Why open data and public collaboration is important for 21st Century democracy

Beth Noveck, formerly the White House Deputy CTO, has published a fantastic paper on why it is so important to evolve democratic systems for the 21st century, and providing details of how a range of governments around the world are doing so.

The paper is titled "Evolving democracy for the 21st Century" and is available from her blog.

Through a combination of improved transparency and accountability, the public release of data in reusable formats and the willingness to openly collaborate with individuals, not-for-profits and companies in using that data and thinking from outside public services to develop new policy insights, governments today have the most significant opportunity in over a hundred years to reframe their relationships with their constituents and draw on the wisdom of the crowd to improve policy outcomes and services.

 I hope the opportunity is not squandered.

Read full post...

View summary...

Only professional scientists can do science, only professional journalists can do journalism, only professional policy makers can create good policy - not anymore

I attended the Australian Science Communicator's new media forum last night, participating on the panel as a Gov 2.0 Advocate, along with a distinguished group of science communicators and academics.

One view expressed on the panel was that while scientists should communicate basic science to the public, the uninformed masses should not be involved in reviewing or doing science.

This reflects views heard in other professions over the last ten years - that bloggers should not do journalism or critique journalists and that the public should be kept at arms length in government policy development as they don't know enough to provide a valid contribution (explaining why some resist the use of consultations and policy co-design is rarely used across Australian governments).

This viewpoint by intelligent and highly skilled professionals is not, in my view, surprising. Anyone who has dedicated years of their life, slogging through universities degrees, post-graduate studies and climbing the job ladder knows they have earnt the right to do what they do. Anyone who hasn't put in those hard yards is often viewed with suspicion, even disdain.

This is partly a recognition that there's 'secret knowledge' and expertise required to undertake some of this work, however it can also be partially ego-driven - experts often define themselves by their expertise as it feeds their sense of value.

The changes in the last ten years have permitted many who don't have formal learning or specific career experience to learn about and contribute in fields such as science, journalism and policy creation. This can threaten some experts (who are often quite public about the divide between professional and citizen activities)

However for many others it presents opportunities to broaden their reach, tap into wider collective expertise and to build knowledge and understanding. This in turn can lead to greater influence and better outcomes - even greater funding or profits or positive social change. Greater understanding can also reduce the fear of 'otherness' and concerns and suspicions around elitism - which have dogged certain groups, such as scientists, in recent years.

Even more than this, people who are not acknowledged as experts often can provide a different view of challenges and different approaches to solving problems that sometimes experts, who can become locked into a particular professional worldview, or lack relevant broader experience, cannot see. This can lead to breakthroughs or new realizations.

Regardless of whether individuals support or oppose this trend of 'encroachment' of 'amateurs' into formerly elite fields, the trend is real - isn't it better to harness it rather than resist it?

After all history has demonstrated the fate of organisations and individuals who resisted social trends. They generally are not with us anymore, or exist in much diminished and niche forms.

Read full post...

View summary...

ACT government Virtual Community Cabinet on again today at 12.30pm - follow the liveblog

The ACT Government has scheduled its next Virtual Community Cabinet (VCC) meeting for 12.30 today.

This is the third VCC held by the ACT government and has the theme "The Canberra you want to live in past 2013".

I'm collecting the public discussion via the liveblog below (and by RSS) - which means you can also watch the discussion here. or watch and participate on Twitter, using the hashtag #actvcc.

Note you will require a Twitter account to participate and your comments are published publicly.

Read full post...

View summary...

Traditional media insiders are the least qualified to comment on the future of traditional media

With the release of News Ltd's Future of journalism 'discussion' I've submitted a 'Your view' to the site which may, or may not, be published at some point in the future.

On the basis that traditional media is no longer the gatekeeper for participation in public debate I have posted my submission below.

I see a lot of the debate over traditional media relevancy and business models being very 'fiddling on the edges' stuff, attempting to use technical or legal barriers (such as copyright) to preserve an industrial era view of media which media consumers, now also media producers, are rejecting in droves.

Today any individual or organisation can create and maintain its own media platform capable of reaching 95% of Australians, and over 2 billion people worldwide.

The Internet, by merely existing, allows entrepreneurs and agile organisations to question all previous assumptions about the collection, collation, filtering, distribution and monetization of content. As a global playing field, the importance of geographic boundaries has been further diminished.

Being agile, efficient and effective is no longer sufficient. Organisations must be prepared to destroy and reconstruct themselves under entirely different models to remain competitive and relevant.

The jury is still very much out as to whether traditional newspapers, radio and television media organisations will be able to do this before they see a substantial amount of their profitability dry up.

My submission:

It is no surprise that people who work in traditional media, who have a financial and emotional stake in its future, are supportive of their organisation’s future (provided they are agile, efficient and effective).

I can see expert blacksmiths believing the same with the arrival of mass-produced cars and metalwork.

However what those beholden to traditional media cannot see is the viewpoint from the outside world.

Yes access to information is a requirement for liberal democracies. Yes quality news is a tool used to stabilize societies and promote understanding.

However there is no law of nature that states that profitability must be at the root of quality news coverage and reporting. Nor is there a causal link between professional journalism and professional news reporting – journalists, as humans, are as prone to reflecting their own biases as others and, even when trained to be objective, are at the mercy of sub-editors (where they still exist), editors and the overall political ambitions of for-profit media concerns.

Now I am not saying that government-run media (with no profit objective) is the answer. These systems bring their own control and bias issues, they still need cash and still have oversight from humans who may be influenced by political views.

