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Yesterday's announcement of the Australian Government's plans to build a national broadband network has created a huge amount of buzz online.
If you've not seen the news, yesterday morning the government announced that they have terminated the tender process due to cost concerns and shortcomings in all tender proposals. Instead the government will invest up to $43 billion over 8 years to build a national broadband network using fibre optic cables to 90% of homes and offices, offering 100Mbps broadband.
This technology is also future-proof. Using emerging technologies, fibre-optic cable can be upgraded further to Gigabyte speeds without significant additional investment and over time this is likely to get even faster.
So what will this mean for government departments?
There are many applications for a super-fast network - many of which are beginning to emerge in Japan (with 160Mbps broadband available) and South Korea (with 120Mbps broadband available and moving to Gb speeds).
These include telepresence, a step beyond video-conferencing which allows groups to work interactively together over extended periods despite being physically remote. Conferences could be held without people leaving their offices, both within Australia and internationally - saving vast amounts of money in travel and accommodation and generating environmental benefits as well as saving work hours.
This concept could be further extended to provide access to telepresence staff in government offices. Basically while every office would retain a base level of staffing for activities requiring live interactions, when one office is quiet and another busy the staff from one could be serving customers in the other, via teleprescence. This would dramatically improve staffing management, allowing every office to have the appropriate number of staff at all times. Potentially a core staff group could be available out of the current business hours government operates within, providing access to critical information and services anywhere in the country face-to-(virtual)face.
Equally government office staff could work more readily from their homes, holding conferences via telepresence where necessary and otherwise only commuting to their office for specific reasons, supporting greater diversity and workforce participation.
Medicine is another area that could be revolutionised. With high-speed broadband the ability to use telepresence to oversee and, coupled with robotic aids, to actually conduct operations becomes a possibility. This provides enormous flexibility for a national health system, allowing doctors to be located anywhere in the country (or even overseas) and still provide vital medical services at remote clinics across Australia. Termed telemedicine, this approach is increasingly being discussed and implemented overseas.
Also in the medical sphere, anyone who requires ongoing medical monitoring could be monitored remotely using their broadband connection. This would significantly reduce demand on hospital beds and allow many people to recover at home without sacrificing quality of care. Of course there would need to be a balance between the speed of access to medical personnel in emergencies, however ongoing monitoring would provide early warnings of medical issues and provide greater flexibility to respond appropriately.
Education is another service that benefits from fast broadband services such as telepresence and the ability to stream video and audio in real-time. Experienced teachers could teach classes anywhere across Australia, and students, also spread across the country, could interact in real-time - supporting home schooling, subjects with fewer students and better use of good teachers.
Infrastructure management also benefits from faster and more reliable internet speeds. Every piece of infrastructure in the country, roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, power plants and more can be monitored remotely. This would help identify issues before they become life-threatening and allow governments to pre-emptively address failing infrastructure. This type of technology is already in use in some international engineering projects, monitoring bridges and dams for stability and reporting back to central offices using the internet.
In the service provision sphere, all the services currently provided by government online or by phone could be provided in a far more interactive and engaging way. Full-motion video could provide walkthroughs on how to use services, and video-based help would be available. This would encourage increasing take-up, particularly as phone services gets integrated into online, meaning that people could easily start a telephone call then, using a video and internet-capable phone, directly receive the forms they need and be supported through an online transaction while continuing to speak with the government customer service operator.
These are only a sample of some of the opportunities for government to provide more cost-effective and convenient services using real high-speed broadband. Many others already exist and are being rolled out elsewhere in the world and more wait to be discovered.
Of course government will need to be more open, flexible and innovative in its thinking around the online channel. There will be the need to rethink the entire approach to many services.
However I believe that if the Australian government is capable of rolling out a real national broadband network it is also capable of developing innovative and effective services for citizens and business to run across it.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
How will a national broadband network help Australian government agencies? | Tweet |
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Getting started with Twitter in Australian government | Tweet |
Twitter has emerged as a significant channel for breaking news, announcement and discussions on political, social, environmental and commercial topics.
Over the last three years the service has grown to over 25 million users globally, including many senior business, political and entertainment figures. In fact it's been the fastest growing online channel, with over 750% growth through 2008.
Australians are major users of the service, with Neilsen estimating that there were 149,000 Australian Twitter users in January 2009.
So with 150,000 Australian Twitter users, how many Australian government agencies are using the service?
Well there are three councils, Wyong, Mosman and the City of Sydney, and the Training.gov.au project from DEEWR has an account.
Both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are using Twitter, as are The Greens and a few other politicians at Federal and State level.
This compares to over 90 UK councils using Twitter, plus many national government agencies and 10 Downing Street. In the US, well lets just say they're now a major user of the service, at both agency and political levels.
Below I hope to explain a little more about why and how government agencies can use Twitter.
What is Twitter
Twitter allows people to send 140 character messages ('tweets')to others around the world from their computers or mobile devices on a near-instant basis. If you think of the success of SMS on mobile phones, Twitter has extended this onto the internet.
After registering for Twitter you can choose to follow others to see their tweets and others can choose to follow you. You can send direct tweets to people following you, which are only visible to the recipient, but most tweets are visible to the public.
It is also possible to 'protect' your tweets which means that your tweets are hidden to anyone other than those you authorise to see them.
Tweets can contain links to websites, photos, videos or audio which can provide more information on any topic.
Using someone's Twitter name, starting with an '@' symbol (such as @CraigThomler) in a tweet makes it show up as a reply.
It is also possible to 'retweet' messages from others, and courtesy is that the name of the original message sender is included with 'RT' before their @name.
