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Social Media Governance recently released a list of 106 social media policies that can be drawn on, including nearly thirty from government (including the APSC's Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation).
A lot of Australians now use social media - including staff in your Department, your customers and clients and many of your stakeholders.
The latest statistics, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, suggest that there are 8 million Australians using Facebook and over 1.5 million using Twitter.
A report from Neilsen also indicated that social networking in Australia has doubled in usage over the last year, with Australians having spent 1.6 million hours on these services in June 2009 (from 800,000 in June 2008). Taking June as an average, this means Australians are likely to spend almost 20 million hours using social networks in 2009.
I believe it is important that Government Departments place social media policies in place to make acceptable usage clear to staff.
It's no longer practical or reasonable for Departments to simply ban access to these services - as it's no longer practical or reasonable to ban phone calls.
Is your policy in place yet?
Friday, October 16, 2009
Creating a social media policy for your department - here's over 100 examples to draw on | Tweet |
How would management of your website change if anyone could comment on or redesign it outside your control? | Tweet |
How would it change the management of your website if anyone could make an unmoderated public comment about any page at any time - totally outside your control?
How would your Minister and senior management respond if people could freely critique your content, pointing out any errors or misleading statements or airing their complaints (and compliments) publicly?
Or what if someone could redesign your website from the outside to make it better suit their needs, or to make a personal or political point - and then share this design with others?
This isn't just idle speculation - it's happening today.
Google recently launched its Sidewiki service which allows anyone at any time to make any comment on any website - visible to anyone else using Sidewiki.
This means that the public can hold a discussion on any page in any Australian government website completely outside your control.
Does that sound scary? It should if you're not aware of or able to participate in these conversations as needed.
Below is an example of Sidewiki in action - viewing comments in blogs related to the Whitehouse website.
At the same time, tools now exist that allow outsiders to redesign your website from the outside. For example the free Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox allows people to rearrange your content, or even translate the words into a different style (one recent popular script translates websites into 'pirate' speak) that becomes visible in their web browser. They can then share these rewrite scripts with others using the same tool.
Greasemonkey isn't the only tool that does this - and people are already writing scripts, such as this one to reconfigure parts of the National Archives website to display Australian government sites in a different manner.
This approach has been used to 'fix' the design of some websites which the community found hard to use - in several cases the website owner has even voluntarily made website changes based on these community suggestions.
It can also be used as a protest, adding, modifying or remove content from a website (as viewed in a user's web browser).
There's also organisations which externally redesign websites. In the US the Sunlight Foundation periodically redesigns a US Federal Government website to demonstrate how it could be done to work better. It would be simple for someone to do the same here in Australia.
In other words, while internally we control how we design and develop our websites - just as we carefully craft our media releases to say things the way we want - we can not control what people do with them once they leave our 'controlled' space.
Just as the media can pick and choose what material to use from our media release, the public has the ability to pick and choose what material they see in our website - and can comment on it outside our control.
People responsible for planning, developing and operating government websites need to be thinking about how these types of tools impact on how your official website is viewed externally.
So over to you for comments,
- What will you do if an organised group redesigns your website from the outside (either in a friendly or a malicious way)?
- How will you respond to comments that are visibly attached to your website?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Overcoming public sector hurdles to Gov 2.0 | Tweet |
Having now spent around three years listening to colleagues across federal, state and local government, I hear remarkable consistent themes raised as barriers to successful Gov 2.0 implementations.
The number one theme I have heard raised is the lack of Gov 2.0 commitment and experience across senior public service management. This reflects similar views in the private sector – people are generally most comfortable with the technologies they grew up with and senior management in both public and private sectors is commonly still of the 'TV generation'.
This barrier seems to be lowering as senior management gains personal experience with internet technologies and begin to see the benefits. It's a long road, but it appears to me that we're on the way.
The second set of barriers I hear about related to Gov 2.0 is more concerning to me. It relates to the governance framework and policies inside which public servants have to operate.
Like the private sector it appears government systems are struggling in some areas to keep up with the rate of change in the community and in technology. If our systems can't support Gov 2.0 initiatives then it is unlikely that our senior management will.
Some of the examples I've been given - together with some of my approaches to address them are below,
- Procurement policies
Government procurement processes designed for acquiring the best value software and hardware products don't always translate as well to the sourcing of online systems.
