Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Fostering Entrepreneurship and innovation in Australian universities

Last week I was privileged to be invited to speak at the Canberra Startup Showcase, run by the UC Advertising and Marketing Society and EntrepreneurshipUC Society at the University of Canberra.

Together with three other entrepreneurs, Mitchell Harmer of Sign On Site, Dawn Hayter of Urban Providore and Joe Mammolita of iCognition, we discussed our journeys and experience in entrepreneurship and answered the questions of the gathered students.

It was an awesome experience. Each of the entrepreneurs had a very different background, and were at different stages in their company development, providing a broad cross-sectional view of what it's like to found and build a business in Australia.

Fostering entrepreneurship at Australian universities is critical for Australia to build future businesses and grow the economic opportunities for all Australians. The level of interest from attendees, including several who were already seasoned entrepreneurs while still in their early twenties, demonstrated that passion for entrepreneurship was alive among young Australians.

All they needed was the knowledge and tools to realise their passions, avenues to learn from more experienced business owners and access systems that can leapfrog their learning and avoid at least some of the pitfalls.

While I was expecting some interest from the students in Social Media Planner as a tool to support an aspect of business planning, I didn't anticipate how popular it would be - several students bought decks on the spot and more have followed up after the event.

This suggests to me that tools like Social Media Planner have a valuable place in helping our future entrepreneurs to define, refine and test their ideas, preparing them for the business landscape of the future.

I'm glad I could provide some knowledge and support to the students of the University of Canberra, and hope I can continue to support younger people in their journey towards entrepreneurship for years to come.

I hope governments, corporations and universities also recognise where and when our education system needs to be supported by relevant business experience and appropriate business tools.

Without appropriate support many potential Australian enterprises will fail, or not achieve their potential success, restricting Australia's economic development and success.

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Friday, June 20, 2014

UK makes learning to program mandatory in all state-run primary and secondary schools from September

In the UK, from September this year (the start of their school year), all primary and secondary students in state-run schools will be taught how to program computers as a mandatory part of their national curriculum.

Announced as part of the UK's 'Year of Code', the introduction of this new mandatory computing curriculum was necessary, the UK Education Minister said, "if we didn't want the Googles and Microsofts of tomorrow to be created elsewhere."

This is stimulating the development of innovative programs, like Everyone Can Program and prompting massive retraining of teachers to support the curriculum.

Year of code promotional video



This type of vision is rare amongst governments globally, and this step is likely to give the UK an enormous boost to its economy over the next twenty years - by which time every adult in the UK under the age of 38 will have had some experience in coding.

Of course this doesn't mean that every child in the UK will choose to become a computer programmer, just as mandatory maths in schools hasn't raised a nation of mathematicians in Australia.

However it raises the bar unilaterally for the entire population and is likely to make the UK the most technologically-savvy and advanced nation in the world over time.

This initiative is attracting significant attention in Europe and North America, however has been largely ignored in Australia - where the attention is on future cuts to school spending, a review of the national curriculum and the decision of the Federal Government to invest in Latin.

In my view Australia's current position on education is extremely worrying for our future.

The declining number of IT graduates has already been recognised as a critical threat and there have been a number of reports about a growing shortfall in digital skills.

Most government agencies I speak to talk about how hard it is to attract good digital talent - or retain it - and digital literacy is an issue not only across the Australian public sector, but across the private and not-for-profit sectors as well.

We aren't going to address this with a focus on teaching Latin, increasing the religious content of our curriculum, or even by maintaining the status quo of mandatory English and Maths.

For Australia to remain relevant, competitive and successful - with the standards of living that Australians have become used to, we need to look seriously at where coding and other digital skills fit within our education system, while also addressing the shortfall of teachers we have to teach these skills.

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Canberra University launches Graduate Certificate in Social Media and Public Engagement

Universities in Australia have lagged behind public and commercial use of social media and need for their staff to be trained in effective development and implementation of online engagement approaches.

However this looks to be changing with the launch of Canberra University's Graduate Certificate in Social Media and Public Engagement.

As a one year part-time primarily online course the Graduate Certificate aims to give participating students the practical skills and theoretical knowledge they need to work in rapidly changing online and social media environments - with a particular focus on a public sector context.

Each semester involves a face-to-face masterclass with academics and social media professionals, with ongoing lectures and coursework delivered online. This means the course is accessible to potential students right across Australia.

Designed to support public servants who are new to online engagement, or are seeking formal qualifications to back-up their existing experience, the course is rated as relevant for a broad range of public sector professionals including communications and information communications technology staff, policymakers and stakeholder/community/online engagement managers.

It may also be valuable for people working in other sectors in roles that touch on or who are interested in social media and social technologies, change, e-government more broadly, public policymaking, the media and society, and the formation of public opinion.

I'm pleased to say that the course developers have consulted extensively with senior public servants and public sector social media practitioners. I've also been involved in providing input into the program (and will help out in some of the course delivery).

More information on the course is available at Canberra University's website (http://www.canberra.edu.au/faculties/arts-design/courses/postgraduate/social-media) - and there's still time to enrol for the 2014 intake!

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Monday, November 19, 2012

But we're the experts! Why the 'internal expert' democratic governance model is gradually failing and what can be done about it.

Most public sector agencies are designed as centres of expertise on policy and service delivery.

By gathering, or training, experts in a given topical area and marshalling and directing this expertise to resolve specific issues and goals, agencies have been designed to design and deliver effective and sound policy and service delivery solutions to governments for communities.

Sure these powerhouses of expertise consult a little on the fringes. They access academia and business to provide 'fringe' expertise that they cannot attract into their agencies and engage with NGOs, community groups and individual citizens to check that service delivery solutions meet the 'on-the-ground' needs of specific communities.

This is necessary for fine-tuning any policy or service solutions to meet specific needs, where cost-effective to do so.

However the main game, the real policy powerhouse, are the government agencies themselves, who take on the roles of researcher, think tank, gatekeeper, designer and deliverer through their central pool of expertise.

