Guest Post: FatigueHack - Hackathon done right

This is a guest post from Jayden Castillo, a colleague of mine at Accenture and an active member of Canberra's innovation community. Read the original post at LinkedIn:

I recently attended the Australian Trucking Association (ATA)'s Hackathon aiming to target driver fatigue, aptly named 'FatigueHack'. I'm fairly new to Hackathons, this was my second after the AUSTRAC Codeathon in March (where I was a mentor), and my first experience as a participant along side two of my Accenture team mates.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Hackathon is a rapid solution environment where competitors are required to address complex challenges in a short amount of time, and come up with a working prototype to illustrate their concept. In this case, teams had 2 days to develop a viable business model which is capable of addressing fatigue in the trucking industry. Following these two days, each of the 8 participating teams had to pitch their solutions to judges and the top 3 pitched to the entire Australian Trucking Association Annual Conference delegation.

I find hackathons to be a fantastic opportunity to show what's possible, and even more impressive, what's possible in just two days. There were a few aspects of FatigueHack in particular which I believe made it exceptional, and demonstrates not only what is possible, but what innovation and solutioning will be like in The New. The 3 points below are the perfect recipe for innovation, which we must all embrace to stay at the cutting edge.

Short Timelines
We all have a tendency to procrastinate, to plan things excessively, and to over analyse. This is a product of the anti-failure mindset we've been groomed for, we naturally try to think out the whole solution and resolve any issues before we actually start doing. Being under quite a strict time limit means there simply isn't enough time for this. You are forced to make decisions and move things along quickly. This means you might not have all the problems solved straight away, but it also means there's less time between idea and the all important testing of your idea, so you can identify and resolve issues much faster.

Probably the most interesting part here was to demonstrate how unnecessary it is to give long timelines to (particularly innovative) projects. When your timeline is short, you cut out what's not important and make big strides in your solution.

Concentrated ideation
They say that innovation happens when ideas collide, and FatigueHack certainly had a lot of colliding ideas. Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill describes this like brainwaves being radiated out into the ether, and being picked up on by other brains on the same wavelength. While this description might a bit unscientific, I believe there is a lot to be said for the buzz created when a lot of excited people are in close proximity. Your confidence goes up, your creativity goes up, and you are generally more open to thoughts and ideas.

Having run remote meetings and workshop sessions in the past, I can definitely attest to the value of having everyone in the same room, even if they're not all working on the same idea. Body language, excitement, drawing, gestures are all things which (still) don't translate well over digital media.

Easy access to expertise
Innovating or designing in a bubble is a dangerous thing to do. It is basically impossible to know if you're on the right track without some kind of feedback, so it becomes really easy to go down the wrong path and either solve the wrong problem or create a solution which nobody wants. I think FatigueHack managed this really well - they ran the Hackathon in the same venue at the same time as the ATA's annual conference. This was invaluable, because it meant if we had any questions at all, we could find an expert on the area within 5 minutes by simply asking around.

Having such easy access to expertise makes innovating much easier. It allows you to validate ideas very quickly, and when we were listening to the truckers talking about their experience it stimulated new ideas quickly. Our ability to iterate and refine was exponentially higher than in a normal workplace, and ideas were changing and evolving in time frames of minutes. I would love to see this translate to my (and everyone's) daily work, because the potential for generating great solutions is enormous.

Closing thoughts
This Hackathon really demonstrated to me what the future of work looks like. By getting a team together in a highly concentrated, intense environment, and providing more information and experts than we could possibly digest in 2 days, there were some fantastic outcomes (the winning idea is moving forward with creating a business!).

My personal mission is to help businesses and organisations think and act like startups, and FatigueHack is a great example of how to do that.

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Governments need to think about productivity in society-wide terms, not just in terms of the public service

There's been enormous coverage of the new Centrelink debt letters process, whereby the Department of Human Services has automated the process of matching data from the ATO and Centrelink to try to find overpayments (but not underpayments) in welfare benefits to Australia.

The automation has involved removing human quality assurance steps, which has led to the number of debt checking letters growing from 20,000 per year to 20,000 per week. Over 260,000 of these letters have been sent out to-date.

Now automated data-matching can be a fantastic thing when used well. It can reduce duplication in identification processes, find patterns and trends that inform polices and service delivery, and even identify inaccurate payments - as was the intention with this approach.

However for a data-matching process to work well, the system rules need to be well-designed and tested, and the data needs to be comparable so as to be matchable.

The widespread issues that are being reported by former and current Centrelink payment recipients and the enormous (more than 350 articles over the last month) of media coverage suggest that the system that Centrelink put in place meet neither of these conditions.

Without going into the apparent system issues, which have been covered widely, the reason Centrelink and other agencies introduce automated systems is to allow them to achieve the same, or better, outcomes with fewer staff - something that in economic terms lifts the productivity of the agency.

Centrelink has reduced its workforce by around 5,000 staff over the last five years, and moved to have a larger casual workforce with fewer permanent staff. These types of changes are occurring across many large public sector organisations as governments tighten their belts.

However it seems that when governments today act to (hopefully) bring about productivity gains and cost cuts, they focus primarily on a subset of the economy, the public service.

They appear to overlook the potential impacts on other sectors, or the overall productivity or cost dividend to the community they serve.

Let's use the Centrelink situation as an example. By cutting a human quality assurance step, and using a purely automated approach for identifying potential overpayments, Centrelink has transferred the cost of checking that their data is accurate from internal staff to welfare recipients.

Now while it may be appropriate for the people receiving the payments to be responsible for justifying why they receive them, there is a significant productivity cost when passing the task of quality assuring claims from trained and experienced staff with strong systems supporting them to low income, sometimes low education, citizens.

This productivity cost is exacerbated when these citizens are expected to re-prove their eligibility for past welfare payments, dating back as far as six years. The citizens now must track down former employers, landlords and education providers to source the materials that Centrelink has decided it now requires (often for a second or third time) to revalidate past payments.

So not only are individual citizens required to spend significant time checking the documentation Centrelink holds on them (which is subject to errors from mistaken entry by Centrelink staff and algorithmic mistakes, such as averaging a citizen's part-time or sporadic pay over 26 fortnightly periods), but must also involve the time of a range of former employers and landlords.

Now I've been going through an employment process (you'll hear more about this shortly), which required me to source a range of documents from 4-6 years ago from former employers - both public and private sector. While not the same as the process welfare recipients are facing, it required similar information such as old payslips and employment dates.

All the organisations were very prompt in responding (thanks to you all), taking no more than two weeks to pull together what was required - however I estimate that the combined time they spent on this one matter for me exceeded ten hours work time, just for one person in one clearcut situation.

For the 260,000 welfare recipients who may have to re-source material from employers and others, this time adds up to potentially millions of hours of lost productivity for the companies involved - that's outside the time spent by the welfare recipients themselves to 'prove' they were not overpaid, or not as much as Centrelink claims they were.

