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One of the long established principles in government and big business is that only designated staff are allowed to represent their organisations when speaking to the media.
This is an extremely well-intentioned principle, designed to protect both the organisation and individual staff. The media is frequently more interested in sensation than truth and can twist innocent statements into major incidents. Even when truth and accuracy are the goal, some things may need to be kept secret (at least for awhile) for good reasons - to protect intellectual property, safeguard individual privacy, avoid giving the competition an advantage or to keep complex fast-changing situations from being presented in static and simplistic (or inaccurate) ways.
Professional journalists are, in some ways, trained interrogators (and sometimes executioners). It can take an experienced, well-trained and well-briefed organisational representative to navigate a conversation that will later be reported, dissected and analysed for flaws and inconsistencies.
This limited media engagement approach relies on a single very important factor - that the 'media' is a clearly identifiable group.
In the past it was easy to identify the media. They were the people who owned the media distribution channels - radio stations, television channels and newspapers and magazines.
Commonly journalists identified themselves based on the media outlet they were from - except when going undercover - and a good organisational media representative could relatively easily identify and, over time, build productive relationships with the leading journalists covering their topical material.
However with the introduction of the internet this changed. We now have a virtually free global distribution network topped by ubiquitious access to publishing devices - including video and photos (via mobile phones) - and usage rates in excess of 90% of western populations.
Every internet user is able to break news to every other internet user - via blogs, citizen news sites, social networks, chatrooms, forums, newsgroups, microblogs and other online media channels.
This news can then be picked up and redistributed by other internet users and may also be picked up by 'traditional media' - those radio stations, television channels, newspapers and magazines (who are thirsty for cheap content).
This makes the question 'who are the 'media' a moot point. The 'media' is now 'the public' - no longer a small group of large conglomerates controlling information distribution channels but every single person with access to a mobile phone and internet connection.
This poses a challenge for government and private sector organisations who traditionally limit media engagement by staff. All of their customers and stakeholders are able to produce, publish and distribute media news. So can their employees.
So if the rules of the past no longer apply, what can organisations do?
The first choice is to ignore the changes in the environment and try to enforce the rules that worked in the past.
This approach is enormously risky as it can lead to many gray areas and blind spots - plenty of room for inappropriate and inconsistent enforcement. Individual managers (or in the government, agencies) could interpret the scope of the 'media' differently - creating discrimination and a rising tide of dissatisfaction and legal controversy.
The second choice is to educate all of an organisation's staff on how to engage appropriately in public arenas.
This is a signficant, but not impossible, undertaking. In fact Telstra is in the process of doing this right now (regarding social media engagement), as are the US Defense forces and some government agencies and large companies around the world. This approach recognises that the media environment has changed and organisations must change with it.
The third choice is to - well I can't think of a third choice. Organisations can either recognise the realities of the world and accommodate change, or they can attempt to hold back or even reverse them.
The next few years will tell us which approach organisations have chosen - and how well they have worked out.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Who are the 'media' anyway? The new reality of media engagement | Tweet |
Friday, November 27, 2009
How much should a government website cost - are we over-engineering our websites? | Tweet |
These days when I personally need to set up a new website, I either hop onto Wordpress or download one of the free open-source content management systems, purchase space on a decent US server and follow the installation instructions.
I use a design template found online, customising it with some style tweaks where required, then spend a few days writing content.
It's not very hard and doesn't take very long (normally under a week).
However in government we have very strong governance structures around website creation - with good reason - to ensure that the platforms we use are secure, reliable and effective. We also have extensive content approval processes which can require a number of steps before words reach the screen.
This places a great deal of overhead on the process of creating and managing government websites, adding significantly to IT and resourcing costs.
I don't question the need for public organisations to guarantee the reliability and security of their websites. However I do wonder if we're placing a disproportionate level of cost onto this process - so much overhead on our websites that they may be slower to deliver and less cost-effective than other communications channels.
I also wonder if departments spend much time scrutinising their governance arrangements to see if they can reduce the burden, and therefore the cost and time to market, (without compromising the outcome) by either planing ahead or working together better.
