Posts
This is a little different from other posts I've shared over the years - but shares a core thread with my thinking: we need digital expertise at senior levels across government, corporate and not-for-profit sectors if we want to see Australia thrive in the digital age.
I'm standing for election to the Board of the National Health Co-op (www.nhc.coop) - one of Canberra's most significant health practices.
And I'd appreciate if you could share this as relevant.
I've nominated based on my exposure to the Health sector working for the Department of Health and consulting to the Digital Health Agency, my startup, business management and past experience as a Director and, most importantly, my digital experience - which would add a new dimension to the board as the Co-op increasingly adopts digital when delivering of health services to ACT residents.
If you or your family are members of the Co-op, I'd appreciate your vote. If you know others who are members, please share this with them, I'd appreciate their votes as well!
To vote you must attend the AGM on 26 November.
Co-op members will have received an email with details of nominees to the Board, their statements and how to vote.
I've linked to my nomination statement for your consideration (and my LinkedIn post) and will post closer to the date as a reminder.
Thanks in advance!
LinkedIn post & nomination statement
Tuesday, November 03, 2020
Building digital expertise on Australian boards - I would love your support if you're a Co-op member | Tweet |
Friday, October 09, 2020
Out and about | Tweet |
To anyone referencing this blog, I've now stepped out of Accenture, taking a Voluntary Redundancy.
I am refocusing my efforts on other opportunities, beginning with an AI startup, for which we're in the AI Ventures' AI Incubator for the next twelve weeks.
I also have plans to help startups and SMEs to sell to government, leveraging my 15 years experience in this area and my wife's 20 years experience, more on that later....
And I'm chuffed that both the teams I'm mentoring in the InnovationACT entrepreneurship competition have reached the pitch final, being held next week.
I am available to help out on brief consultations & contracts, where my skills and experience can help, and are always happy to be a sounding board (for free) to anyone struggling to build a digital solution or vision in government.
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Shedding our golden handcuffs | Tweet |
I’m attending the Go 2.0 ten years on event today, looking at how the Gov 2.0 agenda has influenced Australia since the Gov 2.0 Taskforce in 2009 and at steps that should be taken for the next ten years.
Below is a blog post I have written for this event, capturing some of my thoughts & views about progress over this time.
It was architected by a group of less than 100 rich and powerful men to restrict the absolute power of Kings by limiting their ability to tax and granting certain powers to a small group of 26 rich unelected landholders.
Since the creation of that system, the Westminister system, there have been some transformational innovations, including the notion of elections and universal suffrage, the concept of a Constitution and universal human rights and the creation of political parties.
The system has also spread around the world from that tiny island in the North Sea, by war, invasion and treaty, evolving and mutating as it went.
But here lies the challenge before us today. This system was developed long before Europeans discovered Australia, as a power sharing arrangement for a wealthy and educated white male elite over uneducated peasants, serfs and slaves.
It was designed when horses were our fastest means of transport and communication, women had few rights and the First Nations of lands such as Australia were regarded as fauna and flora.
When we gathered for the original Gov 2.0 program in Australia we were looking at ways of leveraging emerging technologies and approaches enabled by digital technologies to improve how government operated in Australia.
The one test that matters, in my view, is whether government in Australia today is materially better for Australians than it was at that time in 2009.
Have we materially improved how Australians feel about their governments, their engagement and involvement in decision-making, the services they receive or made government significantly cheaper and more efficient in its operations without degrading its performance?
Have we supported the social compact between government and electorate, or reshaped it in a way that improves the outcomes for communities?
Have we broadened the group of people choosing to enter public life or significantly improved and streamlined the transparency with which government operates?
Are Australians better paid, healthier and happier than they were ten years ago?
Do we feel our government better represents the interests of all Australians?
Is our society freer from the risk of tyranny?
Or have we seen a slow and steady decline in our freedoms, the construction of one of the most sophisticated surveillance states in the world, a shrinking of the representation of our politicians and increasing battles to hold the line on services, freedoms and even representation, where a win is merely preserving the status quo?
