govcamp – Terence Eden’s Blog

Book Review: Platformland by Richard Pope ★★★★★

@edent — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 12:34:32 +0000

This is an exquisitely detailed and righteously determined look about the how and why of Digital Government.

Richard Pope was there at the beginning of GOV.UK and helped steer it to the magnificent beast it is today. He reflects, clear eyed, on the various successes and failures of the geeky attempt to turn the state into something approaching modernity.

He's forthright on his views about the lack of vision in most projects:

The aim of most digitization programmes is the status quo, delivered more cheaply. This is not surprising. Government business cases are woven from such hopes. The resulting documents are catnip to treasury officials. But efficiency is a trap.

All of the advice and lessons are sensible and pragmatic. It is an efficiently written book which avoids the temptation of too much name-dropping or mythologising mundane events. There is, perhaps, a tinge of bitterness that some projects got dropped or some ideas never quite made it. While the personal is political, he doesn't get into the Politics of the time - but does acknowledge that every decision has a political dimension.

Where credentials will ‘live’ is both a technical question and a political question. Apple’s and Google’s digital wallets, and those of Samsung and others, are turning the storage of credentials into a zone of contest between the public and private sectors.

Similarly, he is much more interested in what is proven to work and what helps users rather than getting caught up in the various ideologies which spring up around digital government:

Privacy debates tend to attract absolutists on both sides, with sometimes-arbitrary arguments that everything must be put under user control in the name of privacy, or the counterargument: that it doesn’t matter what information is reused because people assume the government knows it anyway. Both are unhelpful.

Underpinning all of the advice is the realisation that it needs organisational will and political cover to instigate transformation. These things don't happen in isolation and techies need to confront the reality of the way the world is organised.

It is (delightfully) weird seeing friends quoted in this book - and from GovCamp no less! - and gratifying to see one of my posts cited. There's a section about the NHSX Covid tracing app (which I was intimately involved in) - I think it is a fair assessment of what happened and whether those choices were in the best interests of the country. But, again, it is weird seeing your personal history in a book!

Ultimately, it is the sort of book which should be mandatory reading for all Civil Servants and Politicians of every colour. We have to reconfigure the interface between the citizen and the state in order for them to have a more copacetic relationship. We have to redesign the state so that it is able to meet the challenges of today. We have to ensure that it is able to rapidly adapt to the challenges of tomorrow.

GovCamp Rules - In Memoriam

@edent — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 12:11:45 +0000

The last year has seen an overabundance of death. Some of us got chatting about the various people from the GovCamp community who have died recently, and how we could memorialise them.

It used to be the case that we started every 'Camp with a reading of the rules. A gentle intro to let everyone be on the same page.

The "rules" started out as:

Whoever comes are the right people.
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
Whenever it starts is the right time.
When it is over, it is over.

Over time, people added the rule of mobility (leave a session if it isn't for you), the rule of participation (listen more than you speak), the no-tourists rule (everyone must contribute). And so on.

Reading the Rules has fallen out of fashion, and some of the rules need updating. But perhaps it is time to bring back the idea of starting the day off with a common understanding?

I thought that it might be nice to turn an introductory rule-reading into a sort of legacy for our friends and colleagues. A way to let participants know that they are part of a community.

So, with apologies to those I've missed, here's the start of a proposal for a new set of rules.

In memory of David Pearson - take photos! Take many, brilliant, beautiful photos. Document the day and share it with others. Be respectful of those who don't want their photos taken or published.
In memory of John Popham - do something today to make someone's life better. Help people tell their stories.
In memory of Nick Keane - be open about yourself. Embrace who you are.
In memory of Hendrik Grothuis - plant a tree. Think about the environmental impact you're having today.
In memory of Rupert Bowater - Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

I am painfully aware of the inherent biases encoded in this list. I'd love it if you would contribute rules, memories, and suggestions. Perhaps, when all this is over, we can have a GovCamp to mourn our lost friends and celebrate those of us who made it through.

