46 countries commit to the international Open Government Partnership

The Open Government Partnership is "a global effort to make governments better", led by Brazil and the USA.

The concept was announced a few months ago and countries have been rapidly signing up to the commitments required to demonstrate their willingness to take action to improve transparency and accountability in government.

As their website states,

Participating countries in the Open Government Partnership pledge to deliver country action plans that elaborate concrete commitments on open government. In each country, these commitments are developed through a multi-stakeholder process, with the active engagement of citizens and civil society.

The launch of the Partnership occurred a few days ago, on 20 September in New York. 46 countries signed up (about 24 percent of all countries), including about half of the G20, a number of Asia-Pacific nations and a number of European states.

Here's a list of the launch members:

Steering committee

• Brazil (G20)
• Indonesia (G20)
• Mexico (G20)
• Norway
• Philippines
• South Africa (G20)
• United Kingdom (G20)
• United States (G20)

Participants

• Albania
• Azerbaijan
• Bulgaria
• Canada (G20)
• Chile
• Colombia
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Georgia
• Ghana
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Israel
• Italy (G20)
• Jordan
• Kenya
• Korea (G20)
• Latvia
• Liberia
• Lithuania
• Macedonia
• Malta
• Moldova
• Mongolia
• Montenegro
• Netherlands
• Peru
• Romania
• Slovak Republic
• Spain
• Sweden
• Tanzania
• Ukraine
• Uruguay

Read full post...

View summary...

What are the top things we can do to improve government websites?

The US has launched an interesting discussion asking citizens how they think the Federal government can improve government websites.

Run using Ideascale, an online idea management system, the National Dialogue on improving Federal websites is running for two weeks and involves both ideas submission and voting as well as live online discussions(or dialogue-a-thons) on specific website related topics.

I'd love to see this type of initiative organised in Australia, however in the interim it is worth looking at the ideas raised in the US, beginning with the use of Plain language on government websites, Creating content around topics/customers - not agencies, make usability testing and 508 testing (accessibility) required PRIOR to launch, Make Government Website Mobile Accessible and Commit to best practices (using modern web techniques).

If Australian government agencies applied these five top ideas to their own web development (or even applied standards from some of the excellent web links and comments for several of the ideas) we could see a very different level of engagement, potential cut the number of phone calls and ministerials, address hidden issues with incomplete forms and avoid agency embarrassment (when organisations publicly identify government websites that fail basic accessibility or mobile access requirements).

Of course this requires adequately funding and resourcing web teams to carry out these tasks - however this can be offset through mandating external developers to meet government's basic accessibility and content requirements and through using low-cost modern content management frameworks which support significantly greater functionality and require less customisation than the old backroom systems still in place at many agencies.

Even more valuable would be for the Australian government to similarly ask citizens what they thought should be improved about government sites.

I do wonder why Australia appears more fearful or risk-averse to asking citizens these types of questions and building an evidence base on which it can then assess actions. Or maybe it isn't risk-aversion and is simply due to cost (though the service the US uses costs only US$999 per year - and there's even a free version) or due to lack of resources or even interest.

However if the US government, where the political process is on the nose, unemployment is high, the economy is distressed and web budgets are in decline, can ask this question, surely Australia is in a much better position to do so.

To go a little further, to offset the perceptual risk that citizens may expect government agencies to act on specific improvement requests, the consultation could be shaped as an information gathering exercise, where the outcomes will be made available to various agencies to act or not act as they can within their budgets and resourcing.

Or maybe individual agencies can ask the question as part of their website surveys (if they hold them - as I've done regularly in past positions) and share this information across the APS.

What do you think?

Read full post...

View summary...

Toughen up - we need online anonymity

Rather than posting in my blog today, I am breaking one of the rules of blogging (always pull people back to your own blog) by pointing people to an opinion piece in Mumbrella that I wrote recently after reading a couple of other opinion pieces attacking the basis for allowing anonymous commentary online.

Toughen up - we need online anonymity

Please comment in Mumbrella (anonymously if you prefer) to continue the discussion.

Note that I wasn't paid for my opinion :)

Read full post...

View summary...

Twitter tactics - demystifying Twitter

Earlier tonight I gave a presentation at Parliament House about the workings and uses for Twitter in government.

I've shared the presentation below.

Demystifying Twitter

Read full post...

View summary...

Emergency brings out ESA on Twitter in Canberra - too late?

This morning, like many Canberra residents, I awoke to the news of the Mitchell fire.

Like most in the digital age (who weren't close enough to hear explosions), I learnt about it by reading news online, and hopped straight on Twitter to find the latest updates.

I was very glad (and surprised) to find that the ACT Government's Emergency Services Department had a twitter account. They had been providing official advice for the last half an hour from @ACT_ESA. I've added it to my list of government twitter accounts (yes I was unaware of it before).

I was not happy to see that while they'd been on Twitter since May, they'd not told anyone about the account and had only tweeted twice previously, saying 'coming soon' on both occasions.

Their Twitter was not listed or referenced on their website or on any official ACT government emergency documentation. It was not listed on act.gov.au, canberraconnect.act.gov.au or referenced in any of the official emergency announcements from the ACT government as a source of current information.

The account only had 156 followers (around 7am this morning) as a result - actually surprisingly high considering!

Tweets were not being coordinated with the information on the ESA website to direct people to the latest (prose) news. It only takes 10 seconds to tweet: "New update on our website at www.esa.act.gov.au #canberra #emergency #act"

On the plus side they have taken a leaf out of the work done by QLD Police Media, by starting to tweet mythbusters and use hashtags, such as: Myth buster - there is no report that the fire close to gas tanks #Mitchell

They are also now responding directly to people spreading incorrect information.

UPDATE 7.34am: @ACT_ESA have increased their following from 156 to 583 followers in the last 30 minutes (while I wrote this post).

UPDATE 7:47am: @ACT_ESA now at 769 followers. Still not mentioned in any official websites.

UPDATE 8:04am: @ACT_ESA now at 859 followers.

UPDATE 8:28am: @ACT_ESA now at 966 followers.

UPDATE 8:57am: @ACT_ESA now at 1,049 followers.

UPDATE 9:44am: @ACT_ESA now at 1,135 followers.

UPDATE 8:32pm: @ACT_ESA now at 1,401 followers

This is serious business. If governments across Australia are serious about supporting citizens in crisis, they need to get serious about social media.

They needs to integrate social media into their emergency planning, build channels online and tell people where to find them when they are needed.

They need to coordinate these channels effectively, managing them as they manage other emergency channels (though maybe not like the SMS channel, where the ABC reported that spelling mistakes in the text message had made some people wrongly believe it was a hoax - UPDATE: Image of the message here and at right).

A public service that no-one knows about is worthless. An emergency service that is not in place and trialled before the emergency is not as useful as one that is pre-prepared.

Governments also need to learn how to use these channels effectively. In this case (EDIT: at 7:00am) the account has not yet used a hashtag (even the standard ones for the ACT, #Canberra and #ACT). It had tweeted 'at' others, but not retweeted others.

It is not as though Twitter is new - it has been around for five years. Isn't that ample time for a government agency to learn the basics of how to use a tool to the benefit of citizens?

More news on the fire is available here.

Please heed messages from the emergency services and police, stay aware of the bus and school closures and don't go sightseeing. The most recent information is being published on ESA's website (though not being retweeted by their account at this time).

On Twitter, @ACT_ESA, ACTPol_Traffic, CanberraTimes and 666Canberra are worth following.

Read full post...

View summary...