Remembering to say thank you to citizens

Every day thousands of citizens donate their time and energy online to help government agencies across Australia.

They respond to feedback surveys on websites, provide submissions to consultations, share agency updates on Twitter and Facebook, participate in government-run online groups, provide tips and case studies to help government campaigns help others, create blog posts, websites and pages supporting government activities and even develop apps that add value to government data.

Much of this is done out of passion and interest in supporting the community, not for direct financial or personal benefit.

So wouldn't it be nice for agencies to sometimes say 'thank you' to the citizens that support public servants to do their jobs serving the government of the day and community?

I know several institutions that have learnt the art of saying 'thanks'.

There's appreciation of the efforts of teams in government operated hackathons, the Victorian State Library has invited its largest online supporters to 'meet the team' events at the Library to recognise their selfless activities and the National Library has recognised the largest contributors to Trove in several ways.

However there's many agencies who still forget the simple art of saying thank you to people outside their own walls.

Whether it is physical get-togethers, certificates or letters signed by the Minister or Secretary, a personal email from the online team, public recognition online in a Facebook group or some other method, saying thank you is one of the most important, and human, gestures that can be made to create a positive lasting relationship.

My wife and I will always treasure this simple thank you from the WSPCA last year.

The NAB has taken another route with the video below.

So think about it. When was the last time your agency thanked citizens for giving up their valuable time  to help your agency? What can you do more of to recognise their support, and encourage more of it in the future?

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Avoiding reinventing the wheel - an emerging case study

One of my pet hates is when government agencies re-invent the wheel.

It often starts when politicians announces they're going to do or launch something and agencies are then  tasked with making it actually happen.

If that agency isn't already connected into what other agencies are doing, doesn't conduct some research, or simply doesn't play well with others,  they often build a solution from scratch - ignoring the great work done elsewhere and potentially not learning from the challenges others have successfully (or not) overcome.

This leads to unnecessary waste. Extra costs, repeated mistakes and even community confusion when they could have delivered a better, faster and cheaper outcome by leveraging the work of others - standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.

A case in point that has just come to my attention is around the latest media announcement from the Australian Government regarding Implementation of a national foreign ownership register for agricultural land.

This register, as tweeted by the Prime Minister, is a useful and valuable development and will cut through the misinformation that is often spread by the media, lobbyists and involved parties about how Australia is 'selling the farm', when in reality (according to the release) only 5% of our agricultural land is majority owned by foreign interests and this has barely changed in thirty years.

At this stage the approach for providing this register is not yet decided, with stakeholder engagement to take place (some public engagement on what the community would like to see would be beneficial as well to ensure the register serves the purpose) and much planning and deciding around which data is available, how much is commercially sensitive or presents privacy challenges.

This is a great opportunity for the agencies involved to leverage off the great work already done in government to provide a platform for storing and reusing data and another platform for geographic data visualisation.

These sites are data.gov.au, the government's central directory of open data; and myregion.gov.au, the government's main site for presenting geographic data by Australian region (which I personally was involved in implementing).

Using these two sites the data from the registry can be made available to third parties to come up with their own visualisations and insights, mashing it with other data, as well as providing a standard visualisation using myregion's maps for people without the skills to turn online data into visual information.

Wherever cost-effective, governments should seek to reuse and extend existing web platforms rather than build new ones

Of course there may be other considerations for this register that require an additional front-end or context. However I am hopeful that the agencies involved will collaborate to leverage existing investments rather than replicate them.

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What if we let ordinary citizens represent Australia on social media for tourism purposes?

Tourism Australia, state and territory tourism agencies and many regions and cities are now using social media to promote their location (their brand) to potential tourists.

Using the traditional approach, these accounts are managed by professionals employed by agencies and tourism bodies, communicating with official approved messages.

However other countries have begun to explore the potential of expanding social media engagement to put the public in control, allowing individual citizens to curate official tourism social media accounts for a 'rotation' - a week or two for each person.

The best example of this is from Sweden, where the tourist board’s official @Sweden Twitter account has been given to a different citizen each week to curate and tweet from since December 2011.

The account has, at times, attracted some controversy, however it appears the Swedish Government is mature enough to manage this in an adult fashion and their citizens continue to tweet about topics ranging from the weather to body parts to politics (including mention of Australian politics). Any controversial tweets also haven't dampened interest in the account, which has over 66,000 followers.

The citizens who operate the account (termed 'curators') are selected by an official panel and given guidance before being set loose, however tweets are not reviewed or approved by officials.

The account is supported by a website (http://curatorsofsweden.com/) explaining how @Sweden works, providing details of curators and a video (embedded below) with a Q&A with former curators.


