Should the government be leading on computing energy-efficiency?

As government increasingly digitalises, one of the hidden costs is the increase in electricity use by government computers and servers.

More computers equals more power use, more cost and, ultimately, more strain on electrical generation across Australia.

So a practical way for the government to prompt energy-efficiency, not only for the government itself but across the country, may be to mandate the electrical use of the computing devices and data centres it is willing to buy.

We've been seeing some companies with a large data footprint looking to reduce their power use per device for a number of years now.

Google has led a massive program to reduce power use across the hundreds of thousands of servers it needs to deliver the most popular website in the world. While search is the company's main business, their main cost is power, so it makes good economic sense, as well as good environmental sense, to minimise the power they need. Google unveiled their work several years ago and releases data quarterly on their data centre performance through its Google Data Centers website.

Facebook, which has begun competing with Google for the top global site position, has now come out and made its data centre design open source, freely available for other organisations to use. As discussed in this article from ZDNet, Facebook open sources its server, data center designs: Hardware fallout to follow, the strategy is designed to reduce costs for Facebook, as well as prompt large hardware manufacturers to focus on improving the energy efficiency of their servers.

More information is available at Facebook's new Building Efficient Data Centers with the Open Compute Project page and at OpenCompute. We're not talking small savings here - Facebook reports a 38% reduction in energy use coupled with a 24% reduction in costs in one data centre.

Imagine if government took a leading position on energy-efficiency for computers and data centres. With over 162,000 staff in the Commonwealth public service and around 5,000 websites, there's massive scope to encourage positive structural change in the computing field.

Like Google and Facebook, government's job is not to design the most cost and energy efficient data centres.

However there's potentially massive cost savings and economy-wide efficiencies if we introduce policies which encourage data centres to continually reduce their energy costs.

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How much would you pay for government transparency?

After a fanfare opening around two years ago, the US government's proposed budget cuts may force data.gov and seven other Gov 2.0 and data sharing websites to close down or dramatically curtail their activities.

When first launched data.gov was the first national website for providing centralised access to government data in reusable formats.

The website was lauded globally for its role in supporting the US government to become more transparent, and allow citizens to analyse and repurpose public data.

However in March the first rumblings appeared. Apparently the site's visitor levels had plateaued, and Congressional budget cuts threatened the ongoing survival of the website as well as a range of others including USASpending.gov, Apps.gov/now, IT Dashboard and paymentaccuracy.gov (as well as a number of internal government sites including Performance.gov and FedSpace) dedicated to making government policies, processes and information more accessible to citizens.

When I first read about the closures in ReadWriteWeb's article, Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut on 31 March, my first thought was that this was a clever April Fools prank designed to wind up open government advocates.

This was followed by the GovFresh post on 1 April, Congress weighs deep cuts to funding for federal open government data platforms and assorted coverage across a range of government IT and news websites.

However over the last week it has become clear that this is a legitimate issue, due to budget cuts the US Congress is proposing.

In response the Sunlight Foundation has launched a campaign to Save the data and a range of influential open government advocates have weighed in, such as Tom Steinberg, the founder of the MySociety charity in the UK who is now working in the UK Cabinet Office to support the UK Government's open data initiatives.

Apparently the collective cost of all the websites is around US$32 million (just over a dollar a year per US citizen) - representing 0.09% of the US budget and only 7.7% of the US government's Freedom of Information Act costs. Some commentators have pointed out that other methods of releasing government data are far more expensive and less inclusive or effective.

With parts of the Government 2.0 program (particularly the IT Dashboard and TechStat process) credited with saving the US Government billions in IT costs, the cuts of US transparency initiatives may cost the US enormously.

The proposed cuts raise several very important questions.

How much are nations - and citizens - prepared to pay for government transparency?
And how much transparency are we prepared to trade off for short-term tax saving?

How should the value of transparency be measured?
By the number of people accessing government data, or by the flow-through impact on harder to measure government cost savings and economic benefits?

How can transparency become embedded in government for the long-term?
Particularly when it may be elements of the political or administrative system who wish to constrain transparency for various legitimate, or otherwise, reasons.


It will be a fascinating, and perhaps deeply troubling, process to see how the US answers these questions - and how Australia answers them as well.

