A big step forward for Gov 2.0 in Australia - Government response to Gov 2.0 Taskforce report

If you've been watching Twitter (specifically the hashtag #gov2au), you might have seen that yesterday the Government released its response to the Gov 2.0 Taskforce, supporting 12 of the 13 recommendations (and deferring the 13th, information philanthropy, pending the outcomes of several related reviews).

The response was announced in AGIMO's new blog platform, Govspace, released in time with the report. A blog post by Minister Tanner stated that,

...today is the completion of one phase, it is also very much the beginning of a new one. The task now is to implement these changes, beginning with assisting agencies to make the most of the opportunities offered by Web 2.0.

The response provides broad support for Gov 2.0 in the Federal Government, authorising the Department of Finance and Deregulation to lead activities across government under a multi-departmental steering committee including Prime Minister and Cabinet, the proposed Office of the Information Commissioner, the Australian Public Service Commission, National Archives of Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Department of Human Services, the Australian Taxation Office and the Attorney-General’s Department.

This group provides a viewpoints across online engagement, open data and governance which should provide a health mix of input into some of the detailed questions that will need to be addressed.

One of the recommendations of the Taskforce was that,

4.3 The default position in agencies should be that employees are encouraged and enabled to engage online. Agencies should support employee enablement by providing access to tools and addressing internal technical and policy barriers.

The government agreed with this by stating,

It is incumbent on the senior APS leadership to ensure that top-down change is enabled in agencies, and that APS employees are genuinely encouraged and empowered to engage online within their agency-specific context.

This is a major step forward in defining the scope in which public servants can engage online on behalf of their agency, and also provides some impetus to upgrade technologies (such as web browsers) and unblock sites where public discussions relevant to agencies are taking place.

As an aside, the Government's response has been released under a Creative Commons copyright license - another example of the government 'eating its own dogfood' in terms of shifting from a proscriptive copyright approach to publications towards a descriptive approach, which allows and supports appropriate use of materials - potentially saving a great deal of time for those tasked with approving use of government materials and freeing a great deal of intellectual property value so that it can be more widely and rapidly disseminated (I hope we'll see actual legislation, acts of parliament, released in the same manner).


The response is, by necessity, not fully detailed as to every contingency - we'll see more of this detail emerge over time. However there is a key area I would like to see addressed quite rapidly, change management.

As I commented this morning on Kate Lundy's blog post, Australia commits to Gov 2.0, (correcting the iPhone use related spelling and grammatical errors), there are still many regulations and governance practices that must be reviewed, reinterpreted or adjusted to allow the process-driven public service to effectively approach Gov 2.0 in a timely (rapid) and cost-effective manner. To make engagement successful, there is the need to streamline approvals for things such as public responses and moderation of public comments (where moderation is used at all) in order to allow conversations to begin and communities to form.

For many public servants – and politicians – the concept of ‘letting go’ and allowing authentic online engagement to occur is a new and scary concept, unlike their previous experience or the directives they have received in the past. I hope we will see substantial change management support and training to help these groups normalize Gov 2.0 within their worldviews.

Otherwise it will remain a long and rocky road towards the widespread embedded use of Gov 2.0 within government agencies. Change had to occur in the heart as well as the head to be lasting.

I believe that we are on the right path and now, as Minister Tanner suggests, the challenge is to walk it confidently - hand in hand with our community.

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The many styles of blogging - selecting the right approach for your goals and audience

A blog is a blog is a blog in the same way that a TV show is a TV show is a TV show.

That is to say, there are many kinds of blogs in the same way there are many different kinds of TV shows, depending on their goals, audience, subject matter and format.

So when a government department, commercial organisations or individual tells me they are starting a blog often my first question is generally - what type of blog?

Around four years ago Rohit Bhargava defined 25 different types of blog and when to use them (see his presentation embedded below).

Wikipedia also discusses the many different types of blogs, differentiating them by genre, content, authorship, goal and approach.

In both cases there is sage advice for anyone considering setting up a blog to consider, preferably before you establish the blog.