Can you point at any community and say they are better off because of the actions government has taken due to the Gov 2.0 agenda in the last ten years?
Australians are very well off by global standards. For the most part we live long and healthy lives. We have enormous amounts of leisure time and an amazing environment in which to enjoy it.
We are masters of first world problems, complaining when our smartphones have only two bars, our houses only have three bedrooms, there are only 12 kinds of milk in our supermarkets and we have to wait a few minutes for a new movie to start on Netflix.
Well maybe our average broadband speeds, now ranked 64th in the world, is worth complaining about, at least to note that New Zealand’s average speed is 2.5 times faster than ours.
We credit our political system, at least in part to our success.
But what if it isn’t any more.
The Gov 2.0 agenda failed to deliver deep meaningful change in government because it became part of the system.
The methods and mediums involved in Gov 2.0 have been adopted and co-opted into the current governance system, driving incremental change in how services are designed, government communicates and policies are formed.
However the system itself remains unchanged. Massive bureaucratic hierarchies of predominantly career bureaucrats who live & work at arms length from the communities they serve. Atop sit politicians who are also predominantly career elites, their closest influencers sharing similar ideas and perspectives and their talent pools increasingly shallow as Australians opt out of ‘true belief’ for profitably pragmatism in the private sector. Choosing wealth over power and workplaces that are more equitable and less abusive.
The core of our system is increasingly isolated and out-of-touch as the recent battle over marriage equality and current linked battles over energy and climate change demonstrate. Political expediency and social well-being are less aligned than at any time in the last hundred years.
The major parties defend their positions, uniting monopolistically against innovations that would weak both their power, comfortable in a slow falling duopoly.
The net outcome is that the while some real evolution has occurred, it is trapped within the same frame and system.
Without revisiting that system, developed by a small group of wealthy men hundreds of years ago, or even revisiting the Australian Constitution, developed when Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were still considered ‘flora and fauna’, women’s right to vote was still new and not fully supported, and the digital revolution was a hundred years away, we cannot systematically address the causes of the issues we face today and are simply building layer upon layer of band-aid on an increasingly rickety frame.
Below is a blog post I have written for this event, capturing some of my thoughts & views about progress over this time.
Shedding our golden handcuffs
Australia’s governmental system was originally developed in the small island nation of England, 17,000km from where we stand today.It was architected by a group of less than 100 rich and powerful men to restrict the absolute power of Kings by limiting their ability to tax and granting certain powers to a small group of 26 rich unelected landholders.
This group of noble Barons, already part of the social elite, were all white, male and would be hand picked by a slightly larger group of nobility and clergymen who owned the vast majority of wealth and means of production in England.
Almost as an afterthought, the document, originally named the Charter of Barons, then renamed as the Great Charter, or the magna carte’, protected certain rights for all ‘freed men’ under the British crown. And that literally meant men.
One of the four original copies of the Magna Carta of 1297 is on display a hop, skip and jump from where we gather today, at Parliament House.
Since the creation of that system, the Westminister system, there have been some transformational innovations, including the notion of elections and universal suffrage, the concept of a Constitution and universal human rights and the creation of political parties.
The system has also spread around the world from that tiny island in the North Sea, by war, invasion and treaty, evolving and mutating as it went.
But here lies the challenge before us today. This system was developed long before Europeans discovered Australia, as a power sharing arrangement for a wealthy and educated white male elite over uneducated peasants, serfs and slaves.
It was designed when horses were our fastest means of transport and communication, women had few rights and the First Nations of lands such as Australia were regarded as fauna and flora.
When we gathered for the original Gov 2.0 program in Australia we were looking at ways of leveraging emerging technologies and approaches enabled by digital technologies to improve how government operated in Australia.
The one test that matters, in my view, is whether government in Australia today is materially better for Australians than it was at that time in 2009.
