1. See you at the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC)

    Next week, our Head of Research, Rebecca, will be heading to Copenhagen to participate in the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC).

    IACC is the world’s biggest global forum for bringing together heads of state, civil society, the private sector and more to tackle the increasingly sophisticated challenges posed by corruption. Established in 1983, the IACC takes place usually every two years in a different region of the world, and hosts from 800 to 2000 participants from over 135 countries worldwide.

    Rebecca will be a panellist in the DigiMeddle – Kidnapping Democracy in the New Digital Age session on 24th October 12:00pm – 2:00pm in Workshop Room 1. The session is intended to be a high-level dynamic panel discussion on the misuse of digital tools and social media to try and sway public opinion and skew elections.

    Keep up with Rebecca on social media for updates throughout the conference — and you can find official conference happenings via @IACCseries and the #18IACC hashtag.

     

  2. TICTeC 2018 in Lisbon: Conference resources now online

    Back in April, we hosted the fourth edition of our research conference The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC) in Lisbon, Portugal.

    We were thrilled to bring together 150 leaders in the field from 29 countries to take stock of the civic technology research landscape and to discuss what works and what doesn’t when it comes to using technology for social good.

    62 speakers from 19 countries covered topics such as: responsible technology; accountability keywords; blockchain; fact-checking; service delivery; bridging the civic tech research divide; working with governments; impact measurement; open contracting; amongst many, many others. Thank you to everyone involved for sharing your experiences and research.

    If you weren’t able to attend (or indeed if you’d like to experience it all again), do check out the TICTeC website to see videos of all conference sessions, interviews with delegates, photos, and slides where available.

    As a taster, here’s an overview of the whole event… in just two minutes:

    Thank you again to Google and the MacArthur Foundation for sponsoring TICTeC. We’ll keep you all posted on next year’s event over on the research mailing list and on the TICTeC Google Group.

  3. Talking about the mySociety design process

    Last month, I gave a talk at DotYork—a digital conference in the North of England—about the way mySociety designs and builds websites for different countries and cultures all around the world.

    If you’re into web technologies, or user research, or just generally the sort of work mySociety does, then it’s a fun 15 minute watch!

    You can download the slides from my talk here, or watch videos of all the other DotYork 2017 talks here.

    At the end of the Q&A session, I said I should write a blog post with links to some of the stuff I couldn’t fit into my talk. So here is that blog post!

    Header photo © Hewitt & Walker

  4. Videos from TICTeC 2016

    Videos from TICTeC — our Impacts of Civic Technologies Conference — are now available for viewing.

    So, whether you were there and you want to experience it all over again, or you just want to see what you missed out on, settle down and enjoy accounts from some of the most interesting civic tech projects around the world right now.

    What is TICTeC?

    Here’s mySociety CEO Mark Cridge explaining what TICTeC is, and why we run it:

    And if that’s left you hungry for more, make sure you visit our YouTube channel to watch the other TICTeC videos.

    You might also enjoy the slides, photos and other media that have all been collected together on the TICTeC 2016 page.

  5. Bath Digital Festival: links and slides

     

    Ignite Night Bath by Gemma HumphrysThanks to everyone who came to see us, chat with us, or participate in the Bath Digital Festival – we had a great time.

    Here’s a handy list of the speakers and projects we played host to. Whether you were there or not, follow the links to find a wealth of inspiration and ideas.

    Ignite night

    This fast-moving event saw 12 speakers, each speaking for five minutes, with a deck of 20 slides. The slides advanced automatically every 15 seconds, but if you’d like to linger a bit longer on any of the presentations, you can access them at your leisure, below.

    (more…)

  6. Beat a path to Bath

    Bath Digital FestivalThe Bath Digital Festival has kicked off, and mySociety will be hosting, talking, and even judging at several of the events. Once we heard that the theme was to be ‘Digital for Good’, we were in: that phrase neatly encapsulates all that we aim to do, commercially and as a charity.

    We’re always happy to say hello, so come and grab us for a natter. Here’s a quick run-down of where you’ll find us.

    Ignite For:Good

    Tonight we’re hosting the fast-paced Ignite event, which will see 12 speakers racing against the clock to get their message across. Hope you’ve booked your tickets, though, as it’s now sold out.

    We suspect it’s going to be a raucous night with plenty to laugh about… but some real food for thought, too. Kick-off is at 6:15 – don’t be late!

    Bath Hacked

    The weekend of the 1st and 2nd of November will see a hackathon, based around open data and the city. There are some substantial prizes up for grabs, and mySociety’s Ben will be one of the judges.

    So, if you have the skills and some great ideas for how to improve Bath through the careful application of open data, see you there.

