Turnbull announces Australia's first live Facebook debate

Last year Justin Trudeau, now Prime Minister of Canada, broadcast the launch of his campaign using Facebook Live, and livestreamed his party's launch event. Also last year UK political parties made extensive use of Facebook for live online Q&A sessions, speeches and debates.

Now it is Australia's turn, with Malcolm Turnbull announcing today (and Bill Shorten accepting), that the third political leaders' debate of the current Australian federal election would be held on Facebook in partnership with News Corporation.

I'm sure preparations for this announcement have been underway for a little while, however this still marks a momentous step for Australian politics and media, to use a social network for a live, unscripted, public debate.

At this stage it appears the debate will be held using Facebook Live, a relatively new livestream video platform that has already been extremely successful in building usage and viewership.

The platform, which Facebook launched after live video rivals such as Google Hangouts on Air, YouTube Live, Meercat, Periscope or Blab had all entered the market, has proven to be more stable and well developed than many of its rivals and with its strong API support has allowed third party companies to begin developing additional functionality and specialised hardware to a much greater extent than even Google's Hangouts on Air.

Facebook Live also received an enormous marketing boost last month due to the efforts of an otherwise unknown US lady, Candace Payne, who created a five minute Live video of herself laughing in her car wearing a wookie mask.

Now popularly known as the 'Wookie Woman', Candace has received over 155 million views of her video, making it the most popular on Facebook Live, with extensive coverage and all-expenses paid trips to Facebook and Disney HQs - even meeting the actor who plays Chewbacca.

Science fiction aside, the step to hold the first live Facebook public debate is as momentus for Australian politics as the first televised US Presidential debate was in the US.

While many further debates are likely to be held using 20th century technology - in RSL clubs and television studios, we are likely to see a further shift to digital debating at all levels of politics now that the door to the 21st century is open.

On this point it is important to consider that one of the major changes when television became the primary means for political speechifying and debates was that a different style of politician became successful. Television worked for Kennedy, who was otherwise a relatively unknown Senator, and put the nails into Nixon's re-election coffin because Kennedy presented much better and was clearly comfortable and effective using the medium while Nixon was ill-at-ease. In fact this first televised debate was widely seen as a gamechanger for US politics.

Similarly the current US President, Barack Obama, was notable in his first Presidential campaign for his effective use of online tools to build his profile, his grassroots organisation and his campaign treasury while the then leading Democratic candidate (Hilary Clinton) was wedded to traditional media and approaches. He used this momentum to far outstrip the Republican nominee, and repeated the trick during his re-election.

I don't know if Turnbull and Shorten yet realize how significant this online debate may be for either of their party's campaigns for election. If either leader clearly shines in their use of the medium, they may be able to build an unassailable lead in the campaign. If either appears outdated or inarticulate while answering live questions from the public, they could lose the election for their side in a few moments.

Regardless of the outcome of this live online debate, the likelihood is that politicians of all stripes and all Australian jurisdictions should now begin ups killing themselves on the qualities that will make them stand out and be effective in live online debates - qualities different to those needed even on the other highly visible mediums of television and live town halls.

Politicians who cannot adapt, like Nixon and many of his peers at the beginning of the TV era, will find themselves increasingly on the backfoot and struggling to compete against the upcoming crop of social media native politicians, who willingly and effectively engage with the public through services like Facebook Live, Blab, Periscope and other emerging livestream video , audio and text platforms.

By the way -  anyone who was listening to 2UE in Sydney or online this afternoon may have heard me talking about this online debate with Tim Webster on his show at about 2:30pm - you may be able to catch it later online at 2ue.com.au

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Now it gets interesting - Australia has its first digitally literate Prime Minister

Rudd & Gillard could work the Twitters.

Abbott understood the need to engage digitally, if not the tech, the value or the full impact (and mistakenly thought one of his Ministers had invented the Internet).

Even Howard got onboard the digital express with a few YouTube videos.

However Australia has never before in its history had a digitally literate Prime Minister of the likes of Malcolm Turnbull.

This could mean nothing, or it could mean enormous change if the Australian Government is told to lift its game on digital engagement and treat technology as an integral part of designing and implementing government business rather than as a service to be called on when needed.

