With a change of leadership, what's next for Gov 2.0 in Australia?

Four years ago Government 2.0 was a barely known concept in Australia and social media was regarded by many in Canberra as a youth fad.

President Obama made social media 'cool' for politicians by using it as a key plank in his run for office. Since his election he has spearheaded a Gov 2.0 agenda of increased transparency and engagement which is in the process of transforming the US government.

In Australia, we saw social media used in a basic manner in the 2007 election, with senior politicians starring in their own Youtube videos, beginning them with "good morning" and MPs were proud of their garish MySpace pages and email lists.

The public service also began using social media more widely around the same time, although a few early adopters were already blogging or using other social networking tools.

Gradually, through 2008 and 2009, more government agencies began adopting new media approaches to communicate with their audiences. In particular state governments such as Victoria's led this charge, engaging their citizens in online consultations and competitions.

Agencies such as Geoscience Australia and the ABS began adopting Creative Commons licensing, making much of their data available for public reuse - free.

The Gov 2.0 Taskforce, launched in July 2009, brought active Federal Ministerial support and increased awareness to the area, culminating in the Taskforce's widely read Final Report which provided a set of recommendations to advance Gov 2.0 adoption, the majority of which have been adopted by government.

This was followed by the APS Reform report, Public Sector Innovation Report and the Freedom of Information Amendment legislation, each playing its part in encouraging government to be more open, engaging and interactive online.

Today there's over 200 Australian Twitter accounts from government agencies, well over 50 blogs and at least 30 Facebook pages, not to mention various forums, competitions, open data feeds and other Gov 2.0 initiatives and activities that are underway.

Much of the Federal activity was actively support by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, who initiated the Gov 2.0 Taskforce and whose portfolio includes AGIMO (the Australian Government Information Management Office). Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was also a supporter and set an example for his Ministers with his blogs and online chats.

We've now seen the first Australian transfer of power in the Gov 2.0 age, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard taking over the reins of the Australian Government and Minister Tanner indicating he will retire at the next election.

The roots of Government 2.0 have been growing in the public service, however experienced talent is still few and far between and budgets are tight - Gov 2.0 still requires nurturing and support to thrive, particularly if the soil became less accommodating.

This raises a serious question for Government 2.0 advocates and practitioners both inside and outside government. With new political leadership, how deep is the commitment to Gov 2.0 approaches to openness and engagement? Who will drive the momentum at a Federal Ministerial level into the future?

This question is compounded by an impending election which may see the present government change its shape a second time, or potentially be replaced by one of another persuasion.

This will make the next year an interesting one for Gov 2.0 in Australia - we may see it thrive or die back.

What do you expect to happen?

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Six ways government needs to be more like Facebook (to be successful at Gov 2.0)

I was reading an article at Mashable today about What Facebook gets right and it got me thinking.

Facebook, despite its many failings, does some things very well. Things that if governments also did well would help them be successful in the 21st Century.

Consider if Facebook was a country, with 500 million citizens - what lessons could other nations learn?

1. Hold citizen attention
   Facebook is used on average six hours per month by its citizens. This is achieved by providing reasons to give the site attention, such as personalising news and information to be relevant to an individual citizen and providing various ways to get engaged.
   
   This compares to under 30 minutes spent on all government sites each month by individuals, according to my figures from Hitwise.
   
   Consider how much government spends on television and radio trying to get our attention for a few seconds each day. How much could be saved if government spent money on building and operating websites that truly engaged and informed citizens rather than attempting to push out the views of agencies and providing generalised information which cannot be personalised to an individual's needs?
   
   
2. Design for individuals in a scalable way
   Facebook is designed for individuals, with the central component being individual profile pages. These pages contain all the information an individual citizen has shared with Facebook and can be modified to share or not share each piece of information with others.
   
   If governments allowed individual citizens to have all their information pertaining to government aggregated in a single (secure) place online, we'd be moving towards a citizen-centric government.
   
   Individuals could self-managed their information, controlling which agencies could access which pieces. These profiles could also scale to contain as much information as was required (but no more) as government offered new services or benefits.
   
   
3. Connect 'like' groups
   On top of individual profiles, Facebook makes it easy for citizens with similar interests to connect in groups. These allow individuals to discuss news and events, share ideas, research, learn and debate. They engender the best of democracy - forums where each can provide their views as part of a group discussion, moderated based on individual group rules.
   
   Governments around the world are starting to form citizen groups to discuss and debate issues, provide suggestions and submit ideas - however the machinery of government isn't designed to help citizens to form their own groups, it's the government's way or the highway - individuals are left to their own devices.
   
   If governments began creating the environment and providing the tools for individuals to form their own groups - as President Obama's website did through his campaign - this could be a powerful way to spread an understanding of democracy, promote engagement and deliver real results over time.
   
   
4. Monitor behaviour and trends in real-time
   Facebook is constantly studying how its citizens act, group and behave in its site, giving it a continual flow of information on trending interests and issues. This allows the website to identify key topics and address them early, supporting its citizens and preventing some potential issues from blowing up.
   
   This type of ongoing monitoring is also highly important for government. We've seen many calls for government to monitor social media channels to understand community sentiment and keep a finger on the pulse in a way that previously was impossible.
   
   However many governments still rely on traditional gatekeepers - pollsters and lobbyists from interest groups - to provide them with insights. This approach can be prone to distortions, deliberate or otherwise, as few people are able to be truly objective - particularly when they are tasked with pushing specific agendas important to those funding their lobby groups. How representative of the community these groups may be can also be questioned.
   