Have we materially improved how Australians feel about their governments, their engagement and involvement in decision-making, the services they receive or made government significantly cheaper and more efficient in its operations without degrading its performance?
Have we supported the social compact between government and electorate, or reshaped it in a way that improves the outcomes for communities?
Have we broadened the group of people choosing to enter public life or significantly improved and streamlined the transparency with which government operates?
Are Australians better paid, healthier and happier than they were ten years ago?
Do we feel our government better represents the interests of all Australians?
Is our society freer from the risk of tyranny?
Or have we seen a slow and steady decline in our freedoms, the construction of one of the most sophisticated surveillance states in the world, a shrinking of the representation of our politicians and increasing battles to hold the line on services, freedoms and even representation, where a win is merely preserving the status quo?
Can you point at any community and say they are better off because of the actions government has taken due to the Gov 2.0 agenda in the last ten years?
Australians are very well off by global standards. For the most part we live long and healthy lives. We have enormous amounts of leisure time and an amazing environment in which to enjoy it.
We are masters of first world problems, complaining when our smartphones have only two bars, our houses only have three bedrooms, there are only 12 kinds of milk in our supermarkets and we have to wait a few minutes for a new movie to start on Netflix.
Well maybe our average broadband speeds, now ranked 64th in the world, is worth complaining about, at least to note that New Zealand’s average speed is 2.5 times faster than ours.
We credit our political system, at least in part to our success.
But what if it isn’t any more.
What if the way our government is structured and run is what is holding us back from realising the next level of prosperity, and is the anchor holding us back as other countries transform.
The Gov 2.0 agenda failed to deliver deep meaningful change in government because it became part of the system.
The methods and mediums involved in Gov 2.0 have been adopted and co-opted into the current governance system, driving incremental change in how services are designed, government communicates and policies are formed.
However the system itself remains unchanged. Massive bureaucratic hierarchies of predominantly career bureaucrats who live & work at arms length from the communities they serve. Atop sit politicians who are also predominantly career elites, their closest influencers sharing similar ideas and perspectives and their talent pools increasingly shallow as Australians opt out of ‘true belief’ for profitably pragmatism in the private sector. Choosing wealth over power and workplaces that are more equitable and less abusive.
The core of our system is increasingly isolated and out-of-touch as the recent battle over marriage equality and current linked battles over energy and climate change demonstrate. Political expediency and social well-being are less aligned than at any time in the last hundred years.
The major parties defend their positions, uniting monopolistically against innovations that would weak both their power, comfortable in a slow falling duopoly.
The net outcome is that the while some real evolution has occurred, it is trapped within the same frame and system.
Without revisiting that system, developed by a small group of wealthy men hundreds of years ago, or even revisiting the Australian Constitution, developed when Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were still considered ‘flora and fauna’, women’s right to vote was still new and not fully supported, and the digital revolution was a hundred years away, we cannot systematically address the causes of the issues we face today and are simply building layer upon layer of band-aid on an increasingly rickety frame.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Digital is boring - it's time for purpose-based transformation | Tweet |
One reason I've posted less frequently in this blog over the last few years is that, frankly, digital in government has become boring.
Digital is now well-embedded in virtually every agency and council at every level of government in Australia and New Zealand, and mobile & online have now been the primary channels for citizens to engage governments for almost ten years.
My predictions back in 2006 that all government communicators would have to understand digital tools as part of their engagement mix have largely been realised, with social being well integrated into agency communications. Albeit this is still far too outbound only for my taste in many organisations & there's continuing overly restrictive social media rules in place for public servants via the APSC which I know are causing a number of quality candidates to avoid applying for government roles.
Cloud is widespread, if not fully understood or embraced and open source and open data are part of the landscape - although there's not been the full value yet realised in my humble opinion.
Digital as a profession has splintered into a range of specialist roles, with clear career paths and their own conference circuits and communities of practice. Meanwhile digital savvy senior executives are no longer as rare as hen's teeth, albeit not yet as common as Canberra taxi drivers with political opinions to share.