Turnbull has already laid down a positioning statement in this area, stating in his inaugural media announcement as PM that "We need an open government, an open government that recognises that there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and, of course, further afield."

We'll see quite quickly which is true by Turnbull's approach to several of the key planks of openness and digital transformation.

Key steps would include endorsing and progressing Australia's membership of the Open Government Partnership, something agreed to by the Gillard government but was placed on the perpetual back burner by Abbott as he focused on closing, rather than opening up, government.

I'd also expect to see a rethink of the government's position on the Office of the Information Commissioner - an agency the Abbott government failed to legislate to remove but has been killing by degrees by cutting funding and refusing to replace Commissioners.

Another sign of change would be an elevation of the role of the Digital Transformation Office, making more of its approaches mandatory and providing more teeth to the agency when dealing with big and slow moving Departments more interested in the status quo. 

This could include shifting  the DTO back to the Prime Minister's department, but with a direct reporting line to Turnbull that minimizes the obfuscation prevalent within that department at senior levels. 

Other areas that could use attention include the open data space, which is run on a shoestring by Finance and could greatly magnify its impact with additional resourcing and mandates, and, of course, the NBN - Turnbull's former responsibility as Communications Minister. 

A shift back to a FTTH approach, delivered more cost-effectively than the previous Labor model, would provide Australia with the infrastructure it needs for the 21st century and cement Turnbull as a visionary with Australia's long-term future at heart.

There's also many things that could be done at a micro-level within agencies to shift the reliance on corporate IT suppliers, 1990s systems and large, virtually undeliverable technology projects - many of which could be led by a revitalised AGIMO in association with the DTO.

Of course Turnbull may have other fish to fry, he has quite a lot to do to get the Liberals back to an electoral-ready position within 12 months, and if not re-elected much of the program above could find itself on the scrap heap of a new government that wants to do things differently.

However I am hopeful that we'll see some true digital leadership from Turnbull whilst he is Prime Minister and potentially some real shifts in how government is delivered in Australia, to the benefit of all Australians now and in the future.

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ACBI Broadband Apps Day 2012 in Sydney

I've just been let know that the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation (ACBI) is hosting a Broadband Apps Day at Australian Technology Park in Sydney on Friday 27 April.

As their summary about the event states, Apps - simple, useful applications that run on smart phones and tablets - are becoming increasingly popular, but where are the apps for next generation broadband in Australia?

Australian developers have produced many globally successful apps, such as Fruit Ninja and Flight Control. These have helped create an export market for many smaller companies such as Half Brick, Firemint and Traction Games.

  ACBI are holding this seminar to create a bridge between the technology sector, developers and the users of future broadband apps and, through this, help the public gain greater understanding of the potential value of broadband.

  What: ACBI Broadband Apps Day
When: 27 April 2012
Where: Australian Technology Park, Sydney.
Cost: Free

  Register online at: http://broadbandappsday.eventbrite.com.au

  ACBI is a partnership between CSIRO, the NSW Government, NICTA and NBN Co, and you can follow them on Twitter at: @Apps4Broadband

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Don't forget to complete Whirlpool's National Broadband Survey (by 31 January)

Whirlpool's survey is one of the few surveys that provides a comprehensive view of internet usage in Australia. I've used the results that are published (freely) from the survey for a number of years to develop strategies for audiences, both within the public and private sector.

However to keep its value, people have to complete it.

It's open until 31 January at: http://whirlpool.net.au/survey/

Results will be available sometime in February.

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Catch me on Gov 2.0 radio next week.

I'll be chatting with Adriel Hampton on Gov 2.0 radio early next week to give US Gov 2.0 people some operational insights into Gov 2.0 happenings in Australia.

Gov 2.0 radio is a weekly podcast on collaborative and transparent government hosted by Adriel, a noted US-based Gov 2.0 and new media strategist.

I expect the discussion will cover topics ranging from current Gov 2.0 initiatives in Australia, the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's report, National Broadband Network and mandatory internet filtering.

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A watershed in Australian Gov 2.0 - Realising our Broadband Future Forum

Last Thursday and Friday I was fortunate enough to be invited to (and have the leave available to attend) the Realising our Broadband Future Forum in Sydney on a personal basis (not representing my Department).

