Monday, April 05, 2010

Canberra University moving towards Gov 2.0 post-graduate and under-graduate course

We've seen a boom in Gov 2.0 seminars and events over the last year and several prestigious US Universities already offer post-graduate courses on Gov 2.0 topics.

However, to my knowledge, Australia's formal educational institutions have largely been silent on when (if ever) they might begin offering courses that aid public servants, potential public servants and the many companies and professional individuals that are now working with Australian governments any formal qualifications on Gov 2.0 related matters.

I've long been an advocate for having more formal training options such as these available, particularly for more senior public service members, to help them fully consider the strategic consequences and accurately model risks for Gov 2.0 initiatives in light of emerging best practice.

While formal education isn't the only way to learn how to employ Gov 2.0 techniques, having university-scrutinised recognised courses provides a level of implied guarantee of quality of learning, which is useful when suggesting new and innovative approaches to conducting government business.

While it is entirely understandable that universities tend to lag workplace education needs - the drought in Gov 2.0 qualifications might be about to end. The University of Canberra (UC) is beginning to explore the opportunity to provide professional education in this area.

As a Canberra-based university which is already notable for its social media commentators such as Michael de Percy and Julie Posetti, I personally feel that UC is well-placed to lead in this space.

To be fair, the ANU also has at least one high-profile social media lecturer, Tom Worthington, who has also been running some notable courses.

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By Craig Thomler at 8:29 AM 2 comments Bookmark and Share
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Thursday, April 01, 2010

Growth of Twitter in Australian governments - 155 accounts

I've conducted a quick review of Australian government Twitter accounts this morning, national, state and local, drawing on lists that others and I have compiled.

With a margin for error (some may have been missed or not be official accounts), I've found that there are about 155 Australian government Twitter accounts registered, 26 Federal, 79 State and 50 Local.

UPDATE: I've added new accounts flagged by commenters, taking the total to 196 Twitter accounts from Australian governments.

Note that I've not screened these accounts for whether they are still live, or how actively they Tweet.

If you want to subscribe to some of these lists please see:

There's also a Victorian government Twitter list.

I've provided a full list of the accounts I looked at online in Google docs as a spreadsheet, open for anyone to view, download and modify at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ap1exl80wB8OdHNKVmQ5RVlvQWpibDAxNHkzcU1nV2c&hl=en

There's also a full list below.

National
ACT

NSW State
NT State
QLD State
SA State

TAS State
VIC State
WA State
NSW Local
QLD Local
SA Local
VIC Local
WA Local

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By Craig Thomler at 9:07 AM 10 comments Bookmark and Share
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Australian public servants told three times - open (reusable) government data is important.

The Australian Public Service (APS) has now been told three times by three different reports in the last year about the importance of releasing much of its information openly to the community.

This began with reforms to Freedom of Information which, once passed, will encourage a pro-disclosure environment within the APS and make it easier and cheaper for people to request information from government.

Second was the Gov 2.0 Taskforce Final Report: Engage, which recommended managing public sector information as a national resource, releasing most of it for free and in ways that promoted reuse in innovative ways.

Third is the report released yesterday by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration. The report recommended that Departments should create more open government, with one of the detailed sub-recommendations being,

Greater disclosure of public sector data and mechanisms to access the data so that citizens can use the data to create helpful information for all, in line with privacy and secrecy principles;
The last two reports are yet to be responded to by the Australian Government, however I hope that Australian public servants at all levels are taking note.

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a strategy.

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By Craig Thomler at 9:34 AM 2 comments Bookmark and Share
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Monday, March 29, 2010

Rating government performance online

Cheryl from the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre recently brought to my attention the launch of the BrandKarma website.

The website aggregates information about top brands and allows the public to indicate whether they love, hate or want to watch them. It also allows comments and, in the best social networking style, the creation of personal profiles and 'friending' of others.

With a little more development the site will also probably support communities around brands - people who hate them and people who love them, potentially becoming a source of information and influence for others.

How is this important for government? Substitute 'brand' with 'agency' and you get a very interesting approach to rating government agencies and collecting user feedback.

It would be interesting to see how many people, for example, loved DIITR rather than hated them, and in comparison how many loved and hated DEEWR, DAFF, DHS or Defense - and why.

This type of site could make many public servants and politicians uncomfortable, just as BrandKarma is likely to make companies uncomfortable. However it also offers enormous opportunity for brands (or agencies) to engage, address their faults and, where necessary, turn community views around.

This type of internet-based public customer feedback is part of the new reality - just as PatientOpinion is now part of the UK's health landscape.

What is particularly interesting to me is whether governments will take the step of making it possible to publicly laud or complain about their agencies, or whether it will be left to the private sector - leaving government with less ability to influence.

Time will tell - but maybe not much time. It wouldn't require much modification to BrandKarma to launch GovernmentKarma.

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By Craig Thomler at 8:15 PM 0 comments Bookmark and Share
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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Innovative government use of Twitter highlighted in case study

The GovTwit blog has put me on to the latest case study in Twitter 101 (where they showcase how organisations are using Twitter in innovative ways).

It's on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who are using Twitter to monitor earthquakes as they occur - an early detection system that is proving to be much faster than seismic instruments (at least in populated areas).

The case study, Science for a changing world, reflects some of the discussions I had with Geosciences Australia last year. Geosciences Australia were looking at how they could use social media to detect the human impact of natural disasters and perhaps even identify small earth tremors in populated areas where there are no seismic instruments nearby.

In the USGS's case they are simply listening for mentions of earthquake related words and using them to map the extent of human-felt earth tremors. They also say that,

In sparsely instrumented regions, they can be our first indication that an earthquake may have occurred.

There are many other examples out there of ways that government agencies are using social media in innovative ways to serve the public good.

I just wish I saw more examples of Australian governments putting these uses into practice rather than largely finding them used by overseas jurisdictions.

Many Australians tell me that we are early adopters of technology, highly creative and innovative. Those statements only become true if we prove them every day.

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By Craig Thomler at 10:40 PM 1 comments Bookmark and Share
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