Nor am I saying that for-profit, or even not-for-profit independent media outlets do not have a future. They do.

However the vast expansion in expressive capability that has been realized through the Internet has offered a second model to news gathering and reporting that will seriously challenge the biases of distribution systems with tacked on news collection and reporting facilities.

There is no reason to assume that industrial news services will continue to be the leading players in the media market – certainly the impact of the web on other industrial era centralised industries has been profound. When the means of production and distribution are diversified, some necessary changes and adaptation is required.

However those who have financial and emotional connection to the old models, while the most prolific commenters on new models, are not the gatekeepers to these new media forms, nor are they objective and impartial observers, able to assess the changes without bias.

I would challenge News Ltd and all other industrial-era news industry players to look outside themselves and their orbits (bloggers who are, in effect, news people) to the broader changes occurring in society.

We need to consider new models – perhaps the disaggregation of news collection and distribution, creating an open market for people to write news, have it submitted to, paid for and distributed by strong distribution channels, or for citizens (who are now all journalists, so we can drop the ‘citizen journalist’ tag) to be paid based on views, likes and reputation when submitting their work to an open news distribution platform.

News is no longer the news, access to distribution is the news and there is a pressing need to experiment with new approaches to opening up news distribution rather than locking it down into professional guild-like channels.

Read full post...

View summary...

The role of social media during the Arab Spring

John Sheridan posted a link on Twitter to a very interesting analysis of the impact of social media on the revolutions across the Arab world over the last year.

The paper provides strong evidence that social media was one of the key causes of these revolutions due to its ability to place a human face on political oppression and had a critical role in mobilising dissidents to organise protests, criticise their governments, and spread ideas about democracy.

The report claims that social media had a central role in shaping political debates, for example,

Our evidence shows that social media was used heavily to conduct political conversations by a key demographic group in the revolution – young, urban, relatively well educated individuals, many of whom were women.

Both before and during the revolutions, these individuals used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to put pressure on their governments. In some cases, they used new technologies in creative ways such as in Tunisia where democracy advocates embarrassed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali by streaming video of his wife using a government jet to make expensive shopping trips to Europe.

The report also provides evidence that online conversations about liberty, democracy and revolution on Twitter often immediately preceded large protests. This supports the use of social media as a civic organising tool.

Governments that attempted to shut down the internet, or specific social media services, were clearly also of the view that these were key channels for public dissidence outside their direct control, unlike  government-run or influenced newspapers, radio stations and television channels.

Finally, the paper demonstrates how social media was used to open up internal discussions to the world, helping spread democratic ideas across borders, providing global support networks for local dissidents and informing the media, which then fuelled awareness, interest, engagement and support for the Arab Spring through media reports.

The paper is an excellent read and quantifies a number of the effects of social media during the Arab Spring, which could be used by political 'dissidents' in other countries to help influence local debate.

Note that like all research, it is a little of a two-edged sword, as the paper could also be used by governments seeking to minimise debate to pre-empt online dissidence by establishing frameworks that can be extended to allow strict control of online discussion.

These frameworks  include national firewalls, broad-based and readily expandable online censorship regimes, internet kill switches and approaches that place the control of national internet infrastructure into government-controlled monopolies.

Often justified as beneficial initiatives designed to protect people from international cyberattacks, online fraud or inappropriate online content (which they may also do), these frameworks, if implemented without appropriate legal and privacy checks and balances, can be repurposed to restrict citizen access and quash undesired public debate, exclude certain individuals or organisations from participating online or even identify specific troublemakers for incarceration or worse.

I have embedded the document below for easy reading, or it can be downloaded in PDF format here, Opening closed regimes.

Opening closed regimes - What was the role of social media during the Arab Spring?

Read full post...

View summary...

Can microblogging save or destroy governments?

In Australia many people still treat microblogging tools such as Twitter with scepticism and scorn, or even dismiss it outright as a tool for 'discussing breakfast'.

While the more negative views are beginning to shift, due to the active role Twitter played in the Brisbane floods, Australians still largely consider microblogs as a tool for emergency and breaking news, rather than as a tool for democracy, government engagement and accountability.

In China, in dramatic contrast to Australia, government officials have been waking to the potential of microblogging services for reconnecting with the public - and to the shock of being held accountable at a speed that outraces the fastest censor.

China's first microblogging services were introduced in 2009 and have grown in popularity extremely quickly. Today there are reportedly more than 195 million users of the leading microblogging services, almost ten times the population of Australia and approximately 15 percent of the Chinese population.

Interestingly about the same proportion, 15 percent, of Australians use Twitter, our most popular microblog service.

A Global Times study in March-April this year found that "71 percent of Chinese Web users attribute their growing interest in politics to microblogging". Of the respondents, 59.3 percent said "they had become more inclined to express their political views on microblogs" and 23.1 percent chose politics as their favourite topic of discussion via microblog (with 36.6 percent citing social news and 19.6 percent daily-life topics, such as fashion and heath).

The respondents were highly in favour of politicians using microblogs, with 72.1 percent backing the idea. However two thirds (65.6 percent) complained that most government microblogs were merely publicity stunts.

Microblogs have also become a major source of news in China, with the Communication University of China in Beijing reporting in their Internet Real-time Public Opinion Index Annual Report 2010 that within 20 months of being allowed into China, microblogs had become the third-favorite online source of information, after news portals and online forums.

