Digital Britain final report to be published

The final Digital Britain report will be published next week, and Team DB have been hard at work setting everything up to make sure we can make the best use of the digital channels available to allow people to find out about the report and let us know what they think of it.

Commentable version

First of all, as well as the ubiquitous PDF, we will be publishing the report online in a commentable form, using WordPress and the Commentariat theme developed by the Engagement Team at the department formally known as DIUS. This will go up towards the end of next week.

We’re doing this for a number of reasons. The main one is that we wanted the report out there in formats that people will find useful. WordPress is great for that sort of thing, as it produces lots of RSS as well as the HTML pages.

The report will also be commentable, of course, which provides a great route for feedback to Team DB. Obviously, this being the final report, there’s no scope for changes to be made to it on the basis of comments received. But we’d like to think that there is plenty that the community can contribute in terms of how the report’s objectives can be implemented.

The publication of the report is just the start of this process, not the end. We need everyone to stay involved and engaged to help us make Digital Britain a reality.

Social media news release

Our second piece of innovative work will be around a social media news release, which will provide a whole host of extra content that would be simply impossible with a traditional press release.

Our social media news release will incorporate all the stuff a press release would have – headlines, key facts, contacts – but it will also feature brand new video content, images, links to file downloads and bookmarking buttons, with more content being added after the launch.

We’re hoping this will be a much more useful and engaging way of presenting our news which will appeal to bloggers as much as traditional journalists.

Ask the minister

After the initial excitement around the report, we’ll be putting into place a couple more online engagement exercises, to pick up on what people feel are the key issues that they would like to question the minister, Lord Carter, or the Digital Britain project team, about.

To enable this, we are making use of two platforms. Firstly, we will be running a live web chat on www.number10.gov.uk with the help of the Prime Minister’s Digital Communications team. This will take place a couple of weeks after the publication of the report, and you can find out when to start submitting questions on this blog.

Secondly, we’ll be running a Uservoice forum, where anyone will be able to submit public questions, and to vote on which ones they think need an answer. The most popular will then be answered – probably on a video. Once again, stay tuned to this blog to find out the whens and the hows.

Any bright ideas?

Do let us know in the comments what you make of our plans. Our aim is always to be as open and engaging as we can be. But we’re still learning when it comes to this stuff, and feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Especially polite ones!