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Ideapad S205

Dave — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:38:25 +0000

For the last couple of months I’ve been playing around with a Lenovo Ideapad S205. It’s a slightly bigger than a netbook machine that runs Windows 7.

I’ve been a pretty dedicated Mac user for the last five years or so, but have been tempted to switch back to Windows for a couple of reasons. One is I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the way Apple is starting to make decisions for me in terms of how I use my computer, and what services and software I should be using. I’m quite happy with this sort of control on my phone or tablet, but it feels wrong on a more traditional computing device – I don’t want an iOS type experience on my laptop.

Secondly, all my customers are in the public sector, and they all use Windows. Even though I can use Microsoft Office on my Mac, there are still loads of problems in opening and editing documents with clients, and it’s a real pain. As well as that, I kind of feel a duty to share the same platform as my customer base.

But, I didn’t want to spend a load of money on a new laptop that I hated, so I decided to get something cheaper that would nonetheless help me make a decision as to whether I would want to return to using a PC rather than a Mac. The machine I went for was the Ideapad S205.

Firstly, it’s cheap – less than £300 from PC World the last time I checked. It has a screen that’s 11″ – so slightly bigger than your average netbook. This extra space also means a larger keyboard than you often get on these small machines, and it’s a lovely thing to type on. Not only that but the screen has a decent resolution on it, so it isn’t filled up with enormous icons that makes it impossible to use.

The other winning thing about the S205 is that it has a pretty grunty 4gb of memory. Often these smaller machines have only around 1gb and that makes running big applications, or several at once, pretty slow going.

There are a couple of downsides to the S205 though and these make it unlikely to become my everyday computer. Firstly, the 320gb hard drive is spacious (not that I really need that for a work laptop) but it’s an old school drive with actual moving bits. Once you have had a machine that just runs off a solid state drive, as I have with the MacBook Air recently, you don’t want to go back to the old, slow way of doing things.

The second issue is one of processing power, and while the memory on the S205 is good, the processor is not exactly rocket-powered. Fine for word processing and browsing and so on, but video calls on Skype slowed things down to a crawl and it really struggled.

A couple of things I noticed about the difference between the Windows and Mac platforms. One is the sheer amount of crud that comes pre-installed on a Windows machine – it took me over an hour to delete all the demos and trials of software I didn’t want from the machine, and removing all the unnecessary icons from the desktop. A real pain!

Secondly, software on Windows just isn’t as easy to use as that on a Mac. I’m still to find, for example, an FTP client on Windows that doesn’t have 3,000 icons on the screen. My Mac equivalent, Transmit, has a beautifully clean interface, which gets out of the way and lets you get with with what you want to do. This is true of lots of apps, and even the Windows interface itself – which to be fair in version 7 is much improved on Vista, etc.

So overall, for most folk who want a cheap but good performing laptop, the S205 is an excellent choice. It’s no replacement for my Mac, but then at less than a quarter of the price, you wouldn’t expect it to be. It also hasn’t quite persuaded me to switch platforms either, just yet.

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Some recent dead tree reading

Dave — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:24:00 +0000

Now and again I find time to read books about work-related stuff. Here are three I have been tucking into recently.

John Naughton is a hero of mine. His weekly column in The Observer is required reading, and A Brief History of the Future is a wonderful primer on the origins of the internet. His latest book is a treasure trove of information which works just as well for the net newbie as it does the veteran of the interwebs.

Another book, another hero. Now at innovation software firm Spigit, James Gardner was once of the DWP where he implemented the ‘Idea Street’ innovation prediction market. His Little Innovation Book is a marvellously concise introduction to innovating in big organisations, and in Sidestep and Twist he outline how the big, game-changing breakthroughs tend to be adaptations of existing ideas rather than anything genuinely new.

Euan Semple is one of the best bloggers on social software, and following from his work with the BBC a few years ago, he understands the frustrations of trying to implement new ways of working within corporate structures. Organisations Don’t Tweet… is a great introductory work, in which nonetheless I found loads of nuggets of inspiration and learning – as well as a few reminders of things I ought to know but had forgotten. Buy this book for your boss!

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An online conference for online stuff

Dave — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:42:15 +0000

Here’s my latest wheeze: an entirely online conference to discuss digital government stuff. It’ll be free too.

Here’s how things will run. There will be two sessions per day, three days a week over 2 weeks – so 12 in total. Right now I am thinking this will be between 7th and 18th May.

