It's all about recovery - tech disruption and government

My post yesterday on Has Gov 2.0 in Australia got too boring too fast? (thanks @sandihlogan for the title correction) attracted some good debate on Twitter and in comments, including from @chieftech who said:

@sherro58 @grmsn @craigthomler rather that asking if #gov2au has got boring, ask if gov in AU has been disrupted by tech. I'd say a little
— chieftech (@chieftech) January 30, 2014

Disruption, or the 'throwing into confusion', is a common occurrence in times of major social or technological change.

The discovery of agriculture disrupted man's nomadic lifestyle around 22,000 years ago - dramatically changing the shape of human society, how we lived, worshipped and organised ourselves.

When humans learnt to smelt iron, roughly 3,500 years ago society was again disrupted, with more advanced civilisations able to outfight and outproduce their bronze-dependent neighbours, causing larger cities and states to form and leading to greater productivity and more time for creative thought.

Gunpowder and then handguns changed society again in fundamental ways, ushering in the end of castle fortresses, making warfare far more bloody and deadly. Incidentally Genghis Khan, known for his horse archers, may have used gunpowder bombs fired from Chinese catapults in his wars.

Further disruptions occurred with the printing press, oil drilling, tanks, computers, television, nuclear weapons, satellites, and the internet - amongst thousands of other technologies. Each time societies had to adapt how they operated, governments rose and fell, the balance of power between states shifted.

In other words disruption is normal. Society is constantly adapting to new technologies, rejecting some, embracing some and tolerating the others.

Governments have never been immune to this disruption. They also have had to constantly adapt their approach as technologies changed. We've seen time and time again how more technologically advanced civilisations have colonised, absorbed or destroyed less technologically advanced ones - and, on a few occasions, have seen civilisations falter when they advanced their technology too far too fast and it became out-of-step with social values, or caused unintentional harmful side-effects.

So has the Australian government been disrupted by technology - yes, many times even in our short 113 years as a nation.

Is there anything special about how technology is disrupting government right now? Anything that makes it different to how major technologies disrupted our government in the past?

Well yes and no. Certainly the speed of technological change has increased, which means that government has less time to understand the impacts and consequences of new technologies before deciding how and when to adopt them.

Also 'now' is the time when we are alive. Watching change occur is very different to reading about how changed occurred in the past. It's always more visceral to live through change then to observe it remotely through another person's eyes.

But also no - disruption is disruption. While the type of disruption may change or the speed increase, the potential range of responses remains limited.

In my view societies and governments only have four options when facing disruptive change - embrace, accept, absorb or oppose.

They can embrace the change, adopting it enthusiastically and quickly, throwing out old ways for the new.

They can accept it, adopting it in a more piecemeal 'as needed' way, without any resistance or dissent.

They can ignore the changes, passively rejecting them by clinging to 'traditional' ways, but gradually absorbing them over time into their traditions and making subtle adjustments to maintain the semblance of the status quo.

Or they can actively oppose the changes, actively seeking to suppress them through laws and actions - successfully or otherwise.

This leads to what I feel is a far more interesting question. How will our governments cope with, or recover, from the present round of disruptive change?

Answering this question will also answer the question of which nations will dominate the 21st Century. Governments that embrace new media and Gov 2.0, adapting themselves into the new forms necessary to thrive within empowered societies, will have a strategic advantage over governments who lag or refuse to use them.

We're already seeing this in the adopting of broadband around the world. Nations with faster broadband will have a significant economic edge over their slower and less connected neighbours. Similarly governments that are more connected and able to tap more brains for ideas, more citizens to undertake small civic acts, will be far more economically and socially acceptable than nations that restrict use of these channels to small elite, or stifle discussion through laws and censorship.

Of course there are risks with embracing disruptive changes - moving too far too fast can uncover new issues that societies don't yet have the experience to solve. However in many cases the governments that uncover these issues first may also resolve them first, sometimes putting them even further ahead of other nations.

So the really interesting question for me is how are Australia's governments doing at coping with the disruptiveness of Government 2.0, the impact of social media on public debate, of open data on accountability and economics, of citizen activism on state leadership?

Which of our governments are embracing these changes, which are accepting them and which are resisting, or actively legislating against them?

The answer to this question will tell Australians which states will be the most successful in the next twenty years and whether Australia as a nation will remain one of the wealthiest, safest and most successful in the world, or be overtaken by more nimble peers.

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The decline of national sovereignty and impacts on society

The concept of national sovereignty has evolved over the centuries however has retained at its core the notion that nations, defined by geography, have the right to manage their own affairs and movements across their borders as they see fit, as well as to interact as recognised state entities with other states and other legal entities (individuals, corporations and not-for-profits).

The modern concept of national sovereignty was agreed to in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, following the thirty-year war, where the economically exhausted states of Europe agreed to establish the notion of territorial sovereignty as a norm of noninterference in the affairs of other nations, a principle that, more or less, holds to this day globally.

This was the point in time when modern nation-states, based on geographic boundaries, started to take a dominant position in how human society was organised, leading to today's situation where every square inch of land is claimed by at least one nation.

National sovereignty was, and remains, and extremely important and defining characteristic of modern civilisation. It not only grants powers to national governments, to the exclusion of external bodies, but also places responsibilities on them to provide some level of security, education and support for the people born and living within their sovereign borders. It creates the notion of citizenship, laws and taxes over property, income and commerce - measures that provide the security and public infrastructure that underpin society today.

However national sovereignty was developed at a time when the fastest form of transport was a horse, when messages were sent between locations by courier, smoke signals or carrier pigeons, when money only existed in your wallet and every business was tied to a geographic location, or an itinerant wandering tinker or merchant who could be physically tracked down.

There was little understanding of lightening, let alone electricity and even the invention of the Leyden jar, the first primitive capacitor (the word 'battery' hadn't been coined) was almost a hundred years in the future.

National sovereignty on the basis of geography made sense in 1648. The majority of people did not travel more than 100 miles from their birthplace, except during war, and it was possible to calculate a nation's wealth by adding up all the physical 'stuff' which in its borders (as the English had began doing in 1086 with the Domesday book - primarily for taxation purposes).

Today the majority of communication is electronic, as is the bulk of the money supply. While we still make lots of physical 'stuff', more and more of our services are delivered online and more and more physical stuff is imported and exported across national borders enable by electronic transactions.

While our garbage, roads, electricity and water are still delivered locally to where we live, more and more of our interactions with governments and companies, with welfare payments, education and even significant portions of health care able to be delivered remotely from any location on the planet - to peoples' homes directly or via virtual operators in physical offices (which Centrelink is already experimenting with).

This means that governments could theoretically outsource much of their service delivery to low cost areas within their jurisdiction - or to low-cost jurisdictions elsewhere in the world.

Beyond service delivery, a great deal of policy development could similarly be outsourced. There's really no need to employ locals to develop local policy - it is simply important to employ the best qualified staff and provide them with the best quality information and access to locals to understand their needs and concerns. Theoretically policy could already be developed anywhere in the world, using specialists with the experience to understand a jurisdiction's citizens and conditions in order to provide the best recommendations.

