Google and The Economist

... what sort of a twerp would agree?

Google Reader is a service that was offered by Google which has now been discontinued. Or as the Economist put it on 21 March 2013:

GOOGLE is killing Google Reader ... Google Reader has been mourned over, angrily at times, ...

"Killing"? "Mourned"? "Angrily"? A bit melodramatic, surely. But not as melodramatic as one Google Reader murder report quoted in the Economist article:

Google is in the process of abandoning its mission. Google's stated mission is to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. RSS is a way that a small number of us organize our information. Google no longer cares. It seems what they care about is mass-markets...

"Abandoning its mission"? "Google no longer cares"? Any minute now, you sense, someone is going to accuse Google of not understanding them, before stamping their foot, walking out and slamming the door behind them, their lip quivering with helpless indignation at the unfairness of Google's behaviour.

There is no justification for this indignation, as the writer acknowledges:

[Google] hasn't done this because we're its customers, it's worth remembering. We aren't; we're the products Google sells to its customers, the advertisers.

But that doesn't stop him or her from moaning ...

Google has asked us to build our lives around it: to use its e-mail system (which, for many of us, is truly indispensible), its search engines, its maps, its calendars, its cloud-based apps and storage services, its video- and photo-hosting services, and on and on and on.

... and impotently threatening Google ...

Yanking away services beloved by early adopters almost guarantees that critical masses can't be obtained: not, at any rate, without the provision of an incentive or commitment mechanism to protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service ... in the long run that's a problem for Google.

... before finally turning back to Nanny:

Once they [network externalities which have been ignored] concern large swathes of economic output and the cognitive activity of millions of people, it is difficult to keep the government out ... I find myself thinking again of the brave new world of the industrial city ... the history of modern urbanisation is littered with examples of privately provided goods and services that became the domain of the government once everyone realised that this new life and new us couldn't work without them.

The Economist used once to be rational to the point of ruthlessness. It is the duty of a company to discontinue services that don't make a profit, the Economist would then have said, that's the only way to keep the business honest.

It's not Google's duty to "protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service", Google Reader isn't a vital service, what on earth is the writer doing describing it as "beloved", Google hasn't asked anyone to build their lives around its services and, even if Google did ask, what sort of a twerp would agree?

Google isn't abandoning its mission. It's pursuing it. With precisely the rigorous logic that seems now to have deserted the Economist.

Time was when the Economist's mission was to bully the world into behaving rationally. Now they just want to quiver with self-pity. Which they call "rearranging our mental architecture".

That narcissism is a problem. Google and a few other companies (the latter-day Pied Pipers of Hamelin) exercise considerable and growing power:

What Google has actually done is create a powerful infrastructure. The shape of that infrastructure influences everything that goes online. And it influences the allocation of mental resources of everyone who interacts with the online world ... That's a lot of power to put in the hands of a company that now seems interested, mostly, in identifying core mass-market services it can use to maximise its return on investment.

Some people see the web as the key to transforming government in the 21st century – the old Economist could have helped to temper that uncritical, star-struck naïvety.

In the UK, the Government Digital Service work every day to transfer power from the government to the Pied Pipers – the old Economist could have restrained the projected embrace of web-enabled totalitarianism.

As it is, all they can do is bleat about the death of Google Reader:

The bottom line is that the more we all participate in this world, the more we come to depend on it.

Google and The Economist

... what sort of a twerp would agree?

Google Reader is a service that was offered by Google which has now been discontinued. Or as the Economist put it on 21 March 2013:

GOOGLE is killing Google Reader ... Google Reader has been mourned over, angrily at times, ...

"Killing"? "Mourned"? "Angrily"? A bit melodramatic, surely. But not as melodramatic as one Google Reader murder report quoted in the Economist article:

Google is in the process of abandoning its mission. Google's stated mission is to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. RSS is a way that a small number of us organize our information. Google no longer cares. It seems what they care about is mass-markets...

"Abandoning its mission"? "Google no longer cares"? Any minute now, you sense, someone is going to accuse Google of not understanding them, before stamping their foot, walking out and slamming the door behind them, their lip quivering with helpless indignation at the unfairness of Google's behaviour.

