OpenAustralia Hack(s)fest on FOI - for hackers, media, activists & FOI gurus

The OpenAustralia Foundation will be holding the first Australian Hack(s)fest as part of the countdown to the launch of their new FOI assistance site, designed to make it easier for ordinary Australians to put in FOI requests to Commonwealth agencies.

The event, being held in Sydney at Google's office, will be held on the weekend of 17-18 November.

For more details and to register, visit: www.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/2012/11/05/youre-invited-to-our-freedom-of-information-hacksfest/

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Is Parliament House the peoples' house? Beth Noveck: Demand a more open-source government

Is Parliament House the peoples' house or the government's house?

This is one of the fundamental considerations within the open government movement. Does government exist to serve the public? Who participates in developing policy, creating laws and deciding what is best for citizens and communities?

Beth Noveck, in her TED Global presentation, Demand a more open-source government, poses a number of challenges to citizens and governments around the world to open up governance processes, involving citizens at every stage.

Brought to my attention by Andrew Krzmarzick of Govloop, Beth Noveck Delivers Terrific TED Talk on Open Government, Noveck's talk is the best I've seen on the topic this year.

There's also a great blog post about the presentation at the TED site, Demand a more open-source government: Beth Noveck at TEDGlobal 2012

I strongly recommend that you watch Noveck's talk and share it widely with your colleagues.

 

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Mapping open data site generations

Over the last three years we've seen an increasing level of sophistication and capabilities in successive generations of open data sites.

To aid governments in their open data journey, I've mapped five generations for the progressive development of open data sites, detailed in the document below.

Please feel free to reuse the information within the bounds of the embedded Creative Commons license.

My next task is to release a view of open data sites around the world mapped against these generations to provide a view as to who is leading and who is lagging in the open data stakes.

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Can foreign digital gatekeepers unduly influence democracy?

One of the perils of the digital age, as traditional media goes digital or goes downhill and more and more people rely on the internet for their daily news, is that countries such as Australia are losing 'editorial' control over what news is promoted as the 'top stories' each day or what links appear at the top of search results.

Most of Australia's most trafficked websites are not Australian-owned and run. Some do not even have a legal entity or physical presence in the country, making it extremely difficult for Australian interests to get any kind of traction in decision-making processes or ensure that Australian values and perspectives are reflected.

Even more worrying, we've already begun to see digital 'gatekeepers' - the largest and most influential websites - begin to impose conditions which may distort elections or inappropriately influence democratic processes.

Let me give you an example. You're probably aware that Google is the most trafficked website in Australia, followed by Facebook. In fact for the week of 8 September 2012, Experian Hitwise reported that Google Australia received 149.5 million visits from Australians, and Facebook received 96.8 million visits. These were followed by Youtube at 47 million, Windows Live Mail at 23 million and Google.com which received 21.7 million Australian visits.

The top locally operated website, NineMSN received only 20 million visits. Yahoo7 received only 11 million visits from Australians.

In fact, if you add Google's top 10 sites (218.2 million visits) and Facebook, the total visits these two organisations receive from Australians, each week, is about 315 million. That's ten times the combined weekly traffic of NineMSN and Yahoo7 at 31 million.

With that level of traffic, being refused the right to advertise in Google or Facebook could have serious repercussions for a brand. In some cases it could destroy companies.

So what could it do to democracy?

What would happen if Google and/or Facebook decided, for whatever reason, to reject all the advertising from a particular political party in Australia, banning ads for that party in their sites during an election?

Well, actually, we don't need to speculate about this scenario. It's already happened.

Some of you might be aware that during the last Commonwealth election that Google refused to run any advertising for one of Australia's legal political parties - the Sex Party.

Following this, Google again refused to run any Sex Party ads during the recent Victorian byelection.

Facebook joined in by rejecting Sex Party ads during the recent Sydney City Council election.

Now whether you support or oppose the Sex Party's views, they are a legitimate Australian political party and field legitimate candidates in elections. However both Facebook and Google decided, citing different reasons, that they would not accept any advertising from the Sex Party during election campaigns.

Facebook said its reason was that the Sex Party was "promoting adult products or services".

Google claimed that the Sex Party was being deceptive by having a "donate" button on its site which "breached its rules which prevent solicitation of donations by a website that did not display tax exempt status.". 

When it was pointed out that the Greens, Family First and Labor all did the same thing, Google stuck to their guns. Even when the Sex Party adjusted their site's content to include the tax exempt status, Google continued to refuse to run ads - contrary to their own policies. Only when the Sex Party went to the media did Google relent, on the eve of the election when the opportunity to influence votes had been lost.

In this case the party was a minor one and potentially the events didn't change the outcome, although the Sex Party has taken Google to court over the matter alleging unlawful interference in the election.

This example highlight a risk democracy is facing. 

When 'media' providers control such a large chunk of the online market, when these are domiciled overseas in state that wish to influence Australian politics, and when they can thumb their noses at local concerns without significant legal or financial cost, democracy has a problem.