We see this on a small scale already - public officials at councils may live in neighbouring council regions. State and territory officials may live across a border in another state or territory. National governments tap foreign specialists and consultancy companies for expertise they cannot find in their own jurisdiction.

This outsourcing approach can even impact on geographically specific services - from emergency management to road maintenance. When digital networks can be used to supply information and cheap transport can be used to relocate assets to where they are needed on a timely basis, why should individual councils, or even state departments run road crews or location-specific emergency services?

Services can be delivered from wherever is reasonable and cost-effective - regardless of artificially imposed borders, with emergency services, road maintenance. We already see this in effect in emergency scenarios when specialist teams are moved around countries, or between countries, to assist in major disasters or provide expertise in unusual incidents.

With all of this sharing between jurisdictions, the notion that any geographic territory is sovereign unto itself is rapidly becoming a convenient fiction. Certainly when we shuffle public workers between jurisdictions we also expect them to abide by local laws - however why should those laws differ measurably anyway? It may simply leads to inefficiencies, productivity loss, even unnecessary injuries or loss of lives.

This gets even worse when services are delivered remotely - a surgeon in one country remotely operates on a patient in another, or a citizen calls a government help desk located in another jurisdiction and a staff member behaves in a manner that is inappropriate in the citizen's jurisdiction but legal in the jurisdiction they work in. Which jurisdiction takes legal precedent?

Add to this the continuing rise of transnational corporations - who may be domiciled in a particular state, but that deliver services globally - and we see further erosion of national sovereignty as a concept.

Recent free trade agreements, particularly those involving the United States of America, have begun pushing the notion that foreign companies may sue a national or state government should they change their laws in ways which may reduce the company's profit potential. This type of litigation has already begun in Canada and Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and looks to be extended to many more countries under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which involves Australia and New Zealand. 

While the draft treaty remains secret and in negotiations, leaked sections of the TPP suggest it proposes the same conditions on signatory governments across the Pacific region. This would allow non-state entities to sue states, as we are already beginning to see occur in North America.

While this may be supported by large corporate interests (who naturally wish to insulate their interests and shareholders from unfavourable legal changes), this is a further limit on the sovereignty of states. If a foreign domiciled company can sue a government for changing the law then there is far more pressure on states to step cautiously around large corporations, weighing their interests more closely than that of citizens who may be denied the same opportunity to sue states.

There's also increasing cross-border environmental impacts becoming apparent from our still rapidly industrialising global civilisation. Huge fires in Indonesia cause live-threatening smog in Singapore. Electricity generation in China using coal leads to pollution which could affect neighbouring countries - and certainly contributes to atmospheric carbon levels and climate change. What value is the sovereignty of small South Pacific islands if the actions of other nations could see them regularly innundated by rising sea levels. Sovereignty doesn't help nations manage environmental impacts due to activities in other sovereign states.

On top of this trend is the rise of mass spying on the citizens of other nations - best exemplified by the practices of the NSA uncovered through Edward Snowden's leaks. These have brought to light the enormity of the US programs for monitoring foreign interests via literally scooping up all of the data travelling between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo data centres (amongst others), tapping into mobile apps and integrating intelligence provided by friendly governments (such as Australia's under the Five Eyes program).

In the past spying was limited to known 'persons of interest' who were usually already suspected of wrongdoing or held sensitive positions. 

With the rise of the internet and mobile devices it has now become easier and more cost-effective for nations to suck down as much data as possible and then attempt to identify patterns which indicate people they should watch - apologising for any information they shouldn't have touch later (if indeed they even let people know they have it). 

In theory any specific individual is unlikely to have their profile flagged for examination by foreign intelligence analysts - the technology simply isn't able to store and build profiles on everyone as yet (as far as I know).  However intelligence agencies are in the business of collecting and interpreting intelligence and have an ongoing interest in improving their systems. They want the ability to tell which 18 year old is likely to become a senior corporate executive, political leader, cutting-edge scientist or a terrorist so they can take appropriate steps to head off the threat or cultivate their national interests as early as possible.

The data is there - the software is rapidly improving - meaning that we all now live under the gaze of foreign interests who may choose to watch our every comment online.

While the NSA is getting the current attention regarding this mass spying, other governments have been taking similar steps, for national and commercial advantage. China and Russia are both sophisticated users of online systems, with Russia suspected of having engaged in state-sanctioned cyberwars against its neighbours.

Where nations are taking a copy of all data passing through their jurisdiction, this technically fits within their sovereignty - however with the way the internet operates data simply follows the fastest path. Unless you are using a VPN, it is quite possible that data distributed online may pass through several jurisdictions its way to its final destination.

Governments around the world have been tightening their own criteria around online hosting, encouraging (but usually not forcing) agencies to use locally hosted online services and favouring locally domiciled services, however citizens are in a completely different boat.

Anyone who uses Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Microsoft Office365, plays games via Xbox or Playstation, has their data travel through a range of jurisdictions and governments have little ability to enforce or even legislate for the rights of citizens who choose to use online services - particularly where there is limited cooperation between the hosting nation and the end user's jurisdiction.

Which nation's sovereignty takes precedent when using an overseas hosted service, how can Australia enforce privacy, security or other legal requirements that it mandates local services meet for the safety of citizens?

The answer is that without global agreements and treaties, no nation can effectively enforce their sovereign position or laws - with the fallback being that citizens use these services 'at their own risk'.

So what does this mean for sovereignty in the 21st century, if a digitalised world and changes in power between governments, corporations and citizens mean that nations can no longer enforce their sovereignty in the ways envisaged in centuries past?

It is likely that most nations will continue to attempt to preserve the illusion of sovereignty - while it may not exist in fact, or to the extent it existed when geographic borders were 'solid', it is a convenient fiction that allows legal systems and state-based services to continue to perform their functions for the majority of systems.

However there will be increasing pressure on this illusion as transnational and stateless entities gain strength - whether through trade agreements (such as the TPP), remotely delivered services (either privately or publicly delivered) or through digital services that exist 'in the cloud' for real - not on a set of servers in a given jurisdiction but software that actually runs across the internet, with fractions of it operating on mobile devices, home and work computers all over the world.

At some point sovereignty will simply snap, probably due to technological advancement, but potentially also due to the constant demand for increasing profits and the need to minimise cross-border barriers to its generation.

What happens next is the question. Will states attempt to renegotiate the concept of sovereignty in a more limited form within broad global guidelines - a global government with local variations and customs?

Or might we see a division of services between geographic and non-geographic states - where geographically relevant services are delivered by geographic governments, or contracted commercial providers, while we reorganise ourselves into digital states for the provision of non-digital services - with the ability to easily change digital nationality, voting with our feet for the best offer as we do for commercial products.

We could even see the contracting of government to professional (commercial) providers, with citizens become shareholders and able to 'vote out' an entire public service and replace it with another. Like a body corporate approach, people would retain the right to vote for their representatives, however their role would be to manage the various commercial services that develop policy and deliver services for their constituents.

I wouldn't like to predict any specific outcome - we're still too early in our digital revolution to really know where things are likely to go.

However I do expect that people being people, no matter how we organise ourselves for governance and public service delivery some things will remain the same. People will identify with 'tribes' or communities, both those based on geography and those based on common interests (which might be non-geographic). These tribes will form the basis for our social organisation even if they don't form the basis of our public service delivery.

