Deloittes Australia social media report offers guidance for internal comms

Deloittes Australia has released its Social Media Report 2012, providing much more than a glimpse into how social media is empowering their staff to connect, collaborate and solve problems, sharing wisdom, knowledge and ideas to deliver better customer outcomes.

If your executive and internal communications area are still resistant to the use of social media within the firewall, this report provides some compelling, statistically-supported evidence and examples of how social media can transform the inner landscape of an organisation, making it more responsive, innovative and effective.

Roaming from recruitment through gamification to scone making (an example of complex problem definition and solution via internal collaboration), the report is one of the most accessible and readable I've found in communicating how social media tools can make a difference to an organisation - private or public sector.

They've also done a great job of distilling an internal social media policy down to three words: Empower and trust.

Visit the Social Media Report 2012 (PDF).

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GovHack presentations and judging liveblog

Hi, I'll be liveblogging the presentations and judging from GovHack in Canberra below as it happens.

All the tears and all the cheers as 42 entrants go head for head for around $40,000 in prizes and the street cred of being a GovHack winner.

You can view all the entrants on the GovHack website.

Vote and comment on them now at govhack.dialogue-app.com (your views will be taken into account by the judges).



Photos from the GovHack presentations

GovHack crowd in Canberra

GovHack crowd in Canberra

The big screen at GovHack

Watching the Sydney GovHack crowd

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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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Share in over $30,000 worth of prizes by participating in GovHack 2012

With a strong focus on government data, GovHack is inviting teams of programmers and designers to invent new and better ways of delivering government data to Australians and will be rewarding the best apps, data mash-ups, and data visualisations with a share of $30,000 in prize money.

The event, being held in Canberra and Sydney from 1st - 3rd June, will challenge teams to answer the question and develop solutions for 'how can government data be better used to benefit Australians?'

The organisers have secured over thirty thousand dollars in prize money through sponsorships, although Pia Waugh, the chief organiser is tight-lipped about the prize categories, "We want people to come with fresh ideas and concepts and to build them at GovHack using publicly released data from government agencies. To keep the playing field level, we won’t tell anyone the prize categories until the event."

In previous years GovHack winners have found ways to compare government lobbying with the results of successful tenders, and designed mobile apps to help people find the nearest public toilet.

"This is a unique opportunity to be a part of generating ideas for how government can better use and re-use the wealth of information hidden away in its databases. By being a part of this event the participants get to, in a small way, directly influence how government data managers will look at and manage their data stores" Pia said.

GovHack is being supported by organisations including Adobe, MailChimp, Palantir and some of the biggest data holders in the Australian Government are providing prize money and data, including the National Archives of Australia, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), and the Bureau of Meteorology.

GovHack is an official part of 2012 APS Innovation week, with the support of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.

You can now register to participate, review the competition rules, or see an outline of the data to be made available on the GovHack site (http://www.govhack.org).

Prize categories will be announced at the event's opening on Friday 1st June.

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Stop waiting for the messiah and do it yourself

While there's many organisations now actively beginning to experiment with social media channels and tools, just as many - if not more - are still cautious about even putting a toe in the water.

"It's not right for us", they say, "our audience isn't online" or "doesn't want to engage with us" or "we don't understand the risks" or "we're not ready yet" or "we're waiting for a critical need".

I'd like to say to all of these organisations - stop waiting for the messiah and do it yourself.

As has been shown through research, humans often make decisions first and justify their actions later - which means that most of these so-called reasons for not engaging online are justifications, not evidence.

How do you know whether a new tool will work for you if you don't experiment and pilot? How will you build the expertise you may need when there is a critical need for you to use these channels?

We've seen this behaviour in industries like retail, where a major retailer, Harvey Norman, is now pulling back from use of the internet because it didn't meet their projections on revenue. How did they work out those projections without experimenting online? Why did they not meet the projections and how will pulling back increase their success?

Given the internet has been a valid sales channel for fifteen or more years and some of the largest retailers in the world, such as Amazon, have built themselves online, how could any organisation in retail claim that online isn't viable, or delay entering the market - at least in an experimental way - for over ten years?

If you're not yet engaging actively online via social media just stop waiting for the messiah - that person or reason that makes it 'compelling' for you.

The compelling reasons are that 95% of Australians are online, that other businesses are building their expertise online, that online is the second biggest media today in Australia.

Online no-one cares that you're not there - but they are talking about you - truth and otherwise.

You wouldn't wait until an emergency occurred before building your emergency management systems. You wouldn't wait until you were in court before preparing your defence.

