The 12 February 1809 saw the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, it was also the birth date for Charles Darwin, who may be described as the great emancipator of the mind with his theory of evolution. Human beings were no longer constrained to the belief that they were created a few thousand years before but were the product of millions of years of natural selection. They also both share the honour of having their portraits on currency notes in general circulation in their respective countries! What is the connection to e-government? Well, I believe that we need freeing from the slavery of managerialism and NPM to be able to transform government, along with needing to make the citizen the focus of the eco-system of government for them to survive as citizens. Happy birthday to the great emancipators!
Happy birthday
February 12, 2009
Leave a Comment » | 
citizen, e-government, transformational change | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, NPM | 
Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
S*d it!
February 9, 2009My frustration with ‘Digital Britain’ increases! Yet again I have been without stable Internet for approaching three weeks and as anyone who has tried reporting these matters will tell you its all the fault of the user. I’ve plugged and unplugged devices until the back of the sofa’s the cleanest part of the house. I’ve tweaked and tested with all my thirty-odd years of ICT experience to no avail…
I’ve now been permitted a BT engineer’s visit and warned I’ll have to pay if its something inside the house. To be honest, I don’t care anymore. Digital Britain, my a**e!
So if anyone has missed a response from me, its hanging somewhere! At least I’m not into ‘cloud computing’, I could have serious problems. As it is, the house is full of stressful people who can’t get to their instant communications, Google for instant answers or check anything.
This is not emancipation, its frustration out of proportion!
Leave a Comment » | citizen, customer satisfaction | Tagged: BT, digital britain, Internet | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
A good moan
February 6, 2009One of my regular sites to visit turned up trumps again! MyCustomer.com has published another piece – Having a good old moan: Turning customer complaints into a positive experience - as I’ve said before, the private sector have realised the value of turning complaints into a valuable asset!
Whilst we ponder ‘avoidable contact’ this could be so much easier and much more valuable!
Leave a Comment » | citizen, customer satisfaction, engagement, NI 14, NI14, transformational change | Tagged: complaints, customer.com, moans | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
The power of information
February 3, 2009On the 1st February 2009 the Power of Information Taskforce (an independent taskforce advising the UK government – http://powerofinformation.wordpress.com/ – its draft report, including a set of twenty five recommendations. Other than a number of recommendations regarding mapping, OS licensing and that area, which I wouldn’t disagree with, many are not new for local government but demonstrate how far ahead of the central lot we are. Number 16 about publishing notices electronically, is incredibly old hat in local government terms and was probably one of the first things done by many authorities over eight years ago…They’re also still going on about ‘Show us a better way’, when a number of the ideas were operational across the 410 local authorities in England and Wales. A new one is a Power of Information beacon award for local government (No. 17) – to which I say, not another bloody award! What is needed at central government is some central control on all the initiatives enforced upon local government, so that they are vetted and form into a core plan. With information security and Government Connect security constraints coming from one side, the information commissioner from another and requests to open up from another, councils are being thoroughly confused.
Another new web site is a Vanguard one aimed at the public sector:
http://www.thesystemsthinkingreview.co.uk/
It wasn’t working in MS Internet Explorer 6 and not the prettiest one I’ve seen but its the content that counts!
Leave a Comment » | e-government, Systems thinking, transformational change | Tagged: Power of Information, Vanguard | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
Digital Britain
February 1, 2009Yet again central government demonstrates the lack of “joined-upness” within or across its departments.
The latest tome to hit the shelves is from the Department for Culture Media and Sport entitled “digital britain – interim report“. One of the 20 recommendations is “enhancing the digital delivery of public services”, should somebody tell the Cabinet Office, the Communities & Local Government departments and possibily the Delivery and CIO Councils? I thought the bodies named were the ones involved in coordinating the delivery of public services and there’s no mention of them?
With my home broadband currently running just over dail-up speed I await the universal access, along with the 2Mb to every home, claimed…and at 1.5Mb and 86 pages you need broadband to download it.
1 Comment | citizen, e-government | Tagged: BERR, DCMS, digital britain | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
