How governments in the US and UK are using crowdfunding

Delib UK has taken my thoughts on crowdfunding within government and researched a number of other examples where local governments are using innovative ways to engage citizens in paying for communal facilities.

Worth a read at How councils are crowdfunding community projects.

Read full post...

View summary...

Can an 'open' government site be open if it is poorly designed?

I was chatting with Paul Davis on Twitter recently about the The State Decoded, an open source US-developed platform for accessibly and openly exposing state legislation online (see the platform in use at Marylandcode.org).

He suggested that the tool was effectively a US version of Austlii, which is a repository for Australian federal and state law.

My view was that there were significant differences between the two approaches.

The State Decoded is an open source platform being crowd developed, which anyone can replicate for any jurisdiction. It contains APIs, presents all content as accessible web pages and is nicely designed to be easy for casual users to access.

Austlii, on the other hand, is a closed platform developed by two universities. There's no APIs, much of the content is available only as PDFs and documents, and the design - well, minimalist is possibly the right term, with the site difficult to navigate for all but university professors (who developed it) and lawyers.

When I made this comparison (in brief given Twitter's character limits), Paul said to me...

@craigthomler interesting, so design is a determinant of whether an initiative is considered open government.
— Paul Davis (@davispg) May 11, 2013

This made me think a little - do I consider visual design a criteria for openness in government?

And my answer was:

@davispg IMHO yes. A technically open site unusable for casual users due to inconsistent, inaccessible & generally poor design isn't open.
— CraigThomler (@craigthomler) May 11, 2013

I thought in this post I would expand a little on my view.

For some technically orientated people design can be an afterthought. Their focus is on making a system or machine work as it should, able to take in data and spit out information correctly and quickly.

For these people, design is a 'nice to have' added towards the end of the process, with sites and systems made 'pretty' to appease the communications and marketing people, but is otherwise non-functional.

I've participated in many IT-led 'design' processes, where the focus was on how entities within the system should interact with each other, and the testing focused on 'user-acceptance' - which basically is designed to answer the question 'do the system's features work as intended?'.

In these processes there was little or no consideration regarding the visual appeal of the solution, whether the terminology was understandable to the audience, the search results expected or the navigation logical for non-experts and non-programmers. At best there was some commitment to making the site accessible - however this often meant 'bare bones' lists of text on a white background, rather than using alternative methods  to provide a pleasurable experience for all users.

Of course it is essential that websites and system respond quickly and as intended. However if users don't find them appealing, intelligible or intuitive, they will use them unwillingly, if at all.

I like to compare this to the car market. Originally cars were designed to be functional only - with little in the way of 'frills' to appeal to the public. The hard part was in getting the mechanics to work right and to last and car developers (blacksmiths, bicycle and train makers) weren't concerned about appeal.

Today, however, you'd be hard pressed to find any car maker who doesn't strive for visual perfection as much as for mechanical perfection.

Yes we expect cars to perform flawlessly, but we also expect them to look good. All things being equal (mechanically and safety wise), more attractive cars outsell less attractive cars, people develop more attachment to them, use them more and stick with the brand.

So to with products on supermarket shelves. In many cases people are selecting between products which differ little in their composition (or they don't understand the technical differences), simply choosing on the basis of how the packaging looks and makes them feel. Companies build their brands around their visual and emotional connection with customers, with ingredients a secondary (though still important) consideration.

So it is for software and websites. Well designed software systems and sites attract more use - even where they may be technically inferior (who can tell if a site is a few milliseconds slower than a competitor).

And so it is for open government sites. It is certainly possible to make an open government site with brilliant functionality and the best data - however if it doesn't visually resonate with the audience, if it isn't appealing for them to explore and use, it won't be broadly used.

Governments who seek to be open should recognise that it isn't simply about exposing lots of data, or opening the doors for user participation on a mass scale online. Design must be core to the thinking, how sites are designed, how users interact with the system, the structure of the language and of the navigation.

For openness to succeed in attracting broad interest and active participation from citizens, governments must not only think about what they release, how they release it and how they invite citizens to participate.

