Building an Open Government Partnership plan in Australia from the edges to the centre

On Monday this week I participated in the cocreation workshop for Australia's Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan (NAP) commitments.

For background on the Open Government Partnership (OGP), refer to opengovpartnership.org, and for Australia's membership process refer to my blog post on the history (egovau.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/contribute-now-to-australias-open.html) and the government's site (ogpau.govspace.gov.au).

The workshop involved roughly 60 participants from civil society, government agencies and individuals interested and involved in the process and both available and able to self-fund a Canberra trip to be involved.

Many had previously submitted ideas for potential commitments that the Australian government could make to improve the transparency and accountability of our national governance in the OGP consultation period between December 2015 and March 2016.

The group had over 300 submissions to consider and refine to a much smaller number of potential commitments for the Australian government to consider and, hopefully, endorse in the first Australian Open Government Partnership National Action Plan - joining 68 other countries that have made, and implemented, hundreds of similar commitments over the last five years.

Before & start of the cocreation workshop to select commitments for Australia's #ogpau National Action Plan #gov2au pic.twitter.com/0mFztKW8qo

— Craig Thomler (@craigthomler) April 10, 2016

The day (which largely followed the agenda) opened with an introduction by Amelia Loye (@emotivate), who the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had appointed this year to lead the stakeholder engagement process following the work I'd done to lead OGP information sessions last December.

Amelia laid out the challenge ahead - to take the hundreds of ideas for improving government openness, transparency and accountability (some detailed, others thought bubbles) and refine them down collectively into a set of solid and measurable commitments that Cabinet could endorse and the Australian public service implement over the next two years.

The Australian government's commitment to the process was reaffirmed by both the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's David Williamson, Deputy Secretary of Innovation & Transformation and by the lead officer on the OGP National Action Plan, Toby Bellwood, who made it clear that this was not a once-off project, but the start of a journey.

PM&C Deputy Secretary of Innovation & Transformation David Williamson addressing #ogpau cocreation workshop pic.twitter.com/RZxlxVGahq

— Craig Thomler (@craigthomler) April 10, 2016

Great #ogpau intro by @tobybellwood - paraphrasing: this is a journey & a marathon, not a sprint #opengov #gov2au pic.twitter.com/gInGpQbdTR

— Craig Thomler (@craigthomler) April 10, 2016

After taking questions on topics from the continuity of key transparency agencies, such as the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (answer: can't comment), to the depth of commitment by Departmental Secretaries to the OGP process (answer: Secretaries Board has not yet been engaged), we got down to work boiling hundreds of submitted ideas into actions that the government could consider for inclusion in Australia's first National Action Plan.

With six active tables, and rough guidance on an approach, people self-selected by their topics of interest (Access to Information, Public Participation, Fiscal Transparency, Open Data, Fostering Innovation and Government Integrity) and got down to work.

Behold Australian civil society and government co creating the first National Action Plan for open gvmt #ogpau. pic.twitter.com/oIqRH0jiFK

— Johan Lidberg (@johanBalance) April 11, 2016

Each table self-organised and employed a slightly different methodology to sorting through between 20-100 submitted ideas on their topic and categorising them into broader commitments.

On the Public Participation table we integrated world cafe and card sorting techniques through the morning to develop two broad commitments. People flowed between tables, with a few 'anchor people' remaining to pass on the consensus views.

Lots of butchers paper & sticky notes for #ogpau workshop around public participation theme pic.twitter.com/1DoVS7LOU4

— Leanne Hartill (@HaLeanne) April 11, 2016

By lunch a total of 18 commitment concepts had been developed across the six tables and a process of 'dotmocracy' saw the top commitments voted on by the entire room.

RT@katska Positive response from @tobybellwood on #opendata commitment ideas generated here at #ogpau pic.twitter.com/iRy1uvlc7Z

— agung wahyudi (@agungw132) April 11, 2016

From here smaller groups worked on framing commitments using the National Action Plan template, resulting in 13 documented commitments, with another undocumented commitment around creating a (sorely needed) formal mechanism for engagement between the public service and civil societies.

From 310 ideas submitted to 18 proposals on butchers' paper to 13 commitment templates - good day's work at #ogpau! pic.twitter.com/A738hCyqGy

— Craig Thomler (@craigthomler) April 11, 2016

Finishing up in the afternoon, I was largely happy at the progress made, though comments on the same day by the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet about restricting Freedom of Information took a lot of the shine off the process.

