[To see the report back on the event that followed this post, take a look over here, here and here)

It’s been a big week in the world of digital government, what with the first Minister for Communications Stephen Carter announcing that he’s in the process of drafting a ‘Digital Britain’ action plan as well as the launch of the Digital Inclusion action plan (I’ll be returning to these in a future post).  So it seemed rather timely to find myself having a coffee and a chat with the Internet tsar Derek Wyatt MP last Thursday.

Derek has a mightily impressive CV that I won’t go into in great detail here, but highlights include previously chairing the All Party Internet Group and now co-chairing the All Party Communciations Group as well as playing the lead role in establishing the Oxford Internet Institute. No coincidence then that Derek has a double award winning website from the New Statesman and British Computer Society as well as being voted one of the top 100 internet visionaries over the past decade in 2004.

To prepare myself for meeting with Derek, I did what any self-respecting blogging gov geek would do and put a shout out on twitter:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was inundated with responses from the Twitterati given it’s a subject close to all our geeky hearts. Here’s the edited highlights (apologies to those that I haven’t included but the full list was 32 tweets long not including my own!):

@alberton: start from the top - appoint a CTO to implement all the wishes on the list

@sscullion: does forgetting about eavesdropping on all comms and dumping it in a central database count? No gov web initiative will succeed without rebuilding confidence and trust first. Gov track record just sucks big time. So need to start small, achievable, do it right, gain experience, be open with the process…

@timd: stop with the insane desire to lock down, censor and generally treat the population like naughty children.

@exmosis: not monitoring every piece of IP traffic would be nice. Failing that, opening up the integration of local gov with free & simple mobile services such as sms alerts, etc. I wonder how local/central govt split compares to web2.0 communities with centralised functionality, but personal networks. web2 = central sites/functionality but personal networks (eg. twitter) Will/could local/central govt do same? e.g. Should local gov focus on developing local networks and links, over and above replicating technical functionality?

@folknology: I would be interested in how they put together their hosting infrastructure, securing their data rather than shipping around hard disks which end up on eBay. Distributed efficient green hosting. Oh and greater use of OpenSource to help kerb budgets and leverage the commons.

@marshallmanson: (1) keep your mitts off. Governmentt regulations will do severe harm. (2) Move towards radical transparency. Publish all reports. Web developed massive import thanks unfettered freedom. Government just gets in the way.

@bjelkeman: more on open data and transparent governance. Government should have online “performance management”, more transparency, like this.

@eliotf: should be seed funding passionate developers that are doing clever things, invest in good user experience designers 2 make stuff easier 2 use. Open accessible data. People will figure the rest out for themselves.

@justingsouter: as many systems/databases run by the State should have an API (where security allows). Then we could mash them, buwahaha!

@stevebridger: to action all the recommendations in the Power of Information Review.

@lowcarbondiary: reliable and affordable broadband in rural areas so I don’t have to blog from internet cafes when the power goes out?

@mlyons: effective use of web-based apps, which is integrated into the policy process.

@badgergravling: let me have a say in the things that affect me. I’m not signing up for everything in a Labour/Lib/Tory policy pack.

There are a number of themes that emerge from these helpful and insightful tweets, both in terms of what the government can do for UK.com but also how the government can lead by example and reform itself:

1. Keep up the good work

Keep pushing ahead with the implementation of the Power of Information report and on-going thinking by the taskforce to open up access to valuable public sector data.

As part of this, it is clear that many believe the government needs to do this both to enable others to unleash the power of that information, but also to increase transparency and therefore trust in government more widely (for example publishing government performance management data in user friendly real time way).

2. Open up - and think big!

Not only in terms of data and transparency (which are of course both fundamental), but also in terms of seeking input from the wider geek community into what still feels like a relatively closed group and agenda within government. If my small sample is anything to go by, there is a huge amount interest and enthusiasm in and around this agenda and it would be a shame not to make the most of it.

Why not go out, grab the best of the best and develop an Innovation lab for instance and use it to drive the pace of change, to truly challenge and transform the government. To truly change government, merely enforcing the findings in the POI report, or indeed delivering the disparate and as yet seemingly unjoined up Digital Britain, Digital Inclusion etc programmes, may not be enough. Change must be delivered within a single widely owned vision drawing on (crowdsourcing even) as wide a range of thinking and input as possible.

3. Think before regulating

There is evidently a lot of nervousness around the potential for government regulation to stifle the current rampant innovation and creativity in the UK web community as well as impinging on personal digital freedoms, particularly in light of the early headlines coming out of the Digital Britain action plan for instance. This innovation is driven in no small part by the openness and sharing currently permitted in a relatively unregulated space. The fear is that by shrinking this space so too will the space to innovate.

4. Lower barriers to engagement

There are clearly just some ‘basic’ infrastructural requirements that need to be resolved without which everything else may in fact be largely irrelevant. Above all, the roll out of ubiquitous broadband must accelerated, perhaps even through supporting grassroots movements such as Bristol Wireless (hat tip Ed Mitchell) among others to speed up roll out and adoption and short cutting the current long slow road we find ourselves on.

Add into the mix some simple tools to help citizens connect with government (including some as yet hugely under used basic technologies such as sms text messaging) and getting the basics right within government (areas such as data security, green server farms and perhaps even greater use of open source to help kerb budgets) and we might be getting somewhere in terms of trust and engagement.

So what next?

The first thing I would like to do is try to set up a conversation offline, bringing together a bunch of interested bloggers for a couple of hours to sit down with Derek (and possibly other key politicians like Tom Watson and their officials if they are up for it) and talk through current thinking as well as new and emerging practice. It’s clear that both sides could benefit greatly from sharing insights at both strategic and operational levels.

If you would like to get involved, help me make it happen or have any further additions to the wish list, please leave a comment below or drop me an email and let’s see what we can do.