Tag Archives: government

Top 10 favourite digital blogs

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Photo by Tamás Mészáros

It’s time for my annual blog/ RSS feed clean up, and to share my preferred thought-provoking digital news feeds:

1. Chris Matts (The IT Risk Manager). Chris regularly updates his blog with practical advice for technology teams and senior managers such as “executives and transparency”, and he focusses his agile transformation articles on business managers rather than technology teams. That said, there are also a fair number of more technical articles about automated testing and development. https://theitriskmanager.wordpress.com

2. Doc Searls. Doc has several interests, mainly in privacy, photography and technology. Whilst I don’t agree with his extreme views on privacy and anti-advertising, his blogs and other feeds are very interesting to read occasionally. http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/

3. Google Webmaster Blog. there are several skills everyone in the digital industry should have, and one of them is an overview of search engines and how they work. The search engines are the key footfall, entry point, gateway and provider of revenue to almost every digital company. Stay up to date with Google on this blog. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/ Continue reading Top 10 favourite digital blogs →

The Coolest Digital Industry to Work in

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It's ok - photo of the list of what's ok at GDS featured as bullet points in this post
How did government become the coolest digital industry?

Think of the top three industries that seem cool to work in. I’d be surprised if you are my age and listed government as a top three coolest digital industry. But working on digital government projects seems to have become cool.

So cool, that last week Matt Cutts of Google fame announced that he will be leaving Google for the US Digital Service. Matt Cutts was the head of Google’s spam SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) team, and built up a large following across social media channels from webmasters around the world. There are forums set up to discuss every detail of his speeches and YouTube videos, to try to outsmart the chief enemy of SEO spam. Continue reading The Coolest Digital Industry to Work in →

Reading list for May

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The Buffer outdoor office - customer service Buffer style
The Buffer outdoor office – customer service Buffer style

Lots of interesting links below, across a whole host of subjects from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), crypto-currencies, Minecraft and an amusing (inept) bank robbery.

Meet the Egyptian Repairman who outranked Google and doesn’t even know! – A lovely story about accidental SEO (optimisation is an understatement)
11 Things About The Apple Watch That May Surprise You – Content Loop – Some of these points are items to look out for in the next few years across other devices
How Big is Minecraft? Really, Really, Really Big – thanks to a colleague for pointing this out. Minecraft really is extraordinarily big

Continue reading Reading list for May →

The June CSFI breakfast meeting on Blockchain, fintech and regulation

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View from the CSFI June breakfast meeting at Dentons. Image from Paul on Twitter fred
View from the CSFI June breakfast meeting at Dentons. Image from Paul Parboteeah on Twitter

At the June CSFI breakfast round table we discussed some of the recent technology and market innovations in the Fintech industry. In fact, it wasn’t a round table at all – there were so many attendees that it ended up more like a lecture theatre layout. Credit to the panel for keeping the conversation two-way with the audience.

CSFI round tables are always interesting, and due to the Chatham House rule, I can only report on the main headlines and not who said them.

The key points were Blockchain, fintech, regulation and other innovation. Continue reading The June CSFI breakfast meeting on Blockchain, fintech and regulation →

Book review: The Snowden Files by Luke Harding

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Edward Snowden's spy-novel-type book helps readers understand more about government spying
Edward Snowden’s spy-novel-type book helps readers understand more about government spying

The Snowden Files is a good, factual spy book, which makes you think more about data privacy, whatever your current view is.

When we started doing some work with Bitcoin at Endava a few people sent me some interesting article about The Dark Web. Bitcoin and The Dark Web are unfortunately intrinsically linked. The Dark Web is a fascinating subject and I’m working on a more detailed post for future publication. One of the avenues this subject sent me down was online privacy.

I don’t mind that government spy on my electronic communications. I have nothing to hide. I belong to countless social networks and comment on other websites, so I probably have a large digital footprint. I don’t mind that the government can switch my phone on remotely (according to Snowden it’s easier on an iPhone), and listen to the microphone without me knowing – they have more important people to investigate than me. Continue reading Book review: The Snowden Files by Luke Harding →

Why we should have electronic voting for elections

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I look forward to seeing the end of this form (hopefully in my lifetime)
I look forward to seeing the end of this form (hopefully in my lifetime)

We have UK local elections coming up in a couple of weeks’ time, and few things frustrate me as much as paper based postal voting.

Voting is a vital part of our democratic society, yet reading the history of postal voting highlights the bureaucracy and ancient thinking that we expect from government.

It took 83 years to enable postal voting for some people, to letting everyone vote by post.

So rolling out digital voting is going to be a challenge.

Continue reading Why we should have electronic voting for elections →

How the UK government is building a global Financial Services market

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Financial services companies should start planning for a new global market, and here’s how it can unfold.

It all starts with Identity

UK Government Digital Identity page
UK Government Digital Identity page

Governments have often played a central in verifying the identity of an individual. For instance, governments issue passports, driving licences and authenticate commercial organisations, mainly for tax and legal reasons. Governments are considered trusted sources of verifying identities – banks trust government documentation such as a passport or driving licence) to prove a person or company says they are who they say they are.

Continue reading How the UK government is building a global Financial Services market →