November #Teacamp – Agile and Security with @bruntonspall

Remember Remember, the 2nd of November

The spooks and ghouls of Halloween are laid to rest for another year, and the embers of Guy Fawkes are due to re-ingite on Sunday the 5th.

How to spark the flame teacamp style? We bring you Michael Brunton-Spall who argues that agile development methods can actually make systems more secure .

Michael Brunton-Spall is a freelance security and management consultant.

He has previously worked for the Cabinet Office in the [Government Digital Service] (https://gds.blog.gov.uk/) as Deputy Director for Technology and Operations, Head of Cybersecurity, Head of Technical Architecture and Lead security architect.

Previously he has worked in the gambling industry, the games industry, the finance industry and for [The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com)

Michael is one of the four authors of [Agile Application Security](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Agile-Application-Security-Laura-Bell/dp/1491938846/), published by O’Reilly.

Agile & Security

Agile and security aren’t normally considered good bedfellows. Agile software development tends to throw out plans, designs and specifications and just keeps changing the system over and over.

How can we build software in a secure manner and have any confidence in how secure our systems are in this world?

Michael will argue that agile development methods can actually make systems more secure than more traditional methods, and show some tools and techniques that can be used to improve the security of systems that are built and operated using agile.

What do you think? Do you agree with this approach or have you found that it doesn’t work for you? Come to Teacamp and be part of the discussion and let us know your thoughts.

When is Teacamp?

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?

If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

September #Teacamp – How the New Zealand Gov does all things Digital, Data, and Tech

New Zealand Gov, Digital, Data & Tech

Summer holidays may be fading into recent memory, but don’t despair because you are in for a treat in this September’s #teacamp! We’ve managed to get not one, two or three folks but FIVE lovely folks over from New Zealand, who are coming over to old Blighty as part of an exchange programme with the UK Public Sector and want to share their digital & government learnings with our wee teacamp community.

New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs and the UK Home Office are piloting a two-part professional exchange in 2017. The exchange brings together staff from across the two organisations to expand their knowledge and share best practice on digital, data and technology. The UK team spent four weeks in New Zealand in March and the New Zealand team are travelling to the UK at the end of August to continue sharing knowledge on New Zealand’s approach to digital, data, and technology and learn about the UK’s approach to driving digital transformation across the public sector.

 

The NZ team includes:

Jessica Brown is a Senior Policy Analyst and is seconded to a multi-disciplinary team that supports the Chief Executive of the Department in his role as Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO). The project team has been set up to support the GCIO to accelerate digital transformation across government. Prior to joining this team Jess worked in the Policy Group across areas including digital identity, information, and service innovation.  

Before coming to DIA, Jess worked at the Ministry of Justice on privacy, constitutional law, and human rights.

Areas of interest include how government is responding to disruptive technology (particularly artificial intelligence and block chain), the role of policy in digital transformation, and machine readable regulation

 

Kate Nixon is a Principal Advisor leading work to understand the New Zealand government’s digital identity needs and future frameworks for meeting those needs.

Kate recently finished as the Service Design Lead for life event services in the New Zealand Births, Deaths and Marriages Office.

Kate led the user research and customer-centred design for the recent delivery of two cross-agency digital services for New Zealand citizens – SmartStart and Te Hokinga ā Wairua End of Life Service. These services were delivered under the New Zealand government’s Better Public Services strategy. Kate can share the lessons learned so far, in delivering cross-agency life-event services.

Prior to this role Kate worked at the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department, undertaking user research and service design for the development of digital tax and social policy services.

Areas of interest for Kate include designing services around citizen needs, collaborative cross-agency service delivery, digital identity and leveraging emerging and future technology for government service delivery.

 

Nicola Potter leads a team of Advisors in Identity and Passport Services focused on delivering and developing online services, understanding barriers to use of online services and driving a culture of continuous improvement.

Prior to this role Nicola spent 5 years with RealMe, primarily working to implement the Identity Verification Service (New Zealand’s digital identity offering) into the operational business, and managing ongoing product development.

Areas of interest for Nicola include approaches to digital identity, cross-agency development of services, and approaches to Agile development including scaled Agile and multidisciplinary teams.

 

Rachel Prosser  works as part of the Service Innovation Team at the Department of Internal Affairs, where she has been the delivery lead for a prototype Service Innovation Lab.

