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I'm off to London for a few weeks on Tuesday and will be catching up and speaking with some Gov 2.0 people there to find out what's happening in the UK.
if you have any suggestions on contacts I should catch up with, please drop me a Tweet or email.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Catching up in London... | Tweet |
Social media and the federal election | Tweet |
While the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the major political parties are "Parties miss the mark in Twittersphere", the current Federal election is likely to see social media used in more diverse and effective ways than ever before in Australia.
Why and how?
Here's some samples.
Statistics
- Australians aged 18+ in 2009: 16,812,886 (ABS)
- Australians aged 18+ who use the internet: 14,122,824 (ABS/Nielsen)
- Australians enrolled to vote: 13,869,021 (Australian Electoral Commission via ABC Campaign Pulse)
- Australians using Facebook: 9,300,240 (Facebook via ABC Campaign Pulse)
- Australians using MySpace: 1,400,000 (Nielsen via SMH)
- Australians using Twitter: 1,150,000 (Nielsen via ABC Campaign Pulse)
- Australian internet users spent 17.6 hours per week using the internet, but only 13.4 hours watching TV, 9.3 hours listening to radio and 3.4 hours reading newspapers. (Nielsen)
- Almost 50% of Australian internet users watch TV and use the internet at the same time. (Nielsen)
Sites
And here's a few of the sites supporting Australians through the election:
- Election Leaflets
Photograph and map electoral leaflets distributed across Australia
- Twit worm
An online worm using Twitter to measure sentiment, used in the leaders debate
- Twitter trends
A custom version of Trendsmap created by the ABC for the election to track mentions of electoral issues
- Twitter #ausvotes
The primary Twitter hashtag being used to discuss the election
- Australia 2
Site for people to share and vote for their top priorities for Australia
If you know of other websites and social media tools created for the election, please let me know.
Friday, July 23, 2010
View 100 Australian Governments' twitter feeds in one page | Tweet |
It's all well and good to say there's over 200 Twitter feeds from Australian federal, state and local governments - but to get a picture of the level of activity, and see what they're saying, look at eGovAU's Twitter feed here (note that it is a free service and occasionally down for maintenance).
This page displays 100 of the accounts based on those with most recent tweets, a useful way to view the most current tweets.
You can also follow the Australian-gov tweets list to view them.
Engaging with and trusting citizens to participate in the democratic process leads to great rewards for the state | Tweet |
The title of this post reflects the key statement that stood out for me in the London.gov.uk blog's post Economic benefits of data release
This article puts some solid numbers behind the value of open data initiatives in government, from the US's Apps for Democracy mash-up competition (50 entries in 30 days, valued at $2.5m for a $50,000 prize outlay) to Canada's exposure of a $3.2 billion tax evasion fraud when public financial data was released in machine-readable form.
We've already had several examples of open government initiatives in Australia. Both the ABS and Geosciences Australia release significant amounts of data under Creative Commons licenses, and a number of state agencies do the same. We've also had three mash-up competitions, the first by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce last year, the others through the NSW and Victorian governments.
I've not yet seen any modeling of the value of these Australian public data releases, which is a shame as I'm sure they would demonstrate value for money, however the international experience is quite clear,
Actively engaging citizens and empowering them through machine-readable data adds value to government processes and initiatives.
Now how do we share that message clearly with senior decision-makers?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Contribute to the draft Unofficial Australian Government Social Media Handbook | Tweet |
Lisa Howdin, who now works with me, has been compiling a set of guidelines and information around how to develop, write, manage and moderate social media tools in Government in the form of a wiki.
She's looking for contributions from people across Australian government who are working in this area and have learnings they can add.
If you've had experience operating a government social media channel, please consider sharing your ideas in this wiki so all of your peers across government can benefit.
If you're new to the area, the Handbook, whilst still in development, already has lots of useful information that might be useful to you.
Visit the Unofficial Australian Government Social Media Handbook at: http://government20bestpractices.pbworks.com/Unofficial-Aus-Govt-Social-Media-Handbook
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