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It can seem very daunting to take that first step into social media.
However government agencies do not need to develop their own or purchase a plug-in to their web content management system.
There are also opportunities to procure a 'white label' social media platform - at little or no cost.
These platforms vary enormously in capacity, with the most advanced supporting Facebook like features, and more basic solutions being simply wikis or blogs.
Finding these platforms can be difficult, which is why my hat is off to Sergey Kapustin, who has compiled a list of 70 of these tools entitled White label community platforms.
This features all of the leading products and some niche products which are also very good.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Implementing a social media platform | Tweet |
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Migrating government websites from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0 | Tweet |
The Web Industry Professionals Association (WIPA) have published a guide to help webmasters migrating websites from the the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0 to the soon-to-be-released WCAG 2.0.
The HTML version of "Migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0" is at http://wipa.org.au/papers/wcag-migration.htm
As WCAG 1.0 is mandatory for Australian government agency websites, this is one to watch.
43 reasons why government should blog | Tweet |
In the US government gateway site there's a page listing the active and past official Blogs from the U.S. Government.
Looking through the list of 43 blogs, there's a wide range of topics on which this medium has been used - from AIDs education, through Art, Environmental issues and Foreign policy to Defense.
If your Department is considering whether a blog would be an appropriate tool to communicate your message and hold a broader conversation, this is a great starting reference.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Do government communications discriminate against - or for - the visually impaired? | Tweet |
I was reading a very interesting blog post the other day regarding the experiences of someone who is colourblind, Confessions of a colourblind man.
It raised a number of accessibility issues with printed material, moving images and websites that the author had experienced during their life.
Despite the requirement for government in Australia to ensure our websites are accessible, I worry both that we do not do enough, and that we do too much, in this area.
I also worry that we do not pay enough attention to our other communications channels - particularly print and television, which do not seem to have the same degree of scrutiny or governance.
Of course cost is a factor, but where should we draw the line between cost and equity?
We have explicit laws to prevent discrimination on the grounds of gender, age or physical impairments. The cost of equality is generally not an acceptable argument in these situations.
But do we still discriminate against people with visual and movement impairment in our communications based on cost?
Or do we go too far (which I have also seen done) - develop our websites and communications for the lowest common denominator (again because of cost), and therefore lose touch with the average Australian?
Many government websites (including my agency's) are designed in 800x600 monitor resolution despite this being used by under 10% of the audience and there being well-established technologies available to reshape a website to make it relevant at different resolutions.
For my agency this decision is definitely about cost. The cost of the content management system and accompanying work required to allow us to support multiple website standards.
My preferred option would be to have;
- one website version for those with impairments (dial-up users/low resolution monitors/screen readers)
- one website version for those without (broadband users/high resolution monitors)
What should egovernment focus on? | Tweet |
There's a great article up on BuzzMachine titled Google as the new press room.
It makes the point that newspapers are in the content business, not the printing and distribution or website business.
As such they should focus on what they do well (create excellent content) and outsource the non-core activities.
The specific example is to have Google, or someone like AP, provide the technology platform and allow newspapers to focus on providing content.
This philosophy applies for government as well.
In the public sector we seem to invest a great deal of money into creating new websites in order to deliver content to different stakeholder groups - I'm guilty of this approach as well.
However what does government really do well, and what do we do badly?
Firstly I'd go out on a limb and say that we do websites really badly. Most Australian government websites function differently, using different content management platforms, different technology platforms and different workflows.
The quality, structure and depth of content varies widely, as does design and the use of different enabling technologies such as Flash, AJAX and Livecycle, blogs, wikis, forums and RSS.
Realistically, across government, we could have a single web content management platform, with appropriate enabling technologies usable by any agency - including a consistent search tool and reporting system (imagine being able to see how all government websites were performing side by side!)
A central design team could provide web quality assurance - enabling agencies control over their distinctive look, but preserving a common high level of usability and accessibility.
A centralised editorial team could provide oversight for information quality and depth, allowing departments to focus on being content matter experts.
A central transactions and forms/workflows team could oversee the development of agency forms - ensuring they use consistent terminology, provide contextual support and make it as easy as possible for citizens to interact with the government.
This would allow government departments to focus on what they do best - provide specific customer services, be content matter and policy experts.
Sounds like a pipe dream?
I'm seeing the fringes of this starting now. The central DHS Letters and Forms Secretariat, AGOSP with it's single sign-on, Smartforms and geolocational services, AGIMO's existing GovDex wiki and Funnel Back search solutions.
These are all pieces in the overall puzzle.
The challenge moving forward is to overcome departmental silos, satisfy the interest groups and provide a robust centralised framework with sufficient funding and support to bring it all together.
It's a vision with enormous benefits for citizens and for governments. It just requires people in government to share the big vision and drive it forward.
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