Matt Day

Drawing on my NYC emergency response days in the Mayor's office, I wrote about the role of debriefing and learning from previous experiences to inform the next one. Some may know it as the "after-action report." I provide a few recommended tips to build your readiness and infrastructure as we head into increasingly turbulent times. But hands down the biggest step any CCO or CMO can take is to build a collaborative culture across teams so that you don't fall victim to unforced errors.

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The UK's shifting psephological sands: fascinating, new analysis/forecast from research firm Whitestone Insight today. Our whole two-party system might well be swept away, alongside the current Conservative Government, on 4 July. Historically the Tories jostled with the Liberals, then later against Labour, with the two dominant parties collectively winning anywhere from two-thirds (in 2010) and 99% (in 1900) of the vote share in every modern election, but 2024 promises to shake up the status quo, to say the least. https://lnkd.in/etQ4j5iJ In practical Parliamentary relations terms, this means far more thought may be needed than ever before to address a House of Commons with one predominant governing party - and a diminished main Opposition Party, with a share of vote and even potentially number of seats far closer to all other Opposition parties in aggregate. In this context too, Lord (William) Hague's (£wall, sorry) article this week https://lnkd.in/eeKkhCva is worth a read. Not so much on the extent of Labour's 1997 triumph in Parliamentary seat terms and his subsequent efforts to combat that, week-in, week-out but on some of the practical consequences, captured in his phrase "We were like the Home Guard in 1940, able to practise marching up and down but in no way able to disrupt the German war effort". #generalelection24 #politics #psephology #politicalpolling #1997parliament #contemporaryukpoliticalhistory #williamhague #tonyblair

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No Silva-Lining on AI Act Analysis Writing in the Times this week former Conservative adviser Rohan Silva opines that the EU’s AI Act will stifle innovation – both in Europe and the UK – and will overregulate the nascent sector. In a piece remarkable for its disobliging language he calls the AI Act “dunderheaded”, “half-witted”, “dreadful” “barmy” and “thick-headed” (no please, tell us what you really think about it!) The thrust of Silva’s argument is that the EU is imposing “onerous requirements” to provide “detailed summaries of content used to train AI models”. He is attacking the notion that downstream users of General Purpose AI systems – e.g. us – should have full transparency on the content in the systems they are using. And as importantly he is full-square against the idea that AI developers have to adhere to copyright law and tell rightsholders when they have used their content. When it comes to clobbering copyright Mr Silva has form. Readers may recall him in Prime Minister Cameron’s backroom team in 2010 which decided that UK economy really needed to relax copyright law. Thus the creative sector should step out of the way of the Silicon Valley giants like Google (where a number of his colleagues mysteriously ended up working) and the UK would benefit from massive economic gains – according to a non-existent economic impact analysis. Anyway, his diatribe against the AI Act is factually wrong on a number of counts. Silva mistakenly says it was “hastily drafted”. But the first twitch of the EU legislator’s pen was as far back as 2019, with the High-Level Working Group, and the final Act gestated under close scrutiny from that point onwards. He chastises the EU for responding to the development of Large Language Models, the existence of which was known to precious few people five years ago. But to ignore the new technology altogether would have been a far greater sin. He believes that the requirement for sixty pieces of subsequent secondary legislation shows the patchiness of the Act and that such measures are needed to “plug the gaps”. This is disingenuous. He must know, full well, that Acts routinely derogate detailed implementation standards to secondary measures. Silva is also wrong to say that the EU sets an arbitrary upper limit on the size and power of the AI models. The Act is very clear that the number of floating point operations to determine a system as “high risk” is a threshold – a floor not a ceiling; and furthermore that this should be adjusted over time to reflect technological changes. What Silva clearly most dislikes is that the EU is utterly correctly forming a balance between the needs and interests of rightsholders and users on the one hand and the requirements of the tech development sector on the other. As RELX is a company which encompasses this division, I am bound to see it as a great strength of the Act. It is disappointing that again such one-sided thinking is prevalent in the debate. #AI #EU #Copyright