It doesn't have to be a full-out blocking of ads or comments - as happened in the example above. Instead it could be more subtle techniques. 

Such as placing ads lower down on the page than their competing parties, thereby reducing the probability of a click, it could involve adjusting search results to keep certain ideas at the top, or the bottom. It could even involve 'reporting errors' which would convince people that they'd received the impressions they'd paid for when they hadn't.

There's many other subtle ways to influence behaviour online, and you can be assured that companies like Google and Facebook have built a strong understanding of how to do this. It is their bread and butter and they are testing, trialling and learning more all the time.

So can digital gatekeepers unduly influence the outcomes of democracy processes? 

I think yes. And, intentionally or not, the big players have already demonstrated that they are capable of taking this step. 

But maybe not quite yet, while nations still have robust national media and competing theatres for ideas.

In the future we are likely to see the balance of power unfold in new ways, and learn through practice whether democracy will survive technology intact, enhanced or destroyed.

However it is already clear that democracy will not survive unchanged.

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When does organised action turn into 'gaming the system' in online engagements?

It can be difficult to define the line at which organised responses to an online consultation or engagement change from being legitimate activity by an interest group to 'gaming' the system to influence the outcome.

For that matter it can be just as difficult in a paper-based or face-to-face process. Just who does a lobby group with the Minister's ear really represent, who is funding that thinktank releasing white papers, and who is organising and transporting people to a public protest of function (such as an anti-carbon tax rally or to a Olympic Torch relay)?

Should the line be drawn between personal self interest and financial interest?
How about when a financial interest is often just as personal, such as an impact on wages or jobs?

Should the line be drawn between organisations who fund activities versus those who involve volunteers only?
Even though this might marginalise people who can't afford a day off without compensation - making protests a well-off person's tool.

In this context, I've been watching the progress of Hangout with the Prime Minister. This initiative hosted by OurSay, an independent and non-partisan organisation that supporting democratic engagement between public figures and the public, Deakin University and Fairfax Media (who have promoted it through their newspapers) involves selecting three user submitted questions to ask the Prime Minister, based on an online vote.

The actual event occurs tomorrow (Saturday 21 July). It involves the Prime Minister meeting with the three top questioners to ask their questions on a live webcast - and hopefully have them answered.

The real interest for me is in how questions were submitted, promoted and voted up through the process.

OurSay has been doing this for awhile and has a fairly robust system. Anyone with internet access can register to the site (directly or via services like Facebook and Twitter) to ask questions and to vote for existing questions.

People may ask as many questions as they like, but may only vote seven times, dividing these between questions however they like (or blowing all their votes on a single question if they want).

There's different ways to view questions - by most recent, oldest, highest number of votes or comments - and generally the process is run simultaneously. People can ask questions and vote all the way through the process (though this does bias questions asked earlier as they have more time to gather votes).

For the Hangout with the PM, voting closed on Thursday 19 July with almost 2,000 questions asked and 109,000 votes cast (according to Fairfax). Assuming people spent all their seven votes, this means at least 15,500 people took part.

The top three questions were on same-sex marriage, on defense pensions and on school chaplains (submitted by the President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia). The top question was submitted three weeks ago, and rose to the top slowly. The next two were submitted only four days ago, and rose very quickly.

So, leaving aside the potential for people to register multiple times and vote (which OurSay has a policy and some mechanisms to manage), where does gaming the system come in?

I've watched two particular incident associated with this HangOut which could be considered gaming - but may not be.

The first involved Andrew Bolt, a newspaper and TV commentator with a large following amongst politically conservative Australians.

On Tuesday 10 July Bolt blogged in support of a question at OurSay about the impact of Australia's carbon price on global warming "By how much, measured in thousandths of degrees Celsius, will the Earth's temperature be reduced through the carbon tax?”

Within four hours this had become the top question on the site, driven by Bolt's supporters flocking to support the question.

Bolt bolstered this with a post the next day, Vote for an answer at last, where he commented that thanks to the support of his readers they'd gotten two questions into the top three.

Bolt's involvement was proclaimed by OurSay as a success, as covered in Crikey, OurSay gets a boost via a Bolt from the blue.

The second incident involves Get-Up who, six hours before the Hangout closed, sent an email to supporters prompting them to vote for an asylum seeker question:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, when will our government stop placing asylum seeker children in detention? We could hear an answer from the PM on Saturday - but there's only a few hours of voting on questions to go. Can you place your vote for this question?

The question in question asked “Dear Prime Minister, when will your government stop placing asylum seeker children in detention?”

This time I was quick enough to grab a couple of screenshots of the question as its votes increased.

The first screenshot, about 30 minutes after Get Up's email was sent, showed the question with 3,178 votes.

The second, taken two hours later, placed the question with 6,467 votes. That's an increase of nearly 3,300 votes (or between 470 and 3,300 people voting).

