Preamble

The most scary thing about the Internet for your government is not pedophiles, terrorists or viruses, whatever you may have read in the papers. It is the danger of your administration being silently obsoleted by the lightening pace at which the Internet changes expectations. I’m not going to give examples of this change, others can do this far better than I. But you don’t need experts’ advice to tell which way the wind blows - if you can’t find any examples of changing expectations in your own life, driven by the internet, I can’t help you anyway: please point me to your successor.

The List

This is a list of the top 5 major things any government of any developed nation should be doing in relation to the Internet, as I see it at the start of 2009. They are not in any order, and do not lack ambition – they are for the Next Government, after all.

1. Hire yourself some staff who know what the Internet really means for government, and fund a university to start training more who really understand both worlds: you’re going to need them. There just aren’t enough employed in any government anywhere yet to save you from being hopelessly outstripped by external progress. The citizen discontent resulting from massive shifts in expectation could wash your entire government away without you ever having anyone skilled enough to tell you why everyone was so pissed off. Your chances of truly reinventing what your government is are basically zero without such staff.

2. Free your data, especially maps and other geographic information, plus the non-personal data that drives the police, health and social services, for starters. Introduce a ‘presumption of innovation’ – if someone has asked for something costly to free up, give them what they want: it’s probably a sign that they understand the value of your data when you don’t.

3. Give external parties the right to interface electronically with any government or mainly public system unless it can be shown to create substantial, irrevocable harm. Champion the right fiercely and punish unjustified refusals with fines. Your starting list of projects should include patient-owned health records, council fault reporting services and train ticket sales databases. All are currently unacceptably closed to innovation from the outside, and obscurity allows dubious practices of all kinds to thrive.

4. Commission the world’s first system capable of large scale deliberation, and hold a couple of nation wide sessions on policy areas that you genuinely haven’t made your minds up on yet. When it is over, mail people who participated with a short, clear list of things you’ve done that you wouldn’t have done without them. Once you’ve made it work well, legislate it into the fabric of your democracy, like elections and referendums.

5. When people use your electronic systems to do anything, renew a fishing license, register a pregnancy, apply for planning permission, given them the option to collaborate with other people going through or affected by the same process. They will feel less alone, and will help your services to reform from the bottom up.

mySociety wants to see all these things happen. Get in touch if you are interested.

]]> http://www.mysociety.org/2009/01/07/top-5-internet-priorities-for-the-next-government-any-next-government/feed/ http://www.mysociety.org/2008/12/30/happy-new-year/ http://www.mysociety.org/2008/12/30/happy-new-year/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:51:47 +0000 Jeanette Johansson-Young http://www.mysociety.org/?p=1039

It may be difficult to believe, and mySociety is ever so grateful for it, but there are actually other volunteers out there who are just as dedicated. One of them are Amandeep Rehlon - Treasurer as well as Trustee of UKCOD and Director of mySociety.

Having a background in accounting and finance Amandeep is responsible for, among other things, VAT returns, annual accounts and paying staff. We all know that money makes the world go around, so quite a lot of responsibility there.

As dealing with finances at mySociety is not enough, he also does it in his “real” job working for the Bank of England. As he puts it himself, being based in the Financial Stability area he has been ‘ahem, rather busy in the last year or so’. Yeah, I can imagine!

Amandeep originally got involved with mySociety in late 2005 as he was seen as a suitable replacement for Tom Loosemore, the previous Treasurer who left to due to family commitments. Three years or so later, he’s still around because he thinks ‘mySociety’s sites make the world a better place’ and (as with Tim Morley) he likes the people that he works with. Very encouraging to read that he also knows a lot of people who are using mySociety’s services in their day jobs – we would like to hear more of that!

When he has some spare time (not sure when that would be but there you go) he plays hockey, read, listen to music (including lots of gigs) and eat too much chocolate - ‘especially from James’s chocolate shop’. Sounds like a full on life, but fortunately with a bit of fun in between.

I’m very excited to announce that the iPhone app for FixMyStreet is now live and available for download on the App Store (link opens the App Store in iTunes). You can now record a problem when out and about with your iPhone, using its camera and GPS, ready for checking and submitting to the council. Hopefully people will find this useful! :)

Download FixMyStreet iPhone on the App Store.

I’m going to imagine I was walking down, say, Fosters Lane in Knaphill, Surrey, and I noticed that the house on the corner next to the chip shop was in a state of disrepair.* I snapped a picture on my mobile phone, and I want to send it to the council to see if they can do something about it.
[*I ought to just add that this is entirely fictional. I've never been to Knaphill, I've no idea whether there's a chippy on Fosters Lane, and even if there is, the house next to it probably belongs to a lovely couple. Please don't go taking pictures of their house for the council.]

So, first up: EveryHomeCounts.info. Clicking the big red REPORTING AN EMPTY PROPERTY button takes me to a page of text telling me why the council might like people to report empty properties, although presumably if I’ve got as far as finding the website and clicking the big red button, I’m already convinced of the case. At the bottom of the text I’m invited to “click here” to report an empty property.

On the next page I’m asked for… a whole load of personal information. I want to tell you about an empty house; do I really need to declare my title, first name, surname, house name, house number, street, locality, town, county, postcode, country, telephone number, and email address before doing so? Well, as it turns out, no — they only insist on an email address (although the single letter “f” was accepted as a valid email address).

On to page four, and I’m finally asked for the address of the house. I suppose “house on the corner next to the chippy, Queens Road, Knaphill” would probably be enough for the council to identify it. But then — get this — they want me to tell them which borough council might be responsible for this address, so that the report can be sent to the right place! Unless I happen to live in that street, how would I know? Even if I could have an educated guess, it might be near a boundary, or just over a boundary… Leaving the field blank isn’t allowed, and there’s no option that says “I’m not sure, sorry” — I’m told in red ink that I must specify a council if I want to continue filing my report.

