Last chance to vote on MashupAustralia's peoples' choice - 81 entries to choose from

MashUpAustralia had 81 entries into Australia's first competitive event for mashing up data from Australian governments.

Now that entries have closed, the public have until 4PM AEDT on 20 November to vote for a people's choice - that means you!

So if you've not yet had a look at the entries and voted, this is your LAST chance.

Go to MashUpAustralia to vote.

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US engaging in offensive as well as defensive cyberwar

Nextgov has published a very insightful piece on the US's cyberwar endeavours, including their use of it as an offensive tool to locate and knock out the organisational capabilities of their enemies and even kill foes.

The article, The cyberwar plan, not just a defensive game, also covers the Russian attacks on Estonia and Georgia and China's use of cyberwarfare techniques to gain economic advantage over foreigners (I also continue wondering about the attack on the Melbourne Film Festival earlier this year).

It's a very well-researched piece and provides a lot of food for thought.

Given that most wealth and knowledge is stored electronically and most organisation is done via digital channels, the impact of a successful attack on our communications systems or finance sector would be catastrophic to our economy and potentially to our ability to cope with a physical attack.

Australia's defense force has traditionally been very quiet about a domestic cyberwar capability and I wonder whether we are adequately defended and able to respond to attacks on Australia's digital sovereignty.

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Youtube offers free branded channels to government departments globally

Youtube recently announced that government departments using the service can get a free branded channel for their videos, saving a US$50,000 set-up fee.

The offer is apparently still making its way to the Youtube site, however the details of the offer are public and it is available now.

Below I've provided the content of an email sent to me by Geordie Hyland of Youtube regarding how to take up the offer and here is a link to a blog post by Mike Kujawski in his blog Public Sector Marketing 2.0 with details of what departments will get with a branded channel.

Note that departments do need to assess whether taking this up meets their needs - and whether there's any potential lock-in effect that may not be in their strategic interests in the future.

Youtube does have a dominant position in the online video distribution market at present - however it may not suit all departments' needs.

Please contact me by email directly for a Youtube contact if needed.

Hi,

Thanks for your interest in starting a YouTube channel for your government, government department, or government agency. If you like, you can start a YouTube channel right away by creating an account and posting videos. One time at the end of every month, YouTube will transfer any new government channels to "branded" - thus allowing you to upload a branded banner to the top of your channel, and giving you the ability to upload longer videos to the site.

We do not have the capacity to do this more than one time per month, so please be patient if you don't hear back right away - and feel free to start posting videos to your account.

To enter your application for a branded channel, please send an email to government@youtube.com with the following 5 pieces of information:

* The name of your government, government department, or agency.
* Your .gov website URL.
* The account name you've registered on YouTube (i.e., your YouTube username).
* The email address you are using to manage the account.
* Any other information you want to tell us about your plans to launch the channel, and what types of content you plan to post.

Please also be aware the YouTube will not negotiate any individual content licensing agreements with state or local governments - your contract with YouTube is our site-wide terms and conditions, which you agree to upon starting an account on YouTube. To see that policy, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/t/terms

Thanks, and good luck!

-The YouTube Team

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Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared

I've written this post based on my comments in response to the post at the Gov 2.0 Taskforce site, If I could start with a blank piece of paper… (part 2).

In that comment I made a point that it is relatively easy for government agencies to technically adopt Gov 2.0 approaches. The technology, legal framework and much of the legwork on identifying and mitigating risks has been completed here and overseas - if you know where to look.

However culturally the adoption of Gov 2.0 poses much greater challenges. There are paradigm shifts required in public sector thinking and behaviour. This takes time to work through the system.

One part of this shift is related to the belief that Knowledge equals Power.

While this belief is both long-standing and happens to have been true for much of human history it is no longer true, and a more accurate meme would be Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared.

In the past knowledge was expensive to store and distribute. Those who held knowledge on a particular topic were held in high regard and could exert considerable power - and command substantial fees - based on their expertise.

This fostered practices where professions erected barriers to control the flow of knowledge and keep price points high - similar to how deBeers has been accused (and several times found guilty and fined) of controlling the supply, and therefore maintaining a high price for diamonds.

Indeed Wikipedia's definition of profession includes a number of characteristics based on containing and controlling knowledge, including the statement,

Inaccessible body of knowledge: In some professions, the body of knowledge is relatively inaccessible to the uninitiated. Medicine and law are typically not school subjects and have separate faculties and even separate libraries at universities.

For public sectors around the world the same influences have been at play, as have additional factors; controlling knowledge for privacy reasons, national security, to avoid public unrest and even - in some jurisdictions - to protect political figures.

However the knowledge hoarding model begins to fail when it becomes cheap and easy to share and when the knowledge required to complete a task exceeds an individual's capability to learn in the time available.

This has been reflected in a longitudinal study of knowledge workers that Robert Kelley of Carnegie-Mellon University conducted over more than twenty years. He asked professionals "What percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?"

In 1986 the answer was typically about 75%. By 1997 workers estimated that they had only about 15% to 20% of the knowledge needed in their own mind. Kelley estimated that by 2006 the answer was only 8% to 10%.

Given that professionals now need to draw 90% or more of the knowledge they need to do their jobs from others, in my view 'Knowledge equals Power' is no longer true.

I believe it is now more accurate to state Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared.