If we are really one government shouldn't we be able to - as a group or via some central agency - security assess and review a group of web technologies then pick and choose between them as needed - depending on our internal platforms and needs?
Why not compare our departmental content management processes and learn from the organisations who are most effective and efficient?
Food for thought.
Friday, November 13, 2009
How should the public service engage with controversial topics online? | Tweet |
In my experience, where possible, Australian public servants avoid controversial topics when consulting with the public.
Controversial topics are messy, unpredictable, raise high emotions and draw out divergent viewpoints - making discussions difficult to manage and control. They also often edge into political matters which are outside the scope of the public service, who strive to remain professionally apolitical in their service to their political masters.
Of course, often active discussion thrives on controversy. Radically differing viewpoints and high emotional engagement leads to energetic and insightful debate. They can soar to great heights - and plummet to unspeakable depths.
On the other hand, discussions on topics where most people agree tend to be largely controllable - but also predictable, boring and repetitive. Why bother repeating a 'me too' point or stating something that seems self-evident?
People rapidly lose interest and drift away when there's no cut and thrust of debate and the conclusions are easily arrived at from the proposition.
For public servants striving to generate online discussion on blogs and forums there's a difficult line to walk between proposing topics that are controversial and those that are safe.
Instinct tends to draw public servants to safe topics, where we can predict the likely responses and avoid the risk of heated and uncivil discussion. It's easier (and more risk-adverse) to manage a discussion when the outcome is obvious, it requires less time, effort and critical judgement - and also requires less Ministerial correspondence, scrutiny from senior management and career risk.
However it is hard to get audiences to engage on many safe topics. The public is uninterested, has already agreed on an outcome or simply doesn't feel entertained and stimulated by many safe discussions. To be frank, they are boring and don't materially add to the policy or operational discussion.
So how can public servants engage with controversy online, without engaging too much?
Fortunately there are a number of models on how to do this. People have been stepping through this minefield for thousands of years in physical discussions and many of the same tools work online.
The first approach is to structure the debate where you cannot structure the content. Find a topic and choose two positions. Form 'teams' to argue each of the positions in sequential order. Have an audience able to make side comments and vote on which team did a better job of building a compelling case.
Those of you familiar with formal debating will recognise this approach. It still allows passionate discussion but within a straight-jacket of format and set positions, which avoids a free-for-all. There is a beginning, a middle and an end - which prevents it dragging for an unknown period and usually there are only two 'sides' - positions - which an audience can take.
A second approach is an expert panel, where each expert provides their own position and the audience can comment or vote on the position they most ascribe to. This is more flexible than a debate, however still largely restricts discussion to positions set by 'authorities'. While it provides greater flexibility for diverse views it can also limit discussion and debate between the distinct expert positions as the experts may not be as willing to debate each other or have their supporters do so.
A third option, which I term rotating perspectives, also supports multiple positions, but each is examined sequentially over time by an audience. This focuses discussion on the pros and cons of each particular position over time and allows the community managers to introduce new perspectives based on the direction of the discussion. While more flexible and responsive to audience feedback than an expert panel, and encouraging online audience participation, this approach can lead to uneven analysis of ideas. Early positions may receive more discussion (based on a big promotional launch) and greater critical thought - as they are visible longer for reflection and responses can be made later in the process. This also risks having members of the audience pre-empting certain positions ahead of time - though this isn't necessarily a bad outcome as it increases the sense of active discussion.
My fourth, and final - for now - option is to provide separate groups for discussion of each different position. These can be linked or merged where positions converge or separated out where a single position diverges into several. Audience members can suggest and create their own positions, which then become new groups for discussion. Towards the end of the discussion many positions may merge towards a common core thread - or they may diverge, identifying the most intractable issues that need resolution. Similar to workshopping, this approach is complex, requiring additional moderation and an appropriate technology platform - such as a Nationbuilder (used for Australia2) or Ideascale which allows ideas to be separately discussed, merged as required and with a degree of automated nouse that can merge similar positions.
