When traditional media exposes public service bloggers

On Monday, 27 September 2010, Grog, of the Grog's Gamut blog, was outed by James Massola of The Australian as Greg Jericho, a federal public servant who happens to blog on matters of politics.

Massola, in his article Controversial political blogger unmasked as a federal public servant, has questioned Grog's right to challenge journalistic views, veiled under the question of whether, as a public servant, he was entitled to blog about politics.

Grog addressed this question through his own blog in a post, Spartacus no more, where he outlined the APSC's guidance, which states:

It is quite acceptable for APS employees to participate in political activities as part of normal community affairs.

APS employees may become members of or hold office in any political party.

APS employees, whether or not they are members of political parties, are expected to separate their personal views on policy issues from the performance of their official duties. This is an important part of professionalism and impartiality as an APS employee.

Where an APS employee is involved in publicly promoting party or other views on certain issues, and where their duties are directly concerned with advising on or directing the implementation or administration of government policy on those issues, there is potential for conflicts of interest.

Grog went on to say that he's never commented on anything other than publicly available material and did not comment on matters related to his specific duties.

I have never written anything which I have gleaned through work. All information I use comes from the media or press releases or public reports. This is pretty clear from anyone who regularly reads this blog – you never find “breaking” or “inside” news here – you find opinion and analysis.

The only thing that I find noteworthy about this 'expose' is that it demonstrates the fallacy of the argument that keeping your personal and professional identities separate online is an effective mechanism for resolving unwarranted perceptions of inappropriate online engagement.

While it is nice to believe that you can post online under a pseudonym and remain anonymous, this is rarely sustainable in the long-run. When someone is 'exposed' as using a pseudonym it becomes newsworthy simply due to the sensation.

I wish all the best to Grog - Greg Jericho.

And in the interests of the continued growth of Gov 2.0 in Australia, I hope he will have the clear support of his managers.

COVERAGE (EDITED):
Follow the discussion of this topic on Twitter using the hashtags #groggate and #grogsgate.

Statistics on the use of the Twitter hashtags is available at What the trend.

• Stats for #groggate
• Stats for #grogsgate

Articles and posts for 27 September:
ABC The Drum - Grog's great anonymity gamble
An Onymous Lefty - Grog-gate: Outing as bullying
Ariane's Little World - A person is not their job
B Sides - Privacy is not a gift for journalists to bestow or withdraw
Catherine Deveny - Groggate
Catallaxy Files - MSM arrogance
Core Economics - Transparency and blogging
Crikey / Pure Poison - The Grog’s Gamut outing: In whose interest? 
Crikey - The whys and wherefores of bureaucratic blogging
Dermott Banana - Outings 
eGovAU (here) - When traditional media exposes public service bloggers
Girl with a satchel - Monday Media Study: Grazia's Bingle Bungle & Groggate
Herald-Sun - Get away with you
Hoyden About Town - If you can’t defend yourself, you shouldn’t be allowed to speak
IAIN HALL's Sandpit - Grog’s Greg outed … so what? 
I'm not Tina Wheeze - LOVE, ANON
Larvatus Prodeo - Grog’s Gamut outed by The Australian
Mediakult - Not navel gazing at Media140 (mentions in the conclusion)
Misc and Other - Why I don’t use my real name on twitter
Mumbrella - Australian outs blogger Grog’s Gamut
Mumbrella - Why the Grog’s Gamut outing harms The Australian
Random Black Heart Glitter Moments - On #groggate
The Accidental Australian - Outing the anonymous blogger. Good for the gander?
The Angry Exile - MSM vs Blogosphere - UPDATED
The Australian - No anonymity to bloggers, tweeters
The Australian - Twittersphere hit by storm over whether political blogger had a right to anonymity
The Bannerman - No Opinions Without Reality…or, Who Is James Massola?
The Conscience Vote - Who has the right to speak?
The Failed Estate - Now that We Have Your Attention...
The Gutter Trash - The Australian launches attack on Independent Blogger Grog’s Gamut
The news with nipples - Who gets to be anonymous?
The Vicious Circle - The Grog’s Gamut Irony
The Vicious Circle - Jack the Insider on team #Gamut?

A follow-up article from James Massola explaining his decision to 'out' Grog, released at midnight on 28 September:
The Australian - Why I unmasked blogger Grog

Articles and posts for 28 September:
A Shiny New Coin - no, I am GrogsGamut
ABC The Drum - Bullet by bullet, the bloggers win the war
An Onymous Lefty - Jeremy's ear (not really on topic but mentions as an aside)
Ash's to Ashes blog - Confessions of a Blogger
Australia Incognita - Anonymity and the blogger
Blogging Townsville - Mudoch's approach to his papers' critics - will Island View be next?
Crikey - Simons: it wasn’t unethical to name Grog’s Gamut
Crikey - The Oz’s Bolt loose … science of pop-news … (touches on)
Crikey / Pollytics - Gibbons throwing poo
Crikey / Pure Poison - Don’t you know who I’m not?
Crikey / Pure Poison - Massola raises the stakes
Goonanism - A Passing Note on Grog’s Gamut
Grahame LJ - Anonymity and blogging
Happy Antipodean - Tuesday, 28 September 2010 
Larvatus Prodeo - #Grogsgate and the right to privacy
Mumbrella - Blogger-outing journo: Grog’s Gamut was tweeting during work time
Online Opinion - Blogs and anonymity - another News conspiracy?
Ozylum – Asylum in Australia - New Media 
Peter Martin - No-one should be forcibly reduced to a single identity
The Australian - A storm on the internet (Why should web writers escape scrutiny and responsibility?)
The Australian - Journalist threatened over Twitter outing
The Australian - The Oz declares war on bloggers: Rosen
The Australian - Blogosphere and Twitter no more than an echo chamber
The Bannerman - How Do They Insult Us? Let Us Count The Ways
The Canberra Times - The outing of a favourite blogger
The Failed Estate - The Empire Strikes Back
The Gutter Trash - The Australian: Accused of Just “Making Stuff Up” (Again)
The National Times - Tweets get messy as mainstream media takes on the blogosphere
The Riot Act - On Greg Jericho, groggate, and the public service.

Articles and posts for 29 September:
ABC The Drum - Why I'm quitting Twitter (Groggate given as influential)
Billablog - Who will be the next Grog-gate?
Dave from Albury's Weblog - Outing an amateur
HarrangueMan - Speaking of partisan chum buckets...
Insert Clever Title Here - Now we know who Grog is... what changed... #groggate
Instances of Ass Clownery - James Massola is an Ass Clown
Preston Towers - To Grog or Not to Grog
The Australian - Speak Queasy (see section on 'The Battle of Jericho)
The Dummer Press - We're under attack!
The Register - Media group faces both ways on the issue

Articles and posts for 30 September:
ABC The Drum - Quality sets The Australian apart
Black Dog - The Australian's War on Australia
The Australian - Grog blogger keeps his job
The Notion Factory - Anonymous


Articles and posts for 1 October:
Cafe Whispers - Fran speaking frankly (small mention)
Crikey - And the Wankley goes to… The Oz’s war on everything (bloggers, this week)
SBS World News Byte Me - #grogsgate raises enduring questions
The Bannerman - Burn Baby, Burn!

