What would occur if the STOP sign was invented today?

Public Sector Marketing 2.0 has published an online video looking at the process government would go through if it was first inventing a STOP sign for traffic intersections.

While cynical, perhaps there's a few grains of truth in the message that sometimes in government we focus on our own importance and processes to the expense of the customer and outcomes. What do you think?

What would happen if the STOP sign was invented in 2008?

Involved in eProcurement? European eprocurement forum looking to build international ties

The European eProcurement forum (an initiative supported by the European Commission) is seeking to build international ties to improve its understanding and build collective knowledge about what is occuring in the eprocurement field, what works and what doesn't work in different jurisdictions around the world.

If you're involved or interested in eprocurement, check them out at the eProcurement Forum community.

Also of interest is the new eProcurement Map released by the forum, which is a map of activities having an impact on the development of European interoperable eProcurement solutions.

Is traffic the wedge into effective Australian egovernment data mashups?

Dave Fletcher has published a post on his Government and Technology Weblog about how the community is making use of Utah government traffic data to create innovative tools to help drivers.

Covered in If it could all be so effective as this, Dave covers how the information is shared with the public - much in real-time - via Commuterlink.

It can the be reused by other websites such as Hello Salt Lake City.

With traffic being a key concern for residents of most big cities, and given the success of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in allowing mash-ups of weather (another big citizen concern), I wonder when we'll see state governments in Australia allowing this form of use of their traffic data.

As Dave concludes, due to allowing community mashups of government data,

The end result is that Utah government data actually has much broader disemmination and utility than just what is presented on the state's website. With hundreds of information systems, there are many more examples where this kind of sharing could be valuable, but it doesn't happen. It's a big opportunity.

Europe showcases 40 innovative egovernment projects

The new Smart Regions website showcases 40 European egovernment initiatives between 2002 and 2007.

One of the primary messages of the site is the need for government to connect and work together, across teams, agencies, departments, levels of government, with business and with community. Only by doing so can states and councils become more productive and service focused.

All the governments, research institutions or voluntary organisations depicted on this website have one shared goal: to make their region better, stronger and smarter. And the secret to regional development is actually very simple: co-operation. The Smart Regions share infrastructure, exchange methodologies, copy succesfull achievements, have built strong stakeholder structures and managed to involve other sectors of society. Smart regions not only work together, Smart Regions are smart because they work together.

The site also points out that,

E-Government is as much about changing mindsets, building a vision on service-delivery and showing leadership in getting organisations to work together, as it is about technology.

Let's hear more of that here in Australia!

Newcastle council online community hijacked by hackers

As posted in the Online Community Consultation blog, Newcastle Council was recently stung by having hackers take over its online consultation community and redirect the site to an independent site containing adult content.

As discussed in the post, Red faces in Newcastle, the lesson to be learnt is to ensure effective security is in place to prevent hacking.

There's a secondary point discussed around the length of the sign-up process, which needs to be as short and as simple as possible to keep the barriers to participation low. I didn't see the Newcastle Council community site, so cannot personally comment, however from the post it appears that a more complex sign-up process had real impacts on the number of participants.

WebAim conducting survey on screen reader usage

WebAim is currently conducting a survey looking at the usage of screen readers and the personal experiences of their users.

If you're a user of a screen reader, or are interested in accessibility for vision-impaired people and use of screen readers (as all government web and intranet managers should be), the survey is available from the Webaim blog post, Screen Reader Survey.

There's some interesting comments already on the issues around use of captcha technology (even audio equivalents).

Results will be published in a few months.

National Diabetes Services Scheme releases

The National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS), an Australian Government initiative administered by Diabetes Australia, last month released the a national online map of the spread of diabetes in Australia.

Located at www.diabetesmap.com.au), the service is a wonderful example of how online map systems (in this case Microsoft's free Virtual Earth tool) can be 'mashed-up' with data to provide new ways of visualising and understanding data.

More details are available in the NDSS's media release, National Online Map Launched to Track Diabetes in Australia.

Have a great holiday season & New Year!

To the over 7,000 unique visitors my blog has received in the last six months, have a fantastic and safe holiday season and I look forward to further conversations in the Australian egovernment space in 2009.

With many international voices in the egovernment space indicating that government needs to build more connections and networks to improve and innovate online policy and service delivery, I hope to meet and work with many of you in the future in cross-agency and whole-of-government initiatives - through peer-based networks, not just top-down driven projects.

In case you haven't read them, the most popular posts on my blog have been:

• Internet a more important information medium than TV, radio or print
  
• Make government data freely available
  
• Drawing the lines - effectively structuring government online teams 
  
• Lessons to be learnt from the Grocery choice website 
  
• Cut costs by expanding your intranet 
  

Keep an eye out for Santa (NORAD tracks Santa)!

Australian government Digital Futures blog now closed

The Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) has now closed its blog on Digital Futures, with a Thanks and so long... message.

