How should governments educate agencies about open data?

Australia now has eight whole-of-jurisdiction open data catalogues at state and federal level, alongside agency-based repositories such as at the ABS and Geosciences Australia.

There's now a recommendation, if not a clear mandate, that agencies release data in some kind of open form - although machine-readable data remains limited and some agencies have attempted to develop their own copyright processes rather than using a pre-existing scheme such as Creative Commons (the standard to by Attorney-Generals several years ago and implemented as default in several jurisdictions).

However the quantity of data released remains low - as does the quality and context around much of the data that has been released. Agencies still resist calls to release data, with some requiring FOI requests to prompt them rather than proactively provide data to the public for reuse.

While a growing group of public servants at both senior and junior levels are becoming more aware of open data, there is often still a low level of awareness about what open data means, why it is important, what agencies have been requested to do and what this means in practice.

This isn't an issue unique to Australia, it is a challenge in every jurisdiction releasing open data around the world - over 300 of them.

Fortunately some jurisdictions have recognised this issue and taken steps to address it.

A great example is the City of Philadelphia in the United States of America.

Philadelphia had been an early entry into the open data space, originally releasing its GIS (Geographic information system) data free to the public in 2001, long before the open data movement gained steam.

However they had lost steam by 2009, with other city, state and national governments moving forward with their own open data sites. As the city was in the midst of the GFC and couldn't afford to develop its own open data presence, it worked with a group of open data advocates and companies, who had an interest in accessing and using the data - particularly with Azavea, a data visualisation company.

The resulting site, OpenDataPhilly, is still a great example of a very usable open data site and the City has used it effectively to expose much of the data it already had made public and build on this with additional data.

However, like other jurisdictions, the City of Philadelphia struck the same issue in terms of many public servants not understanding the value or importance of open data. While I can't speak specifically for the City of Philadelphia's experience, this issue can lead to the gradual decay of open data sites, with few new datasets added, old data not being updated and data that is released not having been collected in ways designed to simplify and reduce the cost of publishing.

As a result, two years after launching OpenDataPhilly, the City's government has released the Open Data Guidebook, designed to provide practical guidance to City of Philadelphia departments and agencies on the release of open data to the public.

Released as a work-in-progress Google Doc and subject to regular updates, the Open Data Guidebook is an excellent guide for any jurisdiction seeking to increase internal awareness and understanding of open data and its value to government and the community.

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Will the Australian Government take an open government approach to developing its Open Government National Action Plan?

Now that Australia has finally sent a letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership, I've been reading examples of how other jurisdictions went about developing their National Action Plans (a requirement of OGP membership) to foster and support government openness.

It is clear that one of the key attributes of the most meaningful Plans is broad engagement with external and internal stakeholders and with the public on what should be included and emphasised within the National Action Plan itself.

For example, the US's second National Action Plan states:

As it developed a U.S. National Action Plan (“National Plan”), the Federal Government engaged in extensive consultations with external stakeholders, including a broad range of civil society groups and members of the private sector. It solicited inputfrom theAdministration’s own Open Government Working Group, comprised of senior-level representatives from executive branch departments and agencies. White House policymakers also engaged the public via a series of blog posts, requesting ideas about how to focus Open Government efforts on increasing public integrity, more effectively managing public resources, and improving public services. Responsive submissions were posted online.

And Canada's National Action Plan states:

Over the past two years, we have consulted Canadians on both the development of a Digital Economy Strategy and on Open Government. Our Digital Economy consultation sought feedback from all Canadians on how to improve innovation and creativity, and achieve the shared goal of making Canada a global leader in the digital economy. More recently, in the fall of 2011, we launched a consultation to explore Canadians’ perspectives on Open Government in order to inform the development of Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government. 

In fact, it is a requirement for joining the OGP that nations engage in public consultation around their National Action Plan - not simply trump out previous consultations on related topics.

For example, the UK's draft for their second National Action Plan is currently out for public consultation at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/open-government-partnership-uk-draft-national-action-plan-2013

Something that will be keenly watched by the open government community in Australia is therefore not only whether the Australian Government releases a National Action Plan and completes its commitments to join the OGP, but how the Government goes about creating the plan.

This is a case of monkey see, monkey do - the tone of openness for future Australian governments could be set by how the Government consults and engages the public and external stakeholders in creating the plan.

If the Australian Government takes a 'lip service' approach, resting on past achievements and limited engagement, this will provide senior public servants with a lead that the Government wants to be seen to be open, but doesn't really wish to be open, leading to similar behaviour in future consultations and openness across the Australian Public Service (APS).

However if the Australian Government takes this opportunity to pursue a world-class approach to demonstrating it s commitment to being as open as a national government can realistically be, this sends a different signal, a signal of commitment to true transparency, which will provide a different lead to senior public servants, one which fosters ongoing commitment throughout the APS.

A lot rests on the approach the Australian Government takes to progresses its intent to join the OGP over the next few months - with a backdrop of a new Prime Minister, new Ministry and new agenda facing an upcoming federal election and an in-progress FOI review.

With the Attorney-General's Department in charge of the OGP process, rather than a government body more intimately connected with an openness agenda, we can only wait and see how the Australian Government will take this forward.

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Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot, from Open & Shut

I've had no time to blog this week due to family commitments, however thought it worth drawing attention to Peter Timmins' fascinating post on freedom of information, over at his Open & Shut blog.

Titled Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot, the post provides information on the recent report from the Freedom of Information Advocates Network about global Freedom of Information (FOI), also known as Right To Information (RTI), looking at the 95 jurisdictions (slightly under half of the world's countries) that currently have FOI or RTI laws.

Peter wrote the section for Australasia and Oceania and includes an extract in his post.

For the report itself, visit www.foiadvocates.net

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Delivering last decade's technology today - what has gone wrong with ATO eTAX?

Six months ago I blogged about the success of e-tax as an egovernment service.

Over the last 14 years the service had grown to an annual 2.5 million submissions, with growth of around 5% per year.

I called it an egovernment success story for Australia - and stand by that view. E-tax has done a great job of delivering a service most adult Australians needed, a way of completing our annual tax return in a much faster and simpler manner.

However the buzz around the Australian Tax Office's (ATO) launch of an Apple version of its e-tax software has been uniformly negative.

Error message in etax for Apple
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Besides there being issues with the software not working under the default security settings for Apple's operating system (now fixed), the interface not complying with Apple's user interface standards (due to being a direct port from Windows), and the time it has taken for an Apple version (17 years), concerns have also been raised at the development cost (reportedly $5.2 million) and the entire approach - developing system-specific software rather than a web application.

When the ATO first launched e-tax (for Windows only) in 1997 on CD, it was considered a state-of-the-art egovernment service, showcasing the way ahead for government in moving from paper to a digital-first approach.

Over the years, as the service grew in popularity, so did the calls for the ATO to support other platforms - even create a web-based service.

The ATO continued developing e-tax, updating it every year with the latest tax law changes, refining the interface, improving the speed and logic and ensuring it worked with the latest versions of Windows - apparently spending over $39 million on the software to 2013, or an average of $2.8 million per year.

