Dave Burton
@ideasintheround
Product person in central government, and part of OneTeamGov. Co-founded Glean, a design agency for international development. Manchester now, previously Birmingham, Dhaka and Phnom Penh. Good people doing good work together is my jam.
First talk at #mtpcon26 is superb. Christian Idiodi with fire for the age, inc the need for context engineering over prompt engineering. Food for thought. Then, hooboy. J Evens of Google a) boasting of Google's (wrong) AI panels, b) pitching the death of art with "AIFlix" (I am not kidding)
This has just turned the lights on for me - a lightning talk from Oana, a user researcher from @citizensadvice.bsky.social. The distinction between AI as support and AI as substitute is SUCH a helpful thinking tool to think about how to design with and use AI in services.
Good looks, says @himal.bsky.social, like this. I think I agree. And I see some shades of a piece of @debblanch44.bsky.social's wisdom on being a PM: it is usually about saying "no" - in order to make sure we're saying "yes" the right way, to things that are set up to actually work.
Truth dropped by @himal.bsky.social, as usual. When you enable the system to do this, you're not fixing the broken system, you are the system. And the system will stay broken, and will break you in return. Sobering but helpful. What would different look like?
"Hope spreads" @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social being awesome at Camp Digital '26.
I mean Michael Palmer is great, so I'd have been here anyway, but this topic is basically what I think about all the time. So I'm in.
Honestly make sure any conference has one talk which will just tell people this in so many words. #CampDigital
Convergence being something that causes exclusion by creating "common knowledge". A difficult thought as to how this could be avoided. The key to this (per @acuity.design) seems to be actual co-design; which is to say not showing some of the co-designers the door at a certain point in the process.
Snappy summary of social norms that cause exclusionary design. Which itself, in it's snappiness, excludes gender, orientation and disabilities from its normal model! #CampDigital
"An internet native of a certain age" Yes hello I would like to complain about this entirely accurate definition #CampDigital
"A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people" Henrik Karlsson, via @jukes.ie #CampDigital2025
Wise people say the difficult bit. In this case, @jukes.ie: working in the open isn't about curating a public image, it's supposed to be a reflective practice. If you fake it, you'll get nothing from it. #CampDigital2025
#ProductForThePeople8 starting enjoyably strong - Zak Mensah, CEO of Birmingham Museums, bringing the power of progressive confidence to start the day. Almost makes me want to move back to the Midlands. Museums are a good enough reason to relocate, right?
Even as a connoisseur of the genre I am reduced to wild applause at my Avanti train home today
Morning on the canal - a quick walk across a wide meander in almost unbearably glorious sunlight. Now breakfast.
Heads up to anyone else who has been followed by this transparent clone of @jamesmkemp.bsky.social - and apols James for bearing bad news again. I've reported.
Looks like the clones are here - @jamesmkemp.bsky.social is the real thing, so I've reported this copy. Sharing in case anyone else has been followed by it.
Platformland! It is absolutely as good as everyone is saying. @richardpope.org continues to enable everyone who thinks about public services to think about them better, with less dogma and more clarity. The first time for a while I have had a sense of #onwards. Get it, it is great.
Hello? Hello, yes, brand team? Yes. I do not think your name for the new squash quite works. Oh you were _going_ for the death-metal-blackcurrant thing? Well fair enough I suppose. As you were.