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Many people consider Google as a search engine, or maybe as a search and email system, with a few extra frills like maps.
However with over 1 billion searches a day, Google is not only aggregating the world's knowledge, it is learning about the world's citizens, what interests them, how they think and feel - even how well they are. It is now becoming possible to track the spread of diseases via Google searches with a high degree of accuracy, or model political sentiment.
These techniques are still in their infancy, however over time Google is building mental maps for billions of the world's citizens. The company is hiring the best and brightest engineers, mathematicians and psychologists in the world in order to make more sense of this data and improve their predictions - apparently to help improve the targeting of advertisements.
Google is also a more complex entity than it first appears in the clean Google search interface. The company is involved in a vast array of businesses connected to how the internet operates, is powered and the services delivered across it, such as power generation, broadband networks, connection devices and operation systems, electronic healthcare and biotechnology. In many respects the company is heading towards becoming a global operating system for the planet.
Alongside Google is Facebook - the world's leading social networking site. However rather than just being a place to chat with your friends online and share photos, Facebook has much grander ambitions.
Facebook now has almost 500 million active users - more than half accessing it daily. The service's users spend more time engaging with and through the service than they spend engaging with their national and state governments.
Facebook's advertising engine learns every time a user interacts with the service and even learns about people who do not have accounts by how they are mentioned in photos, videos and updates by users. This makes it a tool for achieving the same depth of audience understanding as Google is developing through its search and other services.
Last week Facebook and Microsoft launched a partnership which will allow Facebook users to create, edit, share and collaborate on documents via Microsoft's new web-based Office back end. The site is Docs.com. This isn't the traditional tool you find in a social network and could herald Facebook's entry into business life.
Also last week Facebook launched the Open Graph initiative that could see them embedding roots into many - if not most - websites, by enabling people to embed Facebook 'Like' buttons which connect back to their Facebook profiles. More than simply being a way to share your sentiment with friends, these buttons allow Facebook to know when you visit every site with a Like button, what you do and how long you spend there. Like a benevolent strangler vine, Facebook will suck knowledge about its users (including around 40% of Australians) out of potentially millions of websites in the most comprehensive data collection and reuse scheme in history - again apparently focused on ad sales.
In the past companies with this level of influence and control over a geographical territory amassed enormous political power. In some cases they effectively became the government in some areas of the world. The British East India Company springs to mind, which governed much of India for 100 years.
As the world becomes reliant on the internet as the global nervous system, where the territory is owned by companies rather than nations, I wonder whether we will see a similar situation with the potential for companies becoming governments - all but in name.
At some point will people consider themselves citizens of Google or Facebook rather than Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain?
Maybe some already do.
Below is an excellent video by the ABC's Hungry Beast that provides more information about what's under the hood at Google, and speculates about what the company could become.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Are you a citizen of Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, Google or Facebook? Blurring governments and companies | Tweet |
Monday, April 26, 2010
What would you do if you had unlimited funds to spend on your department's online presence? | Tweet |
Everyone who runs a website dreams of what they would do if they had more funds to spend on improving their online presence.
I've been doing some thinking around this lately as a thought exercise around building priority lists for what needs to be done to strengthen my department's online presence.
I always come back to strengthening base infrastructure first. Ensuring that our own staff have the best tools for their tasks, including high-powered computers, the right software, effective and fully implemented content management and reporting systems, appropriate connections between data and publishing to enable a consistent approach to openness and transparency and, very importantly, that all the staff concerned have the training and support to use all of these systems effectively and to their full potential.
Next for me is strengthening governance and management, doing what is necessary to ensure my department has all of the appropriate governance and standards in place to operate a current, flexible and responsive online presence - including outreach activities to third party websites. blogs, forums and social networks.
Third I look at capability building. Putting in place the systems and functionality that extends the basic infrastructure to allow the department to manage emerging needs.
Interspersed amongst the priorities above are the staffing required to deliver what is needed and redevelopment of websites and tools as required to ensure our online presence meets the needs of our audiences, stakeholders and the government.
Given that funding is not unlimited for most online managers, the next step is to consider what can be done within budget constrains. It's important to also look at which pieces can be funded from other budgets (such as staff training) or whether additional funds can be requested to meet legislative or campaign requirements or as part of modernisation initiatives.
While it's not possible to do everything you want, there is often quite a bit you can actually achieve if you're prepared to spend the time educating decision-makers, liaising with other business areas and building the business cases needed to source funds.
So if you were given a blank cheque, what would you prioritise?
And given that you are unlikely to have one, what will you choose to actually achieve?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Voting polls in virtual places - World of Warcraft | Tweet |
With over 11 million active players, World of Warcraft is one of the largest massive multiplayer online games in the world. In fact if it were a country it would be 75th - just behind Zimbabwe and ahead of Rwanda.
Back before the 2007 US Presidential election, a small study was carried out amongst US World of Warcraft players to see whether they'd vote for Republican nominee McCain, or Democrat candidate Obama.
While tongue-in-cheek, it provides an interesting insight into how it may be possible in the future to poll large numbers of Australians online to gather intelligence about voting preferences or satisfaction levels.
What was the outcome?
About 85% of Horde players said they intended to vote for Barack Obama, with McCain doing best amongst Night Elves, where 10% supported him. However the Allied vote was split, with the two candidates tied for the Human vote and McCain winning the Dwarf vote 33% to 22%, with 22% undecided and 33% saying other.
By player class, Obama won all except the Warrior and Priest votes, polling strongest amongst Shamans and Rogues.
Overall 62% of World of Warcraft players indicated they would vote for Obama (admittedly much more than the 53% he won in the actual election).
Below is the video.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Launching banknotes via online video | Tweet |
In what I believe is a world first, the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing has launched its new US$100 note, featuring Benjamin Franklin, via an online video in YouTube.
Brought to my attention by Nicholas Gruen, the 82 second long production provides a clear view of all the security provisions included in the banknote.
There is also an interactive video quiz available for people who wish to learn about how to recognise the note.
The approach offers an innovative vision as to how countries around the world could market and communicate the features of their currency and stamps to their citizens.
Benjamin Franklin, as a former printer and scientist (one of the early pioneers in electricity), would have been proud.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Open government winners and losers | Tweet |
One of the trends with Government 2.0 is for jurisdictions to make more of their information available online in more readily accessible, machine readable and useful forms.
We've seen the rise of data.gov, data.gov.uk and a host of open data sites for nations and states around the world. The latest addition has been the World Bank, with data.worldbank.org. There's even organisations providing platforms for public data sites to make it simple for governments to implement these services, such as Socrata.
Creating a more open and transparent government in this way has some winners. The public and media gain greater access to useful information, allowing them to better study, critique, understand and compare government decisions and activities; companies are able to better access information about their markets and environments and improve their operations and services; and governments are themselves better able to collaborate internally and discover new insights and approaches from comparing disparate data sources.
However there are also some losers in the race to release government data publicly. These are often highly politically influential organisations and individuals that have significant resources to bring to bear to resist change.
Over the last few years we've seen a level of push-back around the world by groups seeking to slow or counter drives to make more government data public. The approach often plays to government concerns; the risk of being shown up when information is not completely accurate; the risk of people taking and reusing information out of context; the perceived loss of revenue through releasing information for free rather than for significant charges; economic damage to companies or industries that rely on exclusive access to government data; or concerns that the costs of releasing data will not be sustainable over time.