Having a Deputy Secretary of the DPMC say the government was committed to openness and the Secretary say, on the same day, that public servants must be protected from scrutiny with FOI restrictions, doesn't evidence a deep senior public service commitment to support the Prime Minister's OGP commitment.

However the commitment of the OGP team in DPMC is clear.

The excellent and inclusive approach from Pia Waugh and her successor Toby Bellwood speaks volumes about how some public servants understand and support the need for governments to transform their culture to remain effective and relevant in a more accountable and transparent world.

I'll provide a more targeted post on the topic of senior bureaucrats wanting restrictions to FOI tomorrow.

Back on the OGP process, now that some commitments and supporting actions have been drafted, the government will be following a process of reviewing them through the Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC), then costing and putting them into a Cabinet approval process, potentially with other suggestions from government agencies.

This isn't quite the 'partnership' process that I had hoped for, and runs the risk of having agencies discard any commitments that they feel are uncomfortable (ie ambitious or confronting), either by directly burying them or by laying potential risks and costs onto these commitments to an extent that makes them seem unworkable.

Having seen public servants use this tactic on other matters, I will be very interested to see what makes it to Cabinet for review.

However this is only Australia's first OGP National Action Plan, and no matter how fantastic or flawed it is in meeting the OGP goals of ambitious targets that stretch agencies, it still shifts the conversation a little further in the right direction.

Future plans will build on this one, being collaborative in their design and ambitious in their execution, leaving me optimistic that Australia's Open Government Partnership process will deliver fruit for our democracy and support broader and deeper effective engagement between the public sector and the people of Australia.

Consultation on ongoing engagement for #ogpau underway. #OGP #Australia stakeholders contribute your ideas now! https://t.co/6nGq2Z3XWm

— Shreya Basu (@basushreya10) April 13, 2016

For another perspective on the day, Cassie Findlay has published a great piece. I'm sure there will be a few other reflections in days to come.

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Contribute now to Australia's Open Government Partnership National Action Plan

Now that Australians are heading out of holiday mode, it's a good time for a reminder about the Australian Government's process to become a member of the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), through developing our first OGP National Action Plan.

If you've not heard of the Open Government Partnership, in a nutshell it's an international group of governments and civil society organisations committed to progressing open and transparent governance in the 69 participating nations through a cooperative and supportive process.

Each nation makes a commitment to improve their national government's openness and transparency through a statement by their government, supported this through a two-yearly National Action Plan (NAP) with priority activities relevant to the nation's development stage. These NAPs must be developed cooperatively between government and civil society through an active consultation process.

Nations are assessed annually on their NAP progress through an independent process, with their achievements and shortfalls highlighted internationally.

Australia was invited to become a founding member of the OGP back in 2011, however deferred this decision until 2013, and then delayed it further after a change in government.

The current Prime Minister re-committed to the process late in 2015 and restarted the process to become an OGP member.

I ran a series of Information Sessions across Australia's east coast about this process, funded by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the presentation used through these sessions is below.

OGP Australia Information Session presentation from Craig Thomler

Currently Australia is consulting on the commitments that should be prioritised in our first National Action Plan, with Australians invited to provide ideas through the wiki (ogpau.wikispaces.com) or via email to ogp@pmc.gov.au

So if you'd like to see improvements in how open and transparent federal government is in Australia, please contribute via the channels above.

This stage of the consultation is open until the end of February, so don't wait too long!

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Come along to IAP2's November Canberra session on 'Introducing collaboration into the process of planning online participation'

I will be presenting at November's IAP2 session in Canberra from 6-8pm on 'Introducing collaboration into the process of planning online participation'.

The session will look at how to get internal stakeholders onboard and on the same page for an online participation process, particularly when they have disparate experience and understanding of digital approaches.

Using real world examples, and an interactive session involving Social Media Planner, attendees will get to work through the process of aligning stakeholder expectations and needs while building their understanding and support for an online engagement approach.

Presenter: Craig Thomler, Director, Social Media Planner

Time: Tues 10 November 2015, 6 for 6.15 pm (finishing about 8 pm)

Venue (TBC): Canberra Innovation Network, Level 5, 5 Moore St Civic

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For a truly open parliament, look to the UK

The UK Government has just released the alpha version of data.parliament.uk - - a site designed to host open data on the UK Parliament and its proceedings.

