Why should governments be open and transparent in their budgets

I'm speaking at the eGovernment Summit today on how Australia is performing in the open government stakes, and what are the benefits of openness to government.

As a reference I reviewed the 2012 Open Budget Survey (infographic right), released in January this year, which provides valuable insights into why openness in budgeting is important and which nations are doing well.

The Survey points out openness is important in overcoming public sector corruption, helps government manage debt, helps build foreign investment and trade, provides access to cheaper capital for infrastructure and assists in building trust with citizens.

The 2012 Survey found that the world has a long way to go towards government openness, at least in budgetary terms. It found that the national budgets of 77 of the 100 countries assessed, countries that are home to half the world’s population, failed to meet basic standards of budget transparency. Only one nation, South Korea, was considered strong.

Australia was not assessed in this Open Budget Survey and, based on other measures, already does reasonably well in making our Commonwealth and State budgets open to citizen understanding and scrutiny.

However the question we should always ask is how can we do better?

Read full post...

View summary...

VicHealth Seed Challenge and the history and potential for government challenges

VicHealth has just announced the start of the VicHealth Seed Challenge, where the agency is asking people from across the nutrition sector, fruit and vegetable industries, researchers, social innovators/entrepreneurs and the digital world to collaborate and seek solutions to the wicked problem:

"How do we improve fruit and vegetable supply and access, as well as develop and promote a culture of healthy eating in Victoria?"

The challenge takes the format of a competition, where VicHealth, with support from The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, will initially select and fund the most promising ideas with a one-off investment to further refine and develop a business case.

From here, the two most promising ideas that demonstrate a fresh way of thinking will be selected to receive ongoing mentoring, coaching, business development and financial support of up to $100,000.

For more information about the VicHealth Seed Challenge, and upcoming information sessions on 1 May, visit its website: http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/seedchallenge

This type of challenge isn't new or unique in government - although it certainly qualifies as innovative in the way it involves the community in the process of addressing difficult, or wicked, problems and in how digital channels are being integrated into the challenge process.

In fact the first significant government challenge I am aware of began nearly 300 years ago in 1714, with the offer of the Longitude Prize by the British parliament.

This challenge offered a significant cash prize for the inventor who could come up with an accurate way to measure longitude at sea.

This had become a vital technology for an island nation reliant on its navy for protection and its merchant fleet to allow economic growth and to feed a fast growing population. At the time existing technology was not able to retain its accuracy with the rolling movement of ships.

The prizes ranged from £10,000 to £20,000 depending on accuracy - equivalent to several million dollars today.

The Longitude Prize created a whirlwind of innovation across the nation, with many people working to win the prize and the glory - however with the slow speed of technological advancement, the prize was not awarded until 1761 - 47 years later.

The winner of the prize, Yorkshire carpenter John Harrison, submitted his first project in 1730 and a second in 1735, however when trialled in 1741 neither model was able to compensate for centrifugal force, although they did compensate for gravity and ship motion.

His third attempt in 1759 introduced several major innovations such as caged ball bearings (still used today), however still proved inaccurate, but his fourth attempt in 1761, which resembled a pocketwatch, was successful and was awarded the £20,000 top prize.

In the three hundred years since the Longitude Prize, many governments have used challenges and prizes to encourage public participation in the progress of science, the development of physical structures and the solution of difficult social and economic problems.

Notable examples in Australia include the 1912 competition to design an 'Ideal City' as the capital of the country, leading to the selection of Walter Burleigh-Griffin's design for Canberra and the 1956 competition for the construction of a national opera house at Bennelong Point in Sydney, which led to the construction of the Sydney Opera House.

Jumping forward a few years, we've seen the arrival of the internet vastly increase the potential reach and flexibility of challenges for government, while significantly reducing the timeframes required to enter or the cost of running these challenges.

In the US the Federal Government has had a central online challenge platform in place for several years (challenge.gov), which has seen dozens of agencies hold close to 200 competitions.

In Australia the process has been far more piecemeal and conservative, with straight competitions (such as the photo competition I ran at the Department of Regional Australia, attracting well over 2,000 entries) being the norm - designed to engage citizens, rather than to source ideas or solutions from them.