GDS, the NAO, the BBC, parliament and DWP – five questions

The National Audit Office (NAO) have released a new report, Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services, examining the Government Digital Service (GDS) plans for digital-by-default. The report's conclusions concentrate on the problems faced by people who can't or won't use on-line public services.

The same problem was examined the day before yesterday by Mark Easton, the BBC's home affairs editor.

And 52 members of parliament have put their name to an early day motion to debate the problem.

Meanwhile the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), who were depending on digital-by-default for the introduction of Universal Credit, have published not one but two documents confirming that benefits will continue to rely on face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and letters in the post – the very opposite of digital-by-default – please see Local Support Services Framework and Universal Credit – Your claim journey.

GDS have responded to the NAO report with a post on their blog today:

Overall, this report is a really positive sign we’re moving in the right direction. But it’s also a helpful reminder of the work we still need to do to support those who are less able to use online services.

The NAO report has some ("really positive"?) comments to make on the putative savings we can look forward to from digital-by-default:

1.5 The GDS has also highlighted the possible savings from switching to digital channels. As the strategy states, central government provides more than 650 public services – which cost between £6 billion and £9 billion in 2011-12, according to GDS. The GDS has estimated total potential annual savings of £1.7 billion to £1.8 billion if all these services were operated through digital channels. More than 300 of these services have no digital channel. The savings estimate does not include the costs that may be required to create or redesign digital services. However, it also does not take into account the government’s new approach to becoming digital, set out in its strategy, which could lead to greater savings being achieved more quickly. The GDS states that the average cost of a central government digital transaction can be almost 20 times lower than by phone and 50 times lower than face-to-face. 1.6 We have not audited the estimated savings in the Government Digital Strategy, nor have we audited how government will redesign and develop its new digital services. Our future audits will evaluate the value for money of digital services as the GDS and departments work together to move more than 650 services online.

The report also mentions (without being "really positive") the need for identity assurance. Someone posted a comment on the GDS blog:
28/03/2013

dmossesq # Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation. The NAO report is available at http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/10123-001-Digital-Britain-2-Book.pdf Under the heading “Trust”, the report includes the following: QUOTE 4.9 To use online public services people need to be able to trust the government with the information they provide online. The Government Digital Strategy recognises that users of public services often find it hard to register for online services, and that it needs to offer a more straightforward, secure way to allow users to identify themselves online while preserving their privacy. Therefore there is an Identity Assurance Programme [IDAP] under way in GDS and we were told that this is to develop a framework to enable federated identity assurance to be adopted across government services. 4.10 The government also told us that this will involve creating a simple, trusted and secure new way for people and businesses to access government services, which will provide assurance to government that the right person is accessing their own personal information. UNQUOTE Without IDAP, there is no digital-by-default. DWP were led to believe that IDAP would be “fully operational” for up to 21 million claimants of Universal Credit “from March 2013″, https://online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?NoticeId=797279 Here we are in March 2013. And the question the NAO almost ask is, where is IDAP? 28/03/2013

That comment has now been moderated. Has it been published? No. It's been deleted.

Tomorrow should see the publication of ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's video diary, This week at GDS.

He's the executive director of GDS and the senior responsible officer owner for the pan-government identity assurance programme. Will he comment on:

1. the NAO report?
2. the BBC report?
3. the early day motion in parliament?
4. DWP being stranded without IDAP?
5. the deliberations of the permanent secretaries who met at GDS's offices yesterday to consider digital-by-default?

----------

Added 16:48:

Following publication of the post above, DMossEsq brought it to the attention of GDS. The comment which had previously been deleted from their blog has now been published by GDS. Also, this week's edition of This week at GDS has been published, a day early, perhaps because of the bank holiday. No response to questions 2., 3. and 4. above. A passing mention of 5. and a promise to consider 1. in next week's edition.

GDS, the NAO, the BBC, parliament and DWP – five questions

The National Audit Office (NAO) have released a new report, Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services, examining the Government Digital Service (GDS) plans for digital-by-default. The report's conclusions concentrate on the problems faced by people who can't or won't use on-line public services.

The same problem was examined the day before yesterday by Mark Easton, the BBC's home affairs editor.

And 52 members of parliament have put their name to an early day motion to debate the problem.