Of that, approximately $32 million went to the private company that developed the software, yes e-tax was outsourced from the start.

According to Crikey, in 2004 the Tax Commissioner indicated at Senate Estimates that the ATO hadn't seen substantial demand for versions of e-tax on other platforms, however by 2007 the ATO announced in a media release that they would test an Apple version in 2008.

These tests were subsequently abandoned and nothing further happened until 2011, when the ATO again said it had an Apple version almost ready - but again delayed it until 2013 due to issues.

The Apple version of e-tax released last Friday, reportedly cost $5.2 million to develop on top of the cost of the Windows product.

I can't verify how good this version is, as I've not yet succeeded in getting it to run on my Apple laptop.

However even if it runs perfectly, the ATO has reached a point where it needs to look beyond the current software-based approach to e-tax.

While understanding the ATO's commitment to security, in an age when the majority of Australians use the internet for their banking, companies use web-based financial, HR and CRM systems and the world's financial markets are managed through web-based trading systems, it doesn't make sense that the ATO is still developing and maintaining operating system specific software.

While I appreciate that not all Australians are online, that hasn't been a barrier to other commercial or government services offering online services, backed by face-to-face, phone or paper processes for people offline.

In fact the ATO's paper submission process works quite well - the design thinking employed by the ATO has borne a lot of fruit in this area.

From being a leader in the electronic tax return area, we've now dropped in the list significantly - with some other nations offering more sophisticated web-based solutions, or having opened the field to private companies who meet their tax office's requirements.

The ATO's centralised software-based approach is a good 20th Century solution, but an increasingly poor approach for the 21st Century as the range of devices people are using keeps increasing.

While the ATO might be able to justify cost-efficiencies in continuing to deliver e-tax as a software product, the writing is on the wall for operating system specific client software.

More and more software is moving online, with computers and other internet connection devices increasingly using web browsers essentially as their operating systems.

The risk the ATO faces is that the rising cost of maintaining and updating multiple copies of e-tax might leave the agency with less and less funds for product innovation.

In effect, if the ATO doesn't put a concerted effort into making the leap from software clients to software as a service it risks having e-tax become a white elephant, dragging down its future innovation capability.

Many organisations face this type of decision at some point. Deciding when to make a paradigm leap of  this type is hard, and quickly distinguishes good from bad management.

Microsoft is moving its products online as services, as is Adobe and companies such as Salesforce.com have led the way in replacing locally hosted CRM, HR, financial and other organisational systems with online equivalents.

Government agencies will need to make similar, if not identical, decisions. When to shift the services they provide, such as e-tax, from client to cloud, when to replace the services they use with cloud from client - and which they especially need to not replace.

Whatever impact the current media storm has on the ATO, I hope both political and public sector leadership is prepared to lead in this area. To change how they approach and deliver IT to deliver long-term efficiencies and improvements.

With the focus on the ATO, I hope they are able to step up. While their track record on egovernment is good, the environment has changed and they must change with it.

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My presentation to the UK Government Digital Service

I'm going to do a full post on my visit to the UK Government Digital Service (the GDS), but thought I'd lead with the presentation I gave to them regarding the state of Government 2.0 and open government in Australia, and how we've reached the point we're at.

Note this is purely my view of the situation - if I've gotten things wrong, please correct me so I keep it in mind when speaking to others.

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How to shut down or redirect an official Ministerial or agency social media account

With the change in Australia's Prime Minister last week, the resignation of a large handful of Ministers, and the announcement of new Ministers this week, we've seen some interesting approaches to shutting down Ministerial Twitter accounts.

Senator Jacinta Collins closed her Ministerial account with two very-matter-of-fact tweets, redirecting people to the new Ministers:

This account is now closed. For Education media, follow @MinShortenMedia and @ParlSecThomson.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

This account is now closed. For Employment media, please follow @MinOConnorMedia and @KateEllisMP.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

Senator Conroy, Wayne Swan MP and Peter Garrett MP ended on higher notes, before the new Ministry was announced (therefore not redirecting to new Ministers):

For everyone who's asked 'Why the Dalek?' - farewell from all of us in Team Conroy pic.twitter.com/v05YmLP1We
— Conroy MO (@ConroyMO) June 27, 2013

Thank you Australia for the absolute privilege of being your Treasurer for the past five and a half years
— Wayne Swan (@SwannyQLD) June 26, 2013

Thanks for all the support, no regrets here as I resign as Minister and rejoin my dear family with good things done for our nation. PG
— Peter Garrett AM MP (@PGarrettMP) June 26, 2013

My point in highlighting these tweets is to consider how Ministers and agencies should close down their Twitter or other social media accounts after losing a position (for a Minister) or are 'MOGed' (Machinery of Government) - merged into another agency or disbanded (for an agency or department).

Clearly there's a range of transition or shut down steps that need to be taken in any of these cases and social media can be at the bottom of the list of concerns. However as social channels are increasingly important methods for contacting a Minister or agency, there does need to be some care taken to continue monitoring live accounts and providing appropriate redirection instructions (as Senator Collins has done for her account).

So how should accounts be shutdown or redirected?

Here's some suggested steps:

1. Transfer the account and keep operating it if feasible. Sure a person may have left a position, or an agency's duties may be subsumed into another department, however in many cases the role or responsibility hasn't disappeared entirely.
   
   A social media audience is an asset - companies and agencies pay a great deal of money to access the audiences 'owned' by media outlets and it is not sensible to throw away a Minister or agency's audience just because of a change in personnel.
2. If a position is disappearing or an agency's role is ending, avoid an immediate shutdown or cessation of activity on an account. Yes Ministers can disappear overnight, and agencies can be swallowed up quite quickly, however it takes longer for all members of the community to get the message that a change has occurred.
   
   Abrupt disconnects can also be disrespectful if handled poorly, leaving a community upset and abandoned - just like walking away from a conversation with someone while you or they are in mid-sentence.
   
   Continue monitoring and communicating through the account for at least a few days, and preferably a few weeks to retain the connection with the community and allow a gradual withdrawal and redirection. This will help maintain the relationship during the transition and ensure that the new Minister or agency has a base to build on.
3. Communicate the change actively, not just through tweets and posts, but also in the profile and 'about' information for an account. Tweets and posts appear and disappear in peoples' streams whereas profile information is there continually, ensuring followers and visitors can see the message at anytime.
   
   If continuing to communicate through the account (such as during a handover or to prevent issues around an immediate shutdown), ensure that you periodically communicate the change via tweets and posts as well.
4. Give people somewhere to go. When shutting down an account, provide details of where people should go to continue to follow the topic. For an agency this means directing people to the new agency's social media accounts (if they have them), for a Minister it means (if the same party) directing them to the new Minister's social media accounts, as Senator Collins did in her accounts as illustrated above, or to the department or political party's accounts if the new Minister doesn't have a social presence.
   
   If there's a change in government occurring, it is unlikely that a Minister or their advisors would be very willing to provide the community with a link to their successor however, if the account is personally operated, redirecting to the ex-Minister's personal account or political party's account is an option instead.

