David Miliband is the UK’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He started an internal weblog in late 2005 when he was Minister of Communities and Local Government and took it public earlier this year.
His “About this blog” statement:
This blog is my attempt to help bridge the gap – the growing and potentially dangerous gap – between politicians and the public. It will show what I’m doing, what I’m thinking about, and what I’ve read, heard or seen for myself which has sparked interest or influenced my ideas. My focus will be on my ministerial priorities. This supplements the existing ways of doing day-to-day business with me and my department.
It appears as though he’s actually authoring his own blog entries, though one never knows for sure. He’s got a personable writing style, posts frequently, and links to other sites to allow his readers to go deeper. Examples: this recent post titled: Environment as Public Service? or this one titled Um…Errr….Errrr….Um…..
I also like it that he often refers to those who attach comments to his blog entries, for example in this entry when he wrote “Many thanks for the comments on the drought in the South East (remember the majority of regions are not suffering). Harry, Holger and others mentioned the idea…”
I’m not going to do a complete analysis of his blog (Hansard Society is doing that) but there are a couple of things I’d like to see him do:
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Include photos of people who he mentions meeting. For example, in this post where he writes I met residents of the Victoria Hostel for the homeless in Westminster yesterday evening… The photo need not include him in the photo — some might accuse him of self-promotion if that’s done too much. Including photos not only makes a blog entry more visually appealing. It’s a good way to recognize/affirm/acknowledge the people who were there. And it encourages people to pass around the permalink of the blog entry.
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Include more posts about what his department staff/employees are doing that reflects some of the strategic initiatives he’s emphasizing, as well as the overall values he espouses. Leadership for someone in his position not only relates to public leadership, but to the many (dozens/hundreds/thousands?) of government employees who are part of his department.
[This profile is part of my ongoing Leaders who blog series that I began in June, 2006]
