What is eGovernment?

I've pondered for a long time over the meaning and common understanding of the term eGovernment.

I've seen many definitions - often hinging on the delivery of services by government to citizens or the facilitation of communications between and within government agencies.

I find these very narrow and 'government-centric' views of eGovernment. They are about the government doing to citizens, rather than enabling citizens to do with government.

In other words, they are focused on a command and control approach rather than collaborative outcomes through participatory engagement.

So I've formed my own definition of the term as below.

eGovernment involves the use of digital channels and tools to:

• facilitate and support citizen participation in the process of governance
• enable and extend meaningful dialogue to improve understanding between citizens and the government bodies that serve them
• streamline and improve governance processes in order to improve citizen engagement
• deliver appropriate cost-effective services and information to citizens

Explanation of terms
I use the term digital channels and tools to refer to any connected digital-based devices - computers, mobile wireless devices (such as mobile phones and PDAs) and so on. All of these devices can be used to enable anytime/anyplace connections between citizens and between citizens and government.

Where I use the term citizen I include all people, organisations and institutions that exist and/or operate within a particular legal jurisdiction.

While I do include the delivery of services to citizens in the definition, I see it as an outcome of the preceding processes of engagement. The engagement is critical for establishing which services are appropriate for citizens and can be cost-effectively provided via digital channels.


All comments and other views of the definition of eGovernment are most welcome.

Read full post...

View summary...

Reading (online) is for Neanderthals

Words - the stuff with which dreams are written.

One of the core elements of modern society is our ability to say and write down our feelings, opinions and gripes. To create meaning where none exists, or shine a light on that which does.

Those who are good at crafting words even get paid, by the word - although it costs none of us to use the self-same words whenever we wish.

Words are also the bane of modern existence - too many words, thrown at us from all quarters, overwhelming us with details.

Few of us have time to listen and read all the words presented to us each day. Many of us deliberately go out of our way to avoid words, seeking synopses, précis, executive summaries, briefs, briefings and elevator pitches.

Having satisfied my own word bug, let's get to the point.

Government websites are full of unnecessary words, frequently using jargon, bureaucratic terms and marketing speak.

If we want our audiences to absorb what we say, we need to use fewer, shorter and common use words.

This was reinforced by a recent Alertbox (from usability guru Jakob Neilsen).

Here's the summary and link - I'll leave it up to you whether you want to encounter more of Jakob's own words.

Summary:
On the average Web page, users have time to read
at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

Full article: How Little Do Users Read?

Read full post...

View summary...

eGovernment has failed citizens

Deloitte has released a report suggesting that eGovernment has failed to reach it's potential due to an over-reliance on technical delivery and failures to change Public Sector business models or adequately consider the customer at the centre of transactions.

A summary of the report's key findings is at CIO magazine entitled Governments Urged to Learn From Businesses

The report concludes e-government to date has largely failed to transform government service delivery as its original architects imagined it would. During the race to go online, public managers rarely stopped to consider such basic questions as who their customers were and what they wanted, impeding their ability to service those customers effectively and efficiently.

Customer-centred transformation goes well beyond automating Industrial Era business processes, the report says: it requires first stepping back to understand the end-to-end experience from the user's perspective and using those insights to improve the experience offered to customers.

The report also makes some strong points regarding the cost and efficiency savings of pursuing a customer-centric approach.

It's a thought provoking read.

The full research report is available at Deloitte's website entitled, One Size Fits Few: Using Customer Insight to Transform Government (PDF 2.7Mb)

Read full post...

View summary...

Post-it online - Make a note of that

This is a fantastic online campaign for a paper-based product.

It's an example of how organisations can use the tools that are already freely available on the web to extend their brand.

http://www.youtube.com/postitnotes

Read full post...

View summary...

Explaining digital media to beginners

One of the most difficult tasks for anyone working in the online industry is to bring along an internal audience who are not 'digital natives'.

This often includes the people who control the purse strings in organisations, who do not quite get how these newfangled digital toys work - or that they are business tools and not toys.

Fortunately people are now beginning to realise that the internet isn't simply another hula hoop fad, but actually sparking that 'AHA!' moment remains a challenge.

A tool I find useful are the Commoncraft series of videos, which use simple concepts and physical objects to demonstrate digital concepts.

If you've not yet discovered Commoncraft, visit their Youtube channel and take a look.

Read full post...

View summary...