Topics under discussion will be stuff like:

Open data and why it matters for government
Making participation convenient for participants
Developing a strategy for digital engagement
How engaging with communities online can help government
Using social media in crisis situations

The sessions will go live at a certain time, and you’ll be able to watch a video or presentation from the speaker, and then discuss the topic using comments afterwards.

Once the session has gone live, you’ll be able to access and comment whenever you feel like it – although the speaker will only be guaranteed to be around for an hour or two after the session initially goes live (they may well choose to check in now and again after that, though!).

There will also be Twitter chat and so on involved too – in fact pulling together as many online resources as possible.

Obviously, it won’t be perfect – you could spend a lot of money developing a fully interactive online conferencing platform. But this will hopefully work well enough using freely available tools and a bit of WordPress hackery.

Any thoughts?

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Covering events with Kind of Digital

Dave — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:30:03 +0000

One bit of work we’ve been doing a fair bit of at Kind of Digital is putting events on the web. One example is the seminar that took place in Leeds yesterday, run by Local Government Yorkshire and Humber.

The idea is that these public service type events are all about getting the message to as many people as possible – which usually is a lot more than those in the room at the time.

Rather than live streaming we take the approach of getting event speakers and organisations, and occasionally delegates, to provide short interviews about the event and what they will be talking about.

We also take photos, and can live blog and tweet, too. The content is uploaded to YouTube and Flickr, etc, and we can create a microsite to host the content too, if required.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the Kind of Digital media maven that is Andrew Beeken, who is a dab hand with a camera and editing video.

It seems to work well, and all our clients so far have been pleased with the cost-effective results. If you have an event coming up that would benefit from this, do drop me a line on dave@kindofdigital.com.

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Lloyd on GovCamp

Dave — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:11:28 +0000

The group blog collecting people’s thoughts is really good reading.

Lloyd hits the nail on the head here:

We do it this way because it works and because we’ve seen the alternative really fail big time again and again. Because it’s unusual for most of us and outside of our everyday experience, it’s tempting to make two mistakes. One is to think that because it’s the first time we’re doing it, that this is the first time it’s being done – nope – it’s a well-established technique that is probably used somewhere in the world every day to help large groups of people organise their own experience. Secondly it’s tempting to look back at bits of the day that didn’t work for us and think it didn’t work because we got the grid work wrong and therefore we should do it differently next time. This mostly comes up as a suggestion that “just a little bit more structure or pre-planning” is introduced. While I’m sure that we do get things wrong sometimes and there are ways that we can make the process serve us better, I don’t think that it’s a reason to introduce pre-planning. All that pre-planning does, in my experience is make people who are feeling anxious and don’t trust the process think that they will feel better. The answer is to trust the accumulated experience that the process works well – this will give you much more relief from anxiety and will truly make you feel better.

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My 20 GovCamp 2012 thoughts

Dave — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:03:22 +0000

I had an exhausting time at GovCamp this weekend. We had lots of people. There were lots of discussions. There was much tweeting. Many photos were taken. Lots of blogging has happened.

Dan Slee had the fab idea of just posting 20 quick thoughts and take-aways. So let’s have a (somewhat delayed) go.