The Lab is an experiment in providing new ways for public, private and third sector agencies to work together, and is part of an “Innovation Toolkit” of tools and techniques to help people in New Zealand government agencies deliver customer-centric services that provide people with “easy access to public services, which are designed around them, when they need them.

Rachel has recently worked on digital identity, digital literacy and assisted digital.  Her earlier career included stints as a Corporate Lawyer in New Zealand and the UK, work with small businesses as a speechwriter, trainer and marketing consultant along with a variety of roles in government.

Areas of interest include how government system conditions can support (or not!)

cross-agency working and innovation; different approaches to delivering integrated customer-centric services; how to best support people working in government to lift their digital capability; “government as a platform” and the D5 charter goals around working openly and supporting SMEs.

 

Sarah Casey brings a passion for strategy and change management to the Digital Investment System.

Sarah is a Senior Strategy and Investment Advisor for New Zealand’s Government Chief Information Officer, but spends most of her days partnering with

the Treasury to offer an all-of-government lens to digital investment priorities. Sarah works with a portfolio of departments to lift their strategic planning, investment management, and asset performance capabilities, and supports system discussions around how digital, data, and technology can deliver to the strategic objectives of government, sectors, and departments.

Areas of interest for Sarah include how to create a flexible public service, able to respond to the opportunities of a digital era – considering a holistic view of system processes and levers; leadership, capability, and culture; and the use of strategic partnerships for innovation.

 

Come along to meet the New Zealand delegation and discuss key insights from the exchange so far, and the differences between our approaches to embracing digital government.

 

When is Teacamp?

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?

If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

May Teacamp – Anthony Zacharzewski, Brexit, Europe, Open Gov and Connecting Citizens

Anthony runs the Democratic Society, who work with central and local government on citizen participation and civic engagement. They’ve been big supporters of digital consultation over the years, writing a report (with Snook) for GDS on that topic last year. They’re currently working in Scotland on digital PB, with the Council of Europe and the European Commission on international citizen participation, and with the Serbian government on digital participation.

 

Anthony moved to Brussels in July, and has been running Demsoc from there while working on their European projects, but he’s back in England for Teacamp. He’s going to talk about a a project that’s just starting on connecting up cities around Europe that want to work together to develop citizen participation, but he’s also happy to answer questions about Brexit, and how it looks from the EU end.

 

He’s also happy to talk about open policy making and open government, although he left the Civil Service so long ago that Tony Blair was Prime Minister and not a potential parliamentary candidate. He did sit on the Open Government Partnership UK steering group for three years, though.

 

When is Teacamp?

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?

If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

April Teacamp – AMA with Hadley Beeman

Hadley has been around the public sector for 13 years, designing and delivering digital services, playing with data, writing strategies, interpreting tech for policymakers, and generally stirring up trouble.

She has spent time in local government, the NHS, DH, InnovateUK, GDS and Cabinet Office — in addition to founding a start-up called LinkedGov and spending some time with Mozilla, the Firefox browser people.

In her non-gov time, she works on the architecture of the Web with the W3C. She’ll be joining us for an AMA (ask me anything).

Topics thus far include:

  • The ins and outs of a ministerial private office (as a digital/tech person)
  • Generating millions of pounds for the Treasury from a ridiculous idea in the pub
  • Explaining blockchains in 90 seconds to a member of the Royal family
  • Moving from open data to the Things We Don’t Talk About (the cyber world)
  • The W3C and web standards — the “government” of the web
  • What’s left on her to-do list for digital government

Feel free to send her questions or bring suggestions, and as usual there’s the #teacamp hashtag to follow the conversation on!

 

When is Teacamp?

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?

If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

March teacamp

Throughout 2015 and 2016 Dan Barratt made over 100 cakes for work, gathered feedback on all of the cakes, recorded it on a public spreadsheet, and broadcast his activity on Twitter. He did this because, through cake, he wanted to model and exhibit behaviours, practices and values that he would expect to see in work. He wanted to “be the change you want to see”.

At the end of November Dan wrote a blog post about this ‘cake for business’ project. People across the public sector digital and cake industries really liked it.

He’ll talk about what he learned, and explain why running a two-year behavioural experiment on your colleagues is a good thing to do.

Dan is the Head of Data and Search at the Houses of Parliament. He likes making things, fixing things, making things better, and public service.

He has been an inspiration to many of us in government, particularly teacamp organiser James.

There will be cake. Unfortunately, not made by Dan.