In summary, if agencies and Ministers avoid abruptly ending the conversation (abandoning their audience), communicate the change clearly and provide a path for people who wish to continue to follow the topic and have a conversation, changes in social media accounts can be managed quite effectively without losing reputation or respect and avoiding negative consequences or attention.

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Is there a place for Agile in policy development?

The Agile software development methodology has changed the way many software companies operate.

The approach replaced production-line sequential and hierarchical 'waterfall' methods of developing code and services (based on the automobile production line), with iterative and responsive processes involving self-organising teams, continuous engagement and the division of bigger goals into short-term objectives - systems more attuned to the iterative modular nature of software.

Many of the top software and online services available today simply would not exist without Agile, or would be considerably less developed, from Microsoft Office to Facebook. Agile is also widely used by IT teams in government agencies, at varying degrees of sophistication and rigour.

Agile is said to increase productivity, reduce risk and improve ROI. However, that said, it isn't for the fainthearted, requiring organisational buy-in, discipline, commitment and a willingness to put customers and stakeholders at the centre of the development process, ahead of ideological or expert beliefs.

The question I have is whether Agile methodologies can be adapted to another process, which is still largely based on hierarchical systems, embedded interests and sequential design - government policy development.

The UK is currently committed to a major step towards an Agile-like policy approach, with a reform process to adapt an 'Open Policymaking' approach.

Detailed in http://my.civilservice.gov.uk, Open Policy mirrors a number of the attributes of Agile methodologies.

The approach intends to shift UK policy processes from being driven by top-down authority and fixed policy teams, towards co-design processes deeply involving stakeholders and managed by flexible policy teams drawn, based on skill, not status, from across government and other sectors.

The UK is even introducing the concept of contestable policy making, whereby the government is making funds available for organisations outside of government to develop policies, which would then be considered and potentially adopted by government as legislation, or integrated into agency-developed policy deliberations.

While open policy doesn't entirely reflect Agile methodologies, it draws from it in an attempt to create a new, more iterative and responsive approach to policy development.

With the UK's reforms still underway it is hard to yet assess whether the move to open policy will bear fruit. Trials of similar approaches (with varying levels of political and public sector commitment) elsewhere in the world are also still in early stages, so it is hard to identify successes - or failures - for open policy processes as yet.

However in an environment more complex and fast changing than ever before in history, open policy making attempts are likely to at minimum provide insights and significant lessons to governments who are prepared to innovate - learnings that could lead to improvements or changes to existing policy development processes.

To my thinking the key to this isn't necessarily the outcome - the key is to innovate in policy making, just as governments are seeking to innovate in other areas. If governments don't constantly try new things, measure the extent of change (improvement or otherwise) and share these learnings, then agencies and public sectors will ossify and undoubtably become fossils in a fast changing world.

To read more on open policymaking, see http://openpolicy.demsoc.org

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Media & PR practitioners no longer control the oxygen valve

A classic ploy by media and PR professionals to kill an unwanted issue has been to 'deny it oxygen' - refusing to comment or engage on the topic publicly, via news media or other channels.

The approach has traditionally worked very effectively for both public sector and commercial communicators. Devoid of any official information, or even denials, many journalists would quickly drop a potential story in favour of topical issues where information was available, in order to meet their tight deadlines.

Only journalists with the time and their editors' permission to conduct an investigation over a significant period of time were able to really pursue matters where organisations denied them oxygen, to uncover inappropriate behaviour, wrong-doing or even simple mistakes.

Communicators in organisations still employ the oxygen deprivation technique - refusing to speak to journalists, issuing bland statements which say nothing newsworthy or simply denying that an incident has taken place.

In some respects the technique has actually become more effective, with a faster news cycle meaning there's fewer and fewer journalists with the time or editorial support to pursue issues down the rabbit hole.

However with the change in the composition of the media - from a primarily high-cost professionalised workforce to essentially anyone with internet access and the ability to create a Facebook page, blog or video - media and PR professionals are beginning to realise that they no longer control the oxygen valve.

Today it only takes a single individual with the attitude or time to take on a large organisation and pierce the veil of silence.

We've seen this occur multiple times, overseas and in Australia, the Lewinsky scandal, the Vodafail initiative, the failure of the UK super-injunction system, the exposure of systematic corruption in the Chinese Communist Party by Weibo users (the equivalent of Twitter).

These are simply the tip of a growing iceberg of examples where people, individually or collectively, are able to find their own sources of oxygen independent to the entities they are investigating.

Today media and communications professionals no longer control the oxygen valve. Individuals can share and reflect on information and rumours online through communities, gaining the oxygen and support they need from peers. They can quickly co-ordinate efforts to learn more, interrogate data and quickly and cheaply collate diverse reports into a single picture of wrongdoing.

I don't think this trend is fully understood yet in Australia's public sector. I still talk to communications and media professionals working in Australian government agencies or Ministerial offices who still believe they control the oxygen valve - they can make any story go away by refusing to engage.

Well yes - sometimes they still can do this, where the matter is of low interest or importance. However increasingly they can no longer shut off the oxygen flow.

Media professionals, wherever they work, need to recognise the new reality. A person with an internet connection, social media and search tools, can put together a volunteer coalition of supporters, or piece together a jigsaw of innocuous information into an incriminating picture.

The tools of journalism are no longer simply in the hands of a limited number of professional journalists, who recognise that their long-term interests are sometimes served by co-operating in keeping a story quiet, so that they will continue to get access to key people, information and leaks.

Today citizens are journalists - they are documenting the events in their lives and the lives of people around them. They act in their own short-term interests, rather than in the interests of a publication and while every story and issue won't gain traction, enough will.

Any media, PR or other communications professional who believes that they still have the ability to shut down almost any conversation, turning off the oxygen valve, is both deluding themselves and potentially damaging the organisation they work for.

Instead communicators need to consider new approaches - engaging with social media to manage issues, rather than simply trying to shut them down. They need to build a new balance in communications, learn techniques from customer service professionals to help them address concerns, rather than simply try to bluff their way through a crisis.

Over the next few years it will become obvious which organisations have learnt new ways to engage with a more active communities and customers, and very, very obvious which organisations have not.

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What would a federal Coalition government mean for Government 2.0 in Australia?

A month ago (20 May) I sent an email to Malcolm Turnbull, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband, in my capacity as a Government 2.0 commentator, asking a range of questions about how a Coalition Government, if elected later this year, would approach Government 2.0 and federal agency use of social media in official engagement (the questions from my email are included at the end of this post).

Despite a quick exchange on Twitter several weeks ago, I've received no response to my email, or even an acknowledgement of receipt.

Some might say this isn't really a high profile issue for Australia - it's not like the economy, live exports, asylum seekers, climate change or education in terms of priority for the community.

Of course, the reality is more complex - Gov 2.0 crosses most government policy and focus areas, as a way of enabling better government, improving citizen engagement, improving transparency and accountability.

