I'm not part of GDS, though I used to (like frabcus) volunteer for MySociety (or, more accurately, for FaxYourMP & TheyWorkForYou, which were later pulled toget

I'm not part of GDS, though I used to (like frabcus) volunteer for MySociety (or, more accurately, for FaxYourMP & TheyWorkForYou, which were later pulled together as MySociety). Also like frabcus, I know quite a few of the GDS folks. I now live in the Bay Area and work for 18F. GDS has been hugely inspirational for us, and we talk to them fairly often. Personally, it's their model of focusing on user needs, using continual user research to drive design and implementation that speaks loudest to me. Far too much public-facing government IT has been driven by department needs rather than user needs. If you talk to UK citizens about GOV.UK, they mostly seem pleasantly surprised by how well it Just Works.