The young adult of 2090 will still identify as an Australian and a Victorian - even if his education was provided electronically through a Indian education provider, the local roads maintained by a corporation based out of the US, his 'local doctor' accessed virtually from a Brazilian medical centre (who also provides the nearby medical clinic's remote surgeon) and his student support payments organised and paid via a Phillippino service desk. He will still follow his favourite football team - Real Madrid - attending their games remotely via his 3D headset, and socialise with friends from around the world in virtual nightclubs (with no closing hour).

He will attend university online and work virtually, using office software hosted in the cloud that is designed by a stateless entity, charging for time used and paying for the use of his devices' processing cycles (where it is virtually hosted across millions of devices).

He will even vote digitally - not just every three years but on every major topic for which he is interested and has met the qualifying conditions (based on his knowledge of the subject and its impact on his life), with government services divided by tier into a local geographic council and a digital non-geographic state.

He will still be an Australian - even if (or when) his government, and many public services, are delivered via the cloud.

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Rethinking government IT to support the changing needs of government

We recently saw a change in the federal government in Australia, with a corresponding reorganisation of agency priorities and structures.

Some departments ceased to exist (such as Department of Regional Australia), others split (DEEWR into two departments, Education and Employment) and still others had parts 'broken off' and moved elsewhere (Health and Ageing, which lost Ageing to the (renamed) Department of Social Services).

This isn't a new phenomenon, nor is it limited to changes in government - departments and agencies are often reorganised and reconfigured to serve the priorities of the government of the day and, where possible, create efficiencies - saving money and time.

These adjustments can result in the movement of tens, hundreds or even thousands of staff between agencies and regular restructures inside agencies that result in changing reporting lines and processes.

While these reorganisations and restructures - Machinery of Government changes (or MOGs) as they are known - often look good on paper, in reality it can take time for efficiencies to be realised (if they are actually being measured).

Firstly there's the human factor - changing the priorities and allegiances of staff takes time and empathy, particularly when public servants are committed and passionate about their jobs. They may need to change their location, workplace behaviours and/or learn a new set of processes (if changing agency) while dealing with new personalities and IT systems.

There's the structural factor - when restructured, merged or demerged public sector organisations need to revisit their priorities and reallocate their resources appropriately. This can extend to creating, closing down or handing over functions, dealing with legal requirements or documenting procedures that an agency now has to follow or another agency has taken over.

Finally there's the IT factor - bringing together or separating the IT systems used by staff to enable them to do their work.

In my view the IT component has become the hardest to resolve smoothly and cost-effectively due to how government agencies have structured their systems.

Every agency and department has made different IT choices - Lotus Notes here, Microsoft Outlet there, different desktop environments, back-end systems (HR and Finance for example), different web management systems, different security frameworks, programming environments and outsourced IT partners.

This means that moving even a small group of people from one department to another can be a major IT undertaking. Their personal records, information and archival records about the programs they work on, their desktop systems, emails, files and more must be moved from one secure environment to another, not to mention decoupling any websites they manage from one department's web content management system and mirroring or recreating the environment for another agency.

On top of this are the many IT services people are now using - from social media accounts in Facebook and Twitter, to their email list subscriptions (which break when their emails change) and more.

On top of this are the impacts of IT service changes on individuals. Anyone who has worked in a Lotus Notes environment for email, compared to, for example, Microsoft Outlook, appreciates how different these email clients are and how profoundly the differences impact on workplace behaviour and communication. Switching between systems can be enormously difficult for an individual, let alone an organisation, risking the loss of substantial corporate knowledge - historical conversations and contacts - alongside the frustrations of adapting to how different systems work.

Similarly websites aren't websites. While the quaint notion persists that 'a website' is a discreet entity which can easily be moved from server to server, organisation to organisation, most 'websites' today are better described as interactive front-ends for sophisticated web content management systems. These web content management systems may be used to manage dozens or even hundreds of 'websites' in the same system, storing content and data in integrated tables at the back-end.

This makes it tricky to identify where one website ends and another begins (particularly when content, templates and functionality is shared). Moving a website between agencies isn't as simple as moving some HTML pages from one server to another (or reallocating a server to a new department) - it isn't even as easy as copying some data tables and files out of a content management system. There's enormous complexity involved in identifying what is shared (and so must be cloned) and ensuring that the website retains all the content and functionality required as it moves.

Changing IT systems can be enormously complex when an organisation is left unchanged, let alone when when teams are changing agencies or where agencies merge. In fact I've seen it take three or more years to bring people onto an email system or delink a website from a previous agency.

As government increasingly digitalises - and reflecting on the current government's goal to have all government services delivered online by 2017 - the cost, complexity and time involved to complete  these MOG changes will only increase.

This risks crippling some areas of government or restricting the ability of the government of the day to adjust departments to meet their policy objectives - in other words allowing the (IT) tail to wag the (efficient and effective government) dog.

This isn't a far future issue either - I am aware of instances over the past five years where government policy has had to be modified to fit the limitations of agency IT systems - or where services have been delivered by agencies other than the ones responsible, or simply not delivered due to agency IT restrictions, costs or issues.

Note that this isn't an issue with agency IT teams. These groups are doing their best to meet government requirements within the resources they have, however they are trapped between the cost of maintaining ageing legacy systems - which cannot be switched off and they don't have the budget to substantially replace them - and keeping up with new technological developments, the increasing thirst for IT-enabled services and gadgets.

They're doing this in an environment where IT spending in government is flat or declining and agencies are attempting to save money around the edges, without being granted the capital amounts they need to invest in 'root and branch' efficiencies by rebuilding systems from the ground up.

So what needs to be done to rethink government IT to support the changing needs of government?

It needs to start with the recognition at political levels that without IT we would not have a functioning government. That IT is fundamental to enabling government to manage a nation as large and complex as Australia - our tax system, health system, social security and defence would all cease to function without the sophisticated IT systems we have in place.

Australia's Prime Minister is also Australia's Chief Technology Officer - almost every decision he makes has an impact on how the government designs, operates or modifies the IT systems that allow Australia to function as a nation.

While IT considerations shouldn't drive national decisions, they need to be considered and adequately resourced in order for the Australia government to achieve its potential, realise efficiencies and deliver the services it provides to citizens.

Beyond this realisation, the importance of IT needs to be top-of-mind for Secretaries, or their equivalents, and their 'C' level team. They need to be sufficiently IT-savvy to understand the consequences of decisions that affect IT systems and appreciate the cost and complexity of meeting the priorities of government.

Once IT's importance is clearly recognised at a political and public sector leadership level, government needs to be clear on what it requires from IT and CIOs need to be clear on the consequences and trade-offs in those decisions.

Government systems could be redesigned from the ground-up to make it easy to reorganise, merge and demerge departments - either using common IT platforms and services for staff (such as an APS-wide email system, standard web content management platform, single HR of financial systems), or by only selecting vendors whose systems allow easy and standard ways to export and import data - so that a person's email system can be rapidly and easily moved from one agency to another, or the HR information of two departments can be consolidated in a merger at low cost. User Interfaces should be largely standardised - so that email works the same way from any computer in any agency in government - and as much code as possible should be reused between agencies to minimise the customisation that results in even similar systems drifting apart over time.