The majority of responses to the blog (and yes I systematically read all the comments that the Department published on the site) related to concerns around the government's mandatory internet filtering plan.

Other comments indicated a strong positive response to the idea of the government blogging and using the online channel for greater consultation.

I'm hopeful that the DBCDE will consider upgrading their platform to one more effective for blogging and dedicate resources to the maintenance of an ongoing blog to create a conversation with the public, rather than a brief (14 day) consultation. Ongoing conversations tend to start strong, fall off and then build over time - the first two stages of which are visible in the DBCDE's effort.

Interim protocols for government online media participation released

Back on 8 December the APSC released Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation.

I was waiting to hear about them officially before posting about them. However as I've not yet seen any coverage through these channels, I figured that it was time to post about them to raise some awareness for those of us in the egovernment space and for other public servants blogging.

The interim guidelines have been released in support of the current online consultation trials taking place in the Federal government, with the Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy's Future Directions blog being one of these trials.

The guidelines cover both official and private use (such as this blog) of online communications and are broadly inline with similar guidelines in the US, UK and New Zealand.

In summary these are,

Official use of online communication
When using online communication for official purposes:

• ensure that you are appropriately authorised to do so. Let people know who you are and what you want to achieve. You should disclose your position as a representative of your agency, unless there are exceptional circumstances such as a potential threat to personal security
  
• be accurate and informative in explaining Government policies and programmes and be responsive to public views and comment. You should, however, avoid any statements that might be interpreted as advocating government policies or criticising the policies of other political parties or groups
  
• be objective and impartial. Avoid any comment that could be interpreted as a personal political view
  
• be honest, cordial and professional at all times
  
• don’t commit your department or agency or the Government to any action or initiative unless you have authority to do so
  
• don’t disclose official information unless you are authorised to do so or unless it is already in the public domain. Be aware of laws covering libel, defamation, privacy and the protection of intellectual property
  
• avoid any statement or comment that might bring the APS into disrepute.

Private use of online communication
As a citizen, you are entitled to comment in a personal capacity on public issues, including through contributing to online discussion and debate. You should remember, however:

• that Commonwealth resources must be used in a proper manner. You should not use work internet or email for private blogging or other forms of online comment;
  
• that you should avoid any comment that might be interpreted as an official statement on behalf of your agency or that might compromise perceptions of your ability to do your job in an unbiased and professional manner. You should also be careful about posting comment or material that might bring the APS into disrepute.

Final guidelines are planned to be released in 2009.

MP interests to be published online

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago, Open Australia has requested, and plans to soon publish, the register of MP interests.

Per the article, Interests of MPs to go online - it's about time, while the register is publicly available, currently 'public' means that,

As things stand, if you want to know which MPs has been given trips abroad, who has investments in mining or pharmaceutical companies, or who has real estate holdings in areas ripe for development, you have to go to Canberra, get into Parliament House, find the Senate or House of Representatives offices where the registers are held and leaf through vast volumes of forms.

The cost and effort of such an exercise mean that while politicians claim the document is public, few members of the public ever see it.

When the committee responsible for the register, the Privileges and Members Interests Standing Committee, was asked why it had not previously been placed online, the Chair, Brett Raguse said to SMH,

When asked why his committee had not simply put the register online, Raguse said it was "a good question" but was "something no one had really thought about" until now.

I hope other departments and committees are thinking about whether they should put their public information online.

Where government information is already available publicly, surely using the internet for distribution is logical and supports the credibility of a serious egovernment agenda.

US Federal Web Managers Council recommend egovernment strategies for new US Administration

The US Federal Web Managers Council have developed a white paper recommending strategies for revolutionising the US Government's provision of online services for citizens.

The paper, Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government, contains some very practical ideas that are also worth considering under Australian conditions, including,

• Establish Web Communications as a core government business function
  
• Help the public complete common government tasks efficiently
  
• Clean up the clutter so people can find what they need online
  
• Engage the public in a dialogue to improve our customer service
  
• Ensure the public gets the same answer whether they use the web, phone, email, print, or visit in-person
  
• Ensure underserved populations can access critical information online
  

To quote the conclusion of the paper,

By harnessing the collaborative nature of the web, the new Administration has the potential to engage the public like never before. The web can foster better communication and allow people to participate in improving the operations of their government. By listening to our customers we can provide better services, focus on their most pressing needs, and spend their tax dollars efficiently. We’re confident that President-elect Obama will appoint leaders who will invest in the web as a strategic asset and make these goals a reality. The millions of Americans who interact with their government online expect and deserve no less.

Transforming local government using Web 2.0

As discussed in the Online Community Consultation blog, the CTO of Seattle, Bill Schrier, has made an interesting post in his blog discussing How Web 2.0 Will Transform Local Government

Bill's post runs through a broad set of tools and how they can be applied by local government - equally of value for at state and federal levels.

