Posts By Paul Canning

More on Twitter and the events in Iran

Expanding on the points made by the head of BBC News, Richard Sambrook, about the issues with sorting through the outpouring of tweets from Iran, Kevin Drum writing for Mother Jones underlines some lessons about the way in which Twitter is best used at a moment like this. Firstly he actually quotes me, unwittingly: OneRead… Read more »

Twitter: let the last doubter now shut up

Cartoon by Nikahang Kosar First they came for the newspapers, like they always do. Then they went after the opposition’s leaders, like they always do. Then they shut down the TV, like they always do. Then they cut the telephone lines including the mobile networks. Then they slowed down the internet and tried to blockRead… Read more »

Gongs, Sir TBL and speeding up freeing up the data

Image by Getty Images via Daylife The gongs have been handed out for the Queen’s Birthday and, scanning through, I couldn’t see one for a webbie or a tekkie. This seemed particularly odd looking at the ones locally for Cambridge – home of the ‘Silicon Fen‘ – and the business related ones didn’t include anyRead… Read more »

How to design for .gov

Like this … Sample Twitter reaction ‘IT ROCKS!’ I am reminded of the Mac o/s interface though :] (which, woods’n’trees, apparently hadn’t crossed their minds). Immediately appealing, the just redesigned utah.gov site has very strong usability – this was the central aim of the redesign. Behind the scenes it makes use of – I thinkRead… Read more »

UK runs a localgovcamp

Following the enormously successful second BarcampUKGovweb, held at the Ministry of Justice in January, digital enabler Dave Briggs got to organising our first localgovcamp. LocalGovCamp is an event for local government folk that will take place on Saturday 20 June at the Fazeley Studios in Birmingham. This blog is the main source of information aboutRead… Read more »

Lessons from the great 2009 Birmingham City Council website disaster

The night before last – and in the night – Birmingham City Council without much fanfare switched over to its rejigged website. Within moments the twittersphere was alight. It was crashing, it had obvious faults and it looked terrible. Over the next 36 hours reviewer after reviewer found fault after fault. This would not beRead… Read more »