The use of these approaches would significantly cut the cost of MOGs, as well as free up departmental IT to focus on improvements, rather than meeting the minimum requirements, a major efficiency saving over time.

Unfortunately I don't think we're, as yet, in a position for this type of significant rethink of whole of government IT to take place.

For the most part government still functions, is reasonably efficient and is managing to keep all the lights on (even if juggling the balls is getting progressively harder).

It took the complete collapse of the Queensland Health payroll project to get the government there to act to rethink their systems, and it is likely to take a similar collapse - of our Medicare, Centrelink or tax system - for similar rethinking to occur federally.

However I would not like to be a member of the government in power when (not if) this occurs.

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Is it possible to deliver a government agency's standard IT systems on a single USB?

CSIR Mk 1 with Hollerith
equipment, Sydney 1952
Source: Museum Victoria

The Australian government was one of the earliest adopters of computers and computerisation.

CSIRAC (or CSIR Mk1), the first computer in Australia (and now the oldest surviving first-generation electronic computer), was used by scientists within CSIRO, by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority and various university and government departments and agencies between 1949 and 1964 to make sense of 'big data' (for the time) which would have taken years to analyse by hand.

As the fifth stored program computer in the world, CSIRAC programmers could write their programs on punch tapes, check them one step at a time, and store them in the computer to be run again and again.

While computers have gotten a lot smaller, faster and efficient, they still use a similar programming approach to CSIRAC. Programs (software) are loaded into their memory and may then be accessed and run many times.

Of course modern computers use different storage mediums and can store and execute many programs at the same time.

Every government agency has an IT architecture made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of different programs - some run on a mainframe computer, others on desktop computers and still more on servers which allow staff to access the programs remotely from their desktop, laptop or even mobile platforms.

It is a very complex process to manage an agency's IT architecture - some programs may not 'play nice' with others, some may be twenty or more years old and require special hardware and maintenance to keep them operating.

Setting up a new agency can be an even more complex process. Often agencies are 'spawned' from existing departments and 'borrow' much of their IT infrastructure - the software required to run everything from payroll and HR to manage contracts, projects, compliance, Ministerial correspondence and provide the desktop applications required by staff to do their jobs.

Even more complex is the process of combining disparate agencies into a new department. This can require blending two or more sets of software programs into a single solution, with all the data migration and management issues this entails - not to mention addressing security considerations, staff training and avoiding long outages or data loss.

This is where my concept of 'government on USB' comes in.

Why not develop all the core software that a government agency needs to operate as open source shareable software and release it for other government agencies to reuse?

Using this approach it is possible that when a government dictates that a new agency must be formed that the CIO simply pulls out his 'Government Agency USB' and uploads all the required operational software as a complete agency package.

Potentially, via this method, a new agency could have all its core ICT systems in place and operating in days, if not hours.

This approach might seem farfetched, however we're already heading in that direction due to a couple of trends.

Today much of the software an agency needs to run its operations is available through SAAS (Software as a Service) or as cloud-based services - which both basically means that software is stored offsite, maintained by a specialist company and simply accessed and used as needed by an agency - provided they are confident of the security levels.

We're also seeing more and more of the software 'building blocks' of organisations becoming available in open source forms which can be downloaded, adjusted as required by an agency and used, either hosted internally or via a SAAS or cloud provided.

The US has actively been developing and releasing software in open source formats for other governments to use, as has the UK and a few other governments around the world. This offers massive national and international efficiencies for governments who can reuse rather than build or buy software.

The next step is for a government to audit the core systems required to establish a new agency and develop a standard IT Architecture that can be applied for any new agency (with room for specialised modules for unique functions). Then, by selecting from existing open source programs and potentially writing additional services, a government could put together a 'flatpack' IT architecture that any new agency could adopt quickly and easily.

If all the software in this 'flatpack' were open source, it could be easily improved and adjusted over time to meet changing legislative and operational requirements and to integrate ongoing improvements and enhancements.

Then once agencies have adopted this common 'flatpack' of software, it would be significantly easier and cheaper to merge agencies, as they would already be operating in a similar and interchangeable way.

Moving all of government across to this approach would take quite a few years - it's not achievable in a single term - however it would provide ultimately for a 'government on USB'.

This also has implications across the developing world and for newly formed countries, where their government agencies and institutions can suffer from a lack of experience, expertise and money to build the robust IT architecture needed for modern nations.

In the scenario I've described, a new or developing government could simply plug in the 'government on USB' into an agency's systems and establish a sophisticated IT environment to underpin governance in a very short period of time.

Is this simply an unattainable pipedream?

Some may scoff at the notion, however there are many people around the world working on parts of the 'government on USB' model today - albeit many may not be thinking about the bigger picture.

Much of the software required for a government agency is already available in open source form, from HR and financial management systems to desktop applications. It simply hasn't been linked together with a single set-up process.

To explore the concept it would take a government willing to innovate, investing resources and money.

This would be used to model the software requirements of an agency, identify where open source solutions exist (or existing solutions can be modified) and write new open source software where necessary.

Next there would be the need to ensure the solution is secure and to write a single set-up approach that makes it easy for a CIO to roll out the solution quickly.

This may not ultimately be possible or cost-effective, but given the cost of IT architecture changes today when creating, merging or updating agencies, surely it is worth considering.

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Government 2.0 is dead, long live Government

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Victorian Government's Communicators' Group, discussing how effective government had been at meeting the challenge of rapid change throughout the last thirty years.

As part of my presentation I revisited the area of government 2.0 - giving my view that there's no longer such a thing - it's now simply government.

Social media is now mainstream in the community and the majority of Australian federal, state and territory departments officially use social media channels as part of their business as usual engagement with citizens, stakeholders and/or staff.

We sometimes overlook how massive a change this is - the first mention of Government 2.0 in Australia that I've been able to identify was only in September 2007, and the first Twitter account was established in November 2007.

In the last five and a half years, social media has become an extremely powerful tool for governments to engage communities, source knowledge and provide support.

This is only likely to grow into the future as we all become better at using digital channels, as more services go online. Mobile has also reached a tipping point in Australia, 50% of active internet connections, and is growing fast, meaning that digital channels will undergo even more changes towards a digital first approach.

I also highlighted four examples of what I consider current best practice in public sector digital engagement, looking at the areas of citizen-led engagement, crowdsourcing, budget savings and policy codesign.

These are only opinions and at a given point in time - there's more to come as the public sector further grows its digital capabilities and expertise.



However while Gov 2.0 might have largely merged into standard public sector practices, there's still a shortage of experienced digital engagement professionals in the sector and enormous need for ongoing education, training and support.

Ultimately I expect to see digital competency as a horizontal skill, required by the majority of public servants to support their ability to effectively recommend and implement appropriate engagement and service channels to meet public needs. However there's still a long road to travel and much that agencies will need to learn and consider along the way.

I'm going to continue using the term 'Government 2.0' for some time as, despite my view, it still has some value in defining a specific set of approaches and channels for public sector engagement, and providing a focal point for discussions regarding the ongoing change governments face online.