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I've got a fantastic panel lined up for the #BCSPolicyJam tomorrow discussing #deepfakes and elections: Tim Clement-Jones, a Liberal Democrat peer and their spokesman for digital in the House of Lords. He was the former Chair of the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Select Committee and is Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence. Tom Bristow, Tech Reporter, Politico. Lisa Forte, Cyber Security Expert and partner at Red Goat Cyber Security. Hannah Perry, Researcher at CASM, is in the digital policy unit at Demos. She leads Demos’s information ecosystem programmes and is interested in how our democratic systems, institutions, and cultures evolve in a digital age. We'll have the results of the latest BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT members survey on what our tech experts think will be the impact of deepfakes on the upcoming UK election, presented by BCS Director of Communications, James Woodward. We'll also broaden the discussion to look globally. In a year when almost half the world’s democracies hold elections, how do governments deal with this? Is regulation the answer – and to what extent? And should political parties themselves be upfront about their own use of #AI in their campaigns? What can be done to help the public spot fake audio, video and images? What part do technical solutions play - watermarking, for instance? What’s the role of mainstream media – at a time when there is growing distrust of traditional news?  There’s still time to sign up – midday Wednesday 24th, via Eventbrite https://hubs.ly/Q02tz_2n0 

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The US presidential/ UK PM debates have never taken place in the same week, let alone consecutive days. Setting aside which was the more entertaining (easily US) – a few thoughts on how the different broadcast formats affected the coverage and impacted the viewer: ⏳ Ground rules & visuals Contrasting with the BBC's looser approach, #CNN set explicit rules of engagement, everything from response times, microphone control and stage positioning. The split screen close-up camera effect was revealing – Biden pensive then growing in confidence and Trump looking increasingly needled as the debate progressed. If a similar technique was adopted for the UK debate, it wouldn't have benefited Starmer... 🔊 Moderation & questions Dana Bash and Jake Tapper led for CNN vs Mishal Husain alone for the #BBC. Two moderators enabled closer control and smoother transition through questions. Lack of audience in Atlanta meant a strangely sanitized atmosphere but removing audience reactions – along with the use of zoom-in – perhaps helps the viewer to focus more on the candidates and be less influenced by variables. The debate in Nottingham was less structured, giving both men – mainly Sunak – more chance to interrupt and go on the attack. There was also something very British about a willing audience stumbling through their questions amidst shouts of protest from outside! 🎯  Fact-checking Husain planted the flag early by highlighting BBC Verify and both candidates appealed to the service when disputed claims arose. She was also more assertive at clarifying statements and presenting official statistics especially during the immigration and fiscal debates. There was little pre-emptive or real time fact-checking in Atlanta, for which CNN are being heavily criticized. In the closing stages, the moderators struggled just to get the candidates – especially Trump - to engage with the question asked. Personal accusations, counter-claims and a ‘he started it’ line of attack increased as the debate wore on. As for the overall optics, Trump and Sunak appeared the more forceful and vigorous. Biden and Starmer will have to hope their more measured, statesmanlike performances are not overly perceived as tired or meek. #presidentialdebate #2024election

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👉UNBELIEVABLE… …to him, but entirely believable to others🤷‍♂️🫤 This opening statement by the ex-Chair of Royal Mail, Allan Leighton, evidenced in the ongoing Post Office Inquiry offers important insight to our ‘belief systems’: 1 The inadequacy of them; an inadequacy that can prove to be fatal for you, and others 2 The need to widen them in order to prevent inadequacy becoming normalised 3 The need for independent professional support to help you widen them 4 How we continue to deceive ourselves and harm others until we take responsibility for them (1-3 above refers) This link to a conversation about self-responsibility and belief systems with Professor MacLennan who can help you widen them may prove helpful: https://lnkd.in/ef2WutnT This link to ‘Wilful Blindness’ which promotes an understanding as to why Allan Leighton said what he meant may also help: https://lnkd.in/e7YZ9nWs Margaret Heffernan Prof Nigel MacLennan Leadership Coach and Integrity Campaigner 🎶Crack The Shutters🥰✈️ https://lnkd.in/eis9UeWR https://lnkd.in/e7dG4mpD

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Align stakeholders. Predict outcomes. Use resources more effectively. This is the power of systems thinking, and it's the secret sauce for advancing UK criminal justice. In our latest blog, our public sector experts show you exactly how to leverage it.