Articles and posts for 2 October:
Daily Dose - Kate’s Corner ~ Being “Outted” in Australian Society
Happy Antipodean - Saturday, 2 October 2010
James Purser [INSERT WITTY CATCHPHRASE HERE] - Grog Thoughts
The Australian - Test of Twitter-led revolution reveals a character limit

Articles and posts for 3 October:
Billablog - Grog-Gate 2  or We aren’t the ones who don’t get it, YOU are!
B Sides - A couple more points about Grogsgate
Crikey - The Content Makers - More on the Ethics of Outing Grog’s Gamut 
Gary Sauer-Thompson's Weblog - Conversations - Twitter
Kate Carruthers - My Amplify - the continued misunderstanding of the relationship between Twitter & activism is getting annoying #groggate
Still life with cat - More on Grog's Gamut
The Australian -  Salvos lobbed in the great blog war of '10
The Bannerman - Questionable Irony
The Bannerman - Going Through Hell, On A War Horse Called ‘Right’ 

Articles and posts for 4 October:
ABC The Drum - Anonymous sources no window to truth
Aide-Memoire - Twitter, commonsense and journalism #groggate
My Red Crayon - Grog Gate, may his legacy be a change for the better.
Restless Capital - Last word on #Groggate
sminney's posterous - "Media" 2-10-10 Deconstructed
Sydwalker.info -  Naked Lies & Long Noses: from Watergate to #Groggate (a mention)
The Australian - As the anonymous walls of Jericho fall, the great blog war of '10 begins

Articles and posts for 5 October:
A Shiny New Coin - To speak in the first person
ABC The Drum - The Australian. Think. Again.
Aide-Memoire - Public discourse and private citizens – how free is freedom of speech? #groggate
Crikey - The Content Makers - Information Brokerage and Citizenship. More Reflections on Grogs Gamut
eGovAU - In the noise of #Groggate, don't forget those silenced
SkepticLawyer - Journalists are Luddites #groggate
Sydney Morning Herald - Journalists' jealousy behind a blogger unmasked  The Canberra Times - Battle of Jericho
The Punch - Hitting journos where it really hurts: a handy guide
Upstart - Narcissus, Grog’s Gamut and a self-obsessed media

Articles and posts for 6 October:
eGovau - Stats on articles and posts for #Groggate (includes statistics on all articles mentioning Groggate listed in this post)

Articles and posts for 7 October:
Crikey - The Content Makers - Pseudonyms and Anonymity – a Previously Unpublished Case Study.
Mediakult - Blogging under the radar (references Grog)

Articles and posts for 8 October:
Townsville Bulletin - Cowardly world of bloggers
Blogging Townsville - The Townsville Bulletin celebrates our first birthday with style

Articles and posts for 10 October:
Peter Martin - The Australian does not follow a party line
the political sword - Grog, do come back – we need you

Articles and posts for 11 October:
ret's posterous: Cowardly world of bloggers - jeez that's rich

Articles and posts for 14 October:
The Australian - Grog's blog back in business

Articles and posts for 16 October:
Woolly Days - Grog rations (NEW)

Articles and posts for 17 October:
RickyRobinson.id.au - The Australian and the new Battle of Jericho

Related information and news:
ABC - Mark Scott's speech: The Quest for Truth: Quality Journalism and a 21st Century ABC (where Grog's comments about the mainstream media were first seem as influential) 
Grog's Gamut - Election 2010: Day 14 (or waste and mismanagement – the media) (the original article from Grog referenced by Mark Scott)

Australian Press Council - Balancing privacy and press freedom
Online Journalism Blog - Time to talk about legal
Restless Capital - Brief historical reflections on anonymity and pseudonymity
The Australian -  Twitter speaks and the ABC listens
The Australian - Hobby writers keep pros on their toes
The Advertiser - Censoring free speech in the secret state
The Herald-Sun - Outrage as South Australia's Rann Government, Opposition unite to gag internet election debate
The Sydney Morning Herald - Iranian blogger jailed for 19 years (Aside - Don't we use 'gaoled' anymore?)
The Guardian -  No one gains from blowing the cover of this secret policeman
J352: Intro to Online Journalism - Blogger outed by journalist on Twitter
The Wall - BBC’s Marr blasts bloggers: socially inadequate, pimpled, single and seedy


Other mediums:
27 September - ABC Q&A - Politics, Betrayal and Sex (See closing remarks from Senator Conroy)
1 October - The Australian Media Series Audio Webcast - Grogs-gate: A storm in a tweetcup
2 October - 702 ABC Sydney - The Sunday Panel - To Twitter or Not to Twitter (see last few minutes)
3 October - Cartoon - grogsgamut droogisheep #274


A UK view from their 2008 Civil Serf debate:
DavePress -  Public servants must blog, despite Civil Serf

There's a Twibbon in support of Grog.

There's also a Facebook page, If 100,000 people like this page I'll name my firstborn Grogs Gamut.

There's this T-shirt (I work in the public service and I tweet) and this T-shirt (Murdoch outed me and all I got was this crummy hashtag #GrogGate T-Shirt) - created by Black Bobs

And a poll I've set up asking - Do journalists have a right to remain anonymous?

Read full post...

View summary...

Will social media only come into its own in government when budgets run out?

The US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich spoke this morning at Media140 #Ozpolitics on why President Obama used social media in such an innovative way during his election campaign.

Bleich said that it wasn't because President Obama particularly believed that social media was taking over from traditional media and it wasn't because his campaign team felt it would differentiate them from other Democratic candidates.

It was because they didn't have any choice.

Back in 2006 while Obama had enormous appeal as a Senator he didn't have the basics to win an election. No money, endorsements, name recognition or consultants.

He was running against Senator Hilary Clinton - who had been a household name for two decades, had a good funding machine, had locked up most of the big endorsements and had good consultants.

The core group of 'true believers' supporting Obama may have been passionate, committed and hardworking but they were underdogs. And, Bleich says, while Americans (and Australians) love an underdog, they normally stay under.

To compensate for the lack of supporters ready to contribute million-dollar donations, President Obama's team had to build campaign funds from grassroots supporters, at an average of $60 at a time.

To replace a lack of endorsements from national political leaders, Obama's team had to seek endorsements at a local level, from individual town leaders across the United States.

He had to get his name into widespread public use and he had to get advisors who could use special tools to catch up with Senator Clinton's advantages.

We all know the outcome. President Obama raised over US$500 million via small donations, built huge brand recognition across the United States and created a network of over 6.4 million engaged voters, who organised and influenced locally.

Ambassador Bleich says that social media shouldn't be thought of as creating a new way of communicating. It gives political leaders the capability to communicate with people in the same way they communicate in person.

He says that social media will replace traditional media where it is superior. It won't replace TV or other channels that are good at particular things that social media is not.

Bleich also said that shifting from campaign to governance has also posed an issue for social media use. The conversation is no longer with campaign supporters - a smaller and more supportive group. It is now with a nation, more people, more views and less support.

This view was reflected by Senator Christine Milne of the Greens during her comments on the panel 'How are real time and social media platforms changing political communication'. She said that MPs have a job to do - reading, discussing, meeting and voting. The time they can spend engaging and building relationships via social media channels is limited.

This raises an issue of authenticity. Milne says that even if MPs can spend time in social media building a 'celebrity' profile, if they cannot maintain the level of involvement and support it on an ongoing basis by delivering substance, it creates an issue.

Bleich said that Obama's campaign was able to fly under the radar, had no choice to experiment with online engagement. Whereas, Latika Bourke, during the panel discussion, said that during the Australian election most politicians went into hiding as they were afraid of being 'that politician who stuffed up on Twitter'.

So what does this mean for Australian politics and government?

It suggests to me that Australia's current political and government system will continue largely unchanged - on the surface.

While we don't face the same financial and engagement pressures as Obama's campaign there's no pressure forcing our politicians and public servants to engage online.

We're less likely to experiment and innovate while the fear of public failure outweighs the gain that can be achieved.

I realise this all sounds a little depressing for Gov 2.0 advocates - such as myself. However there are signs of hope.

Malcolm Turnbull, who was also on the panel, believes that technology has been a great democratiser - a child can make a movie with a mobile device that used to require a million dollars of equipment.

He says that despite some MPs feeling they face vitriol via social media channels, this isn't more than they previously faced via email, or even face-to-face.

He says that his engagement via Twitter is based on having a little fun, being willing to engage in a less formal way - be a little provocative, throw in some whimsy.

As we're already seeing with the growth of social media use by government there is increasing trust in allowing people to use the channel. As it becomes a normal approach to engagement the fear and scrutiny should diminish to the level appropriate to the medium and the messages.

This is likely to happen more slowly in a climate of 'business as usual' - where budgets exist for traditional media use and agencies and politicians both feel that existing channels meet their communications and engagement needs.

However change will happen. Social media will become a more important part of the mix where it is a superior medium. It just won't see the speed of adoption or innovation we saw during the last US Presidential campaign.

To give the last words to Ambassador Bleich, he said that social media can help spread facts as quickly as fictions. Government and politicians can use it to manage the 24 hour news cycle, mitigating issues by correcting news.

He says that social media, like all media since the printing press, is a two-edged sword - what's most important is that you have a handle on it.

Read full post...

View summary...