You can see my liveblogs of the forum in the two posts below this one.

The forum targeted senior decision-makers across government, corporate, not-for-profit and academic sectors, bringing them together to discuss the potential benefits and barriers to the National Broadband Network. Attendees attempted to map some of the future services and opportunities for a super-fast broadband network across five streams, Smart infrastructure, Digital education, e-Community, e-Health and e-Business.

Both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Senator Stephen Conroy spoke live at the forum, with Senator Conroy in particular spending a great deal of time interacting with attendees over the two days.

The event also featured a number of high profile local and international speakers including Vint Cerf, often called the "father of the internet"; Dr Nicholas Gruen, Chairman of the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce; Senator Kate Lundy, well known for her pioneering Gov 2.0 public sphere events; and Jeffrey Cole, one of the foremost global experts on media and communication technology policy issues.

At the close of the event Senator Conroy remarked how he had been uncertain whether they would attract sufficient interest in the forum to fill the 250 person venue at the John Niland Scientia Building, University of NSW.

However he said that it had attracted over 1,000 requests to attend, leading to a situation where they were unable to cater for the full demand, being forced to limit the main physical event to roughly 300-350 people (standing room only).

To support others who wished to participate, 'node' events were held simultaneously in Parramatta, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne (roughly another 120 attendees), connected to the main event via video, audio and web. These were organised with the support of Civictec and the office of Senator Lundy.

I regard the forum as a watershed for Gov 2.0 within Australia because it was the first senior leadership event that made extensive use of Web 2.0 tools to enable open and transparent community participation. Someone sitting in their home or office with a broadband connection was able to view, listen to and contribute to the forum and participate in discussions.

The forum was highly digitally enabled, with live streaming online video of the main auditorium and audio of the breakout rooms for the streams. A Google Moderator system was used to collect and vote on ideas before the event and screens at the event scrolled through live tweets from those participating online. Free wi-fi was available for delegates throughout the venue and, despite a few hiccups and outages, overall the network functioned well enough.

During the event wikis were in place to capture the views and opinions of participants- with Senator Conroy stating in his closing remarks that over 10,000 words had been added to the wiki during the event alone. The wikis remain open for a week for additional comments and scrutiny.

There were 395 Twitter participants over the two days - more than the number of people in the auditorium itself. Over the course of the forum 3,700 tweets (using #bbfuture) were sent, enough to see it trending as the top Australian topic on Twitter.

To get a taste of the forum and the approach it took, I commend to you this speech  by Senator Conroy, which provides both a view of how it reached beyond the physical attendees to engage hundreds (if not thousands) of people across Australia and why high speed broadband is being regarded as so important for Australia's future.

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Realising our Broadband Future - Day 2

Hi, I was a little late in today, missing the introduction by Paul Twomey.

However I've taken up the Liveblog from Larry Smarr's presentation this morning.

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Realising our Broadband Future - Day 1

I've taken a couple of days off work to attend the Realising our Broadband Future conference on a personal basis.

I am liveblogging it below, contingent on wi-fi availability.

Please feel free to ask questions and I'll try to relay them to speakers.

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US launches Gov 2.0 consultation on national broadband network

The US is a little behind Australia in considering a National Broadband Network, however it has taken a very different approach in consulting and engaging citizens, opening up the discussion to the US community in a Gov 2.0 manner.

The US Government's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched Broadband.gov as a web 2.0 enabled site to manage the central conversation around a US National Broadband Plan.

It has also introduced an Ideascale portal for individuals to raise, vote on and discuss ideas and potential challenges at national and local levels and shake out the key issues for the community.

The FCC also has a blog, Facebook site, interactive Twitter feed (where the FCC responds to questions), YouTube channel and RSS feeds. It is also holding face-to-face and webinar workshops to discuss what US citizens want in a broadband network. All of these workshops are recorded and made available online.

What I think is most important is how the FCC is using these channels in a consistent and integrated manner to support public discussion and engagement.

Often organisations don't have a strategy (communications plan) behind their online engagement channels and, as a result, they do not function in a synchronised and mutually reinforcing manner - and in some cases can act against each other, reducing the effectiveness of an online conversation and reducing the online credibility of the organisation.