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Ignorance (of social media) is risk

I still encounter a large number of public servants - from a variety of agencies and at a range of government levels (local to federal) - whose experience of social media is limited to Facebook and Twitter - or less.

Most appear to be unaware of the steps the Government has taken to integrate social media into business practices - mentioning the Gov 2.0 Taskforce and Declaration of Open Government provoke blank looks. Few have heard of the many civic tools and government initiatives that have taken place online - and even fewer appear to actually participate.

Some of these people are senior decision makers. Others provide advice and operational leadership in support of senior decision makers.

I find this a very disturbing situation for the public service and government in Australia. To me the largest and most damaging risk facing any activity is ignorance. When you don't know what you don't know there is rich ground for poor decisions, human error and missteps.

The situation provides opportunity for 'snake oil' salespeople - sometimes masquerading as well-paid consultants - to provide dangerous advice and poorly considered ideas about the use of social media which cannot be accurately assessed and considered where staff experience is lacking. These ideas have the potential to seriously damage reputations in the public service, agencies and governments.

Social media has been immensely popular in the community for at least five years and some government departments have supported internal collaboration through forums for at least twenty years.

Surely there has been enough time to expect more active learning by people who seek operational and strategic leadership roles.

There are a plethora of seminars on social media, volumes of information online and excellent case studies of Australian and international best practice.

Understanding where social media fits into the media mix for communication, engagement, collaboration and productivity improvements needs to stop being the preserve of a relatively few specialists and become a core capability, skill and toolset for many public servants.

Perhaps that is what is needed - to make an understanding of the strategic use of social media communications and engagement channels a core part of public service capabilities.

It certainly touches on a range of capabilities we already expect public servants in the Australian Public Service to master in the Integrated Leadership System. For example, at the EL2 level, looking at only the 'Shapes strategic thinking' capability, there are a multitude of ways in which social media enables and extends the ability of a public servant to perform their duties:

• Encourages others to provide input and comment on the strategic direction of the business unit.
  (social media channels may be an effective means for supporting provision of this input)
• Communicates with others regarding the purpose of their work and the relationship between work unit objectives and organisational goals.
  (social media channels may be an effective method of supporting this communication)
• Considers a wide range of issues and their implications for the business unit.
  (to consider any issues presented by social media you must have a good understand of social media channels)
• Identifies critical information gaps and asks a range of questions to uncover valuable information.
  (as a major channel for engagement and communication, public servants without a working understanding of social media have critical information gaps)
• Sources information on best practice approaches adopted in both the public and private sectors.
  (there are many examples available of best practice social media use to address a wide range of business needs in both public and private industry)
• Scans the internal and external environment for new trends and recent developments that are likely to affect own business area.
  (how can you effectively scan the environment today without monitoring social media channels and online peer groups)
• Gathers and investigates information and alternate viewpoints from a variety of sources through formal and informal means; explores new ideas with an open mind.
  (social media leverages the capability to gather and investigate information and viewpoints - both formally and informally. The use of social media in any initiative must be considered with an open mind, based on best practice examples, rather than media spin)
• Draws accurate conclusions and presents logical arguments that address key issues.
  (drawing accurate conclusions and presenting logical arguments involves understanding the underlying material. Public servants need a working understanding of social media in order to do this for initiatives which could be supported by its use)
• Explores various possibilities and generates innovative alternatives.
  (social media is a key tool for exploration and the discovery and support of innovative alternatives)

Whatever system is used in your public service, there will be key ways in which social media knowledge and capability will empower and support staff to perform their roles effectively.

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'Keeping the bastards honest' - government's new role in combatting mainstream media mistakes

Traditionally one of the roles of the 'free press' is to keep governments honest, to shine a light on inappropriate conduct, poor decisions and uncover corruption, falsehoods and backroom deals.

With the advent of social media I've been watching this role slowly twist into new forms and relationships.

One of the more interesting developments has been the take-up of social media by government to correct media mistakes.

Last century, when the 'big three' traditional media were the primary conduit of information to the public, often it was hard for government to challenge incorrect statements in the press. Politicians and agencies had to rely on 'friendly' media to carry the facts, and sometimes their voices were drowned out by commentators repeating a mistaken line.

With the growth of social media channels into highly effective news collection and distribution platforms, there is now a more even playing field.