Media140 #OzPolitics Liveblog

Hi,

I'm liveblogging Media140 #OzPolitics today. It can also be followed via the live stream in the Media140 site and on Twitter using the hashtags #Media140, #OzPolitics and #OzPol.

My liveblog is below, or you can capture my RSS feed at: http://rss.coveritlive.com/rss.php?altcast_code=ff941a7c47



And a view of the day from FirstDogOnMoon - sourced from his FirstBlog at Crikey:

  

               


















Thanks for reading!

Read full post...

View summary...

Redefining public goods - by Nicholas Gruen

If you followed the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington earlier this month, you may have seen Nicholas Gruen's presentation on redefining public goods.

If you haven't, it is well worth reviewing (see below) - as are many of the other presentations from the event.

These presentations are available online, together with slides, from the event's website.



His slides are embedded below.

Redefining Public_Private Partnerships Presentation

Read full post...

View summary...

Complete the ANZSOG survey on the economic value of open government

The South Australian government has commissioned ANZSOG to conduct a research study on the topic of

"Economic value of open access to government-held data and information"

ANZSOG is seeking respondents who can provide information about the approach of their organisations to the collection and dissemination of data and/or information, as well as their personal views on this topic.

They are particularly interested in hearing stories about experiences with open access to government data and/or information (be they positive, negative or neutral).

The survey can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/govinfosurvey

The survey should take approximately 20 minutes, depending on how much
detail you go into and is divided into the following sections:

1. Introduction
2. Access to data
3. Cost recovery
4. Characteristics of data
5. Benefits of access to data
6. Barriers to sharing data
7. Health questions (for those working in the health industry only)
8. Mining industry questions (for those working in the mining industry only)
9. Conclusion

The survey deadline is Friday 24 September. Any information in addition to the survey can be sent to helen.moreland@transport.vic.gov.au

Read full post...

View summary...

Keep your eyes on Media140 #OzPolitics on 23 September

In what is looking like another milestone for Government 2.0 in Australia, the Media140 #OzPolitics event on 23 September at Old Parliament House has an amazing lineup of speakers exploring how the real-time web is changing the face of Australian politics and government engagement.

It features a range of presentations as well as five panels, on

• How are real time & social media platforms changing political communication?
• The changing role of traditional political news gatekeepers in the age of the real time web,
• Controlling the message in the real time web era,
• Alternative views of political news, and
• Gov 2.0: Participatory Democracy & Citizen Engagement

Panelists and speakers include Malcolm Turnbull, Rob Oakeshot, Kate Lundy, Scott Ludlum, First Dog on the Moon, Latika Bourke, Bernard Keane and Stephen Collins.

I'll be liveblogging the event (wifi willing) and participating in the Gov 2.0 panel.

I believe it is still possible to register for the event. However if you cannot make it, you can follow it on Twitter via the hashtags #ozpolitics and #media140.

Read full post...

View summary...

US launches Challenge.gov

The US government recently launched Challenge.gov, a site allowing US agencies to manage and promote challenges, prizes and competitions where the community is asked to help solve a wide range of public governance issues - all in one central location.

The challenge concept is a simple one. By tapping into the wisdom of crowds governments and other organisations are able to provide better and more cost-effective solutions to problems, large or small.

It's hard to see the downside of this approach. Government pays a small amount to incentivise participation in the challenge (a prize). If none of the challenge entries provide a better solution, or are not approaches that a government cannot adopt, the time and money cost is negligible. If a better solution - or multiple better solutions - are entered, then government has made a significant gain at little cost.

The US has taken this a step further by embedding the challenge 'DNA' into a low cost technique available to public servants with the support of the political arm of US government.

Already there are over 40 challenges on the site, with many, many more to come.

Read full post...

View summary...

Are social media professionals unfairly constrained by organisations?

When organisations hire accountants they are allowed to use specialist financial software to do their jobs.

When organisations hire customer service representatives they are given training and scripts and are then allowed to speak to customers on the phone - monitored for performance reasons but free to communicate in appropriate ways without approval of every word.

When organisations hire graphic designers, project managers, multimedia producers and programmers they are given access to appropriate software and computer systems.

So why is it that, when hiring social media professionals, organisations don't give them access to their 'tools of the trade'?



In many organisations it is not possible to access social media channels - such as Facebook or Twitter - due to old-style internal IT access policies. Tools to monitor social media channels are also often blocked, making it difficult to track what customers and clients are saying about an organisation, identify opportunities or head-off potential issues.

In many cases organisations scrutinise all social media interactions at senior levels (down to 140 character tweets). These approval processes can add significant time and effort to online responses, making it difficult to interact at the pace required for social media. Imagine if telephone conversations or live conference presentations were treated the same way.

Also often those employed to implement social media systems and manage these channels are not provided with training and support - certainly not to the level of a phone customer service representative - despite being in the position of interacting with the public every day.

Even when organisations are serious about adopting social media, their policies, processes and procedures may not be designed to allow social media to work for them. This can lead to mixed messages (as when customers are invited to fan an organisation's Facebook page - which staff are not allowed to access during work hours). This can even lead to social media engagement becoming a liability, where its use is so constrained that it casts the organisation in a worse light.

These issues are occurring in private as well as public sectors organisations - perhaps some corporations have not realised that restricting access to social media can seriously damage your business.

Progress is also very uneven and often driven by senior personalities. Organisations and agencies with clear Gov 2.0 Action Plans are driving ahead, whereas others are still considering whether twitter is a legitimate business communications channel - either from a lack of knowledge, lack of leadership or lack of interest.

How can social media professionals ensure that our organisations give us access to the tools we need to support the goals of our organisations?

How do we break down the barriers to using social media when we cannot demonstrate successes due to these same barriers?

How do we convince senior management that social media professionals are skilled and trustworthy employees who should be treated with the same respect as other trained professionals?

And how do social media professionals juggle the need to be educators, innovators, strategists, change managers, implementers, communications specialists and leaders at the same time?

Read full post...

View summary...

NSW launches live traffic monitoring online

The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) has launched RTA Live. This new website provides live updates on road conditions across NSW, including road work, fires, floods, accidents as well as feeds from 67 traffic cameras across Sydney.

There's also a widget embeddable on blogs and websites to provide traffic information.

Displaying the data on Google Maps, the site is an excellent example of the use of Web 2.0 technologies in a government context.

My only suggestion for the site would be to include data for Canberra to fill the annoying ACT-sized hole in the map.

Read full post...

View summary...

Business.gov.au launches social media section and iPhone app

Business.gov.au has introduced a social media section to its website.

While this type of approach has become quite widespread overseas, providing a central hub to access all of an agency's social media engagement tools, business.gov.au is one of the first Australian government websites to provide this type of hub.

At the same time business.gov.au has released its first iPhone application. Aimed primarily at business people, the app allows someone to look up ABNs and a variety of information about business from the website.

I've personally found the application a very convenient tool for looking up ABNs while on the go, being much faster and easier than using a website to do it.

Read full post...

View summary...

What does it cost to build and run a government website?

The Guardian reported in July that the UK government has released details on the costs of developing, staffing and hosting their major government websites.

The data includes web traffic, accessibility and user opinions on the websites.

This type of data is very useful when modeling the costs of developing and operating government sites, allowing agencies to more accurately forecast costs and staffing needs. It allows agencies to compare their web operations with other agencies, providing a view on who is most - and least - efficient.

The approach also allows hard-working, poorly resourced and funded web teams to more effectively argue for a greater share of the agency pie.

I would love to have such data available here in Austraia - down to being able to derive a total cost per visit (which for UK sites ranges from 1 pence up to 9.78 pounds - see the Google spreadsheet below). It would significantly assist web teams and agencies in their planning and activities.


The UK website data can be downloaded here.

Or see the data visualised (using IBM ManyEyes) and a Google spreadsheed of the costs below.








Download the full list as a spreadsheet

Read full post...

View summary...

Tips for hiring a public sector social media manager

We are now starting to see government departments advertising social media roles - although the titles vary, including 'New Media Adviser', 'Community Manager' and even 'Online Media Coordinator'.

In Australia it is difficult to recruit people with substantial experience for these roles. I am seeing many filled by media specialists or website managers, who are qualified in their professions, but can be new to the social media space.

