What share of your communications spend is on digital channels?

MarketingVox has release the article, Marketers' Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future, which reports on a US survey sponsored by Sapient of two hundred CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers).

The report indicates that more than a quarter of marketers said that half to all of their marketing is now done via digital channels. It also reported that nearly 40 percent foresee that in 12 months from half to all their marketing will be done via digital channels.

So what about in Australia?

In Australia we're a few years behind the US (which makes the US a useful predictor of our future).

The 2008 Australian Digital Marketing Trends Survey sponsored by NextDigital, involving 200 communicators across industries (including government) indicated that only around 10 percent of organisations dedicated between 25 and 50 percent of their marketing spend on digital.

However this was projected to grow to 40 percent of organisations within the next five years (by 2013).

It also found that in 2007 only 4 percent of Australian organisations were spending more than 50 percent of their marketing dollars on digital channels, but this was expected to grow to 19 percent in five years.

How is your organisation allocating its communications dollars?

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Should government regulate mobile data? The EU thinks so

I regard mobile internet access as of strategic concern to Australia's development as a connected nation.

While fixed wire broadband is also crucial, mobile access is the best approach for filling the gaps cost-effectively in a large low-population nation such as Australia. Also mobile internet supports ubiquitous instant access to information, which fixed broadband does not.

This is why I felt it important enough to write a blog post regarding the cost of data in recently released Australian iPhone plans.

As such I have found Paul Budde's article, Regulators expose data roaming rip-off, very interesting.

In it Paul discusses how the European Commission has chastised telecommunications companies for their mobile data charging practices. This is because the large prices being charged are actively inhibiting the growth of mobile internet use in Europe and having flow-on long-term economic impacts.

To quote (bolding is mine),

Data as charged per MB also remains excessive: in most countries (with the notable exceptions of the Czech Republic , Malta , Hungary , Latvia , Poland and Slovakia) charges fell between June 2007 and March 2008. Nevertheless, in four markets (Iceland , Luxembourg , Poland and Slovakia) the retail charge per MB is above E10. According to the GSM Association (GSMA) the average price for downloading a MB of data is now just over E5.

Lack of transparency remains a serious problem, in that most consumers are unaware of prices for data roaming or of the amount of data being used. This in turn has led to the ‘bill shock’ which is proving to be one of the principal brakes on customers using mobile data roaming.

The article concludes with details of the charging regime in Denmark which highlights the level of overcharging of consumers by telcos in the data space.

I can appreciate that telecommunications providers are using data charges to offset falling fixed line voice revenues. However at some point this becomes an economic brake and of national concern.

I only hope that this occurs sooner rather than later in Australia - I believe that we have already seen economic damage due to the broadband drought - although I am not aware of any report ever having been commissioned to assess the opportunity cost of high broadband costs in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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Does wireless internet access improve government productivity?

The Federal Mobility 2.0 Study, released a couple of days ago in the US, has reported that wireless internet access for Federal public servants improves their productivity.

In fact over 70% of respondents, who all used wireless internet, reported that it improved their productivity.

At the same time only 40% of Federal agencies reported that they allowed wireless internet access.

I'm currently blogging on my personal laptop using wireless and would agree with the productivity benefits.

I primarily use my laptop for work reasons, from conferences, at home and around town. I use it for taking meeting notes, developing wireframes, writing strategy papers, referencing net sites and monitoring activity on our website - amongst other things.

Internet access is a critical requirement for all of these tasks and I can generally access a wireless network wherever I go.

Except for one place - my office.

My agency has no wireless network in place for staff, although there are a couple of test networks in use by the IT team I can see when my laptop is at work.

This presents an interesting issue for me and for others. When at the office I am often in meetings in rooms with no computer, electronic whiteboard or any way to access resources on our internal network or on the web.

This leads to the need to print out any documents needed and bring them to the meeting. I don't know how many people attend how many meetings each day at my agency, but all that paper, printer ink and elecricity adds up quickly.

It would both be a major cost for the agency as well as a major timewaster - printing the documents in the first place, finding the references within the documents, then taking hand notes in the meeting and retyping them into a computer afterwards.

I'd like to see an inhouse wireless network we could use to save all this money and environmental cost.

Would that be secure you ask?
The same report indicated that 83% of IT Executives said that wireless networks can be secure.

Do you have wireless internet access in your agency?

And do you believe it improves productivity?

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Is it time for a government mobile broadband guarantee?

The Australian government has an opportunity to expand its support for national fixed line broadband to include mobile broadband, spearheaded by the release of the Apple iPhone this week.

The phone is a revolutionary device and reports out of the US indicate that people using the phone are using internet data services 50x as frequently as on other phone handsets.

However with the release of telecommunications plans by Optus, Vodaphone and Telstra, there has been considerable backlash within online communities.

The general theme is that the data allocations are too small, and the cost of data much too high.

The view is stated sucinctly by Stephen Collins of Acidlabs in his post, The iPhone as social umbilical cord (and how Australian telcos don’t get it).

Mobile internet has to-date been largely a non-event in Australia. With the rollout of 3G networks, telecommunications providers have focused on providing content via walled gardens from selected media services. Data usage has been low as the cost of data has been high - often 10x the cost of fixed broadband.

The release of the iPhone and similar multi-channel handheld devices changes the game.

Services such as Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, instant messaging clients and other 'stream of consciousness' communications technologies are easily accessible via the device.

This turns the publisher -> consumer walled garden of current mobile internet services into a conversation - a multi-user <-> multi-user always-on social and business experience.

Unfortunately the launch plans for the product from all three telecommunications players do not support this type of product use, pricing data out of the reach of an always-on experience.


The Australia government has its Australian Broadband Guarantee program poised to roll-out for 2008-2009 in August. This program is admirable - it helps ensure that Australians have access to fixed wire broadband in ever growing numbers.

