There are lots of different opt-out services that exist, all of which have separate sign-up forms and require you to fill out the same details (such as name, address, email address), over and over again. We felt there was a better solution, and so we built a site that combines the forms into one and does the hard work of submissions for you. The initial version of StayPrivate.org incorporates the Telephone, Mail & Baby Mail Preference service offered by the Direct Marketing Association.

I’ve been working on this project on and off for the past seven months (although most of the work has happened in the last two months or so), so I’m really pleased to see it launch. Since we flipped the switch early on Thursday morning, we’ve had over 4500 registrations and submitted over 6500 applications to the DMA opt-out services. This is many more than we were originally anticipating for the first public release.

The day of launch was amazing. We had to respond to issues quickly – sometimes within a few minutes. We pushed out nearly 30 fixes through out the day and switched off parts of the site to reduce server load. Since then we’ve been reducing the queues of submissions to ensure that everyone who registered has been processed.

The next task is to go through the site and look at where we can make improvements. I-ll be spending the next few days reworking parts of the site and implementing some of the suggestions we-ve received.

If you want to know more about StayPrivate or want to keep track of my work on this project, take a look at the CF Labs blog.

Update: fixing a spelling mistake pointed out by @keeran.

Since day one it’s been a non-stop rollercoaster. After my previous role, I wanted a challenge – something I could really get my teeth into. You certainly can’t say the last 12 months haven’t been challenging!

Our first few months were spent getting ourselves set up and figuring out our role. I made the switch from Windows and ASP.net to Linux and PHP. We built the Recalled Products website as our first project. We talked to all sorts of people and attended events in London and Cardiff.

After a while, we realised that although some colleagues understood what we were doing, many didn’t have a clue. They had a vague idea that there was a “web team” based in Cardiff, but not much else. This was exasperated further when they found out that we were a “web team” that didn’t work on the organisation’s own website but did this other stuff that they didn’t understand.

We found that this lack of understanding was creating barriers to our objectives, so we refocused our efforts within the organisation. We continued on some of our original ideas, but looked at how we could make people aware of our way of thinking. This led to us taking over the corporate website and removing some of the issues that were causing confusion. Since then we’ve talked and talked and talked to anyone that will listen; we’ve gotten involved in policy discussions; and helped with producing reports.

Now, a year after starting, we are starting to see things falling into place. We’ve got teams regularly asking us for advice and suggesting things we can do. We have a huge number of projects underway and we’ve got more work than the two remaining team members can shake a stick at. Over the next few months we will hopefully start to see the benefits of our change in focus.

Looking back, it’s amazing how far we’ve come. It may not seem like much to most people, but we’ve made huge strides forward. It’s been frustrating (very frustrating) at times, but at the same time very rewarding.

In the last 12 months, the whole innovation & data agenda has moved on rapidly. We’ve seen the appointment of Tim Berners-Lee, the launch of data.gov.uk and the creation of the Institute of Web Science. The Greater London Assembly has released its own store of data, Ordnance Survey data is being opened up and people are finally starting to recognise the benefits.

Of course, we still have a huge way to go. A few people still don’t understand the concept – some might even feel intimidated or threatened by it, but we will get there eventually.

So did I make a mistake jumping to public service? I don’t think so. If you’d asked me this afternoon I’d probably be giving a different answer. I have bad days like everyone (today was a perfect example), but overall it’s fantastic. I love the job – I get to build websites, design systems, go to events and meet interesting people, but most of all I get to influence the way people think about technology, the web and data. It’s frustrating at times but challenging.

What advice can I offer to any organisation wanting to set up a similar team?

• Start small but give them a wide remit – let them figure out what is achievable and the best way to go about it
• Give them their own computers and internet connections – tying them down with corporate network security will just frustrate them and make it more difficult to do the job
• Reduce the paperwork – there will always be an element of paperwork, but look at how you can make it simpler or they’ll spend all their time doing that rather than what you want them to do
• Look inside before moving outwards – it’s no use having this fantastic team if people inside the organisation don’t understand what they do. Look for projects they can do internally first.
• Go to events – the more events the better. Talk to other people in the industry, get yourself known
• Don’t be afraid of failure – teams need to learn from their mistakes to do a better job.
• Be fluid – never plan more than a month or two in advance, by the time you get there, the plans will be out of date and useless
• Don’t be afraid to ask advice. There is a huge community out there willing to support you, make the most of it.
• Finally, and most importantly, if you want an innovations team you must provide the right supportive environment to allow innovation to occur. Restrictions and procedures will stifle free thinking and make your team useless.

