Promotional image for "Join Public Digital at FWD50" event, featuring headshots and presentation topics for four speakers:
Ben Terrett CBE, CEO: Governing in the digital age: Why states and sovereignty matter.
Anna Hirschfeld, Head of Canada: Smart teams, simple rules: How multidisciplinary teams contribute to lean policy design.
Alexandra MacEachern, Director: From service to sovereignty: How dual-mandates drive innovation ROI.
Simon Foot, Director: Delivering outcomes not solutions: Achieve, drive ambition and empower teams.
The event is scheduled for 3 - 4 November at the Rogers Centre, Ottawa.
Catch up with the Public Digital team at FWD50, 3β4 November, in Ottawa.
Theyβll join leaders from across government and industry to explore digital sovereignty, multidisciplinary teamwork, and how dual-use mandates drive innovation and ROI.
Join the conversation public.digital/pd-insights/...
31.10.2025 15:24 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
nice site on deprivation data
deprivation.communities.gov.uk
30.10.2025 13:36 β π 1 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
... which is so hard to break when you have public services now dependent on fines revenue from people making honest mistakes π
29.10.2025 10:18 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
But this has been the case since at least the 1990s. It's hard to imagine a significantly better digital service without first pulling apart that assumption and the incentives to maintain it.
29.10.2025 09:51 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
With train travel specifically, we're assumed to be fare-dodging criminals until we prove otherwise. Most people can show a ticket so that's fine. If somehow I got the wrong ticket, my railcard won't load, or I accidentally joined the wrong train: guilty.
29.10.2025 09:51 β π 4 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
I was really bad at it until at least my early 30s. I decided it was important to me to do better so I learned through reading and watching other speakers, practiced what I'd learned, learned more, practiced more... and now I even enjoy it. (Feedback from audiences is usually pretty good, too.)
22.10.2025 10:43 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
even where good MFA is available, some apps will hassle endlessly to provide a phone number as backup. I've weeded out as many as I can, but it feels endless.
I'm also wondering how a generation who've lived online our whole adult lives will keep up with this shit when we get properly into old age.
22.10.2025 09:31 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
This thread is really helpful, and highlights how hard some of this is. E.g. phones which have FaceID but not fingerprint. Finger smudges make PIN codes vulnerable. Some online accounts only have 2FA via SMS or email, or worse, send to both at the same time for double the risk.
22.10.2025 09:18 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
I got a potato and wire and a copper penny but I couldnβt find a zinc plated screw.
I put it all together anyway, but it didnβt work and now Iβm being arrested for attempted battery.
19.10.2025 22:27 β π 722 π 106 π¬ 5 π 0
the AWS outage is affecting Ring doorbells. Sky News says βsome users canβt see outside their house, definitely scaryβ
just look outside your window π
20.10.2025 09:19 β π 2592 π 336 π¬ 27 π 145
Mrs R: "There was a woman on the ward today who didn't want to take paracetamol. We've had to explain that we're not giving it to her because she's got a fever and we want her to feel better, but because she's got a fever and if we don't get her temperature down then her baby is going to die."
24.09.2025 10:33 β π 946 π 397 π¬ 45 π 35
People say "autism never used to exist" and then you go to the Natural History Museum and the exhibit has a caption like "Born in 1762, The Revd [name] was famously irascible, steadfast in his routine, and dedicated his life to collecting 25,000 rare beetle specimens".
23.09.2025 06:00 β π 2737 π 609 π¬ 83 π 36
This week has been a long year. But you know what to do. π
13.09.2025 02:52 β π 655 π 374 π¬ 14 π 71
I need you to understand what this country feels like right now for those of us who look different. I'm sitting here, trying to plan for Saturday, make sure I don't even need to go to the corner shop for milk, like it's Christmas Day or lockdown. Why? Because I live near where Yaxley-Lennon will 1/
11.09.2025 23:31 β π 2187 π 865 π¬ 169 π 128
Why did the palindrome cross the road?
To get a map a mate got.
#palindrome
05.09.2025 06:22 β π 390 π 95 π¬ 9 π 3
+1 for 17Track. It's not fancy, but it works. (Except for Royal Mail just lately, but they seem to have some kind of ongoing API nasties which affect their own app as well.)
01.09.2025 12:51 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Manager: "What's this milestone 'Living on a prayer' ?"
Me: "That's the documentation deliverable."
Manager: "What's the status of that?"
Me: "We're halfway there"
Manager: "Why is progress so slow?"
Me: "You fired Tommy"
Manager: "So?"
Me: "Tommy used to work on the docs"
23.02.2025 21:12 β π 5352 π 1493 π¬ 91 π 93
26.08.2025 08:10 β π 3270 π 851 π¬ 19 π 8
Totally. I've switched a couple of accounts purely on this basis.
27.08.2025 13:31 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Cartoon: A crow is standing on a branch. Another, smaller crow is lying on top of it, on its back, legs in the air. Caption: Velcrow
Velcrow
Birds of a feather stick together.
www.worldofmoose.com/products/vel...