Many online vendors do not have presences in Australia and would not be aware of, or simply not bother responding to, Australian tender processes. This risks potentially excluding the best value products from consideration, leaving Departments to choose from local integrators with their own products or reselling an otherwise cheap solution.
Solution:
To address this, Departments need to consider ways to make it easier for online services to participate in procurement processes, via panels, industry reviews and other approaches that identify a set of potential providers who can be appropriately considered within a tender process – within the government's guidelines of course.
- Credit card use online
Some Departments restrict the use of credit cards online - a common payment avenue for many online services. This could lead online teams into grey areas of the system, using work-arounds such as paying a third party a premium for using their credit card to pay the service online or by providing credit card details by phone – which are then directly inputted into the online form by the service provider. These workarounds can be onerous for monthly subscriptions.
These workarounds may increase the financial risk that the regulations are seeking to mitigate – and may also add extra costs to the public purse.
Solution:
My recommendation would be to encourage Departments to allow online credit card use under appropriate circumstances – either to a delegated amount per transaction, or via an approved list of suppliers (reviewed annually). This would help minimise the risk of online transactions while not encouraging inappropriate actions.
- Reg 10
Secondly, formal regulations such as FMA Regulation 10 (PDF) - known as Reg 10 - can add significant red tape to the use of both free and paid online services.
Reg 10 approval is formally required for any service for which a contract or agreement is formed and the service cost or potential contingent liability stretches into future financial years - even if the chance of a liability arising is remote.
This means that the use of a service such as a free online mapping product requires Reg 10 approval in case someone in a future financial year sues the Department due to use of the product.
Getting Reg 10 approval generally adds extra steps to the process of delivering Gov 2.0 outcomes – and for a full community engagement site may require five or more Reg 10 approvals (one per 3rd party tool used).
While it is not generally prohibitive to get Reg 10s approved, they commonly require signing by people outside the sections involved with online initiatives, which can slow things down – or even block them where senior management doesn't understand the risks.
Also, a new Reg 10 may be required for each separate use of an online service. This could add further administrative burdens and create situations in Departments where some uses of a service are approved but identical uses in other areas are not, based on the views of specific managers.
Solution:
There may be ways to streamline Reg 10 approvals for frequently used online services by maintaining a central Departmental record which is simply amended with any additional risks regarding additional uses of online services. Where there are no additional risks for a new use, the Reg 10 would require limited scrutiny as the Department had already accepted the risks.
- Access to and use of social media
Many Departments technically prohibit access to social media in the workplace on the basis of it being a misuse of Commonwealth resources (though personal phone calls are not similarly restricted through PABX systems).
While a few authorised staff may be allowed access to social media tools (such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube) to monitor and, in a few cases respond, to online comments about the Department - or to manage the Department's own online accounts - most staff are not allowed to see the Department's online presence.
This can leave staff blind when a customer or stakeholder calls to discuss a Department's social media presence. It can also cut them off from various government and professional social media communities and prevent them from asking their peers for work-related help in a cost-effective and productivity-enhancing manner.
Finally it prevents the Department from developing widespread internal skills in the use of social media and may discourage potential employees, who expect to be able to tap into online professional knowledge to remain current and employable in their professions.
Solution:
I'd suggest that Departments consider shifting their response from technically prohibiting access to social media to providing clear guidance to their staff on appropriate use of social media and using existing management and technical monitoring systems to audit adherence. This would enable staff to 'get on with their jobs', while leaving inappropriate behaviour detectable and actionable in the same way Departments manage telephone communications.
- Government Campaign Advertising Guidelines
People from several Departments have told me that under the interpretation of the Government Campaign Advertising Guidelines (http://www.finance.gov.au/advertising/index.html) used by their Departments they are not able to use social media techniques in campaigns.
This is related to 'control of message' – which is interpreted by their Departments as meaning that messages cannot be collaboratively developed with community involvement or redistributed by the community through online friend-sharing systems (which place these messages outside of government control). One of the main risks outlined to me was that government messages may reach people they were not targeted to – and offend them unnecessarily.