    Can digital tools help people become more powerful?

    Come and see Tom Steinberg discuss the impact that civic digital tools can have on ordinary people. This is part of the Inspirations night, when you’ll also be able to hear several others talking on topics as diverse as spyware, Kickstarter, and downloading a home.

    It’s on 4 November and tickets are still available.

     

     

  7. In Local Government? Some dates for your diary

    Mermaid Quay at Night by John Greenaway

    Come and say hello

    We’re out and about at quite a few local government conferences over the next few months. Come and find us! We’d love to hear what questions you have about mySociety’s digital services.
    Mike Thompson from mySociety
    At all the events below, Mike will be speaking, and both Mike and Myf will be available at our table if you’d like to chat.

    The events

    Channel Shift in the Public Sector London, September 26th

    Digital Public Services Wales Cardiff, October 18th

    Channel Shift in Scottish Public Services Edinburgh, October 31st

    Channel Shift in the Public Sector Manchester, December 5th

    Want to meet for drinks?

    We’ll also be around for informal localgov digital chat and drinks, the night before the Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester events. Drop us a line if you’d be interested in joining us.

    Photo of Cardiff by John Greenaway (CC)

  8. FixMyStreet: “Why doesn’t every council use this?”

    We were recently invited to the LGA annual conference to exhibit FixMyStreet for Councils in Nesta’s Innovation Zone along with a lot of interesting social enterprises.

    At one memorable point, we each had the opportunity to pitch to the surrounding crowds. Having to drum up interest from people passing through made me feel somewhat like a travelling salesman, but I channelled my semi-theatrical background and that seemed to do the trick.

    As one councillor said to me incredulously: “Why doesn’t every council use this?” If you’d like to see what inspired such a comment, here’s my presentation (click through and scroll to the bottom of the page if you’d like to see the accompanying notes, too).

    [iframe src=”http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/23841090″ width=”427″ height=”356″ frameborder=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” style=”border:1px solid #CCC;border-width:1px 1px 0;margin-bottom:5px” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen]

    We’ll be putting all our presentations, of every kind, on our Slideshare account from now on, so do subscribe if that’s of interest. Just click the orange ‘follow’ button on that page.

  9. In local government? Some dates for your diary

    Christmas #27 by Kevin Dooley

    Here’s a heads-up for those in local government who have a special interest in digital services. Tom, Director of mySociety, will be speaking at two forthcoming events.

    LGA logo

    LGA annual conference

    Wednesday 27th June 2012, Birmingham

    What do Digital by Default, the Government Digital Service and the open data agenda mean for local government?

    The two key changes to the direction of government IT policy in the last two years have been the rise of open data, and the adoption of digital by default as a core goal. Both agendas were born centrally, and confusion about their meaning, motives and consequences has been rife in local government. mySociety’s director Tom Steinberg, who had a ringside seat in the development of these policies, will discuss the history and trajectory of these significant policy agendas.

    Wednesday 27th June 2012
    8:00 – 9:00 Breakfast briefing
    Room 1, Meetingspace at 11 Brindleyplace, Birmingham

    [dead link removed]

     

    Building Perfect Council Websites conference

    Building Perfect Council Websites conference

    Thursday 12th July 2012, Birmingham

    How to become an internet-native council

    Twenty years after the invention of the web, many councils and other public bodies are still only just starting to become ‘internet native’. In his talk Tom will talk about the management, attitude and structural changes that this transition entails, and will offer tips for overcoming the barriers.

    Thursday 12th July 2012
    09:45 – 10:30 Opening plenary
    National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham

    [dead link removed]

    Tom Steinberg

    We’d love to see you at either of these events – and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about mySociety, too.

    If you’d like to keep up to date with the interesting ideas and technologies from mySociety, you can sign up to our local government mailing list here. We’ll send updates a few times a year and will never spam you.

     

    Top image credit: Kevin Dooley.

  10. Come and meet mySociety

    Marquess of Anglesey

    Questions to ask us? Fantastic ideas for what we should be doing next? Thinking about joining our team of volunteers? Or perhaps you just like a drink in the company of exceptionally nice people.

    We’re reviving the monthly mySociety London pub meet (hoorah!) and if you can make it, we’d very much like to see you there.

    When? Thursday the 16th of June from 7.30 onwards

    Where? Marquess of Anglesey, 39 Bow Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7AU Google map

    And if you’re in or around Oxford the night before, Wednesday the 15th, you might be interested to know that our developer Louise Crow will be speaking about FixMyTransport at the Oxford Geek Night. As the project nears completion, this should be an interesting look at where the idea came from, what we hope it will do, and the challenges of building it.