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OpenAustralia is holding its second HackFest in Melbourne on Saturday 26 September and is inviting programmers, designers and interested people to attend.
Details of the event are over at Anyvite.
If you're interested in going along, RSVP by 23 September as they are limited to 30 spots.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Melbourne OpenAustralia HackFest coming up on 26 September - sign-up now | Tweet |
Friday, September 11, 2009
At least 70 agencies on Twitter across all layers of Australian government | Tweet |
Being sick in bed at the moment, I've used the opportunity to review which Australian Federal, State and local government departments and agencies are now using Twitter.
My count is 9 federal, 24 state and 37 local government agency streams - excluding politicians and public servants. A total of 70 government streams in Australia, which I take as indicating it's moving from early adopters into early majority.
There's also at least 4 Premiers and the PM using Twitter - which is more than 50% of our most senior elected officials. In terms of population, this includes the three most populous states.
It's a shame there is no official online tool tracking these streams so at least government could understand the extent of its own tweeting.
This tool could pull data via Twitter's API to give a total number of tweets and followers by Australian governments - able to be viewed by state as well as in aggregate. That'd be a useful project for someone with technical nouse and some spare hours.
In lieu of that, I've updated the Government 2.0 Best Practice wiki with all of these streams on the Australian Tweeple page.
If you know of, or operate, any Twitter streams that I've missed, please add them to the wiki.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
BART.gov wins at inaugural Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington | Tweet |
Hopefully many of you are aware of the Gov 2.0 Summit that is being held in Washington at the moment.
As part of the pre-event, the inaugural Gov 2.0 Expo included presentations in five categories, demonstrating examples of the best Gov 2.0 organisations and initiatives - not only from the United States.
There was a winning presentation for each category.
One was Transit 2.0 at BART.gov (their presentation is below) - demonstrating that even a technology as old as the railways can remain relevant and in touch through the use of the internet, without losing respect.
Learning to speak and listen to the language of the internet | Tweet |
Speaking with the locals can be one of the most rewarding - and most frustrating - experiences when traveling to foreign-language countries.
If you make an attempt at their language - no matter how feeble - they will generally respect your efforts and go out of their way to be helpful.
However if you simply try to speak with them in your own language or, worst of all, shout at them in your tongue, you may be snubbed or disrespected.
How are these examples relevant to government?
When government departments go online they often continues speaking in their native tongue - using 'govvie speak' - which often uses different words and definitions than everyday speech.
This usually isn't a deliberate attempt to obfuscate. Often departments are trying to communication well, spelling complex meanings out clearly and precisely.
Generally career public servants, public sector lawyers and specialist communicators work hard to find exactly the right words to communicate what their department wishes to say.
So where can this go wrong?
After highly skilled professionals slave over website content, which is then approved by senior public officials, there is often no step to get approval from the highest authority of all.
The 'average' punter - the person reading (and hopefully understanding) the message.
Most communicators understand that if their message isn't coded in a way their audience understands they will be ignored or viewed as less credible.
When delivering fixed length communication pieces, such as advertisements or publications, extensive audience testing is often used to ensure that the message is clear and effective.
To use govvie speak, this testing is a risk mitigation strategy to assert that the contents of a communications piece are widely understood and resonate with the target demographic, thereby achieving an effective policy or program outcome for the government, the department, and for the public purse.
Or, in plain language, testing makes ads work.
How often do we in government test every line of a website's content to make sure it is understandable to its audience in itself and within the context of the entire website?
Even when we do test, how often do we impose layers of approvals after testing?
These can turn a piece of plain language into a swamp containing patches of govvie speak quicksand, which the average punter can easily get swallowed up in.
Of course testing won't take us all the way. Generally there isn't time or resources to test every line of a website in context.
We have to rely on employing professional writers who understand our audience and speak their language. And then we need to trust them and leave their words alone.
As government engages further with the internet, moving from 'look at me' websites to listening and conversing with the public, we need to 'mitigate the risk of audience dislocation, ineffective consultations and ministerial complaints'.
In other words, to make our online discussions work and stop people getting upset when they do not understanding or trust our words it becomes even more vital that our language goes native.
In conclusion, government departments need to blog like the bloggers do and chat like the chatter do. When we listen and communicate respectfully we will earn the respect and credibility of the online world - our citizens.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
New York Transportation Authority sues iPhone developer over schedule information | Tweet |
In a sign that the discussion over what public data should be public is ongoing, the New York Times has reported that the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued a takedown notice to an iPhone developer who has used train schedules in his iPhone application.
The Authority claims that public train schedule data is its intellectual property - similar to the claim by NSW Rail when it issued four takedown notices against application developers reusing NSW rail timetable data in March this year.
In this case, however, the Authority is seeking to profit off licensing the information for distribution - despite providing it for free. This was because the iPhone application maker was charging US$2.49 for his application, which he says is merely to cover the costs of producing the application.
Note that the Authority is not completely government-owned, however is paid by US governments to operate a public service, which might become an interesting area of debate in future regarding date in the public interest generated by public-private partnerships such as tollways, utilities (ActewAGL for example) and Job Network members. Even access to postcode geodata in Australia might become a consideration.
If the government contracts a third party to provide a service, should part of that arrangement include ensuring that all public data generated is made available to the public?
I think it will be a discussion we'll need to have in the next year.
It will be interesting to see how the New York situation is resolved - particularly considering the level of negative media attention the Authority has been receiving.
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