Organisations have case studies to learn from, examples of good practice and a range of resources and tools available to experiment with online, which allow you to learn the ropes without leaving you hanging.

If you're not building your experience now then how do you expect to build it in the future? Do you think your business will be able to afford the talent needed to leapfrog a ten-year or more advantage from your competitors, rivals and detractors?

Is delay really worth the risk?

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This week's social media score - Public: 3 Organisations: 0

This has been an insightful week for organisations using, or considering using, social media with three successive events demonstrating how far power has shifted to the public and illustrating how Australians companies are struggling to engage effectively online.

First up was Qantas with its poorly timed "Qantas luxury" promotion. Qantas launched the Twitter competition by inviting the public to tweet their idea of travel luxury using the hashtag #qantasluxury.

However Qantas appears to not have recognized that the tens of thousands of negative comments levied against the organisation since their shutdown represented a deep seated frustration and disillusionment with the company. Even though Qantas had hired four additional staff focused on monitoring social media the week before.

Within minutes of Qantas's tweet announcing the competition the public hijacked the hashtag and turned it against the company, using it to vent their concerns and frustrations at the airline.

This was picked up by traditional media and covered widely, turning a small ($1,500 in prizes) competition into what was called a national PR disaster for Qantas.

Next was Nissan, whose online competition, managed through their Facebook page, went pear-shaped when the winner of the competition turned out to be good friends with one of Nissan's staff running their social media presence.

While the competition was totally above board, with the winner selected objectively by finding the most car graphics on websites, unfortunately the winner's friendship with the Nissan staff member made it appear otherwise.

Nissan themselves were very upfront about it - indicating that while they congratulated the winner they'd have preferred if he hadn't won, but he'd done so fair and square without breaching any competition terms.

In this situation Nissan's approach did a lot to mute the concern, however it demonstrated the issue of friendship networks. If you're a staff member operating social media channels for an organisation it is highly likely you have many friends online. So what do you tell when a new company competition launches? You let your friends know online so they can spread the word and increase the competition's reach. Entirely above board, however risking a backfire if your friends can gain advantage by being first into a competition.

Third, and most significant, has been the social media backlash against the Kyle and Jackie O show following the comments of Kyle Sandilands regarding the deputy editor of news.com.au after her article about the reaction to Kyle and Jackie's TV special (which rated extremely poorly).

The backlash, much of it under the hashtag #vilekyle, has led to around a dozen companies deciding to withdraw their advertising from 2DayFM and sponsorship from the Kyle and Jackie O show - even the Federal government has now withdrawn all advertising from any show hosted by Kyle Sandilands.

Over 15,000 people have signed an online petition calling for advertisers to drop support for Sandilands and a number of people (myself included) have called for Southern Cross Austereo to let Sandilands go. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, however the loss of significant sponsors and advertisers will place significant pressure on the company to reconsider Sandiland's contract and on air presence.

All three examples above this week demonstrate different risks in social media.

Qantas failed to monitor and accurately assess the public view, selecting the wrong social media approach to attempt to rebuild its brand. Nissan made an easy misstep, selecting a competition mechanism that raised the risk of someone close to a staff member winning a prize, however by handling the situation in a proactive and robust way minimized the damage and emerged largely unscathed despite initial public concerns.

The Sandilands incident (which remains ongoing) demonstrates how public outrage can translate into the need for rapid organisational action, both through advertiser withdrawal and the attempts by Sandilands and Austereo to apologies for his behaviour (albeit fairly weak apologies that have not satisfied many online). In this case even though Sandiland's comments were made on radio, not on social media, the backlash occurred online and neither Kyle nor Jackie O, nor their employer Southern Cross Austereo, were prepared to engage with the public online response, whereas many of the sponsors and advertisers did, helping to minimize damage to their own brands.

None of these events impacted the government or public service - and in fact there's never been a significant social media disaster due to online engagement by public servants or agencies in Australia (I don't include media attacks on public servants such as by News Ltd on Greg Jericho) - however they all have lessons for government agencies to learn.

It is important to recognize that being absent or unresponsive online and in social media is no protection against public outrage (as the Sandilands incident shows), and failing to monitor online sentiment is a recipe for PR disaster (as Qantas demonstrated). However if organisations act with good faith, communicate and engage actively (as Nissan and several advertisers from the Sandilands issue did), they can minimize the impact of social media gaffes and build strong online relationships with their customers.

