Trialing Windows Live Writer

This is a quick test of the use of Windows Live Writer to produce blog posts offline - for those rare occasions where I am not connected to the internet.

The tool lets me

• Set up my blogs
• Write posts
• Save them for later publishing
• Send them automatically when I connect

It picks up the categories from my blog, and largely uses my blog styles.

I like the spellchecker in Firefox better however!

Setting the date and time of publishing is a little odd as well.

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Does government assess online channel risks effectively?

When chatting with a friend about risk management via IRC recently, he referred me to the essay The Psychology of Security.

This is quite a good paper discussing how poor humans are at understanding and assessing risks and their impact on security.

Most of the time, when the perception of security doesn't match the reality of security, it's because the perception of the risk doesn't match the reality of the risk. We worry about the wrong things: paying too much attention to minor risks and not enough attention to major ones. We don't correctly assess the magnitude of different risks.

Gain versus loss
One area it explores is how most people are more worried about the risk of a potential loss than inspired by a potential gain - even when the probability is the same.

When the same risk is presented in two different ways, as the probability of a gain or as the probability of a loss, people respond differently, as illustrated in this example from the essay,

In this experiment, subjects were asked to imagine a disease outbreak that is expected to kill 600 people, and then to choose between two alternative treatment programs. Then, the subjects were divided into two groups. One group was asked to choose between these two programs for the 600 people:

• Program A: "200 people will be saved."
• Program B: "There is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved."

The second group of subjects were asked to choose between these two programs:

• Program C: "400 people will die."
• Program D: "There is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die."

In this experiment A = C and B = D, so logically both groups of subjects should choose the same option.

Yet most people (72%) choose A over B, and most people (78%) choose D over C. People make very different trade-offs if something is presented as a gain than if something is presented as a loss.

A familiar or known risk is underrated
Another area discussed was how people tended to worry less about the familiar than they did about the unfamiliar and have difficulty assessing risks outside their experience. To quote from the essay,

• People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks.
• People have trouble estimating risks for anything not exactly like their normal situation.
• Personified risks are perceived to be greater than anonymous risks.
• People underestimate risks they willingly take and overestimate risks in situations they can't control.
• Last, people overestimate risks that are being talked about and remain an object of public scrutiny.

What does this mean for assessing online channel risks?
The internet is still very young and poorly understood by many organisations.

The risks are unfamiliar and outside the experience of many people.

While there are many possible gains through using the online channel, there is also the risk of loss. Potentially the loss of reputation and the opportunity cost of funneling resources to online initiatives that fail.

Based on how humans commonly assess risks the combination of an unfamiliar environment and the potential downside can lead to many online risks being overexaggerated, whereas risks for a more familiar channel would be understated.

For example, consider the alternatives of having a minister or senior public servant engage in a scheduled online chat versus participating in a radio talkback session.

For the talkback the risks would often be considered minimal - it's a well-known environment, and while there are risks of awkward questions from the host or callers, these are accepted as part of the background of the medium and processes on how to manage them are well understood.

For the online chat the risk of unmoderated chatters could be a major concern - even though mechanisms for handling this exist, such that questions can be screened even more effectively than on radio.

There could also be risks raised around hacking, which can also be thoroughly mitigated. For the radio talkback the risk of someone blocking the radio signal or sabotaging the power supply to the transmitter would not even register.

Finally, there could be concerns raised around the ability of the minister/public servant to communicate clearly and effectively via the chat tool. This can also be managed - some answers can be pre-prepared, or a typist could be on hand to type the responses as they are needed.

On talkback radio a similar concern would be raised - and managed through media training.

There are many other examples I've witnessed and heard about where online channel risks were exaggerated alongside the risks of other channels.


How to ensure that online risks are assessed accurately
This is the billion dollar question - determining a process that allows risks related to the online channel to be accurately weighed and considered alongside risks for other channels.

My feeling is that the only effective solutions are education, process change and time.

