I was going to do this as a newsletter – that seems to be the thing to do these days but I do fear that is the new tree falls in a forest conundrum :

If you write a newsletter and nobody subscribes did it really send.

So I know at least one or two people read my blog (hi mum) so decided to do it here.

Nothing particularly new or clever – just a list of links I found interesting and I think might be of interest to other product management types in and around Government digital.

Mikey ‘It’s just a website. We aren’t going to the moon’ Dickerson introduces the new US Digital Service and issues a call to arms to civic minded technologists.
https://medium.com/@USDigitalService/an-improbable-public-interest-start-up-6f9a54712411

Francis Irving, CEO of ScraperWiki, puts a stake in the ground and states that we are seeing the beginning of a new cold war – this time taking place in the digital space. A decent understanding go the requirements and options in providing secure services to users seems something that will become more and more important. http://www.flourish.org/2015/01/long-cold-cyberwar/

An interesting podcast interview from the O’Reilly Radar blog with Arianna McClain from IDEO about the evolution of ‘data-driven design’ and the need to add a human element in to the analysis. People talk a lot about being data driven, I certainly did during our Alpha project, but I know that at the moment what I am doing is really quite superficial and there is a huge amount more that we could be doing.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/01/a-human-centered-approach-to-data-driven-design.html

This post is a bit of a teaser trailer for the launch of the new GDS digital & technology skills matrix. In the past I might have been a bit dismissive of this kind of initiative but I am currently really fascinated with how you build talented,productive and sustainable teams in Government digital when you are competing on so many fronts.
https://digitalpeople.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/29/introducing-the-gds-digital-and-technology-skills-matrix/

The team at Ministry of Justice Digital Services are doing some of the most interesting work happening in this space at the moment and have really been working hard increase the visibility of that great work (contributing to TechCrunch Disrupt a fine example of that) in order to help recruitment amongst other goals. I love the idea of being ’GDS flavoured’ but with their own ‘distinct identity’ and this post gives a nice insight in to the role of a Product Manager at MoJ today.
https://mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/28/becoming-a-product-manager-at-moj-digital/