"The digital beauty of GDS"

"When was the last time you got all choked up about a website or app? Can you recall a transformative digital experience? Have you felt the beauty of digital?"

Ashley Friedlein's consultancy offers Digital Marketing Excellence™ and in that capacity he has "spoken at numerous international conferences, from the USA to Croatia, as well as trade events in the UK, on a range of digital marketing and e-commerce topics".

Today he shares his views with us on The digital beauty of GDS (Government Digital Service). On marketing, he says that "businesses can charge for the value of the "transformation", of the “feeling”, that an experience offers". And as to beauty, he associates it with the experience of being hit in the solar plexus.

"We believe that the experiences themselves are marketing." The customer experience is the marketing?

Today the death of Ken Norton was announced. Not only did Norton hit Muhammad Ali in the solar plexus, he went on to break his jaw. That cracking sound we all heard, that was the sound of marketing.

Judging by the picture, the experience wasn't beautiful at all and you may agree that, perhaps, Mr Friedlein needs to refine the new philosophical concept of beauty he's working on before he brings it to market.

Ken Norton,
the heavyweight who broke Muhammad Ali’s jaw,
dies at 70

The question arises in the course of his meditation whether a digital customer experience could ever give you that Ken Norton experience.

Good question.

And good answer – yes, he says, "I think GDS (Government Digital Service) is a shining example".

Why? How does he come to that conclusion?

Answer, not only "does GDS have a digital strategy, it has digital and design principles, all of which make a lot of sense", but also "US digital sage Tim O’Reilly described the GDS digital strategy ... as the ‘new Bible for anyone working in Government ...'".

"I asked my wife last night whether she’d had any digital experiences which hit her in the solar plexus, which she physically felt as beauty. She thought for a second and replied, in all seriousness, 'renewing my car tax online'."

GDS's digital strategy has been examined by four professors. None of them identified the beauty which Mr Friedlein sees in it. More fool them, eh?

And as to Tim O'Reilly, we have come across him before. Him and his religiose cult of the web. Him and his sermon about GDS's digital strategy being the new Bible. Unlikely, we thought. But then, we missed the beauty. More fool us.

In the interests of market research, why don't we all ask our partner tonight whether they've had a digital experience which hit them in the solar plexus and let Mr Friedlein know the result on his blog? Especially if it's "renewing my car tax online".

"The digital beauty of GDS"

"When was the last time you got all choked up about a website or app? Can you recall a transformative digital experience? Have you felt the beauty of digital?"

Ashley Friedlein's consultancy offers Digital Marketing Excellence™ and in that capacity he has "spoken at numerous international conferences, from the USA to Croatia, as well as trade events in the UK, on a range of digital marketing and e-commerce topics".

Today he shares his views with us on The digital beauty of GDS (Government Digital Service). On marketing, he says that "businesses can charge for the value of the "transformation", of the “feeling”, that an experience offers". And as to beauty, he associates it with the experience of being hit in the solar plexus.

"We believe that the experiences themselves are marketing." The customer experience is the marketing?

Today the death of Ken Norton was announced. Not only did Norton hit Muhammad Ali in the solar plexus, he went on to break his jaw. That cracking sound we all heard, that was the sound of marketing.

Public administration page-turners

Two more books for the bedside table:

• Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it
  by Richard Bacon MP and Christopher Hope
• The Blunders of Our Governments
  by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe

Published in 1952 and still essential reading:

• The Passing of Parliament
  by GW Keeton

Why would anyone want to read these books?

Here's one reason.

The UK National Health Service (NHS) used to boast the biggest computer project in the world. That was their National Programme for IT (NPfIT), a project started in 2002.

In September 2011 the coalition government decided to cancel (or "dismantle") NPfIT, see for example Labour fury as £12bn NHS IT project ditched. By that stage NPfIT had cost £6.4 billion and the expectation of any commensurate benefits had evaporated.

Two years later what do the National Audit Office (NAO) tell us about this cancelled/dismantled failure?