The report highlighted land acquisition and official corruption scandals as being hot on microblogging sites - both highly sensitive and politicised topics that rarely are discussed in mainstream Chinese news channels.

A separate report in 2010 was reported to state that more than 20 percent of the 50 most-discussed public events in China through 2010 were first reported on by microbloggers.

Government in China has increasingly recognising the potential uses and risks of microblogging.

It has become increasing difficult for the Chinese government to control sensitive discussions online due to the speed and reach of microblogs. Equally the size of the main microblogging networks makes it dangerous for the Chinese government to simply close down them down.

Therefore government officials are increasingly actively engaging via microblogs in order to influence conversations. In fact, "How to open a microblog" has become a training course for high-level Beijing government officials.

Accordingly, in March 2011 Sina, one of the leading microblogging services, reported that there were over 3,000 official government microblog accounts on their service, spread between agencies and high-level officials.

In July it was reported that 4,920 government departments and 3,949 government officials had opened microblog accounts at weibo.com.  The same report indicated that the ten government microblogs in China had a total of 5.08 million followers in the first half of 2011.

It has also been reported that more than 1,200 microblogs have been opened by police authorities throughout China, resulting in a number of high-profile successful convictions.


For example, police in Xiamen, reported that they were able to solve the murder of a three-year-old girl in six days by releasing details of the murder via their microblog, together with a reward offer for further information. The message was forwarded more than 10,000 times and, according to a report by China Daily, led to the collection of more than 100 pieces of information used to solve the case.

The highest ranking individual official microblogging in China is Zhang Chunxian, the party chief of Xinjiang province. He took over in Xinjiang in April 2010, about nine months after ethnic riots led authorities to shut down mobile and internet services across the province.

Zhang has more than 148,000 followers for his microblog and has told the China Daily that microblogging can "be used to promote the government's efforts in Xinjiang's development."

Given there are over 450 million internet users and 900 million mobile phone users (those on smartphones can microblog), there is enormous potential for the sustained growth of microblogging in China.

With microblogging able to circumvent many censorship barriers, China's government is being forced to choose between closing down entire services, potentially facing extreme public backlash, or embracing increased openness and engagement with the public, dealing actively with charges of corruption, inappropriate conduct by officials and allowing citizens to share news before government communications channels can present official viewpoints.

If microblogging has the potential to have this impact in China, it is a channel that cannot be ignored or given lip service by governments in Australia or other nations.

Perhaps the two statements below best sums up the potential of microblogging for the Chinese government - and other governments around the world.

From the People's Daily of 2 August 2011:

Mastering the use of the internet shows a leader’s quality and ability. We hope that more and more leaders show their capacity for speech on the internet and on microblogs, and find popularity. We hope even more that more and more leaders address the conditions of the people in the real world, through real actions.

From the China Daily of 2 July 2011:

If governments can correctly and properly guide public opinions, use microblogging as a good platform to learn about public opinions and the wisdom of the people, and find and solve problems as soon as possible, forming a widely-participated, orderly and interactive microblogging public opinion environment is completely possible. Microblogging will also become a "release valve" of social emotions and the "lubricant" of government-public relations.

References
China’s microbloggers unafraid to rattle the censor’s cage 15/8/2011 - Business World Online
Politics in the age of the microblog 2/8/2011 - Chinese Media Project
China tackles the messy world of microblogs 1/8/2011 - Chinese Media Project
Microblogs a Threat to China's National Security: Official Report 14/7/2011 - The Epoch Times
China's government offcials open up to microblogs 14/7/2011 - Want China Times
How microblogging power shakes reality in China 2/7/2011 - China Daily
Xinhua Insight: Communist Party microblogs to reach out to public 24/6/2011 - English.news.cn
Must Officials Microblog? 6/5/2011 - Beijing Review
University names top ten official microblogs 25/4/2011 - Want China Times
Microblogging to improve governance 6/4/2011 - Global Times
Microblogs in China government's fight to win public approval 9/3/2011 - Reuters
Government Gets Big Into Microblogging 14/1/2011 - China Realtime Report
Police microblog helps catch murderers in East China 1/12/2010 - China Daily

Read full post...

View summary...

Turning open government petitions into policies in Latvia, using online banking to authenticate citizens

It can be difficult to get a perspective on the Government 2.0 activities in non-English speaking countries.

However thanks to Francis Irving, who posted an account in the My Society email list in the UK, forwarded to the OpenAustralia Community list in Australia, here's a very interesting mini case-study on one initiative in Latvia.

In this case the initiative was created outside of government, however has become part of their parliamentary and law-making process.

It involves using online banking accounts to identify users, in partnership with the major local banks. This is an approach I've not seen used anywhere else in the world.

It is a well-structured open government initiative and one that I think Australia could do well to model similar activities on.

I've quoted Francis' email below. To learn more, join the OpenAustralia Community list.

Francis Irving (posted 24/6/2011):

I just met Kristofs Blaus, who spent a year researching petition / online initiative projects across the world. i.e. things where citizens propose and vote on new laws.

He launched ManaBalss.lv (Eurosay.com) in Latvia two weeks ago. Already two laws are going into force entirely because of the site.

Six things you ought to know about it:

1. 2 days after launch, the president of Latvia promoted an initiative on the site because 20,000 people had signed it. It is to open the owners of offshore companies. Within 1 week of launch (i.e. last week!) it was passed in to law.  http://eurosay.com/atveram-of-orus/show
   
   You can watch for future ones being signed into law on this page: http://eurosay.com/initiatives/signed
   
   (What self respecting e-democracy site doesn't have a specific, high profile page, just showing things it has got passed into law!) 
   