Meanwhile the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), who were depending on digital-by-default for the introduction of Universal Credit, have published not one but two documents confirming that benefits will continue to rely on face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and letters in the post – the very opposite of digital-by-default – please see Local Support Services Framework and Universal Credit – Your claim journey.

GDS have responded to the NAO report with a post on their blog today:

Overall, this report is a really positive sign we’re moving in the right direction. But it’s also a helpful reminder of the work we still need to do to support those who are less able to use online services.

GDS and the doom-by-default Wednesday summit

Doom-by-default

As usual, it's interesting what ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken doesn't talk about in his weekly diary:

• 48 members of parliament have now signed an early day motion to debate the Government Digital Service's plans for digital-by-default. Or rather, the lack of plans for how to cope with the millions of people in the UK who have never used the web and will be excluded by default.
• The repeated promise was that GDS would have an identity assurance service "fully operational" for 21 million DWP claimants "by March 2013". Today is Monday 25 March 2013 and there's no sign of it.

There is no reference in the 22 March 2013 issue of the diary to either of these matters but we do learn that this week's meeting of Whitehall's permanent secretaries will take place at GDS Towers and will be concerned with the state of digital-by-default.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall there.

Will the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions sit quietly as first Sir Jeremy Heywood and then Sir Bob Kerslake extol the theoretical virtues of digital-by-default?

Perhaps.

But that won't alter the fact that, as far as Universal Credit is concerned, in practice, digital-by-default is dead.

We knew that some time back when it was revealed that DWP's Local Support Services Framework makes no reference to GDS's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP). In case anyone missed the point, it is emphasised again in last week's Universal Credit – Your claim journey, where DWP say that:

• After you make your Universal Credit claim, most interactions will be face to face, by telephone or by post.
• A telephone helpline will be available, Mon – Fri, 8.00am – 6.00pm.
• DWP will contact you by telephone to tell you the date of your personalised work search interview and what evidence you need to bring to it.
• ... your decision letter can be used as proof of your claim when applying for other benefits ... This letter will be posted to you.
• You are responsible for notifying DWP of all changes to your circumstances ... you will be sent confirmation of this change by post.
• You should report the end of any employment by telephone.
• If you become part of a couple, both you and your partner will be required to attend an adviser interview.

Digital-by-default is meant to cut out face-to-face meetings, telephone communications and the post.

DWP acknowledge that the initial claim for Universal Credit will be made on GOV.UK, GDS's single government domain website. But even there they can't help adding:

• If there are technical problems with the GOV.UK site a webpage will be displayed that gives alternative contact arrangements. This will also be the case if you are using an internet browser that cannot properly access the site.

DWP have gone out of their way in this document to make it clear that GDS have not delivered on their IDAP promise.

If GDS can't get DWP on the hook, how about HMRC?

What will the permanent secretary at HMRC make of the trip to GDS Towers? Judging by DWP's experience, she's unlikely to conclude that HMRC can rely on GDS's promises.

Is the Government Gateway going to be replaced by IDAP? How? When? Who by?

What hope is there for Francis Maude's mission to change the way the UK census is compiled?

The Department for Education will be feeling embarrassed, having promised to help GDS with Individual Electoral Registration. The Department for Transport and the Department of Health by contrast will be feeling relieved to have kept themselves out of that illegal data-sharing project.

The permanent secretary at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills has been left holding GDS's midata baby/initiative. midata can't work without IDAP. BIS, like DWP, stand jilted at the altar.

The dynamics of Wednesday's meeting promise to be fascinating. It's a shame we can't be there, we the public. And we can't be the only ones to regret it. What about the UK's eight Identity Providers?

It's all very well for DWP to claim, as they have, that no Universal Credit contractors have been laid off but that's precisely what's happened to the IDPs, isn't it. Some of them have spent years being nice to officials – DWP prepares alternative to identity cards for Universal Credit – and now they're being cold-shouldered.

The IDPs would no doubt like to know, just like the public, whether the permanent secretaries are minded to be realistic and pull the plug now on digital-by-default or whether wishful thinking will prevail and GDS is to be given another chance – see this coming Friday's weekly cliffhanger GDS diary.