They must equally consider the citizen-experience, whether citizens can access information or participate in an intuitive and comfortable way, how citizens feel when using the site - excited, engaged and empowered (for a well-designed site), or frustrated, marginalised and stupid (for a poorly designed site).

Design is important and needs to be involved from the start of the development process. How people should feel when engaging should help drive the features and their operation, rather than trying to 'retroengineer' a clumsy system to meet user needs (a far more expensive and unsatisfying process).

So I stand by my view on open government - a technically open site that is unusable for casual users due to inconsistent, inaccessible & generally poor design isn't open.


Indeed, if a government is only playing lip service to openness (forbid the thought), poor design might be an effective tactic to hide things 'in plain sight', reduce the number of user and 'tick boxes' without revealing anything they are required to publish, but don't want easily found.

So where a government, or agency, releases poorly designed open data or engagement sites (particularly as a second or third version), just as they may release a 'bad news' media release under cover of a major news story, or an old report deep in their site (so they can say it is public even though no-one can find it), citizens really need to consider whether there really is a government commitment, or simply the appearance, of openness and transparency.

Read full post...

View summary...

Clinging to a comfort zone

Everyone has a comfort zone. Whether it is a favourite book/movie/restaurant that you return to again and again, that old pair of shoes you'll never throw out because you've worn them in, or the route you take to work each day, we all like to follow familiar patterns, and avoid potentially unsettling, discomfortable, change.

So to in the work place we like to cling to what is familiar and known to us, the systems and procedures established many years ago and the communication channels we know well. Our comfort zone affect the types of careers and jobs we choose, and the approaches and techniques we use to execute them.

This pattern-based approach is employed for sound biological reasons. The human brain consumes 20-25% of our metabolic energy, enormously out of proportion with its size.

Following a routine requires less active thought and therefore less exertion. Thinking is hard work and, as organisms, the tendency is to minimise thinking in order to conserve energy. That's why the more tired people get, the harder it is for them to think clearly or of new things, and why you can accidentally drive home instead of to a friend's house, following your routine.

In other words, moving outside our comfort zone is hard work. We can no longer rely on the known and familiar, we must develop new strategies, identify new risks, consider new opportunities - deal with change and uncertainty, using more energy and creating stress on our systems.

Coping with change becomes even harder and energy-consuming when it is imposed on us outside our control, when events or other people force us outside our comfort zone against our will.

In many cases people resist the change, because habits and routine are easier. Even when the world has changed many people attempt to cling to the past, denying or shutting out the changes in order to continue to exist in a comfortable (and lower energy expenditure) state.

So what does this have to do with Government 2.0 - well everything really.

Government 2.0 represents a set of changes to how government employees engaged with citizens, and how citizens engage with government.

Over the last sixteen years I have seen all kinds of views and behaviour adopted by otherwise intelligent and good people to preserve their status quo - even in the face of overwhelming and highly public evidence to the contrary that the media and public engagement environment had changed, and they needed to change with it.

From denial ('social media is just a fad'), to dismissal ('social media isn't going away but it is only for young people'), to active opposition ('we can't use social media because of these thirty year old rules') - across government and companies alike.

Unfortunately some of this resistance to reality still exist, not because people are bad people, but because they are clinging to their comfort zones.

People such as community engagement professionals claiming that they would never use online consultation because 'face-to-face is best', even while acknowledging that their public events attract few citizens, most being retired.

People in IT teams who want to do everything in a specific software platform, rather than using user-centric, much better and sometimes thousands of times cheaper cloud-based solutions, because they are familiar with the software and prefer costing the organisation time and money to investing their own energy in thinking about new solutions.

People in Communications and Marketing teams who still raise reasons as to why they could never use online  channels to engage citizens and customers, 'we don't know if our audience is online', 'we don't know which tools to use because they keep changing', 'we don't understand the risks' and 'we don't understand the technology'. Isn't it their job to learn what communications options available to their organisation so they can pick the most appropriate for their goals?

Ultimately, however, these individuals will be swept aside as the world keeps changing and the nature of work changes.

