How much should a government website cost - are we over-engineering our websites?

These days when I personally need to set up a new website, I either hop onto Wordpress or download one of the free open-source content management systems, purchase space on a decent US server and follow the installation instructions.

I use a design template found online, customising it with some style tweaks where required, then spend a few days writing content.

It's not very hard and doesn't take very long (normally under a week).

However in government we have very strong governance structures around website creation - with good reason - to ensure that the platforms we use are secure, reliable and effective. We also have extensive content approval processes which can require a number of steps before words reach the screen.

This places a great deal of overhead on the process of creating and managing government websites, adding significantly to IT and resourcing costs.

I don't question the need for public organisations to guarantee the reliability and security of their websites. However I do wonder if we're placing a disproportionate level of cost onto this process - so much overhead on our websites that they may be slower to deliver and less cost-effective than other communications channels.

I also wonder if departments spend much time scrutinising their governance arrangements to see if they can reduce the burden, and therefore the cost and time to market, (without compromising the outcome) by either planing ahead or working together better.

If we are really one government shouldn't we be able to - as a group or via some central agency - security assess and review a group of web technologies then pick and choose between them as needed - depending on our internal platforms and needs?

Why not compare our departmental content management processes and learn from the organisations who are most effective and efficient?

Food for thought.

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Bringing government into the age of persistent communications

Many organisations use campaign-based communications models.

They develop their campaign strategy, identify and engage their audience, communicate a message, then wind down the campaign and allow the audience to disengage and disperse.

At a future time, when the audience no longer seems influenced by the previous message, they repeat this process - potentially reusing campaign materials, but having to locate and engage the audience all over again.

A cynic could call this communications amnesia - we deliberately forget all about our audiences as soon as we've finished shouting our message at them.

I prefer to call this episodic communications as it operates very similarly to episodic programming, at the end of each episode the set may remain in place, but the actors are returned to their starting points.

Social media, on the other hand, allows organisations to cost-effectively establish an ongoing relationship with their audiences.

By developing online spaces where their audience can gather and interact, seeding them with content and well-considered participation guidelines, organisations can encourage audience members to join and participate in a community around a given topic for an extended period of time.

Best of all the approach supports and improves the efficiency of episodic communications campaigns by providing a ready-made engaged audience who can be encouraged to pay attention to new messages at significantly less additional cost.

I call this approach persistent communications.

I'm starting to see governments use social media tools to build engaged audiences around specific topics - from the Digital Economy and National Culture Policy to yourHealth.

However so far I have seen limited appreciation of how these audiences can be leveraged as persistent communities of interest.

To me it makes sense that once you've invested money, resources and time into building one of these groups, it is worth continuing to invest a small amount to keep the group - a budding community - functioning and growing.

This turns it into an ongoing resource that can be leveraged in the future for additional input or directed into future campaign-based initiatives.

This can create a positive feedback loop - with campaigns becoming more cost-effective over time.

Campaign (used to build a) -> Persistent audience (leveraged into further) -> Campaigns (used to build a) -> (bigger) Persistent audience -> and so on.

This approach hasn't been totally ignored in government.

Future Melbourne has done a reasonable job of maintaining its momentum. It makes sense - Melbourne has a long future ahead of it, why not leverage the investment in the community by keeping them engaged and willing to participate. It saves money, time and effort.

Similarly Bang The Table has been peppering me with additional consultations being held by the ACT government, leveraging my participation in an earlier consultation as someone who is interested and willing to comment on further topics over time (although they've not yet taken the step to build a profile for me and invite me to consultations from other governments which fit my interest profile).

Most commercial organisations know that a relationship with a customer is worth its weight in gold. Once a customer is deeply engaged with one of your products you are able to leverage this into new areas at much lower cost than - take Apple's progression from computers to music players to phones or Sony's fiercely loyal Playstation audience.

Government also has this opportunity to use persistent communication centred on social media to build and sustain persistent relationships with our community.

We can leverage interest in one consultation via one department at one level of government into future interest in another engagement activity in a different agency in another government level through sustaining an persistent communications strategy.

This would save significant public money, however to get there we will need to rethink our departmental communications approaches - revisiting our systems for developing, governing, tracking and analysing communications.

From episodic communications tactics to a persistent communications strategy -should we call this Communications 2.0?

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Could the government replace some advertising and communications contracts with crowdsourcing?

Many government initiatives need to be communicated to all or some of the community to increase awareness and, in some cases, encourage behavioural change.