   
2. Within 2 weeks, a second initiative got enough support that both major groups in Parliament now support it (it'll become law after the recess in September). It's a meta-law - it makes the platform itself mandatory, so if any petition gets 10,000 authorised signatures, then the creator gets 5 minutes in Parliament to present it.
   http://eurosay.com/atveram-saeimu-/show
   
   
3. There is a workflow process for making sure the initiatives that get through are sensible (rather than tabloidy stuff that tends to be popular on the UK's no. 10 petition site)
   
   1. You write an original draft
      
   2. Comments by skilled volunteers tell you what is wrong with it.
      
   3. You can fix it up.
      
   4. Then you gather support. You get a URL. The initiative doesn't appear in an index on the site, you have to promote it yourself.
      
   5. When you get 100 people (they're going to up it to 1000 due to popularity)
      
   6. Some real volunteer lawyers make it into a proper, viable legal text in a PDF on the initiative page.
      
   7. It goes on the public site, where large numbers of people can back it.
      
      
4. That process ensures that:
   - It is a real proposal rather than aspirational
   - It can regulated by legislation
   - Technical details, such as if it requies a constitutional change it is written in the right form
   
   
5. It's social. The GroupOn/PledgeBank nature of gathering support, and then later the petition nature of getting people to back finalised initiatives, both encourage spread. It links to your Facebook/Twitter so the initiatives can have a montage
   
   
6. To ensure it can't be gamed, you authenticate yourself to the site using your online bank account (via your social security numebr). It launched (undemocratically!) with just one bank, but the others were then deseparate to be added.
   
   
7. The site is now wildly popular. It trends all the time on Latvian Twitter. Politicians fall over themselves to back it. The media love it, as articles they publish about it get traffic from the site.
   

An article in English about it, but rare. Nobody has heard of this thing yet. Except you for being smart enough to be on this list ;) http://bnn-news.com/latvia%E2%80%99s-society-enormous-power-30587

Notably the two people who made it are businessmen rather than programmers. The coding was done by staff at Kristofs's company.

Kristofs Blaus - business strategy, inventing new products
Jānis Erts - marketing (he made this fake metorite http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8326483.stm)
 
Obviously, the above formulae is easy to critique in the UK. But I'm not really interested in that kind of stop energy.

What is extraordinary is that the right combination done in the right way can be wildly successful. That is almost certainly true here.

If anyone on the list wants to help Kristofs do that, please email me privately.

Francis

Read full post...

View summary...

Delib's downunder digital democracy documentary deliberations definitely defining

Delib's Chris Quigly has released the edited Australian digital democracy mini-documentary that he recorded earlier this year with a number of Government 2.0 leaders (plus myself) across Australia.

The nine minute mini-documentary provides an interesting perspective on Gov 2.0 approaches and trends in Australia. It also provides a defining view from the outside - how people in other countries might view what is happening in Australia.

I have not embedded the video below as it is worth reading Chris' post about the mini-documentary for context.

I cannot wait for the blooper reel! (well OK I can)

Read full post...

View summary...

Crowdsourcing serious government policy - now not only thinkable, but desirable

Crowdsourcing is often used in government for 'light' topics, such as selecting a logo or sourcing audience-created videos or photos.

However it also offers enormous potential for informing and developing government policy in areas that are considered both sensitive and serious - such as security.

About a year ago the Atlantic Council released its recommendations report from the 2010 Security Jam.

Unlike previous closed-room security discussions, the Security Jam ran on an open basis, bringing 4,000 military, diplomatic and civilian experts from 124 countries together online to thrash out the challenges facing global security.

Held from 4-9 February, the Jam, run by Security and Defense Agenda in partnership with the Atlantic Council and with support from IBM, was supported by both the European Commission and NATO.

The thousands of participant included defense and security specialists and non-specialists in order to broaden the security debate beyond purely military matters.

According to Robert Hunter, former US Ambassador to NATO, "The Security Jam has done something that NATO's Group of Experts has not - to reach out beyond the ‘usual suspects’, to people who have truly original ideas and a range of analysis that goes to the heart of today's and tomorrow's security issues."

Imagine applying the principles of the Security Jam to Australia's Commonwealth and state policy issues.

With the comments in Terry Moran's speech last week it is clear that this type of approach is not only becoming thinkable, but desirable.

Read full post...

View summary...

Public Service 2.0 - reflections on Terry Moran's latest speech

The Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Terry Moran, gave a speech last week to the Graduate School of Government, University of Sydney. Titled Surfing the next wave of reform, his speech discussed the public service's critical role in supporting and enabling government reform and good governance, and what would be expected of the APS into the future.

Without mentioning Government 2.0, Moran's speech touched on many of its elements. He argued that the public service needed to improve how it engaged with citizens - particularly through the use of new tools enabled by technological improvements in IT and communications,

The bedrock of government engagement with citizens is through the institutions of our representative democracy. At its simplest, citizens vote every three years or so to elect Members of Parliament who choose a government to make laws and decisions.

But that alone is far from the extent of the links between citizens and government. Governments will achieve their goals better if they also use other ways to engage with citizens to complement and reinforce our fundamental democratic institutions.

The remarkable advances in information technology and communications over recent decades have changed and expanded citizens’ expectations, but have also given governments much better tools for engaging with citizens.