This shortage of experienced people also reflect competition from the private sector. Corporate social media roles are now advertised at entry levels around $50,000, mid-range around $90 and at senior levels at $130,000 or more. Government agencies are not always able to offer similar levels of compensation, although attempt to compensate through conditions and superannuation contributions.

Some agencies are taking the route of having graduates lead social media initiatives in the belief that their youth gives them greater familiarity with the medium.

While graduates do come with enthusiasm, innovation and fresh ideas, they haven't always had time to build experience in the public sector, to understand the governance processes or political considerations or build networks of influence. They need support from mentors and sponsors to overcome these challenges.

Graduates may also not be the most experienced users of social media - the types of social media used by a graduate can be quite different from those used by a professional communicator with five or more years experience, simply due to the different professional needs they have in their lives.

Introducing social media into an organisation is a complex and delicate endeavour. When was the last time organisations added a major new communications channel? What type of cultural, procedural and technical changes were required? How major was the change program - and how well resourced?

Traditionally government employs specialist teams for policy development, program management and service delivery - yet in the social media space a single person or small team is often required to have all these skills in ample measure.

This means agencies need to think seriously about the experience and expertise they need in the people they employ to lead their social media initiatives. The experience and expertise required to navigate the cultural and change considerations, work within the governance and processes and appreciate the public communications and political sensitivities around social media adoption.

To aid in this challenge the post 12 Steps To Hiring A Social Media Manager from SocialMediaToday provides many useful tips and considerations that organisations need to take on board when making a social media manager hire.

Read full post...

View summary...

Online video ads more effective than TV ads

This week a colleague made me aware of a study conducted by Nielsen in April which found that online video ads were significantly more effective than TV ads amongst US viewers.

Reported at ClickZ (but for some reason not widely reported by traditional media), the article states that,

The research company conducted over 14,000 surveys evaluating 238 brands, 412 products, and 951 ad executions, and collected data on general recall, brand recall, message recall, and likeability. The results suggest that for each metric, consumers reacted better to ads delivered via online video than they did through traditional TV.

Nielsen says the increased impact could be attributed to the nature of the viewing experiences offered between the two platforms, with online video viewers often more "engaged and attentive" to the content they are consuming.

This wasn't a small impact either - online ads were on average more than 30% more effective per the chart below.

To learn more about how people are watching video, I recommend reading Nielsen's report, How People Watch: A Global Nielsen Consumer Report.

Read full post...

View summary...

An open government renaissance in Australia?

With the election over, Prime Minister Gillard has promised to throw open the curtains and let in the sunlight, a more open government than ever before.

With a government consisting of 72 Labor MPs, a Green MP and three Independents, media commentators are saying that more negotiation and consultation will be required than ever before.

This may prove to be Australia's open government renaissance - with corresponding growth in Gov 2.0.

What do people think?

Read full post...

View summary...

Understanding internet memes and the language of the net

The other day I came across a couple of experienced communications professionals who were unaware of Lolcats and several other well-known internet memes.

I believe it is quite important to understand the language, trends and traditions of a medium that you wish to use to communicate with and engage your audiences, so in the interests of spreading knowledge, here's a couple of good sources of information.

It is particularly useful for those who are newer to the internet (less than 10 years of use) or who are on the mature side of 40.

And in case you think all this meme stuff is some freaky internet phenomenon - many similar memes exist in traditional media as well - and you probably know them...

Such as Whatcha talkin bout Willis and Jumping the shark.

Know your meme - A great collection of short videos, each explaining a different popular internet meme. Yes there are lots of them. It's very useful for looking up those strange words used by your resident internet junkie, or when they send you to the last page on the internet.

Memesfactory - an entertaining, yet sometimes confronting, journey through the internet's wild west. Gives a great overview of the main internet memes and key terminology. This is designed as entertainment and is best suited to those with some familiarity with memes but little idea of where they come from.

Read full post...

View summary...

Innovation's Social Media in Government Seminar - presentations and videos

Last month I gave a presentation to around 100 people at the Department of Innovation regarding the use of social media in Australian government, alongside Todd Wright of Threesides.

With permission Innovation have published the presentations and video over at their Innovation Blog to share the seminar with others across the public service.

I'd love to see other Departments sharing material of this kind (on a variety of topics) on a regular basis, where there's no confidentiality or commercial concerns. It reduces duplication of effort, spreads knowledge and can lead to money savings for the government.

Read full post...

View summary...

Independent moderation - optional or must-have for government?

Bang The Table has released an excellent video piece on their moderation system (titled 24/7 moderation), including a part where Matt Crozier (one of their founders) says that independent moderation can be very important for government organisations in order to avoid risks of claims of censorship when they must remove some comments from a forum, blog or other online discussion device.


This part of the video does raise a good question - when should government agencies employ independent (external) moderation and when should they use their own staff.

Matt makes the point that where trust is fractured between a government agency and its constituents there can be increased risks of accusations of bias or censorship if the agency is seen to be doing the moderation. He suggests that an independent moderator could be seen to be less biased and that it removed perceptions that government officials may be moderating a little more than they should.

I think these are good points, which can apply in circumstances where a neutral moderator is both feasible and advantageous.

There are also circumstances where an authentic voice from an agency is required - where officials need to be actively engaging as participants and be seen to be moderating the discussion.

This is particularly important when engagement is occurring through a government-run website, rather than through a separately established or third-party vehicle. Otherwise there can be issues around whether an agency is really seen to be committed or is just engaging in a token effort. Also nuances can be lost where an independent moderator doesn't understand the subject matter at sufficient depth to carry the conversation, particularly in consultations.

Agencies need to weigh up the risks and benefits for each engagement activity, as well as assess them over time as needs change. Where possible I recommend that long-term partnerships with a trusted moderator work better than tendering for a new moderator for each separate engagement as this allows an external party to build an understanding of your guidelines and the subtleties of what may be considered inappropriate comments, rather than having to re-educate each time.

Where staff are moderating they need support as their decisions impact on the integrity and public perception of your organisation. For starters they should have clear moderation guidelines and examples, possibly borrowed and reworked from the experiences of other agencies.

It helps if they have a good understanding of any Information Privacy Principles relevant to their jurisdiction and training in conflict resolution or other engagement-type interactions. It really really helps if they also have prior experience at moderation or participation in online forums and similar mediums which involve moderation activity.

Read full post...

View summary...

Gaming of online polls and ways to mitigate vote fraud

I've been reading up on the gaming of the Time.com 100 Poll in 2009, where vote rigging saw the founder of 4Chan elevated to the top position and the order of names in the poll manipulated to spell out 'MARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME' (see the video below).

While there are often legitimate reasons to create online polls or voting tools, it is very important to be aware of the potential pitfalls if measures aren't in place to minimise the risk of inappropriate voting - people 'gaming', defrauding or hacking individual polls.

Often people aren't aware of how easy it can be to game voting and it is important to weigh up what you're doing and put the right level of protection in place.

One of the simplest form of voting fraud can involve users with multiple computers and web browsers, who may be able to vote once per each - then vote again after clearing their browser cache of cookies. This is possible in the polls featured in many popular newspaper websites.

If an email address is required to vote, as is employed in more sophisticated voting systems, users with multiple accounts can sign-up and vote many times - particularly where they own domains and can create thousands of email addresses at a time. This can be monitored and partially mitigated by looking at voting patterns over time and checking the email addresses for similarity and veracity.

When polls check IP addresses they are harder to 'game', however there are still technical approaches some people can use to change IP addresses - or use botnetworks (all with different IPs) to vote on your behalf. This, however, can become quite technically complex and requires significantly more resources.

Finally, if the poll system's security is not assured, someone may hack the actual voting system and introduce biases that influence the outcome - from changing the order in which options to vote on are displayed, counting some votes as more than a single vote, or more obviously just manipulating the total votes through changing the register of votes.

There are way of checking polls to minimise fraud, using technology to check IP addresses, combining this with email address verification or linking to other services such as Facebook where people are unlikely to control more than a single account. There are also CAPTCHA-based means to screen out most automated voting (though adding a hurdle to fast voting) and even more complex automation techniques to analyse voting patterns in real-time and flag, check or disallow some votes based on their origin.