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ABS launches CodePlay competition for tertiary students

The ABS has launched the CodePlay initiative as a Gov 2.0 approach to help drive collaboration between students, developers and national and international statistical agencies.

The competition challenges Australian tertiary students to help the ABS design the next generation of open-data tools to help people access, view and use statistical information.

While I'm not sure why the ABS believes that all the great ideas will come from university students - why not include everyone - this is a strong initiative and should produce a very interesting outcome.

To learn more, visit the CodePlay website or their twitter account at @ABSCodePlay.

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What's the digital IQ of public sector organisations?

If organizations that used Facebook to disseminate their message were actual people, NASA would be the captain of the football team and the class president, the White House would be his cheerleader girlfriend and the the Department of Commerce would be the nerd they both pushed into a locker...
Technews Daily 

Digital IQ Index: Public Sector cover
Source: George Washington University

The George Washington University in the United States has released a report ranking the 'Digital IQ' of 100 government agencies, political and nonprofit organizations.

Based on the effectiveness of their websites, use of social media and other online tools, the ranking shows some stark differences in the performance of public sector groups seeking to understand, participate in and influence public discussions.

More than 80 percent of the organizations in the study had a presence on at least one social media platform, 63 percent hosted a blog and 20 percent had some presence on mobile platforms.

The report states that social media use is already demonstrably bearing fruit in politics, with 74 per cent of the US House of Representatives and 81 per cent of the US Senate candidates elected in November's midterm elections having more Facebook likes than their rivals.

The report also suggested that most public sector organisations have yet to unlock the power of digital platforms, with over 50 per cent of the organisations indexed registering Digital IQs in the 'Challenged' and 'Feeble' ranks.

Despite these low rankings, 85 per cent already had a Facebook presence, 87 per cent were on YouTube and 83 per cent used Twitter, with 73 per cent on all three. However many had not focused on building large audiences - with 46 per cent of public sector organisations having fewer than 10,000 Facebook 'Likes' (previously Fans) and the median Twitter audience being 5,000.

Only 25 per cent of organisations engaged in two-way dialogue on Facebook and only 35 per cent on Twitter.

President Obama's weekly YouTube videos have apparently 'taken off', with the White House YouTube channel having been viewed over 34 million times. The report states that,

Analysis of views of Obama’s speeches and public events reveals that the public is increasingly turning to the White House channel rather than to traditional news outlets, suggesting a key transformation in the media ecosystem.

Eight of the President's top officials have taken to the social media sphere as a channel to engage with citizens and amplify their message. In particular,

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu gets kudos from his fans for his personal approach on Facebook. In the midst of the obligatory energy-related news, Chu posted his review of the latest blockbuster, “The Social Network.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answers questions from his Twitter followers on the YouTube Series “First Question with Robert Gibbs.”

Mobile use still appears to be lagging, with only 28 per cent of the public sector organisations evaluated having a mobile site, smartphone app or iPad platform. The US Military led in all of these categories, with each of its six branches present on mobile.

The report showcases a number of US public sector social media successes, from NASA's 'golden ticket' lotteries, through the National Guard's 'show us your arms' recruiting strategy to the General Service Administration's real-time dashboard of all executive branch and Federal agency notifications, which citizens can sign-up to to receive alerts across a range of categories.

The report can be downloaded as a PDF from www.l2thinktank.com/publicsectordigitaliq/

I wonder how Australia's public sector would rank.

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GovHack returns - as part of Amped

Last year Australia's Gov 2.0 Taskforce initiated the GovHack event, produced by Web Directions, to showcase what could be done with open government data.

This year I'm glad to see that GovHack is returning - as part of Amped, a free 10 hour hack day, in Sydney's PowerHouse Museum on Sat 16th of October.

Whether you're a web designer or developer, interaction designer, graphic designer, project manager, writer, or just someone who has has an interesting idea, Amped is an opportunity to strut your stuff and create something of value.

Amped is fully catered, will have expert mentors on hand. The grand prize for the best hack is a trip for the winning team to Tokyo's Web Directions East.

RSVP at the Amped website.

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ACT government launches Canberra 2030 consultation integrating Web 2.0 tools

The government for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has just launched a consultation asking for the community's views on what the city should be like in twenty years time.

The Canberra 2030 consultation has gone some way to integrate Web 2.0 tools. It allows residents to submit ideas and vote on the ideas of others (up or down) and has a 'discussion forum' - although this is pre-moderated and not structured in a standard forum mode, which is likely to constrain the discussion somewhat.

