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Everyone who runs a website dreams of what they would do if they had more funds to spend on improving their online presence.
I've been doing some thinking around this lately as a thought exercise around building priority lists for what needs to be done to strengthen my department's online presence.
I always come back to strengthening base infrastructure first. Ensuring that our own staff have the best tools for their tasks, including high-powered computers, the right software, effective and fully implemented content management and reporting systems, appropriate connections between data and publishing to enable a consistent approach to openness and transparency and, very importantly, that all the staff concerned have the training and support to use all of these systems effectively and to their full potential.
Next for me is strengthening governance and management, doing what is necessary to ensure my department has all of the appropriate governance and standards in place to operate a current, flexible and responsive online presence - including outreach activities to third party websites. blogs, forums and social networks.
Third I look at capability building. Putting in place the systems and functionality that extends the basic infrastructure to allow the department to manage emerging needs.
Interspersed amongst the priorities above are the staffing required to deliver what is needed and redevelopment of websites and tools as required to ensure our online presence meets the needs of our audiences, stakeholders and the government.
Given that funding is not unlimited for most online managers, the next step is to consider what can be done within budget constrains. It's important to also look at which pieces can be funded from other budgets (such as staff training) or whether additional funds can be requested to meet legislative or campaign requirements or as part of modernisation initiatives.
While it's not possible to do everything you want, there is often quite a bit you can actually achieve if you're prepared to spend the time educating decision-makers, liaising with other business areas and building the business cases needed to source funds.
So if you were given a blank cheque, what would you prioritise?
And given that you are unlikely to have one, what will you choose to actually achieve?
Monday, April 26, 2010
What would you do if you had unlimited funds to spend on your department's online presence? | Tweet |
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Voting polls in virtual places - World of Warcraft | Tweet |
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.
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.