We need to do much better at this task.

Moran said that the public service had to improve its use of technology in policy and program delivery to service citizen needs,

Second, in implementing and delivering the decisions of Cabinet, we need to do better at designing policies and programs in ways that take full advantage of modern technology and that are designed with flexibility and creativity, to meet citizens’ needs. The NBN will permit a step forward in this area.

And he said that the APS needed to become better at listening to citizens, particularly through the use of modern technology,

Government needs to empower individuals and communities in ways that allow it and public servants to have effective exchanges with citizens.

Perhaps most telling - and most personally exciting to me - Moran said that,

Our processes should allow the community to provide input throughout the policy and service delivery process. Information technology can play a crucial role facilitating communication between citizens and governments.

I understand this as Moran saying that to meet the challenges in the APS's future, the Australian Public Service needs to use appropriate tools and techniques to collaborate with the community throughout the policy and service delivery process, not just consult them at the beginning and deliver to them at the end.

Moran finished with the statement that,

To be successful, the reform agenda will need to embrace the best, frank and honest strategic advice, and it will have been based on the fullest engagement with citizens. I am confident we can meet the challenge.

The proposal put forward by Moran is a vision of a Public Service 2.0, one trained and equipped to embed a citizen-focus into their work, to be strategic (as well as frank and fearless) in their advice to government, to design policies and services that take full advantage of the technology at our disposal, making appropriate use of Government 2.0 tools and techniques to achieve the goals of the duly-elected government.

I believe it is a vision that will serve Australia well.

Read full post...

View summary...

Does the personalisation of the internet threaten citizen participation in democracy?

Yesterday evening I watched an interesting TED talk by Eli Pariser, Beware online "filter bubbles".

The talk discussed the increasing personalisation of search engines, news sites and social networks, using algorithms to selectively present or hide search results, content and comments based on a user's actions.

Pariser raised the importance of the flow of information and news in enabling democracies and questioned whether the fragmentation of the internet into individual views would likewise erode democratic society.

I share his concerns over this trend. When our major news sources only show us the news we wish to see and our social networks only highlight comments from people who share our views it becomes much harder to have inclusive discussions, debates and decisions.

I'd be interested in your thoughts. Are these concerns misplaced? If not, what can or should we be doing individually or collectively to defend our right to be presented with information and news which makes us a little uncomfortable, but well-rounded and able to participate effectively in our democracy.

Read full post...

View summary...

What is Australia's Government 2.0 future? Contribute to the website & book

What do you think Australia's Government 2.0 future will look like?


Today Kate Carruthers and I have launched a new project; one we'd like you to be part of.

Government 2.0 is gaining momentum around the world. Not a fad management approach or minor adjustment to policy and processes, Government 2.0 is underpinned by one of the most fundamental changes in communications technologies since the introduction of the printing press: the internet.

The pressure for change is coming at all levels. More than 90 per cent of Australia's adult population access the internet on a regular basis. More than 50 per cent of all Australians now use social networks to share their ideas, build their knowledge, collaborate on causes and comment on policy debates.

In the words of Clay Shirky, we are living through the greatest outpouring of community creativity in history. Every individual who joins the internet gets a free printing press, television channel and radio station. Individuals have the opportunity to influence governments on a greater scale, with fewer barriers to participation, than ever before.

Many of Australia's governments are already actively introducing Government 2.0 tools and practices into their policy, operational and service delivery processes. While there are many successful examples, most have been the efforts of small teams executing good ideas without an overall vision of what Government 2.0 will mean for Australian governance in the future.

Looking around the world, there are as yet limited sources of strategic thinking or research into how Government 2.0 will shape governance over the next 10, 20 or 50 years.

Therefore Kate and I have launched the Government 2.0 Futures project to provide public sector policy-makers, practitioners and academics with a collection of views on Australia's Government 2.0 future.

Through Gov2au.net we are asking Australian and international Gov 2.0 experts, commentators and practitioners - and the Australian community - to reflect and contribute their views on three questions:

• What does Government 2.0 mean for Australia’s governance?
• How will Government 2.0 change the culture and practice of Australia’s public servants and governments?
• What will Australia’s Government 2.0 future look like?

We hope to release a selection of these contributions under Creative Commons next year as a free ebook. We also hope to release a paper version to sell in bookstores and online. Any profits from the sale of this book will go to support Government 2.0 initiatives from not-for-profit organisations in Australia.

We invite you to be part of Australia's Government 2.0 future by contributing your views, ideas and suggestions via the website.

You may also follow the progress of this project on Twitter at @gov20futuresau.

Read full post...

View summary...

Participatory budgeting - big in Europe and South America, but not in Australia - why?

One of the more curious things about Government 2.0 is how differently it is interpreted and delivered around the world.

For example the map below (clickthrough to more information at Google Maps) illustrates how widespread Participatory Budgeting (PB) is - an approach whereby a government allocates some or all of its budget based on direct citizen participation.

The practice has become extremely popular in Europe and in South America, however has not thrived in North America or Australia.

Is this due to different political conditions, cultural factors or Gov 2.0 maturity?

I'm not sure - I would welcome your thoughts.

However the differences do emphasise the breadth of Government 2.0 and the many uses it can be put to in a nation.

If you are interested in participatory budgeting, also see the Facebook group at: http://groups.to/pb/ and the post from Bang the Table exploring at 10 Ways Participatory Budgeting has been used Around the World.