Another example of an official account run by citizens, is the US state of Vermont's @ThisisVT, which follows a similar model of a week per curator, selected through a nomination process by a panel (to manage risk).

The account was launched in late July 2012 and now has almost 2,500 followers. It is also supported by a website, www.thisisvt.com, to promote Vermont to tourists from across the US and elsewhere.


These initiatives are building the brand identity of nations and states by presenting citizen perspectives, rather than an institution's carefully packaged messaging.

Essentially the curators are brand ambassadors, providing a human face and personality for potential tourists to bond with.

This isn't in itself a revolutionary concept. Many jurisdictions use brand ambassadors - though normally choose internationally known actors or sports people. However the approach through social media is new, rather than picking celebrities (and their price tags), normal citizens are selected to provide realistic faces for these brands.

Would this 'everyperson' approach be accepted in Australia?

Actually a similar approach already has won awards and enormous praise. The Queensland 'Best job in the world' campaign' selected an individual from over 34,000 entries to visit the state as a working tourist, reporting their experiences to the world via video and blogging.

Of course the 'Best job' campaign selected a single ambassador, whereas @Sweden and @ThisisVT select a new ambassador each week, so provide greater diversity but less celebrity. However I expect we'll see more of this (far lower cost) rotation approach.

Even if Australian governments remain too fearful of having citizens represent the nation, state or region to the world, it is already happening.

These 'Rotation Curation' social media accounts are already appearing, outside government control, with over 30 projects around the world.

There are already at least two unofficial Australian accounts, @WeAreAustralia and @IndigenousX (specifically for Indigenous tweeters), hosting a range of citizen views.

Many other 'unofficial' accounts are listed in Wikipedia, with notable accounts such as:

• @TweetWeekSyria (Syria)
• @JustaCypriot (Cyprus)
• @WeAreFilipinos (Phillipines)
• @HellofrmSG (Singapore)
• @ireland (Ireland)
• @CuratorsMexico (Mexico)
• @Bristol52 (Bristol, UK)
• @IamBremen (Bremen, Germany)
• @BasquesAbroad (by Basques, global account)

So would Australian jurisdictions allow Australian citizens to curate and communicate from an official account without approval?

Are tourism authorities - and other government agencies - ready to trust their own citizens?

I hope so, given the examples already out there.

I wonder which government will be first to break through the fear barrier and give it a try - even if only for a few months.

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Apps and hacks for social good (info-philanthropy)

It is nice to begin to see volunteering in more than simply physical ways beginning to be valued and rewarded in Australia.

Apps Aid (image from the Pro Bono Australia article,
'App Aid - Developers Unite with Charities For Greater Good')

I've just learnt about App Aid, a 48 hour event being held in Australia in September this year, from Pro Bono Australia).

Ten teams of seven (4 app developers and 3 charity representatives) will compete to create apps that make a positive difference to the community. $30,000 in charitable funds is up for grabs as prizes.

The event is being organised and sponsored by the Vodafone Foundation, the charitable wing of Vodafone Australia (who have quite a bit of experience with social media).

Like the Random Hacks of Kindness held last year in Melbourne as part of a global series of events, App Aid represents a new style of involvement in social issues.

Unfortunately, this type of 'giving back' isn't well recognised or supported in Australia as yet.

While the US has a number of foundations committed to 'information philanthropy' and 'hacking for good', Australia has a big legislative gap in this space.

I've looked in detail into setting up charitable foundations for information philanthropy and it's very hard to do here (Kudos to Open Australia who did indeed set up a foundation for their activities).

In fact the only recommendation by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce that was not taken up by the then Australian Government was about Info-Philanthropy. It was deferred, and subsequently has been ignored by other government reviews.

The lack of interest in this area has even been portrayed in the media as opposition to this type of philanthropy (Federal Government opposes info-philanthrophy) - though I suspect it would be more accurate to say that info-philanthropy hasn't reached a sufficient awareness threshold for governments to consider acting.

In the absence of support by government, I hope we do see more info-philanthropy from the private sector in Australia.

We don't just need to feed the hungry and house the homeless but to use technology to do these things and support other charitable and philanthropic activities in an increasingly efficient and effective manner.

Technology, coupled with information, has transformed how industries and governments operate. Ignoring the potential impact on the philanthropic and charitable sector is not only unwise, it is potentially extremely costly.

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Selecting the right tool for the job of online citizen engagement

This report was brought to my attention by Sandy Heierbacher in the Online Engagement Group at LinkedIn, and I thought it well worth sharing more widely.

Also blogged about by Sandy at the US National Coalition for Deliberation and Democracy (NCDD), in the post The Promise and Problems of Online Deliberation, the report provides a look at how online tools can be used in citizen deliberation, with recommendations on which tools to use when.