(An Alpha for those who don't understand the term is a first release of a software product that is usually tested only by the developers).

The alpha release of www.data.parliament.uk

The site represents a new frontier for parliaments - making information on the discussions and deliberations of politicians far more actively available in ways that it can be reused to inform the public.

The site is sparse at the moment - only a few datasets on parliamentary questions, on how MPs have voted (something we don't publish in Australia despite it being common data available in North America and Europe) and briefing papers.

It will be interesting to see how it grows in form, function and data and whether it becomes a truly useful source for citizens.

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Partial participation for partial residents?

A challenge for governments today (particularly local ones) is how to consider the views of non-residents, people who travel into their jurisdictions for work, entertainment or other reasons.

While consulting them within formal processes is possible, it can be hard to engage them beyond the most cursory involvent in local issues, even when many of the decisions in a town, city or state significantly affect their livelihood or welfare.

This is already a topic amongst many of the local governments I speak to, who must weigh the interests of people who travel from nearby council areas to work in their jurisdictions. These people may be spending from a quarter to half their time within the jurisdiction they work in, accessing local services such as roads and parking, libraries, public toilets, parks and civic offices.

Equally local residents may do nothing more than physically live in a jurisdiction - accessing many or most of the services they need from a neighboring jurisdiction. With border towns in Victoria, New South Wales ACT and Queensland residents may be accessing most services from another state.

Society has evolved methods for accounting for the cost of these services, through user-pays schemes and border agreements, however methods for recognising a non-resident, or rather a partial-resident's stake in decision making processes are still limited, possibly because it required significant technology to accurately estimate how much time a person spent within a jurisdiction and account for this in decision making.

So as society moves towards a 24/7 awareness of where individuals spend their time, via GPS in mobile devices, should governments reconsider the basis of the decision on who gets a say in elections,? Considering time spent in a jurisdiction rather than, or in addition to, land-ownership, residency or citizenship.

Let's consider how this might work.

If a resident of one jurisdiction works in another, they could use their mobile device to record their location over a period of time like a log book or diary - which many drivers keep for tax purposes.

After a significant time period (mayb a month or two) they would register their location with the councils where they spent most of their time, so they can be assessed as a  'partial-resident, entitled to vote in council elections with a fractional vote representing the time they spend in the region.

With the right ICT systems this would not be excessively hard to track - perhaps to offset costs people who wish to be considered partial residents would be required to cross a time spent threshold (maybe 10%) and be charged a fee based on this percentage, which offsets the cost of the services they use (unless they can prove they should get a waiver based on appropriate grounds).

On being registered, partial-residents would be entitled to vote in local elections, however their vote will only count proportionate to the registered amount of time they spend in the jurisdiction.

Full-time residents will get full votes, meaning that an issue would need to be particularly large for partial-residents to change the outcome of an election.

This might be an unworkable system - I can think of several ways it could be gamed that would need careful thought. However the question is a valid one - with people increasingly travelling to work and play, how do governments ensure they have an appropriate say in local decisions?

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City of Sydney commissions open data art to communicate progress towards Sustainable Sydney 2030

Information is beautiful, as others have said, and the City of Sydney, working with Carbon Arts, is now seeking proposals for a temporary public artwork that engages with open data on Sydney's progress towards Sustainable Sydney 2030.

Not part of GovHack, this initiative is part of 'Sensing Sydney' a program to communicate sustainability through the arts, open data and public space - aiming to "bring historic and real time data alive in ways that celebrate our collective efforts to address environmental challenges."

To be presented as part of Art & About Sydney 2013, the artwork will be placed on display from
Friday 20 September to Sunday 20 October 2013.

The open data on sustainability available for the artwork is available temporarily as an excel sheet, Data-repository-for-Sensing-Sydney-compiled-by-City-of-Sydney.xlsx, while the City of Sydney establishes a Cosm site for the data.

Prospective artists may also request or propose additional or alternative sources of data.

The project may be valued up to $25,000 and the deadline for proposals is 20 May 2013.

More information is available at the Carbon Arts website.

The application form is available here.

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Mapping social media channels to engagement levels (based on IAP2 spectrum)

I developed the Online Engagement Spectrum around three three years ago, based on the IAP2 Spectrum  of Public Participation (PDF) and some complementary work by Bang The Table (no longer at the original web address).

As Gadi Ben-Yedah over at his IBM's Business of Government blog has begun a series of posts considering how social media can be used by government to engage online based on the IAP2 Spectrum, I thought it was timely to repost my Spectrum for people to consider.