There's a Twitter account and a Flickr account and also a video up at YouTube - although this doesn't appear to have been embedded in the Canberra 2030 site itself.

Despite a few basic usability issues and a little of a 'tickbox' approach, the site represents a real attempt to consult Canberrans in a more interactive way and it is worth a look.

Plus if you're an ACT resident you could win an iPad.

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Keep an eye on the Gruen sessions

If you're interested in advertising and maybe even watch the Gruen Transfer, don't forget to keep an eye on their web-only content, particularly the Gruen Sessions.

The latest session discusses Tourism Queensland's "Best job in the world" campaign, one of the best examples of how to use social media to generate interest and consumer choice (next to Old Spice).

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What's been the impact of Victoria and NSW's Gov 2.0 Apps competitions?

On 21 June Victoria announced the winners of its App My State competition, with prizes being given out by the Premier. A list of the winners and a video of the presentation is here.

A few days later on 24 June NSW announced the winners of the Apps4NSW competition, with their own video.

Most competitions end when the prizes are awarded. The top entries get some kudos, while everyone else goes home empty-handed, their entries forgotten.

However in an Apps competition, such as NSW and Victoria's events, the award ceremony is only the beginning.

Between these two competitions there's been about 300 Apps and ideas generated that use government data to assist citizens. The cost of developing and capturing them has been around $200,000 in prize money.

Assuming that on average these Apps and ideas could cost $20,000 each for a government to develop, the total value of these competitions has been around $6 million dollars - a direct return of 30x the prize money invested.

These Apps and ideas are now publicly accessible. This means that any other government, organisation or individual can review them and use them to stimulate further innovation, leveraging their value beyond the original competition. Some of the best Apps and ideas may be extended beyond their home states, or replicated elsewhere in the world - generating further public value.

At the same time around 500 state government datasets have been released to the public in a reusable format. This data represents millions of dollars of investment by taxpayers which is now accessible to and usable by them. Now the approach to opening data has been trialed we are likely to see more public data released into the public domain.

On top of the Apps and the data, NSW and Victoria have demonstrated that there is public interest in these types of competition, making it more likely that other jurisdictions will consider holding their own similar events.

Also this event has helped support and demystify the cultural changes required by public services to be more collaborative, transparent and innovative. The value of this to citizens is incalculable.

So what's been the major impact of these competitions?

They have helped wedge open a door to government openness and transparency that, over time, will open wider - allowing more light in, and more value out.

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Why does government struggle with innovation?

The Public Sector Innovation Network email list (run by the Department of Innovation - you can subscribe from their website) sends out some very interesting articles about innovation every week.

This week one in particular caught my eye, a piece entitled The Biggest Obstacle to Innovation that looks at inertia and how this may have greater impact in a public sector context than in other situations.

The article's author, Tim Kastelle, argues that government has many disincentives to overcome inertia. With no profit motive, no threat of organisational failure (an agency going 'out of business' - rather than the threat of a front-page news item) and where there is often a deeply entrenched non-innovative culture, there's simply no pressure for government to innovate.

I often wonder how it would be different if departments were established on the basis of profit - with the government paying multiple departments to provide services and the departments competing to offer the same services at the best possible price.

This has some equivalents - governments frequently pay commercial providers to deliver services on their behalf based on value and service levels and in many jurisdictions pays not-for-profits on a similar basis.

Of course it could lead to duplication of effort and greater instability both in employment and departmental survival - but aren't these key factors driving innovation?

A stable, monopolistic environment doesn't tend to lead to innovative behaviour and tends to increase its bias to inertia over time - actively preventing innovation to maintain the status quo. We've seen that again and again both in the commercial and public sectors. Civilisations have failed due to their institutions being unable to respond rapidly to environmental and social change.

Perhaps a hybrid model is feasible - having departments with core responsibilities and then having 'fringe' services bid on competitively by departments for management rights. Whoever gets the rights would be responsible for delivering that service and would be 'paid' for delivery in a way that allows the department to take excess funds and funnel them back into core activities - and appropriate compensation for staff (personal gain - whether monetary or through social credit - is a key factor in innovation).

This hybrid model already exists in Australia in some ways. Often a lead agency is appointed as the manager and budget holder for cross-government initiatives. However there's unlikely to be a competitive bidding process whereby departments compete to demonstrate they can deliver the best value.

If innovation is becoming a core attribute required by government organisations, merely to keep up with the rate of change in society and the development of new ways to deliver services and fulfil public needs, perhaps we need to rewrite some of the rulebook, sacrificing part of our desire for stability in return for greater change.