GDS and the doom-by-default Wednesday summit

Doom-by-default

As usual, it's interesting what ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken doesn't talk about in his weekly diary:

• 48 members of parliament have now signed an early day motion to debate the Government Digital Service's plans for digital-by-default. Or rather, the lack of plans for how to cope with the millions of people in the UK who have never used the web and will be excluded by default.
• The repeated promise was that GDS would have an identity assurance service "fully operational" for 21 million DWP claimants "by March 2013". Today is Monday 25 March 2013 and there's no sign of it.

There is no reference in the 22 March 2013 issue of the diary to either of these matters but we do learn that this week's meeting of Whitehall's permanent secretaries will take place at GDS Towers and will be concerned with the state of digital-by-default.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall there.

Parliament questions digital-by-default

For some time now the Government Digital Service have behaved as though it is realistic to nudge everyone onto the web even though they know perfectly well that that will make public services inaccessible to millions of people in the UK.

Now reality is catching up with them.

Parliament questions digital-by-default

For some time now the Government Digital Service have behaved as though it is realistic to nudge everyone onto the web even though they know perfectly well that that will make public services inaccessible to millions of people in the UK.

Now reality is catching up with them.

Potemkin power in Whitehall

Then ... Potemkin village The phrase Potemkin villages ... was originally used to describe a fake village, built only to impress. The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is. It is unclear whether the origin of the phrase is factual, an exaggeration, or a myth. According to the story, Russian minister Grigory Potemkin who led the Crimean military campaign erected fake settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Historical debate Modern historians are divided on the degree of truth behind the Potemkin village story. While tales of the fake villages are generally considered exaggerations, some historians dismiss them as malicious rumors spread by Potemkin's opponents. These historians argue that Potemkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the Empress' arrival. According to Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Potemkin's most comprehensive English-language biographer, the tale of elaborate, fake settlements with glowing fires designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fictional. Aleksandr Panchenko, an established specialist on 19th century Russia, used original correspondence and memoirs to conclude that the Potemkin villages are a myth. He writes: "Based on the above said we must conclude that the myth of "Potemkin villages" is exactly a myth, and not an established fact." Panchenko writes that "Potyomkin indeed decorated cities and villages, but made no secret that this was a decoration." Also, the close relationship between Potemkin and the Empress would make it difficult for him to deceive her. Thus, the deception would have been mainly directed towards the foreign ambassadors accompanying the imperial party. Regardless, Potemkin had in fact supervised the building of fortresses, ships of the line, and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power. So, even though "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation, it's possible that the phrase cannot be applied accurately to its own original historical inspiration. According to a legend, in 1787, when Catherine passed through Tula on her way back from the trip, the local governor Mikhail Krechetnikov indeed attempted a deception of that kind in order to hide the effects of a bad harvest.

... and now Potemkin website The phrase Potemkin website was originally used to describe folders in GOV.UK, the single government domain which was meant to replace all the separate departmental and other central government websites. It is unclear how re-writing a lot of websites that already existed was deemed to be a sensible use of money and unknown how the departments of state put up with this interference. According to the story, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service, created these folders all over GOV.UK acting under the instructions of Lady (Martha) Lane Fox of Soho. Future debate Future historians will be divided on the exact nature of these Potemkin websites of GDS's. While GDS claimed to have replaced the Department for Transport website, for example, it was clearly still there all the time behind the façade. Ditto the HMRC website, still there for all to see. These little deceptions cannot have escaped Lady Lane Fox but she described it nevertheless as a "privilege" to watch GDS crafting GOV.UK. For over a year Bracken claimed that he would make an elaborate system of identity assurance available to all 21 million DWP claimants. It was due to be unveiled in March 2013 but in the event, a dark night for all concerned, the service turned out unfortunately to be entirely fictional. Scrutiny of contemporary source documents reveals the claim that GDS would replace the Government Gateway with a new means for people to transact with the government. Future historians may conclude that this service, too, proved to be "exactly a myth, and not an established fact". It is in the nature of the web, of course, in its very openness to inspection, that these lacunae could not be concealed. And yet the promises were repeated, budgets were agreed, frameworks were discussed and conferences were addressed. The people who remained in the dark would have been mainly the public and visiting dignitaries from Estonia. Despite which, GDS's Potemkin power over the other departments of state continued to grow and it took on more and more responsibilities, its qualifications for which were rarely questioned. At a time when virtual gurus plaited virtual trading with virtual businesses into a virtual reality, perhaps digital-by-default was no more a "hollow or false construct" than many another Whitehall initiative. Let that be a historical warning about the difference between modish wishful thinking and evidence-based policy. It is said that Francis Maude looked to GDS to change the way the census was conducted. And that Nick Clegg relied on GDS to bring individual electoral registration to pass. Healthy fruit both of them, but neither was harvested.

