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Almost exactly a year ago (on 28 October 2009) I posted a set of four videos from the 'Shift happens' and 'Did you know?' series, mapping the changes in society and growth of the internet through a range of statistics.
It is time to update this - with the latest videos on the same topic - looking at the changes just over the last twelve months.
They're a wake up call. Share them around.
BTW - here's 12 things you need to know about Facebook (Australia) from Hitwise's Alan Long.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Short takes for public sector management Part II | Tweet |
Friday, October 29, 2010
Australia loses top 10 position for national leader tweeters | Tweet |
At least 33 national leaders around the world are now tweeting through official accounts - that's 20% of the world community.
Under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Australia was fourth on a list of the top ten tweeting world leaders, however with the transition to Prime Minister Julia Gillard our position dropped to 14th.
A report from Digital Daya, World Leaders on Twitter: Updated Ranking Report - October 2010 (PDF 698kb), maps out the tweeting behaviour of 33 world leaders. It also makes it clear that tweeting is not only for English speaking democracies - a variety of nation states are represented including Turkey, Chile, Russia, the Philippines, Rwanda and France.
It's an interesting glimpse at how world leaders are bypass traditional media channels, using a direct way of speaking to their people to engage without message distortion.
How can we be knowledge workers without knowledge? | Tweet |
In this post-industrial society many of us are knowledge workers, using information as a key input to create new products, services and ideas.
Particularly in government knowledge is critical. That's why government departments invest a great deal of resources into research, stakeholder engagement and community consultation.
Without a reliable and diverse flow of information government can be crippled. Public servants can become unable to provide the best possible advice, Ministers therefore can't always make the best decisions and departments cannot quickly and cost-effectively track policy impacts and adjust policy delivery over time to address citizen needs.
So what happens if you cut knowledge workers off from important sources of knowledge?
I'd suggest this leads to less considered advice, poorer decisions and therefore worse outcomes. Money is wasted, service recipients get frustrated, citizens end up changing their votes.
In other words, cutting knowledge workers off from important sources of knowledge risks damaging the survival odds of Ministers and the reputation of the public service.
When it comes to online knowledge, government departments are constantly striving to achieve a balance between access to knowledge and minimisation of risks such as hacking, viruses and theft of information.
This isn't an easy balance - and sometimes the approaches to filtering sites can end up with unexpected outcomes.
For example, one of OpenAustralia's founders has just blogged about a department that blocks access to Open Australia - as the outsourced filtering service the department uses mistakenly classifies the website as a 'blog' and the department isn't able to amend the categories (though can make specific exclusions).
There are staff at the department wishing to use the site for legitimate work purposes.
This specific issue (which I am sure the department is rectifying) aside, does it still make sense to block a category such as 'blogs'?
Maybe ten years ago when blogs were new, rare and very, very specialised, they didn't contain much in the way of knowledge that was important for government deliberations.
However this the situation has changed. Blog platforms such as wordpress are now used for websites as well as blog - including by government departments, not-for-profits, businesses, peak bodies, and even political parties.
Also I'd suggest that blogs now come in all shapes and sizes - some are written by teams of experts, others are personal. Many have information and ideas that could help public servants shape their thinking, influence policy deliberations and affect the way services are delivered.
If they can be accessed.
I know that my blog, eGovAU, has been inaccessible to at least two large departments. More importantly, the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's site was inaccessible to at least one department during its consultation phase - I know this because it was brought to the attention of the Taskforce during one of their public meetings.
The APSC is using a blog to consult on Australian Public Servant Values, a blog is driving the APS innovation agenda and AGIMO is making excellent use of their blog for web accessibility, communications and new developments. That's not to mention another 20 or so government blogs I can think of.
Surely just this internal government use of blogs makes it necessary for departments to reconsider the basis for blocking 'blogs' as a category.
And that's not to mention all those stakeholders, individual experts and service recipients whose blogs contain knowledge that may be useful to public servants.
Perhaps there's even a Catch-22 here. If public servants are blocked from accessing potentially useful blogs they can't even assess them for value or build a case for allowing access. The only way they can do this is by taking a personal risk - doing their work at home, outside their corporate network.
So far this has just been about blogs. I've not mentioned forums, social networks and services such as Twitter which can also be extremely rich sources of useful knowledge - so long as they are not blocked.
In the OpenAustralia case, the reason given for blocking 'blogs' was that they posed a security risk to the department's network.
I wonder if this security risk is regularly being weighed against the risk to Departments and Ministers of blocking access to important knowledge.
Do departments need to revisit how they measure security risks and how they protect against them?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The internet isn't a tool for democracy - it's simply a tool | Tweet |
Over the weekend I read an insightful an well written paper by Rebecca McKinnon of Harvard University. Presented at the two day 'Liberation Technology in Authoritarian Regime' conference on 10-11 October, the paper provides some compelling evidence that the internet is not a tool for democracy, it is simply a tool and can be used to support authoritarian regimes just as it can be used to support democratic ones.
Named Networked Authoritarianism in China and Beyond: Implications for global Internet freedom, and sponsored the Hoover Institution & the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), Stanford University, the paper discusses the use of the internet by China. While external sources of political news and influence may be blocked, the Chinese government is making extensive use of the internet internally to empower citizens in support of the present regime - using legal means and extensive censorship controls to channel online discussions into politically acceptable thread.
It discusses the rise of 'networked authoritarianism' - where an authoritarian regime embraces and adjusts to the changes brought by digital communications technologies and co-opts the medium. Permitting citizens the illusion of freedom of speech, the ability to discuss social ills and influence some government policies, while retaining strict control over political expression.
I think it is important to bear in mind that by itself the internet will not necessarily lead to greater transparency, openness and democratic governance. It requires the efforts of individuals and organisations to unleash its potential.
To quote two of Rebecca's conclusions:
The business and regulatory environment for telecommunications and Internet services must become a new and important focus of human rights activism and policy. Free and democratic political discourse requires Internet and telecommunications regulation and policymaking that is transparent, accountable, and open to reform both through the courts and the political system. Without such baseline conditions, opposition, dissent, and reform movements will face an increasingly uphill battle against increasingly innovative forms of censorship and surveillance, assisted by companies that operate and shape activists’ digital environment.
Finally citizens and policymakers of democratic nations must not forget that global Internet freedom begins at home. One of the most urgent tasks of the world’s democracies is to develop best practices for openness, accountability, rule of law, and transparent governance of their own digital networks. That is the best possible long-term weapon against the spread of networked authoritarianism. It is also essential in order to ensure the long-term health of the world’s existing democracies.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
APSC consulting on improving Australian Public Service values via public blog | Tweet |
The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) has just launched a blog-based consultation on the Australian Public Service (APS) values. It will be open until 12 November for comments.
This is the second stage of the consultation, the first stage used a custom online engagement system.
If you'd like to contribute to the consultation - or simply look at how they're using the blog, go to Our Values.
The APSC has also revamped their Senior Executive Service site with a 'live update' - essentially a blog but without comments.
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