The Government IT Self-Harm Playbook
“No matter how well intentioned, when it comes to IT government has an awful habit of messing things up.” An archived PDF of this page can be downloaded if the original is inaccessible.
Technology
Technology is not the most important thing about digital, but it’s not unimportant either. In the past, too much focus has been given to the nuts and bolts of IT, and ‘digital’ tries to right this, by focusing on people and approaches too.
Council technology teams should be always thinking about and planning for the future. They don’t need to be operating right on the cutting edge but should still be aware of emerging technologies and approaches.
They should be fully up to speed with the way that council services want to change, and the role of technology in enabling that. They should also prioritise meeting user need of technological convenience.
Tech has no answers for you
These are people who believe in spending massive amounts of public money to enrich themselves while they make shitty tunnels under Las Vegas or drop off scooters on city sidewalks or chase self-driving cars, so firmly believing that these are…
Toxic technology
Dave Rogers discusses the concept of ‘toxic technology’ in this series of posts. He defines it as the threat organisations face from the legacy technology they accumulate. An archived PDF of this page can be downloaded if the original is…
AI risk assessment
A very useful draft risk assessment for a range of AI use cases, shared by the Wildlife Trust.
I Will F**king Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again
Nikhil Suresh: “The recent innovations in the AI space, most notably those such as GPT-4, obviously have far-reaching implications for society, ranging from the utopian eliminating of drudgery, to the dystopian damage to the livelihood of artists in a capitalist…
mySociety AI Framework
“This is a working document of issues to consider when considering deploying Generative AI or Machine Learning (GAML) as part of a mySociety output or service.”
Localise Live! – monthly chats for local government folk
Join me for a light-hearted hour of sharing challenges, ideas, and experience about innovating in local public services. Localise Live! takes place on the last Thursday of every month at 12pm until 1pm and is open to public sector people only.…
Matching needs to tasks to tech capabilities
Something that I have found helps an awful lot is having a simple way to match identified user needs with the technology capabilities needed to meet them. It helps in two main ways: by encouraging people to consider the user…
Countering the AI hype
It’s hard to look at LinkedIn these days without being instantly confronted by AI enthusiasts, almost foaming at the mouth as they share their vision for how the public sector can save millions, if not billions, of pounds by simply…