This is a longstanding - even 'traditional' approach to governance. It was designed and adopted in an era where geography, communication and education limited the extent and access to expertise in a nation or community. Where, often, many people were disempowered politically and economically through limited access to information and knowledge.

Consider Australia at Federation in 1901. 

The new Commonwealth Government, in addressing national issues, had to serve a population of 3.7 million people (smaller than Victoria's population today), with an average age of 22 years old, dispersed over 7.7 million square kilometres.

There was no telephone, radio, television or internet, however the overland telegraph, which gave Australia high-speed communication with the world, was 30 years old, having been completed in 1872 and extended to Perth in 1877. While most communication travelled at the speed of a fast horse, train or ship, it was possible to share information across Australia the speed of light, though at the rate of only a few messages at once. This telegraphic networked served as Australia's communication backbone for almost another fifty years, until telephones became popular after World War II from 1945.

In 1901 Australia had one of the highest literacy rates in the world (80%) with school compulsory to 13 years old, though attendance was not enforced, many remote communities didn't have access to schools and Indigenous Australians were excluded. Literacy meant basic reading and writing, with the ability to add and subtract - the books issued to 13yr olds today would have been far beyond the ability of the majority of students in 1901.

The majority of Australia's 22,000 teachers hadn't attended a teacher's college, generally serving an apprenticeship as 'pupil teachers' and few 'technical colleges' existed to teach advanced students.

In 1901 there were only 2,600 students at Australia's four universities (0.1% of our population) and CSIRO wasn't even an idea (formed 1926). There wasn't a record of how many Australians had received a university education until the 1911 Commonwealth census, which reported 2,400 students at university and 21,000 'scholars' (with their level of education undefined).

In this environment, expertise was rare and treasured. Governments employed the cream of Australia's graduates and were almost the sole source of expertise and thinking on policy issues that the new nation had to address.

The 'government as centre of expertise' model made sense, in fact it was the only viable way to develop a system capable of administering the world's smallest continent and one of the largest, and most sparsely populated, nations.


Jump forward a hundred and ten years, and Australia is one of the most connected nations on the planet, with 98% of our 22 million citizens having instant access to the world through the internet and virtually every Australian having access to telephones, radio and television.

Education is compulsory to 15 or 17, with the majority of teachers tertiary educated and school attendance strictly enforced - including for Indigenous Austalians. We have about 41 universities, ten times as many as in 1901, as well as over 150 other tertiary institutions, with over 21% of Australians having received tertiary education.


As a result, the 'government agency as expert' model is failing.

Across our population there's far more expertise outside of government than within. Governments struggle to attract and retain talent in a global market, hamstringing themselves by restricting employment to Australian citizens, while the commercial sector internationally will happily take Australia's best trained minds and put them to use elsewhere in the world.

Despite this, government's basic model has barely changed. Agencies are structured and act as 'centres of expertise' on policy and service delivery topics.

True, there's a little more interaction with academia, with business and even with citizens. However agencies remain structured as 'centres of expertise' for policy design and service delivery, designed to serve communities with limited communication or education - limited capability to do for themselves.

This model may remain effective in certain parts of the world, in nations where literacy is low, geography remains a barrier and communication infrastructure is weak - like Papua New Guinea, regions in the Amazon and some other remote areas and developing nations.

However in developed nations, with high literacy, substantial tertiary education, where geography is no limit to communication and access to media and internet are almost universal, does the approach retain the same merit?

A 'centre of expertise' approach also has many downside risks which are necessary features of the system, providing the separation and public trust required by governments to operate in this way.

For example, when government agencies structure themselves as the experts, they need to maintain a level of mystique and authority to justify public trust that they are providing the best advice and solutions. 

Just like a religion has special rituals, and restaurants rarely let you see how their kitchens operate in order to preserve the trust of their worshippers and customers, government agencies conceal their day-to-day operations from scrutiny to maintain a mystique of expertise and create a clear separation between the 'agency business' of government and the external workings of society. 

This often involves keeping policy development processes hidden behind a wall of secrecy, bureaucratic language and bizarre semi-ritualistic procedures. 

This is also why, despite FOI and other approaches, governments largely remain secretive about their processes for designing policy. They can be messy, which may reduce trust and call into question the expertise of the agency or government.

As a result, if you're not a policy expert, in most countries it is unlikely that ordinary citizens have much knowledge of how an agency has developed a given policy, who was involved (formally or informally) or why certain decisions were reached. These activities are done behind closed doors - in the confessional, behind the kitchen wall, backstage - with all their inherent messiness, testing of 'dangerous' ideas and economic modelling of who wins and who loses with any specific decision treated as confidential and secret knowledge.

This leads to a second issue and a rationalisation. As the public isn't aware of how a specific policy or service was developed, generally seeing only the final 'packaged' solution, agencies can reasonably and logically argue that the majority of the public have little to add to the policy process. 

'Expert' policy officers can argue that; the public doesn't have sufficient context, doesn't have all the facts, doesn't understand the consequences of decisions or the trade-offs that had to be made.

And of course this is true. Because the public were not part of the process, they did not go on the same journey that the public sector 'experts' went on to reach a particular policy conclusion.

The public is told 'trust us, we're the experts', and again this is indeed true. Only the policy insiders had the opportunity to become the experts, all others were kept outside the process and therefore can never fully understand the outcome. 

Success in implementing policies and services relies on the public trusting agencies and governments to be the experts. To trust them to do their jobs as the 'experts' who 'know better' than the community. However the 'secret agency business' of policy and service design can feed on itself. Government may attempt to keep more and more from their citizens as, from their perspective, the more they reveal the less the public trust agencies. 

This is a tenuous approach to trust in modern society, where scrutiny is intense and every individual has a public voice.

If the agency policy experts, in their rush to meet a government timetable, overlooked one factor, or misunderstood community needs, a policy can quickly unravel and, like an emperor with no clothes, the public can rapidly lose faith and trust in government to deliver appropriate solutions.

In this situation it is rare that an expertise-based agency or government will be willing to publicly admit that they misunderstood the issue, convenes the people affected and expertise in the community and discusses it until they have a workable solution. It does happen, but it is the exception not the rule.