However I believe that Government 2.0 is realistically now simply Government - with the new approaches and channels it involved now officially part and parcel of 21st century governance.

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When senior public officials use online platforms to lead social change, we're witnessing a paradigm shift in government

I don't think this has been widely noticed in government yet, but Australia achieved an interesting Gov 2.0 first this week on the back of the Myers disability scandal.

The backstory: after the Prime Minister announced that DisabilityCare, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), would be partially funded through an increase of 0.5% in the Medicare levy, the CEO of Myer, Bernie Brookes, was reported to have told a Macquarie Investment seminar that the levy was a bad idea as it was '' something they would have spent with us [Myer]''.

This led to a social media protest using the hashtag #boycottmyer, a number of critical articles in newspapers and roughly a 6% drop in Myer's share price. These reactions led to a 'backdown' by Mr Brooks, who made a (non)apology ''to those who may have been offended or hurt'', but didn't back away from his comments.

However what is really interesting from a government perspective was what happened next.

An epetition was started on Change.org as a reaction to Mr Brook's comments. This epetition asked Mr Brook and Myer to make a "real commitment to people with disabilities", by increasing disability employment to 10% by 2015.

Within 24 hours this epetition amassed over 24,000 signatures (including mine).

It might be hard to see in the image besides this text, but below the epetition is the name of its creator, Graeme Innes.

Graeme Innes happens to include his title as well 'Disability Discrimination Commissioner for Australia'.

That's right, Mr Innes is the federally appointed Disability Discrimination Commissioner and has been since 2005, a senior public servant working in the Human Rights Commission, a statutory body solely funded by the Australian Government.

So let's consider this again. The CEO of one of Australia's largest companies makes a comment at a fairly small event about his views regarding how disability care should and should not be funded.

He learnt, as Mitt Romney did earlier this year, that due to technology and empowered citizens, there's now only one room, and everyone can be in it all the time, as his comments get reported in the media and on social media.

The government's most senior official responsible for the disabilities area responds by officially creating an epetition on a leading online platform for fostering civic participation - an epetition specifically designed to attract and attracting a significant level of public engagement and support.

Can anyone remember how this type of scenario would have played out before the internet or, more recently, before the rise of social media and digitally engaged citizens (as long ago as when Mr Innes took up his present role in 2005)?

Firstly, the CEO's comments would likely not have been recorded and reported. Even if reported in the newspapers there would have been limited, if any, ability for the community to react to his words in a public manner other than letters to the editor the next day.

If reported, the Disability Discrimination Commissioner would have (at most) released a media release calling the comments 'inappropriate'. Or, post-internet, issued the release and added it to the Commission's website, and that would have been the end of it.

There would likely have been no public backlash, no public (un)apology by the CEO and the Disability Discrimination Commissioner would have not made an attempt to bring the weight of public opinion to bear. There simply wasn't a way for the Commissioner to do so - even for Mr Innes in 2005.

So what we've seen this week isn't simply a minor spat fed by an out-of-touch and close to retirement CEO making comments that appear to place his company's profits ahead of a significant social issue.

What we've seen is a senior public servant step out of the shadows to lead and shape community sentiment - engaging and leading the crowd through the use of an online social media platform specifically designed to foster social change.

To my knowledge that has never happened before in Australia.

When governments and their appointed or elected officers begin engaging and empowering the 'crowd' to aid social change we're witnessing a major change, even a paradigm shift, in how governments interact with and engage their citizens.

Expect to see much more of this type of engagement as Government 2.0 and social media become business as usual across Australia, and around the world.

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, the times they are a'changin.

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Presentations from Social Media conference and #socadl

Earlier this week I gave presentations at Canberra and Adelaide social media conferences from Akolade and at #Socadl - the regular meetup for South Australian social media enthusiasts.

I've included my two presentations below, and they're also available in my Slideshare page.

Privacy and social media for Australian governments from Craig Thomler

Government 2.0 - #socadl from Craig Thomler

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Infographic: The Australian Government's commitment to open data

Last Friday the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner released a major report on the release of public sector information by Australian Government agencies.

The report, Open public sector information: from principles to practice, is available online and is a relative straightforward read.

The OAIC also released the aggregated data for the report into data.gov.au - modelling the behaviour that other government agencies should follow (though I would have preferred raw data).

This contains lots of additional data worth reviewing that someone who just reads the report won't learn. You can find this file from: http://data.gov.au/dataset/data-from-the-oaic-public-sector-information-survey-2012/

I've developed a three page infographic (embedded below) using some of the data released for this report to explore the Australian Government's commitment to open data and the types of challenges agencies say they face.

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How to build a smart and innovative government agency - abandon 19th century organisational principles

NetFlix has released its 'manifesto' detailing how they operate and why, a document that Facebook's COO has described as "the most important document to ever come out of Silicon Valley" and that has attracted well over three million views on Slideshare.

It is the best document I've ever seen on building a smart and innovative organisation and has many lessons for government agencies, as well as for businesses, on how to set organisational goals, develop policy and select and manage staff - which I hope senior government leaders take on-board.

I equate this to the organisational equivalent of the NBN, compared to 1960s fax machines.

Organisations that learn from Netflix's approach will be well-placed to address the challenges of modern society, being far more productive, effective and attractive to staff.

Whereas organisations that persist in applying a 19th Century organisational model designed for managing itinerant and illiterate workers undertaking repetitive manual tasks to 21st Century highly-education staff undertaking knowledge-focused outcomes will struggle to compete for talent and survival.

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LinkedIn hits two million - Infographic places Australia in that mix

In January this year LinkedIn reached 200 million active users globally, demonstrating that professional social networking is beginning to be recognised as being valuable alongside personal social networking.

I've just been sent their 'early adopter' infographic, which unlike the infographic on LinkedIn's blog (which gives great demographic breakdowns by profession), provides a view on the country breakdown of usage. This places Australia as growing, but still with significantly less take-up than the US, UK or Canada.

By the numbers, using population, roughly 13.5% of Australians actively use LinkedIn, compared to 23.6% of US citizens, 20.5% of Canadians and 17.7% British.

I put this down to Australia's conservative workplace culture.

We may be innovative and tech-savvy as individuals, but in the corporate, public and NGO sectors our workplaces lag on many international indicators for innovation and technology adoption compared to other nations in the OECD and western world.

Of course this is changing as social media becomes normalised in workplaces and the initial fear, uncertainty and doubt bred by ignorance is replaced by more confident and managed approaches - so I expect there to be plenty of upside growth for professional social networking in Australia in the next ten years.

This is something government agencies and companies need to keep in mind when looking at how they reach professional stakeholders and working citizens.

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Your help needed: Crowdfunding the Tim Berners-Lee tour

Whether or not you attended one of the events given in Australia by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in his TBLDownunder tour, it's likely his visit will have an impact on how Australian governments and their agencies think about openness, digital channels and online engagement.

During his visit Sir Tim, the inventor of the world wide web, raised the profile of open government, privacy, open data, high speed broadband amongst many of Australia's senior government Ministers and bureaucrats.

He spoke about digital democracy, privacy and open data - what governments can and should do, and what they should not - to decision-makers, policy writers and the public; 5,500 in-person at events and thousands more online.