To view Gadi's first post, go to Social Media for Public Participation: Step 1 - Inform

Online Engagement Spectrum 1.2

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Great new site - The Digital Engagement Guide

Over in the UK, Helpful Technology has released 'The Digital Engagement Guide', which aims to become one of the best sources of useful examples, tools and practical advice about how UK public sector organisations can engage online.

The site touts itself as "Part bookmark collection, part reference manual, part Q&A site, it’s a place to get inspiration, shortcuts and answers."

Whether you're after online engagement techniques, strategies, examples or want the answer to questions, The Digital Engagement Guide has it.

Most of the content is as useful for Australian, US, Canadian and other governments as it is for the UK - heck it's useful to anyone seeking to engage people online.

The site also features an awesome collection of examples of online engagement and Government 2.0 initiatives from around the world.

How awesome? See the image to the right, which is a screen capture of the examples page listing every example in the site right now. Yes, it is extremely long, so long that I'm having to write extra words simply to make this blog post long enough to match the image!

Don't get daunted by this however, you can select subsets of the examples, strategies and techniques by keyword, location and topic.

And if you can't find your own online initiative in the site, you can submit it using the Contribution page.

Dang - that image was still longer than my words... so many examples!

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Liveblogging GovCamp NSW (focus on innovation)

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

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

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

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

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How nine year olds can now reform governments, one bite at a time

With the tools available today, influence over government policy is no longer the preserve of the wealthy, the well-connected or those people with a significant TV, radio or newspaper presence.

While traditional media and interests still have significant influence, social media has allowed individuals to become far more influential.

Blogs, forums and social networks give individuals and small groups the ability to have a national or global public platform, at little or no cost, that can be used to tell their stories and present different views or facts.

This is both challenging and an opportunity for governments. Governments, including politicians and officials, that seek to ignore, marginalise or otherwise discredit individuals for standing up for their beliefs or reporting facts are much more likely to be publicly exposed, their reputations damaged and any hypocrisy cast into the public eye.

Governments that embrace the opportunity to bring more people inside the tent, balance well-connected interests with individual views and question whether traditional lobby and representative groups actually represent the groups they claim to represent, are likely to find their work more complex but ultimately more effective, with better policy and more relevant service delivery outcome.

A great example of the influence of individuals due to social media (bolstered by traditional media once the groundswell grew) has occurred over the last week.

NeverSeconds
Some of you may be aware of the NeverSeconds blog, and the struggles its 9-year author has had with the Scottish council, which banned her taking photos of her school lunches until convinced otherwise by online public opinion, celebrities and the Scottish Education Minister.

However if you're not, here's the story in a nutshell (referencing Wired's story NeverSeconds shuts down).

In April this year nine-year-old Martha Payne in Scotland, with some technical help from her father, started a blog as a writing exercise to document what she ate each day for lunch in her school, Lochgilphead Primary.

Martha's lunch on 18 June

Before starting the blog, she and her father (who is a local farmer), encouraged by her mother (a GP), surfed foodie blogs for inspiration. Martha decided as a result that she wanted to photo each of her lunches and provide a report including how much she liked the food, the number of bites each meal took to eat, the health rating (from a nine-year old's perspective), the price and the number of hairs in the food.

The blog was approved by the school and was written entirely by Martha under supervision from her father.

Over the first two months of the blog's life, Martha attracted a huge audience from around the world, with more than a million views of her posts.

Her blog started driving good outcomes. Her local council 'remembered' to tell the school that students were entitiled to unlimited salad, fruit and bread, she and her father were invited to participate in a workshop on school lunches, other students from around the world began sending her photos of their lunches (which she posted in her blog too). A newspaper sent her some money for use of her photos, which she donated to a charity (more on this later).

The media caught wind of her blog and began writing articles about it, including Time, the Telegraph, and the Daily Mail. She was interviewed on the BBC and also attracted the attention of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has crusaded on the topic of healthy school lunches in Britain.

This, however, is where bureaucracy stepped in.

Martha's lunch on 30 May

An article in a newspaper used a throw-away headline, "Time to fire the dinner ladies", while discussing Martha's involvement in a thinktank on health school meals.

The local Council, Argyll and Bute Council decided that this criticism was too much, and claimed media coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

They promptly decreed on 14 June that students would no longer be allowed to take cameras into their school canteen.