While these are often legitimate considerations, there's some less often discussed reasons that are also important to consider.
In some cases those who have most to lose from government openness are those who have previously had some form of commercial or political advantage due to strict government controls over data release.
This could include organisations that act as resale agents for government, buying data under license and reselling at a mark-up (the postcode boundaries list is an example). It could include groups and individuals who have developed 'special' access to senior government figures and wish to preserve their channels of influence. It could also include groups within government who are concerned about a potential public or media response if some complex and highly contextual data became public knowledge.
I often equate the groups with these concerns about government openness as being similar to traditional media organisations, those who could afford the high cost of entry into traditional media - establishing and maintaining large-scale distribution networks, whether television, radio or newsprint.
With the rise of the internet these traditional media organisations faced a highly competitive and many-headed rival - a cheap and ubiquitous distribution network where every consumer has also become a producer and distributor of content.
Suddenly the high cost distribution networks owned by traditional media players have become vulnerable. Their revenues are falling while competition is growing, putting pressure on their owners to simultaneously increase their differentiation from the market whilst also cutting costs to suit the new world paradigm.
Similarly for groups such as government data resellers and lobbyists, the rise of the internet and growth of the open government push has reduced their ability to charge a price premium for exclusive access to data or senior figures.
In particular, making government data available free online, together with the host of free or cheap data visualisation and manipulation tools - from Manyeyes to Yahoo Pipes - severely damages the near monopoly of data intermediaries.
Some of these potential open government 'losers' have already realised that they can turn openness into a win. People will still pay for services which filter and present the range of public data in useful and meaningful ways. They are in a prime position to take on this role based on their expertise working with government data over many years.
However there may be others who still look on Gov 2.0 with some concern. They risk having their businesses become irrelevant and potentially could attempt to put roadblocks in place of government openness.
I hope that any organisations or individuals in this position realise that while they may be able to slow the train they'd gain more by getting on board. While their old business models might be less viable in the future, other opportunities will open up.
Monday, April 19, 2010
When public means public - Australian political party members suspended from social networking sites | Tweet |
The last week has seen several incidents where members of Australian political parties has been suspended from social networking sites and outed in the media for making controversial comments.
Most recently Nick Sowden, a Young Queensland Liberal National Party member, referred to US President Obama as a 'monkey' on Twitter. His tweets were widely discussed online and covered in the media, such as in this Brisbane Times news article, Monkey Business can come back to bite.
Mr Sowden has claimed that his tweets were intended to be a parody of far right US views and that his friends understood that he wasn't racist - although other Twitter users may not. Crikey quoted him as saying "There’s no point sitting behind the veil of political correctness."
It appears that Twitter closed his account after receiving more than 150 complaints about his tweets and the latest reports suggest that Mr Sowden may also be expelled from the Young Queensland Liberal National Party party.
Also in the news was Dave Tollner, a Country Liberal Member of the Northern Territory Parliament. Facebook suspended his Facebook Page for two weeks after he wrote that itinerants were "parasites terrorising innocent citizens".
Covered in the NT News article, Dave booted from Facebook, it is as yet unclear if Mr Tollner's account will be reinstated anytime soon.
The NT News reports that Mr Tollner had said that: "Political correctness has never been my strong point."
Both these cases demonstrate the interesting period we're entering in Australian government.
Both politicians and public servants are beginning to use social media both personally and, most recently, professionally - however few of them have significant experience engaging via online media in this way.
The situation lends itself to a variety of risks such as over or under-moderating comments, reacting to statements in social media channels in disproportionate ways, funny or sarcastic side comments that are taken literally and not understood in context and the differences in personal interpretations of 'political correctness'.
It is very easy to consider social network updates as 'throwaway' lines to friends, even when people recognise intellectually that their comments are public statements and may be viewed and assessed widely by the public and media as well as misunderstood and misrepresented.
This type of issue isn't limited to social networks or online media. There's a long history of radio, television and newspapers reporting candid personal statements recorded when the microphone hasn't been switched off. The US Vice-President's comment to the President during the health care bill signing (where he swore) was one of the most widely publicised recent examples.
With social media this issue can become more complex - with social networks people are 'always on', making it harder for them to keep their guard up all the time.
While there are some guidelines being put in place, there's still little training or support to help people new to these channels to understand how to use them appropriately or effectively - like the media training available to help people respond appropriately in front of a camera and reporter.
There's also limited guidance available on which channels and tools to use for particular purposes, or how to keep public and personal life separate (using the various privacy settings available in many social media tools).
I hope that soon we'll see widespread social media training and coaching for people in the public eye to help them understand that on social networks public means public.
Until then I expect to see many more gaffes from all types of public and semi-public figures - politicians, celebrities, business leaders and from public servants - as they come to grips with the ropes of how to effectively and appropriately communicate via social media.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Why does government struggle with innovation? | Tweet |
The Public Sector Innovation Network email list (run by the Department of Innovation - you can subscribe from their website) sends out some very interesting articles about innovation every week.
This week one in particular caught my eye, a piece entitled The Biggest Obstacle to Innovation that looks at inertia and how this may have greater impact in a public sector context than in other situations.
The article's author, Tim Kastelle, argues that government has many disincentives to overcome inertia. With no profit motive, no threat of organisational failure (an agency going 'out of business' - rather than the threat of a front-page news item) and where there is often a deeply entrenched non-innovative culture, there's simply no pressure for government to innovate.
I often wonder how it would be different if departments were established on the basis of profit - with the government paying multiple departments to provide services and the departments competing to offer the same services at the best possible price.
This has some equivalents - governments frequently pay commercial providers to deliver services on their behalf based on value and service levels and in many jurisdictions pays not-for-profits on a similar basis.
Of course it could lead to duplication of effort and greater instability both in employment and departmental survival - but aren't these key factors driving innovation?
A stable, monopolistic environment doesn't tend to lead to innovative behaviour and tends to increase its bias to inertia over time - actively preventing innovation to maintain the status quo. We've seen that again and again both in the commercial and public sectors. Civilisations have failed due to their institutions being unable to respond rapidly to environmental and social change.
Perhaps a hybrid model is feasible - having departments with core responsibilities and then having 'fringe' services bid on competitively by departments for management rights. Whoever gets the rights would be responsible for delivering that service and would be 'paid' for delivery in a way that allows the department to take excess funds and funnel them back into core activities - and appropriate compensation for staff (personal gain - whether monetary or through social credit - is a key factor in innovation).
This hybrid model already exists in Australia in some ways. Often a lead agency is appointed as the manager and budget holder for cross-government initiatives. However there's unlikely to be a competitive bidding process whereby departments compete to demonstrate they can deliver the best value.
If innovation is becoming a core attribute required by government organisations, merely to keep up with the rate of change in society and the development of new ways to deliver services and fulfil public needs, perhaps we need to rewrite some of the rulebook, sacrificing part of our desire for stability in return for greater change.
Maybe this won't be such a large sacrifice anyway. Government departments often restructure due to internal or external pressures and already need to react to our fast-changing world. Stability is becoming more and more of an illusion and constant change more a reality. The need for public servants to be biased towards action, as Tim discusses, is becoming greater and greater.