The report is available from: http://kettering.org/publications/the-promise-and-problems-of-online-deliberation/

There's even a supporting infographic as below:

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Transforming public engagement though social media (almost live from Singapore)

This morning I presented at the Reading Room Digital Conversations forum to a group of Singaporean government officials on the topic of Transforming public engagement through social media.

I talked through how connected Australia had become, and pointed out that the goals of public engagement have not really changed (using the IAP2 model to illustrate), only our tools.

My presentation then went through a range of different engagement examples across the IAP2 spectrum, from Inform to Empower, and then pointed out that governments weren't necessarily the driving force behind Gov 2.0 - illustrating several Gov 2.0 initiatives created outside of government.

I concluded with Zombies (as all good presentations do) - demonstrating how governments can be more playful without being unprofessional, using popular culture and memes to stimulate public engagement with hard to reach audiences.


I've embedded my presentation below - enjoy!

View more presentations from Craig Thomler.

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

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

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

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

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

The Govmonitor site (http://govmonitor.org)

This, however is a far more visual, accessible and interactive approach than the prior collaborative document idea, providing for easier searching and visual identification of what policies and positions parties support, don't support and haven't made a decision on yet.

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

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

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

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

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

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Liveblogging GovCamp NSW (focus on innovation)

I'm in Sydney at GovCamp NSW today, where the program is focusing on developing an innovation program for the state.

There's about 30 people in attendance and the event is being hosted by John Wells and Allison Hornery with support from Martin Stewart-Weeks.

The event is partially open, partially under Chatham House rules, so I'll be selective about posting and quoting.

I will include the hashtag (#GovCampNSW) in the liveblog, so various perspectives are captured.

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GovCamp Canberra – one week away!

GovCamp Canberra looks like it will be a fantastic event (I'll confirm afterwards as I'm attending).

If you've not registered to attend, it's probably too late to be there in person - though if you're on the waiting list you may get a spot at short notice if anyone pulls out.

However GovCamp will be livestreamed (if your organisation lets you stream video), liveblogged (if your organisation doesn't block blogs) and tweeted (if you're allowed access to Twitter). Keep an eye on the GovCamp Canberra site for details.

It's also not the only event on during APS Innovation Week 2012. Look at the full list of events at the APS Innovation blog.

I've included the GovCamp media release below, which provides more information.


GOVCAMP 2012 MEDIA RELEASE MAY 21 2012

GovCamp Canberra is coming up on the 5th June and event organisers anticipate a lively day of discussions, leadership, case studies and workshops, with attendees invited to share their ideas and find new opportunities to collaborate and innovate in the public service.

The sold out free event provides a platform for public servants to share and identify ideas on how government can better achieve its goals, promote transparency and support initiatives which encourage greater particpation by citizens with government.

Spokesperson Pia Waugh said “times have changed, public servants now understand the importance of change and innovative ideas in delivering a public service, particularly to meet fiscal pressures. It is critical for public servants to continually adapt to changing Australian citizen’s needs and this event is a great way to share how people have been doing just that”.

“Having GovCamp as part of 2012 Innovation week has really cemented the idea that we need free flowing conversations like this on a regular occasion. The fact we can do it as a free event, with the support of some wonderful sponsors, means it’s a good choice for government agencies to have their staff attend”.

This years GovCamp will cover a number of areas around innovation within the APS and the implementation and progress of Gov 2.0 projects. Speakers will also look at how government can better deliver services into the future.

“We are fortunate that this year we have some very senior level staff coming along to talk about innovation, technology and change at a strategy level and how they think government needs to evolve. We are hoping this type of direct interaction between a range of different leveled staff from within the public service will generate some very frank discussion”, Waugh said.

GovCamp speakers include the Australian Information Commissioner, John Macmillan AO, an Academic Forum with leading research on Public Sector Innovation chaired by Sandford Borins, a case studies panel showcasing leading examples of innovation in practice, a Senior Leaders Panel and the closing speech by Andrea Di Maio, a public sector innovation and Gov 2.0 expert from Gartner.

The lunch time address is a specially recorded speech from Mike Bracken from the Government Digital Service, UK Government Cabinet Office.

You can view the event information, including the schedule and speakers at www.govcampau.org. The event will be live streamed so check the website for video details closer to the date or register on the waitlist to be advised about the live stream details.

Organisers: #Gov2au, Rewired State, eGovernment Technology Cluster
Gold Sponsors: Adobe, MailChimp, Palantir
Silver Sponsors: Cisco, Google, Ninefold, eGovernment Technology Cluster, CSIRO, AGIMO
In-kind Sponsors: Link Digital, Newcast, Salesforce, University of Canberra

Contact Pia Waugh on 0400 966 453 for any other media enquiries.

