'No one in government IT will have done this before' - The Guardian 17th January 2008

In a small way, we made history. Last Saturday, an ad hoc group of citizens interested in improving an aspect of public policy sat down informally with the civil servants responsible and designed a web service to do the job. In all, it took less than five hours. The event was a barcamp held by the National Archives as part of its response to the Cabinet Office's "government 2.0" report, the Power of Information (PDF at tinyurl.com/2umfpb). What's a barcamp? Dude, you've obviously been out of the loop for the past, ooh, seven weeks. It's the buzzword for a self-organising meeting to tackle an issue of interest. Everyone welcome, no timetable, no rules, no speakers' podium; lots of laptops, flipcharts and Post-It notes. You get the idea.

Link to Article