Constant change has negatives and can be very uncomfortable for individuals used to stable environments, but if we can harness it to drive innovation in our policy development, service delivery and in how we organise and operate the instrumentality of government it may also uncover some major benefits.
What do you think - should we trade public sector stability for innovation?
Monday, April 12, 2010
What value should government place on online expertise? | Tweet |
On Sunday I was made aware of a Seek advertisement for a 'web and social media expert' position in a 'VERY high-profile government client' in the ACT.
The ad (which is here), seeks someone with,
a strong understanding of how the web and social media operate, the ability to contextualise that within the Government’s needs and find creative solutions; and have the technical skills to transform those solutions into product within tight deadlines!This is a wide range of complex skills, so let's do some unpacking.
You will need excellent communication skills, and experience in website design and development and in project and database management. You will be proficient in using a range of web design applications including Adobe Photoshop, have a sound knowledge of HTML, and a strong understanding of web publishing principles and techniques.? Knowledge of relevant web standards and guidelines and community engagement practices are essential! Experience in multimedia authoring and video production would be a strong advantage.
Being a 'social media expert' - if such actually exist in Australia - would require years of experience, not just book-learning and seminars, in employing social media techniques and technologies across diverse audiences.
Being a web designer is itself a profession, as is web development, project manager and multimedia and video production. All require years of experience to gain proficiency.
Together these skills would take upwards of fifteen years to gain - possibly twenty or more for a true expert.
In fact this role could easily be split into many separate career roles, each with a professional skillset, including online communications/social media professional, web designer, web developer, database administrator, project manager, multimedia producer)
So at what level does this ad indicate the government client will reward this combined skillset?
At the APS6 level - circa $70-80,000 salary per year.
I wish this agency all the best in finding the right person for this role, however I do feel that the compensation significantly under-values the formal skills they are seeking. The agency will probably have to choose someone without the level of expertise they want, simply because the person with the combined skills they are seeking either does not yet exist in Australia or would be seeking a much higher salary (and could get it simply by employing one of their skillsets).
This is a problem I have seen before in government. Often departments seek highly trained web designers or developers at salaries well below their commercial or digital agency equivalents.
Jobs asking for social media experts seem to hope that these people exist, whereas there has been limited opportunity for people to have gained these skills in Australia. The few professionals who have substantial experience in the social media field are generally freelancing, working in high paying (usually commercial sector) roles or have left Australia for greener fields overseas.
This isn't an issue just related to online skills. Government compensation packages sometime struggle to reward specialists and experts of all stripes, something highlighted in the recent APS reform report released by PM&C, Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration.
I hope moving forward that Australian governments are in the position to acknowledge that there are many kinds of online professionals, that it is highly unlikely to get a full set of online skills in a single person and that these people need to be appropriately compensated for their expertise.
Otherwise we will remain caught in the trap of advertising for experts but being forced to employ 'learners'.
While these people are also needed (and will become more expert with time), they start out far more prone to error, require much greater training and external support and don't bring the same sized tool kit to the table to enable government to deliver the best possible outcomes for the community. In fact when placed in senior 'expert' positions these learners may cost the government much more over time in opportunity cost than the salary of a true expert.
Friday, April 09, 2010
UK Labour and Liberal Democrat parties crowdsourcing election advertising | Tweet |
Now that the UK general election has been called, it will be interesting to see the role social media will play in a Westminster election, compared to the US's last Presidential election.
One of the first examples of how this election will use social media has been demonstrated by the UK's ruling Labour party, who held a three-day web competition inviting supporters to submit advertising ideas for an election poster.
They received over 1,000 ideas in three days - in itself a great awareness building exercise.
The Liberal-Democrats are also crowd sourcing election advertising as well at Art Creative, although this competition is still in progress.
Back on Labour's competition, as reported in Campaign's article, Labour picks winner of crowd sourcing competition as Tories launch counter campaign,
The winner, 24-year old Jacob Quagliozzi from St Albans, devised a poster depicting David Cameron as the 'Ashes to Ashes' character DCI Gene Hunt, along with the headline 'Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s'.Saatchi and Saatchi helped on the program and in a quote reproduced in Blur's post, How Can British Politics Adapt To The Crowdsourcing Model?, said that,
"We are learning that the way to do communications is not to tell people what you want them to hear but to let people play," says Richard Huntington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi. "This is the sort of thing that all marketers ought to be exploring right now."
Another key quote from the Blur post sums up my thinking on government online engagement both for political and departmental purposes,
For Crowdsourcing to have a genuine effect on the British political system, the parties must not jettison their crowds until the next election campaign comes along. Crowds take time to develop and to see Obamaesque effects, they must be interactive and innovatively maintained during a Parliament term.Engagement needs to be ongoing to build an audience and drive effective outcomes rather than 'turned on and off' like a tap as our campaigns are today. The turn on/turn off approach means that governments pay more to build an audience and don't leverage ongoing community interest in topics (such as defense, health, education and immigration) at a low ongoing cost in order to reduce high communications costs during major campaigns.
Below is the video produced in support of the winning UK Labour competition entry:
What are the top Australian Facebook pages (and how many are government-run)? | Tweet |
Social media commentator Laurel Papworth published a list last week of the top Australian Facebook pages (by number of fans). She's just updated it to include more identified through a crowd sourcing process in her blog.
The post, Fanpages: List of top 100+ Australian Facebook Fan Pages, provides the first glimpse of which organisations and brands in Australia are constructively using Facebook to build communities of interest, support campaigns and seek community feedback.
The diversity of Facebook's audience is visible just by looking at the five most popular pages:
- ACDC 1,950,000
- Bananas in Pajamas 1,132,000 (others include BiP 643,000)
- NZ Flight of the Conchords 726,000
- Hamish & Andy 648,552
- Hey Hey It’s Saturday 432,000
There are a number of other government sites further down in the list as well, starting with the Victorian government's Melbourne Australia page in 58th place with 23,000 fans.
It would be fantastic to see a comprehensive list of all the Facebook pages run by Australian governments - like the Twitter list I developed.
Open Gov Day - 30+ US Federal agencies release their Open Government strategic plans | Tweet |
In the last 24 hours, over 30 US Federal agencies have released their Open Government plans in a strategic outpouring that demonstrates some of the best whole-of-government Gove 2.0 leadership in the world.
Govloop has published a complete list of these Open Government plans via the free online public database service Socrata (a 3rd party provider of data.government sites), so you can review all the plans in a single location.
Reading through some of these plans I am very impressed at the level of strategic thought and time that has gone into their development. They are a fantastic reference for Governments around the world seeking ideas and structure in their own strategic planning for openness and transparency.
To me this release also brings home one of the major challenges that I see in Australian government - we don't consistently resource for online strategy.
In my experience Australian Government Departments are funded for the bare minimum level of effort on web - maintaining existing websites to some level of currency, accessibility and quality. Often online teams are fully occupied with content changes, and as 50% or more of the content of a Government website is likely to change each year this a big task in its own right.
Departments receive occasional bursts of funding for new technology, usability and content reviews or for the launch of new websites. However ongoing funding for strategic planning to craft and shape Departmental online channels over time or lead continual innovation is, to my knowledge, uncommon.
Many Departments employ ongoing IT Architects to lead the strategy and ongoing development of Departmental IT infrastructure (a critical task). Few Departments employ strategists for leading the strategy and ongoing development of their online channel from a business perspective.
