“There are few things more dehumanizing than being told by a machine that you’re not real because of your face" For the last month, I've been speaking to people living with facial differences and disfigurements about how face verification tech is failing them. Spoiler: things aren't going well

Europe's largest city council delays fix to disastrous Oracle system once more

The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

Trust Day 1/30 sharing my favorite doodles and drawings.

GREATNESS IS SERVING Read the full story of a very special evening at Leyton's Coach & Horses, where some very special guests helped us tell the full story behind the fantastic new #LOFC mural - and all in a very deserving cause...

Microsoft admits it 'cannot guarantee' data sovereignty

Conspiracy theorists should be required to do work experience in government departments so they can see firsthand the impossibility of any vast secret government conspiracies.

David R. Hagen just solved a small mystery that I mentioned 13 years ago in the mouseover text of a comic drhagen.com/blog/the-mis...

Here’s some of the background on Extract, which the Prime Minister announced on Monday, plus the detail on how we incubated the proof-of-concept. There’s boatloads more discovery and alpha work to do. Went full techno-realist with the open para. mhclgdigital.blog.gov.uk/2025/06/12/e...

How the OS is bringing Slopey Roofs to homes near you “… and combines it with findings from the Met Office, including information on the sun’s position at specific times and dates, to provide users with the Slopey Roofs tool for assessing the efficiency of roofs for solar panel installation.”

The 99p offer is also available via Kobo, for people looking for a different ebook supplier: www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...

Would you like to use our new-look weather app? 📲 We’re doing a major upgrade of our Met Office weather app. And we’d love you to try it out, and tell us what you think. Sign-up to get the test version ⤵️ response.questback.com/isa/qbv.dll/...

it's simple really

There’s a great interview with Nick Park about Wallace And Gromit in last month’s Empire, and this bit in particular stood out. It sums up what artists have been trying to say about AI. The mistakes and the learning aren’t things to be bypassed, but a vital part of the process 🤟

I think that one of the best clubs in the country to support at the moment might be...Leyton Orient. It's not just the redemption and the potential, but the human story here. For that, you need to speak to Martin Ling. inews.co.uk/sport/footba...

On this day 12 years ago, @kcg.bsky.social posted the “This is Fine” comic.

@da.vebrig.gs your LinkedIn post about a standards regime; how do you score LAs in meeting users needs, when they’re the only people who have the info to know what their needs are? Generic testing (like SOCITM or GDS Accessibility) will have limited value, but some ranking is better than nothing?

“You know, while you’re out on your walk, go some place where you might feel a little child-like wonder and look around — look at the small things and look at the big things and just follow that sense of mystery and wonder.’ That’s all we asked them to do.” www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/awe-wo...

A new Local Gov weeknote for you to follow; Angie Forson, new at Southwark, is sharing her experience as web and digital programme lead. Hear about Ping Pong, the Open Digital Cooperative and what’s on her reading list. One to watch! angieforson.medium.com

Toblerones.

Wow. Bluesky has properly arrived.

Based on your headline I'm hoping the bot was trained on Scarf Lady from Sarah and Duck sarah-and-duck.fandom.com/wiki/Scarf_L...

This is one of the best uses of AI i've seen so far: uk.pcmag.com/security/155... A bot which keeps scammers busy in conversational loops of confusion.

What’s your main source of news? Is it somewhere which has its own journalists (The Times, BBC, ITV, The Guardian) or do you use an aggregated site/app (Twitter, Flipboard, Apple News)? Because curiosity.

The diligent @colinstenning.bsky.social has been at it again, documenting chatbot use across Local Authorities. digitalhealthcheck.co.uk/2024/09/chat... I’m glad I don’t live near Telford & Wrekin.

You know a platform is hitting the big time when Sam Pepys arrives.

I wrote a thing about one of my favourite websites from long ago, that was called 'Flickr'. medium.com/@dannybircha...

That bogus “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” quote was never uttered by Henry Ford. It's used by people who hold the customers in contempt—who think they're such stable geniuses that they don't need to ask. 1/8

There’s a rare Associate Product Manager role available at the Ministry Of Justice - perfect for any User Centred Design people who want to make the best pivot of their career! www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...

Following some skeets (?) yesterday, I've been thinking about Recycling Data as a thing, and wrote some words at blog.tomsteel.co.uk/2024/09/19/w... That makes four posts this year. Urgh. At least I'm not thinking about Recycling Data as a thing any more.

This got me thinking. Is data more like the stuff we put in recycling bins? We know that most of it could be put to good use, but that takes considerable time and effort. Perhaps we shouldn’t produce so much stuff that needs recycling in the first place?

Ever wanted to design a board game but don't know where to start? I'm running the Game Design Masterclass, a high-energy crash course in the theory and practice of game design, on Tuesday 10th Sept at Badger Badger in east London. A few tickets are still available. www.gamedesignmasterclass.com

What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders? With any digital product/service, the technology is the easiest bit.

I’m unashamedly biased on this, but LocalGov Drupal LocalGovDrupal.org can not be over promoted. Public services making and collaborating on Open Source products for the benefit of all. Agile product management at its best.

I just remembered that I wrote this last year on the process we used to create the new-look NHS.UK roadmap. Might be helpful for other public sector orgs looking to create a roadmap that covers multiple product teams: jiggott.medium.com/creating-the...

This week I've worked out how to use Apple Shortcuts to save whole web pages to Notion on an iPhone. blog.tomsteel.co.uk/2024/07/17/s... Which was nice.

Blog: on Monkey Tennis syndrome, or how to handle meetings and pitches that start to unravel while you're in them: stephgray.com/2024/06/monk...

Shocked. Was not expecting that.

I remember the days when people were furious Google was scanning their emails to serve ads. Now we’ve reached the point that everything you send and receive is being filtered through its AI model and you’re expected to love it.

Took a bunch of the openly available product management resources from cross-government Slack. Made ‘em available on the X-GOV community website (for anyone to use, gov or not). At the bottom. Gonna fix the pages with @paulrobertlloyd.com in a bit. x-govuk.github.io#product-mana...

Jack Dorsey says (on X) that he’s not on the Bluesky board anymore

Hey product peeps! We have a v cool seat to fill on BFI Player: Product Manager, Features. You'll lead development of new features and functionality for our native website and the TV apps API. Salary £49.9K - £58.7K . Apply by 10 May. Please share! bfijobsandopportunities.bfi.org.uk/tlive_webrec...

This is in almost every public sector digital business case that’s ever existed.

If you’ve ever heard someone say “If we automated X, it would free people up to do Y”, and thought 🤔, I just wrote a thing about that: www.timpaul.co.uk/posts/automation-and-the-jevons-paradox/

I hope that our clicks-and-mortar strategy staircases.

I often refer to Chris Yiu’s ‘how many is too many?’ post. It pre-dates the NHS app but still makes a compelling point: yiu.co.uk/blog/some-nh...

Reading this will be a good end to your week: "Don’t ask forgiveness, radiate intent" by @elizayer.bsky.social medium.com/@ElizAyer/do...

I got the opportunity today to share this with someone who hadn't heard it before.

It's council tax season when annual bills are sent. Always frustrating that so few councils communicate that council tax only accounts for 20-40% of a council's income. And that high increases are usually needed to balance central gov grant cuts www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/lo...