There are other approaches as well - breaking down a topic into individual issues and discussing each separately, or having the community rate contributions with the aim of self-moderation (which works quite well in some online communities).
What other approaches can you suggest that would allow the public service to engage with controversial topic online while remaining comfortable about the risks?
Friday, October 16, 2009
How would management of your website change if anyone could comment on or redesign it outside your control? | Tweet |
How would it change the management of your website if anyone could make an unmoderated public comment about any page at any time - totally outside your control?
How would your Minister and senior management respond if people could freely critique your content, pointing out any errors or misleading statements or airing their complaints (and compliments) publicly?
Or what if someone could redesign your website from the outside to make it better suit their needs, or to make a personal or political point - and then share this design with others?
This isn't just idle speculation - it's happening today.
Google recently launched its Sidewiki service which allows anyone at any time to make any comment on any website - visible to anyone else using Sidewiki.
This means that the public can hold a discussion on any page in any Australian government website completely outside your control.
Does that sound scary? It should if you're not aware of or able to participate in these conversations as needed.
Below is an example of Sidewiki in action - viewing comments in blogs related to the Whitehouse website.
At the same time, tools now exist that allow outsiders to redesign your website from the outside. For example the free Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox allows people to rearrange your content, or even translate the words into a different style (one recent popular script translates websites into 'pirate' speak) that becomes visible in their web browser. They can then share these rewrite scripts with others using the same tool.
Greasemonkey isn't the only tool that does this - and people are already writing scripts, such as this one to reconfigure parts of the National Archives website to display Australian government sites in a different manner.
This approach has been used to 'fix' the design of some websites which the community found hard to use - in several cases the website owner has even voluntarily made website changes based on these community suggestions.
It can also be used as a protest, adding, modifying or remove content from a website (as viewed in a user's web browser).
There's also organisations which externally redesign websites. In the US the Sunlight Foundation periodically redesigns a US Federal Government website to demonstrate how it could be done to work better. It would be simple for someone to do the same here in Australia.
In other words, while internally we control how we design and develop our websites - just as we carefully craft our media releases to say things the way we want - we can not control what people do with them once they leave our 'controlled' space.
Just as the media can pick and choose what material to use from our media release, the public has the ability to pick and choose what material they see in our website - and can comment on it outside our control.
People responsible for planning, developing and operating government websites need to be thinking about how these types of tools impact on how your official website is viewed externally.
So over to you for comments,
- What will you do if an organised group redesigns your website from the outside (either in a friendly or a malicious way)?
- How will you respond to comments that are visibly attached to your website?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
NSW launches Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program as part of Apps4NSW | Tweet |
The NSW government has launched the Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program to provide access to NSW transport routes, timetables and stop/station/wharf information for download and reuse in third party applications.
It's been provided as part of the data available for the Apps4NSW competition. launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere.
Unlike similar initiatives in the US and UK, which have generally employed Creative Commons licenses, the NSW Transport Authority has released the data contingent to users signing on to a specific data licensing agreement (PDF), providing the government with significantly more control over how the data may be used and who by.
As an initial step it is great to see the NSW government attempting to free up public data, although the current license agreement may restrict some usage.
For example, the license requires that there be someone eligible and willing to legally sign such an agreement. This could cause developers to think twice before signing on. It could also limit participation by young programmers and school students if their parents and schools are concerned over entering into this formal binding legal agreement with the NSW government.
The license also requires that licensees show their application to the Transport Authority at least 30 days before the application goes live. This reduces the ability for licensees to develop emergency applications at short notice to address specific events - such as fires, floods or other disasters (even dust storms).
There's also a requirement to update applications when the Department updates data, which could also present issues to those mashing up data for fun or experience. It seems to be aimed at companies who choose to mashup the data.