In my opinion this is a business role, not a technical one as it is not about the 'plumbing' but about how the overall 'building' (online presence) is structured and presented.
Also it doesn't simply involve Communications-type areas for outbound messaging via the web or intranets. HR, Procurement, Legal, Policy, ICT and other business areas also have major stakes in online channels for a variety of business needs, both outbound and inbound. An online presence enables virtually everyone in an organisation.
Existing website maintenance remains a very important task and needs to continue to be appropriately funded and maintained.
Equally critical is funding strategic online planning. The ongoing development, implementation and adjustment of comprehensive Departmental online strategies, particularly for Departments with large families of purpose-driven websites that need to meet changing audience needs.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
The meaning and value of Net Neutrality | Tweet |
Net Neutrality is a topic of considerable interest and discussion in the US, but rarely a topic in Australia.
However it could significantly impact how the internet operated in Australia, and all other countries around the world, if the US moved away from the principle.
The video below provides a definition and view in support of Net Neutrality and covers the issues of interest to those who oppose abandoning the principle.
Dept of Finance releases Social Media 101 for staff, unlocks social media tools for use | Tweet |
The Department of Finance and Deregulation has announced on its Web Publishing Guide blog that it has opened its internal network to Facebook, Twitter and other social network tools and released a guide for staff, Social Media 101: A beginner’s guide for Finance employees.
Social Media 101 includes guidance for staff use of social media as well as specific guidance around the use of Facebook and Twitter.
It draws a very clear line as to what staff may or may not do online, stating that,
Finance employees do not need to seek clearance when talking online about factual, unclassified and uncontroversial matters related to the Department. You must have authorisation from your manager (including following any necessary clearance processes) before publishing any wider information relating to the Department, especially any comment that:To my knowledge, Finance is the first Australian Government department to put a social media policy and guidance in place.
- commits Finance or the Government to any action or initiative
- attempts to speak, or could be interpreted as speaking, on behalf of Finance or the Government
- relates to controversial, sensitive, confidential or political matters
- could be interpreted as a personal political view or political advocacy;
- could bring Finance or the APS into disrepute.
I don't expect them to be the last.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Excellent "Getting Started with Gov 2.0" Guide | Tweet |
Steve Radick has written an excellent "Getting Started with Government 2.0" Guide.
Designed for those new to the Gov 2.0 space, Steve's guide provides a great range of information from what Gov 2.0 means through how to take baby steps into the area to good blogs and sites to read.
Read it and share it!
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
UK Government switching Crown Copyright to be Creative Commons friendly | Tweet |
The UK government has announced that the UK will be phasing out the 'Click-Use' online licenses for the reuse of Crown and Parliamentary Copyrights by May this year with a new license modelled on Creative Commons 3.0.
A review by the UK Office of Public Sector Information in 2009, reported in an article in CreativeCommons.org, Public (UK) perception of copyright, public sector information, and CC, found that,
Among the general (UK) public, 71% agree that government should encourage re-use of content it provides, and only 4% disagree.
Developed by the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) for use in data.gov.uk, the revised Click-Use license will allow the public to reuse and mash-up government data in a more active way.
More background about the move is covered in Personal Computer World's article Crown Copyright switches to Creative Commons.
More information is available at the OPSI's Perspectives blog.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Canberra University moving towards Gov 2.0 post-graduate and under-graduate course | Tweet |
We've seen a boom in Gov 2.0 seminars and events over the last year and several prestigious US Universities already offer post-graduate courses on Gov 2.0 topics.
However, to my knowledge, Australia's formal educational institutions have largely been silent on when (if ever) they might begin offering courses that aid public servants, potential public servants and the many companies and professional individuals that are now working with Australian governments any formal qualifications on Gov 2.0 related matters.
I've long been an advocate for having more formal training options such as these available, particularly for more senior public service members, to help them fully consider the strategic consequences and accurately model risks for Gov 2.0 initiatives in light of emerging best practice.
While formal education isn't the only way to learn how to employ Gov 2.0 techniques, having university-scrutinised recognised courses provides a level of implied guarantee of quality of learning, which is useful when suggesting new and innovative approaches to conducting government business.
While it is entirely understandable that universities tend to lag workplace education needs - the drought in Gov 2.0 qualifications might be about to end. The University of Canberra (UC) is beginning to explore the opportunity to provide professional education in this area.
As a Canberra-based university which is already notable for its social media commentators such as Michael de Percy and Julie Posetti, I personally feel that UC is well-placed to lead in this space.
To be fair, the ANU also has at least one high-profile social media lecturer, Tom Worthington, who has also been running some notable courses.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Growth of Twitter in Australian governments - 155 accounts | Tweet |
I've conducted a quick review of Australian government Twitter accounts this morning, national, state and local, drawing on lists that others and I have compiled.
With a margin for error (some may have been missed or not be official accounts), I've found that there are about 155 Australian government Twitter accounts registered, 26 Federal, 79 State and 50 Local.
UPDATE: I've added new accounts flagged by commenters, taking the total to 196 Twitter accounts from Australian governments.
Note that I've not screened these accounts for whether they are still live, or how actively they Tweet.
If you want to subscribe to some of these lists please see:
- http://twitter.com/fpcwa/lists - Federal, state and some area-specific lists
- http://twitter.com/b3rn/ozgovlocal - Local government list
I've provided a full list of the accounts I looked at online in Google docs as a spreadsheet, open for anyone to view, download and modify at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ap1exl80wB8OdHNKVmQ5RVlvQWpibDAxNHkzcU1nV2c&hl=en
There's also a full list below.
