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THe Australian Labor Party has just launched a social media community designed to provide ways for party members and the community to interact and provide ideas to the ALP hierarchy.
Launched by Karl Bitar in a blog post, Australian Labor's New Community Space, the system includes a 'ThinkTank' for discussion and voting on issues and 'LaborConnect' a system to support grassroots networking and community formation.
The Liberals also have integrated social media into their website with My Liberals, which supports the expression and support of ideas.
The Greens don't have a similar social networking space on their site as yet, however I expect that it is only a matter of time.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
ALP launches social media community in their website | Tweet |
Keep an eye on the Gruen sessions | Tweet |
If you're interested in advertising and maybe even watch the Gruen Transfer, don't forget to keep an eye on their web-only content, particularly the Gruen Sessions.
The latest session discusses Tourism Queensland's "Best job in the world" campaign, one of the best examples of how to use social media to generate interest and consumer choice (next to Old Spice).
What's been the impact of Victoria and NSW's Gov 2.0 Apps competitions? | Tweet |
On 21 June Victoria announced the winners of its App My State competition, with prizes being given out by the Premier. A list of the winners and a video of the presentation is here.
A few days later on 24 June NSW announced the winners of the Apps4NSW competition, with their own video.
Most competitions end when the prizes are awarded. The top entries get some kudos, while everyone else goes home empty-handed, their entries forgotten.
However in an Apps competition, such as NSW and Victoria's events, the award ceremony is only the beginning.
Between these two competitions there's been about 300 Apps and ideas generated that use government data to assist citizens. The cost of developing and capturing them has been around $200,000 in prize money.
Assuming that on average these Apps and ideas could cost $20,000 each for a government to develop, the total value of these competitions has been around $6 million dollars - a direct return of 30x the prize money invested.
These Apps and ideas are now publicly accessible. This means that any other government, organisation or individual can review them and use them to stimulate further innovation, leveraging their value beyond the original competition. Some of the best Apps and ideas may be extended beyond their home states, or replicated elsewhere in the world - generating further public value.
At the same time around 500 state government datasets have been released to the public in a reusable format. This data represents millions of dollars of investment by taxpayers which is now accessible to and usable by them. Now the approach to opening data has been trialed we are likely to see more public data released into the public domain.
On top of the Apps and the data, NSW and Victoria have demonstrated that there is public interest in these types of competition, making it more likely that other jurisdictions will consider holding their own similar events.
Also this event has helped support and demystify the cultural changes required by public services to be more collaborative, transparent and innovative. The value of this to citizens is incalculable.
So what's been the major impact of these competitions?
They have helped wedge open a door to government openness and transparency that, over time, will open wider - allowing more light in, and more value out.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The six villains of Gov 2.0 | Tweet |
This post by Steve Radick was brought to my attention by Steve Davies of OzLoop.
I thought it was worth flagging here and noting that these are not simply Gov 2.0 villains, but are the opponents of innovators and change-leaders in every organisation.
The six villains of Gov 2.0.
How many of these villains have you encountered - and what are the superpowers that can be used to defeat them?
Friday, July 09, 2010
Making Public Sector data happen - just do it | Tweet |
A concern I often hear raised in the public sector is that they can't release public data yet because it may not be 100% perfectly accurate, or it needs to be accessible to 100% of the population, or it needs approvals from all the involved areas first.
The UK has taken a clear step to solving all of these issues in one fell swoop.
It has mandated that all 434 local councils in the country release details of all of their financial transactions over 500 pounds publicly, in machine-readable format and it is OK if they don't get it 100% correct the first time (data can be updated later).
The Guardian's article, Local government data: how to make it really open details how pressure from Downing Street - directly from the UK Prime Minister - is shortly going to result in a flood of public sector data from councils.
This is an excellent approach to opening the floodgates. Once they are open, and data starts streaming out, councils and agencies will work hard to ensure that the data released is as accurate and timely as possible.
Where data isn't completely accurate, as has been the experience of agencies in Australia releasing geospatial datasets, there's a plethora of organisations and individuals happy to point out inaccuracies which can then be corrected - improving the overall data quality and improving government's capability to make good decisions.
So will we see an Open Data Declaration in Australia from our Prime Minister, which mandates that government agencies and councils just get their data out there?
While Australia has a Westminister system, there are major differences between our system and that of the UK government.
Within our Federation, with States and Territories holding many of the powers, this type of cross-government declaration can't simply come from Canberra, it requires the support of the States.
That can make it much harder for Australia to rapidly and holistically move in the same direction (as the UK is doing). In certain regards we are more like the US where a patchwork of states are moving in roughly the same open data direction, at different speeds and with different levels of expertise and resourcing.
Perhaps this video explains the process best.
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