Design Thinking and Innovation are everywhere (even buzzwords), and Agile has climbed out of ICT into policy and service delivery spaces, adding value in most places it touches.
It's true that many agencies are still in the throes of Digital Transformation - but this has moved largely on from updating foundational systems to true value creation.
In sum government has advanced in how it understands and uses digital to improve governance and service delivery while reducing costs, however similar to the old tale of King Midas, Digital has become more Bureaucratised - something government does to everything it touches - fit into the hierarchy and tamed, rather than transforming the basis of how agencies govern.
As such I think it is time to stop talking 'digital transformation' and start talking 'purpose-based transformation'.
Previous Digital Transformation often (incorrectly) put the emphasis on the Digital rather than the Transformation, being more of a lift & shift approach where governments supplemented or replaced physical transactions and locations with digital equivalents.
There was some service transformation undertaken, with each process looked at individually, or even within the context of specific personas and life events, to redesign them to be slightly easier to use. However there haven't been the mechanisms in place (structure, financing, capabilities or legal frameworks) to reinvent the relationship between government and citizen, or government and stakeholder, or government and supplier.
As a result, despite shiny new online transactional services, supporting systems and growth in their use, there's still overall a lack of clarity in many agencies about how these transactions meet or support the overall purpose of the agency itself. While the transaction might be seamless and secure, what is the 'price signal' it gives to citizens using it?
Are citizens nudged to be good auto-shoppers, self-servicing their needs, or is there a bigger purpose being met in how these digital services help citizens to meet their actual needs, rather than complete a form and press a button?
Purpose-based Transformation, which I raised in a conversation over lunch with Pia Andrews this week, is all about getting back to understanding the roots of why an organisation exists and what is is trying to achieve. It is then about testing whether the current organisational design has a laser sharp focus on fulfilling that purpose through their every interaction - whether with citizens, organisations or other agencies.
Revisiting, and restating that underlying purpose and validating whether the organisation is currently fit for it becomes the first step in a transformation approach that builds on everything we've learn through digital and focuses it on the value proposition of the organisation, rather than the value stream from a specific service or process.
Taking a purpose-based approach allows an agency to think about all its procedures, processes, services and systems from a different perspective. One that is ultimately user centric through a focus on why the organisation exists and expressly seeks to achieve.
In this Purpose-based transformation context, Digital becomes an enabler of the approach and new experiences, rather than an end in its own right.
The goal is measured based on how well the purpose is delivered, rather than on the take-up and cost-savings from transactions.
The outcome of such a Purpose-based Transformation is a redesign of the structure and organisational procedures, systems and services - root and branch - leveraging digital to rethink the entire organisation from the ground up, not simply for specific processes or systems.
Imagine what could be achieved with a purpose-based transformation to address some of the underlying challenges that digital transformations have sometimes simply wallpapered over.
Digital is now well-embedded in virtually every agency and council at every level of government in Australia and New Zealand, and mobile & online have now been the primary channels for citizens to engage governments for almost ten years.
My predictions back in 2006 that all government communicators would have to understand digital tools as part of their engagement mix have largely been realised, with social being well integrated into agency communications. Albeit this is still far too outbound only for my taste in many organisations & there's continuing overly restrictive social media rules in place for public servants via the APSC which I know are causing a number of quality candidates to avoid applying for government roles.
Cloud is widespread, if not fully understood or embraced and open source and open data are part of the landscape - although there's not been the full value yet realised in my humble opinion.
Digital as a profession has splintered into a range of specialist roles, with clear career paths and their own conference circuits and communities of practice. Meanwhile digital savvy senior executives are no longer as rare as hen's teeth, albeit not yet as common as Canberra taxi drivers with political opinions to share.
Design Thinking and Innovation are everywhere (even buzzwords), and Agile has climbed out of ICT into policy and service delivery spaces, adding value in most places it touches.
It's true that many agencies are still in the throes of Digital Transformation - but this has moved largely on from updating foundational systems to true value creation.