Notes from GovCamp 2020

@edent — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 12:15:14 +0000

I've been to a fair few GovCamps - the (mostly) annual gathering of Civil Servants who want to explore new ways of working.

For a flavour of what they're like, see scripti electronici passim:

It was great to see old friends (and how old we've become) but even greater to hear so many pitches start with "This is my first time at GovCamp!"

Movements like this only survive if we can convince new people to join. Otherwise we're just talking to ourselves.

I do worry about the lack of senior leaders. There were some, and some of us are on track to go pretty high up. But my fear is that the event is just us letting off steam and no one in a position of power takes it seriously.

We must, through our actions, model the values of openness and collaboration in our work lives. We have to be the change we want to see. I'm not even sorry if that sounds too self-aggrandising.

I've already written about How to Archive a GovCamp, so the rest of this post focuses on the session I facilitated.

NHSX

Along with Hadley, my boss, and my colleague Colin we talked about NHSX. I started the session with 3 ground rules:

Share but don't attribute. Tweet about the interesting things in the session, but don't attribute to any specific person.
Stories but not personal health. We wanted to hear stories of crap IT, but we didn't want to know people's detailed medical history.
Optimism not cynicism. It's really easy to say "that's impossible" - we're here to say "let's make that happen".

We came out with a bunch of useful information, and hopefully some eager recruits for new jobs.

The session was packed - and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Key points (for me) were:

Clinicians lean new medical knowledge all the time - they can learn new software
Patients expect these things to just work
Having jobs outside London is seen as a positive continuation
Clinicians are endlessly inventive and want to co-design software

Read the full session notes.

Thanks

Massive thanks to everyone who made the camp happen, and all the lovely people who blogged.

Perhaps it's time to move the next GovCamp far out of London. Perhaps a weekend somewhere rural, with no WiFi?

What Happens at #GovCamp Stays at GovCamp?

@edent — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 11:32:17 +0000

How do you archive a conference? A decade ago, I blogged about how to archive a BarCamp - I don't think anyone took up my suggestions. I tried to put it into practice, but in this post about 2009's BarCampBrighton4, half the links have rotted away, cool media-hosting startups have gone bust and eaten the video.

Websites die, tweets get deleted, media codecs become obsolete.

BarCamps, GovCamps, and other unconferences are part of our digital heritage. We should be proud of what we create and ensure that it is available for posterity. For GovCamps, this is especially true.

Anyone capturing a twitter archive of #ukgc12 ?

Richard Akerman

The GovCamp Community has radically changed the way government services are delivered. But we are unaccountable (?) and no one is looking at how we make decisions (?). Someone, perhaps in the future, will want to understand what we did and why we did it.

The National Archives want to preserve the content of all GovCamps. Technically this is quite easy. Grab all the Tweets that have a hashtag, find the linked blog posts, crawl Flickr and YouTube, check the content is accurate, then dump in the archives. Bread and butter stuff.

Legally, they can do that. Section 19 of the Data Protection Act allows for archiving in the public interest, in line with Article 89(1) of the GDPR.

And they can also preserve non-official records. Your Tweets and Blogs are fair game. How does that make you feel?

Did you expect those messages to be archived?

Were you expecting them to be ephemeral?

Are your Tweets from an anonymous account which, in 5 years time, will be unmasked?

Do advances in facial and voice recognition mean that your offhand comment at a conference can be instantly matched to you?

If a session is audio recorded, and then published, does your conversation become less free?

Here's our audio recording from the session:

We hand out special coloured lanyards for people who don't want their photo taken. Do people respect that? Does social pressure force people to wear a lanyard they don't want to wear?

Notes are taken - read the session notes on Google Docs - but they're usually only sketches of the conversation, and not attributed to any one speaker.

The National Archives don't have to make all this content available for anyone to see. They can keep it under lock-and-key, or only allow access to trusted researcher, or publish it only after we're all dead.