Depending on the poll different levels of mitigation may be needed. Basically the greater the reward for receiving the most votes in a poll, or the greater the controversy over the subject, the greater the likelihood that gaming or fraud will occur, and the greater the mitigation required.

Online voting in elections - such as used by Estonia - tends to employ far more sophisticated techniques to verify votes. These are much more effective, however tend to cost quite a bit (at present) to implement.

So if you're running a fairly simple and low cost online poll it may be best to use it simply as an indication, or to back it up with a human step (selecting a winner from the top ten publicly voted entries) which mitigates a lot of the risk of vote rigging.

Read full post...

View summary...

ACT government launches Canberra 2030 consultation integrating Web 2.0 tools

The government for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has just launched a consultation asking for the community's views on what the city should be like in twenty years time.

The Canberra 2030 consultation has gone some way to integrate Web 2.0 tools. It allows residents to submit ideas and vote on the ideas of others (up or down) and has a 'discussion forum' - although this is pre-moderated and not structured in a standard forum mode, which is likely to constrain the discussion somewhat.

There's a Twitter account and a Flickr account and also a video up at YouTube - although this doesn't appear to have been embedded in the Canberra 2030 site itself.

Despite a few basic usability issues and a little of a 'tickbox' approach, the site represents a real attempt to consult Canberrans in a more interactive way and it is worth a look.

Plus if you're an ACT resident you could win an iPad.

Read full post...

View summary...

Disaster management using open source and social media

Some of you may be aware of the Mercury 10 national counter-terrorism exercise currently being held in Australia, involving a variety of government bodies.

While this type of scenario is only one of potentially many different types of crises or disasters that could occur, natural disasters, pandemics, rocks from space, and so on, it does raise the question for me, how is Australia using social media and open source technologies in crisis management.

We've seen quite intensive use of social media in situations such as the Haiti earthquake, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Mumbai terrorist attacks and the swine flu pandemic last year.

Across the world authorities are realising how valuable social media can be to help them quickly get information out to the public, to collect information on the extent of a disaster and help prioritise relief efforts.

They are also beginning to realise how dangerous it can be to not engage online, leaving rumours and misinformation to spread even faster and more virulently than was previously possible. A good example was during the Mumbai terrorist attacks when a rumour that the Indian government was asking for all live tweeting from Mumbai to stop in order to avoid giving the terrorists information about police movements.

However the really interesting developments in disaster management are happening outside of government. Software engineers and disaster management specialists have spent the last few years developing better tools for addressing crisis situations - often without any support from the authorities responsible for managing emergencies.

Two of these platforms are Ushahidi and Sahana.

Both of these platforms are open source, free-to-use web-based platforms designed to be highly resilient during disaster situations and flexible to the needs of both developing and developed nations.

Ushahidi, developed to report on violence during the 2008 Kenya election, has been deployed more than 20 times around the world to address situations such as violence in Gaza, the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Chile and Haiti's emergency responses to their respective earthquake, track crime levels in Atlanta, medical supply levels in pharmacies across Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia and track the swine flu pandemic.

The system allows reports by mobile phone SMS and MMS and via the internet to be aggregated into a real-time map, then used to identify priority areas for relief efforts or activities. While the system can be deployed simply for reporting by authorities, it has proven to be strongest where citizens have been able to report incidents directly, allowing emergency authorities to respond with a more complete picture of events.

Ushahidi is entirely free to reuse and can be deployed within a few hours.

The group behind the service are currently working on a second service, Swift River, designed to help manage the flood of online information about a disaster in the first few hours and help both emergency services and the public distinguish between rumour and fact. While Swift River won't be launched until the end of August, a video discussing how it will work is available online.

Sahana is another free open source system developed to assist in disaster management. A a web based collaboration tool, it is designed to help manage common coordination problems, such as locating missing persons, managing volunteers and aid and coordinating efforts between a variety of aid groups, government and those impacted by the disaster.

It was originally developed in 2004 by Sri Lankan developers to support the response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and was deployed by the Sri Lanka government to support disaster recovery efforts. A second phase, funded through Sweden, saw Sahana expanded into a more generic disaster management tool with global application.

Sahana was designed to cope with many of the infrastructure issues that frequently occur during disasters, such as intermittent power, loss of network connectivity and the need to deploy the service on low-end hardware and systems. In fact Sahana can be transported on and operated from a USB stick and is extremely flexible and easy to customise, reflecting the need to adapt quickly to the individual nature of every disaster.

Sahana is in use for the Pakistan floods at the moment and it was also used for the Haiti earthquake - discussed in this case study (PDF). It has also been used in the Phillipines, the US, Peru, China, Indonesia and Pakistan for a range of disaster management needs.

There are other open source tools available for disaster management purposes. It is also possible to rapidly build a custom system for a specific need using free and low cost tools such as Wordpress (for content management), Google Maps (for geospatial representations), YouTube (for video), Flickr (for images), Slideshare and Scribd (for presentations and documents), Twitter (for real-time updates), WidgetBox (for embeddable widgets), Facebook (for group coordination), Wufoo (for forms) and services such as Yahoo Pipes to integrate and process information and news feeds.

In most cases the time required to put together these types of custom systems is significantly less than that required to have systems developed within high-end content management systems - as are normally deployed for normal business needs by government agencies.

In most cases these third party services are also cheaper, more scalable and have greater network resilience and peak usage capability - reflecting their need to cater for millions of simultaneous users, more than most government sites are engineered to handle.

So while some governments appear to be relying on traditional means of communications in disasters - brochures or media releases at carefully timed intervals - it is inevitable that communities will self-organise, create their own tools and deploy them with great speed.

Today's challenge for governments is to use social media and online tools to improve their own disaster management capability, organise the flood of information and provide better outcomes - deploying disaster management systems or throwing together custom solutions in a matter of hours rather than months.

Read full post...

View summary...

Legal benefits of social media use

I've been speaking with a few lawyers and solicitors lately regarding the risks of various social media initiatives and tools.

Today, over lunch, it struck me that lawyers rarely - if ever - speak about the legal benefits of social media, the ways in which the use of social media can provide better outcomes for organisation, in a legal sense, than 'traditional' approaches to listening, communication, consultation and engagement.

So I've made a stab below at identifying some of the legal benefits of social media - please feel free to add your own, or debate my views, in comments.


Identifying potential legal risks early
The first legal benefit is the capability to monitor social media to identify any emerging concerns or issues that could lead to future legal risks for an organisation.

People often speak openly online about their concerns and frustrations. A trend of similar issues can represent an emerging issue with a policy, system or service delivery function that could eventuate as a court case or even a class action.

Social media provides an avenue to identify these trending issues quickly and gives organisations an opportunity to address them before they 'blow up' into the media and legal action.


Audit trails
One of the major benefits of the online channel is the capability to capture and track user behaviour - particularly when a user is registered and signs into a service. This can provide legal benefits through a clear audit trail of an individual's online activities to either verify their story, or prove it untrue.

Where an individual claims to not have viewed particular material, or to not have agreed to certain terms and conditions, a digital trail can provide veracity - for example when signing up to a particular online service, changing contact details or revealing personal information.

I have seen cases in government where an individual has claimed that their online account had been fraudulently modified by another party however, through auditing the digital records, it became possible to prove that it was a relative authorised to use the account who had made the changes, preventing any type of legal action against the agency providing the service.

In a case unrelated to government, recently an iPhone log was used to prove that an individual was being falsely accused of rape and in other cases email records and the logs from websites have been used to prove or disprove an individual's involvement in particular matters.

Where government employs social media tools for activities such as stakeholder or community engagement or consultation and some form of log-in or other way to recognise users (such as through a Facebook or Twitter identity) is in use, it becomes much harder for individuals to falsely claim that they were unaware of certain information or otherwise prove statements that could lead to agency legal liability.


Accessibility
The internet can be a cost-effective way to provide documents and discussions during a consultation process in an accessible manner, avoiding the legal risk of breaching the Disabilities Act.

Rather than holding a consultation by mail, where mailed submissions are scanned in and either not provided online at all, or presented as images - totally inaccessible to screen readers - government can hold online consultations where every submission is typed directly into the consultation site.

These submissions can be reviewed and published online in a manner accessible to all internet users. They can also be printed (maybe in braille) or read out by a machine over a phone line for non-users.