The Minister for Human Services suggested before Christmas that around $300 million in debt had been recovered, this was later revised to being debt identified, with neither the Minister nor Department able to conclusively say how much had actually been paid to the Commonwealth.

Now let's look at a few estimates.

Welfare recipients are reporting that they are spending up to dozens of hours resolving this matter with Centrelink. That includes pulling together documents, dealing with former employers. waiting on the phone with Centrelink for up to four hours, with multiple call-backs for dropped lines, managing difficulties with MyGov and other associated activities.

For past recipients (who may have spent a few months or years on welfare when studying or during gaps in employment) who are currently employed, this can require non-productive time in business hours while at work (the only time Centrelink takes calls) and cutting into other job-related or educational activities outside hours.

In addition their former employers and educational institutions are spending hours pulling up old payslips from archives - noting that where employers have shut-down this becomes even more difficult and time consuming.

If we assume that the average welfare recipient is spending 6 hours on dealing with their Centrelink debt and that former employers are spending another 4 hours servicing their requests to meet DHS requirements, that's 10 hours productivity lost per debt notice.

Now if we assume that 60% of debt notices require this time investment, based on 260,000 notices issued, that's 156,000 debt notices on which people are spending 10 hours each on resolving - whether or not there is an overpayment at the end of the process.

Let's take a hourly rate of $30 - low for Australia - as the dollar cost of those hours. Based on 156,000 notices at 10 hours effort (1,560,000 hours effort total), at that dollar rate the cost to the economy is $46.8 million dollars.

Now that's the direct productivity cost to citizens and businesses. On top of that there's been extensive involvement by not-for-profit legal and counselling services dealing with an upsurge in complaints and counselling needs and the mental and physical distress people facing large unexpected Centrelink debt notices are currently facing, harming their ongoing productivity and effectiveness.

There's also time spent by citizens on social media engagement, the creation and management of the NotMyDebt website and, finally, the time being spent by Centrelink's own staff sorting out debt issues which could have been easily screened out through a QA process.

I'd estimate from the above that the net productivity cost to Australia of saving Centrelink's QA step is already approaching about $80 million, without considering the longer-term cost of the loss of credibility and potential impact that will have on future productivity.

While the Commonwealth may be able to claw back this amount of money via the debt notices, I think that the situation is already well past the point where the situation has a net productivity loss to Australia as a society.

In other words, the cost of reclaiming this debt in this manner, is significantly outweighed by the overall productivity cost to the country. Sure it might make a good political statement for a 'no-nonsense' approach to welfare (though this appears challenged by poll results), but the economic cost makes the approach very hard to justify from a pragmatic perspective.

Government is likely to face more and more of these types of situations as it attempts to lift productivity and/or cut costs by transferring the work done by staff back onto citizens.

While I understand the importance of cost management in government, and the ongoing desire to lift productivity, looking at these metrics based on public sector inputs rather than society-wide outputs does risk governments making decisions that harm economy-wide productivity in the long-term when chasing short-term productivity gains for a specific government agency.

Governments who wish to see long-term economic gains need to carefully consider how they shift effort from experienced staff to inexperienced citizens in order to not increase burdens that reduce overall productivity and wipe out the public sector savings through lower tax receipts or large pushback costs.

Digital transformation is a key tool in this process, but must be used wisely, not simply to automate steps to remove humans, but to simultaneously cut errors and improve success-rates.

The current Centrelink debt issue is a clear example of what happens when a good automation idea is executed poorly, becoming an overall loss to government rather than a win.

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90% of digital disruption is still to come (podcast)

A few months ago I interviewed with Andrew Ramsden of AlphaTransform, who has spent the last year capturing the thoughts of digital leaders around Australia (he also has a book in the works).

He's now published the interview as Episode 16 in his Alpha Geek Podcast - which is definitely worth checking out.

You can listen to the interview below, in which I suggest that we're still at the start of the digital transformation journey for society, for business and for government...

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Disruption is often simply a failure to prepare and evolve

Digital disruption is one of the buzz terms of the last few years, underscoring the increasingly rapid changes in society, industries and governments as new ideas and techniques enabled by digital technologies take hold.

Photo by Tsahi Levent-Levi

While some embrace this disruption (generally those doing the disrupting), for many it remains an unsettling or even negative concept.

Disruption implies a disturbance or breakdown in the existing order, a situation where the status quo is overturned in an unpleasant way. To disrupt a process is seen as interfering with the ordinary course of events, and 'disruptors' of events or organisations are rarely looked on in a positive light.

While many disruptions are predictable, they are often not avoidable - such as the impacts of a natural disaster or the consequences of a terminal illness.

Equally disruptions in business and governance, through new technologies, ideas and approaches, can often appear to come rapidly out of 'left field', even when they can have been expected for a long time.

However in many of these cases, disruption has a much greater impact on societies and organisations than it needs too, not because it was unexpected or not discussed, but because leaders refused to see the writing on the wall, and begin a process of communication, adaptation and evolution soon enough.

A classic example is Kodak Eastman - the inventor of the digital camera, whose business was destroyed by the product it originally designed and marketed.

Kodak did not go bankrupt because no-one within or outside the company could see the impact of digital cameras, or their widespread adoption into mobile phones, laptops, tablets, drones and more. The company failed because the company's leaders chose to believe that their business could not be disrupted, that their name, reputation and products would allow them to survive no matter where the market went.

As a result they adapted too little and too late to the 'digipocalypse', where film cameras rapidly disappeared and even the digital camera market fell as people started using other devices as their primary photographic tool.

When I hear business and government leaders speak of disruption, of new industries replacing old or new thinking flushing out the old, I often wonder how much is just talk and how much actual action is taking place in their organisations to adapt to new realities.

Few disruptions are truly unpredicted, although their course may be unpredictable, with some technologies being rapidly adopted and others festering amongst early adopters for decades.

Organisations that are truly committed to survival and growth don't talk about the 'disruption' due to digital, but of the opportunity to re-imagine their business models and redesign their operations, preparing for and adopting innovations and new ideas in an evolutionary manner.

By preparing early and evolving continuously these organisations never actually face actual disruption, because they are almost always in the right place at the right time, with the talent, tools and techniques at hand to move with the market, rather than trying vainly to keep up.

When these organisations are tripped up by market or social change, it's due to velocity, not disruption, and they remain well-equipped in talent and tools to pivot their operations to minimise any disruption.

If your organisation is facing digital disruption, consider why that might be the case.

Was the disruption truly unpredictable? Or did your management fail to watch the market closely, or ignored advice on the basis of their belief that the status quo was unshakeable?

Is the disruption due to a lack of preparation in the face of a clear and present danger? Or due to an unwillingness to change, even at the point of extinction?

While change is a constant feature of business and social environments, disruption is simply what happens to organisations who fail or fear to face change. Organisations that do not design structures, generate strategies or train and recruit staff who can lead and support the internal transition in a prepared and evolutionary way.