Therefore, at least in my view, a government's position on Gov 2.0 is fundamental to their approach on most policy areas - whether they engage the community effectively, are transparent, accountable and influential or whether a government is more concerned about control, shutting down sources of information and limiting public engagement.

As we've seen in successive state elections across Australia, a change of government can have a significant impact on the approach and substance of online engagement by agencies, due more to the experience and views of incoming Ministers and their advisers, rather than due to ideological differences around openness and transparency.

Victoria, NSW and Queensland in particular 'held their breath' for some time after a change in political leadership, although several of these states are now forging ahead with new initiatives.

Federally we've seen the Liberal party be cautious in how it approaches social media and online engagement, and the National party is even more so.

While some elected members of both Coalition parties use social media quite well, the actual parties themselves have, on occasion, expressed concern over the risk of prominent party member saying something online that paints a target on themselves - with the Sydney Morning Herald reporting in December 2012 that the Liberal party had slapped 'a social media gag on MPs'.

This was illustrated this week as the President of the Cessnock Hunter Young Liberals branch was suspended over Twitter comments.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this caution, the Financial Review recently reported that the Liberal Party now led Labor on the use of social media, however the real question for me is how will the Coalition's caution or capability in social media translate into their policy position for agencies.

Will the Coalition support and progress - even improve - the current initiatives underway across government, to release more data and encourage appropriate use of social media channels by agencies for communication, consultation and engagement purposes?

Will it embrace and take a global leadership role in Government 2.0, forging its own path, with clear executive support and commitment?

Or will an incoming Coalition Government put on hold or even shut down existing Gov 2.0 initiatives, including sites like data.gov.au, govspace.gov.au and transcribe.naa.gov.au?

Will it instruct agencies to reduce resourcing social media channels such as youtube.com/user/ImmiTV and facebook.com/FamiliesInAustralia, redirecting funds to traditional media?

Will the Coalition withdraw Australia from the Open Government Partnership (which we hadn't joined when I wrote my email below), as Russia recently did?

We simply don't yet know.

My email:

Dear Mr Turnbull,

I am Australia's leading blogger on egovernment and Government 2.0. My blog is syndicated on five continents and I speak frequently about Government 2.0 with Commonwealth agencies and state governments, as well as presenting at conferences here and overseas about the Australian Government's adoption of digital channels.

Given the increasing emphasis on open data, online public engagement and the use of social media by Commonwealth agencies, I would like to understand and report in my blog on the Coalition's Government 2.0 position and policies ahead of the next Federal election.

Please note this is not about IT spending, which often focuses on internal systems, neither is it about websites, which are still largely used in government for outbound communication.

It is about how government brings citizens inside the tent on decision making and improves transparency to deliver better governance, outcomes and efficiencies. 

I've included a number of questions below, and would appreciate any further information you can provide regarding the Coalition's policies in this area.

I understand these areas might not be considered as being within your portfolio and appreciate if you need to consult other Shadow Ministers.

I am also able to speak with you personally if that would be an easier way for you to respond. I am based in Canberra and could meet with you in a future sitting week.

1. What is the Coalition's position on openness and transparency in government?
   
   
2. The Labor Government, under Kevin Rudd, made a Declaration of Open Government (http://agimo.gov.au/2010/07/16/declaration-of-open-government/), via then Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. 
   Does the Coalition, if it wins government, intend to endorse, amend, replace or rescind this Declaration of Open Government?
   
   
3. In the latest Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Government Data Census, the Australian Government is ranked 4th behind the UK, US and Norway (http://census.okfn.org/country/). 
   Does the Coalition intend to take steps to improve the Australian Government's ranking in the Data Census should it be elected?
   
   
4. The current Labor Government has not yet made a firm commitment to join the Open Government Partnership (www.opengovpartnership.org/), despite being invited to join in 2011 as a founding member. 58 countries are now members, with Australia increasingly conspicuous by its absence (http://www.itnews.com.au/News/295243,australia-reserves-open-government-decision.aspx). 
   What is the Coalition's position regarding Australian membership of the Open Government Partnership and will the Coalition take immediate steps should it be elected to government?
   
   
5. In 2009 the Labor government released a beta open data site, which has subsequently been replaced with a more advanced site (http://data.gov.au/). The site has a very limited subset of data, frequently in non-reusable formats, and there is no clear mandate from the Prime Minister on government release of data, as there is in the UK, US, New Zealand, Singapore, in Queensland and NSW,  amongst over 50 other federal and state jurisdictions. 
   Would a Coalition government mandate that Commonwealth agencies release the majority of their data (where personal privacy, commercial confidence and national security are not a consideration) in machine-readable formats, as Premier Campbell Newman mandated last year in Queensland and President Obama recently mandated in the US?
   
   
6. The current Labor Government has been criticised for not mandating Government 2.0 at a Prime Ministerial level or appointing a Minister to be responsible for overseeing the Australian Public Service to improve their openness and transparency and adopt Government 2.0 tools. Whereas the Queensland Premier Campbell Newman directly spoke on the matter and appointed Ray Stevens to the position of Assistant Minister for eGovernment to oversee the Queensland Government's move towards open data. 
   Would a Coalition Government appoint a Minister, Assistant Minister or Parliamentary Secretary for eGovernment or Government 2.0 to lead this area across government?
   
   
7. The Australian Public Service is increasingly adopting social media as a business as usual channel for monitoring, communicating with and engaging companies, stakeholder groups and the community, however in the last APS report only 36% of APS had access to social media, there was no requirement for agencies to have social media policies or strategies and there were no formal training programs in place to ensure that the Australian Public Service had the skills to effectively engage via social media.
   While I have seen excellent social media engagement by the APS, I have also seen very poor engagement - most often from agencies which ban social media access to staff.
   Would a Coalition Government take any steps to ensure that the APS was adequately trained and equipped to take best advantage of social media?

(Note - I worked in roles leading online/social media initiatives within the APS from 2006 to 2012, and currently advise and train agencies in effective social media use)

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Do government agencies and councils deliberately make it harder for citizens to engage?

I've been watching a great TEDx talk by Dave Meslin on citizen engagement, which asks the question - if governments want to be open and engaging, why do they make it so hard for citizens to engage?

He raises a very good point, and demonstrates it very clearly in the video (below).



This is one of the areas I've struggled with for years.

Some of the processes governments and councils put in place around citizen engagement are designed to address political considerations, such as minimising the advertising spend (so government is not seen to promote itself too much), or address agency resourcing or timing limits, such as having extremely short engagement processes or 'hiding' consultations deep in a website so they receive only a few responses to analyse.

There's also cases where the people managing the consultation don't really understand the audience they are consulting. They may use specialist terminology, language or documents so long and complex they are impenetrable to the average Australian (who has an 8th grade reading level - that of a 14-15 year old), let alone the 46% of Australians who were considered functionally illiterate just a few years ago.

As an example, I recall an Australian council development proposal just a few years ago that was 385 pages long, provided via a sub-page in their website (with a limited number of printed copies) where people were expected to provide feedback within two weeks, responding via email.