National
- http://twitter.com/artsculturegov
- http://twitter.com/australiascreen
- http://twitter.com/Nat_Museum_Aust
- http://twitter.com/NatGalleryAus
- http://twitter.com/NFSAgov
- http://twitter.com/NFSAonline
- http://twitter.com/NPG_Canberra
- http://twitter.com/questacon
- http://twitter.com/YourHealthGovAu
- http://twitter.com/ozday
- http://twitter.com/Australian_Army
- http://twitter.com/Australian_Navy
- http://twitter.com/HankJongen
- http://twitter.com/gov2taskforce
- http://twitter.com/SeeAustralia
- http://twitter.com/StudyInAust
- http://twitter.com/ato_gov_au
- http://twitter.com/ausgovau
- http://twitter.com/AusLawReform
- http://twitter.com/Austrade
- http://twitter.com/AWMemorial
- http://twitter.com/business_gov_au
- http://twitter.com/CwealthOmb
- http://twitter.com/departmentbcde
- http://twitter.com/exportawards
- http://twitter.com/nlagovau
- http://twitter.com/nationaltrustau
- http://twitter.com/navytrident09
- http://twitter.com/ParlLibrary
- http://twitter.com/TrainingGovAu
- http://www.twitter.com/PSInnovate
- http://www.twitter.com/yourABS
NSW State
- http://twitter.com/ArtGalleryofNSW
- http://twitter.com/austmus
- http://twitter.com/MCASydney
- http://twitter.com/GosfordRFS
- http://twitter.com/nswrfs
- http://twitter.com/NSWHealth
- http://twitter.com/nswhealthjobs
- http://twitter.com/nswpolice
- http://twitter.com/sydney_holidays
- http://twitter.com/apps4nsw
- http://twitter.com/BusinessNSW
- http://twitter.com/datansw
- http://twitter.com/Myschoolkids
- http://twitter.com/NSW_IR
- http://twitter.com/nswdpi
- http://twitter.com/NSWFoodAuth
- http://twitter.com/staterecordsnsw
- http://twitter.com/WorkCoverNSW
QLD State
- http://twitter.com/QAGGoMA
- http://twitter.com/qldmuseum
- http://twitter.com/qldhealthnews
- http://twitter.com/slqld
- http://twitter.com/QPSmedia
- http://twitter.com/Queensland
- http://twitter.com/TransLinkSEQ
- http://twitter.com/MigrationMuseum
- http://twitter.com/NatMotorMuseum
- http://twitter.com/SAMaritimeMuseu
- http://twitter.com/SAMuseum
- http://twitter.com/StateTheatreSA
- http://twitter.com/SLSA
- http://twitter.com/SA_SES
- http://twitter.com/LimestoneCoast
- http://twitter.com/Murraylands
- http://twitter.com/tourismawards
- http://twitter.com/tourismsa
- http://twitter.com/ZoosSA
TAS State
VIC State
- http://twitter.com/acmionline
- http://twitter.com/AmbulanceVic
- http://twitter.com/appmystate
- http://twitter.com/AustraliaDayVic
- http://twitter.com/BarwonWater
- http://twitter.com/businessvic
- https://twitter.com/CancerVic
- http://twitter.com/CFA_CONNECT
- http://twitter.com/cfa_updates
- http://twitter.com/ChampMoves
- http://twitter.com/deecd
- http://twitter.com/deecdnews
- http://twitter.com/DesignVictoria
- http://twitter.com/discoverycentre
- http://twitter.com/egovrc
- http://twitter.com/fed_square
- http://twitter.com/FilmVictoria
- http://twitter.com/HeritageVic
- http://twitter.com/HvilleSanctuary
- http://twitter.com/IMAXMelbourne
- http://twitter.com/immigration_mv
- http://twitter.com/InfoVic
- http://twitter.com/InvestVictoria
- http://twitter.com/melbournemuseum
- http://twitter.com/MelbourneWater
- http://twitter.com/metrotrains
- http://twitter.com/MFB_NEWS
- http://twitter.com/museumvictoria
- http://twitter.com/NSMNews
- http://twitter.com/ngv_melbourne
- http://twitter.com/Library_Vic
- http://twitter.com/MelbTraffic
- http://twitter.com/MelbourneZoo
- http://twitter.com/mykimate
- http://twitter.com/scienceworks_mv
- http://twitter.com/TruthinArtAward
- http://twitter.com/VicGovHealth
- http://twitter.com/vicgovnews
- http://twitter.com/VictoriaPolice
- http://twitter.com/VicUrban
- http://twitter.com/VicVolunteers
- http://twitter.com/vlineinform
- http://twitter.com/justice_vic
- http://twitter.com/WerribeeZoo
- http://twitter.com/wheelercentre
- http://twitter.com/WorkSafe_Vic
- http://twitter.com/ZoosVictoria
- http://twitter.com/yarratrams
- http://twitter.com/ArtGalleryWA
- http://twitter.com/perththeatre
- http://twitter.com/ScreenWest
- http://twitter.com/statelibrarywa
- http://twitter.com/SwanRiverTrust
- http://twitter.com/FESAAlerts
- http://twitter.com/fpcwa
- http://twitter.com/DisabilityWA
- http://twitter.com/RottnestIsland
- http://twitter.com/WestAustralia
- http://twitter.com/fuelWatchWA
- http://twitter.com/Perth_Traffic
- http://twitter.com/Transperth
- http://twitter.com/TransportWAnews
- http://twitter.com/CommerceWA
- http://twitter.com/ConsumerWA
- http://twitter.com/dsrwa
- http://twitter.com/AlburyCity
- http://twitter.com/BizPortStephens
- http://twitter.com/Bwoodcouncil
- http://twitter.com/CanadaBay
- http://twitter.com/CanterburyCity
- http://twitter.com/CC_Council
- http://twitter.com/cityofsydney
- http://twitter.com/KACArtCentre
- http://twitter.com/lakemac
- http://twitter.com/LeetonNSW
- http://twitter.com/LivoCouncil
- http://twitter.com/Manly_Council
- http://twitter.com/mosmancouncil
- http://twitter.com/mosmanparktown
- http://twitter.com/Narromine
- http://twitter.com/parracity
- http://twitter.com/Penrith_Valley
- http://twitter.com/Pittwater2010
- http://twitter.com/ShellharbourCC
- http://twitter.com/ShoalhavenCC
- http://twitter.com/SuthShireCncl
- http://twitter.com/WakoolShire
- http://twitter.com/WyongCouncil
SA Local
- http://twitter.com/CampbelltownSA
- http://twitter.com/CityofAdelaide
- http://twitter.com/cityofmitcham
- http://twitter.com/UnleyCouncil
- http://twitter.com/BassCoast
- http://twitter.com/BaysideCouncil
- http://twitter.com/Boroondara
- http://twitter.com/BrunswickBaths
- http://twitter.com/CardiniaShire
- http://twitter.com/CityOfCasey
- http://twitter.com/cityportphillip
- http://twitter.com/egsc
- http://twitter.com/GreaterShepp
- http://twitter.com/KnoxCC
- http://twitter.com/latrobecity
- http://twitter.com/MaribyrnongCC
- http://twitter.com/thats_melbourne
- http://twitter.com/wodongacouncil
- http://twitter.com/yourcityspace
- http://twitter.com/cityofbayswater
- http://twitter.com/cityofcanning
- http://twitter.com/CityOfCockburn
- http://twitter.com/CityofFremantle
- http://twitter.com/cityofmelville
- http://twitter.com/CityOfPerth
- http://twitter.com/CityofStirling
- http://twitter.com/Mundaring
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Australian public servants told three times - open (reusable) government data is important. | Tweet |
The Australian Public Service (APS) has now been told three times by three different reports in the last year about the importance of releasing much of its information openly to the community.
This began with reforms to Freedom of Information which, once passed, will encourage a pro-disclosure environment within the APS and make it easier and cheaper for people to request information from government.
Second was the Gov 2.0 Taskforce Final Report: Engage, which recommended managing public sector information as a national resource, releasing most of it for free and in ways that promoted reuse in innovative ways.
Third is the report released yesterday by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration. The report recommended that Departments should create more open government, with one of the detailed sub-recommendations being,
Greater disclosure of public sector data and mechanisms to access the data so that citizens can use the data to create helpful information for all, in line with privacy and secrecy principles;The last two reports are yet to be responded to by the Australian Government, however I hope that Australian public servants at all levels are taking note.
Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a strategy.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Rating government performance online | Tweet |
Cheryl from the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre recently brought to my attention the launch of the BrandKarma website.
The website aggregates information about top brands and allows the public to indicate whether they love, hate or want to watch them. It also allows comments and, in the best social networking style, the creation of personal profiles and 'friending' of others.
With a little more development the site will also probably support communities around brands - people who hate them and people who love them, potentially becoming a source of information and influence for others.
How is this important for government? Substitute 'brand' with 'agency' and you get a very interesting approach to rating government agencies and collecting user feedback.
It would be interesting to see how many people, for example, loved DIITR rather than hated them, and in comparison how many loved and hated DEEWR, DAFF, DHS or Defense - and why.