Therefore any organisation that has been disrupted should first look inwards, not outwards, for the cause, and take appropriate steps to ensure that, if it survives, it never makes the same mistake again - to inadequately prepare itself for environmental and market change.

And any organisation that foresees disruption ahead should be preparing now. In order to turn a potential disruptive event into a much less impactful, evolutionary step, that causes far less disruption or damage and buoys the organisation to greater future success. 

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Free range 'strike teams' of specialists are a long overdue innovation for Australia's public service

I'm very pleased to see that the Australian Public Service Commission is finally considering the introduction of 'free range' teams of public servants, unattached to specific agencies, who can provide specialist skills as and where needed.

I proposed this type of team while I was working within government almost ten years ago now, as I could see that there were a range of skills that agencies did not require continuously, but were needed across the public service all the time.

This included experienced community engagement professionals, a range of digital talents as well as design and implementation specialists.

Until now the hierarchies of the public sector have been designed against such free-roaming talent, able to converge as 'strike teams' to assist agencies when they need it, and move on to other assignments when the need wanes.

There's still the strong (almost feudal) hierarchies in place, but it seems that the innovation agenda, combined with diminishing resources and an increasing need for specialists, are helping to wear away the resistance to the recognition that it's all one federal public service.

I always found it peculiar that senior public servants were adamant that they served the government of the day, but chose to do so by building rigid organisations that made it harder for skills to move around, to be 'lent' or 'shared', but instead hoarded people as jealously as they hoarded data.

This always seemed a sub-optimal strategy for government, but one with very deep roots.

There's still a number of challenges ahead for the APSC in realising this idea. It still has to navigate the hierarchies of power - some agencies might wish to hold onto talent for too long, with brush fires between agencies that need similar resources at similar times. There's also likely to be all kinds of power struggled between agency 'owned' resources and the floating specialists, who may be seen as fly-by-nights, dropping in to offer their wisdom, then leaving the mess behind for agency staff to clean up.

The APSC must find public servants with the right psychology and mindset to move around, without having a 'fixed abode' or a hierarchy to protect their position and career progression.

Many people who work in this way already are contractors or consultants and may see little benefit in giving up salary for supposed job security, while new entrants from the private sector, who might be more used to mobility, may not find public service cultures or approaches congenial to their working styles.

However I'm glad the APSC is making the attempt, and hope it will be widely supported, particularly by smaller agencies with less capacity to hire or contract the specialist skills they need.

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Breakthrough or Buddy-up - Two Strategies for Chief Digital Officers

Growth of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) role has been incredibly rapid over the last few year, reflecting the increasing importance of technology to organisational success and survival.

However not all CDO roles are created equal, with enormous variation in their responsibilities, resourcing and capability to generate change, in the form of digital transformation, in the organisations they serve. Some have direct responsibility for business lines and IT teams, others serve primarily as advocates and influencers in the C-suite, with little in the way of direct reports or operational responsibilities.

The candidates appointed as CDOs have also vary enormously in background, some from 'pure' IT careers, others from a mix of IT and business and still others from business-based disciplines.

 An additional complication is that due to there being so many new CDO roles emerging, in many cases both the organisation and candidate are new to the role. This means the definition of the role might not be as clear as for well-established and understood roles, organisations may be less clear on what characteristics they require.

 A new CDO must also find their way and negotiate their position in the C-suite in a game of reverse musical chairs, where other executives may be looking for ways to gain advantage from the new seat and player at the table.

(Graphic courtesy of CDO Club.
Keep an eye out for the Chief Digital Officers Worldwide update for 2016)

In many cases CDOs have been external hires, including from international sources. Some public sector organisations have brought in experience from the private sector, though I've not seen the reverse as yet.

This can add additional complexity to the role. An 'outsider' brings their own cultural and workplace practices, which is often an advantage in a CDO role, but can require a significant adaptive phase for both the Officer and organisation. New CDOs from different environments can require some time to build the relationships and alliances necessary to achieve results and to learn how to navigate an organisation's formal and informal decision-making processes.

When it comes to performing the role successful, there's a spectrum of strategies available to a new CDO.

At one end of the scale there's the 'breakthrough' approach, where the CDO mandates and forces change on an organisation.

At the other end is the 'buddy-up' approach, where the CDO functions as an expert adviser and councillor, supporting colleagues and staff to make change themselves.

I've been fortunate enough to observe both approaches in practice, witness the comparative successes and failures over time.

In this post I wanted to provide a little insight into how these strategies can, and are, applied, the potential outcomes for the choice a CDO makes and what organisations should look for when hiring the right CDO for them.

Looking at the 'breakthrough' approach first - in its purest form this is a 'no holds barred', even violent, way to stimulate organisational change by actively pushing through any barriers to digital transformation.

It requires a forceful and driven CDO with massive resilience who is prepared to take on personal consequences for their strategic approach. Within an organisation it often results in adversarial situations where a digital transformation is imposed on unwilling business and IT areas, ending careers and bruising many survivors.

Internationally many CDOs who have adopted this strategy to a significant extent have had quite short tenures, coming into an organisation and driving digital transformation relentlessly for a year or two, then either moving on to the next appointment or requiring a personal break to rebuild their resilience.

It is not a tactic for executives who wish a long-term career with a specific organisation, or even in a specific industry or country, as the crash through tactics are not congenial to building good long-term relationships and alliances.

Used strategically this approach can break down long-term barriers to change and innovation, squeeze out old-fashioned and outdated thinking and renew an organisation to move forward in a more cost-effective and digital way. Some organisations may require this 'shock treatment' to shift from their current track to a more sustainable one, whereas the buddy-up approach would not provide significant impetus for them to transform.

Used poorly, this strategy can alienate potential allies, damage competent individuals and generate a 'winners and losers' culture, where people feel forced to choose sides. Any resulting digital transformation can be short-lived, reliant on the CDO remaining in their role, with other executives and middle-managers rolling back to their comfort zone after the CDO is gone.

A common tactic for individuals who oppose this approach is to simply wait until the CDO moves on, although sometimes repairing the damage a breakthrough strategy does to trust and respect within an organisation can take years.

The buddy-up approach is far more collegiate and is built on alliances and expertise rather than direct power and force. This strategy is better attuned to patient executives who are willing and able to spend the time building trust and leading executives and staff to a place where they feel empowered to choose adopt digitally transformational changes, rather than having these changes forcefully imposed on them.

The approach builds good long term relations and suits executives who wish to build a long-term career in an organisation or across a sector. It works well in situations where a CDO has little direct power (direct responsibilities or budget) but is a respected key influencer, with peer-level access to others in the C-suite.

The speed of digital transformation achievable using this strategy tends to be far slower, particularly in the initial stages, than via the more aggressive breakthrough approach and may not suit organisations that require a rapid transformation. However, in the longer term, the pace of change can accelerate rapidly as it no longer must be solely driven by the CDO but has become embedded in how the organisation operates.