Instead, the first reaction to external scrutiny is often to protect their position and justify why the public should trust them. They may draw the wagons round, either seeking to bluff their way through ('you don't understand why we made these decisions, but trust us'), 'hide' the failure under a barrel (it was a draft, here's the real policy), or to tell the public that the agency will fix the issue ('trust us this second time'). 

In some extreme examples, governments may even cross lines to protect their perceived trust and reputation - concealing information or discrediting external expertise in order to justify the expertise inside their walls and try to regain public trust.

There are other risks as well to the government as expert model. Policy experts, who have worked in the field a long time, may not accept the expertise of 'outsiders' who appear to be interloping on their territory ' who are they to tell us what we should do'. Agency experts may become out-of-date due to not working in a field practically for a long time, they may hire the wrong experts, or simply not hire experts at all and attempt to create them. 

In all these cases, agencies have a strong structural need to preserve public trust and their integrity - which may often exhibit itself as 'protecting' their internal experts from external scrutiny, or otherwise attempting to prevent any loss of reputation through being exposed as providing less than good advice.

These risks mean that the government as expert model is under increasing pressure.

A more educated and informed citizenry, with high levels of access to publication tools means that every public agency mistake and misstep can be identified, scrutinised, analysed and shared widely.

Each policy failure and example of a government agency protecting itself at the expense of the community. Each allegation of corruption, fraud or negligent practice - whether at local, state or national level - contributes to a reduction in trust and respect that affects most, if not all, of government. 

Of course this government as expert model hasn't completely failed. There are areas that the community isn't interested in, where the government is indeed the expert or where it would be dangerous to release information into the public eye - where we do have to trust the governments we elect to act in our best interests without the ability to scrutinise their decisions. These areas are shrinking, but some are likely to always remain.

However the model started fraying around the edges some time ago and we see it represented today in the increasing lack of respect or trust in government. 

Citizens don't compartmentalise these failures in ways that governments hope they will, often seeing them as systemic failures rather than individual issues.

As a result citizens trust governments less, have less faith that governments can develop appropriate policies and services and turn even more scrutiny onto agencies - even when unwarranted.

The failures of the government as expert model are only likely to grow and extend, with greater scrutiny and greater pressure on agencies to perform. This, unfortunately, is likely to lead to more errors, not less, as governments seek to make faster decisions with fewer internal resources, less experts, less time.

So how does this failing model get resolved? What are the alternatives approach that governments can adopt to remain effective, relevant and functional in a society with high literacy, education, access to information and almost universal capability to publicly analyse government performance?

In my view the main solution is for governments, except in specific secure topics, to turn themselves inside out - changing their approach from being policy and service deliver 'centres of expertise' to being policy and service delivery 'convenors and implementors'.

Rather than seeking to hire experts and design policy and services internally, agencies need to hire people who can convene expertise within communities and from stakeholders, marshalling it to design policy and codesign service and focus on supporting this process with their expertise in structuring these approaches to fit the realities of government and implementing the necessary solutions.

This approach involves an entirely transparent design process (for both policies and services), making it possible to inform and engage the community at every step.

Within this approach, government agencies gain the trust of the community through managing the process and outcomes, not through being the expert holding the wisdom. The community doesn't need to trust a black box process, it comes on the journey alongside the agency, developing a deeper and richer trust and support for the outcomes. As a result, the energy of the community is aligned to support the agency in making the policy succeed, rather than being disengaged, or actively opposing the policy and leading to failure.

Government becomes an active participant and enabler of the community, reducing the cost of communicating information and influencing citizen ideas as citizens are influenced through their participation or observation of the proces.

This approach does require substantial education - both within government and within the community - to ensure that all participants are aware and actively engaged in their new roles. It can't, and shouldn't, be introduced into all agencies overnight and there are some policy requirements where security should take precedence and processes cannot be as fully revealed.

However the approach could be introduced relatively easily (and some governments around the world have done this already). For instance, a government could select three to five issues and put together taskforces responsible for taking a collaborative approach to deliver specific policy or service solutions. 

These taskforces provide a 'public secretariat' for managing community and stakeholder involvement, acting as facilitators, not operators, to marshal community engagement in the design process.

This could even be done at arms length from a government, with taskforces drawing on expertise from outside public sector culture to avoid accidental imposition of elements of a central command and control model, provided they include core skills from the public sector necessary to ensure the policies or services developed can be effectively and practically implemented by government.

This process would test the public policy design model, capturing learnings and experiences - not from a single process run once, but from an parallel process, with multiple taskforces running at the same time to test the real-world impact in a reduced timeframe. Learnings from the taskforces would be aggregated and used to build a more complete understanding of how to adopt the approach more widely within agencies.

Provided governments committed to the outcomes of these processes, and selected issues of interest to the community, this approach would provide solid evidence for the effectiveness (or otherwise) of a facilitation/implementation, rather than an internal expertise, approach to governance.

Alongside this moderated approach to public policy development, a complementary citizen-led policy engagement approach could be introduced using an ePetition or ePolicy methodology.

Mirroring the approach taken in other jurisdictions, where the community is given a method to propose, develop and have debated in parliament, citizen policy and legislation, this would provide another route for citizens to engage with and understand the complexity of policy development and build an alternative route for high-attention issues for which governments are not prepared to take immediate action.

This approach has been adopted in several forms overseas, such as the ePetition approaches in the US and UK, where any petition with sufficient votes receives the attention of the government and, in the case of the UK, is debated in Parliament.

more rigorous model is used in Latvia, where citizens are supported to design actual legislation online and, if they can marshall sufficient support, their bills go to parliament, they get to speak on them and the parliament votes them up or down.

This last model is beginning to be introduced in Scandinavian countries and Switzerland has long had a similar process, pre-dating the internet, which allows greater participation by citizens in decisions.

So, in summary, the 'internal expert' model designed for use in nations with limited literacy and education and poor communication, is failing to serve the needs of highly educated and connected nations, such as Australia, leading to increasing citizen concern and plummeting trust in governments.

