US military launches website to cut software development time from years to weeks

The US's Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has launched the Forge.mil site supporting software developers to collaborate online in developing open-source software for engineering applications.

The goal is to cut software development cycles from years to weeks, saving costs and improving time to market enormously.

Reported in Nextgov in the article, Defense launches online software development site,

The collaborative open source software development site, called Forge.mil, is modeled on the widely used SourceForge open source Web site, which provides Defense software engineers with the environment and tools to create Defense software for engineering applications in weeks, rather than the years it usually takes, David Mihelcic, the agency's CTO, told the monthly meeting of the Washington Chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

The site, launched on 23 January, has already delivered its first software package.

This type of approach and application to software development is not new. Linux and similar systems in widespread use were developed in this type of collaborative, fast iteration environment.

Any organisation or administration capable of stealing the jump on others by speeding their software development cycles by a factor of ten or more is likely to have a large competitive advantage into the future.

In fact I'd go so far to say that in the future those who do not adopt this more cost-effective method of software development are likely to find themselves losing ground to more highly evolved organisations and nations.

imagine the efficiencies of having a whole-of-government collaborative software development site where developers across agencies could share code and coding techniques, evolving whole-of-government standards and supporting each other in developing better software and systems for a variety of government departments.

Simply the ability to reuse code developed by other agencies would save government millions. The potential of incorporating major non-government partners into the mix on specific projects would add even more to the value.

Certainly security would be a consideration, however the systems exist to manage this effectively and policies and processes could be placed around such a vehicle to reduce risks of inappropriate code escaping into the wild.

Clearly, with the US Military leading the way, this isn't simply a pipedream, it's an important strategy for future survival.

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Can Australian government become more playful?

I'm a keen PC and console gamer, as are many of my friends around the same age.

In fact I've been playing electronic games since about the age of 8 - which means I've been playing for about as long as the average Australian gamer is old (30 years old).

While my parents feel I am a bit strange to be playing games at my age, actually I am in the majority. 68% of Australians play PC and console games (and 88% of households had a device for playing PC or console games), based on the Interactive Australia 2009 report from Bond University, conducted on behalf of the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA). Links to the report are below.

• IA9 - Full Report - PDF Format 2.8 Mb
• IA9 - Key Findings Report - PDF Format . 1.9 Mb

Now these are not people who simply pick up a game controller a few times a year. Half of all gamers play daily or every other day and another quarter play once a week, for an average game session of an hour.

Games are also not the teenage male preserve that some people appear to believe. 46% of gamers are female, with games such as The Sims, SingStar and Wii Fit doing a great deal to widen the demographics.

70% of parents play games - alongside 80% of their children (including mine).

About 84% of Australians aged 16-25 play computer and console games. That's almost as high as the number who watch TV or surf the internet. And 52% of those over 50 years classify themselves as gamers. That's more than use the internet!

In fact Australians paid twice as much on PC and console games as they did on movies in 2008 - $1.9 billion dollars, continuing a growth trend for games that has been reported over the last five or more years (incidentally music sales were much lower than movies).

Finally, 75% of gamers say interactivity in games makes them more educational
than other media.

So given the huge interest in gaming by the Australian public, shouldn't government be getting a little more playful in how it presents information?

Gaming in the public sector
We've already seen some successful gaming initiatives in Australian government, notably by the Department of Defence, who has developed a series of games to attract, interest and engage younger people to sign-up for a military career.

These mini-games have been quite successful, although they are not as large a production as America's Army - the US Army's game, which is as well-designed and polished as commercial game titles (and also quite fun).

There have been some other game-like entertainment activities produced by Australian agencies from time-to-time, particularly by Queensland Transport who has a kids' entry point similar to the US Federal government's kids.gov.

However there have been few attempts to provide solid entertainment-backed education or communications strategies for adults by the public sector. Maybe it's a dignity thing, but it seems that many Australian government agencies aren't yet ready to let down their bureaucratic hair and be playful.

I hope this changes in the future. In fact if gaming continues to grow I believe it is almost inevitable. I'd hazard a guess that the majority of public servants - like the majority of Australians, play games at least semi-regularly. As the average age of gamers increases (from 30 years old), so will the willingness of public sector organisations to experiment with more interactive and fun ways for citizens to engage with government.