Maybe this won't be such a large sacrifice anyway. Government departments often restructure due to internal or external pressures and already need to react to our fast-changing world. Stability is becoming more and more of an illusion and constant change more a reality. The need for public servants to be biased towards action, as Tim discusses, is becoming greater and greater.

Constant change has negatives and can be very uncomfortable for individuals used to stable environments, but if we can harness it to drive innovation in our policy development, service delivery and in how we organise and operate the instrumentality of government it may also uncover some major benefits.

What do you think - should we trade public sector stability for innovation?

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UK Labour and Liberal Democrat parties crowdsourcing election advertising

Now that the UK general election has been called, it will be interesting to see the role social media will play in a Westminster election, compared to the US's last Presidential election.

One of the first examples of how this election will use social media has been demonstrated by the UK's ruling Labour party, who held a three-day web competition inviting supporters to submit advertising ideas for an election poster.

They received over 1,000 ideas in three days - in itself a great awareness building exercise.

The Liberal-Democrats are also crowd sourcing election advertising as well at Art Creative, although this competition is still in progress.

Back on Labour's competition, as reported in Campaign's article, Labour picks winner of crowd sourcing competition as Tories launch counter campaign,

The winner, 24-year old Jacob Quagliozzi from St Albans, devised a poster depicting David Cameron as the 'Ashes to Ashes' character DCI Gene Hunt, along with the headline 'Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s'.

Saatchi and Saatchi helped on the program and in a quote reproduced in Blur's post, How Can British Politics Adapt To The Crowdsourcing Model?, said that,

"We are learning that the way to do communications is not to tell people what you want them to hear but to let people play," says Richard Huntington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi. "This is the sort of thing that all marketers ought to be exploring right now."

Another key quote from the Blur post sums up my thinking on government online engagement both for political and departmental purposes,

For Crowdsourcing to have a genuine effect on the British political system, the parties must not jettison their crowds until the next election campaign comes along. Crowds take time to develop and to see Obamaesque effects, they must be interactive and innovatively maintained during a Parliament term.

Engagement needs to be ongoing to build an audience and drive effective outcomes rather than 'turned on and off' like a tap as our campaigns are today. The turn on/turn off approach means that governments pay more to build an audience and don't leverage ongoing community interest in topics (such as defense, health, education and immigration) at a low ongoing cost in order to reduce high communications costs during major campaigns.

Below is the video produced in support of the winning UK Labour competition entry:

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How governments can use gameplay to educate and upskill a community

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

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

To quote the game's blog:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Victoria launches App my State competition with $100,000 in prizes

The Gov 2.0 genie is well and truly out of its bottle in Victoria, with the Victorian Government recently advocating that the majority of Victorian public sector information be released for reuse under Creative Commons licensing.

Their latest initiative is the App my State competition, which builds on the (currently running) Apps4NSW competition and last year's Gov 2.0 Taskforce Mash-up Australia competition.

Victoria's competition is a little different from the others in that it doesn't require entrants to use Victorian public sector data (although around 100 datasets have been released for use) - entrants can use national and other publicly available data, produce applications without using this data that are useful to Victorians or even simply submit ideas, which broadens the competition beyond programmers (a very good thing I believe).

Also, unlike Apps4NSW, all the entrants are published online - a very good thing and in keeping with the entire approach to government transparency.

The one limitation I'm a little disappointed about is that everyone submitting an entry must be Victorian - which limits the scope of sourcing innovative ideas from around Australia and even around the world. I don't believe past Victorians can enter either - which leaves me out.

Regardless of this, it is great to see the Victorians getting behind innovation and I wish them all the best in this competition. Maybe it will become an annual event...

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Victoria launching $100,000 'Apps my state' competition to create open data applications

Following the lead of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's MashupAustralia and NSW's Apps4nsw competition (which runs until 24 March), Victoria's Minister for Information and Communications Technology, John Lenders, has announced the 'Apps my state' competition.

In his media release, Minister Lenders said that,

"App My State is a competition to encourage software developers and members of the public to create web or mobile applications using Victorian Government data.

"We’re looking for the cream of Victoria’s innovative and hi-tech communities to come up with new and helpful ways to use this information – an added incentive for local talent to develop their ideas for fellow Victorians.

"Applications will be judged for their innovation, design and development, usefulness, accessibility and general excellence."

Victoria already has range of data available that would be usable in the competition, hopefully with more to come.
The competition will launch in late February at the Victorian Premier's website.