Using a hash symbol '#' before a word is used to designate a particular subject as a 'hashtag', for instance #BCC2 was used as the hashtag for the recent Canberra BarCamp. This is useful for grouping tweets on a given subject to make them easier to find later.
What can Twitter be used for?
- Listening
Firstly, with 150,000 Australians using Twitter there are a lot of conversations occurring. It's possible to track mentions of topics of interest to you in almost real-time using Twitter search tools, such as TweetGrid. This makes it possible for a government agency to keep on top of what people are saying about them and potentially identify emerging trends before the media picks them up.
It also allows government a means to gather a feel for public sentiment on various policy-related topics and, finally, is a great way to experience and even ask questions at conferences that you are unable to attend.
- Talking
Twitter is a fast and low overhead way to distribute information, making it ideal for getting emergency and other types of announcements out very quickly.
By linking to web pages with more information it becomes an effective way to send out disaster messages. Of course Twitter won't reach everyone, but people pass on the message, retweeting and speaking to others. Media outlets also monitor Twitter for breaking news.
Twitter has already had an important role in a number of disasters, such as the Victorian bushfires, Hurricane Katrina, Mumbai attack and Sichuan earthquake and has the attention of disaster experts (here is a video featuring the Mayor of San Francisco and a found of Twitter discussing Twitter's uses in emergencies).
Twitter also can (and is) used for traffic announcements, media notifications, new developments and basically any other form of outbound communication, to help spread information more rapidly in a targeted way.
- Conversing
Twitter is also useful as a conversational medium. While messages are very short, conversations occur all the time across a number of topics. People ask for support, information and share experiences all the time.
Telstra, along with a number of international companies, uses Twitter as part of their customer support framework, listening for mentions of their name and then potentially sending tweets addressing questions or issues.
It can also be used for asking what people think of a particular service, although this use is still limited to services that are appropriate to an online audience.
There's some simple steps to getting started
- Personally set up an account and try out Twitter
This will give you a personal feel for the service and how you might use it officially. - Build the business case
Decide how you intend to use Twitter and why, explaining how the service will help you achieve your goals. While Twitter is free to use it does require a time commitment, so match your goals with appropriate resourcing. - Get the required approvals.
Twitter could simply be a tool like your website, email or RSS for distributing your media releases - if so you might not require high-level sign-off to begin using the service for this purpose. if you're intending to respond to tweets, that becomes more of a public engagement issue and higher-level approval might be required. - Set up your account
Setting up the account is simple, but you might want to spend some time thinking about the name you wish to use. Many names are already in use so you might need a few options in case your first choice is taken. You can set up your account as protected at first in case you do not want it visible yet. - Decorate your account
Add a simply bio and customise the look to reflect the official status of the account. While Twitter supports limited customisation you can adjust colours and add a logo. - Get the word out
This is best done initially online, via a website link 'Follow us on Twitter', via blogs, emails and tweets from staff members. This helps build an initial awareness of the service and potentially should happen before media releases in order to build a follower list. - Start tweeting
Try and send out regular messages - potentially up to a few per day. This keeps the account active and, as people can view your history, allows them to see that you are active and the account isn't dead. - Monitor replies and conversations
Keep an eye on the replies you get and any discussions that occur online out of your announcements. Even if you are not prepared to respond yet, knowing what people are saying will provide you with further announcement opportunities and builds a future case to engage in two-way conversation.
Here's a great video explaining how Twitter works.
Monday, April 06, 2009
What's the government's role in improving access to information about government online? | Tweet |
I love the work that Matthew Landauer and a small group of non-partisan, patriotic Australians have done to set up OpenAustralia.
If you're not aware of the site, it's designed to make the discussions on parliamentary floors visible to the public in an easily accessible way.
The site also provides information on Members' interests (on the record) and with further development could also support parliamentarian voting records, track bills and their amendments (and who is proposing them) and more.
OpenAustralia is modeled on (and uses the open-source software developed for) a similar (not-for-profit) UK site, TheyWorkForYou. Further sites of the same type are appearing around the world and attracting significant audiences - demonstrating there is a public interest in political processes and activities by elected representatives.
My question is, should this type of site be developed by individuals in their spare time, or it is an area that the Australian government needs to invest in itself to support the democratic process?
Below is a presentation with more information on OpenAustralia.
And here is a video by the founder/developer of TheyWorkForYou.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Is Australian egovernment innovation on life support? | Tweet |
I've been reading a post by James Dellow at his Chieftech blog, Using Twitter as a benchmark for Australian local government use of social media.
He compared the 90 out of 468 (approx. 20%) UK councils using Twitter to the 3 out of 677 (less than 1%) Australian councils using the tool to engage online, asked the question,
If you work in local government in Australia I would love to know more about what’s stopping you from experimenting with social media and social computing.
Of course the UK isn't the only nation making extensive use of Twitter and other online tools to engage citizens. The US is on a similar path, with over 300+ US government agencies and politicans officially using the service.
Governments across Europe and Asia are also adopting this and other online tools in a strategic and integrated way.
If anyone has an answer to James' question, I'd like to read it as well.
Organising a Government 2.0 event in Canberra | Tweet |
Following on from the Canberra Barcamp last week, a subset of the organisers and a group of other volunteers are busy organising a government 2.0 event in Canberra.
The event, which is in initial planning stages, aims to bring together a group of government online professionals to share their experience and knowledge, building a reference group who can support each other in achieving their Department's egovernment goals.
While I am not expecting the event to be as large as the recent Government 2.0 Camp in Washington D.C., which had over 300 attendees and attracted a range of international visitors, I expect many of the most innovative egovernment professionals in Australia to attend and present.
You can find out more about the event, and be involved in the planning process at Gov2.0Canberra.