Whether advising people of changes in tax laws, informing and influencing the community's health habits, or seeking public submissions in a consultation, there needs to be communications strategies in place to identify, reach and influence appropriate audiences.

Over the past forty years, like other large private sector organisations, government departments have worked with specialist advertising and communications agencies to provide the extra help required to craft messages and run communications campaigns.

This approach helps smooths out bumps in hiring (providing extra hands and minds for short periods), introduces fresh ideas from highly talented communications experts and provides a broader perspective through exposing government departments to people who continually work across the entire communications industry.

However new approaches to sourcing communications ideas are now emerging - thanks to digital communications.

Recently Unilever removed the advertising agency for its Peperami product and replaced it with - crowdsourcing.

Rather than using Lowes, the agency who had worked on the account for 16 years, Unilever put up a US$10,000 prize and, using a service called Ideabounty, opened up the account to anyone in the world with good ideas.

I won't go into the details of this example - there's more information in The Guardian's article, Unilever goes crowdsourcing to spice up Peperami's TV ads.

However what I will ask is this - should the Australian government look beyond advertising and communications agencies for good communications ideas?

Should we go directly to the communities impacted by our programs, invite them to provide ideas for communications campaigns and reward them appropriately?

Will this cost less than using professional agencies?

Will it deliver better or 'as good' outcomes?

Finally, if it does make sense, will our procurement and advertising guidelines allow us to use a crowdsourcing approach to deliver better outcomes at lower costs?

It's probably a good time for government agencies to think about these questions - I expect we'll begin being asked them in the next few years as more organisations visibly consider crowdsourcing.


Below are a few reference articles on the topic worth reading - I welcome your comments, particularly from  anyone who provides communications services to Australian governments.

• Can Curating the Crowd Work?
• The Myth of Crowdsourcing
• CROWDSOURCING Advertising - can it work? 
• And an extremely interesting article from a US communications agency that is itself engaged in crowdsourcing communications, Of Crows And Prehistoric Tadpole Things: Avoiding The Consumption Of One, Helping The Evolution Of The Other.

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Dealing with video accessibility - automating captions and transcripts

I found out last week that Google had recently integrated YouTube with Google's speech-text technology, allowing videos displayed on YouTube to have their captions and transcripts automatically generated.

In addition, these captions and transcripts can then be translated, via Google's text translation system, and displayed on the video in any supported language.

The transcript can also be downloaded (and corrected if necessary) to be reused in other environments.

Whilst Google admits that neither the speech-to-text autocaptioning or the translation tool are perfect, these are measurable steps forward in using computing power to address accessibility in videos.

It also is a powerful tool for any organisation with video footage - even for internal use. They can simply upload video to YouTube in a private channel, have it auto-transcribed - correct this as required and then translate the material as necessary, then remove the video from YouTube and use the translated material internally.

More information on this tool is available at YouTube's blog in the post, Automatic captions in YouTube and I've embedded their demo video below.

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APSC releases Protocols for online media participation

The APSC has replaced its Interim protocols for online media participation (released December 2008) with Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation.

The new Circular is briefer than its predecessor, going further than I had expected, making it clear in no uncertain tones that (my bold in the quote below),

Web 2.0 provides public servants with unprecedented opportunities to open up government decision making and implementation to contributions from the community. In a professional and respectful manner, APS employees should engage in robust policy conversations.

Equally, as citizens, APS employees should also embrace the opportunity to add to the mix of opinions contributing to sound, sustainable policies and service delivery approaches. Employees should also consider carefully whether they should identify themselves as either an APS employee or an employee of their agency.

This guidance is followed by a set of ground rules - which are consistent with the practice of many other organisations. You can read them in the Circular.

In case your agency need to consider the Circular within the APS code, the APSC says that,

The guidance has been incorporated into chapters 3 and 15 of APS Values and Code of Conduct in practice: A guide for APS employees and Agency Heads. This publication assists APS employees to understand the practical application of the APS Values and Code of Conduct in both common and unusual circumstances. It also provides advice for agency heads in establishing policies and procedures that promote the APS Values and ensure compliance with the Code. A revised edition of the publication is now available on the Commission’s website at www.apsc.gov.au/ethics/publications.html.

With the "can I/Can't I" of online participation now much clearer, the next step for agencies is to ensure they put the best possible social media participation guidance in place to address any grey areas.

If your agency wants to consider some examples of best practice social media policies, there are over a hundred examples at Social Media Governance.

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