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eDemocracy report from Lowey - US striding ahead

If I were the leader of a nation that wasn't friends with the US I would be very concerned with the successes of their eDiplomacy program and looking to counter it with my own.

And if I was the leader of a friendly nation, I'd still be seeking to carve out my own eDiplomacy space, to retain some element of influence in the future.

The UK has realised this, Canada has realised it, though I'm not as sure Australia has woken up to it as well.

The Lowey Institute has released an excellent report on the state of US eDiplomacy by Fergus Hanson, which may help as a wake up call.

Brought to my attention by Peter Timmin, who writes the Open and Shut FOI blog, Fergus's report, the result of four months spent in the US with the State Department, found that there are now 25 separate ediplomacy nodes operating at State’s Washington DC Headquarters employing over 150 full-time equivalent staff.

Additionally (the report says) a recent internal study of US missions abroad found 935 overseas staff employing ediplomacy communications tools to some degree, or the equivalent of 175 full-time
personnel.

The report states very clearly that, in some areas ediplomacy is changing the way State does business. For example,

In Public Diplomacy, State now operates what is effectively a global media empire, reaching a larger direct audience than the paid circulation of the ten largest US dailies and employing an army of diplomat-journalists to feed its 600-plus platforms.

In other areas, like Knowledge Management, ediplomacy is finding solutions to problems that have plagued foreign ministries for centuries.

One of the key changes that Fergus noted was how the organisation functioned as a start-up, not as a staid old-fashioned bureaucracy. For example,

In interviews with office staff, conversation quickly turns from notional duties to ‘passion projects’ – the new ideas and platforms staff work on in their spare time. And there are plenty in the works. The Inspector General, whose recent report on the office made it sound like a review of a Silicon Valley start-up, noted over 40 underway.

Other employees also seem to have got a message regularly repeated at the Office of eDiplomacy; Experiment. It’s okay to fail. One enterprising official working on US library spaces abroad realised how costly and pointless it was sending physical books across the globe and cut a deal with Amazon to get discounted Kindles delivered instead.

And in Zimbabwe, the greying US Ambassador, Charles A Ray, has embraced Facebook as a way of circumventing the iron grip Robert Mugabe exercises over freedom of the press. He engages in an active and animated discussion with Zimbabweans about how they view the world.

In my view this report doesn't only highlight the new world of diplomacy, but also the new world of the public service.

The approach taken to engage foreign citizens could be transferred to domestic agencies and used to engage US citizens as well.

Is State the future of public services around the world? Time - and good leadership will tell.

However just as nations who fail to remain commercially competitive find it increasingly difficult to maintain incomes, education levels, lifestyles and services, countries that fail to be competitive in their public governance are likely to be at significant disadvantage in international relations.

eDiplomacy is already here and working. The challenge has been laid down. Can Australia's present public sector and political leaders take it up?

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Patient Opinion launches in Australia

One of the UK's social media success stories, Patient Opinion, has now launched an Australian website at www.patientopinion.org.au.

Patient Opinion, which has been live since 2005, allows patients to rate and comment on their experience with health providers. It has been an amazing (if sometimes painful) success in the UK, leading to a number of care improvements across the health system and at individual providers.

Having worked in the area in government in Australia, I recognise the sensitivities that get raised around the idea of rating health providers, or allowing public comment on individual experiences, particularly from hospitals and health professionals.

However decisions are made every day by people based on their views and experiences - which product to buy or shop to visit. They are even made about health services in private conversations that health providers can neither see or address.

Patient Opinion makes patient views and experiences visible in a central and public way, allowing health providers with the ability to access and review - even respond - to comments. The site also provides a level of governance and safety through monitoring stories and comments to ensure they are not defamatory.

The approach allows health providers to view and address operational concerns and provides valuable insights for policy makers into the Australian health system which, after all, is supposed to maximise the outcomes for patients.

While fears of negativity are common amongst organisations and individuals when social media channels open, the Patient Opinion experience in the UK has been that there is a high level of positive feedback provided - people do have faith in many health providers.

A brief video about the site is below, and you can learn more about Patient Opinion in Australia at www.patientopinion.org.au/info/about

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govdex upgrade coming soon!

In all the time I worked in the public service I had a fondness for govdex.

As a secure collaboration system (built from the Confluence wiki platform) for government, it was often one of the few pre-built tools that agencies could use to share information between agencies.

Although it did, at times, suffer from slow speeds, low levels of promotion and a clunky interface, the support team was unfailingly helpful and cheerful and AGIMO's management stuch with it through thick and thin, knowing that govdex had the potential to transform the way agencies interacted with each other and with external stakeholders.