I don’t think the two day format worked, overall. I’m pleased we tried it, but it’s just too long and the second day didn’t feel sufficiently different to the first. Also, everyone who attended both days were totally exhausted by about lunchtime on the Saturday.
Steph Gray is not just brilliant at government webby stuff, I think he’s also one of the best human beings currently on the planet.
Some people have written of the need to further the range of people that attend. I’m a firm believer that the best people to attend are the people who want to, and don’t need to be convinced. It is, I assure you, entirely coincidental that this is also the path of least effort.
Another excellent post looked at the differences between the event this weekend and the original, in 2008. I agree: they’re very different. Some might prefer the way it was before, others prefer the way it is now. I think the event just reflects the environment in which we are all operating.
Maybe there’s space for a new event that’s more specifically geeky. I dunno.
The Government Digital Service has changed the nature of discussions and the whole government geek ecosystem, as others have mentioned. The responses to that from folks in central and local government are interesting, including in the way they differ.
Lloyd Davis is a legend, a master facilitator and the most calming influence ever.
Looking through all the photos from the event afterwards made me feel like there were about 6 different GovCamps happening, none of which I attended.
‘Keynotes’ at Govcamps make me feel funny. I personally don’t see why Friday’s closing session couldn’t have happened as a normal pitched session during the day which would have felt more a part of the community spirit of the event. It could have been sorted pretty easily. But still, I hope people found it useful.
Hadley Beeman is excellent at organising drinking sessions, amongst other things
The fantastic reading material following the event is a sign of just how vibrant and useful a medium blogging is for telling stories, sharing knowledge and learning
Someone on Twitter derided the event as a ‘talking shop’. I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. Where talking reinforces learning and allows for reflection and the teasing out of effective ways of doing things, it’s got to be good. I’m pleased GovCamp provides a framework for that to happen.
Even better, let’s run an event that’s even more informal than an unconference. Ditch the agenda entirely. Just have rooms in which people go in and talk about stuff. Use things like Twitter to let people share what’s being discussed in the rooms, so people can move around to the conversations that interest them. Chatcamp?
Thinking about all this, my interest in organisational learning and knowledge management is piqued once again. Can’t help but feel that very few organisations in the public (or indeed any) sector have this right. Too little learning from previous experience, too much hoarding of knowledge. The answer is only kind of digital, of course.
I do look back at 2008, with the smaller community, sitting around showing each other how to use Twitter, with quite a bit of nostalgia. Knowing where one fits in these days is tougher.
A few people have said what a good thing it is that GovCamp isn’t organised by government itself, which is interesting and perhaps indicative of something or other
They may not see it this way, but many of those I saw and chatted with last weekend weren’t colleagues, or customers, or whatever, but friends.
I suspect that if actual organisations were run like GovCamps, nothing would get done. But all those who attend could bring some of the spirit of the weekend to their work, encourage others to be thoughtful, and open. The result would be that small changes would happen around the edges, which might then lead to bigger and better things in the future.
The challenges government faces these days are much bigger and more difficult than in previous years. Digital is part of the solution but only a small part. The innovations that matter will be in the realm of policy and service design. Technology will play a vital role in making that happen but perhaps more as an enabler than a driver in itself.
As always seems to happen after GovCamp, I’m faced with the realisation that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Remember – if you want to run a public service related ‘camp style event, you can. It’s dead easy. If you need money, Steph and I can help out with the fund contributed to by the lovely GovCamp sponsors. Just ask.

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A new (additional!) job

Dave — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:14:05 +0000

Just before Christmas, I received the very excellent news that I have been taken up on my offer to become a trustee of Community Lincs, a local community development charity here in Lincolnshire.

I’m delighted, because it’s going to give me a chance to do my bit supporting the great work the organisation does in supporting rural housing, community led planning, rural broadband and new schemes such as bulk oil buying.

In truth, there aren’t many areas of rural policy that Community Lincs aren’t involved in, and I see it as a real opportunity to find out more about the challenges people are facing locally, and what the solutions are and how they’re implemented. As well as that, it’s my chance to do some volunteering and getting involved in the community locally.

I’m also looking forward to helping the organisation get the most from technology, and providing services and help to community groups throughout the county make the most from digital too.

Fiona White, Chief Exec at Community Lincs is a really determined and enthusiastic and she really convinced me that the organisation is doing important work which could benefit from my input somewhere along the line. You can follow Fiona on Twitter here.

It’s my first board meeting in the afternoon this Monday (16th). Wish me luck!

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Why senior managers need to lead online

Dave — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:44:08 +0000

I wrote a thing for the Guardian’s Public Leaders’ Network:

The explosion in online innovation throughout public services is seeing more and more activity taking place on the net, whether via interactive websites, or mobile applications. Networks such as Twitter and Facebook provide opportunities for knowledge sharing and problem solving on a scale unimaginable previously – and those in senior positions have to be a part of this conversation.

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New Zealand government social media guidance

Dave — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:50:33 +0000

More examples of advice and guidance on using social media tools in government, this time from New Zealand.

The first bit is the High Level Guidance, described as helping:

organisations when they are trying to decide if they should use social media in a communications, community engagement, or a policy consultation context. It is intended to be useful to managers and leadership teams, but also provides basic principles, code of conduct issues, and templates that are important for practioners of social media.

You can download it here.

The second is the Hands-on Toolbox, which

has been written to help practitioners who are setting up social media profiles and using the tools on a daily basis. It has been written for public servants with limited experience using social media, but also offers tools and tips that will be useful for those practitioners who have been using social media for some time.

You can download that here.

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Open by default

Dave — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:33:36 +0000

Catherine Howe on the need for the organisations delivering public services to be open ones:

I have an underlying belief, and often unstated, belief that there is need to look at how we transition large organisations within the public sector towards a more networked state and that this transition does need happen in the form of positive distuption within these organisations as much as in the form of of external pressure to change. This involve compromise and an evolution towards a goal rather than a ‘big bang’ solution.

Great post, well worth a read in full.