The tour was sponsored, however at the last minute one sponsor pulled out, leaving a $20,000 shortfall.


To meet this, the tour's organisers have launched a crowdfunding exercise. As they say on the crowdfunding site's page, "If just 1000 individuals donate $20 each, we can cover this shortfall."

If you were pivileged to hear Sir Tim present during his Australian tour, consider donating.

If you were not able to hear Sir Tim speak, but believe that his tour will help you overcome barriers at your work, consider donating.

And if you don't think Sir Tim's presentations will help you in your job but will help Australian governments become more open and improve citizen engagement, consider donating.

$20,000 isn't that much to raise, if we're each prepared to give a little.

I've given. How about you?

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A counterpoint & follow-up to my post on: Should government agencies & councils be entitled to ban people from their social media channels?

Yesterday I blogged about Should government agencies & councils be entitled to ban people from their social media channels?

The example I used related to a Twitter conversation I'd had with Peter Hinton, who had been blocked from Parramatta City Council's Twitter account. As a Parramatta council resident and rate-payer he was concerned at his experience.

I didn't have details of his specific case, nor did I make any claims about his comments or the council's decision, rather using the situation to explore the area of agencies blocking citizens on social media channels.

Peter has published an articulate and well-reasoned letter providing details about his experience of being blocked. I thought it worth featuring as a counterpoint to my post, which he has kindly allowed me to republish as a guest post below.

Without commenting on the specifics of Peter's situation, I believe Peter's letter supports my views from yesterday. Agencies and councils have the capability (and willingness) to block citizens on social channels and they need clear guidelines in place about why, when and how they block them (if they do).

This needs to be supported by appropriate governance and scrutiny such that inappropriate blocking can be identified and corrected, with appropriate changes to processes or staff if required.

Peter Hinton:

If you’ve got a Twitter account and even the teensiest amount of gumption, you’ll probably know what it is to be blocked. Some receive a blocking with a sense of pride while others prefer to take offense. I’ll never forget the feeling of exhilaration when I received the telltale FORBIDDEN message when attempting to access the account of a Pray Away the Gay preacher in the US.  

Whether it’s used ag ainst an ex-lover or a dissatisfied customer that just won’t stop hijacking a carefully planned social media campaign, the result is the same. The blockee can no longer view, let alone comment on, your tweets. If you include their handle (eg: @peterjhinton) in one of your own tweets, it will be seen by others but not the intended recipient.  

Throughout my 10,000 tweet career on the world’s most popular microblog, I’ve been both the blocker and the blockee on many an occasion. 

But when I was blocked by Parramatta City Council last week, my immediate feeling was one of disenfranchisement . You see, I’m a resident of Parramatta. I pay rates to its council. I participate in the local government elections that install the Councilors who decide on matters that are quite literally close to home.  

My council isn’t a celebrity whose films I can ignore or an international brand that I can choose to boycott. To be blocked by a level of government is whole other matter and, I’d like to suggest, one that challenges the role of social media in our young democracy. 

Many Australians are surprised to learn that the drafters of our Constitution neglected to explicitly include many of the rights and freedoms that we exercise on a daily basis. There’s a whole section dedicated to lighthouses and telegraphic services but you will not find one reference to ‘freedom of speech’. For a document that forms the basis of our legal system, it lacks all of the life, liberty and pursuit of shiny things that spring from the parchment of the American Declaration of Independence. 

In fact, one of the few freedoms we officially enjoy is merely inferred. In the 1997 case of Lange vs. the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the High Court ruled that Australians had a constitutional right to freedom of political communication. While it’s not explicitly stated in the actual document, the full bench deemed free and open political communication to be vital to the preservation of democratic and responsible government. 

It’s this ruling that gave me the confidence to criticize my Lord Mayor, John Chedid, over his office’s treatment of the GLBT family support organization,Twenty10.  

On 17 January, dedicated Twenty10 volunteers were helping kids build kites at Parramatta City Council’s Family Fun Day when advisers, allegedly acting on Chedid’s advice, ordered the removal of the organisation’s signage. Chedid has never denied the allegations, instead stating that his advisers were only responding to complaints that the sign was “offensive”. Chedid eventually issued a private apology to Twenty10 but only after 12,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding he do so. 

Like thousands of other netizens, I took to Twitter to hold my Lord Mayor accountable for the actions of his office. My comments swung wildly between the visceral and rational but they were always based on statements provided by either Twenty10 or Parramatta City Council. 

Council stuck to their social media crisis handbook. They knew not to block me while the crisis was still building. That would only aggravate the situation and provoke accusations that it had something to hide. Instead, it waited for the inevitable moment when the Twitterverse was caught in the gravitational pull of someone else’s very public faux pas. 

The realization that I had been blocked by my local government came on a Saturday morning one week after #ChedidGate when I attempted to review @parracity’s Twitter stream. My kids were bored and I wanted to see if Council was running any (ratepayer funded) activities. What I got was a big cross and the word FORBIDDEN. 

Forbidden? For what?! Surely not for exercising my right comment on the suitability of elected officials for public office! Surely not for defending some of Australia’s most marginalized families! You can bet it wasn’t for all of the favourable tweets that I’d submitted over the years: the photos of my kids laughing in playgrounds that were eagerly retweeted by Council’s own social media apparatchik. 

While social media offers new opportunities for citizens to converse with all three levels of government it’s a conversation for which the rules are still being defined. You only have to look at the replies to Julia Gillard’s or Tony Abbott’s tweets to know that the conversation isn’t always polite. But, then again, there was nothing in the High Court’s ruling to suggest that political communication needs to be polite. 

Constituents were insulting politicians long before Twitter, whether it was in a Letter to the Editor or a town hall meeting. Which leads conveniently to my mainpoint: there would be serious implications for the council that barred a ratepayer from a town hall meeting and quite rightly so. 

When it decided to block me, my council made a conscious decision to deny me access to its virtual town hall meeting. I’m not so unreasonable as to suggest that I’m now completely shut off from my politicians. I could still write a letter or appear before them in a real town hall meeting. 

My sense of disenfranchisement stems from the fact that somewhere inside the intensely ugly administration building of Parramatta City Council, a public servant took away a small part of my freedom. They did so without having to appear before a judge or even advise the person from which the freedom was removed. It was swift, opaque and final.  

I understand and even appreciate that social media offers few boundaries. It’s precisely because it’s not encumbered by the rules of the old guard that it’s become such a powerful tool for grass roots democracy. But, with your permission, I’d like to tender just one overarching rule: it should never be used by government to disempower its citizens.

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Should government agencies & councils be entitled to ban people from their social media channels?

I've been advised of an interesting situation with a resident of the Parramatta Council area, who has been blocked by council from their Twitter account.

He's upset and has written to the Council, claiming that it is unconstitutional for a council to block its own rate-playing constituents from viewing their social media accounts, referring to the Lange vs ABC ruling in 1997.

While I'm unaware of the reason for this particular ban, it is an interesting situation and one we're likely to see more often.

Do citizens have a right to interact with government through any channel?

Do government agencies have the right to prevent individual citizens from accessing or interacting via their official social media channels?