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UK launches data.gov.uk (and how Australia could top it)

Just in case you missed this the other week, on 21 January the UK launched the data.gov.uk website with 2,500 government datasets available for access and reuse by the public.

This leapfrogged the US's data.gov, which now has around 1,000 datasets available.

The UK site also extends the government open data space in several other directions, with a wiki and forum supporting discussion and collaboration between people reusing datasets in the site and a Ideas tool for submitting ideas on what data should be released and how it should be combined to provide new and useful insights.

The site also includes a gallery of applications developed to make use of government data, making it a central place to locate these applications.

I believe this is the new world leader for open data websites from government - though I look forward to the day when Australia tops it (in data.gov.au).

How could we top it with data.gov.au?

Here's some ideas:

• Build in a data analysis and visualisation module that allows people without technical expertise to combine, model and view datasets, no matter their origin (like IBM's Manyeyes).
• Then allow people to embed these visualisations into their own sites.
  
• Support community submission of data that can then be shared and used by government alongside government datasets to improve insights and understanding - including allowing the appropriate Creative Commons copyright to be embedded into these datasets as part of the submission process.
• Comments on datasets - allow every set of data to support a discussion to allow people to ask questions to clarify what the dataset contains and discuss how it could be presented in a more usable way.
  
• Allow tagging of datasets and applications - so that over time there's a bottom-up folksonomy that people can use to find related data or search on, rather than relying on government metadata (which may not match the community's mental models).
• Support data correction through the site - if someone detects an error in a dataset there should be a clear path to notify the submitter of the data and have it corrected.
• Vote on applications, allowing the community to provide feedback on how useful and valuable they found them. The voting mechanism should be able to be embedded with applications in other sites, rather than rely on people returning to data.gov.au to vote.
  
• GEOmapping engine, to map locations such that they can be placed on maps, rather than having to have people build their own tools to transform the data.
  
• Collaborative data modelling projects - where the community is invited to work together to model data, assisting the government and community.
  
• Data competitions with cash prizes. Similar to the NetFlicks Prize, provide the tools for government agencies - and even commercial entities - to create competitions to solve tricky data problems through crowdsourcing.
  
• Create user profiles and including information on how many applications / data visualisations and other activities they have undertaken in relation to the data site. People respond to competitive challenge and recognition - like in the Australian National Library's Manyhands project.
• Create webinars and run physical events to raise awareness of the site and to show Australians (developers, corporates, not-for-profits, interested parties) how easy it is to reuse government data.
• Hold annual awards for the best applications, including peoples' choice awards based on user votes and awards for schools and students to encourage an interest in and innovative uses of data.

If you have other ideas on how Data.gov.au could be better than the UK and US efforts, please add them in the comments below.

To finish up - here's a good presentation from Sir Tim Berners Lee (who has led the work on data.gov.uk) on why we need to make government data available in raw reusable form, to the public.

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Guide to creating your own 'Apps for Democracy' contest

The organisers of the US-based 'Apps for Democracy' competition have released a guide for other governments and organisations on how to run their own similar contests.

The Guide to Creating Your Own Apps for Democracy contains many useful tips based on how to setup a content and what worked and didn't work in the contests run in the United States.

There's also a related presentation available from the link above.

Separately, there's also a document available with a summary of insights from the contest in Washington.

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Australiam Gov 2.0 Taskforce announces winners for its brainstorming and innovation competitions

Australia's Government 2.0 Taskforce has announced the winners of its structured brainstorming competition, which was held in September - October this year.

The competition involved public submissions and voting via an ideas market system with the final decision on winners being made by the Taskforce.

In the structured brainstorming category there were two winning ideas, both nominated by Brad Peterson,

• Government Gazettes in XML
• Whole of government persistent URL resolver service

In the Government 2.0 Innovators category, the Taskforce announced three winners,

• Large agency: ABC Pool
• Small agency: Mosman Municipal Council
• Individual: Craig Thomler (yes, that's me)

I'm honoured to both have been nominated and to have been selected amongst the winners and would like to commend the other winners for their efforts.

I'd love to see similar events run on a ongoing basis to help encourage the suggestion of good ideas, reward those innovating in government and inspire others to do likewise - similar to the US's SAVE award (introduced by President Obama in September).

Perhaps this would even inspire agencies to run similar awards/competitions internally to encourage innovation that improves their operations, as the US Transportation Security Administration does via its IdeaFactory tool.

It is very hard to manufacture innovation in a highly structured organisation, however it is relatively easy to recognise and reward it.

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