Now how did the questions supported by Bolt and Get Up do in the final analysis?

The tally is in the image below, however Bolt's two supported questions came 5th and 6th with 8,308 and 6,919 votes respectively.

The question supported by Get Up came in at 7th spot with 6,467 votes (which would have made Andrew Bolt happy).

The top three questions received 12,749, 10.933 and 10,756 votes respectively.

You can see the tally below.

So were the efforts by Bolt and Get Up attempts to game the system, or legitimate uses of organisational power? Were other efforts at gaming going on that we're unaware of?

Both are hard to answer and, ultimately, it is impossible to prove a negative (that no gaming has occurred).

However we do need to keep thinking about what defines 'gaming' and similar activities such as 'atroturfing' and consider whether the actions of interest groups unfairly distorts the outcomes of engagements.

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Next Canberra Gov 2.0 event, 14 August - take a walk on the web side with two fantastic speakers

Pia Waugh is organising the next Gov 2.0 event in Canberra, which will be hosted by DEEWR in their Theatre at 50 Marcus Clarke Rd from 12:30-1:30pm on Tuesday 14 August.

This time the event features two fantastic speakers, and has a much larger limit due to the large size of the venue.

The speakers are:

• Michael (Mick) Chisnall (@michaelchisnall), the Director of the Australian Capital Territory’s Government Information Office, who will be talking about the ACT's efforts in the open government space, and
• Keren Flavell (@KerenFlavell), a founding partner of Wholesome Media and co-founder of Bushfire Connect - a community driven crisis alert tool for sending fire warnings between communities. She'll be talking about the social engagement strategy and TownHall Facebook application developed by Wholesome Media for the Parliament of Victoria

Both have done awesome work in the Gov 2.0 space and have many practical tips and experiences to share.

Alongside the speakers there will be an open mike for people to talk about their latest online initiatives and plenty of engaged attendees to share stories with.

Note that this is a food-free event, however this also means it is free to attend! For anyone seeking food,  there's a cafe next door and plenty of other options nearby.

So if you're looking for some good Gov 2.0 tips and insights, learn more about the event and register at:  http://gov2augustact.eventbrite.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Where's Australia's robust discussions on democracy, openness and transparency?

Australia is an interesting country.

We're one of the world's oldest democracies, with a strong tradition of free and independent (of government) media.

We have universal public health care and a strong separation between politics and religion and between politics and the enforcement of our laws.

We have an apolitical civil service with an extremely low corruption rate. As a nation we punch above our weight in Sports and Science globally.

However we appear to lack a robust public discussion on our own democracy, on government openness, transparency and the role of Gov 2.0 in this mix.

We have plenty of right-wing and left-wing thinktanks (with some intriguing backers) prepared to give their perspectives on various policy issues to influence government decisions, but rarely opine on the democratic institutions Australia has developed.

We have many media commentators willing to report bad or controversial news (or spin news in that way) about government decisions and activities, but rarely questioning the systems and traditions on which they are based.

We do have the OpenAustralia Foundation, building and maintaining several pro-openness tools - with little or no financial support from Australian Governments or philanthropists.

There's the New Democracy Foundation which, with some big name supports from politics and academic worlds, is looking at new ways of governing for a new millenium.

And there's the Institute of Public Affairs, which has an agenda to promote political and market freedom - though it is hard to assess its impact on public views.

Some scattered individuals also run small communities and services that look at whether and how governments should transform themselves to cope with changing environments and public needs.

However there's not really a broader discussion, as occurs through a network of organisations in the US (spearheaded by the Sunlight Foundation), or the more concentrated efforts in the UK through groups such as the Hansard Society.

Australia is not even a member of the Open Government Partnership (per the image below).

Nations that are members of the Open Government Partnership

So why is this the case? Is our government already so transparent and effective that we don't need more active discussions about our system of democracy, our openness and our processes?

Is it we're not interested in 'navel-gazing' about our own systems, or that we trust politicians, public servants, academics and the media to work out the best system for us and keep it working?

Is it simply that Australians don't actually care, so long as the government stays out of most of their lives - reflecting recent research from the Lowy Institute, as reported by the Institute of Public Affairs, that found that 23 percent of Australians aged 18 to 29 said: "For someone like me, it doesn't matter what kind of government we have." and that "Thirty-eight per cent said: "In some circumstances a non-democratic government can be preferable."

I really don't have an answer, and this worries and concerns me.

As they say in the US, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".

Where is Australia's vigilance regarding our democracy?

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Liveblogging GovCamp NSW (focus on innovation)

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

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

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

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

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Can social media make a genuine impact on the democratic process?

While in the UK last week I was involved in a number of discussions about whether social media can make a genuine impact on the democratic process.

This reflects similar conversations I've witnessed or been involved with in Australia and in other countries.

This conversation is very important - it helps people involved in the Gov 2.0 space to define, refine and share their ideas and helps people outside the space gain a broader appreciation of the topic.