A better name for Government 2.0

I'm not a fan of terms such as Web 2.0, which seems to refer to any internet development since 2001. The web is an evolving medium, just like any other. We don't see the term 'Television 2.0' (or 5.0 considering all the generational changes) used to refer to reality TV.

I'm even less comfortable with the term 'Government 2.0' - which refers nebulously to government use of 'Web 2.0' technologies - a slogan on a slogan.

Government 2.0 isn't quite an entire rethink of how democratic government works. Government remains an elected institution designed to provide 'public goods', infrastructure and services more efficiently than would be provided by private concerns. It also has a critical role in regulating and balancing competing economic and social forces to ensure the needs of a community are met with minimal disadvantage to specific groups.

What government 2.0 involves, in my thinking, is significant changes to mindsets, business processes, infrastructure and funding models to adapt how government listens to and engages the public, customers, clients and other stakeholders.

These changes mirrors the social and economic changes already occurring in the community to exploit potential benefits derived through technological innovation.

(Feel free to tell me that my definition is wrong)

So if we need an alternative term to Government 2.0 what should it be?

Personally I favour terms such as 21st century government, modern government or connected government - which reflect that the goal is to reconnect government with its stakeholders using modern techniques and tecnologies.

Dr Mark Drapeau, from the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC., recently asked people for a few ideas and presented them in his blog at Mashable in the post, Rebranding Government 2.0.

DO you think any of these terms will catch on?

Computer hackers plundering Brazilian rain forests

As reported in the Wired blog post, Hackers plundering Brazilian rain forest, a hacking ring controlled by logging companies has been alleged to allow harvesters to unlawfully access government logging databases and issue extra 'transport permits' to remove resources (trees) from the Amazon.

This has been a challenge for Brazilian authorities, who have arrested 30 suspects and have another 200 people under investigation.

Environmental group Greenpeace estimates 1.7 million cubic meters of illegal timber has been harvested because of the hacks. The group says that's enough wood to fill 780 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Federal authorities are also suing timber companies to recoup an estimated $883 million in purloined resources, Greenpeace said.

These type of left field social and economic issues driven by technology innovations are likely to increasing challenge governments to be agile and responsive and build their own online capabilities.

Paper on Web 2.0 and the Public Sector

Paul Johnston has posted in the Connected Republic a blog post, Web 2.0 and the Public Sector, discussing Cisco's draft paper on Government 2.0, Realizing the Potential of the Connected Republic (PDF) from the US Public Services Summit in December.

The paper provides many examples of practical uses of Web 2.0 tools and techniques by governments across the world and argues that, as government organisations are the most organised and rigidly hierarchically structured (and therefore the worst at innovation, less agile and have more difficulty dealing with sudden change), they have the most to benefit from Web 2.0 approaches.

Still in draft, Paul is welcoming comments before the final paper is released in early 2009.

It is a very interesting read.

A wonderful time for public sector recruitment and big egovernment infrastructure projects

While speaking to a colleague earlier in the week about the rush on access to government support in some areas of Australia due to the current economic conditions, I realised that it is a very good time for the public sector to build capacity and skills.

The IT skills crunch has affected Australian government for some time, with the private sector able to be more flexible and agile in adapting job descriptions and remunerations to suit market needs. International pressures have not helped, with many of Australia's top people drawn overseas due to the challenges and financial opportunities.

Now that private organisations around the world are feeling the financial pinch, there is the opportunity for the public sector to reinvent itself as a stable and reliable employer, emphasising the value of stable jobs within a less stable global economy.

This would have the following benefits for the Australian public,

• Accelerate the development of egovernment services and infrastructure that would provide lasting support to the community.
  
• Beef up the government's capacity in service delivery at a time when access to government services are becoming more critical for the welfare of many Australian citizens and businesses.
  
• Keep skilled people productively employed within Australia, rather than potentially losing them over time to other countries as they recover from the crisis.
  
• Keep money flowing in the Australian (digital) economy - well designed large IT infrastructure projects could have economic flow-ons in similar ways to moderate sized physical infrastructure projects.
  

There are also direct benefits for the APS,

• Address the current skills shortage issues by draw from a larger pool of skilled people who have abruptly become available in the market.
  
• Assist the process of updating and improving the capacity of the public sector in the IT space, transferring skills that can be kept once projects ends and many of these skilled people transition back into the private sector (when the economic crisis ends).
  
• Supports the need for government agencies to transition to a new level of egovernment service delivery and better IT systems (many of which remain firmly rooted in the last century).
  
• Support the recommendation in the Gershon review to shift public sector IT workforces towards more permanent APS staff (less contractors) due to people seeking stability in an uncertain climate.
  

It does require government to move quickly to resource key government agencies to expand their capabilities. This kind of agility has been difficult for government in the past without clear political leadership.