The full cost of the National Programme is still not certain. The Department's most recent statement reported a total forecast cost of £9.8 billion. However, this figure did not include ...

Public administration page-turners

Two more books for the bedside table:

• Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it
  by Richard Bacon MP and Christopher Hope
• The Blunders of Our Governments
  by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe

Published in 1952 and still essential reading:

• The Passing of Parliament
  by GW Keeton

Why would anyone want to read these books?

Biometrics, Aadhaar and the Apple iPhone 5S

(Hat tip: Ram Krishnaswamy)

For seven years DMossEsq has been boring the world with scare stories about biometrics. "Biometrics don't work", he's been telling anyone not agile enough to get away from him first, "not well enough to do the job they're meant to do, not in the mass market, not with large populations".

Even the other day when those fashionable and lovable exploiters of third world labour Apple announced details of the iPhone 5S, with its fingerprint verification, he couldn't stop himself writing about the problems of false non-matches.

These warnings just wash over people. It's all theoretical. "Computer says no" is a line in a very rude TV comedy show, it doesn't happen in real life.

Really?

Try this.

The Hindu, 14 September 2013, 'How the biometric system has failed hard working people':

The much-lauded biometric ration card system is believed to be fool proof and expected to bring the public distribution system (PDS) in step with the digital era. However, ironically, the feedback from the ground indicates that it is rejecting the poor and the impoverished it was intended to benefit. The biometric authentication system installed at the PDS outlets fails to establish the identity of many genuine beneficiaries, mostly workers, as their daily grind in the agricultural fields, construction sites or as domestic help have eroded the lines on their thumb resulting in distorted impressions. ‘MATCH NOT FOUND’ The ridges and the patterns that are unique to each individual cannot be detected by the scanner and the screen repeatedly blinks a message stating “match not found”.

India is gradually introducing Aadhaar, a biometrics-based identity management scheme which is meant among other things to reduce corruption in the food security system. "PDS outlets" can give subsidised rice to genuine claimants, who use Aadhaar to prove their entitlement, and withhold it from scammers.

At least they can if the biometrics work.

But they don't.

So the PDS shops initially refuse rice to genuine claimants. And then, like normal human beings, they relent, give them the rice anyway, otherwise they'd starve to death or start a riot, and damn the system – "Mr. Vombatkere said that if the beneficiary has to depend on the munificence of the officials to get their quota and not as their right, then the purpose of introducing the biometric system is defeated".

All that money spent on Aadhaar.

Wasted.

That's not a theoretical PDS agent, in the picture alongside, giving theoretical rice to a theoretical claimant. They're all real. Like the failure of mass market biometrics.

Remember, you're entitled to the money in your bank account. It's yours.

But suppose you had to use biometrics to prove that. And suppose the iPhone said "no". Or rather "match not found". Then maybe it wouldn't be so theoretical after all.

----------

The trainspotters and stamp collectors among you will remember that the strength of Aadhaar is derived, according to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), from using not one but two biometrics – fingerprints and iris scans.

How come the match-not-found people whose fingerprints fail the biometric test for rice can't be identified by their iris scans instead?

You didn't seriously suppose, did you, that the UIDAI were going to waste money installing iris scanners in tens of thousands of outlets?

----------

As DMossEsq says, "you can solve the false non-matching problem, all you have to do is reduce the matching threshold. But then you get a false matching problem, impostors are able to claim your rice or use your bank account".

Would you like to know more?

How high is your boredom threshold?

Biometrics, Aadhaar and the Apple iPhone 5S

(Hat tip: Ram Krishnaswamy)

For seven years DMossEsq has been boring the world with scare stories about biometrics. "Biometrics don't work", he's been telling anyone not agile enough to get away from him first, "not well enough to do the job they're meant to do, not in the mass market, not with large populations".

Even the other day when those fashionable and lovable exploiters of third world labour Apple announced details of the iPhone 5S, with its fingerprint verification, he couldn't stop himself writing about the problems of false non-matches.