To encourage further conversation, Delib has set up a global online discussion about social media's impact on democracy.

You can participate - or watch this discussion at: http://www.dialogue-app.com/600


It will remain open for commenting until the end of May and visible after this for people to read and think about.

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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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Two year review - has the Australian Government delivered on its Government 2.0 commitments?

It has been almost exactly two years since the Australian Government responded to the Government 2.0 Taskforce report on 3rd May 2010.

The response, which committed to implement most of the recommendations in the report, was made under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and with the support of former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner (neither of whom hold a position in the current Australian Government).

So how has it gone? Has the government, through a change in leadership, an election and the retirement of the responsible Minister, implemented most of the recommendations or not?

Below is a summary of what they agreed to implement and, in my view, what has been achieved in the last two years. Under this is my conclusion, and a more detailed analysis of each recommendation.

Recommendation	Status
Central Recommendation: A declaration of open government by the Australian Government	Implemented
Recommendation 2: Coordinate with leadership, guidance and support	Implemented within the Government's agreed commitments
Recommendation 3: Improve guidance and require agencies to engage online	Implemented within the Government's agreed commitments
Recommendation 4: Encourage public servants to engage online	Implemented within the Government's agreed commitments
Recommendation 5: Awards	Implemented
Recommendation 6: Make public sector information open, accessible and reusable	Largely implemented, although it is unclear if agencies have "been required to ensure that public sector information which is released is also made available through [data.gov.au]"
Recommendation 7: Addressing issues in the operation of copyright	Implemented, however I am unsure whether the review of orphaned copyright works has taken place
Recommendation 8: Information publication scheme	Allocated to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to implement, whose office is operating at 75% staffing and faces budget cuts through the increased efficiency dividend
Recommendation 9: Accessibility	Nothing to implement directly - however the Government has done exceptionally well in outlining and enforcing the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy
Recommendation 10: Security and Web 2.0	Nothing to implement directly
Recommendation 11: Privacy and confidentiality	Nothing to implement
Recommendation 12: Definition of Commonwealth Record	Implemented
Recommendation 13: Encourage info-philanthropy	Nothing to implement and no activity based on either the review or the report has significantly affected the info-philanthropy area

In conclusion

In my view the Australian Government has implemented and completed the vast majority of the commitments they agreed to following the Government 2.0 Taskforce.

There are a few areas where commitments were not actually made (although some might have liked them to be), a few where meeting the agreed commitment might have been done in practice, but not in spirit and a few where changing circumstances have changed how commitments were implemented.

Now the challenge for the Australian Government, and the Australian Public Service, is to move beyond the Government 2.0 report and agreed commitments. To define the next level for Gov 2.0 in Australia, and  consider how to build it.

Central Recommendation: A declaration of open government by the Australian Government

The Australian Government committed to making a declaration, which was met by Minister Lindsay Tanner shortly before he left office and is available at Finance's website at: http://www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/gov2/declaration-of-open-government.html


STATUS: Implemented.

Recommendation 2: Coordinate with leadership, guidance and support

The Australian Government committed to establishing a lead agency to lead a cross-government steering committee for Government 2.0.


The Government selected the Department of Finance as the lead agency (the recommendation did not specify which agency), and Finance formed a steering group involving senior representatives from a range of agencies.


The Steering Group moved to quarterly meetings (four times a year) in 2011. The last update I am aware of from the Steering Group was published in June 2011.


STATUS: Implemented within the Government's agreed commitments.

Recommendation 3: Improve guidance and require agencies to engage online

This involved improving guidance, which the Australian Government agreed to deliver via the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC), resulted in three circulars regarding online engagement, with this guidance now embedded in the APS Code of Conduct in Practice as the 'Contributing online' section.


The Australian Government also agreed it was important for agencies to embed Gov 2.0 practices in their everyday business activities in order to progress cultural change, although the only real activity promised was to have the Steering Group oversee activity and operate a Gov 2.0 blog for twelve months (which has been delivered via http://agimo.govspace.gov.au)


The Government also committed to incorporating an Open Government progress report in the State of the Service for 2010-2011 (but did not commit on an ongoing basis) and agreed in principle to more transparency in public inquiries - which was to be delivered through having the Steering Group develop a policy "to encourage best practice in this area that simultaneously protects information that ought not to be disclosed."


STATUS: Implemented within the Government's agreed commitments.

Recommendation 4: Encourage public servants to engage online

The Government agreed to implement this through the revisions to APSC guidance (as per Recommendation 3) and by developing guidance on Government 2.0 engagement by agencies, delivered through AGIMO's Government 2.0 Primer.


The Government also stated, without committing to any action, that,

It is incumbent on the senior APS leadership to ensure that top-down change is enabled in agencies, and that APS employees are genuinely encouraged and empowered to engage online within their agency-specific context.

The cost of agency change required to address internal technical and policy barriers will be the responsibility of agencies to absorb as part of their business-as-usual activities."

and that,

Australian Government agencies should therefore enable a culture that gives their staff opportunity to experiment and develop new opportunities for online engagement. 