Then again why wait?


Disclaimer:
I have been deeply involved with games throughout the last thirty years, so figured I should point out my bias here.

I am an avid player of games across online, PC, console and mobile platforms (often with my children), and a frequent visitor to the world of Azeroth (along with 10 million others).

I also have a background as an editor of an online gaming publication, in game review writing and in game design, both for commercial games (one as lead designer) and game-based activities for 'boring' companies (including many on this page - try out the rock concert!)

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Microsoft online campaign encouraging US government IT officials to post best practice videos

Over in the US Microsoft is running a major campaign targeting government which aims to collect best practice videos from senior IT leaders in the public sector.

Based on the premise that shrinking government budgets means that IT has to achieve more with less, the Bright side of Government site aims to,

spotlight the “bright side” of IT in the government sector with videos, by you and from you, that showcase how government IT pros are putting technology to use to help state and local government agencies do more with less.

Videos are viewable from the campaign's Youtube site - government star.

There are a number of videos already from CIOs and other senior public IT officials, however my favourite so far is the video below from the State of Missouri.



Are we ready for that kind of online knowledge sharing with the goal of reducing costs here in Australia?

And can Australia public sector IT professionals script and shoot better videos than their US counterparts?

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The reality of marketing and comms today

Marketing just isn't the same anymore - customers are harder to reach, they trust brands less and spend their time listening to each other rather than to media or to corporate or government marketers and communicators.

Yet many comms and marketing people are still stuck on the 'shout louder and longer' theory. If someone isn't listening, the theory goes, you keep shouting at them louder and louder until they MUST listen to you.

It's an interesting theory - one that I sometimes see English speakers use to attempt to reach those who speak other languages. The twin fallacies of the approach are that people can simply walk away (switch you off) or may not actually understand you in the first place. They may also find you obnoxious and rude and go tell all their friends that.

The other communications approach I see used a great deal is the 'love'em and leave'em' or 'big bang' approach. An organisation will go for saturation coverage, a big launch event and then - nothing. After launch they settle back to assess the numbers, maybe doing a mini-relaunch every now and then to attempt to regain interest. Big launches are good fun and I've participated in a number of them over the years, but they don't shape lasting impressions.

As most people have discovered, it is hard to build a long-term relationship with another person by leaping out of a box with a bunch of flowers while a plane skywrites their name in the sky and then ignoring them totally for the next year.

So what's another option?

How about starting with a conversation - simply talking to your customers without expectations or attempting to direct or control the conversation. Over time, as trust builds your relationship, you can inject ideas or build on suggestions and co-create a product, service, policy or program in collaboration with your audience.

Sounds crazy? It's been done - with everything from government policy (in New Zealand) to beer. In fact it even has a name - relationship marketing.

Even if you think this approach is too out there, or would take too long, it's clear that our audiences have changed their behaviours. Old marketing techniques are less effective and old marketers need to learn new tricks.

And if you believe that just because we're in government we're different in some way, sorry no. People are bombarded with advertising all the time. Putting an Australian crest into an ad doesn't mystically help it cut through the morass of messages. We have to do better than that.

Steve Collins from AcidLabs recently blogged about the video below in his post Engage them.

As a marketer I found this video tells a compelling story of how markets have changed.

The big question for me is - have government communicators?

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Social Media and the Federal Government - Perceived and Real Barriers and Potential Solutions

The name of this post is the title of a paper published by the US Federal Web Managers Council, the peak body for federal government web managers in the United States.

The US is facing similar policy, legal and privacy issues around the use of Web 2.0 tools and this paper is a step towards consistently addressing them across agencies.

The paper is almost as useful for Australian government web managers and senior public servants.

The full paper is available at usa.gov in PDF format as, Social Media and the Federal Government: Perceived and Real Barriers and Potential Solutions

To help tempt you to read and circulate the paper, topics contained within it (each detailing the issue and potential solutions) include,

• Cultural issues and lack of a strategy for using these new tools - Many [US] agencies view the use of social media as a technology issue, instead of a communications tool, and management decisions are often based solely on technology considerations. In many cases, the focus is more on what can’t be done rather than what can be done.