Most Australians couldn't finish a 385 page novel in two weeks (given the amount of time per day they'd have available to read), let alone a complex planning document - even if they could find it in the council's website in time.

Response methods are equally an issue.

Holding a community forum or town hall meeting is still a popular way of consulting, and suits people who have the time and the interest to dedicate several hours to travel to and attend such an event in order to speak for a few minutes for or against a proposal. However many are increasingly dominated by retirees, the unemployed or students - who have the time to attend.

Professionals, people with young families, shift workers and tradies often don't have the time available when councils and agencies wish to hold these events.

Email-based online consultation, which is still the predominant way Australian governments ask for feedback via the internet, is dangerous in a number of ways. Emails may be blocked due to large document attachments or misclassified as spam and lost (as has happened on several occasions in the last few years - almost costing Ministers their jobs).

The generic form of responses received through emails may not suit the complexity of the consultation process. An email response to, for example, that 385 page document, may be very difficult to match against the key topics and themes, requiring a lot of time for a council or agency to analyse.

Then there's the cost and complexity of publishing responses. One of my pet hates while working in government online communications was the policy area who came to us and said, "we've just held a consultation and received 500 email responses - could you publish them in the website within two days please."

The resourcing required to publish email responses - even without considering the accessibility and privacy considerations - was immense, and was never budgeted for by the policy area.


These issues reflect on what I feel is the key issue with citizen engagement - not the common view that citizens are disengaged, but the challenge to governments to adapt their engagement approaches to provide the right environment and information for citizens to get involved and respond.

While governments tout their openness and transparency, how they are adopting a 'citizen-centric' focus and employing techniques like crowdsourcing and co-design to involve communities in decision-making, are they making the necessary changes in their own processes, approaches and people to ensure that citizen engagement is actually inclusion and effective?

In my view there's a long way to go - in Australia and in similar nations around the world - to retrain public servants, politicians and even the media, to put citizens at the centre of engagement.

It's not simply about engaging more or using online. It is about rewriting community engagement guidelines, redeveloping consultation procedures and revisiting political concerns to ensure that citizen engagement is indeed about engaging citizens, and not simply about ticking a procedural box in a government process.

For citizens to be central in engagement, perhaps governments and councils should be approaching citizens to involve them in codesigning their engagement processes.

Perhaps groups of citizens should be commissioned (at a small fee for their time) oversee or audit agency and council engagements, to provide advise and suggestions on how specific processes could be improved, or consultation materials adjusted to suit the audience being targeted.

Perhaps governments should even crowdsource the development of major consultation processes. Before asking citizens 'do you want....' they should ask 'how should we engage you on do you want....' for each major engagement.

Whatever the approaches taken, one thing is clear. If governments and councils want citizens to feel more engaged, they need to start by changing the way they engage.

Repeatedly using the same approaches to citizen engagement as have been used in the past is unlikely to deliver improved outcomes.

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Register now for the Canberra Gov 2.0 lunchtime event - 18 June 2013

This month the Gov 2.0 event in Canberra has been organised at the last minute to take advantage of a rare visit to Canberra by Facebook's Manager of Public Policy, Katie Harbath.

All the details are on the Eventbrite page at: http://www.eventbrite.com.au/event/6670292023

You can also find out more about Katie from her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/katieharbath

See you there!

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Sentiment analysis: where 'disabled' and 'disability' are often considered negative terms

It's come to my attention that a number of automated sentiment analysis tools include 'disabled' and 'disability' as negative terms.

This means that when calculating whether a particular statement in social media is positive or negative, the use of these words is used by these sentiment analysis tools as an indication that the statement is negative towards the topic of the statement - such as a topic, issue, individual or organisation.

I've checked a number of sentiment dictionaries online and found that both 'disabled' and 'disability' appear frequently as negative terms. However I have not yet been able to confirm whether any sentiment analysis products treat these words in this manner.

This disturbs me, given the efforts of governments and civic organisations in Australia and many other countries to remove negative stigma attached to the word 'disabled', even given its potential application in statements such as 'their system has been disabled'.

It also concerns me that agencies engaging online about disabilities or with disabled people, might accept that the sentiment reported by their social media monitoring tools indicates negativity where in actuality no negativity exists.

I would caution government agencies using automated sentiment analysis tools to get to know they work and check how terms such as 'disability' and 'disabled' are treated in these systems.

I'd welcome comments from makers of sentiment analysis tools to confirm how they treat these words or from agencies using automated sentiment tracking if they've seen these words or others rated negatively or positively in ways which might be misleading and misrepresent the actual sentiment.

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Is it time to drop 'www' from government site promotions?

National Australia Bank (nab.com.au)

Banks do it, utilities do it, even media does it, is it time for government to also do it - drop the 'www' from web site promotions in advertising and links?

This came to my attention while playing with the Australian Department of Health and Ageing's new my child's eHealth record app.

Looking at the information for people without an eHealth account, the help page lists the new my.gov.au site in two places as www.my.gov.au, and once as my.gov.au.

It also states that people can register for an ehealth account at www.ehealth.gov.au - ehealth.gov.au would work just as well.

The designation 'www' stems from the earliest days of the world wide web. It was used to indicate to web browsers that a given resource was a web page rather than a different type of content, such as a file repository (ftp).

As the web grew, so did the use of www, even though technology improved such that web browsers no longer needed it to recognise a web page and web servers no longer needed to use it to select the right page to serve.

In fact 'www' has been technically unnecessary since the late 1990s. It continued to be used out of habit by marketers, due to the use of old web server technology and as it was recognised by early internet users as a designator of a web site.

AGL (agl.com.au)

Since the early 2000s we've seen a decline in the use of 'www' in sites and site promotion as the online community matured and moved on from needing it for recognition of sites.

First pure online services such as Google and Facebook stopped using it - rebranding themselves as google.com and facebook.com.

Next the news media, banks and utilities started dropping www from their website addresses. Most advertising by these organisations in Australia now excludes www, illustrated in the advertising images at right (look at the small print) as 'TheAustralian.com.au', 'AGL.com.au' and 'nab.com.au'.

Government has pursued a more uneven course. There's still inconsistency as to when and whether agencies and councils use 'www' or exclude it from web addresses.

I can appreciate that there may be concerns over whether government's audiences may not understand that a web address without 'www' may not be a web page - though I'd love to see the research in support (and understand what they think it might be instead).

I expect that these concerns are most commonly voiced by older public servants, who more clearly remember the early days of the internet and remember the days when 'www' was necessary.

The Australian (TheAustralian.com.au)

However times have changed.

It seems clear Australian banks, utilities and news media are convinced 'www' is now unnecessary and have put in place consistency policies avoiding its use.

It's also clear most web-based services have also dropped the use of 'www' - to shorten their name and focus on their brand.

In fact none of the top ten sites visited by Australians still use 'www' in their branding or advertising.

Australian governments have few, if any, customers, clients or stakeholders who would not use one or more of the private services considered above. Australians are big users of web-based email, of search engines, of online banking and media.