In sum government has advanced in how it understands and uses digital to improve governance and service delivery while reducing costs, however similar to the old tale of King Midas, Digital has become more Bureaucratised - something government does to everything it touches - fit into the hierarchy and tamed, rather than transforming the basis of how agencies govern.
As such I think it is time to stop talking 'digital transformation' and start talking 'purpose-based transformation'.
Previous Digital Transformation often (incorrectly) put the emphasis on the Digital rather than the Transformation, being more of a lift & shift approach where governments supplemented or replaced physical transactions and locations with digital equivalents.
There was some service transformation undertaken, with each process looked at individually, or even within the context of specific personas and life events, to redesign them to be slightly easier to use. However there haven't been the mechanisms in place (structure, financing, capabilities or legal frameworks) to reinvent the relationship between government and citizen, or government and stakeholder, or government and supplier.
As a result, despite shiny new online transactional services, supporting systems and growth in their use, there's still overall a lack of clarity in many agencies about how these transactions meet or support the overall purpose of the agency itself. While the transaction might be seamless and secure, what is the 'price signal' it gives to citizens using it?
Are citizens nudged to be good auto-shoppers, self-servicing their needs, or is there a bigger purpose being met in how these digital services help citizens to meet their actual needs, rather than complete a form and press a button?
Purpose-based Transformation, which I raised in a conversation over lunch with Pia Andrews this week, is all about getting back to understanding the roots of why an organisation exists and what is is trying to achieve. It is then about testing whether the current organisational design has a laser sharp focus on fulfilling that purpose through their every interaction - whether with citizens, organisations or other agencies.
Revisiting, and restating that underlying purpose and validating whether the organisation is currently fit for it becomes the first step in a transformation approach that builds on everything we've learn through digital and focuses it on the value proposition of the organisation, rather than the value stream from a specific service or process.
Taking a purpose-based approach allows an agency to think about all its procedures, processes, services and systems from a different perspective. One that is ultimately user centric through a focus on why the organisation exists and expressly seeks to achieve.
In this Purpose-based transformation context, Digital becomes an enabler of the approach and new experiences, rather than an end in its own right.
The goal is measured based on how well the purpose is delivered, rather than on the take-up and cost-savings from transactions.
The outcome of such a Purpose-based Transformation is a redesign of the structure and organisational procedures, systems and services - root and branch - leveraging digital to rethink the entire organisation from the ground up, not simply for specific processes or systems.
Imagine what could be achieved with a purpose-based transformation to address some of the underlying challenges that digital transformations have sometimes simply wallpapered over.
Monday, May 06, 2019
Mapping Canberra's startup ecosystem | Tweet |
I've had a continuing interest in start-up ecosystems across Australia, having been a member of several of these ecosystems & helping to mentor and support a range of start-ups over the years.
I've maintained a Canberra ecosystem map for about four years now, mostly for my own interest and to understand some of the relationships between different players and the startups they support.
This was inspired by work by BlueChilli on the defunct StartRail maps, which was based on some of the international work portraying startup ecosystems in the style of metro rail maps. Unfortunately they focused on Sydney and Melbourne, missing some of the smaller, yet equally vibrant, scenes in Perth, Brisbane and Canberra, all of which I am linked to in various ways.
Recently I've seen some sterling work by Gordon Whitehead mapping the startup ecosystem for the Hunter & Central Coast, which had been reinterpreted by Brian Hill of Laughing Mind.
As such I've decided to share my Canberra startup ecosystem map for anyone interested.
Also keep an eye out for the work by Chad Renando at StartStatus, who is engaged in a national effort as part of his Phd, which should provide a broader view of the Australian startup ecosystem as a whole (which tends to be city-based with a few cross-ties of various strength).
Chad has also done some intensive work looking at models for measuring startup ecosystems and identifying their strengths & weaknesses that will be very valuable to government, not-for-profit and corporate interests in years to come.
As for Canberra - here's my humble contribution....
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