Supporting Software as a Service

We’ve been using KashFlow.com for our company accounts for a few years now. It’s an online service for which we pay about £20 a month. Prior to KashFlow we used Sage. KashFlow was a welcome breath of fresh air after Sage’s repeated attempts to get you to upgrade every year. Read more…

My Council – from the LGA

The Local Government Association has launched, my council, a new campaign to help people understand the range of services that local councils provide. The first poster appeals to me. A positive image that isn’t the most obvious service.  The posters include a drunk woman vomiting on the street, a close-up Read more…

Your Personal President(ial Candidate)

The Obama08 campaign have always made a big deal out of the fact that they raise all their funds from ordinary citizens whereas Clinton and McCain have taken millions of dollars from lobbyists and political action committees. The latest sales promotion that the Obama campaign are using is the chance Read more…

TV Advertising: £millions; Facebook: priceless

You spend £1,000s on developing an advertising strategy, £100,000 on creating some TV ads, £1,000,000’s on advertising slots and some students from Poynton High create an homage on Facebook to "one of the greatest drama teacher’s" ever.  For FREE.  You can’t buy this type of marketing and that is why Read more…

eDemocracy buses

A bit like the proverbial buses – you wait all year for an eDemocracy event and then suddenly three (and then some) appear at once.

Yesterday Sophia and I nipped across to the bright lights of Bristol and the Watershed for the Modern Methods of governance – democracy in action or mob rule?.  (A Webcast has been promised).

We heard from Tom Steinberg of MySociety about how ePetitions and "golden pages" can help draw people into engaging with democracy and government.  A view that was put forward in our evaluation of ePetitioner for ICELE (page 8).  Mary Reid continued on ePetitions and Mike Brewin added some Bristol detail.  Ian Wiebkin from Kirklees Council presented the DigiTV project and the imminent digital switchover was hailed as a potential tipping point when interactive TV services could become mainstream.  I am currently sceptical about interactive services on TV and the figures that Ian was able quote from Sky were not comforting.  90% of Sky users have used the interactive service at some point, but nothing about how often they used them and what for.  Personally I don’t know anyone who has ever used digital TV to access a non-TV service, yet last night in the pub (not a Hoxton digirati crew) we found that Mr T, the farmer, was on Facebook and for the next hour a masterclass on social networking and virtual knickers ensued.  I have never heard that buzz about interactive TV services.

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