This type of site could make many public servants and politicians uncomfortable, just as BrandKarma is likely to make companies uncomfortable. However it also offers enormous opportunity for brands (or agencies) to engage, address their faults and, where necessary, turn community views around.
This type of internet-based public customer feedback is part of the new reality - just as PatientOpinion is now part of the UK's health landscape.
What is particularly interesting to me is whether governments will take the step of making it possible to publicly laud or complain about their agencies, or whether it will be left to the private sector - leaving government with less ability to influence.
Time will tell - but maybe not much time. It wouldn't require much modification to BrandKarma to launch GovernmentKarma.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Innovative government use of Twitter highlighted in case study | Tweet |
The GovTwit blog has put me on to the latest case study in Twitter 101 (where they showcase how organisations are using Twitter in innovative ways).
It's on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who are using Twitter to monitor earthquakes as they occur - an early detection system that is proving to be much faster than seismic instruments (at least in populated areas).
The case study, Science for a changing world, reflects some of the discussions I had with Geosciences Australia last year. Geosciences Australia were looking at how they could use social media to detect the human impact of natural disasters and perhaps even identify small earth tremors in populated areas where there are no seismic instruments nearby.
In the USGS's case they are simply listening for mentions of earthquake related words and using them to map the extent of human-felt earth tremors. They also say that,
In sparsely instrumented regions, they can be our first indication that an earthquake may have occurred.
There are many other examples out there of ways that government agencies are using social media in innovative ways to serve the public good.
I just wish I saw more examples of Australian governments putting these uses into practice rather than largely finding them used by overseas jurisdictions.
Many Australians tell me that we are early adopters of technology, highly creative and innovative. Those statements only become true if we prove them every day.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
When the public controls the printing presses and corporations have more 'citizens' than countries, who holds the power? | Tweet |
There are now over 1.7 billion internet users in the world, sending more than 270 billion emails each day.
Over 400 million people use Facebook each month (about 50% of them daily).
Over 50 million Tweets are sent each day and over 75 million people visited Twitter's site in January 2010.
There are approximately 3 billion searches per day via Google, 280 million each day on Yahoo and 80 million each day on Bing.
There are in excess of 133 million blogs, posting over 600,000 posts per day (600,001 including this post!)
Over 24 hours of video, mostly user-generated, is uploaded to Youtube each minute (or 34,560 hours of footage - nearly 4 years of continual viewing - per day).
This is a lot of content and connections between people outside any formal governance structures.
The companies involved are very influential. The giants, Facebook and Google, anecdotally each hold more than 10% share of global internet traffic. The companies they vanquished, MySpace and Yahoo, remain major destinations with hundreds of millions of users around the world.
To-date these companies have abided by the laws of sovereign states - censoring content or complying with local regulation as required.
However what happens when these companies, or a large group of enfranchised internet using citizens, refuses to play by a government's rules?
We've seen one of the first signs of this in the recent encounter between Google and China - the world's most trafficked website versus the world's most populated country (and home of more internet users than any other nation).
In case you've not been following the story, in January this year Google publicly revealed that the company had been hacked in a highly sophisticated and co-ordinated attack who stole intellectual property and read the gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. They announced that 33 other companies (including Adobe) had also been hacked (most of whom have not publicly admitted it) and that they had traced the hackers back to mainland China (even launching a counter-attack).
After the attack Google announced it was reconsidering whether to remain in China, where it held about 30% search share through www.google.com.cn. The company subsequently announced it would no longer agree to censor Google results in compliance with Chinese law.
On Monday this week Google announced it was ceasing to censor search results on behalf of the Chinese government and redirected its Chinese servers to Hong Kong (which, while part of China, is not under the same censorship provisions), but kept its sales and research functions in China - for now.
While Google users in China will now be able to search for whatever they choose (such as Tiananmen Square), their search results will still be filtered by the 'great firewall of China' - however they may now see which pages were blocked, rather than not receiving any results at all. And there may be ways they can outflank the firewall to see page contents.
A storm in a teacup? This would never happen outside China?
Maybe not.
Google has already flagged a similar position in Australia. Google officially refused a public request by Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy to self-censor YouTube to comply with the mandatory internet filter that the Government plans to introduce.
Perhaps the withdrawal of Google from China should be seen as one of the first statements that global companies are no longer bound by sovereign nations who ask more than they are willing to give up.
Groups of internet users are also beginning to challenge sovereign authorities in new ways. From the Filipino use of SMS texting in the 1990s student protests to the use of Twitter last year to organise and publish information about protests around the recent Iran Presidential election, individuals are using modern technology to protest against government positions.
Even more recently, I learnt in Hong Kong of recent protests about the route of a high-speed train to Beijing, which were partially coordinated by Twitter using the Hong Kong government's free wi-fi hotspots.
So what is the effect on sovereign nations when companies and individuals can self-organise, share and reveal information across borders in ways that governments cannot block (without turning off the internet and crippling their own operations)?
What happens to society's compact that governments can create laws and people and corporations will follow them when it is so easy to move your operation to another jurisdiction and continue operating in defiance to local laws?
Frankly I don't know - and doubt that anyone today can accurately predict the long-term outcome.
However it is becoming clear that while the world still labours under 18th century concepts of statehood and governance, but individuals and corporations use 21st century tools to communicate, collaborate and operate, there is an inherent tension between citizens and governments that will continue to grow.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
20 thoughts on government blogging | Tweet |
I was asked today by a representative of another agency for my thoughts, advice and observations on government blogging.
While I don't think I have any particularly unique insights, I realise that people who are new to the medium are at an earlier point on their learning journey. So here's the 20 thoughts I shared (slightly reordered, reworded and extended for flow).
- Post at least weekly to maintain an audience. Less than weekly tends to lose your audience as they don't develop a habit.
- Keep a couple of posts in hand at all times to cover busy periods. Otherwise you can easily miss a few weeks and start losing your audience.
- Where possible keep each post to a single concept or topic. If you have multiple topics, consider breaking them into multiple posts - even parts in a series if appropriate (people will return for Parts 2 and 3 - or seek out Part 1 if they start in the middle).
- Keep posts as succinct as possible. I use 250 words as a rule of thumb for length (though break this for in-depth pieces). Posting very short (50 or less word) items is fine if there is value.
- Create an RSS feed for your blog. This will account for potentially 50% or more of your readership. Consider using Google Feedburner or a similar tracking service to allow you to report on RSS traffic more effectively.
- Cross-promote the blog via your other channels. For example, in Twitter announce your posts with a link; in email announcements include a short summary and your blog and include it in email signatures.
- List your blog in appropriate directories and services such as Technorati. It leads to new traffic.
- Design your blog to look like a blog. Wordpress, Blogger or Typepad blogs are the 'norm' that everyone looks for, just like Google is what people expect in search. A blog that doesn't look like a blog won't be reacted to like a blog.
- First impressions count. Launch your blog with 5-10 posts already live to give people valuable content to start with and to communicate to them the scope you will be covering. This can include older information rewritten for the blog.
- At minimum moderate the first comment made by an individual. This reduces spam significantly. Moderating all comments is OK for risk-adverse agencies, but does stifle discussion - be aware and weigh the risks both ways.
- Make sure the topical scope of your blog and your moderation guidelines are visible and transparent. Review them regularly to ensure that they still cover what you need.