Most of the above benefits for government recruitment stretch beyond egovernment to other aspects of public sector service provision. If we can draw in the skilled people looking for stability and ensure that government provides a positive employment experience, we can build lasting capacity across the public sector.

What do others think - should government be growing in a time of recession?

How Australia ranks on broadband penetration, price and speed

I've just found the 2008 broadband rankings report (PDF) from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The Foundation draws from OECD and other data to form a picture of how various countries are tracking in terms of broadband penetration, speed and cost.

Australia doesn't do too badly overall, ranking 12th out of 30 on the table, mainly because of our high broadband penetration rate.

However Australia had the 4th slowest average broadband access speed at 1.7Mbps. Spain (1.2Mbps), Mexico (1.1Mbps) and Greece (1.0Mbps) were the only listed countries with slower average speeds, whilst the leaders were significantly ahead, Japan (63.6Mbps) and South Korea (49.5Mbps) - the average broadband speed was 9.2Mbps, five times as fast as Australia's average.

If other countries did nothing to their networks while Australia introduced the proposed 12Mbps network, we'd reach 6th on the table. More likely, assuming this network takes 5 years to introduce, I'd anticipate that other nations would be improving their network speeds, leaving Australia in the bottom half of the list.

The cost comparison compared the minimum monthly cost per Mb in each country. This looked at connection charges NOT download limits, therefore does not represent Australia on the same playing field (most countries do not have Australia's download restrictions such as excess charges or speed capping, it's 'all you can download' for the same monthly price).

My take-away from it is that Australia requires some serious and fast work in restructuring both our internet pricing arrangements and network infrastructure improvements to adequately remain competitive in an increasingly digitally-driven economy.

Australian first - Court documents served by Facebook

As reported in Friday's Sydney Morning Herald in the article, Australian court serves documents via Facebook,

Today in what appears to be a first in Australia and perhaps the world, Master Harper of the ACT Supreme Court ordered that a default judgement could be served on defendants by notification on Facebook.

Previously both email and SMS text messaging have been accepted as legitimate means for serving certain court papers.

However this appears to be a world first, lifting the status of Facebook in the eyes of the law.

It has some potentially interesting applications by government. For example where people are travelling or otherwise have no fixed address, but do keep in touch with friends via online social media, this is now a potential channel for sending at least some forms of official documentation.

Certain Australian agencies already use internet tools to track schemes and persons of interest - both for fraud and for criminal investigations, and in the future the platform may become more accepted, particularly as more people drop their landlines or in the case of people who are difficult to track down physically.

The learning curve for Web 2.0 - resourcing is the key

I'm closely watching (and reading) the new Department of Broadband and the Digital Economy blog. It is seeing a number of thoughtful and constructive comments from organisations and individuals.

The blog is highlighting to me one of the often overlooked key issues for organisations when implementing Web 2.0 tools - resourcing.

With 912 published comments as of Friday morning (7am), and an unknown number of unpublished ones (including several from me), the task of moderating the comments is enormous.

Add to this the complexity of actually responding and you're looking at an enormous resourcing cost for an organisation.

So should organisations steer clear of Web 2.0 due to resourcing issues?

I don't think so. I think it means that we must re-assess government processes and business models to meet the needs of our constituents, clients, customers and community.

If engaging and interacting with our audiences is regarded as important (as it should be), then government, and private organisations, need to appropriately resource and fund the right capacity to service this function, rather than attempting to funnel the public into channels that government feels comfortable with.

Perhaps this means reducing the number of staff working phones (to put them on online), or using outsourced contact centres for the online channel. It may mean totally reshaping jobs, policies and legislation to suit the needs of community.

There's nothing new about this. Where are the typing pools today? We've totally reshaped the workplace in the last 30 years - it will be totally reshaped again in the next 10.

While I see many fighting a rearguard action to defend 'the way we've always worked' - the bottom line to me is that, as public servants, our obligation is to serve the public, under the guidelines of the APSC.

When the public changes, so must the public sector. That's what is known as being 'customer centred'.

WCAG 2.0 (finally) released

The W3C has finally released the final version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Announced in a press release this morning Australian time, W3C Web Standard Defines Accessibility for Next Generation Web, the W3C states that,

This new standard from the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) will advance accessibility across the full range of Web content (such as text, images, audio, and video) and Web applications. WCAG 2.0 can be more precisely tested, yet it allows Web developers more flexibility and potential for innovation. Together with supporting technical and educational materials, WCAG 2.0 is easier to understand and use.

AGIMO was surveying Government agencies regarding their views on mandating WCAG 2.0 for the Australian government. I'm looking forward to the outcomes from this.

ABS to release most website data under Creative Commons licensing

In a first for an Australian Commonwealth government agency, the ABS is set to release most of its website data under Creative Commons licensing on 18-19 December.