I am extremely pleased to see that AGIMO is working on an upgrade to govdex that will dramatically reshape the appearance and usability of the service.

Anticipated later this year (though I, for one, am happy for it to take as long as needed to ensure quality), the upgrade to govdex appears from the screenshots to make the interface far more comparable to modern online and social media tools - the tools that public servants are familiar with at home.

 AGIMO says in the govdex support pages that the new upgrade will,

make govdex more user friendly, provide easier use for navigation and collaboration, incorporate better use of customisation, improve interoperability and functionality, and accommodate Web 2.0 tools and technologies.

 The new govdex will,

will bring faster performance, greater levels of accessibility, improved document management capability, a higher degree of networking within communities, and better user customisation.

Even better, AGIMO is modelling an excellent user-centred design approach in that the system is being redeveloped based on a simple principle, "build a system for users, by users", with govdex "seeking feedback from its users on the design features of the new govdex."

I hope, with the success of this redesign, we'll see other agencies with less experience using this approach adopt this as a best practice example of user-centred design and employ the approach for their own online services to staff, stakeholders and citizens.

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Co-Design conference day 2

We're into day 2 of the Co-Design for Citizen-Centric Service Delivery conference and I will be liveblogging part of the day. Unfortunately I am presenting this morning, and have to run away early for a flight, however will cover as much as I can.

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Liveblog for the Co-Design for Citizen-Centric Service Delivery conference

I'll be liveblogging this conference today, and part of tomorrow.

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Don’t dumb me down! (guest post)

With the permission of Geoff Mason (@grmsn), I've republished his blog post Don’t dumb me down! from 21 March this year below.

I thought this was a very good post on a topic that, as increasing amounts of information and discussion only appear online, is increasingly affecting how effective public servants can be and the policy outcomes across government.

Don’t dumb me down!

There continues to be a fear of the unknown and the misunderstanding across the Australian public service about the internets – which baffles me to be honest.

Agencies continue to block social media websites, cloud based email services, and restrict mobile access during business hours. At the same time the government is pushing for greater innovation, greater mobilisation and capability of staffing, and increased staff performance while seeking to make cost reductions across the breadth of the public service.

The two are one in the same in this modern age. Social media provides the first point of call regardless of the industry for professional development, access to innovation, and in sharing how people work to increase productivity.

As a quick case study, Google + while not a social media site in itself provides a social layer which covers all its services from search through to document sharing and collaboration. The interlinked services include the Google email groups all of which requires access to not just the platform but to a Google account. The service helps tailor search results and improves the breadth of information and opinion provided by adding Web 2.0 functionality. Increasing a person’s ability to undertake a critical analysis of the information being provided.

For example, Tim O’Rielly a prominent person in many ways, including a leader in facilitating discussion, direction, and promotion of modern communications, and open and transparent government uses Google + as a key communication channel for engaging and sharing ideas of the many through an established community which actively engages in frank discussion on the merits and disadvantages of many key concepts attached a public servants work life.

Restricting access to this type of discussion during working hours means federal employees are required to actively engage in these environments during their down time - all the while trying to manage their families, their dogs, the gardening, and everything else which comes from having a life outside of the office. While I think that’s fine for myself, I don’t believe it should be expected of everyone.

As more and more key representatives access similar services as their communication channel of choice it will be fundamental for public servants to not only have access to but be encouraged to be a part of and monitor the discussions on these platforms as a cheap and effectively method for self-development and idea generation for not only their team but for their agency as a whole.

Beats the hell out of spending $2,500 to send staff along to a workshop to hear other public servants talking about something that they could be getting for free online don’t ya thunk?

In short, government agencies need soundly assess the short term risks which access to these systems pose in comparison to long term benefits which being a part of a global community could provide.

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You can't expect citizens to engage with you if you don't engage with them

I am proud of how far many Australians governments have come in their online use over the last few years. A number of agencies have begun embracing the new tools available to communicate with the public.

They are blogging, tweeting and facebooking, bypassing traditional media to share their news publicly with the Australian community.

Next however is the hard challenge - ongoing engagement.

Many agencies have Twitter accounts (over 390 at my last count), however more than two thirds of them use Twitter simply as a one-way broadcast channel. Over half of the 'blogs' in government that I have checked do not allow user comments. While most government Facebook pages support fan comments, the number that actually acknowledge or respond to them consistently is much lower.

While there are good examples of government using talkback radio to answer questions and engage in conversations, barely any agencies do the same on Australia's leading online forums - some of which have more 'listeners' than the most well-known radio commentators.