Have you thought about the goals for the blog - to communicate, educate, evangelise, attract or sell (amongst other potential goals); have you consider who you see as your audience and their particular needs and approaches - are they experts or novices, do they prefer short snippets or in-depth analysis; have you considered your available resources - can you blog daily, weekly or sporadically, what technologies you are using and their benefits or limitations.

Finally have you considered your subject matter and the degree of interactivity you seek to include. Can - and will - people respond to your blog by commenting. Will they discuss and share your posts on Twitter or Facebook?

Whether you're proposing a blog as a communications or engagement tactic for your organisation, you're being told to establish a departmental blog or you're considering blogging personally or on topics of professional interest, it is well worth considering the appropriate style and approach to improve your changes of success.

And remember, you can blend a few styles together, create your own and evolve your blog over time in response to how your audience is engaging. Don't be limited by lists!

The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging ... And When To Use Each One

View more presentations from Rohit Bhargava.

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The street as a platform, what's government's role?

An extremely thought-provoking post about The street as platform written by Dan Hill in February 2008 has been brought to my attention by Darren Sharp.

The post explores the virtual life of a city street, all the digital data exchanging hands between systems, infrastructure, vehicles and people in the street unseen to human eyes.

While condensed into a single street, the post is based entirely on current technologies and practices. It could easily represent a real street in any major city anywhere in the world today.

The question for me is what is government's role in building the infrastructure, managing and effectively using the data collected?

Streets are generally infrastructure created and maintained by governments and the systems that 'power' a street are often installed and managed by public concerns (roads and pavements, water, sewage, electricity and telecommunications) or at least guided by government planning processes (the nature of the dwellings and commercial services provided on the street). So there's clearly a significant role for government in the virtual aspects of streets as well.

There has been some work done internationally on what precisely is the role of government (some articles and publications listed at the Victorian Government's eGovernment Resource Centre, but have we done enough here in Australia?

Given we have a national broadband network planned, and are already in the process of preparing for pilot roll outs, ensuring that this enables, rather than limits the vision of our digital streets in a managed and well-thought out manner is clearly moving its way up the priority list.

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Crowdsourcing at the National Library

I've spoken before about the fantastic Historic Australian Newspapers archive program at the National Library to digitalise old newspapers, coupling OCR scanning with a online crowdsourcing tool that allows the public to fix mistakes in scanned text.

One of the key people behind the program, Rose Holley, recently presented at Mosman Library about the initiative. Thanks to B3rn, the presentation was filmed, and I have embedded it below.

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Using social media to drive government policy - President Obama vs Goldman Sachs

Using the media to build public opinion pressure against an opponent is one of the oldest tactics in the political playbook.

However in the modern world politicians and organisations can go one better - marshalling their social networking followers and using social media avenues to directly build and channel public opinion.

While we've not seen much of this in Australia (though perhaps the Prime Minister's National Health and Hospitals Network Facebook Cause page is an example of early steps), the President's office in the USA is becoming quite mature and strategically effective at this type of pressure.

A short time ago President Obama used his social media platforms, including 8 million Facebook followers and millions of supporters via the MyBarackObama site (now referred to as Organising for America) to successfully lobby for the US Health Reform bill.

More recently the President has used his online muscle to launch a campaign against Goldman Sachs - a campaign that seems to have left the company off-balance and reeling.

Covered last week in the Forbes magazine article Obama Fights Goldman With Social Media, the President has used search engine marketing directed to Organising for America combined with a coordinated campaign via Facebook and Twitter (where the President has 3 million followers) to build public support for changes to the US's financial systems, specifically focused at Goldman.

The campaign has been even more effective because Goldman has a negligible social media presence and is not able to respond effectively through social networking channels - a major warning for any organisation, or government department, facing a determined and highly coordinated attempt to shift public opinion online.

As the article states,

To date, Goldman's silence in the online space has been deafening--making it all the easier for regulators, legislators and the White House to paint a bull's eye on its back.

I hope no Australian government department will allow itself to be in this position.

For those who are not fully across the social media strategy used by the US President in his election campaign, a good piece to read is Viralblog's The Full Barack Obama Social Media Strategy!. I've embedded the presentation linked to that article below.

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