   
5. Respond quickly to citizen criticism
   Facebook recently came under a lot of criticism for its privacy controls. Did it study the situation carefully for twelve months? Hold a royal inquiry? Label those raising concerns as a small group of lobbyists misleading the public? No.
   
   Through monitoring its citizens Facebook was already aware of and working on the issue. It was in a position to respond quickly to the criticism, rolling out a set of simplified privacy tools which addressed many peoples' concerns.
   
   Government can often be slow to react to criticism - or react by attempting to close it down rather than hear it out. This is partially due to having to study situations first - whereas Facebook's continual research keeps it aware of trending issues.
   
   Governments can also be slow to take action, requiring layers of approval and bureaucracy to be observed before making even simple and commonsense changes. Simplifying these processes and keeping a closer eye on the pulse of the community will help any organisation to reduce the effort required to manage and address issues, saving money, time and reputation into the bargain.
   
    
6. A platform for others to build on
   If you're a Facebook citizen than you'd be aware of the thousands of applications built on top of the service - from games to business applications. These applications rely on Facebook to provide the platform - data, commands and systems. In return they significantly increase the use of Facebook and the value of the information it holds - a win-win-win for Facebook, the application developers and Facebook's citizens.
   
   Government needs to similarly move towards becoming a platform, opening up its data and systems to allow others to develop applications on top.
   
   Imagine opening up government systems to allow an organisation to develop an end to end business registration system which allowed a citizen to register a company, get an ABN, register for state licenses and apply for development grants. The tool would help many people to start their businesses, provide an application developer with revenue and simplify the administrative burden for agencies at the same time. Similarly imagine being able to incorporate geospatial mapping data from multiple states and ABS statistics to allow a business to decide where to place its new offices.
   
   If government is able to make the public-owned data it holds more accessible online and open appropriate doors into key services tremendous value will be created for the entire community.

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Twitter's demise widely over-reported

Late last year the Australian and international media was full of stories about the demise of Twitter.

Articles talked about how the service's growth had slowed - perhaps even reversed - and that there were clear signs that people were tired and looking for the next big thing.

Six months later and Twitter has released some new figures on usage which demonstrate how the service has continued to grow. Reported in Read Write Web, in the post Just the Facts: Statistics from Twitter Chirp last April, Twitter had grown to over 105 million global users, with 300,000 signing up each day.

With 600,000 searches on Twitter daily, the service receives 3 billion requests each day.

The site received roughly 180 million unique visitors each month, with 60% of tweets coming from third-party applications and 37% of Twitter users using their phones to tweet.

Given that Twitter only had around 8 million unique website visitors in March 2009, the figures don't appear to indicate a service in decline.

Now that over 500 Australian journalists and news media people (or follow the Twitter list here) and more than 200 government bodies in Australia and 49 Federal politicians (plus an unknown number of state and local elected representatives) have Twitter accounts, any Agencies who have not yet learnt to tweet are beginning to look very 20th Century.

By the way if your department has Twitter accounts that aren't on my list, please add yourself via a comment or in the Google spreadsheet.

After all what good is a Twitter account that you don't tell anyone about!

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Australia's first political leaders' Twitter debate happening in NSW at 11.15am

According to the Sydney Morning Herald article, Twitter debate for NSW leaders Keneally, O'Farrell and Rhiannon, NSW's political leaders will stage Australia's first political leadership debate via Twitter this morning at 11.15am.

Featuring NSW Premier Kristina Keneally from the Labor party, Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell from the Liberal party and Greens party leader Lee Rhiannon and moderated by Channel 9's Kevin Wilde, the debate will be tagged under the hashtag #penrithdebate.

The leaders will be taking questions from the public using the same hashtag.

Note that you don't need to be a Twitter user to watch the debate, although to ask a question or comment you will need an account.

It will also be possible to simply follow the leaders and moderator via Tallyroom.

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Victoria Police recruit tweeting and YouTubing their Academy training

In a move designed to improve awareness and understanding of the process by which officers are trained (and encourage more quality candidates), Victoria Police is supporting one of its new Academy recruits to tweet their way through training.

Announced in Victoria Police News as The Twittering recruit, Stephanie Attard begun her career as Victoria Police's first recruit tweeter on 7 June this year.

From the article,

Armed with an iPad, 21-year-old Stephanie from Gladstone Park, will ‘tweet’ every day between 7am and 5pm about her time at the Academy.

Stephanie’s Twitter account, http://twitter.com/vicpolrecruit, will be unedited, and all tweets will be straight from Stephanie’s own finger tips.

And it won’t be just the good experiences she will share on her micro-blog - Stephanie will tweet about her good days and her bad.

Stephanie's Twitter account already has over 1,150 followers and she's actively and candidly responding to questions.

Videos of Stephanie's experiences are also being distributed via the VPBlue YouTube channel. Fortnightly videos are planned through the 23 week training process.

This type of approach can be an extremely valuable recruiting tool for any kind of organisation if allowed to be authentic and unscripted (as the Victoria Police effort appear to be).

Victoria Police are now widely using social media tools for community engagement and outreach, including their Twitter account, @VictoriaPolice (with a well constructed Twitter policy here).

They are also very active Facebook participants with both a main Victoria Police Page and a Recruiting forum and hold regular online chats on topics of community interest.

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