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With over 11 million active players, World of Warcraft is one of the largest massive multiplayer online games in the world. In fact if it were a country it would be 75th - just behind Zimbabwe and ahead of Rwanda.
Back before the 2007 US Presidential election, a small study was carried out amongst US World of Warcraft players to see whether they'd vote for Republican nominee McCain, or Democrat candidate Obama.
While tongue-in-cheek, it provides an interesting insight into how it may be possible in the future to poll large numbers of Australians online to gather intelligence about voting preferences or satisfaction levels.
What was the outcome?
About 85% of Horde players said they intended to vote for Barack Obama, with McCain doing best amongst Night Elves, where 10% supported him. However the Allied vote was split, with the two candidates tied for the Human vote and McCain winning the Dwarf vote 33% to 22%, with 22% undecided and 33% saying other.
By player class, Obama won all except the Warrior and Priest votes, polling strongest amongst Shamans and Rogues.
Overall 62% of World of Warcraft players indicated they would vote for Obama (admittedly much more than the 53% he won in the actual election).
Below is the video.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Voting polls in virtual places - World of Warcraft | Tweet |
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Launching banknotes via online video | Tweet |
In what I believe is a world first, the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing has launched its new US$100 note, featuring Benjamin Franklin, via an online video in YouTube.
Brought to my attention by Nicholas Gruen, the 82 second long production provides a clear view of all the security provisions included in the banknote.
There is also an interactive video quiz available for people who wish to learn about how to recognise the note.
The approach offers an innovative vision as to how countries around the world could market and communicate the features of their currency and stamps to their citizens.
Benjamin Franklin, as a former printer and scientist (one of the early pioneers in electricity), would have been proud.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Open government winners and losers | Tweet |
One of the trends with Government 2.0 is for jurisdictions to make more of their information available online in more readily accessible, machine readable and useful forms.
We've seen the rise of data.gov, data.gov.uk and a host of open data sites for nations and states around the world. The latest addition has been the World Bank, with data.worldbank.org. There's even organisations providing platforms for public data sites to make it simple for governments to implement these services, such as Socrata.
Creating a more open and transparent government in this way has some winners. The public and media gain greater access to useful information, allowing them to better study, critique, understand and compare government decisions and activities; companies are able to better access information about their markets and environments and improve their operations and services; and governments are themselves better able to collaborate internally and discover new insights and approaches from comparing disparate data sources.
However there are also some losers in the race to release government data publicly. These are often highly politically influential organisations and individuals that have significant resources to bring to bear to resist change.
Over the last few years we've seen a level of push-back around the world by groups seeking to slow or counter drives to make more government data public. The approach often plays to government concerns; the risk of being shown up when information is not completely accurate; the risk of people taking and reusing information out of context; the perceived loss of revenue through releasing information for free rather than for significant charges; economic damage to companies or industries that rely on exclusive access to government data; or concerns that the costs of releasing data will not be sustainable over time.
While these are often legitimate considerations, there's some less often discussed reasons that are also important to consider.
In some cases those who have most to lose from government openness are those who have previously had some form of commercial or political advantage due to strict government controls over data release.
This could include organisations that act as resale agents for government, buying data under license and reselling at a mark-up (the postcode boundaries list is an example). It could include groups and individuals who have developed 'special' access to senior government figures and wish to preserve their channels of influence. It could also include groups within government who are concerned about a potential public or media response if some complex and highly contextual data became public knowledge.
I often equate the groups with these concerns about government openness as being similar to traditional media organisations, those who could afford the high cost of entry into traditional media - establishing and maintaining large-scale distribution networks, whether television, radio or newsprint.
With the rise of the internet these traditional media organisations faced a highly competitive and many-headed rival - a cheap and ubiquitous distribution network where every consumer has also become a producer and distributor of content.
Suddenly the high cost distribution networks owned by traditional media players have become vulnerable. Their revenues are falling while competition is growing, putting pressure on their owners to simultaneously increase their differentiation from the market whilst also cutting costs to suit the new world paradigm.
Similarly for groups such as government data resellers and lobbyists, the rise of the internet and growth of the open government push has reduced their ability to charge a price premium for exclusive access to data or senior figures.
In particular, making government data available free online, together with the host of free or cheap data visualisation and manipulation tools - from Manyeyes to Yahoo Pipes - severely damages the near monopoly of data intermediaries.
Some of these potential open government 'losers' have already realised that they can turn openness into a win. People will still pay for services which filter and present the range of public data in useful and meaningful ways. They are in a prime position to take on this role based on their expertise working with government data over many years.
However there may be others who still look on Gov 2.0 with some concern. They risk having their businesses become irrelevant and potentially could attempt to put roadblocks in place of government openness.
I hope that any organisations or individuals in this position realise that while they may be able to slow the train they'd gain more by getting on board. While their old business models might be less viable in the future, other opportunities will open up.
Monday, April 19, 2010
When public means public - Australian political party members suspended from social networking sites | Tweet |
The last week has seen several incidents where members of Australian political parties has been suspended from social networking sites and outed in the media for making controversial comments.