If we came to any conclusion, it was this...

The National Archives have the skill and resources to do this well.
They also have the legal right to do so.
It's important for preserving the record of our culture.
We should get Community Consent for this activity.
Participants should be informed / warned that their social media will be archived.
We'll have to accept that it may suppress some conversations.

Here are the broken archives of some previous GovCamps

Video archive is now up from #GovCamp http://ow.ly/5hLQA Gotta carve out some time to watch a few... #opendata

Marco Campana

Matthey Murray's GovCampQLD archive from 2012 is full of broken links.

(OK, using Pinterest to archive posts was just a weird decision!)

And, for luck, the late lamented David having the final word:

GovGeeks T-Shirts

@edent — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 11:05:00 +0000

Like all true geeks, my laptop is a smörgåsbord of stickers dedicated to openness. And, like all true geeks, I have loads of t-shirts that advertise failed start-ups, trendy apps, and unconferences.

Why not combine the two?

(Thanks to Matt Edgar for the NHS artwork.)

(Thanks to Jukesie for his MVB design.)

You can buy them from the GovGeeks SpreadShirt store. Available in a range of sizes, styles, and colours.

A few things to note:

I don't get paid for this. I've turned off the commission function of SpreadShirt, so each sale nets me £0.00. I did think about collecting the money and giving it to charity, but that gets complex.
The store has 15% off for a couple of weeks.
If you want more designs, let me know. I'm happy to upload sensible stuff to the store, assuming it is freely licensed.
Please do remix them.
All the artwork is available in vector format at https://gitlab.com/edent/govgeeks-t-shirts

Finally, if you buy one and wear it to an important meeting - please take a selfie and tag me 😆

UK Gov Camp Weeknotes

@edent — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 10:14:14 +0000

I'm finally feeling like I'm settling into my new role. I spent my Saturday at UK GovCamp - an unconference for Civil Servants.

I ran a session on Acronyms in the Workplace. It was hillarious listening to people try to introduce themselves without any abbreviations. "I am the Chief Paperclip Office for the United Kingdom's Department of Stationery and Supplies" doesn't take much longer to say that "CPO for DSS UK" but you can certainly hear the mental gears crunching.

The overall output was a conclusion that excessive contractions were a hindrance to good communication, and often served as a barrier to new entrants. But there was a little bit of time-saving to be had - and it can be useful to identify who is part of the "in group".

I asked a question 11 years ago

Are you faster at speaking or typing?
Are you faster at reading or listening?

Most people speak faster than they type, but they are quicker at reading. Do you prioritise saving time for yourself or others?

This was the output as the result

You can also read the notes from the session.

Photo by Nigel Bishop. The "May The Source Be With You" t-shirt is available on Amazon UK

I've been so exhausted that I didn't get much of a chance to talk to people, or make notes of the sessions I enjoyed. I need to get better about making time for other people.

And more

Read some more eloquent posts about #UKGC19

The Policy Hack

@edent — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 20:31:55 +0000

I've found a delightfully exploitable social hack which I presented at UK GovCamp. It applies to any uncooperative bureaucracy.

Here's how it works. You ask someone to do something and they reply with "I'm sorry sir, that's against our policy."

You should say "I'm sorry to hear that. Please can you send me a copy of the policy?"

Turns out, most times, there is no policy!

Shocking, I know. So much of modern life rests on the whim of whichever call-centre worker you happen to get. If they can't be bothered to do something, they can hide behind a non-existent policy.

Here are a few examples where it has worked for me.

A supplier refused to issue documentation via email and insisted on posting it out. Why? "It's our security policy."

I asked for a copy of the policy - so I could understand why I was allowed to send them documentation via "insecure" email, but they couldn't reciprocate. Of course, there was no policy. They just didn't know how to do email attachments.