While 'squared' is not empirically true, the statement reflects that to gain and hold power individuals and organisations need to share knowledge and networking.

For the public sector this shift isn't simply about opening up access to existing knowledge resources, it requires rethinking attitudes, behaviours and policies.

For example, where hiring practices focus on hiring people with exceptional personal knowledge perhaps they need to be re-weighted. We still need people with enough knowledge to form good critical judgements, however they also need exceptional networking and information processing skills so they can locate and assess the additional knowledge needed.

Organisations that rely on long-time staff as their corporate memory need to review whether this is an effective long-term strategy. Should they future-proof themselves against inevitable retirements and resignations by taking all this knowledge, codifying and placing it in a central location for everyone to access? Should they then open up this location for editing by staff (as a wiki) so that it remains current, useful and relevant?

Thirdly, personal networks can become a source of considerable strength for both individuals and the organisations that employ them. They allow a staff member to quickly source valuable knowledge from their peers and accelerate an organisation's decision making and implementation processes. However to harness this power organisations need to allow their staff to access these networks from the office - the online communities and social networks where professionals meet and discuss.

All of these steps pale in comparison with one of the biggest areas of knowledge sharing - with the community. Organisations can derive enormous value from collaborating with their customers, constituents and stakeholders. However for this to work effectively the organisation must share their knowledge openly and allow the community to see and respond quickly to each others' comments.

I'll be posting more on this topic later this week.

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How should the public service engage with controversial topics online?

In my experience, where possible, Australian public servants avoid controversial topics when consulting with the public.

Controversial topics are messy, unpredictable, raise high emotions and draw out divergent viewpoints - making discussions difficult to manage and control. They also often edge into political matters which are outside the scope of the public service, who strive to remain professionally apolitical in their service to their political masters.

Of course, often active discussion thrives on controversy. Radically differing viewpoints and high emotional engagement leads to energetic and insightful debate. They can soar to great heights - and plummet to unspeakable depths.

On the other hand, discussions on topics where most people agree tend to be largely controllable - but also predictable, boring and repetitive. Why bother repeating a 'me too' point or stating something that seems self-evident?

People rapidly lose interest and drift away when there's no cut and thrust of debate and the conclusions are easily arrived at from the proposition.

For public servants striving to generate online discussion on blogs and forums there's a difficult line to walk between proposing topics that are controversial and those that are safe.

Instinct tends to draw public servants to safe topics, where we can predict the likely responses and avoid the risk of heated and uncivil discussion. It's easier (and more risk-adverse) to manage a discussion when the outcome is obvious, it requires less time, effort and critical judgement - and also requires less Ministerial correspondence, scrutiny from senior management and career risk.

However it is hard to get audiences to engage on many safe topics. The public is uninterested, has already agreed on an outcome or simply doesn't feel entertained and stimulated by many safe discussions. To be frank, they are boring and don't materially add to the policy or operational discussion.

So how can public servants engage with controversy online, without engaging too much?

Fortunately there are a number of models on how to do this. People have been stepping through this minefield for thousands of years in physical discussions and many of the same tools work online.

The first approach is to structure the debate where you cannot structure the content. Find a topic and choose two positions. Form 'teams' to argue each of the positions in sequential order. Have an audience able to make side comments and vote on which team did a better job of building a compelling case.

Those of you familiar with formal debating will recognise this approach. It still allows passionate discussion but within a straight-jacket of format and set positions, which avoids a free-for-all. There is a beginning, a middle and an end - which prevents it dragging for an unknown period and usually there are only two 'sides' - positions - which an audience can take.

A second approach is an expert panel, where each expert provides their own position and the audience can comment or vote on the position they most ascribe to. This is more flexible than a debate, however still largely restricts discussion to positions set by 'authorities'. While it provides greater flexibility for diverse views it can also limit discussion and debate between the distinct expert positions as the experts may not be as willing to debate each other or have their supporters do so.

A third option, which I term rotating perspectives, also supports multiple positions, but each is examined sequentially over time by an audience. This focuses discussion on the pros and cons of each particular position over time and allows the community managers to introduce new perspectives based on the direction of the discussion. While more flexible and responsive to audience feedback than an expert panel, and encouraging online audience participation, this approach can lead to uneven analysis of ideas. Early positions may receive more discussion (based on a big promotional launch) and greater critical thought - as they are visible longer for reflection and responses can be made later in the process. This also risks having members of the audience pre-empting certain positions ahead of time - though this isn't necessarily a bad outcome as it increases the sense of active discussion.

My fourth, and final - for now - option is to provide separate groups for discussion of each different position. These can be linked or merged where positions converge or separated out where a single position diverges into several. Audience members can suggest and create their own positions, which then become new groups for discussion. Towards the end of the discussion many positions may merge towards a common core thread - or they may diverge, identifying the most intractable issues that need resolution. Similar to workshopping, this approach is complex, requiring additional moderation and an appropriate technology platform - such as a Nationbuilder (used for Australia2) or Ideascale which allows ideas to be separately discussed, merged as required and with a degree of automated nouse that can merge similar positions.

There are other approaches as well - breaking down a topic into individual issues and discussing each separately, or having the community rate contributions with the aim of self-moderation (which works quite well in some online communities).

What other approaches can you suggest that would allow the public service to engage with controversial topic online while remaining comfortable about the risks?

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