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Operating web and IT in an abundance mindset

Chris Anderson, the owner of Wired, recently wrote a very thought-provoking article about the need for organisations to consider how to operate within an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity-based one in his article, Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity.

Chris uses one example of how Wired used to restrict the email and file space provided to every staff member, with the IT team prompting staff regularly to delete files so as not to fill up the server.

One day he asked his ICT team how much file storage space Wired had for staff and was told that they had 500Gb - half the size of the 1 Terabyte hard-drive in the home computer he had recently bought for his kids. As he said,

My children had twice as much storage as my entire staff.

I have had a similar experience in various organisations I've worked at. Despite falling storage and computing costs, organisations often place heavy restrictions on staff computing power - for what reason I'm not sure.

Cost probably isn't a good reason for this scarcity mindset. If, for example, a 5,000 person organisation only allowed each staff member 200Mb in file and email space, that would mean the organisation had limited itself to 1,000Gb (1 Terabyte) of storage for staff.

Looking quickly at hard-drive prices, a 2 Terabyte commercial quality hard-drive costs about AU$500.

In other words, now you can buy twice as much staff file storage as the example organisation above for only $500 - and the price is going down.

Now consider the staff side of the equation. Files keep getting larger, as do emails. If you assume that each staff member spends 10 minutes each month reorganising their file space to prevent them from going over the organisation's limit, that's a cost of 50,000 minutes or 833 hours each month.

Assuming that each hour of staff time is worth around $50 - including wages, equipment and overheads - that lost time costs the organisation $41,650 in productivity, or $499,800 each year.

To put this in perspective, if the organisation removed the limit on file space and compensated by spending $500 (2 Terabytes) on extra storage it would save $41,650 in staff productivity costs - each month.

That's an ROI of 833% - each month.

Naturally there would be some other costs - servers, redundancy, electricity and the need for effective search technology. However the outcome would remain the same, the organisation is better off investing in more storage than in enforcing a 'scarcity' mindset.

File storage space is only one example.

I've also seen organisations struggling on low bandwidth, slowing down applications and internet services - therefore hindering productivity. With the ability for ISPs to provide adaptable bandwidth there's not really much excuse for this type of approach.

Equally organisations often provide their staff with outdated equipment and applications, which also reduces productivity. In many cases staff now have cheaper and more powerful systems and software at home.

While sometimes software is 'held back' to older versions due to security concerns (or lack of staff to check and approve security), the reality is that most modern software is more secure than older versions of applications.

Restricting software and hardware for security purposes can result in the opposite effect - reducing the organisation's security. If staff are forced to send work home to finish it, or go home to view websites and use online applications, this can raise the risks to the organisation.

Again this type of approach reeks of scarcity and cost-focused thinking, rather than an abundance and productivity-focused approach. It probably costs less for an organisation to employ contract staff to security-assess vital applications than it costs the organisation in lost productivity. Even though upgrading the applications may be expensive the net productivity and security gains for the entire organisation can be significant.

Another example is around the use of web services, which are extremely low cost and easy to test and trial. Organisations need to allow staff to experiment with these tools in appropriate ways, rather than requiring them to always follow tender-based processes to procure expensive custom-built alternatives, or have them coded in house (also at significant opportunity cost).

Finally organisational websites are often managed on a scarcity approach, with limited bandwidth and storage space, or with information cut-down from what is provided in print publications.

Again this applies a scarcity mindset. Domains are cheap, storage is cheap, bandwidth is cheap and an appropriately organised website can have great depth of content at relatively low delivery cost (certainly much lower cost than phone, mail or face-to-face).

So, in conclusion, at least in web and IT matters organisations need to consider an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity one.

They have to consider whether their policies and procedures aid or harm staff productivity and whether the cost of managing and policing some restrictive policies (such as file storage) is worth the productivity hit.

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High speed broadband for Australia - the unexplored country

This morning I am presenting at Public Sphere #1 - High bandwidth for Australia in a personal capacity.

The event will discuss what high speed bandwidth can do for Australian society, business and government.

