Dave Briggs has a good post up about how organisations introduce technology. He contrasts the ‘JFDI’ approach (which stands for Just Do It) and a more boring sustainable approach.
I’ve met Dave and he has very sensible views on Football. Our mutual friend Brian Clough could have contributed to this whole discussion. As he put it [...]
Posts under ‘Transparency’
JFDI: tactics, transparency and interactivity
Expertise
Peter Levine says…
“Although I acknowledge the value of expertise, we can identify several important general reasons why it is never enough and we always need citizens’ participation to tackle social problems.”
What follows is a list of three reasons why experts shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions on their own. It’s one of the best posts [...]
The mental health of politicians
Should a shrink publish a report on a prospective minister’s mental state? Should they be breathalysed? Find out here! http://wp.me/pywkr-xa
If you watch one video this week, make it this one
Further to my previous post on why visualisation of data matters – and what the potential abuses are in the hands of pressure groups.
I’ve just seen this video by an American pollster and data visualiser @alexlundry – he covers the deceptive use of visualisations and the way that lobbies use them.
He covers the reasons why this [...]
More data for you
Another day, another step in the right direction. Boris Johnson is opening up around 200 datasets about London along with an offer of from Channel 4’s 4iP fund of up to £200,000 to help developers to create innovative applications that use it.
Why is this exciting to anyone with an interest in local democracy? Well, it [...]
Transparency for lobbyists
Like a minority of people who have watched what will surely be 2009’s official leitmotif – the demand for full disclosure from MPs – play out, I’ve wondered when similar demands will be applied to those who rival MPs for power.
This phrase of Larry Elliot’s – explaining the roots of the current economic crisis – [...]
Against transparency?
Here’s Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University questioning the benefits of government transparency:
“There is no questioning the good that transparency creates in a wide range of contexts, government especially. But we should also recognize that the collateral consequence of that good need not itself be good. And if that collateral bad is busy [...]
Handling Freedom of Information requests
Apparently 13.1% of FoI requests to ‘Departments of State’ are now made through MySociety’s ‘What do they know?’ website. How on earth did they find out such a statistic I wonder?
Meanwhile, as it’s Friday, it’s time to enjoy how FoI requests are, occasionally, handled in the US. From the Martin Rosenbaum on the BBC FoI [...]
An idea
Following the Daily Mail’s crusade against council employees using Facebook, Sunny, here, (in the comments) thinks it’s time for everyone to write to their local authority to find out how long council employees are spending on the Daily Mail website.
This is what FoI requests are for, isn’t it?
Transparency: The arms race hots up
E-mail has transformed the way that senior politicians behave. Fifteen years ago, almost all conversations between politicians, lobbyists, civil servants and everyone else were either verbal or on paper. Technology has made recording easier. Written communications are infinitely more index/searchable.
It would be an understatement to say that the situation has been transformed as a result [...]
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