Announced in their Website changes coming soon page, the ABS states,

Creative Commons provides a spectrum of licensing for the use of intellectual property between full copyright and public domain – in essence 'some rights reserved'. The ABS is poised to introduce Creative Commons licensing for the majority of its web content.

The relevant Creative Commons logo (which will link to the Attribution 2.5 Australia Licence) will be included at the bottom of every page on the ABS website.

This will allow greater legal reuse of ABS data, placing the organisation inline with similar central statistical agencies in other democratic countries.

This was previously recommended in the VentureAustralia report, reviewing the National Australian Innovation System. Released by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Recommendation 7.8 stated that,

Australian governments should adopt international standards of open publishing as far as possible. Material released for public information by Australian governments should be released under a creative commons licence.

Is this a big deal for Australia?

I think so, it makes it legal to make greater use of Australian public sector data from the ABS and, through the Bureau's trailblazing, provides a case and greater comfort for other Commonwealth departments considering the same route.

The Queensland government already supports Creative Commons, and I've previously talked about the topic in the post, How does the government maximise information distribution while minimising copyright risk?.

UK wikipedia ban dropped

In one of the more misguided approaches to internet regulation, the UK government banned the majority of UK citizens from editing Wikipedia earlier this week.

This was done, according to the SMH article, Wikipedia added to child pornography blacklist, due to the identification of a photo in one article (of the more than 2.6 million articles in Wikipedia) as being of a sexual nature and the entire site being added to the child pornography blacklist (ironically the same list that Senator Conroy has discussed using in Australia).

Fortunately this block was dropped very quickly, as reported in PC World, U.K. Wikipedia Blacklisting Dropped.

The image in question, of a 1976 German album cover, has not been banned elsewhere in the world, was publicly available in a physical form (as the cover of an album) and is digitally available at many other websites including Amazon.

Per the PC World article, in a facesaving effort, which ironically emphasises the difficulties of filtering the internet, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the nonprofit group that blacklisted the Web page, stated that,

The image in the Wikipedia article is hosted outside the U.K., an issue addressed by the IWF in its statement Tuesday. "Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted abroad, will not be added to the list. Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted in the U.K. will be assessed in line with IWF procedures."

The IWF lamented that while its goal is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the Internet, its decision to blacklist the Wikipedia article "had the opposite effect."

How well does government serve our children?

Being a parent with school-aged children, their education and future prospects are of significant interest and concern to me.

I want to ensure that my children are prepared for the world as it will exist in ten, twenty and thirty or more years.

The government should be at least as concerned. The impacts of effective or ineffective education have long-term ramifications for a nation, which can be experienced as a shortage of skilled workers, falling innovation and company/job creation, slower economic growth, inadequate leadership and even, in extreme cases, the disintegration of a nation's fabric.

I am acutely conscious that the majority of WHAT I learnt at school 30 years ago has not provided significant benefit in the areas I have worked in. The majority of my practical knowledge came from outside official learning channels.

Even at university in the late 80s, though the subject matter was more useful, the teaching techniques (large lecture halls and crowded tutorials), were not an effective environment for many people to learn.

The jobs I have worked in since the mid-1990s did not exist ten years before - in most cases the organisations and their business models did not exist either.

So how do we prepare our children to be effective, successful and happy contributors to a future economy?

This is one of those big hairy audacious problems for which I don't see simple solutions - predicting five years into the future is hard, let alone 30 or 40 years.

Two things I experienced at school did prepare me for the future world (of today). A passion for learning and an understanding of how to seek out information and process it.

These two skills are in my view the most important that can be taught to any children. They lead to flexibility and adaptiveness, skills that our current and future economy will need in abundance. They also lead to individuals that are confident, able to effectively assess risks and willing to build new things, not simply propogate the old.

So the question for me becomes - does our current schooling system still foster these two skills amongst our children?

Or does the system we have today focus on subject matter (curriculum) rather than individual learning capacity and outcomes?

I believe that the biggest learning factor in any education are the teachers. The second biggest factor are the other students. Third is accessibility to information and the actual material or curriculum is a distant fourth.

In my view if adequately trained teachers are not available, or if students are not encouraged and supported to work together collaboratively it does not matter how good the curriculum is - the learning outcomes will be poor.

So are we paying enough attention to education in government, even with the 'education revolution'?

I'm not sure yet - however the following video from Professor Michael Wesch, brought to my attention by Stephen Collins of Acidlabs in his post, Connect.Ed - The story of a girl, raises real questions in my mind.

And so does Mark Pesce's post, Those Wacky Kids, on his blog the human network and the post by Harriet Wakelam, Connect.ed or Once upon a time there was a boy... at her blog Technology Twitter.

How do others feel about the adequacy of our education systems?

And is the current debate over 'Gen Y' workers at least partially related to the education they were given?

Do we need an 'e-education revolution'?

Almost 20% of Australians are on Facebook

About this time last year Laurel Papworth reported that Facebook listed over 2 million Australians as members in a post in her blog titled, Australia has over 2 million Facebook members.