- Give people a reason to engage with you through comments. This can be done by asking questions or posing dilemmas and ideas. Avoid simply posting authoritative statements - save them for media releases.
- Use guest posts to add diversity of views and encourage the audiences of other writers/bloggers to 'try' your blog.
- Release information exclusively/early on your blog where possible. This will encourage people to visit it regularly.
- Keep post approval processes simple and fast. I appreciate this can be a challenge. Keep moderation approvals simpler and faster. Where possible write guidelines on what is acceptable/unacceptable and have it signed off by senior management so that you can manage the blog on a day-to-day basis with a minimum of overhead.
- If you post something incorrect, edit it ethically. If a spelling or grammatical mistake, or a broken link or formatting issue, correct your post. If a factual correction, add it below your post as an edit or as a comment that acknowledges the error. People will respect you for it.
- Blogging is a journey, not a destination. Keep your blog iteratively evolving and live. I 'play' with the design of my blog every month or so - adding new resources, links and features and removing those that didn't work.
- Put a name to your posts - just a first name is fine (if required for privacy). If there are multiple authors, use their different names with their posts. People blog, not organisations (organisations send announcements).
- Keep individual personalities (linked to names) in posts. Nothing rings more false than a sanitised and cleansed neutral tone. People have their own writing styles - used to great effect by newspaper columnists. These styles are what make the columns interesting, and make your blog interesting.
- Give your blog time to find its feet. It can take 6-12 months or more for a blog to find its audience. Few succeed overnight or in a 6 month pilot. However be ready to kill it if it simply doesn't work out. Not all blogs are successful.
Friday, March 19, 2010
The future of publishing - perhaps | Tweet |
This video reflects some of the sentiments I hear from time to time about young people - and provides an alternate view.
Thanks to Crikey for making me aware of it:
Vote for your favourite NSW Apps - closes 22 March | Tweet |
Public voting is now open for Apps4NSW, but only until Monday 22 March.
So if you wanted to check out and vote for applications submitted to the competition, go to the Apps4NSW public voting site.
EDIT: Note that it was entries that closed 22 March. Public voting remains open until 9 April.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Is internet access a human right or a privilege? | Tweet |
There is considerable international discussion at the moment over whether internet access should be recognised as a fundamental human right.
The ability of the internet to allow people to communicate, access education, jobs, participate in democratic processes and to create businesses makes it a powerful force for opportunity. It helps the poor to help themselves out of poverty and the disenfranchised to have a voice.
A growing number of countries around the world have recognised the internet as a fundamental human right. France did so in July 2009 and Finland followed in October, making access to a 1Mb connection a right as an interim step towards making 100Mb access (the proposed speed of the Australian National Broadband Network) a right by 2015. Estonia, known for its forays into internet voting, and Greece have also made internet access a right.
A recent BBC survey of 27,000 people across 26 countries found that 79% of people agreed that internet access should be a human right. An even higher 85% of Australian respondents believed that internet access should be a right and 87% of Chinese respondents held the same view.
The United Nations is also moving slowly towards have internet access declared a universal human right.
Australia hasn't yet made any formal declaration about internet access, but has enshrined in law phone access as a legal right, through the Universal Service Obligation. I've not yet found indications of discussions by Australian governments or courts over whether internet access should also be singled out as a legal right.
So with all these steps occurring internationally, where is the opposition to declaring internet access as a human right?
A number of states around the world are already or are considering restricting internet access through universal censorship or means such as licensing individual internet users. Some states have even shut-down access to entire internet services or arrested bloggers and online commentators in attempts to control access to information and debate.
Commercial interests in a number of countries are pushing for laws that would allow them to require ISPs to cut internet access from households they suspect of information piracy without recourse to existing legal processes.
These approaches could oppose the concept of internet access as a fundamental human right as they may lead to situations where people are denied access to some legitimate online information (mistakenly or deliberately censored) - or could be permanently denied access to the internet altogether.
Both stem from a view of the internet as being primarily a news and entertainment medium without considering the broader uses of the internet as a communications and service delivery medium.
Telephone access is considered a fundamental right in many countries and few filter or block phone conversations based on content (though they may monitor conversations as a law enforcement activity). Telecommunications providers are not generally held responsible for the conversations of their customers and are not usually required to cut access to subscribers if they discuss or conduct illegal activities by phone.
Cutting people off from internet access permanently in response to illegal activity could easily become a life sentence to poverty. These people would be unable to enjoy the same access to services, information and communication as the rest of society, potentially leading to further criminal activity or permanent underprivilege.
The challenge for countries is how to successfully walk the path between open internet access and regulation of illegal material. Making internet access some form of legal or fundamental human right, while still ensuring that copyright owners' rights are respected and illegal online activity can be addressed and contained. Punishing wrong doers, without establishing an underprivileged class.
It will be interesting to see how different nations attempt to solve this over time.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
21st Century statecraft in action | Tweet |
We're beginning to see the early shape of 21st Century statecraft, through how the UK and US have begun adopting social media approaches in their international relations.
Both nations have recognised the need to engage their own citizens, and the citizens of other nations, in ongoing conversations - tapping broad bases of expertise and improving the transparency of government decisions.
The UK has shown leadership through its FCO Bloggers, a group of 20 or so diplomats and ambassadors who provide insights into Britain's foreign relations and international dealings. Hosted at the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, the FCO Bloggers provide insight into Britain's overseas engagement and opportunities for local and British citizens to participate in a more open discussion of the diplomatic ties and issues that are vital to preserving global stability.
The US's Department of State has operated the DipNotes blog for some time and used an 'opinion piece' approach to introduce senior diplomats to the blogging concept (a friend of mine says that the best way to get people over the age of 45 blogging is to call them 'opinion pieces' rather than 'blog posts').
The Department also uses Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube to provide greater insights into the activities of the Department.
Most recently, the State Department has introduced crowdsourcing to its engagement mix with the introduction of Opinion Space 2.0, an intriguing data sharing and visualisation tool which clusters individual viewpoints into 'constellations'.
Opinion Space captures public views and portrays them on a 3-dimensional spectrum, providing government with a measure of what is important to its citizens and allowing the crowd to prioritise ideas and approaches.
While it's still early days, I am beginning to see some of this 21st Century statecraft bear fruit. By improving transparency and encouraging greater engagement in international relations, the different approaches of both the UK and US are helping to build their national awareness of the need for strong international ties. They also provide ways for the citizens of other nations to become involved in discussions, allowing words a greater opportunity to replace bullets in international dealings.
I hope that in the (not too distant) future, other nations also begin experimenting in this space - using social media to empower diplomatic relations and build bridges between nations. As usual, the technology is not the barrier - it's the willingness of Government Departments to adopt new ways of doing business and to permit dialogue to occur on a less controlled basis.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Report: Real (political and government) Leaders Tweet | Tweet |
The Digital Policy Council at Digital Daya has released a thought-provoking report on the incidence of social media use by government leadership around the world, characterised through the use of Twitter, entitled Real Leaders Tweet (PDF)
Considering the 163 countries recognised by the United Nations, the report indicates that 24 (15%) already have leaders or government-sanctioned agencies using Twitter. Of those 21 are considered amongst the most stable regimes in the world - which means their political and governance systems are highly entrenched and self-sustaining, not that they are necessarily democracies.