This use of the internet for consultations is a very cost-effective way for organisations to meet their obligations under the Disabilities Act and avoid legal action for providing submissions in a non-accessible manner.


Inclusion (equalising access)
Using the internet in engagement activities, alongside other approaches, allows a much broader range of people to participate - minimising the legal risks of decisions where some audiences claim they were not consulted.

Often those who work nights, have day jobs, young children, are physically less mobile, geographically distant or otherwise have commitments are less able to participate in face-to-face discussion with a government agency or its representatives.

Where these people are affected by the outcomes of a face-to-face engagement process these people could feel excluded and unheard. In some situations, could lead to legal action against certain policies or decisions.

By using the internet alongside other approaches within an engagement process - via a forum, blog, facebook page, or similar means - a government agency can ensure that audiences unable to attend a physical event are heard and their views considered.

This increases their feeling of inclusion and lessens the risk of developing poor policy, reducing the risk of policy failures which could lead to legal action.


So there you are - four legal benefits from using social media that can reduce an organisation's legal risks (versus not using social media).

Can you think of any others?

Read full post...

View summary...

ABS embraces internal blogs and wikis

As covered in The Australian's article, Australian Bureau of Statistics embraces world of blogs and wikis, the ABS has implemented an internal collaboration platform supporting blogs, wikis and collaborative documents.

The article reports that 30% of staff have begun using the wiki and blog functions. If reported correctly this reflects a huge demand for internal digital collaboration within the Bureau and bodes well for the implementation of similar platforms in other government agencies.

Given that the platform is said to simplify the management of collaboratively written and edited documents, removing the load from email and enabling better version control, there are significant long-term knowledge management and internal efficiencies that could be realised by the ABS.

I've often wondered why government agencies have been so slow to move away from desktop-based word processing towards wiki-style collaborative documents (with appropriate security and version control). Admittedly there are transition costs - both ICT and training - however the savings in not having incorrect versions sent around as large email attachments and the time saved by not having to compile edits from numerous people back into a single document are quite large.

Read full post...

View summary...

UK redevelops legislative database to support and encourage reuse

Brought to my attention by Mia Garlick via Twitter, the UK has redeveloped its legislative database with a focus on reuse by external parties.

The recently released site legislation.gov.uk covers 800 years of legislation from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

According to an article from Cornell University Law School, Legislation.gov.uk, John Sheridan, Head of e-Services and Strategy at The National Archives says that the site was designed to meet two objectives,

to deliver a high quality public service for people who need to consult, cite, and use legislation on the Web; and to expose the UK’s Statute Book as data, for people to take, use, and re-use for whatever purpose or application they wish.

The Crown Copyright for the site specifies that,

You are encouraged to use and re-use the information that is available on this site freely and flexibly, with only a few conditions.

This type of approach makes legislation vastly more accessible to the public and, through an API provided by the site, supports the development of applications and services that assist the public, organisations and lawyers to understand and apply the law.

More information on why and how the site was designed is available in the article referenced above.

Australia isn't yet at the same point. Our legislation, detailed at Comlaw, is not yet supported through APIs or other machine-readable data formats and is covered under a more restrictive licensing regime,

This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved.

Read full post...

View summary...

AGIMO invites participation and guest blogging on accessibility matters

AGIMO's latest blog post, Welcome to the WCAG 2.0 Community of Expertise (CoE), has invited those with an interest or involvement with accessibility matters to join a new Community of Expertise or provide guest posts to the AGIMO blog.

Related to the endorsement of WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0) by the Australian government earlier this year, AGIMO has established the Community of Expertise to encourage collaboration in developing advice, techniques and resources to implement WCAG 2.0.

Those from the public and private sectors are both invited to join the Community.

To learn more, and for an update on AGIMO's progress in developing support resources aiding agencies in WCAG 2.0 adoption, visit AGIMO's blog at Govspace.

Read full post...

View summary...

Gov 2.0 is thriving during Australia's federal election

Commentators have said that major political parties have "failed to harness the full potential of social media in the 2010 Election" or broken the "cardinal rule of social media" due to only engaging in one way (outbound) communication.

This is despite recent global examples of the effectiveness of online engagement in shifting votes, such as in Colombia's Presidential election wheresocial media has been used to overcome a 12 point deficit in 50 days)

However, irregardless of how Australian politicians are presently using social media, Gov 2.0 has been thriving during the Australian election.

At least 20 Web 2.0 sites have been set up by individual Australians, not-for-profit and commercial organisations to monitor, engage, influence and support election-related community interaction online.

There's even been an iPhone application developed to support voting decisions.

I've listed all of these sites at the Government 2.0 Best practice Wiki on the page Australian election-related sites page.

I'm sure it's not an exhaustive list and will continue adding to it as I discover new sites.

If you're aware of other Web 2.0 election-specific sites that I've missed, please add them directly to the wiki.

Read full post...

View summary...

Tapping into Canberra's entrepreneurial community

This weekend Canberra is hosting a Start-up Camp, a three day event where entrepreneurs form teams and develop new online business concepts.

This type of event could be an opportunity for government to tap into smart and skilled people, gathering and testing new ideas.

In this camp there are six projects underway, as listed below:

itubecover.com - get your cool environmentally-friendly protective iPhone cover entirely made from recycled materials

mywardrobe.me - can't decide an outfit...take the easy option...browse through your wardrobe online

thumbtips.com.au - any topic, any time, the more controversial the better, you give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down

ilickit.com - product reviews made interesting, lick 'em or flick 'em with ilickit.com!

isplit.com.au - after world peace, surely this is needed. No one in your circle will ever dare not pay their share again

checkthishome.net - heading to Oz from overseas for a long stay...why not get the low-down on where you're going to stay ahead of them.

Read full post...

View summary...

What I'm reading on Gov2.0 today....

I read constantly to keep up-to-date with the Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0 world, so I thought I'd publish a list of what I've read today based on the pages I have open currently in my web browser.

Global Gov 2.0 - "Generation GovLoop" Provoking Profound Change?
Highlights how changes in public service demographics will change how public services operate. As Baby Boomers and Veterans retire, their Generation X and Y replacements will place higher value on collaboration and engagement particularly via social media.

Govts need well-defined social media strategy
More and more Government agencies are using social media to communicate and engage with the public. However they haven't always put the strategies in place to use these channels most effectively. These agencies would not launch a TV campaign without a well-thought out strategy, so why would they do so for social media. They need to establish clear, well-defined social media strategies in order to use social media channels appropriately and to manage potential issues.

An Executive′s Guide To Social Media
The personality type of many executives disinclines them to use social media. They tend to be highly-driven introverts, who value hard work over instant success. They also tend to develop healthy egos and place enormous value on reputation, avoiding channels which could damage their own standing in front of their peers.

Therefore they need to be approached in the right way to become interested in online channels. Key topics to sell to them are unfiltered feedback (often they find it hard to get the truth from scared underlings), the ability to engage authentically and tell their organisation's story (as they are proud of their organisation), to save money (as online can deliver better returns for less cost), accountability (statistics).

White House uses LinkedIn for policy discussion
The US government has begun using LinkedIn as another online social network for discussions with its citizens.

A Victory for Social Media: Inside the Election of Colombia's New President
The new Colombian President successfully used social media to overcome a 12 point deficit and win the last Presidential election through effective online engagement. A lesson for other political parties seeking election.

Gov 2.0 as means not end
Sometimes advocates of Gov 2.0, or those new to the area, forget that the approach is designed to serve a purpose, it is not a purpose in its own right. It can also be used to facilitate different things - greater systems transparency, improved engagement with citizens and better cost controls - depending on the needs of the state.

GetUp! wins again in online vote case
In a majority decision, the Federal Court has ruled that it is legal for Australians to enrol online and that the AEC's interpretation of 'sign' as requiring a paper signature is flawed. This opens the door to online voter enrolment across Australia - provided the AEC can place systems in place to facilitate this.

"Knowledge is a mashup" - Dig into the Smithsonian Commons and you'll find Gov 2.0 in action.
This article outlines the activities going on at the Smithsonian to open up its entire catalogue to online access, thoroughly cross-referenced and indexed, with user-based tags and associations permitted via an open data approach. Collections can also be shared to other websites and social networks, promoting the greatest possible reach for the collection - an excellent example of Gov 2.0 in action.