Martha was accordingly called out of maths class and told that she could no longer photo her lunches.

By this time Martha had had 2 million views of her blog and had raised £2000 for charity, including £50 from the newspaper mentioned earlier.

However, as an obedient nine-year old, Martha wrote a goodbye post on her blog.

At this point her readers became activated, and the media coverage exponentially increased. She received 2,370 comments on her goodbye post and over 200 articles were posted in newspapers, plus radio and TV stories around the world. She received celebrity support from Jamie Oliver and Neil Gaiman.

Twelve hours later, the Argyll and Bute Council published an official statement (now removed from their site, but still visible online thanks to @peterwalker99 at http://www.twitlonger.com/show/hrom1r).

This statement, in part, accused Martha of misrepresenting what was on offer in the canteen,

 "The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils"

Martha's lunch on 16 May

It went on to state the Council's dedication to good food standards in school canteens, said they'd not received formal complaints about the food in the last two years other than from Martha's family, and that the blog had, and would have, no influence on what they served students anyway. (It is interesting to compare the quality of the statement's writing with the quality of Martha's writing.)

Around this time the charity Martha was supporting, Mary's Meals, reported that they'd now received over £40,000 in donations from her blog - more than enough to build a new kitchen at Lirangwe Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi, to feed its 1,963 students. The kitchen is to be named 'Friends of NeverSeconds'.

Three hours after the Argyll and Bute Council published its statement, the council's leader, Roddy McCuish, told the BBC that he was rescinding the ban on photos in school canteens, and the council issued a statement commending Martha's blog and indicating that the council would be involving students in their efforts to keep improving school meals,

We need to find a united way forward so I am going to bring together our catering staff, the pupils, councillors and council officials - to ensure that the council continues to provide  healthy, nutrious and attractive school meals.  That "School Meals Summit" will take place later this summer.

 I will also meet Martha and her father as soon as I can, along with our lead councillor on Education, Michael Breslin to seek her continued engagement, along with lots of other pupils, in helping the council to get this issue right.   By so doing Martha Payne and her friends  will have had a strong and lasting influence not just on school meals, but on the whole of Argyll & Bute.

Martha has resumed her blogging, and has now raised over £87,000 for the Mary's Meal charity - see her total, and give to the charity here.

Meanwhile the issue of healthy school lunches is being more widely discussed and debated, and the council has learnt it needs to more closely consider the views of its constituents and the children it serves. Shutting down debate is no longer an option for successful governance.

And the children of Lirangwe Primary School in Malawi are extremely happy, with the short video below a fitting tribute to the impact individuals can now have on governments - one bite at a time.

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Ten tips for social media engagement by government (from the UK Cabinet Office)

The UK Cabinet Office recently released Social Media Guidance for civil servants.

The guidance goes far beyond the level and sophistication of material I've seen from many other jurisdictions, offering support and useful advice, not just rules and warnings.

It also provides advice to CTOs and CIOs on how to oversome some of the technical barriers to accessing and using the internet and social media that still plague many agencies, stating that,

Social media is likely to become as ubiquitous as email with many more, if not all, staff eventually needing to use it in some form as part of their work.

The guidance provides an excellent model for governments in Australia. In fact it could almost be reused wholesale as most of the information holds true here as well.

As Francis Maude, Minister for Cabinet Office, states in his introduction to the guidance,

When civil servants, policy makers and service delivery units alike, open themselves to dialogue with the public they can glean a much better understanding of the real needs and concerns of citizens. They can keep up-to-date with the latest thinking as well as being a listening post and avenue for real time reassurance and information.

In particular, the ten tips for social media engagement are sound advice I'd recommend agencies in Australia follow to the letter.

These are:

1. Have a clear idea of your objectives in using social media (behaviour change/service
   delivery/consultation/communication)
2. Learn the rules of each social media space before engaging
3. Abide by the Civil Service Code and ask for advice if you are not sure
4. Remember an official account belongs to the Department not the individual
5. Communicate where your citizens are
6. Build relationships with your stakeholders on and offline – social media is just one of many
   communication channels
7. Try not to channel shift citizens backwards (move from email to telephone for example)
8. Do not open a channel of communication you cannot maintain
9. Understand when a conversation should be taken offline
10. Do not engage with users who are aggressive/abusive

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Global public engagement awards for 2012 open for entry

If you've been involved in public engagement or public participation over the last twelve months, it is worth checking out the International Association for Public Participation's (IAP2) global Core Values Awards for 2012.