Cake 81 - Buttermilk pound loaf
Dan tweeting about cake 81 – Buttermilk pound loaf
James tweeting about cake 81 - Buttermilk pound loaf
James tweeting about cake 81 – Buttermilk pound loaf

When is Teacamp?

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?

If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

February Teacamp

This month we were hoping to have @hadleybeeman give us a talk about her time with Ministers, and her experience of the Ministers Office. Unfortunately she’s had to pull out so we are seeking a replacement speaker.

Teacamp will still go ahead this Thursday so please do turn up, because we always find something to talk about…. especially with what’s happening around the world and UK at the moment.

Photo credit: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-weather-flash-flood-warnings-issued-as-thunderstorms-set-to-hit-the-capital-a3278636.html

Will confirm who our replacement speaker is as soon as possible.

See more via #teacamp.

 When is Teacamp?

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?

If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

Teacamp 2017

 

We held a session at December’s Teacamp to think about possible speakers for next year. Not quite crystal ball gazing, but thinking about what you might want to discuss next year. Check out our Trello Board of our thoughts on potential speakers.

crystalball2A lot can happen in a week of politics, let alone predicting what’s going to happen over the next
year and what you might want to talk about. So this isn’t by any means a “fixed” list. We need your feedback on what you’d like to discuss, so do get back to us. Is there anything missing from that list of potential topics? What would you like to talk about?

 See more via #teacamp.

 When is Teacamp?
  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, 1st Thursday of every month
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?
If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is upstairs in the cafe, very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for James or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell

Thursday 2 June 2016 – ​Justin Bieber or Chance the Rapper?

Ever wondered which government department is more Justin Beiber than Chance the Rapper, when it comes to data? Yeah, no. Me neither. But Ellen Broad has.

Open data is data that anyone can access, use and share. Ellen is head of policy at the Open Data Institute (ODI).

Vague enough for you? See more via #teacamp.

  • Time and date: 4pm – 6pm, Thursday 2 June 2016
  • Location: Mezzanine, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?
Just turn up. We’re open to everyone. Its informal and friendly. If its your first time we’ll happily introduce you

  • 4.00 – 4.30pm:  tea and cake
  • 4.30 – 4.40pm:  intros and plug your events, projects, etc
  • 4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
  • 5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
  • 6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub

Contact info

@baskers Sarah Baskerville
@jaCattell James Arthur Cattell
@teacamplondon

Thu 5th May – ​Social Technology in the Workplace

Social Technology in the Workplace: Benefits and Behaviours

Many organisations from public, private and third sectors are at various stages of implementing ‘social’ style collaborative software in the workplace. The significant benefits that can follow are well-researched, as are the cultural and behavioural changes necessary if such initiatives are to be successful. The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory implemented an Enterprise Social Network as a pilot in 2013 and have since been progressively extending and embedding its use. The impact has been recognised at national level and is regularly the target of favourable comment from Executives. Glyn Jones will describe the overall arc of the implementation from initial justification for the pilot through to the recent decision to launch an external facing version of the service for partner enablement. The focus throughout will be on the business and human elements, arguments and challenges, rather than the technology features.

Glyn Jones was until recently the CIO Information Principal of Dstl – the principal advisor to the CIO on issues to do with information management and exploitation as well as knowledge management. Glyn joined Dstl in 2008 after a successful first career in the Royal Navy. Initially employed in the Geospatial Intelligence Team he contributed technically to a variety of projects and was a major driving force behind the implementation of a Defence Spatial Data Infrastructure. Moving to the Knowledge and Information Services function at the corporate level he has led the campaign to provide more modern and flexible information management platforms in a highly constrained and regulated environment. After leaving Dstl at the end of March 2016 Glyn is in the process of setting up his own business.

Time: 4pm – 6pm
Location: Mezzanine café, Curzon Victoria, 58 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QW

How does teacamp work?
If you want to come to teacamp, just turn up on the day, it is open to everyone. It is in the corner of the cafe and very informal and friendly. If you are coming for the first time or on your own, ask for Jane, Ian or Sarah and we will introduce you to some teacampers.

4.00 – 4.30pm:  free tea and cake, kindly provided by @thedxw
4.30 – 4.40pm:  introductions and you can plug any events, projects, etc
4.40 – 5.10pm:  speakers slot
5.10 – 6.00pm:  Q&A, group discussion
6.00pm: #beercamp in nearest pub, often led by @baskers….

Contact info
@teacamplondon Jane O’Loughlin
@_ianw  Ian Dow-Wright
@baskers Sarah Baskerville