Posts By Dave Briggs

Elements of local digital ecosystems

Apologies for using the word ecosystems – I just couldn’t be bothered thinking of anything less naff. So earlier I blogged about the ways NESTA identified that government can help support local digital activity. I mentioned that there are many different elements of the digital scene within a specific locality, so thought it only fairRead… Read more »

Announcing moreopen micro-grants

Cross-posted from the new blog over on moreopen.org, here Steph announces some small-scale funding available for public sector-oriented digital events and projects: As UKGovcamp 2011 fades into the memory, and exciting events such as ShropCamp (19 April) hove into view, it’s time to formally lift the veil on our mini grant scheme to help getRead… Read more »

Local digital impact

I’m increasingly interested in how creative collaborations between small suppliers, public services and organisations from other sectors can come together to solve problems in an open innovation-y sort of way. The digital arena is probably one of the best places for this type of thing to happen, and a useful post has appeared on oneRead… Read more »

Pulling, Not Pushing: How To Make Me Pay Attention

In my previous post about online listening, I mentioned RepKnight, a soon to launch lightweight tool for tracking keywords across social media services. In this guest post, RepKnight’s Lyra McKee talks about getting people’s attention online without irritating them. Social media is like the Internet in 1999; no one’s quite sure how best to useRead… Read more »

Comments – is Facebook the answer?

Commenting on websites is a funny thing. Luckily for me, DavePress is sufficiently niche not to attract too many readers, so the problem of being inundated by moronic comments has never really been an issue for me. For big, popular sites though, commenting can be a real issue. You just need to take a lookRead… Read more »

A Masters in Public Technology?

Tom Steinberg: There is barely a not-for-profit, social enterprise or government body I can think of that wouldn’t benefit from a Duncan Parkes or a Matthew Somerville on the payroll, so long as they had the intelligence and self-discipline not to park them in the server room. Why? Because just one person with the skills,Read… Read more »

101 cool tools: Instapaper

Wow! Number 4 already! At this rate I’ll be through all 101 by 2020… Instapaper is a really neat service for saving content for consumption at a time that suits you. You create an account, and then add a bookmarklet to your browser – when you spot something you’d like to check out later, justRead… Read more »

Distraction

Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian: The biggest complaint, in both my Twitter sample and the expert essays, was about the quality of thinking in the online era. What the internet has done, say the dissenters, is damage our ability to concentrate for sustained periods. Being connected meant being constantly tempted to look away, to hopRead… Read more »

The end of the IT department

37 Signals’ David Heinemeier Hansson: When people talk about their IT departments, they always talk about the things they’re not allowed to do, the applications they can’t run, and the long time it takes to get anything done. Rigid and inflexible policies that fill the air with animosity. Not to mention the frustrations of speakingRead… Read more »

Bookmarks for January 27th through February 19th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Big Society – if the price is right – Interesting views on Big Society from a blogging councillor within my local district. The impact of IT decisions on organizational culture – O’Reilly Radar – “It’s said that with great power comes great responsibility. Among businessRead… Read more »