A previous employer had an internal system which insisted that password could only be 8 alphabetic characters. No number, no special characters. Oh, and it had to change every 28 days. Again, asking for the policy showed that it was one person's "overenthusiastic" interpretation of the IT department's actual policy.

This happens repeatedly.

Caveats

This isn't a foolproof technique. Sometimes there is a genuine and well thought out policy in place.

A few examples of where it hasn't worked.

"My manager won't let us share it." (So I escalate to the manager and we repeat the process.)
"Sorry sir, that's an internal policy and we can't share it." (At which point you can apply for a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act to see how the decision was made.)
"Certainly sir. Here is the policy which has been thoroughly reviewed by our lawyers." (Fair enough, I guess!)

Anyway, this technique is now yours to try. See what works and report back.

Warnings

Two important points to consider.

This works for me. Of course, I have the confidence of a mediocre white man - your success may vary depending on your level of privilege.
It's rarely the fault of the person blocking your way. They're stuck in a dystopian system which rewards them for denying you access. Don't get angry with them - fix the system instead.

The Gender Politics of Conference T-Shirts

@edent — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 18:49:46 +0000

I spent my Saturday crewing the reception desk at the amazing UK GovCamp Unconference. Part of our task was to check people in, hand them their name badges, schwag, and offer them a free conference T-Shirt.

If you're anything like me, you've got hundreds of conference Ts stuffed in a drawer somewhere. They're all the same - a funky logo on the front, and usually a list of sponsors on the back. Not quite as glamorous as a rock-concert tour shirt but, hey, good enough from slobbing around the house.

As I was directing people to their shirts, a few of us got in to a (very good natured) discussion about the gender politics inherent in linguistic choices. For example, considering the following sentence.

On the left we have women's T-Shirts, and on the right we have men's T-Shirts.

What if a woman would rather wear a "male" shirt? Are we implicitly suggesting that such a course of action is wrong? If a trans-person wants to wear a specific shirt, are we reinforcing the notion that they are violating social norms?

It is simply a matter of politeness. I'm not necessarily talking about a Debrett's etiquette guide on whether a Marchioness outranks a Viscount - but what language is the most inclusive while retaining clarity.

A Little History

For the longest time, the British tech conferences I went to asked participants only for T-Shirt size on attendee application forms. It was gently pointed out that T-Shirts come in more than one style, and that a female medium size is equivalent to male small size. Thus, organisers started asking whether participants would prefer a male- or female-style shirt and, if so, in which size.

But, what are male and female styles? Generally speaking, they look like this: The male one is basically a rectangle of cloth, the female one tapers in at the waist and has more space at the breast.

Back To Language

Here are some of the choices we talked about, and some of the decisions we came to.

Regular / Fitted. This implicitly says that people who want fitted are somehow irregular.
Fitted / Non-Fitted. Again, implicitly saying one is different from the norm.
Unisex / Women's. Suggests that, while women can wear either, men may not.
Tits / No Tits. (Suggested by a woman I hasten to add!) Not all women have breasts. Some people have breasts but choose not to emphasise them with figure hugging clothes.
Straight Cut / Curve Cut. The most factual description, but caused some confusion when we asked as this is not usual terminology.

In the end, we tentatively settled on "Fitted or Straight Cut" only to be hit with a problem.

Men are idiots.

The majority of men who were given the choice between "Fitted or ..." responded with either "Errr.... I'll take one that fits...?" or simply "What does fitted mean?"

Yup, guys generally have no clue that a traditional women's cut T-shirt is different from what a man usually wears. So, we had inadvertently chosen a language which was exclusionary to those who don't pay much attention to fashion.

If you have to ask what the difference between two choices is, you're marked as an outsider who lacks knowledge.

A Solution

From my many years of helping out with events, I know there are some things one just shouldn't do. Chief among these is cause guests embarrassment. Many people actively dislike being asked what size shirt they wear. They're also embarrassed if, after saying they want a Medium, they have to return it for a larger size.

What we usually do is leave the T-Shirts on a separate table, sorted by size, so that participants can pick the one which best suits them.

