At the beginning of November, I received a phone call from someone working at Public Service Events, a quasi government body which organises promotional events such as conferences and workshops on behalf of government.

I had, apparently, been identified as an SME too small to bid for government tenders.  Aware of the discrimination this caused, certain elements in public service were examining measures to enable freelancers, such as myself, to bid on local and central government projects not exceeding £140,000 (or similar figure) in budget.  Various bureaucratic hurdles in the tender process would be waived.

I had come to somebody’s attention as a practitioner of accessible website design.  The caller asked if I would be prepared to speak at an event to be held in London on 6th December.  As it happened, I had a prior engagement, playing Dandini in the East Leake Amateur Players’ pantomime that week, so I had to decline.

If you look on the PSCA website you will find that the meeting was entitled ‘Skills for the Future –Leadership and Management in the Public Sector’.  It’s not quite how I interpreted my caller’s explanation, but is, presumably, the same event.

In the meantime, I have built two more small websites according to accessible principles, for a client in Oman.  In Oman note, not UK.

See them at Oasis Tours, Oman, and Music Awards Oman.

First published 23rd December 2007

I've just come across the Foreign Direct Investment Promotion Center, which has been developed by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), an arm of the World Bank Group.

The website is available in English, Russian, Arabic and Serbian, (yes, Serbian), offering toolkits, research resources, e-learning and opportunities to promote oneself.

It has an impressive list of members, and the service is currently free. You have to register to access the resources for market research for prospective investors. 571 are listed currently. Short movies of testimonials from users suggest that the toolkits have been very useful to government agencies in setting up investment promotion agencies.

Registration was a bit awkward when it came to choosing an organisation. The process would have lost marks in a usability test, but I did succeed.

This item was first published on 4th December 2006.