Open now for entry, the IAP2's Core Values Awards recognise the best public participation activities by organisations from around the world, based on the organisation's values (listed below).

If your agency has held a major public engagement activity, you may be eligible to enter these awards and be recognised in your jurisdiction, country, or even globally, for the quality of your efforts.

Learn more about the awards.


IAP 2 Core Values for the Practice of Public Participation

1. Public participation is based on the belief that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.
    
2. Public participation includes the promise that the public's contribution will influence the decision.
    
3. Public participation promotes sustainable decisions by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision makers.
    
4. Public participation seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected by or interested in a decision.
    
5. Public participation seeks input from participants in designing how they participate.
    
6. Public participation provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way.
    
7. Public participation communicates to participants how their input affected the decision.

Download IAP2's Core Values

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Mapping Australian Twitter discussions

Associate Professor Axel Bruns, who has previously done marvelous work mapping Australian blogs and tracking social media activity around the Queensland bushfires, has released his team's latest research on mapping the Australian Twittersphere.

Drawing (slightly paraphrased) from the joint CCI and Queensland University of Technology media release:

With as many as two million Australians now using Twitter to exchange news, views and information, the internet phenomenon has become a focal element in the nation’s social discourse, say Axel and Dr Jean Burgess.

By analysing topics of interest and concern to Australians the researchers built a ‘network map’ showing the connections between different issues and areas. “Just as newspapers have circulation reports and TV has its ratings, it is important to understand the role which new media are playing in our society,” they say.

“The map offers us a completely different way to view Australian society – not by where people live or what job they do, but by how they connect to each other through Twitter,” said Professor Bruns.

“You can use the map to study developments in Australian politics, natural disasters or trends in public thought and opinion,” Dr Burgess says. “It offers us a completely fresh way to view the discourse that is taking place between Australians or different groups.

“It shows there are multiple, overlapping publics, interacting and interweaving in time and space across Australia.”

The map also revealed which Twitter networks are isolated from the Australian ‘mainland’ tending to connect among themselves more than with other networks. These include evangelical groups, cities like Adelaide and Perth, followers of pop stars, and various sports and beer lovers.

The researchers based their map on data from 950,000 Australian Twitter accounts, but say that the national Twitter population is estimated to be as high as 1.8-2 million. The world Twitter population is now thought to be around 200 million – about a quarter that of rival social medium Facebook.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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Australia goes mobile - 47% of net connections via mobile devices

It's long been reported that the majority of internet connections in Japan are via mobile devices - since 2006 in fact.

It now seems Australia is on the verge of following the same path, with the ABS reporting that as at 31 December 2011, 47% of internet connections in Australia were via mobile devices.

The report, (8153.0 - Internet Activity, Australia, Dec 2011), has some other interesting findings as well...

• The number of internet connections grew by 11.0% in the year to 31 December, and by 6.3% since the end of June 2011.
• Mobile wireless grew fastest, with a 14.7% increase since the end of June 2011.
  
• The number of dial-up connections continued to decline, to 475,000 - still a substantial number, but representing only 4% of the total 11,596,000 internet connections in Australia. Of those 379,000 (3.2%) were households, the rest businesses. 
• The number of dial-up connections declined 17.9% (from 579,000 to 475,000) since June 2011.
  Note the ABS state the decline was 16.7% - I don't know why our calculated figures differ.

• More Australians remain on connection speeds less than 8Mbps (55%), however a good proportion are on 8-24Mbps (34.3%). Only 0.3% are on connections greater than 100Mbps.

• The total data downloaded was 345,518 Terabytes (or 345,518,000 Gigiabytes) for the three months ending 31 December 2011. This was an increase of 26% since June 2011 (remember the number of connections only grew by 6.3% so we're all downloading more). 
• The average downloaded per connection was 29.8 Gigabytes (Gb) for the three months so, on average, we download 10Gb per month.
• However dial-up users only downloaded, on average, 67 Megabytes (Mb) of data per month, while broadband users downloaded an average of 10.3 Gb of data - showing a massive difference in usage.

• There were 91 ISPs in Australia with more than 1,000 subscribers - remaining a competitively very robust market.

There is a clear paradigm shift for users when upgrading to dial-up to broadband, with usage increasing by over 15,000%.

