PD Newsletter #13: AI competence, Internet-era ways of working and design at scale

Welcome to the 13th edition of the Public Digital newsletter. I'm @egawen on Twitter.

This week, we've published a to-do list for putting internet-era ways of working into action. We'd love to know what you think.

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Talk is cheap: educating Nokia on AI

The Chairman of Nokia has set an impressive example by studying machine learning, and making sure his employees do the same.

He sets out out 5 actionable steps to what he calls "AI competence". I like his inclusion of pairing IT systems and data strategy; too often tech teams are left to guess the data needs of their businesses, when the future competitiveness of the company will depend on getting this right.

We can all benefit from his efforts: here's his introduction to machine learning presentation.

Ways of working

👇Last week Ben and I visited Zalando in Berlin. This €5Bn fashion retailer is 10 years old, has over 15 thousand employees and 1000+ engineers. The design and customer focus is obvious as soon as you step into their buildings, and we heard how they are scaling the impact of design across the company.

"Autonomy is an aspiration, not an input". Eric Bowman sets out how Zalando works to give teams agility, autonomy, and accountability.
If you haven't heard of Zalando and wonder why, this Bloomberg article explores some of the challenges European tech start-ups have in scaling (language, payments, capital).

👩‍⚕️
A new vision for data, digital and technology in health for the UK has been published. It's founded on open standards, secure identity and interoperability, and includes some architectural principles any organisation can learn from.

🚷
From the US, NIST have published a comprehensive Blockchain Technology Overview (PDF). It includes a handy flowchart "to help one determine whether a blockchain may be needed for a development initiative" (clue: often, no).

Visiting Zalando in Berlin

Elsewhere on the Internet

🌳
DotEveryone published recommendations for regulating for responsible technology.

🌎
Internet access around the world has slowed dramatically, according to the Web Foundation.

👤
A new problem for challenger banks and Apple, as face recognition doesn't count as two factor authentication under European legislation.

💵
The Australian Digital Transformation Agency reports that the Australian government spent AU$1.2b on IT in 2017-18.

Talking out loud

This time around an excellent interview with Tony Blair on digital, and what it means for government. He touches briefly on digital services in government, but talks more persuasively on what this means for the economy (he references the German industrial strategy), for policy makers, and how tech practitioners must help by engaging with government.

#KeepGoing

👩‍💻In our latest short film Yolanda Martínez explains how a central government digital team in Mexico built a new digital birth certificate replacement service, available on gob.mx. It's a brilliant case study on how it's possible to work and connect with multiple layers of government, and make a simple government service that works for users.

“Blockchain won’t save you if your basic services don’t work” @ad_greenway speaking in Berlin.

Last week, Andrew, Ben, Mike and I were in Berlin with partners BCG at their annual public sector meeting. Andrew gave a global view on digital government, and Ben and I led a masterclass on service design and product management.

News from Public Digital

Internet-era ways of working
We've published a to-do list for putting internet-era ways of working into action.

We'd love to get your feedback on if it works for you and anything we've missed. As ever, it's all about focusing on what's most relevant for your own organisation.

Hiring an Internet-era CTO
We think organisations need to be in control of their own technology destinies. James kicks of a series of posts about what an Internet-era CTO is, what skills and experience they should have, and how to hire one.

The next one will be up on the blog very soon.

In case you missed it
From a few weeks ago, Tom wrote up some reflections on using the term 'assisted digital' and how that may have held us back.

Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy is Delivery is available to buy in print and on Kindle, direct from the publisher, from Amazon, or Book Depository.