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The new PoliMonitor PoliPolling fortnightly report is out including a breakdown of the latest polls following the Local Elections at the start of May. It also includes policy tracking for each of the main parties, so take a look 👀. Our Fortnightly report will expand with additional information essential to Public Affairs Professionals in the lead up to the General Election. Subscribe to our free fortnightly report here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eyXsFYUp #GeneralElection #Polling #Elections

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Keeping our fragile democracies safe depends on the outcome of today's US Presidential elections. But also on NATO, ensuring we stay in advance of our opponents in cutting edge, dual use technology like #quantum #AI. Listen to a recording of Matija Matoković, Deputy Head of the NATO Innovation Unit, speaking at The City Quantum and AI Summit: https://lnkd.in/eq__K-Ym Quantum London UKQuantum The Quantum Insider

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Scotland's public and third sectors have a new Digital Capability Advisory Group to support their efforts to use digital tech and data effectively. It's good that the Scottish Digital Academy and the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government - which are going to run the new group in a partnership - have taken on the brief to support third sector organisations as well as public authorities. There is a lot of partnership working between the two groups and it makes sense that their use that they're on the same page in using digital and data. https://lnkd.in/eYubZGz9 #scotland #ddat #govtech #publicsector #thirdsector

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The Times 🗞 + Fairer Finance 💷 + Citizens Advice 👫 + Instinctif Partners 🤝 = an event not to be missed if your brand is grappling with reputational challenges in highly regulated sectors. Sign up below to save your seat and put your questions to our expert panel on 12 November ⤵ #reputationmeetsregulation

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Against an ever developing cyber threat landscape and an increasingly complex legal framework, it's more important than ever for organisations to be informed on potential cyber incidents and how to manage them. This morning, I hosted a webinar in collaboration with Matheson LLP on Cyber Resilience Best Practice and lessons we have learned so far. For anyone looking for more information on the topic please get in touch with the Matheson Technology and Innovation team!

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Our daily election update is super snappy and an ideal primer for your day ahead! Sign up using the link below #GE24 #GeneralElection2024

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Found at 2009 Consumer Focus report into DirectGov (predecessor to GOV.UK), but parts of it could have been written about GOV.UK in recent years. The original alpha/beta product design of GOV.UK was _all_ about creating a framework that put services before content and limited there ability of publishing multiple things. The clear demarcation of services vs content vs facts / single service page, single guide page, URL structure etc If there's a moment that the GOV.UK illustrates the drift back towards content soup, it's this 2013 blog post about icons: https://lnkd.in/dWTz9pfx It is, of course, 100% right on one level. Something testing with users, didn't work, so designs are iterated. (The original design had also been overstretched to accommodate government policy and new publishing, which should have been kept separate anyway). But on another level, it marked the abandonment of an attempt at system redesign towards the issues that Consumer Focus and others had identified. GOV.UK was destined to become a publishing first model. It was never about the icons. Baby -> bathwater.

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Another cracking story for BT, which now sees 2,000 signals of potential cyber-attack every second in its defence of critical networks. In the words of our campaign spook Ben Owen: we're in an AI arms race with hackers, as new tech continues to lower the bar for rookie criminals. With the right tools (and partners) businesses can keep the threat at bay, but only if they push security up the list of priorities. Lots of coverage from the team in all the right places, making that mission a reality.

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Reading to the end to find this: “Another concern is how it might change the nature of the relationship between government and citizens. “When you insert a technology into a system or service, it has a ripple effect … It changes what people expect, and it changes how people behave,”….” This rings vey true. AI interventions need to be designed and tested, putting the needs, relationships and behaviours of people at the heart of success. I wish more commentary would focus on this, rather than so-called efficiency. Putting efficiency before effectiveness is like putting the cart before the horse. Design to be effective and with soft edges (which includes those messy things called human relationships) first. Perhaps AI will be part of the answer, but let’s not assume.

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The Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate has published a report with recommendations for increasing the value of open data from the country’s public sector. It may seem to be a late move - open data has now been on the public sector agenda for several years - and the main points are broad brush rather than detailed. But it is a step in the right direction for public services in Scotland. https://lnkd.in/ewwUeu2M #opendata #scotland

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I've had a close look at the fine details of the Chancellor's #AutumnBudget. #Technology is at the heart of the government's plans to save money and improve public services, including, of course, the #NHS: Some of the main points of my analysis include: ⭐ Over £2 billion for NHS technology and digital improvements - but how will this be managed, where will the money be spent - and what about a plan for the #digitaltransformation of #socialcare? Our experts believe this is vital if the reforms to the NHS are to be successful. ⭐ £1.8 billion to compensate victims of the Post office Horizon scandal, which the Chancellor said is long overdue for the' pain and injustice they have suffered.' We applaud this move! ⭐ An 18 per cent rise to the minimum wage for apprentices, which we welcome as an end-point-assessor of Digital Apprenticeships. I also explore other points too, such as maintaining over £20bn of science research and development funding and investing in technology. Is that enough? Plus, there's the establishment of a National Data Library - what will be its impact? Read all about it! https://lnkd.in/eCJq27ht

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