Sometimes I come away from the office and struggle to see what we have actually achieved. When you are stuck into day to day work, it is quite easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.

This isn’t helped by the fact that part of our team’s aim does not have a tangible outcome. We spend a sizable portion of our energy on promoting our open principles within the organisation and converting people to our way of thinking. It isn’t an easy task, as I’m sure other people in this field will confirm but I’m starting to feel like we are making some headway.

The first report (of which I hope there will be many) has just gone online, in a format allowing the public to comment on each part of the document. The Consumer Focus website is now powered using the open source WordPress Content Management System (joining the likes of bis.gov.uk and number10.gov.uk). Other developments are also in the pipeline for the next few months and all have stemmed from us ‘spreading the gospel’.

This sort of work is going on across Government on many different levels, but recently there seems to have been a bit of a breakthrough. There is lots of things happening at the moment which you might find interesting. I’m going to briefly run through them.

Data.gov.uk

This is the UK version of the USA’s Data.gov and has been operating in a restricted beta for a few months. Government departments have been posting raw datasets for developers to use for free in their open projects. From sometime in January, the site will go live with over 1100 datasets from central government.

Ordnance Survey, NHS Data, Office of National Statistics Data

Work is underway to open up more datasets and make them freely available. These include health data from NHS Choices, mapping data from Ordnance Survey (OS) and statistics from the Office of National Statistics. Consultations are planned for early in the new year with aims to open them up by April 2010. There also seems to be some movement on publishing data of how the money allocated in the 2008 Pre-Budget report has been spent (possibly by spring, with further data released in the summer).

More information about the data releases can be found in the Government’s recent strategy ‘Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government‘ and on the Government’s Digital Engagement blog.

Crime Maps

The various Police forces around the UK have released crime statistics using their new mapping service. I’ve had a bit of a play around and it looks pretty good. You can see lots of information about your local area and download the data in CSV format.

More information about the Crime Maps can be found on the Directgov website.

Post Code Data

A few months ago I wrote about the issue of post codes after ErnestMarples.com was forced to shut down by the Royal Mail. Since then, a campaign has been ongoing to set the post code free. Well, it looks like someone might have listened. As part of the opening up of OS data above, a consultation will be taking place shortly on the opening up of post code datasets, which could see the data released by April 2010.

More information about the release of post code data can be found on the Ernest Marples blog.

Digital Economy Bill

The Digital Economy Bill has recently been introduced to Parliament and is due to go to committee stage shortly. This bill contains a large chunk of the actions and recommendations from the Digital Britain Report earlier in the year (with a number of strange and scary additions). There is a lot of talk about this at the moment and the effect it will have on the digital life and innovation in the UK. You can follow the progress of the bill on the Parliament.UK website, or on twitter using the #debill hashtag. If you want more information on the bill and how it might affect us, there are a large number of blogs and websites dedicated to the issue.

Directgov

This brings me to one of the last bits for this entry, and I make no apologies for the shameless self-promotion here.

Direct.gov.uk is the UK Government’s official website for the general public. It aims to collect all the public facing information into one place and make it easy to find. Unfortunately, its usefulness and ability to achieve this aims has been called into question. Personally, I’ve never liked the website and can never find information I want from the site (in fact, I tried several times to find information relating to bits in this post but gave up).

Consumer Focus has recently published a report on the website that analyses how well it delivers on its promise. As I alluded to earlier, this report is available online in fully commentable format. We are encouraging everyone and anyone to send us their thoughts on Directgov, what the problems are and what can be improved. Similarly, if you think it is doing something right, we want to know that too. You can find out more about the report at http://directgov.consumerfocuslabs.org.

I believe there will be a series of workshops planned for early in the new year to identify ways of engaging people in digital public service development. You can sign up on the site to be kept informed (and I’ll no doubt be publishing the information here as well).

Looking back at everything that has been achieved and everything that has happened in the last nine months, I’m actually quite excited at what we can do by this time next year (election permitting of course!). I have my fingers crossed 2010 will continue making leaps towards open government.