The comments I've seen published on Twitter include:
matthewlandauer: Not impressed with the NSW transport data license http://is.gd/3w1iL especially section 6: Release to the public. #gov2au
NickHodge: @trib @chieftech @matthewlandauer someone is scared about transparency in NSW public transport, me thinks :-(
malcolmt: Sad. Epic Fail by NSW gov with public transport timetable data license. This word Open, it does not mean what you think it means.
dasfreak: First NSW Gov open data effort starting with transport data. License on the whole OK. Reporting section bit onerous http://bit.ly/ehlj2
Overall this is a step forward for government openness, and in many respects a large step - particularly from NSW Transport's position in March, where it was actively pursuing developers with threats of legal action.
However it is only one step along a very long road.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
New York Transportation Authority sues iPhone developer over schedule information | Tweet |
In a sign that the discussion over what public data should be public is ongoing, the New York Times has reported that the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued a takedown notice to an iPhone developer who has used train schedules in his iPhone application.
The Authority claims that public train schedule data is its intellectual property - similar to the claim by NSW Rail when it issued four takedown notices against application developers reusing NSW rail timetable data in March this year.
In this case, however, the Authority is seeking to profit off licensing the information for distribution - despite providing it for free. This was because the iPhone application maker was charging US$2.49 for his application, which he says is merely to cover the costs of producing the application.
Note that the Authority is not completely government-owned, however is paid by US governments to operate a public service, which might become an interesting area of debate in future regarding date in the public interest generated by public-private partnerships such as tollways, utilities (ActewAGL for example) and Job Network members. Even access to postcode geodata in Australia might become a consideration.
If the government contracts a third party to provide a service, should part of that arrangement include ensuring that all public data generated is made available to the public?
I think it will be a discussion we'll need to have in the next year.
It will be interesting to see how the New York situation is resolved - particularly considering the level of negative media attention the Authority has been receiving.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released | Tweet |
Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre, I've become aware of the New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework that was release late last month.
Structured as a discussion paper, it sets out guidelines for the use of 'no copyright' and Creative Commons use across the NZ government to support the release and appropriate re-use of government generated data and materials.
One of the issues it aims to address is,
current confusion, uncertainty and criticism on the part of members of the public around Crown copyright and licensing, including difficulties being experienced through the various and inconsistent licensing practices across the State Services.
I believe this would resonate with organisations such as OpenAustralia who are attempting to reuse government data in Australia (and recently had their request rejected by Queensland).
The document provides a thorough guide to Creative Commons copyright in New Zealand.
It also includes a handy review and release decision tre to make it easy for government departments to select the licensing most appropriate for their data and documents. On first glance this tree looks jurisdictionally agnostic - meaning it could as easily be applied in Australia as it could in New Zealand.
The entire document has been released in a blog-style format, supporting comments on each page (though there are none visible to-date).
I don't expect Australia to be that far behind.
Monday, September 07, 2009
NSW launches 'Apps4NSW' with $100,000 in prizes | Tweet |
Launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere on Friday, Apps4NSW is the first Australian public competition for reusing online NSW government data to create useful applications for the public.
Quoting the new site,
In the competition, individuals and groups will compete for cash prizes by creating ideas and software application prototypes that can be used on websites and mobile devices. This competition will foster collaboration between NSW citizens and the Government as well as promote and highlight innovation in the digital media sector.This reflects the App for America competition that has been running for two years in the US, and a similar competition recently run in the UK via the site Show us a better way.
There will be two competition categories:
* ideas for applications or services based around public or government data, and
* prototype software applications that demonstrate the idea in action.
In conjunction with this announcement, the NSW government has also announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released.
Data.nsw.gov.au announced - open NSW data feeds for reuse coming soon | Tweet |
The NSW government has announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released.
Announced at NSWSphere last Friday, alongside the release of the Apps4NSW public competition, data.nsw.gov.au will first release RTA data around the end of September - conclusively ending the controversy that began when NSW Rail threatened four developers with legal action for repackaged NSW rail timetables into applications for iPhones, breaching copyright.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Finalists of Apps for America 2 announced | Tweet |
The Sunlight Foundation has announced the three finalists for the Apps for America 2 competition.
These finalists represent the best online social innovation sites developed by Americans to make the US government more transparent.
I'm hoping that we'll soon see a similar competition held here in Australia.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Introducing a common web reporting platform across federal government | Tweet |
Over the last few years I've often thought about the value of having a complete picture of web traffic to the Australian government.