We have seen some challenges recently tied to the open data movement - beginning with a broad MashUpAustralia challenge held by the Gov 2.0 taskforce in 2009 and more directed and specific open data challenges held most recently by the NSW government in the transport and health areas.

While digital is now the preferred channel for holding these challenges, due to the speed of engagement and low cost, it is a mistake to solely link challenges to open data, or to focus them purely on programming skills.

As the US has demonstrated via Challenge.gov, there are a vast array of issues where government-run challenges can add value in finding solutions, improving communication or developing new or better services - open data challenges have their place, but are only one subset of what is possible.

The VicHealth Seed Challenge is an example of one of the possibilities for government challenges in the digital age - where the challenge isn't about data, but about solving a known wicked problem, using all the tools available today - digital and otherwise.

I hope other governments pay attention to this great work by VicHealth and consider the history and potential of challenges beyond the small open data subset.

Government challenges can be a cost-effective way to solve wicked social, transport, economic and health problems - every agency and council should consider them, where relevant, within policy and service deliberations.

Read full post...

View summary...

Presentations from Social Media conference and #socadl

Earlier this week I gave presentations at Canberra and Adelaide social media conferences from Akolade and at #Socadl - the regular meetup for South Australian social media enthusiasts.

I've included my two presentations below, and they're also available in my Slideshare page.

Privacy and social media for Australian governments from Craig Thomler

Government 2.0 - #socadl from Craig Thomler

Read full post...

View summary...

What competing Australian broadband policies really tell us about how Australian politics and government are changing

Yesterday the Liberal-National Coalition released its broadband policy for Australia, in front of a high-tech set at Sky News, in contrast to the Labor Government's NBN plan and current rollout.

I'm not going to go into the politics of this announcement, nor the potential economic and social impacts of the differences between the policies in the short and long-term for Australia.

Instead I'd like to focus on what, for me, is the real story. Technology has, for the first time, become a leading consideration in Australian federal politics.

Looking over the last fifty years, topics such as industrial relations, jobs, families, resources, taxes and the environment have all been prominent areas for political debate. 

All have had their time in the sun as major electoral issues, while technology issues have largely remained off the main political radar, a minor concern dealt with by individual representatives or Ministers but not capturing the attention of Prime Ministers or entire governments.

Even the internet filtering proposal put forward by the Labor party in 2007 was released quietly only a week before the election, extensively tweaked and adjusted (with at least seven versions over three years) and finally abandoned with some face-saving - yes it became more public than previous technology-related topics and an election issue, but only a minor one, largely dealt with by the responsible Minister rather than a Prime Minister and entire government.

With the NBN and Coalition broadband policy we have seen a very different approach, with technology becoming a major and central electoral issue for the first time. The NBN is a leading topic for the Prime Minister and all of her Ministers, while the Coalition has taken the step to publicly release their rival policy a long way before the election, demonstrating the importance they place on countering the government's position.

This is unprecedented for what could be considered a technology issue and reflects the growing importance placed on internet access and use by Australian communities, businesses and government itself.

So what does this mean for the future?

The importance placed on broadband, whatever the outcome of the next election, means that politicians and their advisors are having to learn more to talk on technology topics, to discuss areas like broadband, ehealth, elearning, video conferencing and digital content.

Politicians who saw the internet as simply additional channels for communicating messages to electorates are now required to come face-to-face with how their electorates are using these channel and wish to use them in engaging with governments.

This flows to politicians having to learn more about the opportunities for governments to use digital channels to become more efficient, cutting costs, improving communication and engagement and becoming more open, transparent and collaborative.

In fact it is unlikely we'll see many new politicians enter parliament who don't have some awareness, appreciation and understanding of the value and importance of technology to Australia.

For a long time people working in and around the technology industry have deplored the low attention played to technology in politics and, besides a few leading lights, the lack of understanding of the potential ability for digital technology to drive Australia's economy and improve our governance.

I think this time is now coming to an end. 