This interpretation reflects the newness and speed of online systems. For example, if the government distributes messages in print brochures there are no safeguards to prevent the brochures being passed on to friends. This also applies to TV and radio material – which is often redistributed by the community through services such as youTube. For example, the famous ten-pin bowling Grim Reaper ad about AIDS from NSW was released in 1987, but is still viewable on youTube 22 years later – even though YouTube didn't exist until 15 years after the ad screened.
Solution:
In this case I recommend Departments speak directly to the Campaign Advertising team at Finance for clarification and some examples of how government campaigns can stay within the Campaign Advertising Guidelines but still make use of social media tools. They can potentially look at how other Departments are using social media tools for examples of how to manage risks around messages and stay within the Guidelines
Are there any other barriers or hurdles to Gov 2.0 initiatives that you've encountered?
Share them - even anonymously. You never know, someone else may have a solution!
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Heathcote community vote on stimulus spending now open | Tweet |
NSW MP Paul Macleay has opened voting on projects to receive a portion of the economic stimulus package allocated to his electorate, Heathcote.
To view how this example of community budgetting works, visit Paul's site at www.paulmcleay.com.au.
Note that you must live within the electorate to participate.
MashupAustralia Hack session in Sydney | Tweet |
Google will be hosting a hack session in support of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's MashupAustralia competition in Sydney on 14 October.
In case you're unaware, MashupAustralia is a competition being run by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce based on Federal and state government datasets released via data.australia.gov.au.
There are cash prizes on offer for developers who 'mash' the government data into online applications.
The full details for the event are as follows:
(From: Google Developer Events, Sydney)
MashupAustralia Hacking Session
6-9pm
Wednesday, Oct. 14th
Level 5, Dreamtime, 48 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmount (Google Sydney office)
To support local developers working on entries for the MashupAustralia contest (http://mashupaustralia.org/), we're holding a hacking session in the Google office. We'll start with a brief introduction to mashups and tips for making them, do some brainstorming and idea sharing, and then get to hardcore hacking. We'll also have dinner and drinks to give us energy.
Register Here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGlPam1vY0hnbFExWDRqRGdudmVfTnc6MQ
(Note: space is limited, so if we get alot of RSVPs, we may need to
say no to some of them. We'll let you know).
Anyone else - particularly within government - organising similar events around the country?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Adapt the service not the user | Tweet |
I've been rereading the ABC article about the two girls who got caught in a drain and used their mobile phone to update their Facebook status, rather than call Triple 0.
A representative of the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) in Adelaide said that,
If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called triple-0, so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via triple-0 anyway.Professor of Media and Communications at the Queensland University of Technology, Terry Flew, says public education campaigns are facing an ongoing struggle to compete with social media.
I think that the main point has been missed.
The internet and digital devices are changing cultural and personal behaviours. In some respects they are even changing our physical behaviour and may be changing our brain chemistry.
I don't believe that it is the role of Public Authorities to try to turn the clock back by 'competing' with social media - reinforcing messages such as if you're in trouble call triple-0 - just to preserve the 'way the system has always worked'.
In usability terms this is similar to releasing a human-unfriendly system, then producing a huge user manual and communications campaign to attempt to train people to work the way the system works (except in this case the system remains the same and it is people who have changed).
Often it is cheaper and more effective to turn this approach on its head. Re-engineer the system to work the way that people think.
Successful companies have learnt this. They change their products over time to suit emerging social and cultural norms. It's a Marketing-based approach, where the organisation figures out what people want and provides it, rather than a Communications-based approach, where you build products the way the organisation wants then try to convince people to accept them.
The lesson I draw from this emergency situation is that the public service are still grappling with the questions of whether and how to adapt their systems to suit their audiences.
For the girls down the drain it may have been faster for them to call Triple-0, however this wasn't the behaviour they are used to. It was not 'normal' in fact they've probably never done it before.
So why not adapt our emergency services instead?
Have a presence on social networks that people can use to contact them in emergencies.
Create smartphone apps that people can install and use to send the information the emergency services need to act.
Set up Twitter accounts that can be used to call for help.
Even simply point '911' to '000' so either number reaches our emergency services - most Australians hear '911' far more often in movies and on TV than they ever hear 'Triple-0'. The original rationale of '000' being less likely to be dialed in error due to being more difficult to call on dial phones has disappeared anyway with keypads.
Some of these avenues may be 'less efficient' for the system. They may increase the time required for emergency services to response.