We abdicate responsibility, in order to provide a more pleasant experience. That, I think is what we should do in this case.

If we had one of each style and size of T-Shirt on a hanger, we could have placed them over their respective pile and simply let participants pick the size and shape they are most comfortable with.

Language choice matters. The words we choose to use have an impact. It might not be the most pressing issue in the world, but we should strive to avoid needless discomfort to those around us.

Hack Da Police (and other emergency services) #UKBLC14

@edent — Mon, 12 May 2014 07:12:38 +0000

This is a necropost - resurrected from the now defunct blog of a previous employer.

I've just come back from an amazing BlueLightCamp 2014 - held in the splendid offices of the Ordnance Survey.

Themed unconferences are nothing new - but I think this was one of the first that I've been to focussed on such a vital topic - the Emergency Services.

You can read a full write up of all the sessions on the official blog, or you can read Ben Proctor's take on the day.

Here are my scattered thoughts, interspersed with tweets from the event.

999

It's funny how little the basic 999 / 112 service has evolved from the caller's perspective. Is there any way it can be made more useful to the caller, dispatch, and the arriving teams?

Video and images is thought to be a great, practical way to assess a situation before the police / ambulance / fire crews get there. The immediate fear is that people will send in pre-recorded video (possibly from TV shows) in an attempt to scam operators. There needs to be a guarantee the video is live and - if possible - a way to communicate back to the person filming.

Even more challenging - it has to be cross platform and quick. Downloading apps isn't easy in an emergency situation.

I showed off a demo of WebRTC which can do live video from the phone's browser.

There was some suggestion that footage - as well as being useful in court - could also be a revenue generating front. Although that's not without its issues.

The texting of 999 is mostly used by those with hearing impairments. But there's a crazy situation at play

Amanda from Pesky People is working on better ways for Deaf people to communicate in an emergency.

Wearables

How do you feel about cops wearing cameras? Does Google Glass present too large a barrier between service provider and citizen?

Quantified Self toys like FitBit are also useful for monitoring the general health of the workforce. They can also be used to detect elevated heart rates, and other things which could be very helpful in realising if a worker is in danger.

Ultimately, emergency services workers take their own phones with them on calls - it won't be long before Glass (or its generic equivalent) will be sneaking its way into the ranks.

Drawnalism

The day was illustrated by the fabulous Drawnalism.

Rapid Innovation

I ran a workshop on Rapid Innovation, and how we practice it here in The Lab. There's a great write up on the BlueLightCamp blog.

The essence of my message was that:

JFDI is a valid strategy.
If you can't get a prototype working in 6 weeks, you won't get anything done in 6 months.
Ask forgiveness (and a little bit of permission).
Show your wider team that you're experimenting. Let them know that it's ok for them to try new things.
Be open with your failures. People can't learn from your mistakes if you bury them.
Innovate in the open. We built a 3D printer in the main entrance of our HQ precisely to get people asking "Why are you doing that?"

Drones!

Drones are a reality. The technology is now at a price where reliable drones can be used for surveillance, rescue, and intelligence gathering.

As a demonstration, Simon Orr flew his drone for us all to see.

As well as the regulatory issues - don't fly them near nuclear power plants - we are going to have to contend with multiple drones sharing the same airspace.

Hacking

Ultimately, I didn't use any police data in my hack - but I was able to get some open data from the Environment Agency tweeting :-)

Final Thoughts

Brilliant day, fantastically organised, gorgeous building, well catered, and some very stimulating conversation. I'm already looking forward to #UKBLC15!

Video From GovCamp #ukgc12

@edent — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:18:01 +0000

The lovely people from UK Gov Camp have put up some of the videos from the barcamp.

Here's me chatting about mobile and the WordPress Mobile Pack - from Steph at Helpful Technology.

See my blog post about the day.

Gov Camp UK

@edent — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:50:27 +0000

As per the meme, here are my 20 points on Gov Camp UK.

