Regular readers will know how much I love Google’s online tools. I recently blogged about how Google Docs can be used to create open data formats and today I’ve taken this further by using Google Docs recently released Share Folders to prototype an easy document library. As usual I’ve used some public documents from City of Lincoln Council and you can find the results here.

What’s basically going on here is that I’ve created a root folder within Google Docs which I have set to be shared globally. Any folders and documents within this then automatically inherit this share permission, allowing them to be accessed by anyone. Simple. What it basically does is enable an organisation, be it a local authority, some business or anyone, to store all their public documentation online and logically categorise it for easy consumption. Combined with the fact that it’s all being delivered through Google Docs via embeds and therefore does not really require download by the end user then this becomes a brilliant way to distribute documents. It’s also very easy to keep updated and any changes made to native Google docs are reflected in real time.

There are, however a few niggling problems with this. The shared  folders do not have a search on them which would be fantastic, especially if they were to be used to store lots of documents. Also, there is no easy way to download the native Google documents in their “whizzy” open data formats (RTF, RSS etc) without “opening” them, despite the fact that they’re already open. This system will also be somewhat detached from an organisations main website, i.e. not easy to link in using traditional CMS commands (for basic CMS publishers) or included in search results. It would also be top if the shared folder generated its own RSS feed.

But, all in all, I think that this is a very good application of Google Docs, once again. The more Google adds to these cloud based services, the more we can look at using them creatively.

I’ve also started using this for myself – look down the right navbar and you’ll see a link to my public Google Docs. Anything I want to make public will go in here so check back often for new additions. Again, would be good if I could RSS it but – hey ho

The Think Tank in Lincoln - host to LocalGovCamp

The LocalGovCamp in Lincoln last friday was an awesome day made even more awesome by the top people that we had attending. There was a palpable level of entusiasm and excitement in the Think Tank that really came out in the quality of the sessions and the level of discussion. There was emotion (@davebriggs and @ShoeButt are now required to have a make up hug) and above all everyone was open to sharing their views and opinions (because, let’s be honest, we’d all be boring if we thought the same way) on a number of subjects ranging from mapping and e-petitioning to social media usage and hyperlocal communication.

Personally I was massively pleased with the turnout (although there were some notable exceptions who I hope to see at future events), the location at the Think Tank, the quality of the catering and the fact that everyone went away with new ideas and contacts.

The stylish unagenda chart, filled with pretty post-it's for the sessions

 @Liz_Azyan asked me (as did a number of other people) what I thought the purpose of LocalGovCamp is. I think that, at its most basic level, it is an opportunity for likeminded people working in or with an interest in the public sector, whether they are web professionals, comms guys, councillors, contractors – to get together, share ideas and keep up to speed with the ideas and developments of their peers. It is so important that we endeavour to work together and share our findings; we’re not in a competetive industry and we should all be ensuring that we’re on a level playing field. This kind of thing also breeds creativity, allowing us to look at the technology available, take what others are doing with it and put our own slant on things. And the current technology gives us the power to do this.

But then, if you’re reading this, you most likely don’t need me to tell you that!

A big thanks, once again, to all attendees; friends and long distance colleagues all. There wasn’t a pledge wall at the camp but let’s all take away ideas and try and make a difference. See you at the next camp!

P.S. I’ve got some notes from the sessions I attended that I plan on writing up over the next few days so keep them peepers peeled. I’ll also be aggregating all the information to flow from the event on the LGCLincoln blog so go sign up for the RSS there if you haven’t already…

(photo credits to @iamadonut)

Councillor Allowances, published to the City of Lincoln Council Website via Google Docs

I’m very pleased to announce that a project long in gestation has been released to the public today; the first heavy integration of Google Docs into the City of Lincoln Council website. I’d previously dabbled with this to publish usage metrics on our website here, but the page we launched this morning displays details of councillor allowances; more mainstream, public data.

The process is simple – copy and paste your XLS spreadsheet into a Google Spreadsheet, hit the big blue “Share” button and select “Publish as a Web Page”. Select the sheets you wish to publish (if you have many), tick “Automatic Publishing” and then select the flavour you want. First off I used the “HTML to embed in a page” option – this gave me the iFrame that allows the user to read the document in the page without downloading a PDF or navigating away from our site. I then grabbed links for CSV and RSS flavours to encourage reuse and resyndication, and finally provided links to a PDF version and standalone web version to allow the user choice.

But why is this better? Here’s some of the benefits of this approach:

• We don’t force the user to download a document to read it – the information is presented to them right there on the page.
• Google will automatically convert the document to reusable flavours – we can publish these and encourge reuse.
• It’s easier to maintain – instead of having to upload a new version of the document, change links on the site, remove the old document etc, etc, all we need do is update the remote file on Google Docs.

There are a few cons, however:

• There has to be some consideration on how this is managed – as an organisation we do hold sensitive data which could easily be leaked through something like Google Docs so…
• …Google Docs is banned across most of our network (not boasting, but as web guy I get special access). This makes it a problem for officers to get on board and help republish this data.
• There could be accessibility issues – I need to do some testing in this area but I’m not ruling it out as yet.

On a whole, though, this integration should work to make data more accessible and make it easier for users to read documents on our website that they would have had to download in the past. I’m hoping that we can move to integrate this across the website and will be keeping this blog up-to-date as this moves ahead…

Storm Clouds (photo by Flickr user Kuzeytac)

Following up on a previous blog post regarding putting faith in cloud based services comes the bombshell that popular UK based postcode search API supplier website Earnest Marples has been closed down via a Cease and Desist order from the Royal Mail. The previous post mused about what would happen if/when a service that was relied on by other services stopped and this is a prime example. Following this announcement the public service, non profit websites PlanningAlerts.com and the Straight Choice, as well as a number of others, are no longer functioning. But this has had a bigger impact still – TwitterPlan, developed by Stuart Harrison of Lichfield DC, and the Planning RSS feed and map for City of Lincoln Council are no longer available (okay, so it turns out that they do work, however their future rests in the balance of whether PlanningAlerts.com can keep running or not…) as they relied on PlanningAlerts which, in turn, relied on Earnest Marples. You get the picture.

