PD Newsletter #22: Partying like it's 1989

Thanks for your thoughtful responses on agile, all added to my growing reading list. Also, a few more interesting books suggested below 👇. I'm lining up some guest editors for upcoming newsletters: if there's a theme you'd love to hear more about, or you'd be interested in guest editing in the future, let me know.

Something published by me this week, a short piece on how digital teams can create lasting change, an adapted version from Signals.

Emma
@egawen

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Let's start with something fun. A recent project at CERN recreated the experience of using the first web browser. True to life, it's not immediately self explanatory (links required a double click!) so check out the instructions on Jeremy Keith’s blog.

GOV.UK works beautifully, a testament to its accessible semantic mark-up. I had a quick look at gob.pe and that worked very nicely too. Give it a try on a favourite site or two.

Thanks Nick for sending this my way 👍

Ways of working

🌲
How 18F launched Open Forest. They used Pay.gov rather than reinventing how to make a secure payment. Also a brilliant example of putting work out there in the open on Github: from discovery workshops, to hypotheses tested, and code.

🙌
"Hype technology can [offer] the appearance of an exciting paradigm shift, whilst not really changing anything." Dave Rogers on how hype technology kills innovation.

🐡
Current pet hate: magic data lakes. It's not that they are inherently the wrong thing, but they are frequently presented as a miraculous answer to all things (we will get data..✨..and then solve all customer problems ). This, from Thoughtworks, breaks down how you might start small and build up, beginning with some specific use cases.

State of technology

🚙
Apple and Google have come under fire for allowing Saudi app Abshar on their platforms. It's an app which allows men to specify when and how women can cross Saudi borders, and get updates when they travel. Here's the problem: that's legal in Saudi. How does a tech company get policing the line right?

Case in point: The Verge investigates the dark side of content moderation at Facebook. The human cost to this kind of moderation is not a new problem; it will be familiar to anyone who has seen what people type into search engines, or online community moderators.

📣
Talking out loud: BBC's The Briefing Room asks "Should we worry about Huawei?" (28mins). Aimed at non-technologists, this is an excellent primer on who Huawei are, their relationship with the Chinese government, and why this matters so much for countries rolling out 5G.

The Washington Post on the mixed messages issuing from the US on Huawei
"The biggest threat to our cyber security is weak cyber security": Ciaran Martin, CEO of the NCSC (UK) talks about working with Huawei and the need to raise more broadly raise Cyber Security standards.

Government news

👩🏻‍⚕️
In the UK, the government has launched NHSX, a new organisation for digital, data and technology. This has the potential to be great, and re-inject some life into the government digital agenda. It has a proper team and mandate, and political backing from Matt Hancock, who has consistently backed technology reform since picking up responsibility for digital in 2015.

However, the most obvious risk given the political situation in the UK is a change in Minister. So, let's hope this is for the long haul.

🇦🇺
In Australia, the Labor party would like to punish vendors for stealing talent from the public service. An alternative could be to pay specialists properly, and fix the reasons they are leaving. Just a thought.

Thanks Andrew for sharing this photo of Signals, in great company with:

Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America, by Hollie Russon Gilman
A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance, by Stephen Goldsmith & Neil Kleiman
Beyond Transparency: Open Data and the Future of Civic Innovation Paperback, by Brett Goldstein with Lauren Dyson
The Chicago School of Data edited by Denise Linn Riedl.

News from Public Digital

Leadership counts: how digital teams can create lasting change. My column for GovInsider, an amended version from Signals.

Our partners at IDEO are recruiting a new Design Director in London. You're welcome to have an informal chat with Ben if you're interested