This would require a common way to track and report on the usage of each discrete government website and the ability to track and measure the traffic between them over time (using anonymous user data).
I see enormous value in this approach. Firstly it would help government departments holistically understand how citizens see the inter-relationships between different government services and information across agency boundaries.
Secondly it would support smaller agencies to cost-effectively develop appropriate reports and access the data they need to improve their online presence and provide ROI for online initiatives. Rather than web reporting sophistication being a factor of agency size it would become a consistent core whole-of-government capability, regardless of agency size, budget, technical skills and inhouse web expertise.
Thirdly this approach would help executives and web professionals moving between government departments as they could expect a consistent level of reporting for the online space no matter where they worked. This would cut down learning curves and help improve the consistency of online channel management across government.
Finally, having standardised and consistent web reporting would lead to consistent and more accurate reporting to parliament of the overall size of the government's online audience, and the share held by each department, supporting decision making for the use of the online channel.
So could this be done?
I think it could.
We have precedents for whole-of-government licenses in the use of technologies such as Funnelback for search (which crawls all government sites for Australia.gov.au and is available for departments to use for their web search) and Adobe Smartforms for business forms (via business.gov.au).
The technology for whole-of-government online reporting is readily available without requiring major changes to how any department operates. The reporting could be deployed simply by requiring the addition of a small piece of code to every web page on every site, as is used by systems like Google Analytics and WebTrends On-Demand. Departments could even continue to also use their existing in-house tools if they so chose or exclude websites where special circumstances applied.
Through aggregating the reporting function, more funds and expertise could be focused on producing more meaningful and useful reports. Standard report templates could be developed for departments to use - or not - as they preferred.
Finally, this approach would provide cost and procurement efficiencies for government. Only one procurement process would be necessary to select the product, rather than individual processes being conducted by various agencies. The scale of the federal government means that government could purchase and maintain the tool at a much lower cost per department than it would cost a department to purchase an appropriate tool.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
How should transparency in government be enforced? | Tweet |
While open government advocates are calling for governments around the world to be more transparent and accountable, one of the issues that has to be worked through is how to ensure that the data made publicly available is complete and accurate.
Generally transparency costs dollars - even online. Therefore there needs to be suitable commitment to 'watching the watchmen' to support data transparency.
Since the US government has already mandated more open and transparent government - a process in mid-stream in Australia - they are now considering the appropriate governance for accuracy and other issues in making transparency 'stick' in a culture where secrecy has been a defining trait for many years.
A few weeks ago NextGov interviewed Earl Devaney, head of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board in the US. This panel is responsible for placing details of the $787 billion economic stimulus spending online via a revamped Recovery.gov site and preventing waste, fraud and abuse of the money.
As the article's headline states, Transparency will be embarrassing.
This potential for embarrassment can lead into the potential for incomplete or fraudulent reporting, which is why Devaney's Board will be using 40 inspectors to monitor US agencies and ensure that they provide accurate and timely data for public view.
The rest of the interview is an interesting discussion around how the Board will be enforcing transparency and the tools it will have at its disposal to manage any data accuracy issues.
I think Australia has a tremendous opportunity to monitor how successful the US is in this transparency initiative, then learn from and legislate appropriately to mitigate any holes that appear.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Government 2.0 Taskforce - official Issues Paper formally released | Tweet |
The Government 2.0 Taskforce has released the final version of their official issues paper,Towards Government 2.0: An Issues Paper.
Some of the key questions raised include,
- How can we build a culture within government which favours the disclosure of public sector information?
- What government information should be more freely available and what might be made of it?
- What are the major obstacles to fostering a culture of online engagement within government and how can they be tackled?
- How can government capture the imagination of citizens to encourage participation in policy development and collaboration between citizens and government?
The Issues Paper is open for feedback until COB 24 August 2009.