To address this, governments need to adapt their approaches to suit the new realities - environments where there are more experts outside of government than inside and where citizens can universally scrutinise governments and publish facts, analysis and opinions which serve to increasingly force governments into difficult and untenable positions.

The key changes governments need to make is to turn themselves 'inside out' - exposing their policy and service delivery design and development processes to public scrutiny and engagement and becoming facilitators and implementors of public policy, rather than the expert creators of it.

While some areas of governance need to remain 'black boxes', many can be opened up to public participation, building trust with communities by bringing citizens on the journey with agencies to reach the most practical and appropriate solutions.

This will rebuild trust in governance and allow governments to improve their productivity and performance by tapping a greater range of expertise and building an easier path to implementation, where citizens support agencies, rather than oppose them.

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Monday, July 09, 2012

Mapping government policies online - Govmonitor, a great new aussie site

For all the attention on government policies, the various announcements and documentation on political party sites, it can be very difficult to compare and contrast where different parties sit on different issues and, for governments, difficult to keep track of whether they are sticking to their election policies or amending them for pragmatic, political or other reasons.

While the capacity to provide quick and easy insights and access to party policy statements online is technically possible, it isn't often done. Even traditional media outlets tend to turn it into a shopping list or a tool for punishing parties rather than a tool for informing the public and improving policy discussions within and outside parties.

That's why prior to last election I participated in a Google doc project to map the policies of various parties, which prompted some very interesting conversations, but has not been maintained.

I suspect it is also part of the motive behind the latest attempt to 'crowdmap' the policies of political parties at govmonitor.org

The Govmonitor site (http://govmonitor.org)
This, however is a far more visual, accessible and interactive approach than the prior collaborative document idea, providing for easier searching and visual identification of what policies and positions parties support, don't support and haven't made a decision on yet.

The site offers a range of ways to view content, by party, by issue and by topic, with a full text search as well.

It also provides an easy way for people to contribute, adding party policies or positions on issues complete with evidential links and references supporting the party positions.

This is an excellent example of Gov 2.0 in action, providing information and education through evidence-backed crowd-sourcing to support people to identify the parties their views most correlate with.

It is also a great first step as a site, with the potential to expand to support robust issue-based discussions and allowing individuals to state their positions and connect them to like minded people. There's also quite broad international potential as the same approach can be applied to any level of politics anywhere in the world where citizens have a role in selecting their leaders.

Chris Doble has done a great job with this site and I hope it gains increasing attention and traction as we move closer to the next federal election.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Would you mandate that your staff must have a social media presence?

Would you mandate that all your staff must use social media, at least to give it a try?

That's what one company in the US, Domo (a business intelligence startup), has done.

The CEO, Josh James, has mandated that all 130 of Domo's staff complete 20 social media and online tasks over eight weeks, from creating three Google+ circles to creating a playlist on a online music service.

Called "the #domosocial experiment", as staff complete tasks they receive badges and there's rewards for individual staff who have met the full target, plus a bonus day off if the entire company achieves the goals.

If uncomfortable with the concept, they can create 'disposable' accounts - simply so that they understand how various online services work - rather than using their existing personal accounts or creating an ongoing online presence.

As reported in TechCrunch, the experiment is already delivering results,
James says he can see a difference in the way the team operates. He recalls tweeting out some company news, then seeing it retweeted by more than 50 percent of the workforce. Another time, he says he tweeted about a feature that he was really impressed by see in another product. James didn’t mention it again, but two weeks later an engineer proudly demonstrated a way to add that functionality to Domo’s product. And it’s not just about watching the boss’ Twitter account and keeping him happy. James also says that when he walks through the company’s cubicles, he’s more likely to see (or hear) consumer apps like Pandora or Rdio in action.
“It’s given us a common language,” he adds.
The company's progress is being published online at www.domo.com/what-we-do/social-status

Should other organisations take this step - mandating their staff to at least trial the use of various social media and online tools?

I think there's merit in the concept.

Staff don't need to be taught how to use television, radio or newspapers because they universally grew up exposed to them.

However the generations that grew up with social media are only at the cusp of hitting the workforce, so there's a lot of people in your organisation who are extremely familiar with traditional media but potentially lack experience in online.

While it may not be practicable to mandate that all staff must use social media, teams that deal with public and stakeholder engagement, communication, customer service and business intelligence should all be well equipped to use online channels to meet the goals of the organisation.

Using a reward based process, as Domo has done, provides a better canvass than a penalty based approach and, I think, is well worth considering.

I have begun to hear of communications teams in the private sector who will not hire staff who are not conversant with the major social media channels, and courses for senior managers - both within and outside the public service - which require as 'home work' that they establish Twitter or other accounts.

If we want to foster a 21st Century workforce then we do need to take steps to create it, not just sit back and wait.

A strategy encouraging people to use online tools, which costs little to implement, might be a good start.

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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

How should public servants report online volunteer work?

Last week the Department of Human Services changed its policy regarding staff who participated in volunteer activities - unpaid work undertaken on their own time.

The Department decided that, in order to protect against potential conflicts of interest, public servants had to report their volunteer activities to their Manager and seek approval to do it. Approval would last a year, after which time the employee would have to go back to their manager and ask again.

The story was covered lightly in a few news sources, including the Sydney Morning Herald in the article, Public servants told to seek approval to volunteer.

Putting aside the discussion over whether a public sector employer should exercise this level of oversight and control over the personal lives of their staff (a conversation for a different forum to my blog), I am concerned about how well this policy might work in the face of online volunteerism.

I haven't read the policy myself, however I wonder about the treatment of online volunteer activities, such as moderating an online forum or Facebook page for a volunteer group, building a website to support people in an emergency, curating Twitter conversations, managing an online chatline, curating pages in a wiki, correcting text in digitalized newspapers, adding records to genealogical databases, tagging photos for a museum, checking wavelengths to detect exoplanets, or establishing donation tools and encouraging friends to donate their own time and money.

These activities might be ongoing, or taken at extremely short notice - such as during an emergency. Often there may not be time to brief managers and seek approval. People would face the choice of either not volunteering (a net loss to the community) or volunteering their time and services and defying the policy.

