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https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/09/10/this-week-at-gds-46/

This week at GDS

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: GDS team

Mike Beaven talks about the latest quarterly update to the Transactions Explorer and welcomes cross-government heads of communications, whose monthly meeting is being hosted by GDS this week.

Transcript below

Interviewer:
Hi, Mike.

Mike Beaven:
Hello there.

Interviewer:
What have we got coming up this week, at GDS?

Mike:
So we’ve got an update to the Transactions Explorer. For anyone who has not seen that, it's a kind of one stop shop for a lot of data about all the transactions that the citizens of the UK interact with government over. So, Cliff Shepherd and the team have got together a whole quarter’s worth of new data and loaded that into the tool.

Interviewer:
We’ve already had one visitor to GDS this week?

Mike:
Yes, we’ve had a delegation from the Singapore government. They came in today to talk to Liam (Maxwell) about his Office of Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) function, and basically what our approach is to running IT in the UK government.
Later this week, on Wednesday, we’ve got all the cross-government heads of digital engagement and communication coming in. They’re holding their regular meeting here, but it's good to have them in the heart of GDS, having that meeting.

Interviewer:
What were we up to last week at GDS?

Mike:
So last week, we had an interesting session about open standards, where we had a show and tell last Thursday. So, Paul Downey, who is one of our technical architects, he writes a regular blog on this, so you if you want to look at that on the GDS website. Generally, the thing about open standards is getting involved, so people should get involved.

Interviewer:
Graham Francis blogged about something else we’ve been up to recently?

Mike:
Yes, we have a blogging platform that’s available on GOV.UK, that any department can use if they want to, basically, blog about things. So it's a really useful, valuable tool. If you want to get a sense of how it works, have a look at the History of Government blog that the National Archives have put on there.

Interviewer:
Finally, have we got any new starters, this week?

Mike:
We’ve got quite a few new starters this week. I won’t list them all, but we’ve got four new faces in the Content Team, who’s Cass (Bonner), Gavan (Curley), Charlotte (Harry) and Tom (Adams). GOV.UK have got some new people, and we’ve got some new people in the Transition team, moving all the content onto the main platform.

Interviewer:
Excellent. Until next time.

Mike:
Thank you.

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5 comments

  1. Comment by Martha Garvey posted on

    Is it possible to provide the links to all the blogs he refers to?

    Great post.

    • Replies to Martha Garvey>

      Comment by Matt Sheret posted on

      Of course, we'll drop those in now Martha.

      • Replies to Matt Sheret>

        Comment by simon posted on

        Thanks for the links Matt. Very useful.
        Re: the inter-government talks.
        Anyway we can see this opened up a bit?
        I did (offhandedly) mention to Liam when he was in Oz that there are bunch of inter-network tools lying around various NRENs. They won't get a looking until we see about getting some standards in place between networks.gov.xx

        They'll also change the approach to "inclusion".

        Here's an insight into the discussions. https://www.terena.org/mail-archives/tf-msp/msg00605.html

  2. Comment by Graham Lee posted on

    "Mike Beaven ... welcomes cross government heads of communications."

    Why are they cross?

    • Replies to Graham Lee>

      Comment by Matt Sheret posted on

      Good spot Graham - the hyphen's been added now.