It is no longer enough for governments to simply talk at citizens and communities in a generic and impersonal fashion. It is no longer enough for governments to build online community tools - groups, forums and blogs - and sit back, saying "we've done our part, it is now up to the Australian community to embrace and use them."

I have built online communities since the mid-1990s and the formula for success has not changed.

To create engagement by the community the one with the greatest stake in the community, its creator, must engage.

As agencies, we must become active in starting and continuing conversations. Talk about issues and encourage discussion. Teach people how to converse with us and support them by demonstrating that these are safe and welcoming online 'homes'.

Certainly there are risks and fears agencies must face. What if no-one responds, what if too many people respond, what if something slips through the approvals and gets published, what if we get criticized!!!

All are good arguments for a wallflower at any dance. Don't put yourself out there in case you might get rejected or attract unwanted attention. It is so much easier to sit on the sidelines (even if you arranged the dance) and avoid the risk of engaging with others.

However while you can people watch, you cannot truly understand the dance until you participate.

One of the biggest concerns with governments today is how out of touch they are with communities. How remote, seemingly uninterested, how unemotional and disconnected.

We can't expect the support of the community if we hold ourselves separate from the community. We can't successfully do our jobs without understanding communities and being in a position to influence them. We can't afford to let the relationship break down, to drift away like a ship in the night.

Not engaging risks calling our own governments into disrepute, damaging our governments' ability to support the will of the people and create positive change, ultimately rendering us ineffective.

The signs of this are growing all around.

And so engagement becomes the least risk strategy. Actually talking with real people, within certain constraints, in real conversations. Not just holding short-term consultations, but appointing 'citizen engagement officers', like 'stakeholder engagement officers', whose role is not customer service but citizen understanding. People who engage through online fora, traditional media and offline events to bridge the gaps between citizens and government at all levels. (Of course everyone in the public service should be able to do this - but one step at a time.)

So, in conclusion, let's build better engagement with citizens by building engagement, not just by building tools for engagement and hoping we can sit on the sidelines and watch.

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Join the global Service Delivery JAM in Canberra (hosted by the Department of Innovation)

The Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education is holding the Canberra component of the Global Service Jam from 24-26 February 2012 as part of their efforts to support and foster innovative thinking across the Australian Public Service.

This is part of a 90 plus city global event where people who are interested in service and using a design-based approach to problem solving and creativity will meet all over the globe. In a spirit of experimentation, co-operation and friendly competition, teams will have 48 hours to develop brand new services inspired by a shared theme. On Sunday at 3pm, they publish them to the world.

Due to a change in venue to the newest purpose-built design thinking centre in Canberra (INSPIRE), the Department of Innovation has more space for jammers and has put out an invitation to public servants (and their friends) to join the jam.

Throughout the weekend jammers will work in teams, supported by innovation and design experts and mentors, to develop services that address key challenges and issues facing the public service and Australian community.

If you wish to help solve real issues, meet interesting and engaged peers from across Government and learn new techniques for problem solving that you can apply back in your own agency, please consider going along.

Even better, attendence is free!

For more information contact Mikaela or Wayne on psi@innovation.gov.au or by phone on (02) 6213 6613 or (02) 6213 6232.

And if you can't attend, you can follow the event on Twitter using the hashtags #GSJ12 and #servicedesign or via APS Innovation's @psinnovate account (note that you don't need a Twitter account to follow) 

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Share your public service war stories online anonymously

Everyone has war stories, observations and experiences working in or dealing with government agencies or departments.

These aren't necessarily whinges or complaints, they may be positive or learning experiences, or examples of where small changes could lead to large productivity gains.

Previously there was't really any way to share these stories, except by speaking with colleagues. They may have been a 'suggestion box' mechanism in your agency, but nothing designed to share experiences and learnings across the APS.

Now there's a place to do so, sharing them anonymously, so they can be recognised and learnt from, thanks to work done by Steve Davies, OzLoop founder and former public servant.

To learn more, and to share your stories visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PXT9F3T

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New Inside Story policy: provide your full name for publication or your comment won't be published

I have had a great deal of respect for the Australian Policy Online (APO), produced by the Australian National University and University of Swinburne.

For several years the site has been a fantastic venue for serious discussions of public policy options, and a very useful source for policy resources and research. The site also, without prompting from me, republished several posts from this blog.

However, after commenting on an article in the Inside Story section of APO late last week, I received an email from the editor pointing out a change in their commenting policy.

Now anyone who submits a comment to Inside Story, as part of APO, must provide, and be prepared to have published, their full name. This new policy is detailed following their full articles using the text as below (highlight is mine):

Send us a comment

We welcome contributions about the issues covered in articles in Inside Story. Well-argued and clearly written comments are more likely to be published, and we’re now asking all contributors to provide their full name for publication. Because all comments are moderated, they will not appear immediately. Your email address is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *.