Participatory Budgeting  Google map (click for more information)

Read full post...

View summary...

Benefits and risks of online collaboration with citizens (Workshop 1 CEBIT Gov 2.0 Conference)

Following on from our last exercise, Reasons for not releasing data in government, we've been discussing the benefits and risks of increasing (online) collaboration and consultation with citizens.

Below is what the room came up with (and discussed). Please add your own in the comments.

Note this is a raw dump - I've not sorted or categorised them.

Benefits

• Good source of expertise
• More engaged audience
• Better market research
• Target tools and services better by understanding clients better
• Meets desire of Ministers and top executives to get ideas from outside traditional channels/sources
• Increasing interest, access and understanding of information
• Provide a public face for agencies
• More effective way to get real-time information and warnings to communities
• Able to centralise queries – mitigate email traffic and reduce resourcing
• Increase public understanding of what agency does
• Find out ways and means different to those we use to get information out there
• Increasing transparency and accountability
• Providing a fair and reasonable process
• Ongoing 'focus' group
• Low cost engagement
• Allows agencies to understand how community wants information presented / services designed
• Allows 'completing the circle' engagement through a process (policy development/service design/etc) as there's an ongoing relationship with participants
• Reach more audiences than by traditional communications
• Helps attract high-performing staff (as agency is seen as proactive, forward-looking, collaborative and open)
• Can use a pre-registration process to determine potential response rate and demographics of interested parties, thereby allowing provisioning of right level of resources for management and analysis of collaboration outcomes
• Can provide context and explain complex issues in depth
• Can moderate responses – before or after publication (not possible in a face-to-face consultation)
• Can identify critical flaws in legislation/policy before becomes a major issue

Risks

• Muddied by media involvement
• Uninformed people commenting
• Administrative issues
• Generate too much work (too much work)
• Too few responses – embarrassment
• Security and privacy of participants' details (if agency runs collaboration)
• Afraid that people will be rude or abusive
• Lobby groups will dominate
• We won't do what some people say they want
• Public don't understand the context
• Content is not easy to absorb
• It will be hijacked by a particular issue in the consultation and other issues don't get enough time
• It will be hijacked by an unrelated issue (one that doesn't align with our policy framework)
• Slow and highly involved approval processes (both speed of response and cost of senior time)
• What if staff contribute as individuals
• Our staff won't be able to see the consultation (due to our internal security framework)
• Staff don't have experience in managing an online consultation
• Equity issues
• Accessibility issues
• Media might get hold of it
• Belief that any content on the web can be changed
• Could be hacked
• Can identify critical flaws in legislation/policy which become major issues
• Agency responses could be construed as providing advice which has legal implications
• Timing issues (election cycle and alignment with other consultation activities)
• Too many people involved and they don't agree with what an agency believes
• Too short a time allowed to build audience and discussion
• People will criticise the Department
• People will criticise the Minister
• May expose the lack of consultation
• The risk of NOT doing it (won't reach enough/right people, creating issues in the future, government looks like it is not consulting
• Accidental release of confidential information by agency
• Technology failure (Hardware/software issues and loss of information)
• Lack of staff social media guidelines
• Incorrect data
• Data breaching copyright (not our data)
• Differences in view on which agency/area is responsible and should manage the consultation

Any more that should be added?

Read full post...

View summary...

Reasons for not releasing data in government (Workshop 1 CEBIT Gov 2.0 Conference)

We're in the first workshop of the day at the CEBIT Gov 2.0 conference.

It is led by Andrew Stott, the Director for Digital Engagement for the UK government.

The first exercise of the day has been to come up with reasons that government may give for not releasing data online. I don't know if I'm happy or disappointed that our table did the best - coming up with 36 reasons (second was a table with 27).

I've listed them below - and added an additional set that Andrew says that he has also encountered in his role.

Note there are no value-judgements implied as to the validity of these reasons in specific cases.

Reasons for not releasing government data

1. Costs too much
2. No business case
3. Has commercial value
4. It could breach privacy
5. It's classified
6. It's not ours and we don't know whose it is
7. Unsure about quality
8. We don't know where it is
9. It's not our job
10. It's not in a useful format
11. I'm not authorised
12. People will misuse it
13. The minister will lose reputation
14. It's not ready yet
15. The department will lose reputation
16. Files are too large
17. We don't have enough bandwidth
18. Thin edge of the wedge
19. Can find it but cannot access it
20. It is out of date / too old
21. We only have it on paper
22. We don't know if we're allowed to do it legally
23. Our Secretary says no
24. We've never done it before
25. We don't know why anyone would want it
26. Don't see the value
27. Don't have time / resources
28. They can FOI it
29. We'll release it (but 90% redact it)
30. It is incomplete
31. It is incorrect
32. Commercially sensitive
33. Mosaic theory – could put it together with other data
34. People would focus on the wrong things
35. It may cause unnecessary public discussion
36. We can't confirm or deny we collect it

Here's Andrew's additional reasons:

• We know the data is wrong, and people will tell us where it is wrong, then we'd waste resources inputting the corrections people send us
• Our IT suppliers will charge us a fortune to do an ad hoc data extract
• Our website cannot hold files this large
• it's not ours and we don't have authorisation from the data owner
• We've already published the data (but it's unfindable/unusable)
• People may download and cache the data and it will be out of date when they reuse it
• We don't collect it regularly
• Too many people will want to download it, which will cause our servers to fail
• People would get upset

 Please add your own in comments...