I can personally think of five different volunteer activities I have undertaken online - just since returning from my honeymoon last month. Over a full year I might be involved in 30 or more separate online volunteer activities.

Real-world activities, such as manning a soup kitchen, painting a community centre or caring for old people may be easy to observe, quantify and classify as unpaid volunteer activity, however I am very unsure about how any agency policy might effectively cover the growing range of unpaid online volunteer activities in which people are now able to engage.

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Thursday, December 08, 2011

Building a learning culture

Continuous learning is a way of life for me, I can't recall spending a day where I didn't attempt to broaden my knowledge or understanding on a topic I'm interested in - and I have broad interests.

Coming from a background of working in, and operating, small and medium businesses, the ability to continually learn is a tremendous advantage - even a necessity. You simply don't know what you might have to turn your hand to next. So the more you know about every area of the business and the more general knowledge and experience you have you more ready you are to deal with challenges effectively and rapidly when they occur.

I've noticed that many people I come into contact in the public sector with seem to take a different view of learning, the "on demand' model, where they'll only seek out information at the point of making a decision.

I think this is partially a product of a large organisational culture, where individuals can afford to specialise in a particular narrow discipline. It is also influenced by strong hierarchical structures and siloing, and by the way the public service rewards effective work.

Ultimately though, I believe it is more a product of how individuals have been shaped by their own personal educational journey and experiences. Cultures attract those attuned to those cultures - they can influence how people operate over time, but it takes a long time for a culture to change a person's learning style and behaviour.

So why bring up learning styles at all?

Because something that worries me, and has worried me for quite some time, is how hard it can be to get many people to learn about the new approaches available to help them achieve their goals - do their jobs - more effectively.

I've run a number of training courses with public servants and those who attend are willing and able to learn - they're smart people - however the people who show up because they have a paper on the topic to finish in a couple of days, or don't attend these courses and rely on an 'expert' to tell them what they should do, seem to be missing major opportunities to develop their own capabilities and be ready to address new challenges with a pre-prepared set of tools.

I worry about the number of people who don't anticipate what they might need to know before they take on a particular task (particularly when related to social media) or those who are 'learning on the job' when they don't have to be (I have nothing against learning on the job generally, it's a time-honoured tradition of the upwardly work mobile).

Maybe the best way I can put it is - you don't go and get a relevant degree AFTER coming in for the job interview, so why set yourself up to do the research and obtain the knowledge of a topic after it has become part of your job if you don't have to?

If you can predict that an area is going to be important in your profession in three months, six months, a year or even five years, start learning now.

If you start when you are expected to start delivering runs on the board, you may have left it too late.

In relation to the internet, social media and Gov 2.0 I reckon there's a lot of tricks being missed by public servants who haven't begun their learning journey, but face significant changes in how their jobs will need to be delivered. I'd like to see broader upskilling now to prepare for current and future needs.

And those who claim there's not enough training available (and I am one of them) are partially right - there isn't.

However if you have a personal learning culture you don't wait for the powers-that-be to prepare the courses for you, you go out and seek an education from peers, books and the world's biggest university - the internet.

Are my impressions fair?

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Saturday, October 22, 2011

Traditional media insiders are the least qualified to comment on the future of traditional media

With the release of News Ltd's Future of journalism 'discussion' I've submitted a 'Your view' to the site which may, or may not, be published at some point in the future.

On the basis that traditional media is no longer the gatekeeper for participation in public debate I have posted my submission below.

I see a lot of the debate over traditional media relevancy and business models being very 'fiddling on the edges' stuff, attempting to use technical or legal barriers (such as copyright) to preserve an industrial era view of media which media consumers, now also media producers, are rejecting in droves.

Today any individual or organisation can create and maintain its own media platform capable of reaching 95% of Australians, and over 2 billion people worldwide.

The Internet, by merely existing, allows entrepreneurs and agile organisations to question all previous assumptions about the collection, collation, filtering, distribution and monetization of content. As a global playing field, the importance of geographic boundaries has been further diminished.

Being agile, efficient and effective is no longer sufficient. Organisations must be prepared to destroy and reconstruct themselves under entirely different models to remain competitive and relevant.

The jury is still very much out as to whether traditional newspapers, radio and television media organisations will be able to do this before they see a substantial amount of their profitability dry up.

My submission:

It is no surprise that people who work in traditional media, who have a financial and emotional stake in its future, are supportive of their organisation’s future (provided they are agile, efficient and effective).

I can see expert blacksmiths believing the same with the arrival of mass-produced cars and metalwork.

However what those beholden to traditional media cannot see is the viewpoint from the outside world.

Yes access to information is a requirement for liberal democracies. Yes quality news is a tool used to stabilize societies and promote understanding.

However there is no law of nature that states that profitability must be at the root of quality news coverage and reporting. Nor is there a causal link between professional journalism and professional news reporting – journalists, as humans, are as prone to reflecting their own biases as others and, even when trained to be objective, are at the mercy of sub-editors (where they still exist), editors and the overall political ambitions of for-profit media concerns.

Now I am not saying that government-run media (with no profit objective) is the answer. These systems bring their own control and bias issues, they still need cash and still have oversight from humans who may be influenced by political views.

Nor am I saying that for-profit, or even not-for-profit independent media outlets do not have a future. They do.

However the vast expansion in expressive capability that has been realized through the Internet has offered a second model to news gathering and reporting that will seriously challenge the biases of distribution systems with tacked on news collection and reporting facilities.

There is no reason to assume that industrial news services will continue to be the leading players in the media market – certainly the impact of the web on other industrial era centralised industries has been profound. When the means of production and distribution are diversified, some necessary changes and adaptation is required.

However those who have financial and emotional connection to the old models, while the most prolific commenters on new models, are not the gatekeepers to these new media forms, nor are they objective and impartial observers, able to assess the changes without bias.

I would challenge News Ltd and all other industrial-era news industry players to look outside themselves and their orbits (bloggers who are, in effect, news people) to the broader changes occurring in society.