Now while I appreciate the sentiment of an editor who wishes to avoid spurious comments from people using pseudonyms or commenting anonymously, I found myself uncomfortable with the prospect of a website that forces anyone who comments to publicly reveal their real name in full.

I wrote a piece about this very topic a few months ago for Mumbrella, Toughen up - we need online anonymity, which discussed the various pitfalls involved in forcing people to reveal their real identity.

While I am sure it isn't the intent of this policy, one major risk - particularly relevant to a policy discussion site - is that of excluding certain groups from the conversation.

This includes people who, if their identity is published, may face physical or financial risk, those in witness protection programs, people who fear online attack if their views are taken the wrong way, those involved with policy making who have suggestions or questions, those under the age of 18 and more.

In many policy areas there are people who need to be cautious about revealing their real names publicly for legitimate reasons - whether the topic be health, law and order, immigration, development, gambling, climate change or something else.

While it is the right of each publication or website to define its own moderation and publication policies, the effect of this policy may be to silence people who have valid and important contributions to make, reducing the richness, robustness and usefulness of discussions.

If the primary concerns of Inside Story's editor and publisher are inappropriate comments, defamation, personal attacks and the like, these can be handled through pre-moderation (which they do already), backed up by a public moderation policy and community guidelines (which I cannot find in their site).

Alternatively Inside Story could require people to register and provide their real name in their account details, then publish comments under a name or pseudonym that the user selects. This would ensure they had real names if needed and allows regular contributors to maintain a consistent identity while still providing them with sufficient room to make valuable comments that otherwise they may not feel comfortable doing.

When Inside Story's editor, Peter Browne, (also credited as the Commentary Editor of Australian Policy Online) emailed me last week to ask if I was happy to have my comment published under my full name I thought about it for a few minutes and then decided that while I didn't mind my name being connected to my comments, it was time to take a stand, the damage to the public conversation could be too great. So I said no.

I won't be commenting further on Inside Story or Australian Policy Online while their current policy is in force, nor will I spend as much time reading the site. They remain welcome to republish my blog posts (which are licensed under Creative Commons, so I can't really stop them even if I had wanted to).

This decision may make me slightly poorer, however I believe Inside Story's decision significantly weakens their effectiveness and inclusiveness. The unintended consequence of forcing people to have their full name published alongside their comments is to make all of Australia poorer by stifling public policy discussion, particularly amongst those whose views most need to be heard.

I hope government agencies do not follow the same course on fulll names. It would severely restrict the value of the online channel to collect input on policy consultations and thereby make good policy harder to develop.

For the record, I've included a copy of my email exchange with Peter Browne, Commentary Editor of Australian Policy Online and Editor of Inside Story:

From: Peter Browne

Dear Craig, 

I’m not sure whether you noticed, but we now ask people commenting on articles to provide their full name for publication. Are you happy for your full name to appear with this comment? 

Cheers,

Peter Browne
Editor

From: Craig Thomler

Hi Peter, 

I didn't notice this policy change. I have now looked through your 'about' pages and see no mention of this - nor of your moderation policy. 

I would normally be happy for my full name to appear on my comment, and all my comments online are made on the basis that people can track down and find out who I am if they wanted to. 

However I'm not comfortable with a site that forces people to provide their full name publicly. This requirement prevents many people from commenting - those in witness protection programs, minors (such as 17yr olds), those concerned about stalkers, bullying, identity theft, privacy and so on. 

I see your policy as reducing the potential for open public dialogue without providing any safeguards. A backward step that only damages your reputation. 

It is also impossible to enforce anyway - people can use fake names and email accounts, thereby making your policy useless.

If your concern is around identity, have people register and use a unique username (which may or may not be their full name) - you still have their full name in the background, however they are not exposed publicly. 

If your concern is around inappropriate content, this should be managed through anti-spam and moderation techniques, potentially using the registration process above to allow you to identify and manage persistent offenders (where IP address isn't enough). Your moderation policy should be published so that commenters understand the basis on which they will be assessed. This is simply a matter of respect and setting the context of a discussion - similar approaches are used in face-to-face meetings. 

So in this case, I decline the publication of my comment and will not comment further on APO until your policy is adjusted to not require the publication of full names and is made easily accessible in your site along with your moderation guidelines. 

I will also be publishing this email in my blog to show the perils of requiring full names and linking to my post for Mumbrella: Toughen up - we need online anonymity (http://mumbrella.com.au/toughen-up-we-need-online-anonymity-58441). 

Cheers,
Craig

From: Peter Browne

Dear Craig,

My view is that if writers use their own names then responders should too. The policy is at the bottom of each article, just above the comment field. 

