that uses WordPress.com as its back end, as far as I can tell. But you can embed your videos wherever you like.