• Employee access to online tools - Many [US] agencies block their employees from using sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia. They make one of three arguments, all of which can be addressed through effective policies and management controls.


• Terms of service - Most online sites require account owners to agree to terms of service that [US] federal agencies can't agree to


• Advertising - Many vendor sites place ads on all their pages; this is how they earn money from free accounts. For some [US] agencies, this raises ethical concerns when government content appears near inappropriate advertisements (pornography, hate, political, etc), because it can give the appearance that the government is endorsing the content. What constitutes “advertising” is interpreted differently across government.


• Procurement - [US] Government procurement rules didn't anticipate the flood of companies offering free tools to anyone who wants to use them.


• Privacy - There is no guarantee that social media sites will protect people's privacy to the same degree as [US] federal agencies.


• Persistent Cookies - [US] Agencies are banned from using persistent cookies without approval from their agency head, which effectively means the [US] federal government isn't using them. This greatly limits our ability to serve customers' needs because our sites can't remember preferences or settings. It also means we can’t take advantage of sophisticated web services and analytic tools that rely on persistent cookies.


• Access for people with disabilities - Many social media tools are automatically accessible because they are primarily text (e.g., blogs). However, some multimedia sites do not currently provide the opportunity to include transcripts or captioning, and many [US] agencies lack sufficient resources to provide these services on their own.

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Does it take a command from the top to create greater egovernment activity?

Does it take a command from the top to kickstart egovernment activity?

It surely varies across agencies and jurisdictions, but in the US there's a clear view that a top-down approach will help unclog some of the channels and create high level attention to generating significant egovernment activity.

On January 21, the new US President Barack Obama released the following executive memorandum Transparency and Open Government. While it does not specifically mention the online area, it is a large shot in the arm for advocates of government transparency and web 2.0 use.

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

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Do our internationally accessed government sites speak the right language?

Comscore's media release last week indicated that Global Internet Audience Surpasses 1 billion Visitors, According to comScore.

While this is probably an understatement, as it only accounts for those aged 15+, the release highlighted the increasing diversity of internet users, with China very clearly in the top spot with 179,100,000 users, compared to the 2nd placed US's 163,300,000 users.

Australia didn't even make the top 15 list, with the Netherlands scraping in at 15th spot with 11,812,000 users.

It is immediately clear than people with English as their first language are a minority on the internet.

Looking at the top 15 countries, the only ones with English as an official language were the US, UK and Canada (which has French as well). These countries only accounted for 221,173,000 of a total 711,488,000 internet users.

Extending this out to the full 1 billion internet users, only around 31% of internet users are likely to have English as their first language.

This means that for internationally focused government websites there is an enormous need to consider two options:

Rewriting websites to use extremely simple language and navigation for people who have English as a second language (or even as their first!) This is possibly the greatest need for most government websites - speaking to someone at a party last week, although they lecture at an Australian university, English is their second language and some government-speak in websites does not make sense to them.

The other, and harder, option is to co-publish in other languages, such as (written) Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Russian, Korean and Italian (by rough order of prominence).

Yes there's a cost to both of these approaches. However are you willing to tell your Minister that your internationally focused website is only accessible to 31% of its prospective audience in its current form - and you're OK with that?

Fortunately our tourism industry has gotten this message, Australia's official (government) tourist entry point Australia.com.au is available in eight languages and with localised content for more than 18 countries.

But what about people seeking business ties in Australia, those wanting to register their IP, anyone with a need to understand local laws or to claim benefits?

Over in Europe it is common practice to publish government and commercial websites in multiple languages - they are part of a European community as well as a global one.

How connected is Australia to our global community? Perhaps the languages we use on our websites indicate that we're not as connected as we could be - and one can only wonder at the value of this lost economic activity to Australia.

This is a whole-of-government issue, so perhaps we need a whole-of-government solution. A central team that works with agencies on a prioritisation basis (by economic impact) to convert their material into other languages - centrally budgeted of course.

Or should we rely on the audience to seek their own translators - either machine-based online ones, their employees, friends and families (with potential limited english understanding) or even paid services?

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