Agencies may wish to develop internal incentive mechanisms – in addition to the Government 2.0 awards proposed at recommendation 5 of the Report – to encourage employee innovation and online engagement. 

Agencies should also ensure that a broad range of stakeholder groups are considered for engagement online, for example, a health practitioner’s blog providing feedback on Medicare procedures, in addition to citizen’s blog on proposed improvements to the claims’ process.

Finally, under this recommendation the Government committed to showcasing best practice through an online forum - which has been achieved via the Gov 2.0 Register and the Innovation showcase.


STATUS: Implemented within the Government's agreed commitments.

Recommendation 5: Awards

The Australian Government, through the Department of Finance, agreed to include Government 2.0 awards for individuals and organisations within the existing Excellence in eGovernment Awards.


STATUS: Implemented.

Recommendation 6: Make public sector information open, accessible and reusable

This contained quite a complex recommendation.


The Government agreed in principle, based on the existing reform of Freedom of Information laws and the appointment of the Information Commissioner.


The Australian Government did commit to revisions of copyright policy to make the default copyright position for Commonwealth agencies Creative Commons By Attribution (CC BY).


The Government also committed to establishing the data.gov.au website, "to facilitate access to public sector information. Agencies will be required to ensure that public sector information which is released is also made available through this central portal. Information which is posted on data.gov.au should contain details of the nature, format and release of the information."


STATUS: Largely implemented, although it is unclear if agencies have "been required to ensure that public sector information which is released is also made available through [data.gov.au]".

Recommendation 7: Addressing issues in the operation of copyright

The Government agreed to implement a change in copyright (as in Recommendation 6), but not to move the administration of copyright to the new Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), leaving it with the Attorney-General's Department (AGD).


The Government also agreed to a review of orphaned copyright works, though again left this with AGD, rather than transferring responsibility to the OAIC.


STATUS: Implemented, however I am unsure whether the review of orphaned copyright works has taken place.

Recommendation 8: Information publication scheme

This recommendation was accepted by the Government, with the Information Commissioner tasked with taking all the issues outlined within it into account.


STATUS: Allocated to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to implement, whose office is operating at 75% staffing and faces budget cuts through the increased efficiency dividend.

Recommendation 9: Accessibility

The Australian Government agreed with the recommendation, however only committed to improving accessibility, without defining what 'improvement' means.


The response did not outline any other specific activities or commitment, but reaffirmed that the Government had set WCAG 2.0 compliance as its standard for accessibility and that accessibility would be considered as a criterion in the Excellence in eGovernment Awards.


STATUS: Nothing to implement directly - however the Government has done exceptionally well in outlining and enforcing the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy.

Recommendation 10: Security and Web 2.0

This recommendation stated that the lead agency, in co-operation with the Defense Signals Directorate, develop a better practice or 'how to' guide "to assist agencies in the effective, efficient and secure use of Web 2.0 tools and how to undertake associated risk assessment."


It also stated that,

"DSD should provide guidance to agencies on the appropriate mitigation treatments that could be adopted to address concerns or exposures identified in relation to the use of social networking and related tools. This guidance should take into consideration the different environments in which agencies operate, the varying risk profiles that exist and the range of tools that may be used. DSD should update the Information Security Manual (ISM) accordingly."

And,

"the proposed OIC should provide advice to agencies in relation to the treatment of PSI to enable its broadest possible release. Consistent with good practice, and the requirements of the Protective Security Manual (PSM), agencies must avoid the over classification of data so as to limit the need to review or pre-process data to enable its release."

The Government didn't commit to any specific actions, though it did state that,

"The Australian Government believes that public sector information is a national asset and is committed to working to find the best ways for both government and citizens to utilise its value. Within this frame, it is important that agencies are supported in implementing this measure this by better practice guides and appropriate mitigation treatment options. 

The Information Commissioner will take account of recommendation 10.3 when issuing guidelines under the FOI legislation."

STATUS: Nothing to implement directly.

Recommendation 11: Privacy and confidentiality

This recommendation stated that,

11.1 To protect the personal information of individuals included in PSI, the Privacy Commissioner should develop guidance on the de-identification of PSI before it is released. 

11.2 To protect the commercial-in-confidence information of businesses included in PSI, the proposed OIC should develop guidance on the de-identification of PSI.

The Government's response was that this was already in operation,

either by protection of the personal information or by relevant exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.

And that,

The Information Publication Scheme will provide the legislative framework for information held by government to be published, subject to the exemptions consistent with the FOI legislation. 

STATUS: Nothing to implement.

Recommendation 12: Definition of Commonwealth Record

The recommendation focused on providing clear guidance on what, in the Gov 2.0 world, constituted a record and how they should be archived.


The Australian Government committed to having the National Archives of Australia (NAA) provide guidance for agencies on "what constitutes a Commonwealth record for the purposes of actions undertaken in the Web 2.0 context."