Interestingly, the beta Issues Paper, which was only available online for four days, attracted 108 comments. That's the type of extraordinarily fast feedback that can be generated through online consultation.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Operating web and IT in an abundance mindset | Tweet |
Chris Anderson, the owner of Wired, recently wrote a very thought-provoking article about the need for organisations to consider how to operate within an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity-based one in his article, Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity.
Chris uses one example of how Wired used to restrict the email and file space provided to every staff member, with the IT team prompting staff regularly to delete files so as not to fill up the server.
One day he asked his ICT team how much file storage space Wired had for staff and was told that they had 500Gb - half the size of the 1 Terabyte hard-drive in the home computer he had recently bought for his kids. As he said,
My children had twice as much storage as my entire staff.I have had a similar experience in various organisations I've worked at. Despite falling storage and computing costs, organisations often place heavy restrictions on staff computing power - for what reason I'm not sure.
Cost probably isn't a good reason for this scarcity mindset. If, for example, a 5,000 person organisation only allowed each staff member 200Mb in file and email space, that would mean the organisation had limited itself to 1,000Gb (1 Terabyte) of storage for staff.
Looking quickly at hard-drive prices, a 2 Terabyte commercial quality hard-drive costs about AU$500.
In other words, now you can buy twice as much staff file storage as the example organisation above for only $500 - and the price is going down.
Now consider the staff side of the equation. Files keep getting larger, as do emails. If you assume that each staff member spends 10 minutes each month reorganising their file space to prevent them from going over the organisation's limit, that's a cost of 50,000 minutes or 833 hours each month.
Assuming that each hour of staff time is worth around $50 - including wages, equipment and overheads - that lost time costs the organisation $41,650 in productivity, or $499,800 each year.
To put this in perspective, if the organisation removed the limit on file space and compensated by spending $500 (2 Terabytes) on extra storage it would save $41,650 in staff productivity costs - each month.
That's an ROI of 833% - each month.
Naturally there would be some other costs - servers, redundancy, electricity and the need for effective search technology. However the outcome would remain the same, the organisation is better off investing in more storage than in enforcing a 'scarcity' mindset.
File storage space is only one example.
I've also seen organisations struggling on low bandwidth, slowing down applications and internet services - therefore hindering productivity. With the ability for ISPs to provide adaptable bandwidth there's not really much excuse for this type of approach.
Equally organisations often provide their staff with outdated equipment and applications, which also reduces productivity. In many cases staff now have cheaper and more powerful systems and software at home.
While sometimes software is 'held back' to older versions due to security concerns (or lack of staff to check and approve security), the reality is that most modern software is more secure than older versions of applications.
Restricting software and hardware for security purposes can result in the opposite effect - reducing the organisation's security. If staff are forced to send work home to finish it, or go home to view websites and use online applications, this can raise the risks to the organisation.
Again this type of approach reeks of scarcity and cost-focused thinking, rather than an abundance and productivity-focused approach. It probably costs less for an organisation to employ contract staff to security-assess vital applications than it costs the organisation in lost productivity. Even though upgrading the applications may be expensive the net productivity and security gains for the entire organisation can be significant.
Another example is around the use of web services, which are extremely low cost and easy to test and trial. Organisations need to allow staff to experiment with these tools in appropriate ways, rather than requiring them to always follow tender-based processes to procure expensive custom-built alternatives, or have them coded in house (also at significant opportunity cost).
Finally organisational websites are often managed on a scarcity approach, with limited bandwidth and storage space, or with information cut-down from what is provided in print publications.
Again this applies a scarcity mindset. Domains are cheap, storage is cheap, bandwidth is cheap and an appropriately organised website can have great depth of content at relatively low delivery cost (certainly much lower cost than phone, mail or face-to-face).
So, in conclusion, at least in web and IT matters organisations need to consider an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity one.
They have to consider whether their policies and procedures aid or harm staff productivity and whether the cost of managing and policing some restrictive policies (such as file storage) is worth the productivity hit.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
The benefits of crowdsourcing - US$1,000,000 prize from Netflix | Tweet |
I highlighted the online Netflix prize quite some time ago as an example of how an organisation could work with its community to drive innovation.