Given government is being inconsistent - sometimes using 'www', sometimes not, this can only confuse audiences at best, or make government look less professional and old-fashioned at worst. So isn't it time for agencies to come to a common view on its use?

The Australian Government has firm web standards in place through AGIMO's webguide (which drops its own www). The Webguide already states that agencies should accomodate users who don't use 'www':

When you are setting up a website on a domain, you should ensure that the website can be reached whether or not a user adds ‘www.‘ at the front of the domain name when typing it into their browser. It is very common today for users to drop ‘www.’ from website addresses and agencies should accommodate this behaviour.

Source: http://webguide.gov.au/initial-requirements/domain-names-naming-your-site/ 

The next step is to mandate an approach - either using 'www' or dropping it.

If required 'www' should be used consistently in advertising, branding and links.

If 'www' isn't required it should be dropped from these communications devices - at least on a moving forward basis.

Either way, it's time for government across Australia to consider their policy around the use of 'www'.

Whether to ban it or use it consistently, the worst outcome is to leave things as they stand, to be inconsistent in the use of 'www'.

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Government 2.0 is dead, long live Government

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Victorian Government's Communicators' Group, discussing how effective government had been at meeting the challenge of rapid change throughout the last thirty years.

As part of my presentation I revisited the area of government 2.0 - giving my view that there's no longer such a thing - it's now simply government.

Social media is now mainstream in the community and the majority of Australian federal, state and territory departments officially use social media channels as part of their business as usual engagement with citizens, stakeholders and/or staff.

We sometimes overlook how massive a change this is - the first mention of Government 2.0 in Australia that I've been able to identify was only in September 2007, and the first Twitter account was established in November 2007.

In the last five and a half years, social media has become an extremely powerful tool for governments to engage communities, source knowledge and provide support.

This is only likely to grow into the future as we all become better at using digital channels, as more services go online. Mobile has also reached a tipping point in Australia, 50% of active internet connections, and is growing fast, meaning that digital channels will undergo even more changes towards a digital first approach.

I also highlighted four examples of what I consider current best practice in public sector digital engagement, looking at the areas of citizen-led engagement, crowdsourcing, budget savings and policy codesign.

These are only opinions and at a given point in time - there's more to come as the public sector further grows its digital capabilities and expertise.



However while Gov 2.0 might have largely merged into standard public sector practices, there's still a shortage of experienced digital engagement professionals in the sector and enormous need for ongoing education, training and support.

Ultimately I expect to see digital competency as a horizontal skill, required by the majority of public servants to support their ability to effectively recommend and implement appropriate engagement and service channels to meet public needs. However there's still a long road to travel and much that agencies will need to learn and consider along the way.

I'm going to continue using the term 'Government 2.0' for some time as, despite my view, it still has some value in defining a specific set of approaches and channels for public sector engagement, and providing a focal point for discussions regarding the ongoing change governments face online.

However I believe that Government 2.0 is realistically now simply Government - with the new approaches and channels it involved now officially part and parcel of 21st century governance.

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GovHack 2013 - my top ten picks

Last weekend (31 May - 2 June) was a big weekend for Government 2.0 in Australia, with the first truly national GovHack held across eight locations, including seven of Australia's eight major states and territories.

With over $170,000 in prizes, and around 100 national and local prizes on offer, GovHack 2013 attracted 900 participants, who formed into 134 teams to create 124 apps using open government data - of which 108 were submitted by deadline.

Sponsors included a range of small, medium and large companies and included a number of government agencies, who used the event for inspiration on how open data could be used to generate new insights and improve public awareness and understanding.

I was unable to attend due to personal commitments, however kept an eye on the event remotely via the #govhack tag on Twitter, the event website and the online dashboard (image above).

The event, as anticipated, resulted in some awesome visualisations, tools and ideas - ranging from the visual mapping of immigration to Australia, which put asylum seeker arrivals in proportion; to the creation of jewelry based on open data.

Some awards have already been given out, with others to be decided by Thursday.

A process of public voting for entries is now underway - and you can vote for your favourite entries at http://hackerspace.govhack.org/

However here are my top ten favourite entries this year.

Immigration in proportion

This is an awesome way to visualise immigration to Australia, the type of visualisation that governments should be using to put data in perspective.

Explanation:
A visualisation of all immigration to Australia within 2011-12, created for Govhack 2013. Each dot represents one person.

Red dot: immigration through skilled entry, family reunion or special eligibility schemes.
Blue dot: refugees who arrive by boat (IMA = irregular maritime arrival).
Green dot: refugees who arrive by plane (non-IMA).

Refugees arriving through offshore resettlement (eg, from refugee camps overseas) are not currently shown.

Data is from Department of Immigration and Citizenship and Refugee Council of Australia.

Credits: Steve Bennett, Andrew Wise, Darren Yu.



Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/asylum-seekers-proportion-and-getting-sense-scale

Trove: Open it up

While I don't care much for the word games, I love the concept of Trove having its own Captcha - which government agencies could use to enlist Australians in crowdsourcing the digitalisation of our national newspaper archive.

View it at: http://ec2-54-253-113-204.ap-southeast-2.compute.amazonaws.com/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/open-it

APS Jobs Gazetter

The APS Jobs Gazetter takes Australian Public Service (APS) jobs information, drawing from the (PDF) APS Jobs Gazette and presents it graphically by type of job over time, based on search terms entered.

This makes it possible to track the ebb and flow of different job types in the APS, very useful for detecting changing patterns in employment over time that simply cannot be achieved via other APS resources.

View it at: http://gazetteer.pv.tl
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/aps-jobs-gazetteer-exploring-public-service-jobs

Australia in review

It can be difficult to get a clear picture of the Australia's past - with data spread across many sources and many accounts giving a partial sense of each year.

Australia in review is a useful addition to this area, providing a useful and usable snapshop of Australia in each of the last 40 years - with the ability to expand to provide all kinds of custom information.

View it at: http://www.bradandglen.com/govhack/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/australia-review-air

Deathmatch.me

There's many preconceptions about the major causes of death in Australia, and deathmatch.me takes a lighthearted approach to correcting these, by presenting causes of death in one-on-one matches to the... er... death.

View it at: http://deathmatch.me/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/deathmatchme

Explorations in flight

Ever been interested in seeing where people come from to visit Australia, or how this has changed over the years?

Explorations in flight provides a 20-year picture of flight arrivals and departures for Australia, showing the rise in travel and changes in origin.

View it at: http://flinklabs.com/labs/flights/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/explorations-flight-httpflinklabscomlabsflights

Giving kids better health outcomes

This hack isn't simply interesting, but important for supporting parents and health professionals to improve the health outcomes for their kids by understanding local issues.

The data is currently only for South Australia, but hopefully will be increased to cover the entire country.

View it at: http://www.unleashed2013.org/dashboard
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/giving-them-better-chance-life-analytics-meets-early-childhood-development

Survival kit for international students going to NSW

This site provides information for international students on where the best places are for them to stay, relative to the university they are going to attend.

I like it because it fills a need for a group who otherwise might struggle to make the best decision for themselves due to lack of familiarity with Australia.