For organisations with firmly bedded down cultures, there's a risk that the buddy-up approach will get lost in the mix, with the CDO's efforts absorbed into the organisation rather than propagating change. We've seen this many times in the past, where the introduction of a new approach becomes so diluted within the existing culture that, like a drop of ink in a glass of water, it vanishes without a trace.

Used strategically the buddy-up approach is very effective at bringing the organisation with a CDO, generating a deep-rooted top-to-bottom change in culture over time. By avoiding adversarial and 'winner take all' situations, staff across the organisation retain their unity in being on the same team without aggressive competitive, or even bullying, behaviours.

Used poorly the buddy-up approach can be ineffective, with the CDO ignored, or their efforts co-opted and absorbed into business as usual without the level of digital transformation required by an organisation. Also, due to a slower ramp up as trust relations are built, the approach can be too slow for organisations facing imminent threats to their survival.

Fortunately many CDOs understand that their role involves using a blend of the strategies above, based on their resources, influence and environment. Knowing when to apply a breakthrough strategy rather than a buddy-up strategy is the real art of being a CDO, and organisations should be careful to select executives who have demonstrated a careful balance of both, even in situations where one strategy needs to be dominant.

The real danger for organisations - and CDOs - is when they rely too heavily on either the breakthrough or buddy-up strategy.

An over-reliance on breakthrough risks any digital transformation successes being short-term, poorly embedded in an organisation and leading to a 'pushback' that can damage digital initiatives in the organisation for years to come.

An over-reliance on buddy-up can conversely result in a failure to implement the digital transformation required, leaving an organisation in a worse position as its rivals and markets shift.

When hiring CDOs, it's important to not just look at their past short-term successes in transformation, but also their record of fostering enduring digital transformational change and strong relationships.

Those who rely too much on breakthrough tend to have shining successes to their credit, but poor senior relationships and a trail of past engagements where organisations cannot demonstrate significant lasting business value from the CDO's efforts.

CDOs who prefer buddy-up approaches can appear to have less spectacular careers, with most of their successes shared, but come well-recommended and respected. Again it is important to consider if their past engagements have resulted in lasting business value to the organisations they have served.

For those aspiring to be a Chief Digital Officer, it is important to develop the capability to apply both breakthrough and buddy-up strategies, and particularly the emotional intelligence to know which is appropriate to apply. Having experience using both strategies effectively is of enormous benefit when seeking a CDO role.

It's also critical for those stepping into a CDO role to understand and negotiate the use of breakthrough and buddy-up strategies, to ensure that the CEO, Board and other executives understand why the CDO is taking a particular course at a particular time.

A CDO more experienced with buddy-up strategies will need to communicate clearly why the alliance approach to collective change is being applied when working in an organisation that took on a CDO to aid in a rapid digital transformation.

Conversely a CDO selecting breakthrough tactics will need to make it clear why they are choosing an aggressive approach to digital transformation to avoid alienating other executives and staff who may feel trampled or excluded, and losing their mandate before the transformation is embedded.

Most importantly for any prospective or new CDO is the ability to know your own strengths and weaknesses, and seek opportunities where your personal attributes are beneficial to your role.

Using myself as an example, in my roles in large organisations I've often strayed too far into breakthrough territory, reflective of my past experience in business startups, where speed of outcomes is paramount over relationships or process. I've also had several roles where breakthrough was the only viable strategy due to the timeframe and environment.

I have learnt from others, who have mastered the approach, to apply more buddy-up tactics - particularly during my experience in government, where strategic alliances are essential to foster deeper and longer-term digital transformation.

However my natural inclination is more towards breakthrough, and I perform better in environments where, on balance, I can use this strategy more often.

Others may find they naturally prefer to apply buddy-up strategies, or are evenly balanced between the two.

Whatever your personal preferences, you'll likely do best in a role that reflects how you operate.

However regardless of whether you're applying breakthrough or buddy-up strategies, keep in mind the ultimate goal - to redesign organisations to be successful in a digital world.

Organisations live or die by their people, and selecting the right match of CDO and organisation, and the right blend of buddy-up and breakthrough strategies is essential for their digital transformation and success.

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Congratulations to GovHack for another fantastic year

The weekend just past featured the 6th GovHack event, involving over 2,000 participants in 280 teams across 41 locations in Australia and New Zealand working on 439 registered projects.

Effectively the world's biggest government hackathon, GovHack includes some amazing ideas on how to solve public challenges, using open data from agencies in innovative ways.

Whether you've previously heard of the GovHack event or not, visiting the Hackerspace (2016.hackerspace.govhack.org/projects), where all the registered projects are listed, is an inspiring way to start the morning and get some innovative ideas on how to address some of the pressing challenges facing your agency or organisation.

I wasn't actively involved in GovHack this year, due to family commitments, so don't have any insights from the ground on how the event went.

However from the social correspondence and general mood online, the event maintained the heights it attained in past years, while maturing further with better systems and challenge structures.

With GovHack managed by a second generation team (with the founder and key past organisers moving on or otherwise engaged), this year marked a major transition for the event.

The success of this year proves that GovHack isn't just a passion-play, but is a solid, sustainable, professional event that can become an important ongoing part of the open data movement, and tool for governments to foster citizen engagement, for a long time into the future.

Congrats to all of the organisers this year, who have made this possible.

Here's some stats from the event, based on the current information in the Hackerspace.

Total projects registered: 439
Total projects submitted: 351 (80%)

(Projects must be submitted to be eligible for judging)

The tables below show the number and percentage of submissions (Sub.) by territory, as well as submissions by 2015 population estimates.

As I measure it, the smaller the population per submission, the greater the level of engagement with GovHack within that territory - leaving ACT the most engaged, followed by South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, New Zealand and then Western Australia, with Victoria and NSW at the end.

Projects by Country

Country	Reg.	Sub.	% Sub.	Population	Sub./Pop.
Australia	373	291	78.0%	23,781,200	81,722
New Zealand	66	60	90.9%	4,596,700	76,612

Projects by Australian State/Territory

State/Territory	Reg.	Sub.	% Sub.	Population	Sub./Pop.
Australian Capital Territory	51	44	86.3%	390,800	8,882
New South Wales	70	45	64.3%	7,618,200	169,293
Queensland	84	70	83.3%	4,779,400	68,277
South Australia	60	49	81.7%	1,698,600	34,665
Tasmania	13	11	84.6%	516,600	46,964
Victoria	69	48	69.6%	5,938,100	123,710
West Australia	26	24	92.3%	2,591,600	107,983