The NAAhas provided guidance through several articles, including Your social media policy – what about records? and Social media: Another type of Commonwealth record.

The Government also committed Finance and the NAA to provide guidance on endorsed metadata standards, which has been delivered via the WebGuide.

STATUS: Implemented.

Recommendation 13: Encourage info-philanthropy

This recommendation was deferred, to be "considered in the context of the Australia’s Future Tax System Review and the Productivity Commission’s report into the contribution of the not for profit sector."


For more about these, see:

• Australia’s Future Tax System Review
  Government response at: www.futuretax.gov.au
• Productivity Commission’s report into the contribution of the not for profit sector

STATUS: Nothing to implement and no activity based on either the review or the report has significantly affected the info-philanthropy area.

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The elephant in the room

In case you've not read it yet, Steve Davies wrote an interesting piece on the government's grapple to adapt to and adopt Gov 2.0 thinking and practice. Published in the Canberra Times and Brisbane Times, the piece highlights that the elephant in the room is the culture of the APS, which is not always supportive of new ways of thinking and doing. It is worth a read. The article is titled The paranoia that will shut government.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even better, attendence is free!

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

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

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Victorian government launches inquiry into the use of social media in the house to reflect on the office of Speaker, by parliamentarians and public

Reading the eGovernment Resource Centre's newsletter this morning, the Victorian government has launched an inquiry into the use of social media to reflect on the office of the Speaker, looking at use while parliament is sitting by both parliamentarians and the public galleries.

The Legislative Assembly Standing Orders Committee is considering:

(1)    Should any restrictions, or guidelines, apply to members’ use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and committees, including accessing social media to comment on the proceedings?

(2)    Should any restrictions, or guidelines, apply to the public and media using social media from the galleries to comment on proceedings or committee hearings?

(3)    Do the Assembly’s procedures and rules need modernising to reflect the opportunities and challenges provided by social media?

(4)    Is the current rule, preventing any reflections on the Office of Speaker, other than in a formal motion, still appropriate? If so, should the rule still apply to reflections made outside the House and to reflections made on social media?

The inquiry raised some interesting questions for me. Firstly whether it is actually practical or worthwhile to attempt to prevent comments regarding a particular individual or office, when they can be made worldwide, by anyone at any time.

Also whether any jurisdiction can place any kind of global gag in place. Certainly the parliament may be able to require anyone physically present in the chamber at the time to not use social media. However if the proceeds are broadcast, or if anyone in the chamber communicates with anyone outside the chamber, preventing comments placed in social media by those not in the room and potentially not in the same country is impossible.

It will be intriguing to watch this inquiry unfold and how its outcomes will influence other jurisdictions and, potentially, how technology will develop to 'route around the damage', to bypass any laws or procedures put in place to limit the spread of information.

If you wish to contribute to the inquiry, for details visit the Parliament of Victoria's website.

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How easy is it really to source information from Australian governments?

On behalf of a friend I've been looking into the contact information for Freedom of Information (FOI) requests across Australia's Commonwealth and state/territory governments.

While I believe that Australia has good Freedom of Information laws (though I know some would disagree), the real tests of this are whether people are aware of their rights and how difficult it is to identify the right FOI contacts and the complexity of the processes to release information.

Working in government, I have contributed to FOI processes from the inside and studied the legislation and processes of some agencies, however I've personally never asked a government agency for information.

From my brief look into sourcing information, and from my friend's perspective, while legislation is in place and even recognising the internal cost and resourcing challenges of FOI, there's a lot still to be done to create a standard and usable framework for people to find out about FOI and contact agencies at both state and federal levels.

For example, only two states or territories (WA and VIC) have an obvious central FOI site for their governments. foi.wa.gov.au and foi.vic.gov.au.

Queensland has a similar site, at www.rti.qld.gov.au reflecting their 'Right To Information' legislation. While this is internally logical, it doesn't make sense in a broader usability context. At least if you do try to go to foi.qld.gov.au it does redirect you to the site.

The other states and territories hide their central FOI sites away behind strange and convoluted web addresses in agencies that make administrative sense within government, but may not be as obvious to the public.

For example, the site that appeared to be the central FOI information source for NSW has the web address of: http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/complaints/freedominfo.html (though I could be wrong - which also points to an issue) and Tasmania appears to uses http://www.ombudsman.tas.gov.au/right_to_information2/rti_process

None of these sites is actually the central repository of information released by these governments - which would also be immensely useful. Instead they are informational sites which push people to contact individual agencies for specific FOI requests.

If I were asked I would recommend that all state and territory governments - and the Australian Government - use a standard FOI website address, and cross-link them for people who end up at the wrong one. Regardless of legislation name or the organisation which centrally administers FOI legislation, these sites should be found at foi..gov.au (or for the Commonwealth at foi.gov.au).