If so, in which circumstances do agencies have this right?

In my view social media is no different from other mediums of communication with agencies in this type of situation.

Having worked for the Child Support Agency I'm broadly aware there were cases where querulant, abusive and threatening clients had restraining orders taken out to keep them away from Child Support offices and protect public servants from potential harm.

I have also heard of cases where clients have been banned from communicating with Child Support by phone, due to adversarial and abusive behaviour, and required to communicate with the agency only by writing. (Note I don't have names, places or other details, I'm just aware of these cases' existence.)

Without being a lawyer, I see bans from official social media channels as similar, subject to conditions and requirements.

Public servants have a right to go about their jobs without being abused and threatened by citizens, particularly in situations where staff have no power to influence laws or procedures. Equally agencies, like other employers, have an obligation to protect their staff from inappropriate conduct.

When people join the public service they don't give up the right to be treated with respected (although some in the media, politics and community forget this at times). Public servants should not be subjected to abuse or physical threats except where unavoidable in specific roles - police and defence personnel.

With social media it is relatively easy to set a terms of use and moderate the behaviour of participants through direct messages, moderation, temporary and permanent channel bans.

Generally citizens, constituents and clients have other avenues than social media for contacting agencies and councils, via mail, email, phone and in-person. They also have other ways to source the information they need to interact with councils in an effective manner.

So, in my non-lawyer view, as long as an agency or council makes acceptable conduct clear and other routes exist for citizens to source information and interact with government staff, banning a person from a Twitter, Facebook, or other online channel on a case by case basis, when necessary, is fine.

Of course agencies and councils should be held accountable for these bans, and should be prepared to justify the reasoning for their actions as part of their normal governance processes.

I have, myself, deleted citizen comments from government social media channels when they were off-topic, political or mildly abusive.

I have banned people from access where they were abusive, defamatory, threatening, encouraged violence or law breaking, were highly inappropriate, or where they repeatedly veered off-topic or became political in discussions where the terms of use and community guidelines made it clear that such conduct was unacceptable.

I'd always keep a copy of the term-breaking content as a record and, wherever possible with the social media tool, make it publicly clear why the deletion or ban occurred. When others I worked with managed social media channels, I advised similar scrutiny and approach.

All organisations need to be able to manage their official channels when users repeatedly ignore terms of use or engage via these social media channels for inappropriate ends.

So should government agencies & councils be entitled to ban people from their social media channels?

Yes, in my view, government agencies and councils should be entitled to delete comments and ban constituents from accessing and commenting on their official social media channels.

This is provided the terms of use are public, the moderation approach is balanced, there's appropriate governance and scrutiny in place and where citizens have other routes to source the same information or interact with agencies.

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Register now for BarCamp Canberra

BarCamp Canberra is back, with the 6th annual event to take place on Saturday 16 March at the Inspire Centre.

The free event, which annually attracts 100-150 people, is a participation-based unconference, where every attendee is encouraged to actively participate in workshops, give a presentation on a favoured topic and to network with other attendees.

Given it is Canberra, alongside design, technology, data and similar topics, policy development and Government 2.0 are regularly subjects of discussion and presentations.

Note that third of tickets have already been booked for the event, so if you want to go, register now at: http://barcampcanberra2013.eventbrite.com

Full details are at the BarCamp Canberra website: http://barcampcanberra.org/

To learn more about BarCamps, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp

Caveat: I'm on the unorganising committee for BarCamp Canberra.

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Is it time to abandon the term 'Government 2.0'?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare 

The term 'Government 2.0' was coined a number of years ago now, as a way of describing a set of new opportunities and activities for governments and citizens enabled by digital technologies and the internet.

While many definitions for Government 2.0 are out there, the basic premise is that new technologies can improve the effective governance of nations.

This can occur both through governments reforming their activities, processes and transparency to be more 'citizen-centric', focused on the outcomes for communities than on ticking procedural boxes, and through citizens having greater involvement and influence over how they are governed.

However beyond this basis premise, Government 2.0 is a catchall for a range of very different activities - the release of data in reusable forms, the development of improved citizen engagement approaches and platforms, more direct political involvement by citizens via websites and social networks, the innovative use of digital technologies to redevelop government services, the breakdown of silos within agencies and more.

Many of these activities also have their own names, open data, connected government, digital democracy, crowdsourcing, open government, egovernment, digital innovation and so on - and these terms are often confused with or used instead of the term Government 2.0.

In my experience many public servants, media commentators and the majority of the public are unaware of or have different understandings of what Government 2.0 actually means. The term is not in any dictionaries I'm aware of and is used very differently by different governments and agencies.

If a term, such as Government 2.0, doesn't have a common meaning within government or with citizens, can it communicate what we want to say effectively?

I'm still undecided over whether Government 2.0 remains a useful term. It certainly helps bring together a disparate group of people working in closely related fields - citizen advocacy, open government, community engagement and egovernment, finding points of similarity and synergy that support all their work.

The term has a basis in reality - we can see the changes occurring in society, from the increasing influence of epetitions and online advocacy to influence policies, the move towards open data and copyrights across government, changes in both how government agencies and politicians engage, communicate with and influence their constituents and, more critically, changes in how citizens engage, communicate with and influence politicians, political parties and government agencies in turn.

Social media has helped citizens to form groups and movements and has allowed governments to win (or lose) hearts and minds. Increasingly agencies and politicians are bypassing mainstream media to communicate directly with citizens, cutting out an unreliable middleman.

So we need some kind of term or terms to describe how our society, government and politics is changing - and will continue to change.

But should that term be Government 2.0?

If not, what should it be?

Below is a great webcast from Tim O'Reilly, widely credited with creating the term 'Government 2.0', speaking about what Gov 2.0 means to him and why he created it.

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Considering copyright in a digital world - the 2013 Australian Digital Alliance Copyright Forum

Copyright is one of the battlefields of the digital age, with the ability to rapidly copy and distribute works via digital channels challenging 20th century industries that have relied on traditional copyright laws to profit and thrive.

It is also a key area for governments, who vary in their approach to copyright around the world.

From the US where material created by their Federal government is, by default, owned by the public, to the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and others, where governments are transitioning from closed copyright systems (what the government creates with public funds is owned by the government) to more open ones (the government owns the copyright but assigns the right for the public to reuse it with caveats), to closed systems which exist in many other jurisdictions around the world (what the government creates with public funds, the government owns and can sell to the highest bidder).

There's continuing scrutiny, review and debate over the 'right' setting for copyright - with the companies who only exist due to copyright (book publishers, movie and music producers) often at odds with their own customers, who wish to share books, music and video material they enjoy.

The current Australian Law Reform Commission's review into the topic, Copyright and the Digital Economy, is still ongoing (until November 2013), and copyright is likely to remain an area of contention for decades as digital continues to evolve and force a rethink of who owns or gets to exploit the value in created works.

So it is timely that on 1 March this year the  2013 Australian Digital Alliance Copyright Forum is being held in Canberra at the National Portrait Gallery to consider how Australia's copyright framework fits in with the 'digital world'.

This impacts on government agencies in as profound a way as it impacts on the commercial sector. Governments across Australia still sell significant amounts of copyright material and, despite progressive transition to open licensing, most of their 'back catalogue' remains under restricting copyright rules.