Read full post...

View summary...

How can we be knowledge workers without knowledge?

In this post-industrial society many of us are knowledge workers, using information as a key input to create new products, services and ideas.

Particularly in government knowledge is critical. That's why government departments invest a great deal of resources into research, stakeholder engagement and community consultation.

Without a reliable and diverse flow of information government can be crippled. Public servants can become unable to provide the best possible advice, Ministers therefore can't always make the best decisions and departments cannot quickly and cost-effectively track policy impacts and adjust policy delivery over time to address citizen needs.

So what happens if you cut knowledge workers off from important sources of knowledge?

I'd suggest this leads to less considered advice, poorer decisions and therefore worse outcomes. Money is wasted, service recipients get frustrated, citizens end up changing their votes.

In other words, cutting knowledge workers off from important sources of knowledge risks damaging the survival odds of Ministers and the reputation of the public service.

When it comes to online knowledge, government departments are constantly striving to achieve a balance between access to knowledge and minimisation of risks such as hacking, viruses and theft of information.

This isn't an easy balance - and sometimes the approaches to filtering sites can end up with unexpected outcomes.

For example, one of OpenAustralia's founders has just blogged about a department that blocks access to Open Australia - as the outsourced filtering service the department uses mistakenly classifies the website as a 'blog' and the department isn't able to amend the categories (though can make specific exclusions).

There are staff at the department wishing to use the site for legitimate work purposes.

This specific issue (which I am sure the department is rectifying) aside, does it still make sense to block a category such as 'blogs'?

Maybe ten years ago when blogs were new, rare and very, very specialised, they didn't contain much in the way of knowledge that was important for government deliberations.

However this the situation has changed. Blog platforms such as wordpress are now used for websites as well as blog - including by government departments, not-for-profits, businesses, peak bodies, and even political parties.

Also I'd suggest that blogs now come in all shapes and sizes - some are written by teams of experts, others are personal. Many have information and ideas that could help public servants shape their thinking, influence policy deliberations and affect the way services are delivered.

If they can be accessed.

I know that my blog, eGovAU, has been inaccessible to at least two large departments. More importantly, the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's site was inaccessible to at least one department during its consultation phase - I know this because it was brought to the attention of the Taskforce during one of their public meetings.

The APSC is using a blog to consult on Australian Public Servant Values, a blog is driving the APS innovation agenda and AGIMO is making excellent use of their blog for web accessibility, communications and new developments. That's not to mention another 20 or so government blogs I can think of.

Surely just this internal government use of blogs makes it necessary for departments to reconsider the basis for blocking 'blogs' as a category.

And that's not to mention all those stakeholders, individual experts and service recipients whose blogs contain knowledge that may be useful to public servants.

Perhaps there's even a Catch-22 here. If public servants are blocked from accessing potentially useful blogs they can't even assess them for value or build a case for allowing access. The only way they can do this is by taking a personal risk - doing their work at home, outside their corporate network.

So far this has just been about blogs. I've not mentioned forums, social networks and services such as Twitter which can also be extremely rich sources of useful knowledge - so long as they are not blocked.

In the OpenAustralia case, the reason given for blocking 'blogs' was that they posed a security risk to the department's network.

I wonder if this security risk is regularly being weighed against the risk to Departments and Ministers of blocking access to important knowledge.

Do departments need to revisit how they measure security risks and how they protect against them?

Read full post...

View summary...

The internet isn't a tool for democracy - it's simply a tool

Over the weekend I read an insightful an well written paper by Rebecca McKinnon of Harvard University. Presented at the two day 'Liberation Technology in Authoritarian Regime' conference on 10-11 October, the paper provides some compelling evidence that the internet is not a tool for democracy, it is simply a tool and can be used to support authoritarian regimes just as it can be used to support democratic ones.

Named Networked Authoritarianism in China and Beyond: Implications for global Internet freedom, and sponsored the Hoover Institution & the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), Stanford University, the paper discusses the use of the internet by China. While external sources of political news and influence may be blocked, the Chinese government is making extensive use of the internet internally to empower citizens in support of the present regime - using legal means and extensive censorship controls to channel online discussions into politically acceptable thread.

It discusses the rise of 'networked authoritarianism' - where an authoritarian regime embraces and adjusts to the changes brought by digital communications technologies and co-opts the medium. Permitting citizens the illusion of freedom of speech, the ability to discuss social ills and influence some government policies, while retaining strict control over political expression.

I think it is important to bear in mind that by itself the internet will not necessarily lead to greater transparency, openness and democratic governance. It requires the efforts of individuals and organisations to unleash its potential.

To quote two of Rebecca's conclusions:

The business and regulatory environment for telecommunications and Internet services must become a new and important focus of human rights activism and policy. Free and democratic political discourse requires Internet and telecommunications regulation and policymaking that is transparent, accountable, and open to reform both through the courts and the political system. Without such baseline conditions, opposition, dissent, and reform movements will face an increasingly uphill battle against increasingly innovative forms of censorship and surveillance, assisted by companies that operate and shape activists’ digital environment.

Finally citizens and policymakers of democratic nations must not forget that global Internet freedom begins at home. One of the most urgent tasks of the world’s democracies is to develop best practices for openness, accountability, rule of law, and transparent governance of their own digital networks. That is the best possible long-term weapon against the spread of networked authoritarianism. It is also essential in order to ensure the long-term health of the world’s existing democracies.

Read full post...

View summary...