View it at: http://govhack2013.kelvinism.com/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/stay-here-not-there-survival-kit-international-students-coming-nsw

The open index

How can the public critically assess which government agencies are being the most open? For that matter, how can agencies and politicians assess this?

The open index provides a useful way of measuring openness, using a variety of measures and approaches. Agree or disagree with the weightings (and it does need some work - for example more overdue QoNs is not a good thing), it is a valuable approach for providing some kind of comparison between agencies.

View it at: http://theopenindex.org/
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/open-index

Where do my taxes go?

I like this Govhack entry as it demystifies where tax money goes - something that is very hard to get in a snapshot from the budget or any other government information.

This is the type of tool I expect to see from modern tax agencies. The fun facts are a blast too.

View it at: http://christonkin.id.au/govhack/final/index.html
Vote for it at: http://hackerspace.govhack.org/?q=groups/where-do-my-taxes-go

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Australian open data goes CKAN - but remains fragmented by jurisdiction

In the run-up to GovHack this weekend, Australian governments have been hard at work preparing new or updated open data sites, many using CKAN as their base technology.

This includes the new Australian Government beta data.gov.au site, the new South Australian government's data.sa.gov.au and the NSW government's new data.nsw.gov.au/data/.

We also have Queensland's data.qld.gov.au, Victoria's data.vic.gov.au and the ACT's data.act.gov.au (which uses Socrata) at state level.

Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have yet to launch open data sites, although I know at least two of these jurisdictions are considering how they begin.

It's fantastic to see Australian jurisdictions opening up their data, as well as the increasing mandate at political levels, highlighted by Queensland's appointment last year of an Assistant Minister for eGovernment, and the recent Australian Government announcement that they were joining the international Open Government Partnership (OGP).

However, let's hold the horses here a moment.

Why are Australian jurisdictions each launching their own open data site when we could have a single whole-of-government site - which would provide easy access to any data, from any Australian jurisdiction, side-by-side?

Why not set common naming conventions for datasets across jurisdictions, common data formats for its release and common field (and field names) in each common dataset?

Unfortunately this fragmented approach is still the reality for Australia - even when there's a commitment to the same direction or approach, various governments prefer to 'go their own way' rather than work together to save costs and improve efficiencies.

Each jurisdiction sees itself as a 'special case' and there's limited capability across governments to coordinate a single solution that wouldn't get mired in politics - at both political and bureaucratic levels.

So while Australia is stepping forward with open data, it's also revealing the issues in our system of government. Cost-efficiency is often trumped by political advantage or concerns that certain jurisdictions are not carrying their 'fair share' of the load.

Given it is unlikely that jurisdictions will solve these issues quickly - what I would really like to see out of GovHack this year is a project that aggregates all of Australia's open data into a single repository, matches it and presents it in a common data format.

This would allow people seeking common datasets from different jurisdictions to find them all in one place and use them easily due to a consistent format, rather than having to go to six or more sites to find the data and having to convert it for use.

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Australian academia beginning to learn to crawl in 2.0 social channels

I've long lamented the speed at which academia was embracing the internet, social channels and 2.0 approaches - with limited courses available on modern online techniques for under and post graduates, old fashioned-approaches to research and publication.

There's been hints of brilliance overseas - with US universities placing courses online and UK universities embracing social in a major way - however Australia has largely remained a backwater for higher education in a 2.0 world, with individual exceptions at specific universities, such as Dr Axel Bruns and Julie Posetti.

To demonstrate some of the impact of this Australian academic drought, a few months ago I was approached by a European professor about identifying an Australian academic working in the Gov 2.0 field to write a chapter in an upcoming book on Government 2.0. 

This professor, who I had previously worked with on a major report on global Gov 2.0 for the European Parliament (unfortunately not publicly available), had failed to identify anyone in Australia working in the Gov 2.0 space through her academic channels.

I made initial enquiries through a number of my Gov 2.0 contacts in government, as well as to a range of academics and universities, however was unsuccessful at finding anyone through their systems. In the end I was very lucky to encounter an academic in South Australia with relevant expertise at an event I was speaking at in Adelaide. This academic is now working on the book project and I'm very interested in how it turns out.

We have seen some recent stirring towards greater acknowledgement of 2.0 approaches in the recent ARC (Australian Research Council) moves towards open access publishing of public-funded research, however this is still a very small step.

We have also seen some good debates on the role of the public in science, and some pilots such as the Peer-to-Patent, which strike at the commercial end of the spectrum, and the Atlas of Living Australia, which involves citizens in mapping Australia's biodiversity.

We're also now seeing some steps to move beyond the traditional peer review process to consider new ways of measuring the reach and impact of academic research, with the 'altmetric' movement gaining steam.

What are altmetrics? I admit I hadn't heard about them until recently and when I first encountered the turn found the name little more than marketing buzz. 

Essentially the term describes the use of online social metrics to assist in measuring academic success - mentions on Facebook and Twitter, the level of reuse of raw research datasets via APIs, 'semantic publication' of specific passages and references to academic articles in blogs and forums, and more.

The term altmetrics was developed by the founders of one of the first companies that is spruiking altmetrics solutions to academics, and the biggest supporters of the term are other companies seeking to profit from the same rush to web statistics. Therefore I am still inclined to regard the term itself as marketing buzz for the types of social metrics commercial and public sector organisations have been using for years (see the chart below on the growth of use of the term in Google searches).

However it does signify an important and major change in how academic research is measured and valued.

If academics begin measuring their success in how well discussed and commented on their work is in the public sphere, they will likewise begin talking more about their research publicly in order to grow their buzz and their recognised academic prowess.

This will encourage academics to get out from their lecture theatres into the community, become more proficient at communicating their thoughts and work to a broader layman audience and making research more accessible, interesting and influential in public debates and policy work.

I also hope more publicly available research will also lead to more people interested in pursuing these careers, greater commercialisation of research work, improved scrutiny of findings and better social outcomes.

However I hope that at some point academics will realise that 'altmetrics' are simply no more than metrics - ones that are already becoming business-as-usual in commercial and public sector spheres - and focus more on involving people in and sharing their research than on the marketing buzz.

For more information on altmetrics, see:

• A manifesto on altmetrics: http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/
  Also see the noteworthy tools - some have value for open policy work as well.
• A post from a company founded to develop and sell altmetrics tools to tertiary institutions, with good links to information about what altmetrics are: http://blog.plumanalytics.com/post/49874093012/plum-analytics-and-altmetrics-in-the-news

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Where are all the public sector web analysts?

It's not unusual for agencies to spend millions of dollars on a new program supporting some group in society and hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants and research to ensure that the new program is designed to be successful, to track its progress and audit it over time.

It's not unusual for agencies to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an online presence to educate people (such as on a new program) - a website that may provide information, eligibility and application processes as well as a couple of social media channels for engagement.

However it is rare for an agency to spend even thousands of dollars on social media monitoring and website analytics to determine whether the website and online presence for a new program is being effective, where improvements could be made, to track its progress and audit it over time.

