Month: May 2007

Talking about the power of information

A late invitation arrived today from the Ideal Government folk to come to what turned out to be a fascinating evening discussing the democratisation of information and how government might participate in the online social media world.

Around the table were a sprinkling of policy officials, technologists and representatives from organisations who work with government to deliver its IT. Without divulging too much (the event was conducted under Chatham House rules (or rule) and discussed work whose conclusions haven’t all yet been announced) the thoughts aired included: Continue reading “Talking about the power of information”

Why civil servants need to be careful about blogging

I’ve just been sitting here with my jaw on the ground reading about today’s Mail on Sunday article about Owen Barder, ‘Whitehall’s jogging blogger’ and subsequent commentary from observers. The best summary of the situation comes from Andrew Brown who helpfully points to a dissection of the original story by Tim Worstall.

One thought – yikes! This does somewhat set the potential reality for anyone willing to put their head above the parapet of anonymity. As Andrew says,

“They’ve put us all on notice that what we write here in the ’sphere can and will be used to smear us should it suit their purposes”.

But I don’t feel quite as crestfallen about the situation as Andrew’s view : Continue reading “Why civil servants need to be careful about blogging”

Background to the new Ministry of Justice website part 2

Before I jump back into the issue of the permissive environment required for civil servants to blog, I thought I had better finish off the story of the building of the new Ministry of Justice (MoJ) website (part 1 here).

March 29th the government announced that the MoJ was going to be established from May 9. By this point we were well into developing the site as had been noticed by an eagle eyed observer.

Continue reading “Background to the new Ministry of Justice website part 2”

links for 2007-05-17