Projects by Region and Local event - Australia

	Region	Local Site	Reg.	Sub.	% Sub.
	ACT	Canberra	45	39	86.7%
	ACT	Canberra Heritage Hack	6	5	83.3%
	NSW	Camperdown Games for Learning	4	4	100.0%
	NSW	Parramatta	6	5	83.3%
	NSW	Sydney Official	55	32	58.2%
	NSW	Tyro Fintech Hub	5	4	80.0%
	QLD	Brisbane Maker Node	11	7	63.6%
	QLD	Brisbane Official	42	35	83.3%
	QLD	Brisbane Youth Node	1	1	100.0%
	QLD	Far North Queensland	1	1	100.0%
	QLD	Gold Coast	6	4	66.7%
	QLD	Ipswich	4	4	100.0%
	QLD	Logan	6	6	100.0%
	QLD	Rockhampton	3	3	100.0%
	QLD	Sunshine Coast	6	5	83.3%
	QLD	Toowoomba	4	4	100.0%
	SA	Adelaide	36	31	86.1%
	SA	Adelaide Maker	2	1	50.0%
	SA	Mount Gambier	9	9	100.0%
	SA	Onkaparinga	5	2	40.0%
	SA	Playford	7	5	71.4%
	SA	Port Adelaide Enfield	1	1	100.0%
	Tas	Hobart	7	5	71.4%
	Tas	Launceston	6	6	100.0%
	Vic	Ballarat	9	8	88.9%
	Vic	Geelong	5	4	80.0%
	Vic	Hack for Wyndham	5	5	100.0%
	Vic	Melbourne	36	20	55.6%
	Vic	Melbourne Mapspace	14	11	78.6%
	WA	Geraldton	3	2	66.7%
	WA	Perth	23	22	95.7%

Projects by Region and Local event - New Zealand

	Region	Local Site	Reg.	Sub.	% Sub.
	NZ	Auckland	16	15	93.8%
	NZ	Christchurch	15	12	80%
	NZ	Dunedin	1	1	100%
	NZ	Hamilton	10	9	90%
	NZ	Napier, Hawkes Bay	2	2	100%
	NZ	Northland	1	1	100%
	NZ	Queenstown	3	3	100%
	NZ	Wellington	14	13	92.9%
	NZ	Whanganui	4	4	100%

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The increasing importance of role models in the public sector

Role models are incredibly important for humans across both their personal and professional lives.

Role models can help show us and make us believe we can exceed our own boundaries. They can open doors and windows to new ideas, fostering innovation and positive change.

The more restricted and limiting the environment, the more important role models become. They show us where the gaps and opportunities exist and help shine a light on dark paths where many would otherwise fear to tread.

If you doubt humans need role models at every stage in their lives, watch this video showing how even a doll can become a powerful role model for a child - and the movement behind it is helping shift views across society.

The importance of role models is understood by governments, who seek to lift up those that support their agendas. Awards like Australian of the year and Young Australian of the year are examples of how exemplary citizens can be held up as national role models, presenting values and attitudes that we can aspire to share.

Similarly the importance and practical use of role models is understood by business, by the arts and by not-for-profits, which all hold up those exceptional individuals who model the behaviour that others seek to exemplify, to encourage productivity, ethical conduct, creativity and selflessness.

The concept of role models is even understood within the public service, where exceptional service and good behaviour can be recognised through awards and speaking opportunities. From the Public Service Medal to the new Public Sector Innovation Awards, role models are recognised to help illuminate the conduct and behaviours that the public sector seeks to encourage.

This is why role models are increasingly important in the public sector. With increasing digital transformation across society, new tools and new problems emerging as sunset industries fade and new ones rise, the public sector's role is changing increasingly quickly.

What does it mean to be a public servant in an era when the customer is kind and every citizen holds a supercomputer in their hand? How does government continue to reinvent itself - its policies, structures, performance criteria and behaviours - to remain relevant and effective in an age when people expect instant customized service?

While I worked in government I was alway conscious of being a role model for digital innovation. My blog made me more visible, but my conduct and work made me an example that others could learn from and follow.

I was also very conscious of the other role models within my sphere who similarly blazed trails, did great work and were held up as exemplars of what public servants could and should do. I continue to admire and be inspired by many of them to this day.

While many of these faces have now changed, in the public service, due to life changes and new opportunities, there's just as many, if not more digital and innovation role models in government today. Whether publicly recognised and held up, like Paul and the team at the Digital Transformation Office, or working within agencies, like the members of the PS Innovation Network, these individuals are modeling the behaviours and conduct the public service needs to adopt to move forward with Australian society.

But what happens if agencies or powerful public sector senior managers see these role models for innovation and change as threats - to their egos, job security or just don't fit their view of how the world they believe they control should operate?

I've seen few acts more cowardly or despicable than cutting down a positive role model for selfish personal reasons, or to preserve and protect a poisonous culture.

Indeed this too becomes a role model, of the worst kind - a negative influence that spreads fear and uncertainty. "If my role model can be cut down, then what could I do" can run the thinking, leading to the growth and spread of a negative 'prisoner' culture where no-one dares to raise their head, challenge poor decisions or demonstrate innovation or leadership.

Yes role models are powerful in the public service - both for the good and the bad.

For the public service to prosper in the digital age, to become agile, adaptable, citizen-centric and innovative, from the heights of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to outlying agencies like CSIRO, from top agency executives to graduates, positive role models must be elevated and negative role models cut without remorse.

To everyone who is a positive role model in the public service (whether you know it or not), everyone who models leadership, innovation, digital expertise and amazing stakeholder and citizen engagement, those who are collaborative, giving and supportive and love helping their colleagues and Australia succeed and grow - I salute you.

Once you grow tired of the good fight and retire the field, do so with honour, knowing that no matter whether you leave by choice or necessity, your impact has been profound, recognised and valued.

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Have you visited data.gov.au lately? We're beginning to witness the 'Open Data Multiplier'

PS News has a great report on the growth of data.gov.au - linking to a report on the Department of Finance's blog which indicates the site added 100 datasets in June.

The site has also upgraded to provide more data visualisation capability for users, as well as a responsive template for improved mobile access.

Most interesting was the high use of the service over GovHack, with 4,755 user sessions by 2,618 users. The most popular datasets included intellectual property government open data 2015, ABC Local online photo stories 2009-2014 and sample household electricity time of use data.

I've written about some of the interesting Govhack prototypes over at The Mandarin in the article, GovHack 2015: a wildly successful idea that keeps spawning more, where I also wrote about how participation is a useful way for agencies to test and support 'edge' innovation without committing scarce personnel and funds.

From what I've been hearing over the weeks since Govhack we're reached something of a tipping point with open data in Australia, with governments beginning to seriously recognise the value of sharing data in this manner.

Those benefits are not just external to agencies, such as transparency, economic growth or community engagement, but also internal.

Internal open data benefits to government include improving agency decision-making (through greater awareness and access to collected data), improved data quality and fostering innovation and creativity.

As a result of reaching the tipping point, I expect to see continuing significant growth in the quantity and quality of open data available across Australia, as well as more targeted and useful data as agencies become more sophisticated in their data release (as I've outlined previously in my Open Data Generations Roadmap)

This will stimulate what I've termed the Open Data Multiplier.