An investigation of Emotional Intelligence and the use of Online Social Media tools in organisations (#EISM Report)
An Australian report looking at the impacts of Emotional Intelligence levels and online communication on each other.

Five Rules For How To Make Things Go Viral (TCTV)
You can't predict what will go viral, but you can make choices that improve the chances. This article outlines five 'rules' which can be applied to any online content to help encourage viral behaviour.

Open Government Data Principles
These eight principles provide an excellent framework for government data openness. They are being applied more and more widely in the US and other countries - although have not received wide attention in Australia yet.

Plenary: Data into Action
This is the online record of a Plenary session covering examples of how Gov 2.0 has been successfully put into practice in a variety of environments.

The Value of Transparency Is At The Boundary between Government and Society
This post covers how more transparency doesn't necessarily mean better governance. Governments must work interactively and constructively with citizens, releasing the right information to support collective problem solving and better solutions.

Governments and e-participation programs: A study of the challenges faced by institutional projects
From the synopsis:
This paper examines the difficulties faced by government projects aimed at fostering citizens’ political participation by using the Internet. After presenting the participatory tools found on two institutional Web sites (the Brazilian Presidency and the House of Representatives), I examine how the constraints pointed out by a relevant part of the literature in e–participation are reflected in such initiatives. Promoting online participation needs more than providing communication resources, since civic culture and other issues are still key factors in influencing our patterns of political involvement. A participatory use of digital tools depends more on circumstances, such as institutional willingness, than on technical mechanisms available.

Employees-First, Citizen-Second: The Best Route to Open Government
This post discusses the need to engage and involve government employees in open government and social media initiatives in order to improve organisational capability and deliver better outcomes for citizens. Internal collaboration first, public consultation second.

And Of Course, Here’s The Twitter Movie Trailer
A community-created trailer for a Twitter movie - and linking to a similar trailer for a YouTube movie. While more humour than work, these trailers - and the trailer for the real movie "The Social Network" provide insights into how people view and use these services in the real world.

Read full post...

View summary...

Victoria releases best-practice Gov 2.0 Action Plan

Victoria has maintained its lead over other Australian states in the adoption of Government 2.0 through today's release of the Government 2.0 Action Plan - Victoria.

The Plan outlines four priority areas for Gov 2.0:

1. Driving adoption in the VPS > Leadership
2. Engaging communities and citizens > Participation
3. Opening up government > Transparency
4. Building capability > Performance

With 14 initiaitves under these priorities, the plan was devised using extensive consultation and a wiki-based approach, engaging a wide range of stakeholders across government.

This approach, previously used in New Zealand, the US and the United Kingdom, has proven effective in generating significant engagement and support for the eventuating plan.

Rather than a 'big bang' approach - as used for many government initiatives, the Plan state that:

Our approach to implementation is think big, start small and scale fast.

In my view, Victoria's Gov 2.0 Action Plan is an example of best practice in how to prepare to systematically embed Government 2.0 techniques and tools into a government, taking the necessary steps to reform public sector culture, build capability, engage proactively and innovate iteratively to deliver the best outcomes for citizens.

I believe that the effective execution of this Action Plan, ahead of Gov 2.0 efforts in other states, will give Victoria a substantial first-mover economic advantage, positioning the state as more innovative and better equipped to service citizens and businesses in the 21st Century.

Read full post...

View summary...

Targeting Gov 2.0 apps development - US government combating child obesity with Apps for Healthy Kids

The mash-up (or Apps) competitions we've seen in Australia thus far have been broad and largely untargeted. Governments have released a bunch of public sector datasets and invited developers to create a bunch of applications related to that data for their jurisdiction, but without a highly specific goal or purpose in mind, other than creating applications that add value to the data.

The US, which leads Australia in this area of Gov 2.0, initially took a similar approach. However it has now moved to a new level - Apps competitions focused on individual campaigns, themes and issues.

One such example is the Apps for Healthy Kids competition which, quoting from its website is,

part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation. Apps for Healthy Kids challenges software developers, game designers, students, and other innovators to develop fun and engaging software tools and games that drive children, especially “tweens” (ages 9-12) – directly or through their parents – to eat better and be more physically active.

The competition, which has received over 90 entries, requires developers to use a specific government dataset of information to develop a game or activity focused on a specific audience and campaign goal.

The prize money, $60,000, is a fraction of what it could cost a government Department to develop this many concepts to production level.

The winning entry will be used by the government for 12 months at no license cost and then reverts to the entrant's control - perhaps to become a saleable product or even be licensed by the government for ongoing use.

Besides the value of the winning application, there is substantial public relations value in holding the competition in the first place. It raises awareness of the issue, engaging people in either creating and voting for entries, or simply supporting the initiative through the 'challenge supporters' mechanism.

This type of targeted crowd sourcing approach has many different potential applications for governments from local through to federal levels. Many different issues and campaigns could provide fertile ground for these types of apps competitions.

Note that despite our current lack of targeted apps competitions, Australia isn't that far behind the US in crowd sourcing. There have been examples of online video competitions, design competitions and other approaches designed to encourage the community to engage with and produce content that can be used for the public good.

Below is the introductory video for Apps for Healthy Kids:

Read full post...

View summary...

Does Gov 2.0 require government leadership or participation?

This post is in reflection to a post by Nicholas Gruen over at Club Troppo entitled, What Coalition Politicians ‘get’ Government 2.0?

For me the post triggered a broader question - does Gov 2.0 require government leadership or participation?

I think examples from both Australia and overseas demonstrate that the mass enablement of societies via the internet can - and does - proceed without government leadership, encouragement, involvement and even in face of significant political and public sector resistance.

The Government 2.0 movement did not begin as a government policy or program. The concept was not created by politicians or public servants. Instead it arose from the application of Web 2.0 techniques and technologies to the process of governance.

Long before any 'Gov 2.0' websites or applications existed, the public in many countries had already begun using the internet's capability to give every citizen a town hall platform, printing press and television station to discuss matters related to government.

Online content was generated, followed by robust discussions, on areas related to national and state governance - party political policies, the interpretation of laws and the conduct of politicians, government agencies and public servants.

This rise of citizen content creation, participation and online discourse around the world has prompted greater public awareness and engagement with governments of all persuasions, from robust democracies to totalitarian dictatorships.

Examples of this in action already abound - the role of Twitter in Iranian Presidential election, the political impact of blogging across the Middle-East, the use of mobile phones to expose election fraud in Nigeria, the backlash against a Chinese government proposal to force online forum participants to use their real identities, the rise of independent tools to monitor parliamentary discussions in the UK and Australia and the role of social media in the 2008 US Presidential election.

This Gov 2.0 activity has begun forcing governments to (willingly or not) adapt their own processes to cater for more educated, publicly visible and active citizenry.

Australia, with a robust democracy and high average incomes, is if anything in less need of Government 2.0 than many other nations.  We already have strong and stable institutions, the rule of law, low levels of corruption, an independent media and citizens who, for the most part, lead comfortable 'middle-class' lifestyles.

Even so we have seen Gov 2.0 sites outside of government agencies flourish in the last two years. I personally count at least 50 independent websites involved with aspects of Gov 2.0 engagement (for example OpenAustralia, Open Forum, OurSay, Australia2, Planning Alerts, BuzzElection, TweetMP, The National Forum, Club Troppo and this list (in comments) of Australian political blogs - most of which allow community comment).

It has also become accepted internationally that freeing up access to a range of public sector information provides a massive boost to the bottom line economy of nations, with New Zealand being the latest nation to begin making its data more usable online.


Therefore, in my view, Gov 2.0 does not need government leadership - or even a level of support or participation - to continue growing, in Australia or around the world.

Instead we need to ask a few more specific questions related to the cost and risks where governments do not actively encourage, support or actually oppose Gov 2.0 adoption.

• What will be the economic cost of inactivity on the Gov 2.0 front?
• What will be the political and reputational costs of failing to upskill either or both public services and political arms of governments in the effective application of Gov 2.0 techniques?
• How will Gov 2.0 inactivity impact on international competitiveness, where other nations embed Gov 2.0 in their governance systems?

These questions have, as yet, not been explored extensively in Australia - or really elsewhere in the world. As the Gov 2.0 movement is still young it is difficult to find evidence of long-term value - increased public engagement in democratic institutions, public value or cost savings.