I've just rechecked this figure, using the same approach as Laurel (via Facebook's ad tool), and found that Facebook now lists 4,252,860 Australian members - a growth rate of over 100% for the last twelve months.

Of these, 3,957,900 are over the age of 18, 1,400,900 are over the age of 30 and only 185,780 are over the age of 50.

It seems that women are more active users (2,407,200 females versus only 1,724,340 males) and only 93,100 confess to being university (college) graduates (versus about 200,000 university students) - though education level can be left blank by members and does not provide a full picture.

It is also possible to look at Facebook members by city/town, marital status and sexual preference, but with less accuracy.

What does it mean for a government when 20% of it's population, and almost 4 million voters, have chosen to use a particular medium?

Governments regularly advertise their initiatives and engage constituents in mediums with a fraction of this 'readership'.

Perhaps we need to see greater government involvement in social media as well.

The first official Federal consultative blog

The eGovernment Resource Centre has tipped me off that the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has set up a consultative Future directions blog for two weeks with the purpose of soliciting public comments that will contribute to the development of a Future directions paper for the digital economy.

It's good to see that some time has gone into thinking about having a Terms of use, Moderation policy, specific Privacy policy (rather than relying on the general policy for the site).

There's also a feedback tool for people who wish to comment on the blog itself rather than on the policy.

What is not good to see is that the approach isn't using an effective blogging platform and the moderation approach has meant that in 11 pages of comments so far, not one commenter has referenced other comments, which means that no cross-dialogue is occurring. There's also been no official responses to blog comments as yet, but it is early days (less than 24 hours since it went live) - hopefully we'll see more conversation than talking past each other.

Given that the aim of the initiative is to collect community views and reactions, fed by a series of posts by the department, a blog is a reasonable, if not the best, choice of tools and the Future Directions blog at least gets the ball rolling.

Working in government, I've encountered the difficulties in using a real blogging tool, also commented on in this APC Magazine article, The 10 sins of Senator Conroy, the blogger, and hope that as the government's acceptance and experience of the internet improves, so shall it's capacity to engage.

I am also hopeful that the Department will look further afield than at direct responses in this blog at the posts on other blogs, forums, wikis, micro-blogging channels, timelines and other Web 2.0 mediums related to the topic (here's an example).

There's already a large number of comments on the blog - dominated by the Filter discussion, which is a topic I have been developing a post on, focused on how internet users have self-organised via Twitter, blogs and forums to oppose the initiative, culminating in a series of rallies in all Australian capital cities this Saturday 13 December.

It will be interesting to see whether, with the current focus on the Filter debate, many people will respond on the specific topic of the Digital economy.

I will also find it interesting to see whether the community perceives there to actually be a 'digital economy'. Personally I think there's one economy but with a range of different communications and distribution channels (but I'll say more on this in one of my comments on the Future Directions blog itself).

Is self-organised government coming?

Reading the Connected Republic this morning, Paul Johnston has written an interesting post, Us Now: On the Road to Self-Organised Government?, about the new documentary, US Now, which explores the power of self-organising groups and what they might mean for society and the public sector.

The film has just previewed in London, however clips, a blog and other information is available at the Us Now website and the Us Now Youtube channel.

Storing and exposing public data sets

Governments collect and distribute a massive amount of public data each year. It is a continual challenge to make this data accessible and usable for citizens, commercial organisations, researchers, scientists and policy makers.

This challenge isn't limited to a few dedicated statistical organisations, such as the ABS. Many other government departments collect, collate and publish extensive public data about their customers, about the market and about their operations.

Putting on my previous private sector hat, public data can be difficult to locate, download and use in a meaningful way to add value to an organisation. I have struggled at times to discover all of the data I needed and combine the different datasets (from different public providers) with internal data in ways that add value to my employers.

The challenges around public data have led Amazon to launch Public Data Sets on its Amazon Web Services platform.

Described as a "convenient way to share, access, and use public data", the system is designed to provide "a centralized repository of public data sets that can be seamlessly integrated into AWS cloud-based applications."

Why is this significant?

The approach makes it much faster and easier for organisations to locate, download, customise and analyse large public data sets - such as census, scientific or industry data.

Using Amazon's system,

Now, anyone can access these data sets from their Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances and start computing on the data within minutes. Users can also leverage the entire AWS ecosystem and easily collaborate with other AWS users. For example, users can produce or use prebuilt server images with tools and applications to analyze the data sets. By hosting this important and useful data with cost-efficient services such as Amazon EC2, AWS hopes to provide researchers across a variety of disciplines and industries with tools to enable more innovation, more quickly.

Amazon has already exposed data sets such as the US Census and various labour statistics. Shortly it will also provide transport databases and economic databases.

All of these are public data sets being provided by US government bureaus.

Also available are scientific information such as Human Genome data, a collection of all publicly available DNA sequences and chemical structures.