So I suggest that anyone interested in copyright consider attending this forum - there's a great line-up of speakers and likely to be much thought-provoking discussion.

For more details visit the Australian Digital Alliance's website: http://digital.org.au/content/2013-australian-digital-alliance-copyright-forum

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How good have government agencies in Australia become at social record keeping?

An interesting study has come across my desk from Rebecca Stoks, who is working on a Master of Information Management at Victoria University in New Zealand.

She sought in the report to answer the following question:

Recordkeeping is essential to the democratic process, but how can governments maintain public records when they are being created outside their realm of control? 

To answer this, earlier in 2012 she conducted a study of government agencies in Australia to discover the extent to which they were capturing public records created on third party social media sites.

She approached agencies at local, state/territory and federal level, receiving 63 responses, about half from state government agencies and about 25% from local and federal.

Of these respondents 54 used social media, with 41 having used it for a year or more. However only 26 had a social media policy in place, with another 23 in the process of developing social media policies.

Of the 26 with a social media policy in place, only 13 of these policies mentioned the recordkeeping implications of using social media.

At the same time, 32 of the 63 respondents had been approached internally for advice on social media recordkeeping. As a result 11 had developed a procedure on social media recordkeeping, while another 19 were in the process of developing a procedure.

Rebecca found that of the 54 respondents using social media, most did not feel confident they were meeting their legal obligations to keep records, only 18 were capturing records.

Of these 18, some captured everything while others only capturing selected records - with most capturing records created and received by their agency as well as basic metadata associated with social media records, however only a few captured social media interactions such as ratings, tags and re-postings.

The agencies capturing social media records mostly used more than one method, with the most popular being taking screenshots, subscribing to syndication feeds or using a third party archiving service.

Only half of those agencies capturing social media records thought their methods were sustainable, with most who felt they were using more automated capture methods such as archiving services and syndication feeds.

Rebecca's study also found that most respondents to the survey had consulted their local public records office about social media recordkeeping and found their advice useful. However, she says,

when asked what gaps existed in the current guidance on social media records, several respondents expressed a desire for practical and sustainable solutions for what to capture and how to capture.

In a review of Public Record Offices in May 2012, Rebecca found that six of the nine Australian Public Record Offices had published guidance, however most had only been first published in the last year and the depth and approach of the guidance varied enormously across jurisdiction, despite the goals being very similar.

To illustrate this, I've included a table from Rebecca's report below

11.3 Common themes in the guidance on Social Media Recordkeeping

Practical and Procedural Advice	Public Record Office
	NAA	SRNSW	QSA	TRO	TAHO	PROV
Consider and mitigate the risks of using a cloud service		Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
Create policies and procedures for social media that detail recordkeeping requirements	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
Conduct a risk assessment of social media records		Yes	Yes	Yes
Identify which records need to be captured and create a strategy for how and when they will be captured	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Collaborate with the business	Yes	Yes			Yes
Make a file note		Yes	Yes
Only capture/retain original records	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
Export data/Take screenshots	Yes	Yes	Yes			Yes
Create a “bridge” to internal systems		Yes		Yes
Use in-house solutions where possible		Yes			Yes
Attach minimum metadata to records			Yes		Yes	Yes
Use automated solutions where possible		Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
Promote awareness/provide training			Yes		Yes	Yes

If you're interested in more information or a copy of Rebecca's study - which is packed full of more juicy information (90 pages long), email me and I can put you in touch with her.

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AGIMO restructure offers promise of improved whole-of-government IT efficiency

Yesterday AGIMO announced that the Australian Government Information Management Office was adopting a number of the recommendations of the Williams review.

In particular the Williams review identified that AGIMO had moved away from the IT policy and analysis role recommended by the 2008 Gershon review to take on a range of whole-of-government IT implementation functions.

These didn't necessarily always fit together well, with cultural differences (which Williams termed a 'schism') between policy and implementation Divisions and a split focus for AGIMO which diluted its effectiveness in driving government IT reforms.

In the new reform, taken following the departure of Ann Steward, AGIMO will be splitting into the AGCIO (Australian Government Chief Information Office), providing ICT Governance and policy investment advice around information and ICT for whole of government; and the AGCTO (Australian Government Chief Technology Office), providing whole of government service delivery and support including networks, online services and ICT procurement.

The current AGIMO First Assistant Secretaries will be taking on the leadership of these new offices. Glenn Archer as CIO and John Sheridan at CTO - though it is unclear if either or both of them are being promoted in level.

Both have sound track records in AGIMO and, while government employs merit-based promotion, it is no surprise that they've both been awarded these new roles ahead of any external candidates.

So what does this practically mean for AGIMO, the government and Australia?

Firstly, it is unclear whether AGIMO itself will continue to exist as a single entity, or as two separate offices who must work in close collaboration. This will require some short-term adaptation for AGIMO staff as they come to terms with the changes and how these offices work individually and together in practice.

Given than Glenn and John have a history of working together this, at least, bodes well for continued cooperation - though it is unlikely that the separation of the offices is likely to resolve the cultural 'schism' that Williams identified.

I expect the change process will see the AGCIO and AGCTO engage in navel-gazing for a few months as they develop their internal plans and come to grips with the new arrangements.

Both offices will then need to make it clear to the government and external stakeholders which is responsible for what areas. While one Office will be policy-focused and one implementation, in practice there are likely to be gray areas for which responsibility may not be clear to external observers.

This could create confusion as to which Office an agency, media representative, external stakeholder or supplier should speak to on given topics, which in turn could lead to misunderstandings and mistakes.

More critically is how the government will view and use the office to pursue whole-of-government IT reform and policy outcomes.

This reform is administrative - designed to make the machinery run better. There's been no public leadership from our elected government on what the new AGCIO and AGCTO are there to achieve.

This means that even if the AGCIO and AGCTO are doing their jobs - developing IT policies and implementing whole-of-government solutions around web hosting, IT procurement and governance - it remains unclear how this tactical work is being used strategically to bring the government's infrastructure and engagement into the 21st Century.

This is a major concern for me, per my last blog post on this subject. IT needs to be employed within a strategic framework, rather than treated as just one of the cogs in an agency's gears.

When agencies are unable to carry out policy goals for the government of the day due to their IT configuration, or when agencies are unable to effectively engage the community because their IT is substandard, there is a major issue that affects how Australia's elected representatives meet the needs of the community.

The new AGIMO structure doesn't appear to come with any additional mandate or resources (though more might be revealed next year) and this, in my opinion, will limit the ability of both AGCIO and AGCTO to be successful.

The new structure may even be counterproductive. If the AGCIO and AGCTO need to compete against each other for sufficient people and funds to achieve their goals, or a change in leadership sees the two offices less cooperative this will only weaken their effectiveness.

It is early days yet, and it takes time for this type of change to be fully communicated, considered, implemented and embedded.

I do believe that the restructure will provide a solid administrative base to continue to improve centralised strategic IT thinking, leadership and delivery.

I hope that, over the next few months, it will also become clear that there is the right political support and resourcing to use this base effectively - that it won't be starved to the point of irrelevance.

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