As with the network effect, where the value of a network increases exponentially with the number of participants (think about telephones or the internet), the Open Data Multiplier means that each additional dataset released for reuse creates a growing number of possibilities to combine it with existing data, or use it on its own, to prompt even more interesting and diverse innovations.

However the Open Data Multiplier only operates when the community and agencies are engaged with open data. Without this community both inside and outside of the public sector, data sits 'on the shelf', generating no value at all.

This is where volunteer-run events like GovHack are valuable for fostering a positive civic hacking culture.

Agencies also have a role in fostering both an internal and external culture of data-based innovation through supporting GovHack and similar events, and running their own separate challenges on agency-specific topics (as Transport for NSW and Public Transport Victoria have done).

The internal benefits don't stop at data either. The same challenge model, once adopted by government, can be used more broadly for policy and service design and in finding diverse solutions for government problems - as has been successful in Challenge.gov and is used by VicHealth and thre ACT government.

Indeed I ran a similar service design challenge for the Victorian Government at GovHack, the first exploration of such an approach at that event. The learnings will help guide Victoria's government in identifying when to use similar approaches and in designing and running future challenges.

All of this follows on from opening up government data, creating a more permissive and experimental sandpit for innovation and sharing.

And it starts with a visit to data.gov.au - have you visited lately?

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Where have all the senior public servants disappeared to?

I've been attending a number of networking and other business events in the last month across Canberra, and have noticed that amongst all the CEOs, CTOs, Financial Directors and similar, that there's been no senior public servants in attendance.

While there was a good turn-out of public servants at one event I've attended, the Life beyond Lanyards launch last week, these were mid-level or lower.

So I'm beginning to wonder about how much actual cross-fertilization is going on between senior public servants and the private sector, how much senior public servants are getting 'out there' to meet and interact meaningfully with business owners.

Of course this is one person's impression over a short time period at a limited number of events, but when I think back over the last ten years, it's rare for senior public servants to spend much time with their colleagues in the corporate sector.

Definitely there's arranged events, speaking at conferences, attending lunch seminars and the like, but as soon as their part is done, senior public servants tend to race back to the office rather than shoot the breeze with their private sector equivalents, to discuss broader issues and topics.

Of course they have good reason - senior public servants are incredibly busy meeting their commitments to Ministers, managing their organisations and keeping work flowing through approvals and initiating work programs.

The culture of Australia's public service, for the most part, involves dedicated and hard work in service of the government of the day, in order to serve the citizens of the country.

However I think that sometimes working on their business is as important as working in their business. This is something that good corporate executives and small business people alike learn - that networking to form relationships, that consulting and learning from colleagues across other industries, is a key to improving their own organisations and achieving success.

This is a key ingredient in innovation - associating with people from many walks of life, rather than simply with one's one public sector colleagues.

Successive Australian governments have recognised the value of this cross-fertilisation, and the APS has also fostered bringing private sector people into senior government roles as a way to foster a broadening of attitudes, rather than the 'groupthink' that can emerge from any group of people with similar backgrounds, career paths, values and experience.

This has had mixed success in my view, many people with extensive private sector but without public sector experience don't last that long in SES roles, due to the level of difference in approach and views.

The current fledgling program of seconding senior public servants into the private sector is another attempt at achieving the same end - bringing a broader set of viewpoints and experience (as well as larger and more complex networks) back into the public sector, thereby improving the effectiveness of policy design and delivery and fostering innovation.

I hope this works well - but I don't believe either of the above are the full solution to this wicked problem.

What we need is for senior public servants to be mandated and supported to recognise that building deep relationships across and understanding of the sectors they serve is a valid and important part of dedicated public service.

This means delegating more tasks and approval authority downwards to leave senior public servants with time, and the mandate, to spend less time checking grammar and more time associating with groups and individuals outside of government.

Who knows, it could even help foster the external credibility of government.

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Why should governments continue to control voting systems and processes?

Having centralised systems for voting is the standard approach for countries around the world.

In most places it is simply accepted that the government funds the system for election and referendum voting - funding the polling places, ballot boxes, officials and vote counting systems, whether this be directly or at arms length via a body independent of government, but reliant on government funding.

And let's face it, voting is integral to governance. Voting provides legitimacy to a country's government, providing some form of mandate for a ruling party and ensuring that populations are satisfied with a given set of representatives by giving them a role in choosing them.

Looking at it cynically, having governments control voting could be seen as a conflict of interest - the politicians with an interest in re-election both create the electoral laws and fund the system for casting ballots.

Indeed in some parts of the world systematic electoral fraud is a major concern - the government can influence elections outcomes by changing the legal requirements for voting, adjusting electoral boundaries, place onerous condition on forming or operating new parties or on standing for election, limit electoral donations or advertising by opposition parties, or restricting physical access to ballot boxes.

That's before getting to issues with who votes, how many times and how the votes are counted.

In countries where there's substantial trust in governance and the electoral system these issues are generally small-scale, though ever present as we continue to see with voter identification laws introduced in some US states, major parties voting themselves more electoral funding (as Australia's two major parties tried to do in 2013) and individual examples of bad practice by candidates across all democracies.

In places where democracy is fragile and institutions are weak these issues are magnified, and various systems have been developed to keep elections honest - independent observers are often involved (where allowed) to scrutinise an electoral process; citizens and activist groups have photographed and published issues at ballot boxes online via mobile devices, first in ad hoc ways and then via map-based reporting systems such as Ushahidi; entire websites dedicated to exposing electoral fraud and bad practice have popped up around the world.

These systems have often migrated back to established democracies, for example, the mobile phone tool used to scrutinise the 2007 Kenyan elections was reused in the US Presidential race in 2008, demonstrating that in sustaining freedom to vote, eternal vigilance remains important.

However these are simply systems to scrutinise how governments run elections, rather than independent voting processes. They watch and report what happens in electoral systems, but don't seek to replace these systems directly.

Switzerland is perhaps unique in that it has an entrenched system of direct democracy which allows citizens to overrule parliament through a plebiscite vote - but even then the electoral process is funded and managed by the state.

More recently we've seen pseudo-electoral systems emerge - online petition systems like Change.org, which is having a material impact on government decisions. We've also seen systems that allow citizens to put forward laws to parliaments using banking details to validate individual supports (voters) for a given legislative proposal.

Governments broadly keep these systems at arms length, retaining the discretion to ignore these votes where they choose, for whatever reason they see fit - and fair enough, these systems are often flawed electorally, representing specific groups, can be prone to some level of gaming and don't have the same level of scrutiny as a formal government-run electoral process.

However the technology now exists for this to change - and it already is, beginning in Hong Kong.

In June this year two legislative steps by China were seen in Hong Kong to weaken the 'One country, Two system' approach that the city had been operating under since reunification with China.