The report argues that
... democracy is not necessarily a pre-requisite for active use of Twitter. Many leaders heading governments labelled as "non-democratic" employ Twitter to good effect - to engage the people of their countries.
One of the key findings of the report is that "Good Leaders Twitter". This means that in stable societies social media use by government to engage, listen and respond to their citizenry is a positive way to reinforce their state's integrity and ongoing success.
The report also commented that 'fragile' nations - those with a high degree of political instability - are likely to consider social media as a threat to the continued survival of the regimes in question. In these situations social media can become a destabilising force for groups in power as it allows opponents to self-organise and have a greater public voice (for example during the recent Iran election).
From these findings Digital Daya has concluded that social media is a significant means of change for nations, but not a significant means of control. Stable governments of all types that adopt social media will find that their use helps reinforce their legitimacy and improve citizen engagement, whereas fragile states will often discover that the opposite is true.
While it could be debatable whether Twitter is the appropriate social media tool to use for this type of analysis, the report still raises intriguing questions for government decision-makers across the globe.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Why not make your department's public presentations public? | Tweet |
Every years there are many conferences, forums and other publicly orientated events where public servants speak - providing views on their activities, successes and learnings across a wide-range of professional disciples.
The conference I have been at the last two days, FutureGov Hong Kong, is one example of these - where three Australian public servants spoke about our experiences and our presentations were distributed to delegates from approximately 10 countries.
Given that these events are public - anyone who registers (and pays a fee if one is charged) can attend, I have often wondered why more government departments do not make presentations given publicly by their staff - which do not contain sensitive or in confidence material - available online for the benefit of broader audiences.
Recently I found the State of Utah slideshare site, which does exactly this.
This is a great example of how to leverage government knowledge, sharing it across a department, a government, different governments and with the community.
Spreading this knowledge across the public sector increases its impact and value (and reduces the potential economic tax placed on its distribution by private sector conference organisers).
Are any Australian governments or departments doing this already?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
FutureGov Hong Kong - Day 1 LiveBlog | Tweet |
I'm attending FutureGov Hong Kong over the next two days and will be liveblogging and tweeting from the event as possible.
The event features speakers and attendees from countries across Asia-Pac, including Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China and should provide insights into Government IT and Gov 2.0 initiatives across the region.
We're just kicking off for the morning so I am opening up my liveblog below...
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Heading to Hong Kong | Tweet |
I'm leaving for Hong Kong today (in fact I'm scheduled to board the plane 3 minutes after this post is scheduled to go live) to attend and speak at the FutureGov Hong Kong conference on behalf of my department.
Depending on the availability of internet connectivity I will either liveblog and tweet parts of the event or post about it later.
The rest of the week I am taking as a holiday - so don't expect me to post (though I still might as ideas strike me).
This is my first trip to the province, and I am looking forward to the food, the culture and the custom-made suits.
I am also looking forward to 10 uninterrupted hours with the Gov 2.0 Taskforce project reports on the plane....
Friday, March 05, 2010
There's an online social network for everyone | Tweet |
The next time you or your colleagues dismiss the idea of attempting to develop a social networking strategy for a niche audience, consider that the internet is big enough (with over a billion users) for there to be many niche communities for unusual passions.
Network World recently published an article, Ten of the World's Strangest Social Networks, looking at ten of these niche online communities, including for lovers of exotic moustaches, for people who discuss their (sleeping) dreams, for karaoke fans and best of all a social network where everyone - and everything - is your friend (well ok, this last one is a spoof).
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
LinkedIn reaches a million Australian members | Tweet |
Most people have heard that Facebook has around 8 million active Australian accounts, and MySpace has around 2.9 million, but yesterday I was sent an email that took me a little by surprise.
Apparently LinkedIn, a professional social network, has just reached a million Australian members.
Now I can't verify the truth of this, however it does interest me as I've been a member since mid 2005 (almost five years!) and have found it an increasingly useful way to ask questions of peers, connect with colleagues, research new staff and point people to my own experience.
Like any network, the value grows as the membership grows and I'd be interested in hearing from people who don't have a LinkedIn account yet why they haven't set one up. Time, privacy, lack of interest?
Where's the payoff? Convincing citizens to engage with government | Tweet |
Governments regularly hold consultations with their public - asking them for their views on matters as widespread as tax reform, copyright, health, culture and city planning.
Whether these consultations are held through public events, print notices, online via email or social media engagement there's one constant that governments rely on - that people are willing to provide their views freely to government.
In some ways this might seem a no-brainer. A government is making a decision that will affect you - therefore you have an interest in responding.
However it is never as simple as that. It takes time (our scarcest resource) to respond to a Government consultation. Often, when there are specific forms to complete, processes to follow and events to attend, it can take a LOT of time.
Also the audience needs to feel that they will be listened to. One of the more interesting consultations I participated in last year was by the ACT government who asked a question around how they consulted. A frequently expressed view was that many people felt no incentive to participate in government consultations because their views would be ignored. Why waste time responding if you don't feel your views will make any difference.
Even harder to justify are peoples' participation in engagements where the public is providing a service to government (or other organisations) for no direct payment. An example is the National Library's Historic Newspaper Archive, where people are able to make corrections to the text of newspapers where the scanning process didn't capture the words correctly.
Another example would be Wikipedia. While it is not government, it would not exist without the dedication of tens of thousands of volunteers.
So what's the secret to encouraging greater engagement by citizens in consultations and similar 'you tell us' initiatives by government?
The answer is simple. Value given for value received.
Most people want feedback to tell them that they have been heard. This doesn't need to be (and preferably isn't) a form letter from a Minister's office or Department - or even a personal note. It can simply be notifying them when their input is published and giving them the tools to watch their contribution travel through set stages during a consultation process - received, moderated, published, considered - just as they can now watch their parcels travel from a foreign country to their doorstep.
What could also be done is to provide public recognition (a leader board) for top contributors - people who consistently provide good input on multiple consultations, or spend the time to do the work in services like the National Library's Historic Newspaper Archive does.
Finally, a consideration that is worthwhile considering when a community is providing a substitute for a valuable service (such as the design of a website, development of a mash-up application or the translation of a document) is dollars. Cold hard cash in compensation for someone's hours of hard work. This can be hard to organise in government due to procurement procedures and other practices designed to promote transparency and consistency but not designed to provide flexibility around crowd sourcing goods or services.
As governments move to implement more digitally managed consultations and engagements it is increasingly easy to support front-end consultation sites with end-to-end consultation tracking and contribution leader boards. It even becomes possible to have departmental or cross-government leader boards, which would also provide interesting insights regarding which individuals and organisations respond to many consultations.
However to cost-effectively put these mechanisms in place organisations need to look beyond the immediate needs of a single consultation and consider their overall consultation and engagement needs over three years or more.
When we begin to see governments taking this step we'll be on the verge of seeing some very innovative Gov 2.0 processes for community engagement - and increasing engagement levels as the community feels more heard, valued and in control of their own contributions.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Social media nightmares | Tweet |
Inventorspot has compiled a list of ten of the top branded social media nightmares.
These are situations where organisations or their staff have been caught behaving badly, where social media campaigns went past the line of good taste or where organisations failed to get onto social media and were not able to become part of the discussion (to their detriment}.
It is an interesting list and shows some of the risks involved in social media - including the risk of not becoming involved.