Today we see well-developed social media teams in organisations that didn't have a social media channel five years ago. We see agencies reshaping their processes and services to suit online channels, the Victorian government gradually adopting a 'mobile-first' strategy, the UK government a 'digital first' approach.

In the US the President has just issued an executive order requiring all agencies to make all data open and machine-readable by default, while appropriately protecting privacy and confidentially. The order also requires all agencies to publish a list of all the data they could make open but that they, as yet, haven't - an 'open first' strategy for data (watch video below featuring the US Government's CTO and CIO.



The mandates from governments in the UK and US will force more agency staff from their comfort zones. The change programs they employ will help individuals make the changes with minimal energy expended on thinking (most has been done for them).

In Australia we're a little further behind, largely grappling with guidance and policies rather than instructions and mandates. However it is my view that this will change, that governments in Australia will soon follow overseas leads to mandate openness for agencies, not just recommend it.

Is your agencypreparing for this change? Designing and placing the systems, support and training in place in your agency to facilitate it?

Or is your agency clinging to its comfort zone, with senior management secure in the knowledge that such a change could never happen, or if it happened, your agency could ride the storm with minimal impact, or even oppose it because your data is too sensitive/commercial/private/valuable/worthless for it to be mandated for release?

Read full post...

View summary...

Register now for GovHack 2013

GovHack is on again this year and it's gone national, with eight locations across Australia.

With over $160,000 in prizes, the organisers anticipate over 400 participants in 150 teams - and due to venue sizes, entry is limited.

If you're interested in mashing up open government data for prize money, or simply interested in watching the event unfold, to find out more and to register go to: www.govhack.org/2013/05/03/govhack-2013-a-national-approach-for-inspiring-government/

Read full post...

View summary...

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.

Read full post...

View summary...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To my knowledge that has never happened before in Australia.

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

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

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

Read full post...

View summary...

How open should open data be? Transport for NSW at the centre of a data controversy

Some will remember the knots that RailCorp tied itself into in 2009 when attempting to sue three developers for packaging Sydney rail timetables into mobile apps.

How things have changed. Recently the NSW government applauded one of those developers for his mobile app, which has reportedly been downloaded a million times.

However the agency which absorbed RailCorp, Transport for NSW, has now been thrust into the centre of another data controversy, with Fairfax's Ben Grubb reporting a row over how real-time transport data has been released.

The gist of the row is simple. Transport for NSW had worked with PWC to hold the ‘App Hot House’ competition  with a limited number of developers to see what they could do with its real-time data.

The outcome was several good apps, which are now available for the public and have been mentioned (some would say promoted) via various Transport for NSW websites, including 131500.com.au.

However the real-time data used in these apps has, thus far, only been made freely available to the developers who won the App Hot House competition. These developers are now selling their apps via mobile stores, presumably at a profit.

In this situation I can see both sides.

Transport for NSW is conservative, risk-averse and feeling its way in the open data space. The organisation has come a very long way in the last three years and is still addressing the culture change and understanding the impacts and potential risks of providing free data to developers to make apps that people rely on.

By selectively releasing real-time data the organisation can maintain a sense of control and address its accountability requirements while studying how it can best make the data more broadly available.

Meanwhile some in Australia's developer community are frustrated that they didn't get picked as part of the closed group granted access to the data. This group has had no opportunity to innovate on or profit from the information, which a select group of 'insiders' was able to be first to market with their real-time timetable apps.

This could be a permanent commercial disadvantage for the bulk of the developer community. The App Hot House winners have time to build experience working with the data and, as we hear regularly in the corporate and start-up space, first-mover advantage is regularly the difference between success and failure.

So did Transport for NSW do the right thing? Or do developers have a point about the agency restraining trade through selective data release?

In my view there's truth on both sides. Transport for NSW has a legitimate reason to be careful as the custodian of this data - which is both valuable and sensitive to small errors. However developers do have a point that they are missing out - and so might be the public and government (on innovation and competition).

In balance, however, I favour Transport for NSW's perspective. Open data is still very new and an 'undiscovered country' for many government agencies, as well as for the public. 