Finally, I reach a screen that says at the top, “Thank you. You have reached the end of this form. blah blah” The second paragraph says, “What will happen next? The council will process your form. You will receive an email blah blah.” So, I pat myself on the back, turn off the computer and go for a walk. Except that if I’d scrolled down the page, I would have seen “submit” button, along with the “review” and “cancel” buttons. My form hasn’t been submitted, and I’ve wasted half an hour filling in a form that’s been thrown away.

Now, what would have happened if I’d gone to ReportEmptyHomes.com instead?

The top of the front page asks me for a postcode, street name or area. I enter “Fosters Lane, Knaphill” and hit enter. This brings up an Ordnance Survey map with Fosters Lane in the middle of it, and I click on the offending property. The text on the page immediately changes and tells me that this problem falls in the area of Woking Borough Council, and I’m asked for a description of the property, a photo if I’ve got one to upload, my name, email and phone number.

Having filled in the information and clicked “submit”, I’m told to go off and check my emails, where I’ll find a confirmation link to click. This finalises the report.

So, how do the two sites compare? The mySociety site certainly gets the user through the process quicker, and offers maps and photos to boot. It helps the user greatly by taking responsibility for finding the right council, and does so for the whole country too, not just for a couple of counties in the south. On the down side, one could question why it’s so important to verify the user’s email address before filing the report; waiting for a confirmation link by email adds an extra hurdle which will probably trip at least some users, so why do it?

Also, EveryHomeCounts.info isn’t just for filing reports about empty homes; it contains information on buying, selling, owning and letting them too, providing ways for local people to perhaps make use of empty properties without enlisting the council’s help at all, which can only be a good thing.

To be fair, the councils concerned should be applauded for taking the initiative to launch this service, and I hope it proves to be a worthwhile use of council tax money. It’s great to see public bodies using the internet in innovative ways to try to make concrete improvements in people’s immediate environment. It appears though that mySociety have shown that it can be done better, and for the whole country, and probably more cheaply to boot.

As you may know, mySociety recently celebrated its fifth birthday, something that made a few headlines. The ambition appears to be to keep on going for at least as many, finances permitting. I certainly hope that something can be worked out - real and potential work is a plentiful and output is making a difference from an e-democracy perspective.

Tom (founder and director of mySociety) has already written a blog post about how to best use mySociety sites, the best way to get started is to … get in touch. If you are just interested in keeping an eye on what’s going on, there are numerous email alerts on all the sites with the possibility to sign up for keyword alerts. And of course to set up RSS-feeds.

My research on mySociety trivia revealed that projects are not always used quite as intended. For example, Francis Irving (web developer at mySociety) informed journalism.co.uk that early on somebody used WriteToThem to get their boiler moved in their council house - it had been in their living room for years. Also that somebody reported some dumped boxes of mozzarella on FixMyStreet. Don’t want to give you any ideas but it appeared to have rectified the problems …

In other words, volunteers make our organisation tick and thought it about time that we shed some light on who they are and what they do. First out being subject to closer scrutiny is Tim Morley who looks after the everyday running of PledgeBank.com.

Tim has been volunteering for mySociety.org since 2005. Having heard about us through an article in the Guardian, he started out by translating content to Esperanto, and has through the years progressed to his current role.

Being a trained primary school language teacher, Tim estimates that he spends anything from five minutes to 3-4 hours a day on his volunteering work depending on how much there is to do. Task varies from helping users with technical queries to help out organising events.

Challenge was an initial motivating factor in deciding to start volunteering. He could also see the benefit of PledgeBank.com as a tool for the Esperanto speaking community, to help and encourage people to organise happenings in what is a very widely- and thinly-spread group. Three years later what keeps him going are the people involved with mySociety.org, the fact that he’s impressed with other things that we are doing and is proud to be associated with our organisation. Making a contribution and taking PledgeBank.com forward still feels important.

If you are interested in volunteering for mySociety.org don’t hesitate to get in touch. As can be seen above, Tim is a highly involved volunteer. But all contributions to the running of our organisation are appreciated so don’t let him put you off. :-)) Further info on some of our other volunteers is in the pipeline if you are looking for inspiration on how you can help out.

This pledge helps kids in Ooty, India to broaden their horizons by providing books containing knowledge they would otherwise not have access to. Sirukathai, the organisation behind the pledge, believes that reading material outside the child’s usual textbooks helps opening up new worlds, develop thinking processes, aid communication, foster self confidence and create a better, more balanced and compassionate citizen.

With two days to go before deadline, the getachild2read pledge has 205 people signed up to donate books. That’s five over target and there’s still time join if you wish to make a contribution!

Kalyani, the man behind this worthy project, and his “aids” are already in the process of collecting and cataloguing items coming in. To some it seems that this is a most interesting task and not at all that laboursome :-)). A more thorough follow-up report is on the way so stay tuned.

This is only the third such retreat in five years, and it is a super-rare occasion when all the various people who make mySociety tick get together. On these retreats we meet to set our agenda for the next year and try to reassess what we’ve done and what we’re about. It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet many of the most talented developers and thinkers in the field of the internet and democracy, people you’d otherwise rarely be able to catch. And it’s a great moment to catch them, pausing for a moment to discuss what we’re about and where we could go next.

I am fully concious that the tickets are not cheap - we are doing this it is to help us cover our costs as a charity.

The door is not closed to the rest of you - most people on this retreat will be volunteers, and you can be too!