With politicians more aware and engaged with technology issues, due to their higher awareness in the public eye, the implications are that all political parties at all levels of government will need to pay more attention to the impact of technology on society and on government.

They'll need to begin to think more deeply and holistically about how to leverage technology to improve their communities and their government agencies.

The notion of Government 2.0, or whatever political parties choose to call it, will become a more important part of their policy platform and there will be more focus - and funding - for how agencies go about using digital channels to improve government policy development and operations.

We're at the end of the beginning for Government 2.0, and at the beginning of an appreciation and understanding that Government 2.0 is simply Government.

Read full post...

View summary...

Web and social media reporting can help Communication get a seat at the decision-makers' table

Yesterday morning I attended the first OPC IT WebEx event for the year, where we heard from three great speakers on intranet development, accessibility and the changing face of the media in Australia.

One particular statement that stuck in my mind was from David Pembroke, CEO of Content Group, who said that it was important for communications people to bring numbers to the table to gain a seat alongside other decision-makers, such as CFOs and CIOs who already have numbers in hand to support their positions.

While most agencies now track the traffic to their website and report raw numbers of followers, comments and mentions on their social channels, I believe there's still a way to go before these numbers are provided in the right way to the right people at the right time to help Communications areas - and particularly Online Communications - have the impact and the influence it deserves.

This has been brought home to me by Slideshare, which recently began sending me reports on the number of views and interactions on the various presentations I've uploaded to the service over the years.

Simply being able to see these basic stats has made me take more notice of the material I'm putting on Slideshare and whether or not it has a wider audience that I should consider when developing my slides.

I'm even considering paying money for an account to get more detailed statistics that will help me finetune material to better match what audiences want.

When working in Government I did place a considerable amount of effort into providing web statistics back to the areas responsible for specific content. I believe this type of reporting is critical to help policy and program areas receive regular and actionable feedback on what they are putting online to help inform their customers, clients, stakeholders and other audiences.

In fact, without web reporting many of these areas only receive ad hoc and irregular feedback on the content they are producing - an annual survey, or some Ministerial Correspondence. This makes it harder for them to understand whether their content is targeted correctly and also means they place much lower emphasis on what they are communicating online - what isn't measured isn't managed or valued.

Now with social media in the picture, web reporting needs to jump to a higher level of competency. While agencies might have made some steps to ensure that various areas of their business are receiving reports on the content they are providing through websites, the new frontier is to provide them with actionable information on what people are saying about their programs and policies across the broader web.

This helps areas within agencies not only assess how people are responding to the information they do provide online, but also gives them some understanding of what questions and issues are being discussed due to the lack of content.

In other words, web reporting helps tell agencies the quality and effectiveness of their own website content. Social media reporting helps tell agencies about the community's content needs beyond existing content.

The benefits to agencies of this social media monitoring are immense, not only can we capture known unknowns, but also the unknown unknowns - intelligence that could shape the entire way a program or campaign is designed and communicated.

It is also very important to differentiate social media monitoring from media monitoring - something that is getting harder to do as media monitoring companies move to bundle social within their media offerings.

Media monitoring tracks what commentators say about an agency and its activities when posturing to a broad audience.

Social media monitoring tracks what your customers and stakeholders are saying about an agency and its activities to each other.

In other words social media monitoring can provides a granular and specific view on what your actual customers think and understand about specific programs and how they interact with them in the real world, while media monitoring only provides a shallow reputational view on what people are saying for an audience - which may simply be an act.

So while there is a clear incentive for Online and Communication teams to roll social media monitoring in as an extension to (traditional) media monitoring, it can be dangerous to consider the intelligence received through both avenues in the same light.

As agencies get better at both web reporting and social media monitoring, and develop standardised ways to communicate actionable insights to the right people, at the right time, we're likely to see more ability for the groups providing these insights to have meaningful influence on agency decisions. This is right and proper - better information leads to better decisions and outcomes.

However it is up to Communication and Online teams and their leadership to recognise how web and social monitoring can advance their ability to positively influence decisions and take the lead on providing insights, otherwise they will find themselves on the margins as more traditional numbers-orientated disciplines take over the responsibility for these activities.

Read full post...

View summary...