While it would be fantastic to see the organisation fling open the doors and allow all developers access to real-time data, there are legitimate concerns around data provision and security which make it prudent for Transport for NSW to take a slower and more measured approach to data release.

While app developers may be disadvantaged by late access, the risks for the public if Transport for NSW's systems collapse under the demand for real-time data are much greater. 

Equally, by first working with a small set of developers, Transport for NSW can minimise the risk of events like the NextBus failure in Washington, where the app developer was at fault of their app failing to work correctly, however the Metro system still received an, undeserved, share of the blame.

There were, however, some transparency steps that Transport for NSW could have taken (and I would have recommended if involved) to mitigate the kind of controversy in which they now find themselves.

Firstly the agency could have been extremely public about why it was working with a small number of developers at first and what its longer term plans or hopes were for the data. While some would have still complained, there wouldn't have been a 'data void' to be filled with rumours and speculation. 

The media, and most developers, would have accepted that Transport for NSW, in its custodial role, has a right to pilot the release of real-time data to better understand how to prepare its systems and processes for a broader release in future.

This is an unfortunate and unnecessary controversy. It could have been avoided with some savvy social media and communication planning and turned (as it should rightly be) into a triumph of government organisational culture change and openness. 

Few other government agencies have made the big change that Transport for NSW has made in such a short time.

I hope this huge achievement will not be overlooked and that other agencies don't draw an incorrect conclusion that it is better to bottle up data than to face the media approbation for selective, targeted, pilot open data releases.

Read full post...

View summary...

Entries now open for 2013 Intranet Innovation Awards

The 6th annual global Intranet Innovation Awards is now open for entries, with submissions closing on Friday 31 May 2013.

It is hard to compare best practice in intranet design and features, which makes the Intranet Innovation Awards, run by Step Two Designs, an important way for government agencies to gain an insight into the fantastic innovative ideas that are being implemented in intranets around the world.

Last year the 5th annual Awards attracted 80 entries, making it the largest award process of its type in the world. This year promises to be even bigger.

So if you've added an innovative or unique feature to your intranet please enter these awards to share your work globally and allow other organisations to learn from your achievements.

For more information, and to enter, visit the Step Two blog at: www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/2013-intranet-innovation-awards-now-open-for-entries/


You can view last year's winners and buy a copy of the case studies at www.steptwo.com.au/products/iia-report

Read full post...

View summary...

The BOM website now includes ads - should other government sites?

Back in July 2008 I wrote a blog post asking whether government websites should feature paid advertising.

No, four and a half years later, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has taken the step of adding paid advertisements to its highly popular website (one of the top 20 sites in Australia) in a trial detailed in this page of their site.

Depending on how the trial goes, advertising may become a permanent feature of the BOM's main site, and it is even conceivable that other government agencies might start considering a similar approach in their high sites.

However is paid advertising appropriate for government websites, and if so, what limits should apply to the type of ads shown?

The BOM has, in my view, taken a sensible and sensitive approach to its advertising trial, forbidding the display of a range of advertising material that might offend community sensibilities (perhaps a list of exclusions that commercial sites should consider as well).

This includes prohibitions on:

• tobacco, gambling, lotteries or advertising promoting the consumption or sale of alcohol, 
• advertising that causes offence or incites hatred of any individual, group or class, 
• advertising directed at children 17 years or younger, 
• advertisements glorifying, or delivering for the purposes of entertainment, scenes or descriptions of non-consensual pain, suffering, death, torture or ill-treatment of humans or animals, 
• advertising relating to bombs, guns, ammunition and other offensive weapons, 
• advertising containing sexually explicit content and/or sexual innuendo and/or advertising containing offensive language, 
• advertising that is misleading or deceptive or be likely to mislead or deceive, 
• advertising that contains a misrepresentation which is likely to cause damage to the business or goodwill of a competitor,
• advertising that is defamatory, and 
• advertising of a political nature.

The BOM has also made it clear that advertisements do not imply endorsement and that they won't place advertisements on warning pages - meaning that people visiting the BOM to learn about weather warnings won't necessarily have to view ads at all.