I have previously posted some ideas on this topic and will be talking today about how the killer applications and services for a 100Mbit plus service are likely to not have been invented yet.

For those not attending the event, I have attached my presentation below and will add a transcript in the near future.

I will hopefully be liveblogging the event after my presentation throughout the morning.

High Bandwidth for Australia - The Unexplored Country

View more presentations from Craig Thomler.

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How will a national broadband network help Australian government agencies?

Yesterday's announcement of the Australian Government's plans to build a national broadband network has created a huge amount of buzz online.

If you've not seen the news, yesterday morning the government announced that they have terminated the tender process due to cost concerns and shortcomings in all tender proposals. Instead the government will invest up to $43 billion over 8 years to build a national broadband network using fibre optic cables to 90% of homes and offices, offering 100Mbps broadband.

This technology is also future-proof. Using emerging technologies, fibre-optic cable can be upgraded further to Gigabyte speeds without significant additional investment and over time this is likely to get even faster.

So what will this mean for government departments?

There are many applications for a super-fast network - many of which are beginning to emerge in Japan (with 160Mbps broadband available) and South Korea (with 120Mbps broadband available and moving to Gb speeds).

These include telepresence, a step beyond video-conferencing which allows groups to work interactively together over extended periods despite being physically remote. Conferences could be held without people leaving their offices, both within Australia and internationally - saving vast amounts of money in travel and accommodation and generating environmental benefits as well as saving work hours.

This concept could be further extended to provide access to telepresence staff in government offices. Basically while every office would retain a base level of staffing for activities requiring live interactions, when one office is quiet and another busy the staff from one could be serving customers in the other, via teleprescence. This would dramatically improve staffing management, allowing every office to have the appropriate number of staff at all times. Potentially a core staff group could be available out of the current business hours government operates within, providing access to critical information and services anywhere in the country face-to-(virtual)face.

Equally government office staff could work more readily from their homes, holding conferences via telepresence where necessary and otherwise only commuting to their office for specific reasons, supporting greater diversity and workforce participation.

Medicine is another area that could be revolutionised. With high-speed broadband the ability to use telepresence to oversee and, coupled with robotic aids, to actually conduct operations becomes a possibility. This provides enormous flexibility for a national health system, allowing doctors to be located anywhere in the country (or even overseas) and still provide vital medical services at remote clinics across Australia. Termed telemedicine, this approach is increasingly being discussed and implemented overseas.

Also in the medical sphere, anyone who requires ongoing medical monitoring could be monitored remotely using their broadband connection. This would significantly reduce demand on hospital beds and allow many people to recover at home without sacrificing quality of care. Of course there would need to be a balance between the speed of access to medical personnel in emergencies, however ongoing monitoring would provide early warnings of medical issues and provide greater flexibility to respond appropriately.

Education is another service that benefits from fast broadband services such as telepresence and the ability to stream video and audio in real-time. Experienced teachers could teach classes anywhere across Australia, and students, also spread across the country, could interact in real-time - supporting home schooling, subjects with fewer students and better use of good teachers.

Infrastructure management also benefits from faster and more reliable internet speeds. Every piece of infrastructure in the country, roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, power plants and more can be monitored remotely. This would help identify issues before they become life-threatening and allow governments to pre-emptively address failing infrastructure. This type of technology is already in use in some international engineering projects, monitoring bridges and dams for stability and reporting back to central offices using the internet.

In the service provision sphere, all the services currently provided by government online or by phone could be provided in a far more interactive and engaging way. Full-motion video could provide walkthroughs on how to use services, and video-based help would be available. This would encourage increasing take-up, particularly as phone services gets integrated into online, meaning that people could easily start a telephone call then, using a video and internet-capable phone, directly receive the forms they need and be supported through an online transaction while continuing to speak with the government customer service operator.

These are only a sample of some of the opportunities for government to provide more cost-effective and convenient services using real high-speed broadband. Many others already exist and are being rolled out elsewhere in the world and more wait to be discovered.

Of course government will need to be more open, flexible and innovative in its thinking around the online channel. There will be the need to rethink the entire approach to many services.

However I believe that if the Australian government is capable of rolling out a real national broadband network it is also capable of developing innovative and effective services for citizens and business to run across it.

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