These warnings just wash over people. It's all theoretical. "Computer says no" is a line in a very rude TV comedy show, it doesn't happen in real life.

Really?

Universal Credit – one for The Old Vic

Last Wednesday, 11 September 2013, the Public Accounts Committee took evidence on Universal Credit from DWP, the NAO and the Cabinet Office.

Media coverage of this electric event has been minimal. We know all about the different colours available for the Apple iPhone 5S. Nothing about the unmasking of misfeasance in public office on a monumental scale.

Where the media fail, perhaps another institution could succeed?


From: David Moss
Sent: 15 September 2013 10:34
To: Kevin Spacey CBE
Subject: Universal Credit – one for The Old Vic?
Attachments: uncorrected transcript - universal credit (223 KB)

Kevin Spacey CBE

Artistic Director

The Old Vic

15 September 2013

Dear Mr Spacey

I attach a script for your consideration.

It’s 52 pages long.

52 pages of insight into how the Legislature in the UK is subverted by the unaccountable Executive. The politicians want to spring the poverty trap created by a dysfunctional welfare system. Their will is converted into stratospheric payments to IT contractors. All in the name of public service.

It’s a story of misfeasance in public office. Incompetence. And insouciance about hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money going up in smoke. Why bother to pay tax?

It’s an epic business failure. It’s a whodunnit. It’s a courtroom drama. It’s a gladiatorial contest.

52 pages of drama. All paid for already by the taxpayer – no additional cost to the Old Vic for the script. And there’s plenty more where that came from. Masses more.

The set is simple. The characters are complex. Public interest could/should be huge.

One for The Old Vic?

Yours sincerely

David Moss

Universal Credit – one for The Old Vic

Last Wednesday, 11 September 2013, the Public Accounts Committee took evidence on Universal Credit from DWP, the NAO and the Cabinet Office.

Media coverage of this electric event has been minimal. We know all about the different colours available for the Apple iPhone 5S. Nothing about the unmasking of misfeasance in public office on a monumental scale.

Where the media fail, perhaps another institution could succeed?

Public services under a cloud

Cloud computing is like a utility. Cheap. Think of your gas and electricity and phone and water bills.

Like the internet, it's always available. Resilient. Disaster-proof. No power cuts. Ever.

Except for the past two days, when some suppliers accredited to the UK government CloudStore found they couldn't log on, see below.

CloudStore is hosted by Memset. And since 1 June 2013, it's been the responsibility of the Government Digital Service, who promise that cloud computing is the key to the future of public services delivered efficiently by innovative SMEs. If they can log on, at least.

Does anyone know how this impossible-to-happen service interruption happened?

@G_Cloud_UK http://t.co/djp2lnHj2K CloudStore looking a little poorly this morning, with a page of SQL errors
— Gareth Niblett (@infosecmaven) September 10, 2013

@G_Cloud_UK Store down? any idea when it will be back up?
— Neil Moulton (@neil_moj) September 10, 2013

@G_Cloud_UK CloudStore back online for me
— Gareth Niblett (@infosecmaven) September 10, 2013

@G_Cloud_uk https://t.co/2aPSntEOI8 -> 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable and I need to do smthg by Fri. pls let me know when it's back
— Saul Cozens (@saulcozens) September 10, 2013

@saulcozens looks like it's up and running now. Are you able to login?
— G-Cloud (@G_Cloud_UK) September 11, 2013

@G_Cloud_UK yup thanks. You could probably do with a more informative 503 error page though.
— Saul Cozens (@saulcozens) September 11, 2013

Public services under a cloud

Cloud computing is like a utility. Cheap. Think of your gas and electricity and phone and water bills.

Like the internet, it's always available. Resilient. Disaster-proof. No power cuts. Ever.

Except for the past two days, when some suppliers accredited to the UK government CloudStore found they couldn't log on, see below.