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The US government recently launched Challenge.gov, a site allowing US agencies to manage and promote challenges, prizes and competitions where the community is asked to help solve a wide range of public governance issues - all in one central location.
The challenge concept is a simple one. By tapping into the wisdom of crowds governments and other organisations are able to provide better and more cost-effective solutions to problems, large or small.
It's hard to see the downside of this approach. Government pays a small amount to incentivise participation in the challenge (a prize). If none of the challenge entries provide a better solution, or are not approaches that a government cannot adopt, the time and money cost is negligible. If a better solution - or multiple better solutions - are entered, then government has made a significant gain at little cost.
The US has taken this a step further by embedding the challenge 'DNA' into a low cost technique available to public servants with the support of the political arm of US government.
Already there are over 40 challenges on the site, with many, many more to come.
Friday, September 17, 2010
US launches Challenge.gov | Tweet |
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Are social media professionals unfairly constrained by organisations? | Tweet |
When organisations hire accountants they are allowed to use specialist financial software to do their jobs.
When organisations hire customer service representatives they are given training and scripts and are then allowed to speak to customers on the phone - monitored for performance reasons but free to communicate in appropriate ways without approval of every word.
When organisations hire graphic designers, project managers, multimedia producers and programmers they are given access to appropriate software and computer systems.
So why is it that, when hiring social media professionals, organisations don't give them access to their 'tools of the trade'?
In many organisations it is not possible to access social media channels - such as Facebook or Twitter - due to old-style internal IT access policies. Tools to monitor social media channels are also often blocked, making it difficult to track what customers and clients are saying about an organisation, identify opportunities or head-off potential issues.
In many cases organisations scrutinise all social media interactions at senior levels (down to 140 character tweets). These approval processes can add significant time and effort to online responses, making it difficult to interact at the pace required for social media. Imagine if telephone conversations or live conference presentations were treated the same way.
Also often those employed to implement social media systems and manage these channels are not provided with training and support - certainly not to the level of a phone customer service representative - despite being in the position of interacting with the public every day.
Even when organisations are serious about adopting social media, their policies, processes and procedures may not be designed to allow social media to work for them. This can lead to mixed messages (as when customers are invited to fan an organisation's Facebook page - which staff are not allowed to access during work hours). This can even lead to social media engagement becoming a liability, where its use is so constrained that it casts the organisation in a worse light.
These issues are occurring in private as well as public sectors organisations - perhaps some corporations have not realised that restricting access to social media can seriously damage your business.
Progress is also very uneven and often driven by senior personalities. Organisations and agencies with clear Gov 2.0 Action Plans are driving ahead, whereas others are still considering whether twitter is a legitimate business communications channel - either from a lack of knowledge, lack of leadership or lack of interest.
How can social media professionals ensure that our organisations give us access to the tools we need to support the goals of our organisations?
How do we break down the barriers to using social media when we cannot demonstrate successes due to these same barriers?
How do we convince senior management that social media professionals are skilled and trustworthy employees who should be treated with the same respect as other trained professionals?
And how do social media professionals juggle the need to be educators, innovators, strategists, change managers, implementers, communications specialists and leaders at the same time?
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
NSW launches live traffic monitoring online | Tweet |
The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) has launched RTA Live. This new website provides live updates on road conditions across NSW, including road work, fires, floods, accidents as well as feeds from 67 traffic cameras across Sydney.
There's also a widget embeddable on blogs and websites to provide traffic information.
Displaying the data on Google Maps, the site is an excellent example of the use of Web 2.0 technologies in a government context.
My only suggestion for the site would be to include data for Canberra to fill the annoying ACT-sized hole in the map.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Business.gov.au launches social media section and iPhone app | Tweet |
Business.gov.au has introduced a social media section to its website.
While this type of approach has become quite widespread overseas, providing a central hub to access all of an agency's social media engagement tools, business.gov.au is one of the first Australian government websites to provide this type of hub.
At the same time business.gov.au has released its first iPhone application. Aimed primarily at business people, the app allows someone to look up ABNs and a variety of information about business from the website.
I've personally found the application a very convenient tool for looking up ABNs while on the go, being much faster and easier than using a website to do it.
What does it cost to build and run a government website? | Tweet |
The Guardian reported in July that the UK government has released details on the costs of developing, staffing and hosting their major government websites.
The data includes web traffic, accessibility and user opinions on the websites.
This type of data is very useful when modeling the costs of developing and operating government sites, allowing agencies to more accurately forecast costs and staffing needs. It allows agencies to compare their web operations with other agencies, providing a view on who is most - and least - efficient.
The approach also allows hard-working, poorly resourced and funded web teams to more effectively argue for a greater share of the agency pie.
I would love to have such data available here in Austraia - down to being able to derive a total cost per visit (which for UK sites ranges from 1 pence up to 9.78 pounds - see the Google spreadsheet below). It would significantly assist web teams and agencies in their planning and activities.
The UK website data can be downloaded here.
Or see the data visualised (using IBM ManyEyes) and a Google spreadsheed of the costs below.