Netflix has a longstanding prize of US$1,000,000 on offer for the group who could improve their online movie/TV recommendations engine by at least 10%. The goal is to substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to love a movie based on their movie preferences.
Over 40,900 teams from around the world (49,000 people) have been involved over the last few years, striving for the recognition and the prize money.
Now a group of four of the leading teams from the U.S., Canada, Austria and Israel have formed a successful collaborative team (BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos) which has achieved a 10.05% improvement in movie rankings, making them the potential winners of the prize.
Firstly this achievement demonstrates the power of collaboration. Each of the four teams could only get so far on their own. By working together (across the world) they have successfully achieved what none of the teams could have achieved alone.
Secondly it demonstrates the power of crowd sourcing. Few organisations could have afforded to employ an extra 49,000 people for several years in the hope of achieving a 10% improvement in operations. However by opening up their information and inviting the public to compete to solve this data manipulation problem, Netflix has managed to improve its product and attract massive positive press at the same time for a relatively small investment.
If 49,000 people are willing to work on a 10% improvement to a movie ratings engine, think of the potential if we provided an incentive for people to develop innovative applications or solutions for public data and policy issues.
This is being tapped into in the US, with their Apps for America competition and smaller but similar events at state levels.
The approach is also being adopted in the UK.
Will it be much longer before we see it used in Australia?
Perhaps the Government 2 Taskforce will lead the way.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
US Federal government launches public IT Dashboard | Tweet |
I've been known to say, from time to time, that what you cannot measure you cannot manage. This is especially true in IT-based projects, which often involve significant investments and where deadlines and budgets can easily slide.
Given it has been estimated that 68% of IT projects fail to realise the benefits or outcomes they set out to achieve, it is vitally important that good measurement be in place to manage these investments and ensure that the responsible parties are accountable for the outcomes.
The US government has taken a major step towards public accountability over government IT investments with the release of the IT dashboard website.
Speaking to the Washington Post in the article, Government Launches Web Site to Track IT Spending, US Federal CIO Vivek Kundra stated that,
"Everyone knows there have been spectacular failures when it comes to technology investments," Kundra said. "Now for the first time the entire country can see how we're spending money and give us input."Featured at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York on Tuesday, the IT Dashboard provides information on US$76 billion of US Federal IT spending, breaking it down by agency and into individual projects.
The site is more than a list of numbers. It provides interactive graphics and charts which allows visitors to identify which projects are running behind schedule or over budget - as well as those on time and on budget.
The site also makes the underlying data available in open formats, able to be reused in citizen applications and cross-referenced with other information sources to generate new insights.
While the site is undoubtably a nightmare for CIOs who have inadequate cost accounting systems or a high level of date and over-budget projects, it provides an extremely valuable role in enforcing accountability on public spending and supporting both citizens and elected officials to visualise, understand and ask the right questions about government IT investment decisions.
In other words the site aids the democratic process and encourages Federal Departments to ensure that they are running their IT projects effectively - which Kundra has already seen happen in practice,
"I talked to the CIO Council and saw the data change overnight," Kundra said. "It was cleaned up immediately when people realized it was going to be made public."Consider the benefits to the US if government IT failure rate could be cut significantly - potentially doubling the value of every public dollar invested in IT.
I would love to see a similar site in Australia as I believe there would be similar benefits to the democratic process, transparency, accountability and improved ROI for the taxpayer dollar.
Below is a video explaining the site.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
New York Senate opens up its data to the public | Tweet |
The New York State Senate has launched its Open Senate initiative with an API (Application Programming Interface) allowing the public direct access to its data.
The NY Senate is also making the code freely available as open source, stating that,
As a user of Open-Source software the New York Senate wants to help give back to the community that has given it so much - including this website. To meet its needs the Senate is constantly devleoping new code and fixing existing bugs. Not only does the Senate recognize that it has a responsibility to give back to the Open Source community, but public developments, made with public money should be public.The Senate is also working towards making most NY State government data freely available on their open data site.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Victorian Government Inquiry recommends that Vic Gov opens most data for free public reuse | Tweet |
The Victorian Government's Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee recently released the final report (PDF) for its Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data.