I’m sure there are many more casualties in this but the big question is; who’s at fault? The immediate finger of blame will be pointed at the Royal Mail, being the big bad corporation behind this; there is a strong argument that postcode information is public data and, therefore, should be publically available. Earnest Marples was doing the honourable (and daring) thing in doing this; making this data usable by non profit organisations who want to provide a service that is simply not possible with this locked down data model. My personal opinion is that this data SHOULD be open and usable however the reality is that, legally, Royal Mail owns the data and has the right to charge for it and, yes, what Earnest Marples was doing was technically against the law.

So we’re now back to the question of “Should we put our faith in the clouds?”. If this is anything to go by then relying on cloud based services is a risky business indeed – sure they little to nothing to implement but once the rug gets pulled out, it’s back to the drawing board, having to invest time into fixing any broken links and damage that may have been done to services that have been put in place on the back of this. But, as people expect more of this kind of service on the web, maybe the big corporations who own this kind of data need to think long and hard about their “business model”; being seen as the bad guy is not good for your corporate image…

Check out my famous self!

Ego time! Thanks to @EmmaMaier at the Local Gov Chronicle for re-tweeting in print a comment of mine regarding the position of Local Gov in 2014. The full comment was:

Self service – by 2014 people will need to be able to access their local-gov related data when they want it and be able to…

…make transactions online including checking balance and paying CTax, applying for Benefits and all other things. Too…

…disconnected at the moment.

Spread over three tweets. It can be found in the 19/09/09 edition of the Local Gov Chronicle, page 20 or by clicking on the piccy I’ve embedded.

It’s not going to change the world in any way, but I’m most chuffed

Quickie post – in the interests of having a “hub site” for the Lincoln arm of LocalGovCamp, I’ve set up this on WordPress.com – http://lgclincoln.wordpress.com/.

If you’re interested in the Lincoln event, pop here and register to the RSS to keep up to date.

Big announcement for me; I’ve finally got the set up together for holding a LocalGovCamp in lil’ ol Lincoln!

The date is 23rd October and the venue is the Think Tank. I’m still in the process of organising sponsors and will update here as often as I can, as well as on the LocalGovCamp blog.

Please go and sign up here to attend!

Two topics in this post, one which I should have blogged about a month ago but somehow totally forgot to!

Lincoln Christmas Market Website

I’m particularly pleased with the Lincoln Christmas Market website. Launched mid July 2009, it’s self hosted on a WordPress MU install. The idea behind it is to provide a platform to easily release information about the market as it becomes available, be very customisable for the City Council and also promote discussion and involvement. There are plans to use it to liveblog the actual market, posting pictures and video as they are taken. Hopefully I’ll post up about this when it happens as I should be involved!

I’d also like to point out that the pic in this post was taken using the Screengrab! plugin for FireFox. This is a doody little plugin that, with a single click, can take a grab of the current view of any web page, the whole page or a selected portion of the page. This saves you having to trim any unwanted junk out or stitch together a screenshot in Photoshop. Very cool and a real timesaver!

Clicky on the image to grab the template

There’s probably a ton of these floating round the web but as I’m working on this at the mo I thought I would throw it up here. A very simple 10×10 grid of 64×64 pixel squares that you can use as the basis of any custom Google Icons you work on. Make sure you slice inside the red outline and you’ll be sorted! Let me know if this is of use to you…

Cloud computing. It’s great. I’ve been a long time supporter of the concept that you can host your files and your applications on the web, accessing your email, documents and photos where you want so long as you have access to a computer. It has helped me shift work between the office and home without the need for physical media, has helped me show holiday photos to relatives without the need to send a CD or get the images developed, and it’s allowed me to work collaboratively on projects without having to leave my house. It’s really, really great.

But it does have one very big caveat; what happens when it all goes wrong? This is an age old argument that has just come to life again in the last five days. A bit of background; Al Smith from Newcastle DC came to use Twitter last Friday, only to discover that his account had been suspended (@alncl). No reason was given and he certainly hadn’t been abusing his acount. Simon Wakeman blogged a great interview with Al, discussing the background of this. On the surface this may seem trivial; a glitch in the system that led to someone being inadvertanaly banned. But it’s the lack of communications from Twitter Support and the length of time it’s taken to get any kind of resolution for Al (at the time of writing, @alncl is still banned!)

What would happen if this was an orgnisations Twitter account? Not only is there the issue of faith in these new forms of communication that the web is currently heralding in, there is also the issue of reputation. Why was this organisations account banned? Had they been doing something dodgy? And not only the reputation of the organisation, but the reputation of Twitter as a service.

Earlier this year, GMail had some major outage problems. These were resolved fairly quickly and Google were incredibly informative both during the outage and afterwards. Many businesses were affected by this; downtime does happen in this unpredictable world of computing. What retains faith for the end user is how well the manufacturer handles this downtime.

Twitter is quickly becoming the “It” service of the web; everyone wants in on it and corporations are starting to include it in their communications strategy. I can’t help but think that Twitter, as a company, would benefit a buyout – something they’ve always shirked away from. People have high expectations from their online service providers and I personally don’t think that Twitter is currently in a position to provide this level of service. Under the wing of a company like Google, however, this should be a different matter…

But there is still the underlying question; should we put our faith in the clouds?