These sites should also become the central release points for FOI information, using modern web technologies such as APIs, or even ATOM/RSS to aggregate FOIed information from all agencies. The information could be retained by agencies, but have the central FOI site as a searchable directory of FOI releases pointing to individual agencies - like data.gov.au's role for public sector information (open data).

From there I'd also advocate that agencies similarly apply a standard approach to FOI, using foi..gov.au and foi...gov.au for state and territory agencies.

This consistency would, at least, mean that people could be educated consistently on where to go to find out their rights and exercise them.

Moving on to individual agency contact information, I've looked into whether there is a single list at Commonwealth level for all FOI contacts across all agencies.

I did find that the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet maintained a list of agencies with FOI Contact Officer phone numbers - an excellent start. However as it was last updated in September 2011 it had not yet captured the machinery of government changes in the last Ministerial reshuffle.

The list did not, however, provide website or email addresses - channels most people today prefer to find government information (as AGIMO's latest report on Interacting with Government ‑ Australians’ use and satisfaction with e-Government Services 2011 will tell you).

Fortunately, via Twitter, @Maxious let me know that OpenAustralia had compiled a spreadsheet of Australian Government FOI contacts based on the agencies and Ministers subject to FOI from the Office of the Information Commissioner FOI Annual Report for 2010-11 (released in July 2011) and updated for the machinery of government changes last December.

This spreadsheet contained 12% more agencies and Ministers than the list provided on the website of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. However while it contained email and website addresses, the OpenAustralia spreadsheet didn't containcontact phone numbers.

So I spent about an hour matching the two lists and have released the combined information as a Google spreadsheet, FOI contacts for Australian government agencies.

This spreadsheet contains FOI contact details for 355 Australian Government agencies with varying levels of details (phone numbers for 86%, email addresses for 66% and FOI web pages for 60%).

It also contains information for state and territory central FOI agencies.

If anyone out there is interested in FOI I would appreciate if you added to the list, filling in any gaps :)

Looking at the list, there is enormous variability in the email addresses and web addresses used for FOI contacts. Surely the Australian Government could mandate for a standard foi@.gov.au for email and foi..gov.au for websites.

Also agencies could ensure they have appropriate search strategies in place to make this information easily findable in their sites - creating a google site map (which has many other agency benefits) and adding rules in their site's internal search engine to ensure that searches for 'FOI', 'Freedom of Information', 'Information', 'My Information', 'Right to Information' and similar terms (drawing from internal search reports) have the FOI page as their top or preferred result.

These steps would be far more useful in helping Australians locate and access FOI information than many more expensive and difficult activities.

Also, surely someone in government (perhaps the Office of the Information Commissioner) could maintain a public list of FOI contacts - set-up in such a way that agencies could maintain their own information and receive regular automated emails every six months or so to confirm their information remains correct.

This could even draw from the list I've compiled from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and OpenAustralia lists to start it off.

State and territory governments could do likewise - and perhaps link their lists to the Australian Government's list, so that the public - who often have no idea whether they need to go to a state/territory or Commonwealth agency for certain information - have a better chance of figuring out who they should first contact.

Freedom of Information is important and necessary for any democratic society. However simply having the legislation in place is not enough.

Governments need to take steps, such as I've suggested above, to make it easy to discover who to contact and explaining the process of how to contact them and what information may be released.

Without these steps, 'Freedom of Information' or 'Right to Information' become meaningless catchcries.

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

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

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

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

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

Send us a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From: Peter Browne

Dear Craig, 

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

Cheers,

Peter Browne
Editor

From: Craig Thomler

Hi Peter, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,
Craig

From: Peter Browne

Dear Craig,

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

Cheers, Peter

From: Craig Thomler
Hi Peter,

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,
Craig

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Collective protests highlight a 21st Century crisis for traditional government

What do the the Arab Spring, Anonymous, the Occupy movement, Iranian election protests, Anti-Putin protests, the #VileKyle push and the #Qantasluxury incident all have in common?

Each of them was a demonstration of collective action by groups of people without a clear hierarchy of leadership against traditional hierarchical organisations.

In each case the traditional organisations threatened found it difficult to respond in an effective and proportionate manner, with responses often slow and creating greater hostility to the organisations involved.

The traditional organisations around today draw from the US railway corporations of the 18th and 19th century, which were some of the first commercial organisations to develop a 'modern' management model involving strict hierarchical structures and the division of resources into specific responsibilities to be managed (siloing if you prefer).

These organisations, which any manager today would clearly recognize, were designed to coordinate the information, resources and effort required to deliver enormous infrastructure projects - continent spanning railway networks.

Given the modes of communication and management available at the time, with most information moving at the speed of a horse and most previous organisations limited in size to a few locations, family-based ties and people who could turn their hands to any of a more limited set of skill, the railway corporations were an innovative and effective tool for delivering the outcomes desired. They coordinated the efforts of tens of thousands of workers, hundreds of experts, and led to some of the first large companies that a modern observer would recognize.

