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Last month the UK government endorsed a recommendation to accept ePetitions through the parliamentary website.
As reported in ePractice.eu, this builds on the experience of the 10 Downing Street website, which has accepted ePetitions since November 2006.
Under the recommendation electronic petitions will be hosted on the UK parliament’s website, allowing individuals to add their names and choose to receive updates on a petition's process.
In the past, using paper-based petitions, there has been an average of 100 petitions per year, with the largest receiving 4.5 million signatures.
ePetitions in the UK have already proven to be even more successful. In its first year, the 10 Downing Street site saw more than 29 000 petitions submitted, carrying a total of 5.8 million signatures.
Other nations have also successfully introduced ePetitions, with New Zealand's Wellington city council holding regular ePetitions via the council website.
In Australia Queensland has also held ePetitions via it's Get Involved website. The state has taken the further step of commercialising their ePetitions technology (PDF), turning it into a government revenue stream.
Tasmania has also held ePetitions on a trial basis via the Parliament of Tasmania ePetition site.
Perhaps this reflects another way in which representative democracy can move closer to pure democracy, allowing interested parties to have influential involvement in major legislative change.
Friday, September 05, 2008
ePetitions proposed for UK parliament | Tweet |
A new approach to benchmarking eGovernment in the Web 2.0 era | Tweet |
The European Journal of ePractice has published an intriguing article by David Osimo exploring a new approach to benchmarking eGovernment provision in the Web 2.0 world.
Moving away from measuring the number or complexity of government services made available online, David proposes that the transparency of public data should be considered as a flagship goal and suggests a simple and cost-effective method for measuring transparency.
It's an interesting read and provides another approach to assessing and comparing egovernment success.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Case study - helping employees help each other via Intranet social networking | Tweet |
Prescient Digital Media has published a case study on the adoption and success of Intranet social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies at Sabre, the company that runs most of the world’s airline flight reservation systems.
Sabre custom-built a solution that supports employees in discovering and sharing information between staff, leading to six-figure direct cost savings and improving the information flows throughout the organisation.
In fact the solution was so effective (with over 90% of staff now participating) that Sabre packaged their custom solution and are now selling it to other organisations.
The future of the internet - and how to stop it | Tweet |
Jonathan Zittrain's new book, The future of the internet - and how to stop it, presents a compelling picture of how the internet has evolved from the 'sterile' and unchangeable computer systems of the 1960s and 70s into a 'generative' environment, enabling individuals around the world to freely develop applications and services and distribute them widely.
The book then looks at what may come next - the impacts of security and privacy holes and the increasing attempts to limit innovation in order to solve these issues.
It provides a compelling view of where we might be headed if we do not take steps at politic and managerial levels to change the direction.
The book is available freely online, notated by readers in an innovative collaborative approach to exploring the written word.
Jonathon has also presented many of the key themes of the book in various lectures, such as the one below.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Review of Google Chrome beta | Tweet |
I've spent about four hours putting Google Chrome through the wringer and overall are impressed with the browser, despite some rather large functional gaps.
In checking a range of Australian government sites I did not observe any significant usability or display issues - none more than users of Safari (which uses the same renderer, WebKit) already experience.
I did notice a security issues with Medicare Australia's forms, such as the example below. However this crosses into other web browsers as well.
This is a beta - like many of Google's products - and I expect some of these issues to be resolved before they announce the first final release.
However some of the gaps are larger than I would have expected, making me feel that Google rushed out the browser to address the threat Internet Explorer 8 posed.
For instance, java, shockwave and silverlight do not work within the browser as yet, making a number of sites unusable or severely limited (including the Microsoft site).
Also it's not possible to search within text boxes inside web pages - a far more major issue if, for example, you're editing HTML in Blogger (another Google product).
I've not managed to crash the browser as yet and found the way it renders Web applications in standalone windows very effective, particularly when using Gmail, Google Analytics or Last.fm (which isn't Google owned!)
On the plus side, texts have demonstrated that Chrome is significantly faster at running Javascript than other web browsers - making it an effective operating system for the web.
And if you're not convinced that Google is aiming Chrome straight at Microsoft Windows (rather than Internet Explorer), try typing about:Internets into the Chrome Omnibar.
