Categories
notes from JK

Introducing my new workshop

I'm really proud and happy to be able to announce my first ever workshop “Managing Web Projects.” I see this as my contribution in helping to formalise the web industry and to improve the general quality of work we as an industry are doing with our clients.

For a while now I've noticed two interesting, related trends. Firstly, and my clients won't mind me saying this, the vast majority of people responsible for managing web projects at the client end have no experience at all of technology projects or of marketing projects. They may have knowledge of one or the other but not both and developing effective web sites combines both and then some. Often they are given the responsible by their boss and they soldier on as best they can – yet in the meantime there's a whole school of thought emerging on how to best do this web thing. The web industry has been cherry-picking from the worlds of pure software development, ad agencies and coming up with new ideas too. All this evolution isn't really feeding back to clients.

This workshop is for them.

At the same time there are people working really hard in web agencies of all sizes and shapes. Many of these good folks have technical or design backgrounds and have never really had a chance to do some specific formal learning on the management side of delivering web projects. Maybe they want to move up to a job with more responsibility or maybe their agency just needs to formalise a bit, get some good processes in place. There isn't a web-specific forum to learn this stuff – it's either generic project management courses or technology focussed learning programmes. People in web agencies need to learn about more than technology and design.

This workshop is for them.

It's an idea that has been brewing for a long time and has had loads of positive feedback so I'm really really jazzed to be able to say that the plans have been laid and I can announce the first date, guest speakers and more.

I'm really honoured that Antonio Gould a director at 3form will be doing a guest slot on managing the client – web agency relationship. I'm also honoured and delighted that my new friend Andy Budd a director at clear:left will be doing a slot on web standards. Both are at the top of our field and know shed-loads.

I've also been showered with generosity from the lovely people at Omni Group and BrainStorm Software both of whom have offered me a 10% discount on their software for the workshop's attendees. My own company Swing Digital is also offering 10% off their software. As that Iceland ad went “Have we got a deal or have we got a deal!”

The workshop will be a day long learning adventure on 26th January 2006 with cocktails afterwards where everyone, not just attendees, is welcome to talk web. The venue is being finalised next week so I'll let you know as soon as I know!

The workshop site is at:
http://www.kitcat-workshops.com

Categories
e-democ / e-gov

Encouraging robust discussions and community links

A really fantastic forthright discussion I observed on a members-only email list got me thinking… I can't go into specifics but the discussion cleared up a few misconceptions some people in a town had about a certain big new development. Various persons weighed in support of the misconceptions but people with the authority and knowledge to know otherwise presented the 'truth' as they saw it.

Everyone came away knowing more about the facts and how other people perceive the issue. I think also a few were motivated to do more with the issue. It was an all round great e-democracy use of email.

Following on from another discussion I had this morning about forming geographical hubs of specialist firms, my brain got thinking on how to create the strong links which allow for robust, honest discussions between people. Often, in the UK at least, we're a bit too polite and reserved to really get to know each other without help.

I think people need to be given permission to embrace their community. Looking back at successes including that email discussion I described above), really great communities (in meat or virtual space) have in my experience formed out of agreed values and goals.

Not only by agreeing the values do we give ourselves permission but we have to make the goals explicit and public (to the community members at least). This may all sound so obvious to many but it's so easy to forget the basics. St Benedict knew what he was doing when he wrote down his Rule for monastic life – by clarifying how the community would operate in a fairly non-prescriptive way, he enabled communities founded on the rule to perpetuate for centuries.

For most e-democracy purposes a complete book is a touch too much, but explicit values on a single page will do, like those clever folks at e-democracy.org do

Categories
technology

d.construct – Brighton flexes it’s Web2.0 muscle

Yikes, this is cool. There's gonna be some serious validation of Brighton's webbiness with the ultra-web 2.0 mini-conference d.construct on 11th November.

It's being organised by some CSS gurus and Cory Doctorow is speaking, what on earth else could you want from a tech event?

I'm going to have to change a flight to Marseilles to get to this, so if everyone snaffles the limited 100 tickets before I get one, I'll be peeved…

Categories
voting

Why won’t the e-voting story get coverage? An editorial plea

My Google alerts sent this extraordinary column from the US into my inbox…

Why isn't the national media all over ‘e-voting fraud’ like stink on a monkey?

