PD Newsletter #27: Here we go again: digital leadership asymmetrische Wahlkampfführung and vloggers

It's been just over a year since the first issue of the Public Digital newsletter, where we started with a failure of leadership at TSB. So it seems a good time to return to the topic.

asymmetrische Wahlkampfführung: My 👀of the week goes to a political kerfuffle in Germany, where AKK (Merkel's successor as leader of the Christian Democratic Union) this week issued a closed-door meeting invitation by fax to discuss asymmetric campaigning (ie internet campaigning and Youtube).

The meeting was prompted by unwelcome criticism from a popular 26-year-old vlogger named Rezo, which disrupted her election campaign. But AKK's response has been seen as attack on free speech. Another reminder that we need our leaders to have a far better understanding of the internet.

Emma
@egawen

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Ways of working

🤑"Unpicking the human and organisational processes that lead to sane institutions delivering insane user experiences is one of the great pleasures of my life"
A great interview with Tom Steinberg on the challenges of bringing digital to funders and grant givers. Stay to the end for his view on the transitional role of digital in the leadership team.

🏍
Crossing the physical and digital divide: a vivid breakdown from Deliveroo design on how a multi-disciplinary team delivered improvements to order tracking.

Also announced this month, Amazon is the lead investor in a $575m financing round in Deliveroo, who plan to invest heavily in expanding their technology team.

😇
Think you're being agile? A very handy guide from 18F to some common signs that you might not be as agile as you think you are (and what you can do about it). We've all been there.

This is a must read for anyone trying to bring in agile practice to organisations where it’s not the native way of working.

State of technology

🏙
A nightmare scenario in the City of Baltimore, where a ransomware attack has cut off the city's email, payment systems and more. In an interesting turn it's emerged that the ransomware used is part of a leaked set of tools developed by the NSA. But that doesn't account for what's described as a decade of neglect.

👇
Parts of the city administration still run on CitiStat, a data dashboard implemented in the 90s. CitiStat is based on New York's CompStat, giving me the perfect excuse to point you to the one of my favourite podcasts of last year: the Crime Machine from ReplyAll.

❌
The Huawei drama continues to escalate, with Huawei placed on a blacklist by President Trump earlier this month. Alexis C.Madrigal argues it's a gift to US tech companies, while Ben Thompson of Stratechery is starting to wonder if tech can still be considered an amoral force.

🤦🏼‍♀️
Facebook is finalising plans to launch its own crypto-currency next year. Please, just stop.

Government news

🐨Another roll of the dice in Canberra, where newly re-elected PM Scott Morrison has announced a new whole-of-government service delivery agency - Services Australia. Miguel Carrasco of BCG has an excellent summary of lessons to be learned from the highly successful ServiceNSW, and what that might mean for Services Australia.

🥝Over the water, New Zealand have launched an alpha design system for NZ public sector websites. Great to see them adding some Kiwi innovations to international best practice, as well as working in the open.

👋Some great work in Nova Scotia on online ticket lottery permits, where testing with users proved crucial to building the right thing.

💰In Singapore, GovTech have announced 3 new partnership models for working with suppliers. They are looking to find ways to replace large, multi-year contracts and guard against products or services becoming obsolete by the time the tender finishes.

Andrew and Emily were at #OGPCanada

this week. Public Digital ran a workshop on starting and sustaining digital teams, with representatives from almost 20 governments in the room. Thanks to @Etalab

and @ama_gov_pt

for speaking and sharing your experience.