Potemkin power in Whitehall

Then ... Potemkin village The phrase Potemkin villages ... was originally used to describe a fake village, built only to impress. The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is. It is unclear whether the origin of the phrase is factual, an exaggeration, or a myth. According to the story, Russian minister Grigory Potemkin who led the Crimean military campaign erected fake settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Historical debate Modern historians are divided on the degree of truth behind the Potemkin village story. While tales of the fake villages are generally considered exaggerations, some historians dismiss them as malicious rumors spread by Potemkin's opponents. These historians argue that Potemkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the Empress' arrival. According to Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Potemkin's most comprehensive English-language biographer, the tale of elaborate, fake settlements with glowing fires designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fictional. Aleksandr Panchenko, an established specialist on 19th century Russia, used original correspondence and memoirs to conclude that the Potemkin villages are a myth. He writes: "Based on the above said we must conclude that the myth of "Potemkin villages" is exactly a myth, and not an established fact." Panchenko writes that "Potyomkin indeed decorated cities and villages, but made no secret that this was a decoration." Also, the close relationship between Potemkin and the Empress would make it difficult for him to deceive her. Thus, the deception would have been mainly directed towards the foreign ambassadors accompanying the imperial party. Regardless, Potemkin had in fact supervised the building of fortresses, ships of the line, and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power. So, even though "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation, it's possible that the phrase cannot be applied accurately to its own original historical inspiration. According to a legend, in 1787, when Catherine passed through Tula on her way back from the trip, the local governor Mikhail Krechetnikov indeed attempted a deception of that kind in order to hide the effects of a bad harvest.

... and now Potemkin website The phrase Potemkin website was originally used to describe folders in GOV.UK, the single government domain which was meant to replace all the separate departmental and other central government websites. It is unclear how re-writing a lot of websites that already existed was deemed to be a sensible use of money and unknown how the departments of state put up with this interference. According to the story, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service, created these folders all over GOV.UK acting under the instructions of Lady (Martha) Lane Fox of Soho. Future debate Future historians will be divided on the exact nature of these Potemkin websites of GDS's. While GDS claimed to have replaced the Department for Transport website, for example, it was clearly still there all the time behind the façade. Ditto the HMRC website, still there for all to see. These little deceptions cannot have escaped Lady Lane Fox but she described it nevertheless as a "privilege" to watch GDS crafting GOV.UK. For over a year Bracken claimed that he would make an elaborate system of identity assurance available to all 21 million DWP claimants. It was due to be unveiled in March 2013 but in the event, a dark night for all concerned, the service turned out unfortunately to be entirely fictional. Scrutiny of contemporary source documents reveals the claim that GDS would replace the Government Gateway with a new means for people to transact with the government. Future historians may conclude that this service, too, proved to be "exactly a myth, and not an established fact". It is in the nature of the web, of course, in its very openness to inspection, that these lacunae could not be concealed. And yet the promises were repeated, budgets were agreed, frameworks were discussed and conferences were addressed. The people who remained in the dark would have been mainly the public and visiting dignitaries from Estonia. Despite which, GDS's Potemkin power over the other departments of state continued to grow and it took on more and more responsibilities, its qualifications for which were rarely questioned. At a time when virtual gurus plaited virtual trading with virtual businesses into a virtual reality, perhaps digital-by-default was no more a "hollow or false construct" than many another Whitehall initiative. Let that be a historical warning about the difference between modish wishful thinking and evidence-based policy. It is said that Francis Maude looked to GDS to change the way the census was conducted. And that Nick Clegg relied on GDS to bring individual electoral registration to pass. Healthy fruit both of them, but neither was harvested.