We need to consider new models – perhaps the disaggregation of news collection and distribution, creating an open market for people to write news, have it submitted to, paid for and distributed by strong distribution channels, or for citizens (who are now all journalists, so we can drop the ‘citizen journalist’ tag) to be paid based on views, likes and reputation when submitting their work to an open news distribution platform.

News is no longer the news, access to distribution is the news and there is a pressing need to experiment with new approaches to opening up news distribution rather than locking it down into professional guild-like channels.

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Saturday, September 24, 2011

TedXCanberra 2011 liveblog

I'm at TEDxCanberra 2011 today liveblogging the event.

It is also being livestreamed via the website, tedxcanberra.org and can be followed on Twitter at the hashtag #TEDxCanberra.

 What's TEDx? A global phenomenon that you can learn more about here.

 

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Thursday, May 05, 2011

Is this the first eGovernment research paper? Published 1954

I've been reading the excellent blog post by Richard Heeks in ICTs for Development on The First e-Government Research Paper.

He discusses a research paper by W. Howard Gammon on "The Automatic Handling of Office Paper Work" published in 1954 that looks that the impact of ICT on government - noting at the time that there were approximately 40 computers in use by the US Federal public service.

What I find very interesting is that many of the points raised in Gammon's article - and highlighted by Heeks - reflect the situation we are in today with eGovernment and Government 2.0.

In a most insightful paper, Hammon identified the importance of understanding how and when to employ technology over understanding how to create or maintain technology, the need to re-engineer business processes rather than simply automate existing processes, the importance of 'hybrid' skills that combine an understanding of the ‘business’ of government with knowledge about the application of technology and the need for top management support, particularly to resist the politics of entrenched interests.

These factors remain of overwhelming importance today in government. We still have to contend with individuals and groups who struggle to effectively employ technology in the service of organisations, siloed business units who seek to protect their current practices out of fear of the consequences of change and there is an ongoing need to expand the ranks of strategic thinkers who can use their combined understanding of government business and technology to create positive change.

It is worth reflecting on why, after more than 50 years, we're still dealing with the same people issues despite having completely changed our environments.

Perhaps we need to collectively spend more time focusing on how we educate and empower our people to bring them along with us into the future.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

How do we keep the idiots at bay?

I read an excellent article today in the Harvard Business review by Bill Taylor about Why Do Smart People Do Such Dumb Things?.

Taylor explores why good ideas go disastrously wrong, why innovation often appears to lead to disaster, concluding that Warren Buffet had the right of it,

Leave it to Warren Buffet to offer a thoughtful perspective. In a memorable, hour-long PBS interview with Charlie Rose during the 2008 crisis, Buffet gave a master class in how the world got into its economic mess and what we can learn from it.

At one point, Rose asked the question that scholars, pundits, and plaintiffs attorneys will be debating for years: "Should wise people have known better?" Of course they should have, Buffet replied, but there's a "natural progression" to how good new ideas go badly wrong. He called this progression the "three Is." First come the innovators, who see opportunities that others don't and champion new ideas that create genuine value. Then come the imitators, who copy what the innovators have done. Sometimes they improve on the original idea, often they tarnish it. Last come the idiots, whose avarice undermines the very innovations they are trying to exploit.
This progression from innovation to imitation to idiocy is not limited to the finance market. We've seen it occur in advertising, in property, in fashion, toys and engineering. In fact it occurs in virtually every industry and profession - including in government.

So how do we keep the idiocy at bay, keeping innovators and (effective) imitators in ascendency?

Taylor doesn't answer this question, so I thought I might throw in a few thoughts.

Firstly we need to train people to distinguish between imitation and idiocy. Provide them with the skills and experience to draw a line in the sand, resisting ideas and approaches that would fail.

Secondly we need to benchmark and share in-depth case studies. Share not only what worked but why it worked and how it worked - or why it did not. The psychological, economic and engineering principles that were applied to turn an idea into an effective execution. This builds greater understanding of the principles underlying success or failure, not simply the 'bling'.

Finally we need to foster continuous innovation. When people have the skills and experience, coupled with ready access to examples of success and failure, they are better equipped to create new concepts and build on existing ideas whilst identifying the paths that would lead to idiocy.

Of course, at the same time, we need to educate upwards and outwards - help senior managers, political offices and external stakeholders understand what works and why. While this mightn't totally prevent them from getting caught up with a novel idea, or rejecting an effective one, it at least helps them understand afterwards.


In Gov 2.0 we're already seeing the imitators attempting to mimic innovative successes from the past few years. That's fine, it can appear safer to go second or twenty-third - although rarely does an imitation aim to reach exactly the same audience, exist in the same environment or get executed in the same way, by the same people.

In the end, I expect we will never be able to completely keep idiocy at bay, but we can, at least, contain it.

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Tuesday, December 07, 2010

What should be included in a Gov 2.0/Web 2.0 university subject?

Tom Worthington, a well-known lecturer at the ANU, is revamping the COMP7420: Electronic Data Management summer session course to integrate more Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0 features.

Tom has invited input from those in government with experience in the Gov 2.0 field.

For more information, and to provide feedback, visit Tom's blog Net Traveller.

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Monday, September 13, 2010

Tips for hiring a public sector social media manager

We are now starting to see government departments advertising social media roles - although the titles vary, including 'New Media Adviser', 'Community Manager' and even 'Online Media Coordinator'.

In Australia it is difficult to recruit people with substantial experience for these roles. I am seeing many filled by media specialists or website managers, who are qualified in their professions, but can be new to the social media space.

This shortage of experienced people also reflect competition from the private sector. Corporate social media roles are now advertised at entry levels around $50,000, mid-range around $90 and at senior levels at $130,000 or more. Government agencies are not always able to offer similar levels of compensation, although attempt to compensate through conditions and superannuation contributions.

Some agencies are taking the route of having graduates lead social media initiatives in the belief that their youth gives them greater familiarity with the medium.

While graduates do come with enthusiasm, innovation and fresh ideas, they haven't always had time to build experience in the public sector, to understand the governance processes or political considerations or build networks of influence. They need support from mentors and sponsors to overcome these challenges.