The Inquiry was designed to look at and report back to the Victorian Parliament on the potential application of open content and open source licensing to Victorian Government information, particularly considering the economic benefits, improvements to discovery and use of data, the ICT requirements and potential risks, impediments and restrictions.
With 46 recommendations, the report is quite a hefty read (238 pages) - however there are three key recommendations the report highlights, which I hope are both adopted by the Victorian Government and considered by other governments across Australia.
These were,
- develop a framework for free or low cost access to all possible public sector information,
- that the government use the Creative Commons licensing model for most (around 85%) of public sector information, tapping into a simple to understand and widely used system - with the remaining 15% subject to appropriate licensing based on the need for restricted access, and
- that the Victorian government develop a central directory enabling easier discovery of public sector information and the access conditions attached to it.
A fourth recommendation is also worth noting, to quote,
The Committee also considers the use of open source software (OSS) within and by the Victorian Government. One of the Committee’s recommendations is that the Government ensure tendering for software is neither licence specific nor has proprietary software-specific requirements, and that it meet the given objectives of Government.This recommendation will help level the playing field for open source software in government. While open source is already widely used in the public sector, the lack of a responsible single vendor has sometimes raised the perceived risk of open source. Also often software has been selected on the basis of initial purchase/implementation costs rather than on the total cost of ownership, which can be manipulated by vendors of proprietary software to encourage very low-cost take-up of products but with expensive ongoing maintenance and development.
The next step is for the Victorian government to consider and adopt some, all or none of the 46 recommendations - the first of which is,
Recommendation 1: That the Victorian Government release a public statement indicating that it endorses open access as the default position for the management of its public sector information.Recommendation 39 is also very interesting from a national perspective,
Recommendation 39: That the Victorian Government work with other jurisdictions towards national harmonisation in enhancing access to and reuse of PSI.
Many in the government 2.0 community will be waiting with bated breath.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Australian government announces government 2.0 taskforce headed by Dr Nicholas Gruen | Tweet |
At the Government 2.0 Public Sphere Camp, Ministers Tanner and Ludwig have announced the creation of a Government 2.0 Taskforce.
Chaired by Dr Nicholas Gruen, the Taskforce is made up of fifteen policy and technical experts and entrepreneurs from government, business, academia, and cultural institutions.
The taskforce has two main streams,
- to increase the openness of government through making public sector information more widely available to promote transparency, innovation and value adding to government information.
- encouraging online engagement with the aim of drawing in the information, knowledge, perspectives, resources and even, where possible, the active collaboration of anyone wishing to contribute to public life.
More information is at the Taskforce's website, www.gov2.net.au.
During the announcement, Minister Tanner said that while today people are still largely passive consumers of online information this is changing. Web 2.0 has changed the internet from a platform for communication to be a platform for collaboration.
Through online tools like blogs and wikis government can keep citizens appraised and be involved with what government is doing.
The Taskforce will advise the government on how to develop a pro-disclosure and innovative culture.
Minister Ludwig spoke about changing the Freedom of Information approach in Australia from being request-based to being pro-disclosure.
He also commented that making vast amounts of data available is not the endpoint, data must be appropriately formatted to allow it to be effectively used.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Utah 2.0 | Tweet |
The US state of Utah has been a very active implementer of government 2.0 initiatives for several years now, and is known as one of the most progressive early adopters (for government) in the space.
They recently released a new website which uses many web 2.0 features to improve the experience for uses and also aggregates many of the government 2.0 activities the state undertakes.
According to Federal Computer Week's article, Utah goes Web 2.0, the site includes,
the aggregation of 27 state blogs and more than 100 Twitter accounts, according to state officials.
The new site has geographical detection technology that estimates the location of visitors and displays relevant location specific information, including local meetings, government Web sites, school and library information, park information, and available online services, Utah officials said.
A data portal provides access to public data sets from local, state and federal government sources.
It also offers 24/7 live chat as well as many other web 2.0 features.
The new site is online at www.utah.govegov
