Things which caught my eye elsewhere on the web

Speech on Smarter Government | Number10.gov.uk

The next stage of public service reform will be characterised by a radical shift of power to the users of public services, all users, not just those who are wealthy and powerful, not just those who have the resources to make the best of what government offers them. Power will shift to everyone who needs to use our public services.

Personalised service and Knight’s digital vision at linksUK

Accessing benefits online and applying for jobs online will not deal with the multiple complex problems that the most vulnerable face, like the two people I met just over the past week.
Bringing in a move like this is important, so that the 21% of UK adults who have never used the internet are not even more excluded in 10 years time. However “personalised” online efficiency is not the same as “humanised” one-to-one support.

Martha Lane Fox – 21st Century Challenges – Royal Geographical Society with IBG

“I believe there is a digital divide, but even worse than that we are creating a social and digital divide for the people that are already the most excluded, but yes I think we can really do something about it and the time is now to do that, to get political momentum, bring together all of the projects that are happening all over the country.”

A quick start guide to Twitter

The guide takes absolute beginners to Twitter right from the start – explaining what Twitter is, and how to sign up – right through to replying, retweeting, hashtagging and using tools to measure success.

Fact-Checkers and Certified Public Logicians Boing Boing

Many of big ideas that computer visionary Douglas Engelbart came up with in the 1960’s have come true, but a couple of them haven’t yet. One of these is his notion of the “Certified Public Logician.” Engelbart predicted that a new class of knowledge worker would act as front-ends to the machine-enabled collective intelligence. Part logician, part notary, these “Certified Public Logicians” would review texts for logical consistency and then tag them up with appropriate envelope information and enter them into the machine. It’s a great idea, and I think we could promote all of our fact-checkers into Certified Public Logicians pretty easily.