Most recently Nick Sowden, a Young Queensland Liberal National Party member, referred to US President Obama as a 'monkey' on Twitter. His tweets were widely discussed online and covered in the media, such as in this Brisbane Times news article, Monkey Business can come back to bite.
Mr Sowden has claimed that his tweets were intended to be a parody of far right US views and that his friends understood that he wasn't racist - although other Twitter users may not. Crikey quoted him as saying "There’s no point sitting behind the veil of political correctness."
It appears that Twitter closed his account after receiving more than 150 complaints about his tweets and the latest reports suggest that Mr Sowden may also be expelled from the Young Queensland Liberal National Party party.
Also in the news was Dave Tollner, a Country Liberal Member of the Northern Territory Parliament. Facebook suspended his Facebook Page for two weeks after he wrote that itinerants were "parasites terrorising innocent citizens".
Covered in the NT News article, Dave booted from Facebook, it is as yet unclear if Mr Tollner's account will be reinstated anytime soon.
The NT News reports that Mr Tollner had said that: "Political correctness has never been my strong point."
Both these cases demonstrate the interesting period we're entering in Australian government.
Both politicians and public servants are beginning to use social media both personally and, most recently, professionally - however few of them have significant experience engaging via online media in this way.
The situation lends itself to a variety of risks such as over or under-moderating comments, reacting to statements in social media channels in disproportionate ways, funny or sarcastic side comments that are taken literally and not understood in context and the differences in personal interpretations of 'political correctness'.
It is very easy to consider social network updates as 'throwaway' lines to friends, even when people recognise intellectually that their comments are public statements and may be viewed and assessed widely by the public and media as well as misunderstood and misrepresented.
This type of issue isn't limited to social networks or online media. There's a long history of radio, television and newspapers reporting candid personal statements recorded when the microphone hasn't been switched off. The US Vice-President's comment to the President during the health care bill signing (where he swore) was one of the most widely publicised recent examples.
With social media this issue can become more complex - with social networks people are 'always on', making it harder for them to keep their guard up all the time.
While there are some guidelines being put in place, there's still little training or support to help people new to these channels to understand how to use them appropriately or effectively - like the media training available to help people respond appropriately in front of a camera and reporter.
There's also limited guidance available on which channels and tools to use for particular purposes, or how to keep public and personal life separate (using the various privacy settings available in many social media tools).
I hope that soon we'll see widespread social media training and coaching for people in the public eye to help them understand that on social networks public means public.
Until then I expect to see many more gaffes from all types of public and semi-public figures - politicians, celebrities, business leaders and from public servants - as they come to grips with the ropes of how to effectively and appropriately communicate via social media.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Why does government struggle with innovation? | Tweet |
The Public Sector Innovation Network email list (run by the Department of Innovation - you can subscribe from their website) sends out some very interesting articles about innovation every week.
This week one in particular caught my eye, a piece entitled The Biggest Obstacle to Innovation that looks at inertia and how this may have greater impact in a public sector context than in other situations.
The article's author, Tim Kastelle, argues that government has many disincentives to overcome inertia. With no profit motive, no threat of organisational failure (an agency going 'out of business' - rather than the threat of a front-page news item) and where there is often a deeply entrenched non-innovative culture, there's simply no pressure for government to innovate.
I often wonder how it would be different if departments were established on the basis of profit - with the government paying multiple departments to provide services and the departments competing to offer the same services at the best possible price.
This has some equivalents - governments frequently pay commercial providers to deliver services on their behalf based on value and service levels and in many jurisdictions pays not-for-profits on a similar basis.
Of course it could lead to duplication of effort and greater instability both in employment and departmental survival - but aren't these key factors driving innovation?
A stable, monopolistic environment doesn't tend to lead to innovative behaviour and tends to increase its bias to inertia over time - actively preventing innovation to maintain the status quo. We've seen that again and again both in the commercial and public sectors. Civilisations have failed due to their institutions being unable to respond rapidly to environmental and social change.
Perhaps a hybrid model is feasible - having departments with core responsibilities and then having 'fringe' services bid on competitively by departments for management rights. Whoever gets the rights would be responsible for delivering that service and would be 'paid' for delivery in a way that allows the department to take excess funds and funnel them back into core activities - and appropriate compensation for staff (personal gain - whether monetary or through social credit - is a key factor in innovation).
This hybrid model already exists in Australia in some ways. Often a lead agency is appointed as the manager and budget holder for cross-government initiatives. However there's unlikely to be a competitive bidding process whereby departments compete to demonstrate they can deliver the best value.
If innovation is becoming a core attribute required by government organisations, merely to keep up with the rate of change in society and the development of new ways to deliver services and fulfil public needs, perhaps we need to rewrite some of the rulebook, sacrificing part of our desire for stability in return for greater change.
Maybe this won't be such a large sacrifice anyway. Government departments often restructure due to internal or external pressures and already need to react to our fast-changing world. Stability is becoming more and more of an illusion and constant change more a reality. The need for public servants to be biased towards action, as Tim discusses, is becoming greater and greater.
Constant change has negatives and can be very uncomfortable for individuals used to stable environments, but if we can harness it to drive innovation in our policy development, service delivery and in how we organise and operate the instrumentality of government it may also uncover some major benefits.
What do you think - should we trade public sector stability for innovation?