I personally e-mailed the Associated Press offices in New York and San Francisco about the volumes of feedback I received from readers since I first wrote about electronic voting fraud … I also called our local NBC affiliate, KCRA Channel 3. All I hear is crickets. Nobody wants to touch this with a 10-foot pole.

I don't know the specifics of why the US media aren't giving e-voting problems the amount of coverage they deserve but certainly part of the problem is the technical nature of the issue – not that many journalists really get it and few editors feel that readers will understand. But in my experience most people do get it when given just the simple facts.

Full article

Categories
e-democ / e-gov

Holland shows why ID cards are a no-no

An extraordinary report in the latest EDRI-gram newsletter shows how disastrously ID cards are doing in the Netherlands.

Since the introduction of compulsory identification in the Netherlands on January 1st 2005, the police have fined 50.000 people that could or would not present a valid ID. Almost 4.000 of those who were fined were children aged 14 and 15. The statistics are provided by the Central Judicial Collection office.

Read more…

Categories
voting

Some real-world examples of e-voting problems

Joseph Hall documents some excellent examples of problems encountered with Diebold systems and the often shoddy ways in which the company tried to deal with them.

In one city, Dallas, NC, a bug appears to have prevented the downloading of 11,945 votes which wasn't caught for seven days…

Read more…

Categories
notes from JK

Feeding time at the zoo

I've added feeds for each category in the blog – you can also navigate those categories in the left-hand menu now.

I've also done some category tidying – when you see them actually 'out there' on your menu you realise you maybe had rather too many. I'm still tempted to whittle it down some more but with things like postal voting and e-voting it's tough to decide to merge them or not. Yes they're related but they ain't the same thing buddy boy.

I've also ironed out some general date weirdness in all my feeds. Rolling your own software can have it's quirky moments sometimes – feed date formats is definitely one of those times!

I also altered things so that all feeds from this site are full-text.

Let me know if any weirdness ensues.

Categories
technology

You know mobile roaming rates are too much when…

the flipping EU gets heavy with a dedicated website to help consumers find the best rates.

The site isn't going to win any design awards but it's a serious move by the EU to try and normalise the rates. A fundamental key to the EU's economic success is ease of movement for citizens, this is hampered by the extraordinarily high fees mobile operators currently hit us when out of our home turf.

I've been hammered by T-Mobile on many an occasion, no so much in the EU was when in Dubai. Outside of the EU they even charge you for missed calls redirected to voicemail – so even if your phone is off you pay (mine was dead due to a large wave splashing in and soaking the darn thing).

Whilst the EU's site is helpful it's tough as a consumer to balance things out: T-Mobile is the cheapest in the UK for my needs (Blackberry and any network minutes) but O2 is much cheaper in the EU. Hmmm…

Categories
current affairs

Chirac the smooth operator

Say what you want about Chirac, but these comments on Turkey show him to be the ultimate smooth operator… link

Categories
current affairs

Blackmail over Turkey

Watching the lunch time news I had the feeling of being blackmailed by those pushing hard for Turkish membership… The core of their argument was that if the talks weren't allowed to continue then a 'clash of civilisations' would occur so basically Islamic extremists will continue to harry us. er what?

  • Turkey's being a member or not is going to have little or no impact on Islamic terrorism.

  • How on earth the EU can accept Turkey with Cyprus unresolved, no constitution in place and uncertainty over future adoption of the Euro?

  • As the opinion poll shows (taken from the BBC) most Europeans are not in favour of the Turks joining. On what democratic basis can these talks be pushed ahead?

Turkey opinion poll

It was the Austrians and Poles who defeated the Turks at Vienna – I find it extraordinary to see history sort of repeating itself. I understand it's a very difficult time for Turkey politically, and from their perspective they would be mad to accept negotiations for 2nd class citizenship in the Union. Still the EU doesn't know what it is at the moment so Turks should not be so willing to jump into the mess. Of course the EU has been behaving like an inexperienced girl, surprised to see a man expect more when she has been teasing him for years. Turkey has tired of the flirting and wants more, but us Europeans had no intention of giving any more…