As a result academics and citizens of Hong Kong started the ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’ campaign, which involved the non-violent occupation of the main business district of the city with the goal of achieving universal suffrage for voting in time for the 2017 election of the next Hong Kong Chief Executive.

Attached to this process was an unofficial city referendum which took place from June 20th – June 29th 2014. The poll asked two simple questions: which proposal for universal suffrage would you like to see implemented in Hong Kong and should the legislative council adopts an universal suffrage system if it does not abide with the international definition?

This was held outside (and without the support) of Hong Kong's government by citizens, involving online, mobile and physical voting at 20 'pop-up' polling booths set up across the city, with all Hong Kong residents aged over 18 eligible to vote.

While there were official efforts to prevent the referendum, including a large scale attack on the referendum website, the confiscation of voting boxes by Chinese officials and censorship of mentions of the referendum online by Chinese authorities, these did not prevent large scale voting by citizens.

At the end of the ten day process, 798,000 residents had voted - over 20 per cent of the eligible population. Most had voted via the mobile apps, with the second most popular way being online.

Despite the turnout, the Hong Kong government took the view that civil referendums had no legal standing under Hong Kong law, and therefore the result could be ignored.

This led to the largest public protest in Hong Kong since 2003, with over 500,000 people taking to the streets on July 1st 2014.

A good article detailing the process in detail is at Free Speech Debate, as Vote for Hong Kong – on the streets and online.

This type of unofficial civil referendum, where citizens get together to develop robust electoral systems and use them to state a view to a government, is possible today in much of the world.

The notion that voting systems are the province of governments, that only a central jurisdiction can manage a fair national electoral approach, simply no longer holds true.

So while citizens may choose to allow governments to manage these systems, it is feasible to outsource them - on a case-by-case or a permanent basis, detaching electoral processes from the individuals and groups seeking power.

In the future we may see more populations hold their own civil referendums on government policy or on who governs them.

While governments might decry these as illegitimate, as they are not covered within the laws that parliaments have created, these civil electoral processes may indeed be more legitimate in the long run - as the voting process and system are not designed or modified at the whim of those who hold power.

Indeed it will be interesting to see how the government of an advanced democracy reacts in the face of a civil referendum. Even if they deny the legitimacy of the process, they may find it hard to ignore the democratic backlash.

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Innovation in Ageing Challenge launched by SA Office for the Ageing and TACSI

Coming hot on the heels of the VicHealth Physical Activity Innovation Challenge, the South Australian Office for the Ageing in the South Australian Department of Health has partnered with TACSI (The Australian Centre for Social Innovation) to launch an Innovation in Ageing Challenge.

The Challenge invites teams to review two briefs and come up with an idea for a great social business.

Up to ten shortlisted entries will have their teams invited to a two-day pitch training workshop, and the top pitches will be awarded a share of the $100,000 in funding available.

The winning teams will then have six months of rigorous support and mentoring to develop their business model.

Anyone in the world can enter the challenge, although entries have to demonstrate how they will materially benefit older people within South Australia (which is reasonable enough).

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VicHealth launches Physical Activity Innovation Challenge

VicHealth appears to be one of only a few agencies across Australian state and federal governments that has made a solid attempt at introducing public challenges as an adjunct to traditional policy approaches.

While most governments in Australia still use the same techniques for policy creation that they've used for 80 or more years, after the success of last year's Seed Challenge, VicHealth recently launched a new challenge around physical activity innovation.

With $400,000 in start-up funds available to be awarded to the best ideas, the new challenge invites sports bodies, entrepreneurs and changemakers to develop innovative approaches to get more Victorians physically active.

With information available at VicHealth's website, the Physical Activity Innovation Challenge both brings the public and various sporting and innovation bodies into the policy development process, and helps expose the department to the latest thinking and ideas around prompting people to take up physical activity.

This is the type of thinking that more Australian policy makers need to adopt in recognition that expertise is no longer concentrated within government agencies, and that they need to look further than the 'usual suspects' of lobbyists, activists and pressure groups, for great ideas to feed into policy development processes.

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First the internet, then social media and now crowdfunding is disrupting government

Government has proven no more immune to disruption by digital than any other industry.

The internet changed the model for governments in delivering information and dealing with pressure groups. It has been a largely positive disruption, facilitated billions in savings as government moved services online in egovernment initiatives. At the same time it has seen governments able to provide the same, or more, services to citizens without growing staff numbers at the same rate as population growth.

In Australia the Australian Public Service employs roughly the same number of staff as in 1990, despite a 30% increase in our population. While not all attributable to egovernment, I think it is fair to say that considering the range of services and activities of the Australian Government today, compared to 40 years ago, digitalisation has had a substantial impact in respect of job numbers.

Social media has been a more uncomfortable disruption for government, thus far providing for a mixed experience. Governments in Australia have rapidly adopted the use of social media - as I track through the proxy of Twitter accounts (over 920 today compared to none in early 2007) - using social platforms for activities from communication to engagement, customer service, codesign and policy development.

At the same time social media has challenged government by giving millions a more public voice and way to organise groups - from simple petitions for bank notes usable by blind people through to connecting people and facilitating the organisation of mass rallies during the Arab Spring.

Governments have found it more difficult to ignore self-organising groups than single isolated individuals, and have begun to face continual critiquing of every decision as soon as it is announced - an unprecedented environment of scrutiny and noise.

However the clamour of critics on social networks can be ignored - we've already seen several elected politicians cancel social media accounts and put much greater constraints around how their staff use these networks.

The next disruption, crowdfunding, is already showing some signs of having a material impact beyond that of raised voices and organised protests.

Historically when governments stopped funding activities or services, or changed what they delivered - as a result of electoral and policy changes - the media would comment, the public would talk about it for a few weeks, maybe even protest, and then generally governments could get on with delivering their new mix without significant disruption.

Governments were in control - they chose where their budget was spent and things that were cut remained cut.

Of course some form of charity or other provider might choose to find alternative funding to continue delivering a service on a small scale, however this could be safely ignored, or even declared a win by government as it was clear that government didn't need to fund that service anyway.

This line was actually used very recently by the current Australian government after it defunded the Climate Change Commission (a government-funded body for providing expert advice on climate change to the public) and the commissioners went out to find alternative funding.

However something was different on this occasion.

Rather than having a few organisations or wealthy and concerned individuals provide funds to keep the Climate Change Commission alive under a new name, the Climate Council, the Commissioners used a crowdfunding route.

The first donation to keep the Climate Council live was $15. Over the first 12 hours it raised $160,000 - literally overnight.

At the end of the first week the Climate Council had raised one million dollars, and the donations continued to arrive.

For awhile it was unclear whether this was a once-off event. The Climate Commission dealt with an emotive topic - climate change - and was led by prominent and well-respected Australian, Professor Tim Flannery. It was an existing body with an existing purpose, so already had structure and goals.