I dawdled and so was only able to get a ticket for Saturday. I feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting conversations.

BarCamps should be recorded for posterity.

It's a point I've made before. Cameras and disk space are so cheap, we should record what we say and do at BarCamps by default. Now, that may inhibit some of the conversations and reduce the "Chatham House" aspect - but individuals can decide whether or not they're happy for their sessions to be recorded.

Take business cards.

Take lots of business cards. So many serendipitous meetings that it's hard to remember who's who. Make sure that your business card carries your Twitter name.

Don't take a laptop (or, at the very least, use it rarely).

As I sat down in one session, a woman said to me "Gosh! You can tell it's a techie event; every one is using their laptops and no one is talking to each other." She was absolutely right. The day is mostly about communication and - while Twitter is great for that - nothing beats turning to the person sitting next to you and having a natter.

Present.

I think it's an immutable law of BarCamp that everyone has to present. Even if it's just standing up and saying who you are.

Guaging interest is hard.

I ran two sessions, one only filled up about a fifth of the cavernous space I booked - which was pretty embarrassing. The other was so full it had people sitting on the floor. Don't be afraid of moving rooms - but make sure you let everyone know where you are going.

WordPress is really popular.

I was surprised by how many attendees were WordPress aficionados. It's good to see that Government isn't entirely tied up in proprietary crap.

QR codes generate a lot of interest.

The session I ran on QR was well attended and produced lots of positive feedback. Some people are just starting out with QR and there were loads of great ideas on how they could be used.

The police have an odd sense of humour.

One was wearing a shirt which read "Keep Calm and Carry Baton Rounds" the other, in his introduction, said "I work for the police, previously I was at Rentokill. It's basically the same job!" While I appreciate near the knuckle humour and value free expression, I found the two incidents made me really uncomfortable. Had I turned up wearing a "Burn down the Government" t-shirt, I doubt I would have received a positive welcome. Still, I'd rather people felt free to express themselves at a BarCamp than not.

HMRC will happily let you take the piss out of them.

They're very good sports and lovely people in real life.

Government needs more freedom to innovate.

That was a moan that I heard from several people. They wanted to do amazing things with the knowledge they'd gleaned - but getting sign off in a risk adverse, budget conscious department is tricky.

Building should mean building.

The second day was meant to be about getting people to build, create, or make stuff. In my WordPress session, I asked for volunteers to upgrade their blog to WordPress Mobile Pack live on stage. Amazingly, three did! Now, none of them were major Government sites(!) but it showed people were willing to take a risk and build things.

Perhaps the grid needs curating?

There were too many sessions in the first timeslot, and empty rooms later in the afternoon. There's no way of judging how popular a slot will be, so many sessions were in an room that didn't suit the attendees.

There's no such thing as a silly question.

As a presenter, it's really important not to dismiss a question. If someone hasn't understood something basic, it's more likely to be the presenter at fault than the person asking the question.

Government needs to celebrate their successes more loudly.

I saw some amazing websites, prototypes, and service - none of which I'd heard about. I think it's entirely appropriate for people to make some noise about things they've done well.

Gender Balance.

For a technology conference - there were more than 3 women! A lot more! It's a common moan in IT that the industry has trouble attracting women. Perhaps they all work in local government?

Not Many Female Presenters.

Perhaps it was the sessions I went to, or perhaps they all presented on day one - but there didn't seem to be many women presenting. I wonder if this is something which needs to be addressed?

Big Business Isn't Much different

Everyone goes on about how inefficient Government is and how they're usless at getting anything done. All the complaints I heard from Government people were the same as those that I've heard while working at big businesses. And start-ups. Every organisation has inefficiencies.

Take Photos

I was too busy chatting to snap anything. Luckily there's a rather good set on flickr.

Overall

A great day, thought provoking, useful. I hope I convinced some people about why mobile is important and how awesome QR codes are.