Cheers, Peter

From: Craig Thomler
Hi Peter,

Thanks for pointing this out. I had looked for dedicated 'Community guidelines' 'Comments policy' or 'Moderation policy' pages and looked at your summary articles, where I can still register or log-in to comment, but do not see the same message.

I now have looked at a full article and can see the text. It remains unclear on what basis you moderate.

Here's an example of what I mean by a moderation policy: http://myregion.gov.au/moderation-policy

I appreciate you believe that writers and commenters should have the same rights - although writers are often contributing for different reasons and have different agendas for expressing their views, some are even paid to do so, directly or indirectly (aka not necessarily by you). 

It will certainly be interesting to see how you decide to represent the writer when you receive an article from someone in a witness protection program or a whistleblower, and how you will treat comments. 

Cheers,
Craig

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Why aren't Aussies using open government data to create value?

This post was inspired by a comment by John Sheridan on Twitter,

@craigthomler what I'd like for #gov2au #NY? egs of use of #PSI for service delivery innovation, value creation etc, not just curiosity

It's a good New Years wish and highlights two questions that I have been pondering for a long time.

1. Why aren't people making more use of publicly release government data?
2. Does making government data publicly available have any value if people aren't using it to value add?

Let's take them in order...

1. Why aren't people making more use of publicly release government data?

In Australia the data.gov.au catalogue contains 844 datasets (and growing). NSW (data.nsw.gov.au) and Victoria's (data.vic.gov.au) catalogues are also quite large. 

By comparison, the US data.gov catalogue contains over 390,000 datasets, Canada's data.gc.ca over 265,000, the UK's data.gov.uk around 7,700,  Singapore's data.gov.sg about 5,000 datasets and New Zealand's data.govt.nz over 1,600 datasets.

Across these six countries (I am excluding the two states), that is in excess of 670,000 datasets released publicly. However if you search around there's not that many apps listed using the data. The US site lists around 1,150 and Australia's site lists 16 - however that's not many compared to the number of datasets.

As Victoria's data blog asks, what has happened to all the apps produced in government-sponsored competitions? Are they actually worth holding?

OK, let's work through a few possibilities. 

Firstly it could be that these datasets are being widely used, but people simply aren't telling the catalogues. Data may be embedded in websites and apps without any communication back to the central catalogue, or it may be downloaded and used in internal spreadsheets and intranets. In this case there's no actual issue, just a perceived one due to lack of evidence.

Secondly, to face facts, the majority of people probably are still not aware of these data catalogues - they haven't really been widely promoted and aren't of much interest to the popular media. Therefore there may be hundreds of thousands of people wishing to access certain government information but unaware that it is readily available.

Thirdly, those people aware of these datasets may be daunted by the number released, unable to find the data they specifically want to use or simply aren't interested.

Finally, perhaps simply releasing a dataset isn't enough. Few people are data experts or know what to do with a list of values. Could it be that we need simple and free analysis tools as well as raw data?

There's steps governments can take to address all of these possibilities.

If people aren't telling the government about their apps, why not establish light 'registration' processes to use them which capture information on why they are being used? Or if this is too invasive, offer people appropriate incentives to tell the central catalogue about their uses of the data.

Secondly, there may be a need to promote these data catalogues more actively - to build awareness via appropriate promotion.

Thirdly, perhaps we need to do more user-testing of our data catalogues to better understand if they meet the audience's needs. Combined with excellent mechanisms for suggesting and rating datasets, this could greatly inform the future development and success of these catalogues.

And finally, governments need to consider the next step. Provide the raw data, but also provide sites and tools that can analyse them. Sure governments are hoping that the public will create these, and maybe they will, however that doesn't mean that agencies can't do so as well. There's also pre-existing tools, such as Yahoo Pipes, IBM's Manyeyes and analytics tools from Google which could be pre-populated with the government datasets, ready for users to play with.

Alongside all these specific solutions, maybe governments need to start using some of the tools at their disposal to ask why people aren't using their data. Is it the wrong data? Presented in the wrong way? Too hard to use? Market research might help answer these questions.

2. Does making government data publicly available have any value if people aren't using it to value add?

Now to take the second question - does it really matter whether people are using open government data anyway?

Are there other goals that releasing data addresses, such as transparency and accountability, intra-government sharing and culture change?

If the mandate to release data leads to government culture change it may drive other benefits - improved collaboration, improved policy outcomes, cost-savings through code and knowledge sharing.

Of course it is harder to provide a direct quantitative link between releasing data, changing culture and the benefits above. However maybe this is what we need to learn how to measure, rather than simply the direct correlation between 844 datasets released, 16 apps created.

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