This representing a change from email and basic web browsing to the use of the internet as a multi-media interactive entertainment, engagement and service delivery environment.

It will be interesting to see the the paradigm shift in usage from users on fixed internet connections to mobile. I believe this is even greater as the services relevant to mobile users are very different to those relevant to static users.

Perhaps we can take another lead from Japan on this, based on the use of mobile internet during and following their recent tsumani.

Or learn from these five cities benefiting from mobile apps.

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Is online influence measurable or meaningful?

Online influence is a hot topic right now, with companies such as Klout, PeerIndex, Empire Avenue and Kred all building online services that aim to measure the influence of internet users, in order to better target advertising dollars.

But how effective are these services really?

Does the number of followers, retweets or likes or some form of combination really identify those most likely to influence decisions and behaviours on a large scale?

Would any of these services have identified Janis Krums as an influencer of millions, before he tweeted a photo and message to his 170 Twitter followers about the plane that had landed on the Hudson River?

Would they have identified QLD Police Media as an important and influential account a few weeks before the Brisbane floods?

Would any of them have identified Rebecca Black, singer of 'Friday', as influencing an entire generation?

Influence online can ebb and flow rapidly. People go from virtually unknown to globally famous to unknown in a matter of weeks, days - even hours.

Therefore I was interested, but perplexed when I received the following email from PeerIndex a few days ago.

PeerIndex email:

I work at PeerIndex and we have a group on Australia top Twitter influencers and was wondering if I could get your feedback because you are on the list. PeerIndex measures interactions across the web to help people understand their impact in social media.

I was wondering if you could look over the list and let me know if you felt it was accurate? Do you recognise the other people on this list?  Is it missing people that you think are important?  

We would like to open up a dialogue with people in your field and think this would be useful to them (or at least start a conversation) it was accurate and interesting.

Here's the link: http://www.peerindex.com/rossdawson/group/australia_top_twitter_influencers

 

Thanks very much for your time,

I had a bit of a think about this and realised that I am an influence sceptic.

I am interested in sentiment online - whether people believe/perceive and say good or bad things about a topic. I think there's a strong future in this as a way to judge a general mood, supported by other more refined techniques.

However influence is just too hard to measure if only one dimension - online is taken into account.

Hence my reply, below:

Hi ,

 

I would love to help, however I don't think I honestly can.

I just do not understand how influence on Twitter, or on other online or offline social networks or situations, can be calculated in any effective manner.

Interactions online don't necessarily translate into actions offline and influence is generally a subtle and cumulative process - which requires multiple sources over a period of time.

For example, you tell me something on Twitter, I see something related from someone else in a forum, it gets discussed at work, I do some research as my interest is raised, then it appears in the traditional media and then I see others I trust taking a position and then I do.

The interlockings between topics and influence are incredibly complex and related to individual mental models and worldviews. Something that would influence one person will have no impact on another, people weight influence based on source, channel, frequency and relationship - and every individual has their own influence model - what will or will not change their view.

For an example (or study) of this, just watch the classic movie '12 angry men'. It is a brilliant look at how varied the influencers for different people may be.

I don't think there is a reliable way to identify influencers or put people in boxes for influence.

I find your, and other similar services, amusing, but do not see how your algorithms have accurately modeled my, or anyone else's levels of influence on the micro or metro topical level. 

Your models are simply far too simple and work on a subset of observable influences with no characterization of the individual influentiability of different people in different environments at different times - nor how long-term that influence will be.

Behavioural psychology is an extremely complex and poorly understood science. About the only way we can reliable detect influencers at any specific time or micro topic is in hindsight.

Humans are lousy at determining what is likely to be influential, other than by 'gut instinct', or through sledgehammer techniques, such as mass repetition (show the same message enough times to a broad enough group of people and some will be influenced).

So sorry, I don't know what makes people influential - chance, chemistry, repetition, a match with a particular mental model, a combination of influencers all working in alignment, or a reaction against a 'negative influencer' (a de-influencer? Someone we love to disagree with).

I certainly don't see how dividing people into boxes by arbitrary topic helps define their broader influence, or specific influence across other topics. The amount they talk about a topic isn't a good judge either, and it is always unclear whether someone 'heard' the message on a service such as Twitter.

So I don't think I can help you. Nor am I sure if your service, or Klout or the others in the space has a real business model. Though I do hope that your collective efforts expand our understanding of how connections between people can sometimes influence them.

Cheers,

Craig

What do you think?.

