Posts
Now the PM is blogging on Climate Change and other topics, what other blogs would you like to see from Australian governments?
There are a number I would like to see - many operated from a departmental level rather than a Ministerial one.
Geosciences - earthquakes, tsunamis and the geological wealth of Australia. I'd love to see insights into how Australia manages its mineral wealth, the types of environmental controls in place and some of the work we do to understand and prepare for natural disasters caused by movements under the ground. This is a ripe field for a discussion-based blog.
Foreign Affairs - like the UK Foreign office, tales from distant places illustrating how Australia supports and fosters international co-operation, helps overseas communities and relates to our neighbouring states. There's lots of opportunities to provide meaningful insights into how Australia manages its foreign affairs - naturally without crossing into any of the classified area. For example, how does the Australian government respond when an Australian national is imprisoned overseas?
Environment - beyond the topic of Climate Change, Australians are rightly proud of our national environmental wealth and many seek more information on how to preserve it. I'd love to see the government being an active participant in these discussions online, helping people to understand how important the environment is, casting light on activities to preserve our wildlife and providing practical advice on how people can reduce their impact on their surrounds.
Tax - Tax is something everyone has to pay, however many of us have a limited understanding of how and why it works. There's a tremendous opportunity for the government to provide more information on how our tax system operates (and why), providing meaningful advice on what can be deducted, how and when, to help people better manage their tax affairs and to understand their rights and obligations.
Social services - Australia's social services are extremely complex, with many groups able to benefit from various pensions, allowances and subsidies. This area probably lends itself to a series of different blogs, aimed at different groups from students to the unemployed to carers and pensioners and many different situations inbetween. There are many ways the government could provide information in a more informal fashion to help people understand their eligibility and responsibilities and provide support and guidance on how to seek support.
Customs - Everyone knows there are laws around customs, however their breadth and the reasons behind some of them are not always as well known. Making people more aware of the dangers of bringing new plant diseases, vermin and various other contaminants into the country would go a long way to helping people be more responsible in their own actions - and some humorous and serious (de-identified) customs stories would go a long way towards demonstrating the diligence with which our customs staff carry out their duties.
What other areas would you like to see government talking about in a more interactive manner online?
Friday, July 17, 2009
What other government blogs would you like to see? | Tweet |
Australian Prime Minister's climate change blog | Tweet |
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's climate change blog is now live and already attracting many well-thought out comments at the Prime Minister's website.
Like the Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy's Digital Economy blog, the PM has opted for a topic-based blog with a limited lifespan - in this case 5 days. The blog is also pre-moderated and only between the hours of 9 to 5 on week days. While there are good reasons for organisations to manage online media within their operational hours, one potential outcome can be more disjointed conversations and less spontaneous interactions than in a post-moderation environment.
The PM's blog has some additional restrictions comments are limited to 300 words and does not allow links to other source material or websites.
Unlike the Digital Economy blog, there are indications that the PM will operate the new blog on an ongoing basis, targeting topics sequentially, but only posting occasionally.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the PM is writing his own blog posts (Blog standard approach brings PM to the people).
What is already clear is that there is a large pool of people willing, ready and able to interact with Australian government via the online channel.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Websites dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 - does your department need to upgrade its web browser? | Tweet |
Over the last few weeks several major websites have sent the signal that they are progressively dropping support for Internet Explorer 6, the nine-year old web browser from Microsoft that has been the staple web browser in many government and corporate environments.
First was Digg, with the message on 4 July, Much Ado About IE6, that,
Based on the amount of activity and the relative rate of its decline, we’re likely to stop supporting IE6 for logged in activity like digging, burying, and commenting. Users of IE6 would still be able to view pages — just not logged in. This won’t happen tomorrow, but we’re thinking about doing it soon.Today (Tuesday US time), YouTube sent a similar message, turning on a message advising IE6 users to upgrade, as first reported by TechCrunch in YouTube Will Be Next To Kiss IE6 Support Goodbye.
This builds on a European campaign, Stop Living in the Past, where websites have been progressively warning IE6 users to upgrade, or blocking them from accessing content, reportedly even supported by Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer.
In my view this is great to see happen. Many organisations are restricted to testing on the web browsers they allow internally, which tends to result in online services which work superbly in IE6, but fail to meet modern standards and present poorly in modern browsers less - effectively failing accessibility hurdles.
However it presents an interesting conundrum for organisations still relying on IE6. While the browser may still meet their internal security model, it may be no longer 'fit for purpose' due to declining support by websites.
Fortunately there are no software licensing charges for upgrading to a more modern web browser - which are more secure and robust as well as being more standards compliant - so the main costs are security testing, configuration and rollout.
Proactive security teams may have already done the work required - Internet Explorer 8 has been available for security testing since March 2008 and Firefox 3 has been around since May 2008 (with 3.5 released recently).
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Prime Minister pre-announces Climate Change blog on Twitter | Tweet |
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has pre-announced the launch of his new Climate Change blog with the following Tweet via the KevinRuddPM Twitter stream,
Starting my blog tomorrow on Climate Change. Like to hear your ideas on practical action. KRuddAnother step for the Australian Government into the online consultation space, it will be interesting to see how the blog will operate - stay tuned!
Digital economy paper released | Tweet |
Senator Conroy has released the Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions paper.
The paper provides a current view of the digital situation in Australia and provides indications of the platform that the country will need in the future to be a leader in the digital space.
It provides a number of examples of Australian digital success stories and hints at some of the strategies the government intends to explore in order to drive future success.
This includes consideration of whether to expand the 'safe harbour' provisions in copyright, the government's role as an enabler of digital content and as an enabler of digital connections (via the National Broadband Network) and its role in education and cybersafety.
For me the paper re-emphasised how important the internet and other digital tools are to Australia's economy and development.
I'm going to have to reflect further on what the paper means for the government's role.