Amazon is also working to provide further public domain or non-proprietary data sets and invites organisations to submit applications for data to be included.

Given that this data capacity sits alongside Amazon's cloud computing service, providing an expandable virtual computing environment, it becomes possible for a range of organisations, researchers and individuals to access and make more effective use of large sets of public data, supporting innovation and democratising the marketplace.

It also allows for the creation of data mash-ups, combining data across different agencies with other data sources, maps, graphics, charts and analysis tools to generate new ways of experiencing data and new insights.

I don't expect Amazon to be the only provider of this type of capacity, Google is very committed to cloud computing and organising the world's data. Microsoft and IBM are also moving rapidly into these spaces.

In the long run I see this type of platform as a very valuable distribution tool for governments seeking to make their public data accessible and usable by the broadest possible group of citizens and organisations.

In turn this will broaden and deepen innovation and permit new realisations based on cross-referencing data from different providers - becoming a competitive advantage for countries savvy enough to make their public data more accessible.

What would it take for Australia to make its public data available via this type of channel? A phone call or email to Amazon and some work in structuring our datasets.

That's a low entry cost compared to the challenge of building a replica system.

US Army gets a SecondLife

The US Army is about to set up several islands in the virtual world Second Life to explore the effectiveness of the medium as a recruiting tool.

Reported in The Inquisitr, the article, titled U.S. Army to setup camp on Second Life, the army is looking to provide virtual experiences, such as parachuting and using a weapon to entice new recruits to sign on.

Given that the US army is already using unmanned remote controlled robots, and the airforce is using remote controlled planes, some soldiers are already working in a video game-like experience, making this not too far a leap from virtual to real soldiering.

From the article, the US army is exploring these types of avenues in order to go where their audience is and start conversations, they cannot simply set up shopfronts or phone lines and wait for eager recruits to walk in the door anymore.

To quote,

What I find really facinating about these types of things involving the Army is that they seem to get what all this social mdia and technology is about better than most of the people trying to market it to businesses. They understand that social media isn’t about just setting up shop somewhere and controlling what happens. The Army understands that it is about going to where the people they want to talk with are and then creating a valid reason for a conversation to begin.

For the Army it isn’t a matter of finding a way to make money off of social media interaction. They are looking at purely from an outreach and conversation point of view. This doesn’t mean that they are seeing it as some pie in the sky either but instead are being quite realistic about its potential.

Can anyone think of other (public or private) organisations seeking to attract the best talent who might need to move beyond traditional recruitment methods?

What is your view of Web 2.0 use in Australian government?

Following AGIMO's Web 2.0 in government seminar this morning, what is your opinion on how well Australian government has been implementing Web 2.0?

I'm writing this before the event and will not be attending due to other commitments (but are sending several of my team), and so are very interested in what others thought.

List of US government Twitter users

The eGovernment Resource Centre has posted a link to a new resource listing government Twitter users from the US.

Named GovTwit, it lists over 100 accounts from US government agencies, over 30 US Senator and Rep tweeters and 40 from US states.

There's also a set of international tweeters, including three from Australia (Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, Mosman Council) and our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

It's a useful resource for understanding the breadth of use of the system in the US and potential local applications.

How Web 2.0 will transform local councils

Given that a case study on Mosman council is being included in today's Web 2.0 in Government seminar being run by AGIMO, I thought it was worth referring people to this article in Govtech by Bill Shrier, the CTO of Seattle.

The article, per its title, discusses How Web 2.0 will transform local councils.

Rightly or wrongly, Bill draws a strong connection between the core goal of local government and the intent of Web 2.0 technologies,

Government is, by its very nature, all about community. Government is a group of people - citizens or constituents - doing together what they can't do as individuals or otherwise obtain from private business. I believe most of us wouldn't want individuals or private businesses to manage street networks, maintain parks or operate police and fire departments. In the end, government is community.

Therefore, Web 2.0 - community building tools - seems tailor-made for government, at least theoretically.

Global Intranet Trends for 2009 report released

Jane McConnell of NetStrategy jmc has released the Global Intranet Trends for 2009 report.

As one of the participants in the survey, my agency received the report last week. I personally found the report provided an excellent insight into current intranet best practice and the shared challenges of intranet managers around the world.

It's worth taking a look at the free sample pages (available on the NetStrategy website) and I expect that Jane will provide further insights from the report in her various presentations and online articles.

I also encourage organisations to take part in next year's global intranet trends survey. While it is reasonably easy to benchmark websites, intranets are generally hidden within organisations and difficult to view, let alone benchmark.

What governments could learn from Mumbai - citizens now control the flow of information

Like many other Australians I have a direct link to the recent attacks in Mumbai.

One of my family's friends was trapped in the Taj Mahal hotel. She managed to avoid being taken hostage - or worse. Her husband was out of the hotel at the time and found shelter elsewhere.