I've worked in several government agencies which had some kind of research unit, who spent their time analysing customer and program information to provide insights that help improve policies and service delivery. Unfortunately, even in the five and a half years I spent in the public sector, I saw these units cut in responsibilities, reduced in size, even turned into contractor units simply managing external research consultants.

These units were still new to online when I entered the public service, unsure of how to analyse it or how to weigh the insights they might receive. However when I left, although online had been recognised as an important channel, the capability of research units to integrate it into other analysis had been sadly diminished due to budget cuts.

This trend towards outsourcing or simply disregarding data analysis, at a time when society has more data at its fingertips than ever before, is worrying in government. What trends are going unnoticed? What decisions are being made without consideration for the facts?

However I have a special concern around how government agencies regard web and social media analysis, which in my view are increasingly useful sources of near real-time intelligence and longer-term trend data about how people think and behave.

As I've never been able to afford to have a web analytics expert in one of my teams in government, I've spent a great deal of my own time diving into website and social media stats to make sense of why people visited specific government sites, what they were looking for and where they went when they didn't find what they needed.

I've also used third party tools - from Hitwise to Google Trends - to help identify the information and services people needed from government and to help present this information to agency subject matter experts and content owners to help inform their decisions on what information to provide.

I know that some agencies have begun using social media analysis tools to track what people are saying online about their organisation and programs, often to intervene with facts or customer service where relevant, and this is good and important use of online analytics.

I'm even aware of web and social media analytics being provided back to policy areas to help debunk beliefs, much as I used to give different program areas snapshots of their web analytics to help them understand how effective their content was with the audiences they targeted (when I had time).

With the rise in interest in open data, I guess what I'd like to see in government agencies is more awareness of how useful their own web analytics can be to help them to cost-efficiently understand and meet citizen needs. I would also like to see more commitment of resources to online analytics and analysts within agencies to help their subject matter experts to keep improving how they communicate their program, policy or topic to layman citizens.

It may also be a good time to look into the intersection of open data and online analytics - open analytics perhaps?

I would love to see agencies publishing their web traffic and social media analytics periodically, or  live, allowing government websites to be held accountable in a similar manner to how data on crime statistics helps keep police accountable.

Maybe certain web statistics could even be published as open data feeds, so others might mash-up the traffic across agencies and build a full picture of what the public is seeking from government and where they go to get it. This could even allow a senior Minister, Premier or Prime Minister to have full visibility on the web traffic to an entire state or nation - something that would take months to provide today.

This last suggestion may even overcome the issue agencies have in affording, or for that matter finding, good web analytics people.  Instead external developers could be encouraged to uncover the best and worst government sites based on the data and provide a view of what people really want from government in practice, from how they engage with government online.

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Australia is joining the Open Government Partnership

As reported in Peter Timmins' Open and Shut blog this morning, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, has announced that Australia will be joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP) - the leading global organisation for states working towards more open government.

Australia is the 59th country to join the OGP, following Ireland (who sent a letter of intent last week) and excluding Russia, who has just withdrawn their application.

It makes us the fifth country in the Asia-Pacific region, behind South Korea, the Phillipines, Indonesia and Mongolia.

This is a timely (if not overdue) commitment by Australia, particularly considering how well-developed our government transparency regime is already. We're ranked 4th in the country list of the Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Data Census (see below).

Now the questions we'll see answered to over the next few years are: how will OGP membership influence the level of attention and mandate for open government in Australia; how will it affect how Australian Government agencies operate, and; will New Zealand follow suit?

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Is there really an open data El Dorado?

I was reading a tweet yesterday from Australia's CTO, John Sheridan, and it raised an interesting question for me.

#opendata a new goldmine? RT @theeconomist: Making official data public could spur lots of innovation econ.st/111Wy4x #gov2au
— John Sheridan (@sherro58) May 19, 2013

Is government open data really a new goldmine for innovation?

The Economist's article, A new goldmine, makes a strong case for the value of open data through examples such as GPS, the Global Positioning System which is owned by the US government (who owns the satellites), but has been provided free to organisations around the world since 1983.

I've also seen fantastic studies in the UK and Australia talking about the value in releasing public sector information (PSI) as open data, and great steps have been taken in many jurisdictions around the world, from Australia to Uruquay, to open up government silos and let the (anonymised) data flow.

I agree there's fantastic value in open data; for generating better policy deliberations and decisions, for building trust and respect in institutions and even for stimulating innovation that leads to new commercial services and solutions.


However I do not believe in an open data El Dorado - the equivalent of the fabled city of gold - where every new dataset released unveils new nuggets of information and opportunities for innovation.

Indeed I am beginning to be concerned that we may be approaching a Peak of Inflated Expectations (drawing on Gartner's famous Hype cycle chart) for open data, expecting it to deliver far more than it actually will - a silver bullet, if you will, for governments seeking to encourage economic growth, transparency and end world hunger.

Data is a useful tool for understanding the world and ourselves and more data may be more beneficial, however the experience of the internet has been that people struggle when provided with too much data too quickly.

Information overload requires humans to prioritise the information sources they select, potentially reinforcing bias rather than uncovering new approaches. Data can be easily taken out of context, misused, distorted, or used to tell a story exactly the reverse of reality (as anyone closely following the public climate change debate would know).

Why assume that the release of more government data - as the US is doing - will necessarily result in more insights and better decisions, particularly as citizens and organisations come to grips with the new data at their fingertips?

A data flood may result in exactly the reverse, with the sheer volume overwhelming and obscuring the relevant facts, or the tyranny of choice leading to worse or fewer decisions, at least in the short-term.


The analogy of open data as a gold mine may be true in several other respects as well.

The average yield of a gold mine is quite low, with many mines reporting between one and five grams of gold per tonne of extracted material. In fact gold isn't even visible to the naked eye until it reaches 30 grams per tonne.

While several hundred years ago gold was easier to find in high concentrations and therefore easier to extract - leading to many of history's gold rushes - over time people have mined most of the highest gold concentrations.

Extraction has become laborious and costly, averaging US$317 per ounce globally in 2007.

There is definitely gold in open data, value in fresh insights and innovations, opportunities to build trust in institutions and reduce corruption and inefficiency in governance.

However if open data is at all like gold mining, the likelihood is that the earlier explorers will find the highest yields, exploring new datasets to develop insights and innovations.

By the gold mine comparison we are currently in the open data equivalent of the gold rushes, where every individual who can hoist a line of code can dig for riches as a data miner, while data analysis companies sell spades.

Following the analogy, data miners will shift from open data site to open data site, seeking the easy wins and quick insights.

However as the amount of open data grows and most of the easy wins have been found, it will get more expensive to sift increasing amounts of data for fewer insights, requiring greater and greater investments in time and effort to extract the few remaining nuggets of 'gold'.

At that point many government open data sites may become virtual ghost towns, dominated by large organisations with the ability to invest in a lower yield of insights.

Alongside these organisations, only a few tenacious data mining individuals will remain, still sifting the tailings and hoping to find their open data El Dorado.

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