And for interest, here's another view from TechCrunch, "Klout and PeerIndex Don’t Measure Influence. Brian Solis Explains What They Actually Do".

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Look for the Australian premier screening of Twittamentary at GovCamp QLD

A few weeks ago I became aware of a very interesting documentary project, Twittamentary, a movie that  explores the intersection and interplay of peoples' lives on Twitter.

Directed by Singaporean filmmaker and Tweeter, Tan Siok Siok, the documentary takes a grass roots approach, looking at how Twitter has connected, affected and influenced individuals across America.

Twittamentary touches on social policy, privacy, trust and collaboration - themes that should resonate with government policy makers. It demonstrates the diverse range of uses that Twitter and, by extension, many other social networks can be put to to support and empower citizens and communities.

The documentary was itself created in a 'social' way, with social media stories submitted and voted on via Twitter, social media and the Twittamentary web site. The production team were sourced via Twitter and other social networks and the final narrative was developed using the concept of 'beta screenings'.

This involved a series of discrete 'tweetup' screenings organised via social media to get feedback on the latest rough cut of the documentary. Viewers could interact in real-time with the Director, the cast (all real people) and each other via Twitter during the screening.  Feedback from each of these beta screenings was used to help evolve a new iteration for the next beta screening, resulting in the final documentary after 15 iterations.

Twittamentary has already screened in the US, UK, China, Malaysia and Singapore, has received positive media reviews and has been submitted to a number of international film festivals.

Now, with the permission of the documentary's producers, I'm pleased to announce that Twittamentary will premier in Australia at GovCamp Queensland on Saturday 3rd March, following with a screening at BarCamp Canberra on Saturday 17th March.

If you're attending either of these events, look for the Twittamentary room. The screening takes about an hour and is totally free - though you are invited to donate toward the production and streaming costs of Twittamentary (as it was produced .

Note this isn't simply a passive experience, though there's a lot to enjoy and learn from simply sitting back and watching Twittamentary.

If you're on Twitter, the Director and Producers of the documentary ask that you tweet about it using the hashtag #twittamentary during the screening. Your tweets will become part of the permanent record for Twittamentary, part of the evolving experience of the movie.

To learn more visit the Twittamentary website or watch the teaser video below.

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Are you allowing others to steal your agency's oxygen online?

A favored term amongst political operatives and advisors is 'oxygen,, the share of the public discussion a politician, government or issue manages to obtain.

Sometimes the goal is to have the largest possible share, starving other commentators and viewpoints. Other times the goal is to to minimise the share of oxygen a viewpoint or issue gets, shutting down or sidelining it.

There's two things you need to capture oxygen, or deny it to others - good 'lungs', access to the channels needed to 'breathe' it in or out, and a willingness to use your air wisely - to speak out where necessary, contributing to public discourse actively.

These characteristics function as effectively online as they do in offline media - admittedly in a messier and less constrained way. While the internet does provide infinite amounts of airtime for those who wish to present a viewpoint, whether, how soon and effectively an organisation presents its own viewpoint can have a great deal of influence in shaping the subsequent tone of the conversation.

This is well understood by lobby groups, companies and not-for-profits - who actively establish and build their online 'lungs' and are prepared to speak and help their constituents speak up on issues of importance to their agendas.

Politicians too have been reasonably active at establishing their own lungs and voice online - now essential tools for any political career.

However many government agencies still appear unwilling to take the first step, to claim their own lungs online, establishing channels and accounts that they can use to monitor and, where necessary and relevant, engage the communities that they seek to influence - or that influence them.

Agencies who are unwilling to claim their oxygen online will increasingly find themselves suffocated by other organisations and individuals who do. Where agencies can't influence debates, present the case on behalf of governments or end up at the receiving end of perceptions distributed and amplified online, they stop being effective agents of government and managers of change.

If your agency is still resisting building its online lungs and voice, remind your senior managers that their role is to support the government implement its policies on the behalf of the public, not to stand on the sidelines and be acted upon - suffocated - through lack of access to oxygen.

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

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

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

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

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

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Don't forget to register for the Gov 2.0 lunch in Canberra on Friday

If you've not yet registered, there are still a few tickets left for the Gov 2.0 lunch in Canberra on Friday 25 November.

The event will feature a presentation from Dominic Campbell, a leading UK digital government specialist and social innovator with a background in government policy, communications and technology-led change. 

Learn more and register here.

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