Fortunately both of them remain safe. My thoughts go out to all who lost their lives, were injured or who lost loved ones in the attacks.

During the siege it was difficult to get accurate and timely information about what was occurring from Australia's traditional mainstream media. This was repeated in many other countries around the world. Events unfolded too fast for television crews or print reporters to get onto the scene or file stories. When they did they were not able to access people at the heart of the crisis, their access was controlled by Indian authorities.

Due to this many people around the world turned to the online channel for information, finding a wealth of eye-witness reports, videos, photos and maps, with many citizens self-organising to support those in Mumbai and the people who care for them.

Commentators have called it the first crisis where the internet completely dominated other media channels.

Where were governments? They were left waiting for official updates, providing limited information in pre-packaged messages via traditional media, while citizens took control online.

If the communications experience of Mumbai can be learnt from, I believe it teaches governments that they must become more nimble and open to use of public online channels, or lose control, influence and relevance.

Mumbai is a wake-up call - in many ways.

People used many online channels to self-organise and share current information and personal accounts as events unfolded. This included sites such as blogs, Youtube, NowPublic, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google Maps, Google docs (a complete list of dead and wounded) and Twitter.

This frequently involved live updates from people in Mumbai directly experiencing the events, or repeating local news reports that did not get picked up outside India.

There was so much information that, on Twitter alone, CNN Online reported that at peak there were an estimated 80 messages (or tweets) sent to Twitter via SMS every five seconds providing eyewitness accounts and updates.

Traditional mainstream media relied heavily on citizen journalism to understand what was occurring, contacting Indian bloggers, using on-the-scene photos from Flickr and amateur video published on the web. Several traditional media players were able to tap directly into citizen journalism, such as the BBC and CNN.

However most mainstream media played catch-up, particularly in Australia where online commentators quite vocally criticised the slow reactions and poor coverage by local outlets.

It appears that even the terrorists involved in the attacks made use of the internet, using Blackberries to monitor world public opinion during the attacks.

With all this online activity, how were most governments communicating to the community?

Via traditional mainstream media outlets.

This highlights to me the disconnect rapidly emerging between how citizens choose to communicate and how comfortable and skilled governments are in using new media channels.

More and more citizens are seeking timely, relevant, plain english and personalised information. Whereas governments remain focused on traditional methods to assure accuracy and message management.

By the time a government assesses events, writes appropriate messages, gets approvals and distributes their views via traditional media channels (hoping they get a 15 second grab), the public has moved on, relying on personal, on-the-spot accounts.

Traditionally this approach has served government well. It maintains their appearance of authority, dignity and accuracy, preventing disturbing rumours or information from spreading in an uncontrolled way.

However the world has changed. Many eyewitnesses can publish their personal accounts directly without going through 'official' channels.

Using traditional approaches governments can appear slow to respond or even painfully out of date, particularly where events progress rapidly.

Similarly in organising a response and support for people, while governments do an invaluable job behind the scenes (organising counseling and transport), publicly the self-organising online citizen groups are more nimble and responsive.

The perceived slow response from governments can reduce the trust and faith of citizens. Over time this leads more people to seek more responsive channels and, though receiving timely eyewitness accounts, reduces citizen satisfaction with the language and messages of government. Governments become less relevant.

People who relied on traditional media or official reports to stay informed during the Mumbai seige probably find it hard to believe the impact the online channel had on global communications.

Fortunately no-one has to rely on my opinion.

The failure of traditional media has become a topic of much debate, by the media itself, such as in Wall Street Journal's Live Mint and Yahoo News, as well as by well-known bloggers including David Henderson (Emmy award winning former CBS news correspondent) and Laurel Papworth (one of Australia's top experts on social media).

To finish with a quote from Laurel's post (link above),

As someone who doesn't have Cable TV I can - hand on heart - swear that I learnt nothing about #Mumbai from Australian MSM [Mainstream Media].

I relied totally on Twitter. Not because I wanted to, but because TV wouldn't interrupt Kerri Anne Kennerly or children's morning TV with real news.

Twitter filtered to me websites, and tidbits I couldn't get elsewhere. ALL news was broken to me by Twitter and the links they sent.

In amongst retweeting MSM were the REAL stories. Someone hearing the bombing while lying bed. Someone else driving past a hotel as it was attacked. A guy worried about his friend. I realised this: who on earth ever said that social commentary is not News? O.o

For me, MSM doesn't make the news, they simply report OUR stories. Just another filter. After people-in-crisis are interviewed on CNN India (I watched online, thanks to link sent by Twitter) they tell a friend, who puts it on Facebook or Twitter or MySpace. More links to real stories.

Australian Media is dead. It failed to meet my needs (I channel hopped from 9:30am until about 4pm hoping for new News) and by the time the 6 O'clock News came on, MSM was simply retweeting what I had already seen and heard through Twitter links.