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It's all well and good to say there's over 200 Twitter feeds from Australian federal, state and local governments - but to get a picture of the level of activity, and see what they're saying, look at eGovAU's Twitter feed here (note that it is a free service and occasionally down for maintenance).
This page displays 100 of the accounts based on those with most recent tweets, a useful way to view the most current tweets.
You can also follow the Australian-gov tweets list to view them.
Friday, July 23, 2010
View 100 Australian Governments' twitter feeds in one page | Tweet |
Engaging with and trusting citizens to participate in the democratic process leads to great rewards for the state | Tweet |
The title of this post reflects the key statement that stood out for me in the London.gov.uk blog's post Economic benefits of data release
This article puts some solid numbers behind the value of open data initiatives in government, from the US's Apps for Democracy mash-up competition (50 entries in 30 days, valued at $2.5m for a $50,000 prize outlay) to Canada's exposure of a $3.2 billion tax evasion fraud when public financial data was released in machine-readable form.
We've already had several examples of open government initiatives in Australia. Both the ABS and Geosciences Australia release significant amounts of data under Creative Commons licenses, and a number of state agencies do the same. We've also had three mash-up competitions, the first by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce last year, the others through the NSW and Victorian governments.
I've not yet seen any modeling of the value of these Australian public data releases, which is a shame as I'm sure they would demonstrate value for money, however the international experience is quite clear,
Actively engaging citizens and empowering them through machine-readable data adds value to government processes and initiatives.
Now how do we share that message clearly with senior decision-makers?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Contribute to the draft Unofficial Australian Government Social Media Handbook | Tweet |
Lisa Howdin, who now works with me, has been compiling a set of guidelines and information around how to develop, write, manage and moderate social media tools in Government in the form of a wiki.
She's looking for contributions from people across Australian government who are working in this area and have learnings they can add.
If you've had experience operating a government social media channel, please consider sharing your ideas in this wiki so all of your peers across government can benefit.
If you're new to the area, the Handbook, whilst still in development, already has lots of useful information that might be useful to you.
Visit the Unofficial Australian Government Social Media Handbook at: http://government20bestpractices.pbworks.com/Unofficial-Aus-Govt-Social-Media-Handbook
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Blizzardgate - the perils of taking away user choice in online engagement | Tweet |
Vanessa Paech has written a post on a topic I was considering writing about recently - online identity and what can happen when an organisation decides to force users to use their real identity online.
As Vanessa's post is so good, rather than trying to do the topic justice, I shall take the lazy way out and simply commend her post to you, Online community identity and choice: Blizzardgate.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Vote for an Aussie in the Top 10 Who are changing the world of Internet and Politics in 2010 | Tweet |
PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum have opened voting for the 11th Annual award for the Top 10 Who are changing the world of Internet and Politics in 2010.
I'm proud to have been nominated for a second year in a row, alongside Senator Kate Lundy. A third Australian has joined us in the nominations for 2010, Berge Der Sarkissian, the founder of the Senator Online political party.
To vote for one of the three Aussies, or for another of the fantastic nominees (such as Tim O'Reilly), go to the Top 10 Who are changing the world of Internet and Politics in 2010 page at Politics Online.
Senior executive learnings about social media | Tweet |
Marketing Daily has published an excellent article on the learnings of top executives about using and engaging via social media.
All of the realisations and strategies mentioned apply equally to the public sector.
You can read it at, Top Execs Dish About Social Media Strategies.
The legislative challenges of Gov 2.0 - such as enrolling to vote online | Tweet |
Government 2.0 has a number of challenges in Australia and around the world - developing the appropriate public sector culture, getting the right policies and technologies in place and, often overlooked, ensuring that our laws allow for the innovative use of online channels.
The latter challenge is being faced right in the ability for Australians to enrol online to vote.
Due to the Federal election the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has been inundated with people wanting to enrol at the last minute. The matter of online enrolment has been raised by GetUp!'s enrolment website which states "Enrol to vote: It should be easy!". Get Up! initially attempted to provide a web-based enrolment system, however this was disallowed by the AEC.
This was also discussed in a Sydney Morning Herald article, Hitch in plan to get voters on a roll a sign of the times.
This is a clear example of how our laws have not kept pace with technology. Australia's 1918 Commonwealth Electoral Act's section 101 (1) states that people must "fill in and sign a claim". The AEC has interpreted this as meaning that a physical signature is required to enrol to vote in Australian elections.
This makes it necessary for Australians enrolling to vote 'online' to print and hand sign their forms, either hand-delivering or posting them to an Electoral Office.
In one concession to modern technology, it is possible to scan a signed form and email it to the AEC - however a photograph of the form (which is for all intents and purposes a scan) emailed to the AEC is not acceptable.
There are likely to be many other areas where our laws are not designed for a digital society - with other clear examples being our copyright and defamation laws which are struggling to cope in a world where digital copies are cheap and fast to make and private comments are publicly visible online.
Based on these legal issues, beyond the work to adjust public sector culture or simplify online engagement, one of the real tests of many governments' commitment to Gov 2.0 will be in how they adapt their laws to suit a changing society.
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