Of these the first can be directly influenced. Those managing their organisation's online channel or web-based services need to be actively educating others across their organisations on the benefits and issues with online. This raises familiarity and understanding, therefore helping other normalise the internet in their worldview and thereby begin treating online risks in a similar way to those for other channels.

Process change involves modifying the processes around risk identification and rating in order to rebalance the consideration. This can be influenced by education, however generally requires profound changes to organisational risk frameworks, corporate guidelines and policies. High level support is necessary to move this along.

The final solution, time, can be influenced by education, but only to a degree. At the end of the day it may simply require another 20-30 years for organisations to undergo the changes required to understand and integrate online risks accurately into an overall risk framework.


How does your organisation weigh online risks?
I'm interested in how other organisations weigh online risks - whether the risk of change
or the risk of not changing.

What's been your experience of how organisations compare online risks versus others?

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Global boom in high-speed broadband - but where's Australia?

Just as electricity infrastructure is the lifeblood of an industrialised society, high-speed broadband is the lifeblood of a modern information society.

There's an enormous wealth gap between nations that took a first mover advantage in establishing appropriate infrastructure to facilitate economic development and those that did not place infrastructure as high on the agenda.

We're now beginning to see the initial edges of what will be the next great economic divide, defined by the speed at which nations are facilitating the roll-out and adoption of high-speed broadband.

It worries me as both a private citizen and as a public servant that Australia has made little measurable progress towards high-speed broadband, while other nations are moving forward quickly.

It also worries Paul Budd, who's latest blog post, FttN - already out of date, presents a worrying picture of what is occurring in Australia as compared to elsewhere in the world.

For the sake of Australia's future, I hope we see a quantum change in Australian conditions.

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Sourcing great ideas - UK's 5th annual e-Government National Awards

I find many useful ideas by reviewing the nominations and winners of past awards, so even if you do not live or work in the British Isles it could still be worthwhile to check out the UK's 5th annual e-Government National Awards.

Of course if you are in the UK, you might want to consider entering before nominations close on 1 October this year.

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Website media sections are old news

Humans love news.

While the channels we use to find out the news continue to change, most of us still need our daily news fix - details on what is happening in our organisation, our country and our world.

When I first became involved with the online space in 1995, an 'about us', 'communications', 'PR', 'In the news' or 'Media' section was already a common feature for many websites. Placing media releases online made sense as a method of distributing and archiving an organisation's news.

Today it is accepted practice that organisations include their media releases on their website. In fact, not much has really changed. Journalists go to an organisation's website media section to review media releases, or subscribe to a 'push' service such as an email list or RSS feed to get alerted whenever something newsworthy is released.

Some organisations have added press kits, official photos and executive bios. A few include transcripts of speeches or video. However for the most part there's been little innovation compared to the rate of change for other aspects of websites.

This lack of innovation was brought home to me in an article by Maish Nichani of Pebbleroad, Designing the Online Newsroom.

The article questions the traditional role of a website media section, today's audience is much broader than journalists and the needs of the audience have changed.

It makes the point that a website media section is no longer simply a feeder for media - it is an online newsroom in its own right;

The newsroom section in corporate and government websites is not just about press releases anymore and nor is it just for the press. The demand by a broad spectrum of customers to be updated on what’s happening at every front of the organization combined with the organization's need to promote and educate customers about new directions has expanded the role of the newsroom.

Maish suggests that organisations rethink the purpose of their website media section to address and engage a broader audience, and provides some examples of the types of content and features leading organisations are adding, such as,

• In-depth features
• Latest news stories
• Interviews or customer stories
• Speeches
• Podcasts
• Blogs
• Videos

The article provides some excellent examples of organisations across the public and private sector who have developed online newsrooms, such as the United Nations, Nokia and Cisco.

It also provides a roadmap of how to rethink a media section and turn it into a more useful online newsroom.

I've passed on Maish's article to our media team to help support them in how they think about our online media section and are beginning to think myself about how we can use our media section more effectively to speak to our broader stakeholder and customer audience.

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