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Steph at UKGovCamp 2010, by Paul Clarke

The Helpful Technology blog, written by Steph Gray

Getting community conversations going

conversation starters game

Over the last year, one of the toughest but most rewarding areas of work I’ve been doing is training, mainly with central government communications staff, and often through the Government Communications Network. Our team of Simon Booth-Lucking, Dave Briggs and … Continue reading

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Feet on the ground

cloud and pylon

There’s been a lot of buzz about the G-Cloud today and over the weekend, and rightly so. It’s a potentially exciting development, and a real achievement for Chris Chant and his team. Not only have they set out, aggressively in … Continue reading

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The next step

gov.uk

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 … Continue reading

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The republic of UKGovcamp

Philip John at UKGC12

Dan Slee’s  excellent suggestion of a ’20 thoughts’ format for reflections on UKGovcamp seems to have caught on, so here’s mine – more about the format than the content, in many cases. That I think Dave Briggs and Lloyd Davis … Continue reading

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Coming up with maturity model for digital in the public sector

maturity models

Hands up who says they work in ‘new media’? Me neither. While we’re not quite in a digital by default world, this stuff has been around for a decade and a half. Even in the public sector. One topic I’d … Continue reading

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Farewell @neillyneil

you'd recognise this anywhere, right?

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 … Continue reading

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The year of living helpfully

Me at govcamp (Photo: Paul Clarke - http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_clarke/5381950736/)

It’s been 18 months since I last walked the mean streets of Westminster as a civil servant. There are things I miss about the old lifestyle: having the scope to run with projects on the ‘inside’, being in the loop on … Continue reading

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Day 25 #helpful24: 24 tools, tips and tricks for smart web people

Helpful24: festive tips for smart webbies

This year I’ll be sharing some of my favourite tools and tutorials to help you do clever things on the web, one per day in the run up to Christmas. Continue reading

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Walk a mile in our sandals

guardian ukgovcamp

I’ve written a piece for the Guardian’s Public Leaders Network on UKGovcamp, as part our plan to broaden the reach of UKGovcamp in 2012: Informal, social-media driven events like UKGovcamp and the recent WordUp Whitehall have an important role in bringing together SME suppliers, open source … Continue reading

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Making WordPress accessible to AAA

eaccessibility forum

At Simon’s recent WordUp Whitehall event, I presented on the process I went through on a project with BIS/DCMS to create a discussion platform for the eAccessibility Forum. The site went live yesterday, thanks to the sterling efforts of the … Continue reading

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