Graduates may also not be the most experienced users of social media - the types of social media used by a graduate can be quite different from those used by a professional communicator with five or more years experience, simply due to the different professional needs they have in their lives.

Introducing social media into an organisation is a complex and delicate endeavour. When was the last time organisations added a major new communications channel? What type of cultural, procedural and technical changes were required? How major was the change program - and how well resourced?

Traditionally government employs specialist teams for policy development, program management and service delivery - yet in the social media space a single person or small team is often required to have all these skills in ample measure.

This means agencies need to think seriously about the experience and expertise they need in the people they employ to lead their social media initiatives. The experience and expertise required to navigate the cultural and change considerations, work within the governance and processes and appreciate the public communications and political sensitivities around social media adoption.

To aid in this challenge the post 12 Steps To Hiring A Social Media Manager from SocialMediaToday provides many useful tips and considerations that organisations need to take on board when making a social media manager hire.

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Targeting Gov 2.0 apps development - US government combating child obesity with Apps for Healthy Kids

The mash-up (or Apps) competitions we've seen in Australia thus far have been broad and largely untargeted. Governments have released a bunch of public sector datasets and invited developers to create a bunch of applications related to that data for their jurisdiction, but without a highly specific goal or purpose in mind, other than creating applications that add value to the data.

The US, which leads Australia in this area of Gov 2.0, initially took a similar approach. However it has now moved to a new level - Apps competitions focused on individual campaigns, themes and issues.

One such example is the Apps for Healthy Kids competition which, quoting from its website is,

part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation. Apps for Healthy Kids challenges software developers, game designers, students, and other innovators to develop fun and engaging software tools and games that drive children, especially “tweens” (ages 9-12) – directly or through their parents – to eat better and be more physically active.

The competition, which has received over 90 entries, requires developers to use a specific government dataset of information to develop a game or activity focused on a specific audience and campaign goal.

The prize money, $60,000, is a fraction of what it could cost a government Department to develop this many concepts to production level.

The winning entry will be used by the government for 12 months at no license cost and then reverts to the entrant's control - perhaps to become a saleable product or even be licensed by the government for ongoing use.

Besides the value of the winning application, there is substantial public relations value in holding the competition in the first place. It raises awareness of the issue, engaging people in either creating and voting for entries, or simply supporting the initiative through the 'challenge supporters' mechanism.

This type of targeted crowd sourcing approach has many different potential applications for governments from local through to federal levels. Many different issues and campaigns could provide fertile ground for these types of apps competitions.

Note that despite our current lack of targeted apps competitions, Australia isn't that far behind the US in crowd sourcing. There have been examples of online video competitions, design competitions and other approaches designed to encourage the community to engage with and produce content that can be used for the public good.

Below is the introductory video for Apps for Healthy Kids:

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Monday, May 03, 2010

The many styles of blogging - selecting the right approach for your goals and audience

A blog is a blog is a blog in the same way that a TV show is a TV show is a TV show.

That is to say, there are many kinds of blogs in the same way there are many different kinds of TV shows, depending on their goals, audience, subject matter and format.

So when a government department, commercial organisations or individual tells me they are starting a blog often my first question is generally - what type of blog?

Around four years ago Rohit Bhargava defined 25 different types of blog and when to use them (see his presentation embedded below).

Wikipedia also discusses the many different types of blogs, differentiating them by genre, content, authorship, goal and approach.

In both cases there is sage advice for anyone considering setting up a blog to consider, preferably before you establish the blog.

Have you thought about the goals for the blog - to communicate, educate, evangelise, attract or sell (amongst other potential goals); have you consider who you see as your audience and their particular needs and approaches - are they experts or novices, do they prefer short snippets or in-depth analysis; have you considered your available resources - can you blog daily, weekly or sporadically, what technologies you are using and their benefits or limitations.

Finally have you considered your subject matter and the degree of interactivity you seek to include. Can - and will - people respond to your blog by commenting. Will they discuss and share your posts on Twitter or Facebook?

Whether you're proposing a blog as a communications or engagement tactic for your organisation, you're being told to establish a departmental blog or you're considering blogging personally or on topics of professional interest, it is well worth considering the appropriate style and approach to improve your changes of success.

And remember, you can blend a few styles together, create your own and evolve your blog over time in response to how your audience is engaging. Don't be limited by lists!

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Monday, April 19, 2010

When public means public - Australian political party members suspended from social networking sites

The last week has seen several incidents where members of Australian political parties has been suspended from social networking sites and outed in the media for making controversial comments.

Most recently Nick Sowden, a Young Queensland Liberal National Party member, referred to US President Obama as a 'monkey' on Twitter. His tweets were widely discussed online and covered in the media, such as in this Brisbane Times news article, Monkey Business can come back to bite.

Mr Sowden has claimed that his tweets were intended to be a parody of far right US views and that his friends understood that he wasn't racist - although other Twitter users may not. Crikey quoted him as saying "There’s no point sitting behind the veil of political correctness."

It appears that Twitter closed his account after receiving more than 150 complaints about his tweets and the latest reports suggest that Mr Sowden may also be expelled from the Young Queensland Liberal National Party party.

Also in the news was Dave Tollner, a Country Liberal Member of the Northern Territory Parliament. Facebook suspended his Facebook Page for two weeks after he wrote that itinerants were "parasites terrorising innocent citizens".

Covered in the NT News article, Dave booted from Facebook, it is as yet unclear if Mr Tollner's account will be reinstated anytime soon.

The NT News reports that Mr Tollner had said that: "Political correctness has never been my strong point."


Both these cases demonstrate the interesting period we're entering in Australian government.

Both politicians and public servants are beginning to use social media both personally and, most recently, professionally - however few of them have significant experience engaging via online media in this way.

The situation lends itself to a variety of risks such as over or under-moderating comments, reacting to statements in social media channels in disproportionate ways, funny or sarcastic side comments that are taken literally and not understood in context and the differences in personal interpretations of 'political correctness'.

It is very easy to consider social network updates as 'throwaway' lines to friends, even when people recognise intellectually that their comments are public statements and may be viewed and assessed widely by the public and media as well as misunderstood and misrepresented.