Australian Senator Kate Lundy wins the International eDemocracy award for 2010

In Paris, on Thursday 14 October 2010, Senator Kate Lundy became the first Australian and 10th annual winner of the World e.Gov Forum and PoliticsOnline's International eDemocracy award - the equivalent of the Academy awards for eGovernment and Gov 2.0 practitioners.

In an award ceremony at France's Department of Foreign Affairs, in front of more than 250 conference delegates and officials, Senator Lundy was presented with the judge's selection International eDemocracy award by Phil Noble of PoliticsOnline.

The peoples' choice International eDemocracy award, based on over 3,000 votes, was won by Ralph Benko, writer of the Webster Dictionary, a textbook for using the web to transform the world.

Senator Lundy was selected from a global field of 12 nominees including the Top 10 changing the world of internet and politics for 2010, as determined through an online nomination and election process managed by PoliticsOnline, and several French entrants into France's eDemocracy award.

The nominees included another Australian who was selected as one of the Top 10, Craig Thomler (me), for the eGovAU blog.

The judging panel included an international group of eDemocracy luminaries.

Final award selections were based on short presentations and question and answer sessions with the 12 nominees at Issy-les-Moulineaux's Town Hall just south of Paris.

Senator Lundy was nominated for the award based on her work convening three Public Sphere events.

UPDATE 18/10/10: Senator Lundy's media release: Senator Lundy wins International Top 10 People Changing the World of Internet and Politics

Post from the forum organisers: The winners of the e-Democracy Awards 2010

Photos

Here's a link to a set of photos from the event taken by CivicTec: WEGF 2010.

Below are photos of the event taken by Senator Lundy and me

Senator Kate Lundy and Craig Thomler at the award ceremony, with Senator Lundy holding her
International eDemocracy Award. Photo courtesy of Kate Lundy.

The below photos are taken on my iPhone - better quality ones should be available soon on the World e.Gov Forum site.

Senator Lundy being presented with the 2010 International eDemocracy award by Phil Noble
of PoliticsOnline in the reception hall of France's Department of Foreign Affairs in Paris.

All of the winners of the 2010 eDemocracy awards in the reception hall of France's
Department of Foreign Affairs in Paris.

Senator Lundy presenting to the judging panel and assorted guests in the  

council chamber of Issy-les-Moulineaux's Town Hall

Read full post...

View summary...

The media140 #OzPolitics Tweetbook

I felt that it would be useful to compile the online discussions during media140 #OzPolitics into a single work, a permanent record that could be reread, referenced and reconsidered.

So over the long weekend, with assistance from PeopleBrowsr, the support of Julie Posetti and permission from FirstDogOnMoon and Mike Stuchbery to reuse some of their material, I compiled the following Tweetbook.

You are welcome to read, print, share and comment.

media140 #OzPolitics Tweetbook

By the way - as far as I know this is the first conference Tweetbook created in Australia. It is based on the very useful Open Government and Innovations Conference Tweetbook from their conference in Washington in July 2009.

I hope the media140 #OzPolitics Tweetbook will also serve as an inspirational model for future Australian conferences and events.

Read full post...

View summary...

Stats on articles and posts for #Groggate

Some people know that I've been tracking the posts and articles published online discussing the outing of the author of the Grog's Gamut blog by The Australian.

EDIT - due to updates to the spreadsheet below the figures presented in this section of the post are only valid at the original time of publication. Please refer to the spreadsheet for the latest figures.

So far I have listed 112 posts and articles on the topic (including this one) - although a few only touch on it peripherally.

I have also been mapping these articles into a Google spreadsheet to look at some of the interesting statistics behind the debate.

For instance, News Limited is responsible for 12.5% of the articles on the topic, Crikey for 8.9%, the ABC for 5.4% and Fairfax for 3.6% (excluding any duplication across publications). In fact a total of 32.1% of the articles have been written by commercial news sources.

It also appears that very few authors were anonymous, despite certain claims in mainstream media articles about a prevailing culture of anonymous blogging online.

57.1% of authors were named outright in their articles and posts. Another 29.5% used partial names or pseudonyms, but provided various pieces of personal information. In most cases their names could be uncovered without much research or effort.

The remaining 13.4% were indeed anonymous - totally unnamed in their articles and posts.

However of this group 4 articles, or 3.6%, were in mainstream and online commercial media publications (such as The Australian and Crikey) where no author name was provided. These are sometimes termed 'editorials', but are anonymous all the same.

Here's a few examples:

• The Australian - A storm on the internet: Why should web writers escape scrutiny and responsibility? (and yes I see the irony) 
•  Crikey - The Oz’s Bolt loose … science of pop-news …

Only the remaining 11 articles or 9.8%, were totally anonymous. This includes two articles from Mumbrella, which I only excluded from being a commercial publication as it is industry specific and doesn't charge subscribers as Crikey does (sorry Tim!)

On that basis,

• Of the 36 commercial articles and posts, 4 were anonymous - 11% of the total
• Of the 76 professional and personal articles and posts 11 were anonymous - 14.5% of the total.

That's a very small statistical difference in the scheme of things.

I recommend having a play with the data - any interesting insights please share via comments below.

The link to the public spreadsheet is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ap1exl80wB8OdE96TkhYT2U2UDNCUV9KaXVRS1FoNnc&output=html

Use the tabs at top to navigate to the statistics and legend (explaining the terms I've used)

Or simply look at the figures below:

Read full post...

View summary...