Having failed wholeheartedly to get my comments into the Power of Information Taskforce on their recently published Power of Information Taskforce beta Report (can I send you the scribbles on my hard copy please?!), there is one recommendation that warrants a quick post of its own.

In many ways, what I’m about to say seems a little academic given the job spec has already been published (quick work that!), but I’m going to say it anyway in the hope of influencing the kind of candidate Tom Watson and the team plump for.

The job description will mean different things to different people, but to me this person needs to embody everything they are meant to bring to the world of GovWeb and digital engagement. Engaging, human, interactive, user friendly, open, honest, authentic, innovative, collaborative, open to challenge and improvement, mashable (OK not sure about that one!). What they must not be is Civil Servant 1.0 (or private sector bod 1.0 for that matter). They must not believe they can do it alone, they must not be overly interested in PRINCE 2, rules, regulations, process, or asking permission. Instead, they must trust in others to deliver on their agenda on their behalf and act more as a node or convenor, someone not too dissimilar to a digital bridgebuilder.

However, unfortunately on the whole with a few honourable exceptions (mostly in the NHS) Tsars tend to fail. They are set up to fail. They are invested with such responsibility and tend to be the wrong type of person for the job. Unfortunately risk allergic civil service recruitment processes are far more likely to appointment someone in line with Civil Servant 1.0. I fear the government is more likely to jump to appoint someone strong on tech implementation and weaker on creating a vision of change that everyone (not just geeks) can buy into.

Which is a shame as there are a good one or two people out there who tick all the boxes - so let’s aim for them! But should we fail, let’s please err on the side of someone who can lead business rather than technical change. A leader of real and lasting change bought into by the many and not the few. Someone capable of engaging looking forwards as well as back, inwards as well as outwards.

They must understand change beyond mere digital engagement, overseeing the whole spectrum of change from on and offline engagement, to listening and learning, developing policy, changing working practices (not just policy formation but also practical service delivery, and communicating and sharing those changes as widely as possible, encouraging co-ownership of change in government across civil servants, politicians and members of the public alike.

And yes the (what sounds like overly small) team around them should be stuffed full of the bright and the bonkers, those capable of magicking up mash up after mash up of useful data (I stress useful – there is nothing worse than mash ups for mash ups’ sake).

Oh and also a plea, a plea to surround the new Digital Director with a bunch of inquisitive sceptics, people capable of keeping this crack team of digital demons’ feet on the ground.

Most of all, the Digi Director must also avoid becoming embedded in government and spend as much time out and about as possible, out with the policy makers, politicians and social innovators. They will also need uber executive back up from somewhere in government to make the change happen, with experiences such as those of the recently ex-civil servant Jeremy Gould highlighting the distance the government still has to travel before it truly gets the web and is willing to invest appropriate amounts of time and attention in it.

So what next? Well Steph Gray has made a great start at enabling us all to set the agenda for the Digi Director through his user voice site. Daren Forsyth sees Steph’s idea and raises him, suggesting that we open source the recruitment process, publishing the names of all individuals who apply to the role giving the digerati the opportunity to feed into the process. Given they are a key (and often sceptical) constituency for this person to work with, it might not be such a bonkers idea after all.

Oh and one last message to the soon to be Director of Digital Engagement. Have fun and good luck whoever you are!