Comments on: Miliband and Hammersley… together at last

By: Paul Webster

Paul Webster — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:33:19 +0000

Couple of comments.
As an outsider (third sector, once removed) I see and genuinely feel a willingness in local and central government to take on technology, not for its own sake, but because there are many “lightbulb” moments; realisation that as a vehicle clever “mash-ups” of this technology can improve the lives of citizens, communities, third sector infrastructure organisations.
I’m loosely involved in the Digital Equality Strategy and given this positive news – i’m excited.

My other comment – DM, 23 days my junior; bless!

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:18:08 +0000

It is a working title which Ben explains in one of the pages with the following:

Aristophon (a name I made up from the Greek root) turns out to have been an actual Greek ambassador to Sparta, so despite the long name, Demophon (the voice of the people) and Aristophon (the voice of the rulers) seem very fitting for the Unclassified and Classified versions of this wiki.

By: SimonD

SimonD — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:15:06 +0000

Trying to work out the significance of the name Demophon. Brief research points to Demophon – ‘people killer’ – being one of those who hid inside the Trojan Horse. A not-so subliminal message for the Diplomatic Service?

Either that, or it’s a reference to the Hymn To Demeter, which tells of how the Greek goddess was in the process of making a child Demophon immortal (long story, inevitably), when things were interrupted by the boy’s mother. She responded angrily:

‘Ignorant humans! Heedless, unable to recognise in advance the difference between future good fortune and future bad. In your heedlessness, you have made a big mistake, a mistake without remedy. Now there is no way for him to avoid death and doom.’

I’ve certainly left project meetings with a similar thought in my mind, although not admittedly in the original Greek. Hope the choice of name isn’t a bad omen.

PS: You didn’t mention the WordPress blog at the root address.

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:30:02 +0000

Sadly, he was born on the 15th July 1965, (I was born in ‘71 but on the 12th July – might explain rather un-ladylike crush – it’s astrological, not much I can do). This makes him a tad over 40.

Am currently holding breath to see what happens next to be honest, and am mightily relieved that this method of working is being happily absorbed into the public sector; there is hope, people

By: alex

alex — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:50:22 +0000

Paul

One example of the trust is on Steve Dale’s Communities of Interest site that he developed for the Improvement & Development Agency for local government, but it has now grown.

There are a lot of .gov users and now quite a few others. People probably feel happy to comment because it is behind a password protected log-on.

The business of government is slowly chugging in a different direction to three years ago, witness DCLG, Steve Berry on secondment and him blogging about the whole thing.

New entrants to the public sector will also challenge the status quo.

Recent departures from engagement with political life ( is that about 40% of the electorate ? ) may take a while longer to come back. Empowerment is not an easily understood word.

Nevertheless, let’s salute the FCO’s efforts and I am watching their sponsorship of the new TV programmes and studios beaming in to Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan with interest. They are certainly strutting their stuff. Could this be because they have a Minister under 40 ?

By: Paul Caplan

Paul Caplan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:50:19 +0000

How seriously cool is that! And coming hot on the heels of the civil servant guidelines which as I noted on Jeremy’s blog, seem to me to be attempting to narrow down the radical potential of these technologies and spaces.

Chapeaux to the driving forces behind this. What is particularly welcome I think is that this seems so firmly rooted in what the Department is seeking to achieve. It’s almost as though the people behind it were turned on not by the technology but by what it could achieve!

Too often it seems projects begin, almost like in the dotcom or dotgov bubble days, with the desire to explore or implement a technology or god forbid software rather than the desire to improve delivery. Arguably we consultants and charabancs have not helped this process with our digital evangelism. Maybe we and the services we offer are starting to grow up too.

Of course the big challenge now, as I ranted on Jeremy’s blog yesterday, is to ensure that the people using it are given active permission to tell stories, speak as humans and engage in conversations rather than “deliver messages”, use a newfangled intranet or merely juggle information.

It is only when we see “radical trust” that we can say we really have grown up.