Comment on “Digital Britain” at WriteToReply.org
In an scathing review of Stephen Carter’s “Digital Britain” interim report – Reporting behind closed doors – technology columnist Bill Thompson noted how difficult it is for the digerati to comment back on the report:
The widespread coverage has certainly provided a rich source of suggestions, comments, ideas and critical reviews to feed into the next stage of the process.
Unfortunately for those who lack access to mainstream media outlets like newspapers and broadcasters or their associated websites, there is no easy way to respond directly to its author. The report website has no information at all on how to make a contribution, and you’ll have to read through 72 pages of the report before you find a suggestion that “organisations or individuals interested in joining the discussion should register their interest at digitalbritain@berr.gsi.gov.uk”
Apparently the Digital Britain team will follow up these expressions of interest, which is nice of them, and we must just hope that Carter and his expert panel will be carefully reviewing every blog post and online comment to ensure they don’t miss anything important.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, as the some of the consultation initiatives coming out of DIUS show (Public Policy Engagement with Commentariat).
So a couple of days ago I posted the following tweet:
And I got this reply…
…which was quickly followed by this one…
And now, two evenings (incl. a rather late night, last night), a lunchbreak and morning coffee later, Joss has writetoreply.org up and running (I got in the way not getting Daily Feeds working;-), a commentpress site for commenting on public documents.
And the first report to be hosted there? Digital Britain – The Interim Report, of course:-)
So if you want to comment on the report, as @billt surely does, head over to http://writetoreply.org/ now and follow the link for the Digital Britain, Interim Report; or go there directly: Digital Britain, Interim Report on writetoreply.org.
We can’t guarantee that anyone who actually produced the report will read the comments, of course, but there is a comment feed for them to subscribe to if they want to;-)
That’s a lovely piece of work. It really demonstrates that we in Government really don’t control or even host the discussion these days, particularly on technology and information policy.
Publish something badly, and people will do their own thing to make their voices heard.
Steph
February 4, 2009 at 11:08 am
[...] economic recession we are now in, this is the place to go and comment on it. Kudos to Joss Winn and Tony Hirst for setting the site up so fast. We have about four months before the ‘final’ Digital [...]
Digital Britain - in action | hackcartoonsdiary.com
February 4, 2009 at 1:08 pm
[...] report on a Comment-Press installation to allow people to comment on it. You can read some of the background to the project from Tony Hirst, who flagged this up on the BBC Backstage list. It really ticks a lot of public service boxes for [...]
Strange Attractor » Blog Archive » Commenting on public documents
February 4, 2009 at 5:47 pm
[...] Comment on “Digital Britain” at WriteToReply.org « OUseful.Info, the blog… Kevin: The backstory behind a crowdsourced project to create a comment-able copy of the interim Digital Britain report. (tags: government community UK participation digitalliteracy) [...]
Strange Attractor » Blog Archive » links for 2009-02-05
February 5, 2009 at 11:30 am
[...] Hirst describes the reaction of BBC technology columnist Bill Thompson. He was scathing in the approach taken for [...]
digital britain
February 7, 2009 at 2:22 pm
[...] Its interesting here to see that dynamic collaborations can be created through social networking sites such as twitter that talk about real issues and real solutions for government and at the same time, alot of local councils are blocking down these sites. Is it possible by doing so, government is losing out on possible low-cost and innovative solutions to improve government? Just look at how the conversation between Joss Winn and Tony Hirst unfolded in front of our eyes…And if you want the full details of how all of this came about, read all about it here. [...]
Local Government Engagement Online Research » Blog Archive » Let’s talk about Government Consultations with Joss Winn
November 10, 2009 at 2:25 pm