This approach is one which could be quite readily adopted by other government agencies, whether at federal, state or local levels, and provides a good beginning platform for any agency that is considering including paid advertising in their sites.

However it still leaves the big question - should government feature paid advertising in their websites at all? Certainly agencies don't normally include advertisements in their print publications or physical events.

One key factor will be the community response to ads on the BOM's site - whether the public believe that government agencies should do this and whether it damages their standing or reputation. 

We already have some preliminary anecdotal feedback on this via Crikey, who asked its readers for their views and received a number of responses - all but one negative towards the approach. 

While I can't really share this input (available in Crikey's email newsletter), a couple of views expressed were that public services were already paid for and so should be provided free to citizens, and if agencies were so skint as to need to advertise, the government needed to raise taxes.

Another is whether agencies can make money on advertising. While the BOM is an extremely popular website year round, few other government sites consistently rate in the top 100 websites visited in Australia. 

Certainly the ATO's website has periods of high traffic around tax time, and both the APS jobs and Centrelink site have consistently strong traffic, other sites - even Australia.gov.au - don't attract that much traffic and it may not be commercial for advertisers.

Third there's the question of how the revenue is used. If it disappears into general revenue, or results in government reducing the budgets of agencies, forcing them to make up the difference with advertising, I'm less inclined to think advertising is a good idea on government sites. I believe advertising revenue should be retained over and above an agency's budget and should be primarily directed to improve the agency's websites and the services provided through them. In this way there's an incentive for agencies to both support (appropriate) advertising and to continue to improve their websites, delivering improved experiences to citizens (the main goal), and thereby attracting more traffic and increasing advertising revenue.

Finally, while the BOM has done a great job of defining what is not acceptable and has the right to refuse or pulldown any ads which may cause offense, there will always be advertising that sits just inside the acceptability criteria, however may still cause offense or reputation damage. 

There's not really any way to predict this, however carrying objectionable advertising - at least right now - will call greater attention to a government department than it might to, say, a media outlet - who may have greater latitude on what they can allow, or have an interest in not carrying stories about objectionable advertising in other media outlets in case they damage their own interests.

All these factors aside - should government agencies support advertising?

In 2008 my position was to make this an open question to readers - essentially sitting on the fence myself.

From 2008 until now there'd been no research testing the concept of advertising on major government websites in Australia - no evidence to indicate whether the approach would be accepted by Australians, be profitable and manageable within government reputation tolerances.

I have now come off the fence somewhat in favour of advertising on government 

I am very glad the BOM is holding this trial as it will allow government to test the concept and come to a sound, evidence-based conclusion. 

Depending on how this trial goes, I am prepared to come off the fence and say that it is fine to advertise on government sites, provided that advertising is commercially viable, and the funds earnt are used to continue to improve the online services provided by the agency.

What do you think, and would a successful trial affect your view?

Read full post...

View summary...

Report from Monday 22 April 2013 open data government 2.0 event in Canberra

The free Gov 2.0 lunchtime event in Canberra was well attended yesterday, with many new people in the crowd demonstrating how the Government 2.0 and open data communities continue to grow and change.

For those unable to attend, we videoed the event, however as this is still being processed I suggest visiting Nathaniel Boehm's Pure Caffeine blog for his report, audio recording and transcript of the event at Open Data Institute and NZ Gov at Gov 2.0 Lunch.

Read full post...

View summary...

Free introduction to codesign event with TACSI in Canberra on Monday 29 April - register now, limited spots

I've managed to organise with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI), for two of their leading codesign practitioners to provide a presentation on codesign (a highly collaborative approach to community engagement) in Canberra from 6pm on Monday 29 April 2013.

TACSI, which was seed funded by the South Australian Government, has led a number of successful service and policy codesign projects with the South Australian and Victorian governments, and has some deep insights into how and where to use codesign to support community engagement, service and policy development and government communications.

The event is being held in Acton at Entry 29, Canberra's newest co-working space, and is free to attend (with drinks provided), however there's limited places for attendees.

If you want more information, or to RSVP, go to: http://codesignatgov20canberra.eventbrite.com/

Read full post...

View summary...