22.08.2025 10:59 β π 548 π 141 π¬ 5 π 3
Tech pioneer Stephanie Shirley: βI need to make the life that was saved worth savingβ
The βventure philanthropistβ on her journey from child refugee to billion-dollar businesswoman β and why Britain must do more for those fleeing war today
Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley has died aged 91. She is the subject of I think, one of the best ever FT lunches, which you can read here (registration or subscription required, will post a first 300 clicks free link in the replies):
11.08.2025 16:56 β π 121 π 43 π¬ 13 π 6
Oh this makes terrible sense
10.07.2025 16:30 β π 5 π 6 π¬ 1 π 0
Iβm petrified about todayβs science news. Genetically modifying crabs to have cheetah genes? This could go sideways fast.
08.07.2025 09:45 β π 22673 π 4113 π¬ 811 π 311
Emergency Alert day has been confirmed as 7th September. If you have a secret phone for safety go to settings and turn off all government notifications. Setting it to silent or airplane is not enough π¨ (guidance on each step is on the internet). Spread the word
08.07.2025 15:20 β π 84 π 111 π¬ 1 π 7
My only objection to this meme is that the woman in blue should be about 83ft tall
06.06.2025 14:59 β π 56 π 7 π¬ 0 π 0
The public meltdown happening between the worldβs richest man π and the President of the United States ππ once again begs the age-old question: are men simply too emotional to be in positions of power?
05.06.2025 23:04 β π 11043 π 2438 π¬ 283 π 136
"I could slow it down and be a little more delicate, but it wouldnβt be authentic to who I am"
= "I could take 10 seconds longer to show my loved ones that I care, but that wouldn't be authentic to who I am"
05.06.2025 09:36 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
The Invisible Man Returns - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inv...
1) How would you know he was there in the first place?
2) How would you know that he left?
3) How do you know that he came back?
04.06.2025 16:48 β π 40 π 4 π¬ 1 π 0
Writes the most popular UK politics Substack (samf.substack.com)
Sunday Times bestselling book "Failed State" out now. (An Economist and Financial Times Book of the Year for 2024).
Senior fellow: Institute for Government
Guardian columnist and journalist. Commentator of the Year 2024. Author of Who Wants Normal? and Crippled.
E: frances.ryan.freelance@guardian.co.uk
We are Nesta, the research and innovation foundation. We apply our deep expertise in applied methods to design, test and scale solutions across the innovation lifecycle. http://nesta.org.uk/newsletter
Interested in more human ways to govern our lives together, and how technology can help. Blog: https://medium.com/@jamestplunkett π³οΈββ§οΈ
Delivered effective, efficient, and secure digital services for the American people until we were forced to stop on March 1, 2025. Not an official government account. Reposts are not endorsements. Our new website: https://18f.org/ #AltGov
Big fan of big ideas about big issues. Mostly public services, civil service and civic governance.
Ex-Cabinet Office, DHSC and RSA. Now freelance.
General Secretary FDA union. ACAS Council member. TUC Trustee, General Council and Executive Committee member. Chair Unions21
CEO of the Institute for Government
Design Lead at UK Government Digital Service
Projects include Register to Vote, Petition Parliament, GovWifi and the GOV.UK Prototype Kit
https://joelanman.com
Consulting, writing and speaking on comms, collaboration & future of work. Cofounder Lithos Partners, DWXS and 300 Seconds. Gym bore. Takes too many photos of Amsterdam.
Small town girl with a heart of gold and a passion for leading cults.
Psychosociologist, bestselling author, tycoon, satirist and lover of 90s advertising jingles. Maybe she's born with it.
Doing digital transformation.
I love data, tea and comics. Thoughts all my own.
Public sector agitator for good.
Feminist. Cheese. Dachshunds.
Digital. π΄σ §σ ’σ ·σ ¬σ ³σ Ώ
She/her.
Systems geek that rides motorcycles with a penchant for experimentation
Director at Public Digital, supporting organisations through radical transformation. Spent 20+ year in UK LocalGov, and 6 years at Placecube working with councils to co-design and develop an open source SaaS digital platform.
Prof of EBM @UniOxford, author, Bad Science person, more... I run http://bennett.ox.ac.uk making tools+papers from data http://OpenSAFELY.org http://OpenPrescribing.net
I help people report broken street lights, find out their bin day, plan train travel, manage an orchestra, locate the nearest postbox, research old theatre productions, keep time in a choir, and occasionally play board games | https://dracos.co.uk
Senior Director @ Public Digital, but these views are just mine. Also at @robmiller31@mastodon.social and occasionally blogging at bytherye.com/about-me/. Have quit the Bad Place.
Lead content designer at TPXimpact. Lurking to read government digital and design stuff.
Pondering innovation and disruption in tech and in life β with optimism and skepticism. Forbes, ZDNet, Harvard Business Review, Database Trends. Temple U., Army brat