Traditional media outlets can trumpet their view of the news and facts, just as they have for the last century or so. However government is also able to build and mobilise its own media distribution networks - at low cost and with massive reach.

This has led to a sea-change in the relationship between media and government which is still being worked through by all of the players involved.

Possibly the first strategic use of social media channels to correct media reports was by the US White House's Press Office several years ago. The Press Office naturally began to follow journalists via Twitter, 'listening' to their public messages as they discussed breaking stories, formulating their angles and swapping information.

However the Press Office did more than listen, President Obama's Press Secretary also engaged directly with journalists, correcting mistakes they tweeted and offering new information where warranted and appropriate.

Suddenly the US government was able to respond to news reports before they were reported, influencing and shaping stories through injecting facts and correcting misinterpretations.

Why did they do this? Correcting a journalist's facts before they publish is much more efficient then attempting to correct the facts in the public's eye after a journalist has published. You only need to influence a few people, rather than influence an entire nation.

Note that this approach wasn't effective for closing down legitimate stories (or even illegitimate ones), and the White House's Press Office did not use it in this way. The approach did, however, reduce the number of errors in stories, allowed better media preparation ahead of time (therefore allowing the government to research and provide more complete answers) and it saved public time and money - more efficient for citizens.


However this process only really targeted journalists. After a little longer, government organisations, again led by the US Press Office, began to also use social media to directly address misinformation and myths put about by media outlets.

In Australia this was seen most prominently recently in the Queensland floods, where the Queensland Police Service released a series of 'mythbuster' tweets and Facebook posts to counter misinformation being published in traditional media.

For example:

The same approach is now being undertaken by Sandi Logan, who tweets for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

The same approach is being used widely overseas during crisis or when particular topics are being discussed - or ignored - by the media.


I see this as a lasting change in the balance of power between media and government.

Media still has an important and significant role to report, analyse and dissect the events and issues of the day. It is still critical for investigating matters which organisations or individuals are sometimes reluctant to bring into the public eye.

However government now has a new and even more important role, keeping the media honest - ensuring that citizens are able to access factually accurate information that, sometimes, the media overlooks, gets wrong or even suppresses in order to create a sensational, controversial and, most importantly, commercial story.

Agencies resisting the use of social media channels may be doing themselves, the public and their Ministers, a disservice. By waiting passively for media to contact them, or reacting to media reports rather than proactively listening to journalists and communicating the facts, they may be allowing the level of misinformation in the community to spread unnecessarily.

This makes it harder and more expensive to correct mistaken impressions - particularly in emergencies - and increases the reputational risk for agencies and their Ministers.


Openness and transparency in government fostering accuracy in the media. Who would have thought?

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Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch with Alison Michalk on Community management - 13 April 2011

At the next Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch we're taking a look at a topic rapidly growing in importance for government agencies - managing and moderating online communities.

Quiip Director and Community Manager, Alison Michalk, will provide her insights into online community management, user-generated-content moderation and risk mitigation within the Web 2.0 space.

The presentation will draw on Alison’s experience with a range of private & public sector clients; demonstrating the various roles within community management along with strategies to enhance peer-to-peer dialogue and foster campaign support.

Alison Michalk is a respected practitioner in the online community management field. Based in Sydney, Alison has been working with online communities for over eight years. Her specific areas of interest include community governance and engagement, user behaviour and user-generated content moderation. Her experience building and managing online communities extends from start-ups through to large corporations, where she has managed a team of 30 moderators on Australia’s largest parenting website, Essential Baby (Fairfax Digital).

Alison has been featured in the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Community Management and Communities of Purpose white paper, and is a respected blogger on community management issues. Alison Michalk and Vanessa Paech (Lonely Planet/BBC Community Strategist) co-convene the Australian Community Management Roundtables, founded in 2008.

In mid-2010 Alison launched Quiip, an Australian-based community management and moderation business where she works with private and public sector clients including the Department of FaHCSIA’s youth initiative ‘The Line’.

When is the Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch?
13 April from 11.45 to 2pm.

Where is it being held?
The Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch in April is back at the Members' and Guests Dining room at (new) Parliament House hosted by Minister Gary Gray, Australia's Special Minister of State. Please note the special instructions in the event page.

How to register: Go to the Eventbrite page and request a ticket.

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