However much of the world is now beginning to substitute fixed broadband for more mobile solutions, via mobile phone or dedicated wireless networks.

In many developing countries expensive fixed networks are not being rolled out - instead they are rolling out wireless, which is cheaper and easier to deliver to remove areas.

For Australia to stay in the game, let alone remain an innovator, there is the need to take a longer-term view and support the mobile broadband industry.


How to do this
The first step is to understand the seachange occuring overseas and review what can be done in Australia to reduce the cost of mobile data.

The second step is to take steps - quickly - to reduce those costs, encouraging Australians to use handheld devices for the uses they are being put to overseas.

This will establish the environment for greater innovation in mobile broadband. These innovations will have global potential, helping Australian companies to competitively play on the world stage.

It will also, though increasing usage, deliver greater profits to the telecommunications companies.

Finally it can also be used to address some of the inconsistencies and inequitites in the fixed broadband market.


What's the alternative?
The alternative is for the government to let the market take the lead, locking in expensive mobile broadband solutions and leaving Australia a 'follow-me' country that adopts overseas technologies rather than innovating locally.

This outcome would be extremely detrimental to Australia's long-term future.

The internet is the nervous system of the world, allowing individuals and organisations to come together to create and share ideas, solve problems and build new businesses regardless of their geographic location.

If Australia is not embedded firmly in this nervous system it will become increasingly uncompetitive over time.

What's your view on the steps the government should take?

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eGovernment in Australia is like a chocolate éclair

There is some exciting activity happening in the Australian eGovernment scene.

States such as Victoria, Queensland and WA have taken major steps to standardise their online approaches across departments. At local level South Australia has introduced a phenomenal content management system that allows every council to have a well structured website, providing access to the key services they offer while still supporting individuality and innovation.

However at a Federal level it appears to me that eGovernment activity is more patchy.

Certainly there are fantastic applications such as e-tax from the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and the 2007 eCensus from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

But across the Federal Government there is little consistency as to how websites and eGovernment applications are designed, built or managed. Standards for reporting to allow ready comparisons across government sites do not exist and there are few efficiencies in coding or content management across departments or even within agencies across websites and intranets.

AGIMO (the Australian Government Information Management Office) did some sterling work a few years ago to develop a set of Better Practice Checklists and Guides for Federal government sites, however these are not enforceable, aging and do little to 'rein in' Agencies who go their own way.

Personally I've spoken with AGIMO several times to get their position on email marketing, wikis, blogs and participation in stakeholder forums and social media - unfortunately there are no guidelines and little knowledge of what is actually occurring in these spaces across the Government sector.

On this basis, while eGovernment does have a firm outer later, full of chocolatey goodness, the core is simply mush.


There are a number of steps I have identified that would allow Australia's Federal Government to begin realising the efficiencies and benefits that could be delivered via the online channel.

These include:

1. Auditing the online channel within all Government departments to gain an understanding of the websites/intranets/extranets they run, support or engage with, the (software) systems they use, the governance in place and their strategic plans for the channel.
   
2. Establishing and maintaining a register of key people working in the online area (business and IT people) across Departments who can cross-fertilise and support agency initiatives.
   
3. Establishing appropriate and standardised reporting metrics that can be audited by the ANAO and guarantee that senior management and ministerial staff are provided with the same type of information no matter which agency. This may also include standardising on a core set of web measurement technologies.
   
4. Establish strong guidelines on appropriate governance across website, intranet and extranet management.
   
5. Create guidelines for engagement via the online channel - approaches for using social media and two-way communications tools in an effective, responsible and governable manner.
   
6. Create National and State panels of suppliers across key areas, such as content management, search technologies, web design, mobile web design, rich media development, email marketing, mobile marketing and similar online areas that any Agency can draw on.
   
7. Establish national standards around interface design - as simple as whether to place 'OK' or 'Cancel' to the left, using the same term for 'Firstname' and as complex as is needed. Due to how Agencies are so tied to their existing 'standards' no matter how different it is from other Agencies', there needs to be muscle to enforce this, perhaps with the involvement of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).
   
8. Negotiate Government-wide head-level agreements with key providers so that smaller Agencies can access the tools and services they need to develop their online channel at an appropriate cost and support level.
   
9. Build a government-wide library of common tools, code and 'widgets' which Agencies can draw on and reuse within their own systems. If the ongoing management and development of these common tools is an issue I'm sure appropriate arrangements can be developed to allow Agencies to contribute what they can afford while still benefiting - after all we're all the same eGovernment and all the money comes from the same source.
   
10. Establish National training standards for staff in the online area - both business and technical - to ensure that citizens receive a similar standard of service online, just as is expected from telephone or face-to-face services.

The situation isn't all gloom and doom (how gloomy can a chocolate éclair be) - there are some initiatives which have begun to address some of my goals above.

Govdex is a prime example, a centrally provided wiki system (using Confluence - my second favourite wiki system behind MediaWiki) that any Agency can use to facilitate engagement. I have implemented two wikis using the system and while it appears not all agencies 'play nice' as yet (it's hideously slow in our office), I have nothing but praise for the organisation supporting the application and for AGIMO's work in providing the service.

Another initiative is the AGOSP program, also from AGIMO - which will see Agencies be able to access a central forms system for citizen forms, as they can already do for business forms and aims to strengthen Australia.gov.au as the central point for online engagement with Government.


However from my perspective it appears that most Federal Agencies are siloed - each doing their own research, design, development, system selection, governance and ongoing management - taking few learnings from others and definitely not sharing experiences to any great extent.

Perhaps one day in the far future eGovernment in Australia will develop that extra hard gobstopper core - but for now, in my humble opinion, it remains an éclair.

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