Two hundred years on, most organisations still use very similar methods of organising resources - hierarchical constructs with coordinators at the top, managers in the middle, worker bees at the bottom and an assortment of specialists and experts who slot in their skills as required, with appropriate compensation.

Governments were particularly enthusiastic adopters of hierarchical models due to their massive scale and increasing responsibilities. They rapidly organised their machinery to take advantage of divisions of responsibility and labour.

As more and more non-family organisations began arranging themselves into the hierarchical model, governments and corporations began to discover it was easier and more efficient for them, with their strict structures, to engage similar organisations. Corporations created trade 'treaties' or merged their resources into even larger management constructs, governments created legislation that could more effectively regulate trade through dealing with significant corporations and redeveloped its own internal procurement processes to favour hierarchical suppliers.

These steps, together with the fact that hierarchies were a more efficient organisation model for the time, led to our modern society, where the hierarchical model of resource management is dominant, well-understood and still considered the most efficient and effective way of arranging resources. After all, most other models would no longer suit our state and national legal systems or our international trade relationships and ownership structures.

This approach to hierarchy has become a self-fulfilling and propagating approach. The legal and economic environment of today, or at least up to very recently, put strictures on non-hierarchical organisations, limiting their size and complexity. This, in turn, ensured that the main hierarchies, governments and large companies, could compete and cooperate in a congenial environment.

These hierarchies had clear leadership structures - a President, Prime Minister or General Secretary, a Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director or Chairman - and they interacted with each other through clearly defined 'channels' of communication. Level to level, officer to officer. This made it easy for deals to be made between them. CEOs met Prime Ministers, Presidents met General Secretaries and the minions met their counterparts to do deals all the way down.

However with the rise of the Internet the environment has changed. Suddenly information can be distributed rapidly, frictionlessly and with great accuracy. Organisations can coordinate resources and manpower without enormous corporate hierarchies and infrastructure. Small teams can create global products, overturning the business models of large corporations and entire global industries.

Strict hierarchies are no longer clearly the best form of organizational structure, no longer clearly the most efficient or effective approach to marshaling resources or coordinating human activity.

This is posing an enormous global challenge for what are now traditional organisations. When customers are no longer limited to geographic competitors, when small and nimble organisations can adopt novel non-hierarchical structures to better marshal resources from any timezone, the dinosaurs begin to stumble.

However commercial 'entities' (traditional hierarchical structures) are not the only ones affected. Governments are also under enormous stress, with their strict hierarchies struggling to develop the systems and approaches needed to rapidly, proportionately and effectively engage, service or contend with non-hierarchical groups challenging their policies, structures and legitimacy.

With traditional lobbyists and companies it was easy for governments to engage. There were clear hierarchies for both state and non-state players and effective protocols could be put in place for meetings at level, systems for complaints, reviews and agreements. However when faced with a collective movement, fueled by a common feeling of rage, disempowerment, hope or other emotion and coordinated and concentrated effectively through online tools into outpourings of dissatisfaction, authoritarian, communist and democratic governments alike have failed to effectively engage or respond in a proportionate or effective way.

Whether a mayor seeks to meet the local leader of the Occupy their town movement (or just calls them a leaderless rabble) or a Prime Minister seeks to meet the national leader of their civil uprising (or just calls it an unsupported riot led by drug dealers and foreign terrorists), the pattern is the same.

The hierarchical government fails to effectively engage as they cannot identify a structure they recognize, another hierarchy. They apply tolerance, then security constraint and then force and they then lose or face diminished legitimacy.

In some cases the loss of legitimacy causes their fall and the fall of their government structure. In other cases the organisation continues liming along, but begins to slowly fade, waiting for the next encounter and the next, until it finally fails as a state or manages to adapt itself to cope with the changed conditions.

The question that remains open, in our hierarchy dominated world, is what will this adaptation look like. Governments remain an important tool for coordinating national and international relationships, resources and activities. They reinforce each other, no populated area of the globe can survive in today's hierarchical world with no government, although many different flavours are 'allowed' to exist.

How will government hierarchies adapt to collective activity - cations by leaderless, hierarchy free, adaptive groups with superb intelligence sharing and resource-coordination capabilities? Will they force movements to nominate n'leaders or 'representatives' who speak for their movements and can make binding deals? Or will governments find methods to adapt themselves to engage and, where necessary, fight and win, against 'faceless' foes and frenemies?

The jury is still out on this verdict and the evidence is still being presented. However thus far governments in most parts of the world have failed to develop effective, nonviolent approaches to contend with amorphous, leaderless collective movements.

While the internet exists in its current form, an international system for frictionless information sharing, coordination and amplification, governments will have to continue to work hard to adapt themselves, or change the rules, to contend with continuing leaderless protests and movements.

It will be a fascinating - and bloody - war between traditional hierarchies and amorphous, adaptive 'organisations'. However the policies and approaches used to engage, and the method of resolution of this war, will shape the next stages for human societies for many years to come.

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