This type of issue isn't limited to social networks or online media. There's a long history of radio, television and newspapers reporting candid personal statements recorded when the microphone hasn't been switched off. The US Vice-President's comment to the President during the health care bill signing (where he swore) was one of the most widely publicised recent examples.

With social media this issue can become more complex - with social networks people are 'always on', making it harder for them to keep their guard up all the time.

While there are some guidelines being put in place, there's still little training or support to help people new to these channels to understand how to use them appropriately or effectively - like the media training available to help people respond appropriately in front of a camera and reporter.

There's also limited guidance available on which channels and tools to use for particular purposes, or how to keep public and personal life separate (using the various privacy settings available in many social media tools).

I hope that soon we'll see widespread social media training and coaching for people in the public eye to help them understand that on social networks public means public.

Until then I expect to see many more gaffes from all types of public and semi-public figures - politicians, celebrities, business leaders and from public servants - as they come to grips with the ropes of how to effectively and appropriately communicate via social media.

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Monday, April 12, 2010

What value should government place on online expertise?

On Sunday I was made aware of a Seek advertisement for a 'web and social media expert' position in a 'VERY high-profile government client' in the ACT.

The ad (which is here), seeks someone with,

a strong understanding of how the web and social media operate, the ability to contextualise that within the Government’s needs and find creative solutions; and have the technical skills to transform those solutions into product within tight deadlines!

You will need excellent communication skills, and experience in website design and development and in project and database management. You will be proficient in using a range of web design applications including Adobe Photoshop, have a sound knowledge of HTML, and a strong understanding of web publishing principles and techniques.? Knowledge of relevant web standards and guidelines and community engagement practices are essential! Experience in multimedia authoring and video production would be a strong advantage.
This is a wide range of complex skills, so let's do some unpacking.

Being a 'social media expert' - if such actually exist in Australia - would require years of experience, not just book-learning and seminars, in employing social media techniques and technologies across diverse audiences.

Being a web designer is itself a profession, as is web development, project manager and multimedia and video production. All require years of experience to gain proficiency.

Together these skills would take upwards of fifteen years to gain - possibly twenty or more for a true expert.

In fact this role could easily be split into many separate career roles, each with a professional skillset, including online communications/social media professional, web designer, web developer, database administrator, project manager, multimedia producer)

So at what level does this ad indicate the government client will reward this combined skillset?

At the APS6 level - circa $70-80,000 salary per year.

I wish this agency all the best in finding the right person for this role, however I do feel that the compensation significantly under-values the formal skills they are seeking. The agency will probably have to choose someone without the level of expertise they want, simply because the person with the combined skills they are seeking either does not yet exist in Australia or would be seeking a much higher salary (and could get it simply by employing one of their skillsets).

This is a problem I have seen before in government. Often departments seek highly trained web designers or developers at salaries well below their commercial or digital agency equivalents.

Jobs asking for social media experts seem to hope that these people exist, whereas there has been limited opportunity for people to have gained these skills in Australia. The few professionals who have substantial experience in the social media field are generally freelancing, working in high paying (usually commercial sector) roles or have left Australia for greener fields overseas.

This isn't an issue just related to online skills. Government compensation packages sometime struggle to reward specialists and experts of all stripes, something highlighted in the recent APS reform report released by PM&C, Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration.

I hope moving forward that Australian governments are in the position to acknowledge that there are many kinds of online professionals, that it is highly unlikely to get a full set of online skills in a single person and that these people need to be appropriately compensated for their expertise.

Otherwise we will remain caught in the trap of advertising for experts but being forced to employ 'learners'.

While these people are also needed (and will become more expert with time), they start out far more prone to error, require much greater training and external support and don't bring the same sized tool kit to the table to enable government to deliver the best possible outcomes for the community. In fact when placed in senior 'expert' positions these learners may cost the government much more over time in opportunity cost than the salary of a true expert.

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Sunday, February 28, 2010

How governments can use gameplay to educate and upskill a community

I'm a big fan for the use of gameplay to encourage people to explore concepts, test ideas, build skills and model behaviours while generating awareness - however it is a tool that I have not seen exploited anywhere near to the extent it could be in government or most commercial organisations in Australia (and yes I have some ideas....)

The World Bank is about to launch a very interesting online game, Urgent Evoke, that encourages people to 'make a different', solving real social problems around the world - in a simulated form.

To quote the game's blog:

This is not a simulation. You are about to tackle real problems.

Food security. Energy. Water security. Disaster relief. Poverty. Pandemic. Education. Global conflict. Human rights

Welcome to the Evoke Network. Welcome to your crash course in changing the world.

To understand how this game works and the value it provides, see the Episode 1 video below.

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.


The game launches on 3 March (but is open for preregistration now) and will offer a series of challenges - the first involving an imminent famine in Japan. Missions and quests will be available to help solve these challenges and if it is like previous alternative reality online games of this type, players will be required to research, explore real (and fake) websites, video and other material, following trails of clues to find a solution.

People who complete all of the 10 challenges in 10 weeks will be able to claim the honour: Certified World Bank Institute Social Innovator – Class of 2010.

Top players will earn online mentorships with experienced social innovators and business leaders from around the world, and scholarships to share their vision for the future at the EVOKE Summit in Washington DC.

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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Dealing with video accessibility - automating captions and transcripts

I found out last week that Google had recently integrated YouTube with Google's speech-text technology, allowing videos displayed on YouTube to have their captions and transcripts automatically generated.

In addition, these captions and transcripts can then be translated, via Google's text translation system, and displayed on the video in any supported language.

The transcript can also be downloaded (and corrected if necessary) to be reused in other environments.

Whilst Google admits that neither the speech-to-text autocaptioning or the translation tool are perfect, these are measurable steps forward in using computing power to address accessibility in videos.

It also is a powerful tool for any organisation with video footage - even for internal use. They can simply upload video to YouTube in a private channel, have it auto-transcribed - correct this as required and then translate the material as necessary, then remove the video from YouTube and use the translated material internally.

More information on this tool is available at YouTube's blog in the post, Automatic captions in YouTube and I've embedded their demo video below.

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