However the growth in Gov 2.0 around the world demonstrates, at least to me, that there has been significant public value created, even if governments currently lack the tools and techniques to accurately measure it.

Read full post...

View summary...

New Zealand government moves to encourage use of Creative Commons licensing for public sector data

New Zealand's government has just launched a Creative Commons-based approach for the standardisation of the licensing of government copyright works for re-use.

Named the New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL), the approach outlines the licensing government agencies should use when releasing copyright works and non-copyright material for re-use by third parties (preferablt 'no restriction').

The licensing approach does not apply for content containing personal or in-confidence information and various restrictions may be applied to content by using one of the variant Creative Commons licenses, though the government has specified that most public sector information should be released without restriction.

The launch announcement states that re-use of government material by individuals and organisations may have significant creative and economic benefit for New Zealand, a position that has been reflected by the UK, US and other governments.

While use of the licensing approach is not mandatory, the NZGoal document states that hoped that the NZ government hopes that agencies will embrace NZGOAL; license more of their copyright works on open terms; and open up access to more of their non-copyright material that may be of interest to the public, bearing in mind the potential benefits of doing so for both the public and agencies alike.

The Australian Government is also beginning to release material under Creative Commons licensing, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Geosciences Australia and the Department of Finance and Deregulation leading the way.

However at this stage no whole-of-government framework exists to provide guidance on how and when to release material in this fashion at federal level - although the Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) is in place in Queensland.

Read full post...

View summary...

Tracking the top election topics in social media via BuzzElections

BuzzNumbers, an Australian social media monitoring service, has launched the free BuzzElection service monitoring election mentions online.

BuzzElection includes a tool tracking the online discussion of election issues by the level of interest, state by state analysis and an analysis of the most influential tweeters in the election debate.

This type of tool allows the public to better understand the broader views and trends during an election, without relying on potentially biased media reports.

This type of online monitoring approach is highly adaptable and could be used, for example, for tracking politician behaviours and attitudes online separate to media coverage.

Below is a chart based on data to 29/7/2010 giving a view of the top election issues discussed online via Twitter.

Read full post...

View summary...

Australian Government's CIO urges public servants to become “Gov 2.0 activists”

According to a report in FutureGov, Australia’s GCIO talks tough at FutureGov Forum, Ann Steward has urged public servants to actively embrace Government 2.0 in their agencies.

The article stated that,

Steward said that although a lot of good work was being done, agencies needed to identify the internal barriers to embracing Gov 2.0, and develop an “action agenda” not only within their own agencies, but for collaboration with other agencies on common service areas - and the Australian public.

“How many of you are working collaboratively in externally hosted environments?” Steward asked delegates at the National Convention Centre in Canberra, prompting a show of hands. “A few, but not many,” she noted. “We need more activists to lead the way.”

Are you a Gov 2.0 activist?

If not - what is holding you back?

Read full post...

View summary...

Google launches Student Voice mock Australian election for high school students

Google has launched the Student Voice initiative, whereby 15-17 year old Australian students will be able to vote online in a mock election reflecting the current Federal election.

The goal is to help these students learn more about elections and also provide a perspective on how Australia's future voters (who will be eligible to vote in the following Federal election) may vote.

The launch has been supported by videos by Julia Gillard and Bob Brown.

I applaud Google for launching and managing this initiative, however it distresses me that no Australian organisation has tried to make something like this a reality. It is a shame that we are relying on a foreign-owned company to broaden Australian democracy, while Australian companies, institutions and other organisations sit on the sidelines and do nothing to support democracy in this country.

Also interesting is that this approach involves online voting. Today's high school students are already likely to expect to be able to vote online in real elections and the Student Voice initiative could further reinforce this expectation.

Perhaps, over time, this type of initiative will be a trigger that encourages Australian governments to support online voting (with appropriate security in place).

Certainly this initiative could help Google position itself as a potential provider of online voting facilities in the future. I would also expect to see them rolling out similar Student Voices in other jurisdictions over time, after using Australia as a guinea pig.

Student Voice launch video

Read full post...

View summary...

Using Gov 2.0 techniques to save money across government

Around the world governments are tightening their belts. After the recent global financial crisis many countries' governments have borrowed heavily from financial markets and released these funds as stimulus packages - placing them in deficit.

Australia is no different, although we have very successfully kept our deficit to a smaller percentage of GDP than most other western nations.

For government agencies, long used to efficiency dividends and a philosophy of doing more with less, it is important to constantly 'health check' their budget decisions to ensure that public money isn't wasted and is most effectively spent.

The US, UK, Canada and other governments have begun more intensively involving citizens and public servants in the process of identifying waste and potential efficiencies - a process which has produced some large results in a short time in some jurisdictions.

How are they doing this?

By employing Gov 2.0 techniques, providing access to budget and revenue data online in machine-readable formats and by engaging their staff and the community via social media tools.

Here's a few examples.

UK Spending Challenge
The UK recently launched a public 'Spending Challenge' asking UK citizens to contribute their ideas for reducing their national deficit.

Managed through a website and a Facebook group, the Challenge has attracted more than 31,000 ideas so far, with the government aiming to include the best in their October 2010 budget review.

US SAVE Award
The US is holding their second annual SAVE award which allow public servants to submit and vote on ideas for cost savings which can be applied within government departments.

Last year SAVE attracted 38,000 ideas and President Obama says (in the video below) that many are being integrated into agency budgets. The top four entries were voted on online by American citizens and the winner got to meet the President and received national acknowledgement.

For the 2010 SAVE award, so far there have been over 17,000 ideas submitted and 153,000 votes.



Canadian public sector data used to expose a $3.2 billion tax fraud
David Eaves has written a fabulous case study on how the release of public data in Canada uncovered systemic tax fraud within the charity sector and helped legitimate charities and the government close down these operations.

It is a very powerful case for making public data available to allow people outside governments to apply their expertise to assist governments.



How many of these techniques could be applied in Australia?

I'd argue that all of them have merit and could be applied in appropriate ways by our Federal, State and Local governments - potentially on an ongoing basis.

None of the examples above involved enormous government expense and, where the processes have been concluded (for the 2009 SAVE awards and in the Canadian example), there have been significant measurable returns on investment.

In other words, they've saved the community money in net terms - with the cost of running the different initiatives a tiny fraction of the savings to the public purse.

Read full post...

View summary...

Catching up in London...

I'm off to London for a few weeks on Tuesday and will be catching up and speaking with some Gov 2.0 people there to find out what's happening in the UK.

if you have any suggestions on contacts I should catch up with, please drop me a Tweet or email.

Read full post...

View summary...

Social media and the federal election

While the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the major political parties are "Parties miss the mark in Twittersphere", the current Federal election is likely to see social media used in more diverse and effective ways than ever before in Australia.

Why and how?

Here's some samples.

Statistics

• Australians aged 18+ in 2009: 16,812,886 (ABS)
  
• Australians aged 18+ who use the internet: 14,122,824 (ABS/Nielsen)
  
• Australians enrolled to vote: 13,869,021 (Australian Electoral Commission via ABC Campaign Pulse)
  
• Australians using Facebook: 9,300,240 (Facebook via ABC Campaign Pulse)
• Australians using MySpace: 1,400,000 (Nielsen via SMH)
  
• Australians using Twitter: 1,150,000 (Nielsen via ABC Campaign Pulse)
  
• Australian internet users spent 17.6 hours per week using the internet, but only 13.4 hours watching TV, 9.3 hours listening to radio and 3.4 hours reading newspapers. (Nielsen)
  
• Almost 50% of Australian internet users watch TV and use the internet at the same time. (Nielsen)

Sites
And here's a few of the sites supporting Australians through the election:

• Election Leaflets
  Photograph and map electoral leaflets distributed across Australia
  
• Twit worm
  An online worm using Twitter to measure sentiment, used in the leaders debate
  
• Twitter trends
  A custom version of Trendsmap created by the ABC for the election to track mentions of electoral issues
  
• Twitter #ausvotes
  The primary Twitter hashtag being used to discuss the election
  
• Australia 2
  Site for people to share and vote for their top priorities for Australia

If you know of other websites and social media tools created for the election, please let me know.

Read full post...

View summary...