This was a useful combination for crowdfunding, providing a leg-up for marshalling the right crowd to provide the donations required to continue operations.

However we're now seeing crowd funding used to underpin the completion of another defunded Australian Government project, the Blueprint for an Ageing Australia.

While it is unclear whether this project will meet its goal, it is beginning to suggest that crowdfunding may become a regular tactic used to counter government decisions.


Effectively communities could use crowdfunding, in certain casesm as an alternative to government funding. The approach allows them to self-organise and finance public initiatives that they feel are important but governments, for funding or ideological reasons, do not.

The impact of this crowdfunding may be benign - communities simply getting the services they wish, regardless of the government's priorities - or may be considered highly political.

If a government defunds something and then supporters find the funds in the crowd to keep it alive, what does that say about the community's view of the government's priorities and decisions? Will governments be forced to back down or change their approach? Will it affect elections?

This is still very early days, however it is worth governments beginning to build their awareness of crowdfunding and how it is beginning to be used - as well as how it can be used for the benefit of government, such as by seeking some public crowdfunding for an initiative before agreeing to put public money into the mix.

At the end of the day an individual putting down their personal cash to back a crowdfunding project is a significantly greater commitment of belief and value than a signature on a petition, a social media backlash or even a march on the street. Governments need to appreciate and understand this and treat it accordingly.

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Has Gov 2.0 in Australia got too boring too fast?

Clay Shirky once said, about social media, that "These tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring."

Over the past year I've seen extremely encouraging signs across government in Australia that the use of social media has reached this point, become boring, as it has been normalised into agency operations.

Most federal and state government agencies now have multiple active social media accounts (with councils lagging a little behind), the majority of government communications campaigns involve social media - often in a central way.

Formal and informal support for social media use by government is now widespread. For example the Victorian Government has appointed a senior person in Premier and Cabinet to lead the education of the public sector in using social media. The Australian government's Secretary's Board has also recommended that agencies make greater use of social media channels in their operations and public engagement. The APS Cross Agency Social Media (CASM) group in Canberra is flourishing, as is the Emergency Management Social Media group in Victoria and other states have well-attended groups meeting semi-regularly - from #SocAdl in South Australia to NSW's IPAA Social Media Special Interest Group.

In fact any state and federal agencies who aren't engaging via social channels are now tail-enders - you know who you are.

Agencies have also made firm, if cautious, steps into crowdsourcing, sponsoring independent events like GovHack and, in some cases, running their own crowdsourcing campaigns, like Victoria's Seed Challenge, the ACT's Digital Canberra Challenge and NSW's AppsForNSW.

Governments across Australia are now actively considering mobile, both when designing websites and for specialist apps, with a long list of federal agency apps at Australia.gov.au. Victoria has a similar list, as do various agencies in other states, such as WA Health and QLD's Department of Education, Training and Employment.

Open data is on a slower path, but has momentum. Most states and territories (excluding Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory) have open data catalogues, with varying degrees of sophistication. The federal data.gov.au site has taken major steps forward recently, reorganising its approach and starting to release more data. I still feel there's a patchwork approach to open data, with explicit mandates similar to US and UK examples rare and many agencies conspicuously absent from these catalogues, but progress is being made.

With all of this going on, we are stepping into a situation where the use of Gov 2.0 techniques, at least in pockets across government, is becoming business as usual - everyday, boring, humdrum.

Potentially as a result we've seen a reduction in the level of conversation on Twitter via #gov2au, with the volume of tweets well down on previous years. Social media and Gov 2.0 conferences for government are also finding it harder to attract attendees using the same formulas as in past years - with people seeking more sophisticated and specific information.

We've seen attendance at free Gov 2.0 events (such as the ones I run for several years in Canberra), fluctuate more widely - with less of a core base and more 'one-timers' coming to sessions that specifically interest them.

There's been no increase in the number of public servants blogging about the topics. Frankly I see more fear of speaking out on social media across the public service today then existed four years ago when the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's lead-by-example approach was still influencing public servants to actively discuss their successes and professional challenges online.

So has Gov 2.0 become boring too fast in Australia?

Harkening back to Shirky's statement from the start of my post, with Gov 2.0 now less concerned with the technology and more with engagement and behaviours, shouldn't we see more conversation, innovation and experimentation online by governments now that the basics of Gov 2.0 are largely accepted?

Shouldn't we see more conversation, more voices, more blogs, more tweets, more people packing out events seeking the latest information in what is one of the most rapidly changing environments in history - the internet?

I can see this happening in the UK, US and across Europe and South America, where public servants are increasingly excited about the potential for Gov 2.0 approaches to save money, engage citizens and improve outcomes. The first wave of enthusiasts is still involved as thought leaders and in more senior roles, which successive waves of public servants have kept agencies driving forward to improve and extend their social media capabilities.

In Australia, however, the voices appear to be falling mute. The first generation of Gov 2.0 enthusiasts (including myself) have either moved out of government to  other things, have taken on broader duties or are burnt out and disillusioned (the fate of many first wave enthusiasts across many areas).

The second wave, who have been left to implement the 'standard' social media channels now accepted and widespread in government, are busy with the machinery of running day-to-day channels - content, tone and crisis management. They often have less time to look at new developments or the bigger picture, or less interest in stepping up after seeing the first wave move on.

And the third wave - who bring a renewed sense of wonder and passion to the area, who stimulate the next set of leaps forward - don't appear to have emerged to any great extent. I hope they are simply waiting in junior roles for the opportunity to step up and reshape the public sector in new ways.

Technology is advancing faster than ever, new options and challenges for governments are appearing every day - how do we foster the continued enthusiasm necessary for agencies to continue to evolve their approaches and tools to generate better outcomes for old issues and to meet the challenges that emerge?

How do we cultivate the spark of Gov 2.0 in Australia, so that it doesn't get 'boring', frozen in place and time?

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Online challenges arrive in Australian government

With psychedelic splendour, the ACT government has become the first Australian jurisdiction to launch a serious whole-of-government online challenges site.

Through the Digital Canberra Challenge website, the ACT is now asking "Canberra's brightest minds" to help improve government services.

The first round contains two challenges, to improve the process of event approvals and to make it easier to book a government service (such as a driving test).

The process is a little vague, however the two finalists for the round (one per challenge) can receive up to $5,000 of expenses reimbursed (on presentation of valid invoices) and the winner of the competition (over a number of rounds) will receive $12,500 - with the runner up receiving $7,500.

To participate individuals must be Canberra-based, teams must have at least one ACT resident and organisations must be both ACT-based and have less than 20 people.

It's a good attempt, though in my view the complexity of the criteria to enter, the way prizes are awarded and the actual psychedelic website itself risk overwhelming the actual goal, to involve residents in improving the delivery of government services.

That said, the goal is fantastic and all kudos to the ACT Government for making a start in this area. I hope that after the process they consider making this approach a standard one for involving residents, reflecting the success of challenge.gov in the US.

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