Karoo disconnects file sharers
Hull’s only internet provider – Karoo – has been disconnecting people accused of file sharing without the right to appeal. Although they’ve now changed their policy, as a monopoly provider, they have a greater responsibility to provide connections to all residents of hull.
Source: BBC News

Government departments are sticking with IE6
Aside from the fact that web developers (myself included) hate IE6 because of its complete lack of standards support, there are big concerns over its security. IE6 is over 8 years old and has been superseded by not 1, but 2 versions. Despite this, a number of Government departments/agencies (including MoD, DCSF and others) have no plans to upgrade to newer browsers.
Source: Kable

London – Swansea to be electrified
The train line between London and Swansea is to be electrified at last. Fantastic news for South Wales and about time it happened.
Source: BBC News

Publicising product recalls
Consumer Focus Labs has launched its first project (and several major revisions since). You can now sign up to receive notifications by email and RSS for product recalls from the EU.
Source: CF Labs Blog 1, CF Labs Blog 2

Aside from that, I managed to push out a new version of CllrTweeps. The new version runs from a proper database, enabling us to categorize councillors by party as well as councillors. It also gives us quite a good base from which to start adding new features, so keep an eye out for more announcements over the next month or two.

As part of the development of CllrTweeps 2, I’ve spent quite a lot of time looking at the websites of local authorities. The difference between some of them is staggering. Some councils have obviously put quite a bit of thought into the designs of their website and the services they offer online. This has made me think about doing a series of blog entries looking at council websites – possibly something similar to my local elections series last year.

For now though, I’ll leave you with an example of a great set of online services from Lichfield District Council. Their web team deserve a pat on the back for the good work they’ve been doing. Also, don’t forget to submit any ideas you have for APIs or online apps you’d like to have for business data at the CF Labs website.

Change is good

I’m happy to announce that I am now a part of one of these groups helping to set the vast quantities of data free – Consumer Focus Labs. Consumer Focus is a new organisation set up by the government to campaign for a fair deal for consumers. The organisation has established a small team of developers fronted by Richard Pope (one of the people behind My Society and Rewired State). We will be building online tools in order to pursue justice for consumers in new and exciting ways.

We’re currently collecting ideas for the first batch of tools we will build. Work should start on these in the next few weeks once we are all settled in. If you have any ideas or questions, take a look at our website and get in touch.

As always, as our work progresses I’ll be posting updates here on my blog, as well as on the Consumer Focus Labs website.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t think of anything.

The next day, I came across an article on Spoonfed Design with tips on how to avoid designer’s block.  At least next time I suffer from the block, I can try and find a way around it.

In the end, I managed to put together a design I’m quite proud of – and hopefully it’ll see the light of day sometime over the next month or two.

As a web developer, keeping on-top of changes in the industry is almost a full time job in itself. Dropping behind the curve is not something you can afford to do. When it does happen, getting back on-top of things is especially difficult.

I already follow a large number of the feeds that Selene suggests, and will definitely be adding the rest. I currently use netvibes to keep track of my RSS feeds – primarily because I use so many different computers throughout the day it allows me to keep everything in one place. If anyone has suggestions for a better reader, let me know.

Over the last few months we’ve been busy working on several new websites, a fair number of which have now been handed to the client for final approval.  We’ve also been working on some of our own projects, and another new release of our content management system.

At home, I’ve been busy working on some of my own projects, including an updated Govilon History website (which I’m sure I’ll get finished eventually), and a new personal homepage (which I launched last weekend).

As soon as some of my work starts making it into the public domain, I’ll post some more.

Just over a week ago I was given the result of all this hard work – a Master of Engineering in Computing with Upper Second Class Honours (a 2:1).  I’m absolutely amazed that I manged to get a 2:1, especially when you consider all the additional extra-curricular activities I’ve undertaken during the last few years (my freelance work, the waterfront, etc.).  Its been a really difficult 4 years, and I’m glad its finally finished, but it was definitely worth it!

Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m a graduate – for that I’ll have to wait for my degree ceremony on July 18th!

Since getting my results, we’ve all packed up and moved back to our respective homes.  I’ve spent the last few days helping everyone clear up the house to make room for the huge amount of stuff I’ve accumulated while living in Swansea (its amazing really how much stuff I have).

Today was the last day of freedom – tomorrow I start my job as a full time developer at a web design company in Cardiff.

Now that my time in education is finally over (and partially because we found this while tidying up the study at home), I thought it would be nice to look back at when I started school for the first time.  Below is a scan of the front cover of my very first school report from June 1991 (when I was just 4 years old).  Even back then I obviously knew that I wanted to work in IT!