However they will ensure that the emergency services CAN respond.
It may even increase the number of people who legitimately contact emergency services - those who wouldn't call Triple-0, but will put a note on Facebook that, for example, they are feeling suicidal.
Certainly checks and balances will need to be in place to prevent fraudulent use, but we managed to do it with a telephone number - surely we're smart enough to do this in other mediums.
The issue of adapting services versus adapting users isn't unique to emergency services, it affects every interaction between government and public.
Every time the government forces people to use the channel it prefers - be it telephone, paper, in-person (or even online) - it is attempting to adapt the user to suit its own processes and needs.
This can reduce citizen engagement, satisfaction and completion rates, resulting in poorer outcomes for individuals.
Instead the government should seek to understand how people prefer to engage and seek ways to adapt its services to suit peoples' needs. AGIMO's report, Australians' use and satisfaction with e-government services—2008, provides some ideas.
Sure there are many cases where it may be legally impossible to accept channels like the net for transactions with government. However there are many services where we can adapt - it just takes a little creative thinking. We may even save the public money or provide a faster service and we will not be 'competing' with social networks, we'll be leveraging them for public benefit.
Let's seek to change our public sector philosophies and adapt government policies and services wherever possible, rather than attempt to adapt our users to suit 'how we prefer to do things'.
NSW launches Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program as part of Apps4NSW | Tweet |
The NSW government has launched the Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program to provide access to NSW transport routes, timetables and stop/station/wharf information for download and reuse in third party applications.
It's been provided as part of the data available for the Apps4NSW competition. launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere.
Unlike similar initiatives in the US and UK, which have generally employed Creative Commons licenses, the NSW Transport Authority has released the data contingent to users signing on to a specific data licensing agreement (PDF), providing the government with significantly more control over how the data may be used and who by.
As an initial step it is great to see the NSW government attempting to free up public data, although the current license agreement may restrict some usage.
For example, the license requires that there be someone eligible and willing to legally sign such an agreement. This could cause developers to think twice before signing on. It could also limit participation by young programmers and school students if their parents and schools are concerned over entering into this formal binding legal agreement with the NSW government.
The license also requires that licensees show their application to the Transport Authority at least 30 days before the application goes live. This reduces the ability for licensees to develop emergency applications at short notice to address specific events - such as fires, floods or other disasters (even dust storms).
There's also a requirement to update applications when the Department updates data, which could also present issues to those mashing up data for fun or experience. It seems to be aimed at companies who choose to mashup the data.
The comments I've seen published on Twitter include:
matthewlandauer: Not impressed with the NSW transport data license http://is.gd/3w1iL especially section 6: Release to the public. #gov2au
NickHodge: @trib @chieftech @matthewlandauer someone is scared about transparency in NSW public transport, me thinks :-(
malcolmt: Sad. Epic Fail by NSW gov with public transport timetable data license. This word Open, it does not mean what you think it means.
dasfreak: First NSW Gov open data effort starting with transport data. License on the whole OK. Reporting section bit onerous http://bit.ly/ehlj2
Overall this is a step forward for government openness, and in many respects a large step - particularly from NSW Transport's position in March, where it was actively pursuing developers with threats of legal action.
However it is only one step along a very long road.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Gov 2.0 Taskforce announces launch of data.australia.gov.au with a Mash-up competition | Tweet |
The Gov 2.0 Taskforce this afternoon announced the launch of data.australia.gov.au featuring 59 datasets from Australian Federal, State and Territory governments released under licenses that permit reuse.
Alongside the launch the Taskforce announced on their blog the launch of a Mash-up competition challenging Australian developers to use one of more of the datasets to create a useful online application.
The competition is offering more than $20,000 in prizes across a range of categories including Excellence in mash-up, peoples' choice and Best Student entry.
The competition starts at 10am Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on 7 October and closes at 4pm AEST on 6 November.
Solo entrants must be Australian resident or citizen and teams must include at least one Australian.
Community based budgeting being trialled by a NSW Local MP | Tweet |
Community-based budgeting is an approach that involves a government allowing its constituents to nominate how some or all of the government's budget is spent in either a binding or non-binding manner.
It's not a new approach - in fact it's been used for thousands of years in different forms around the world.
What is reasonably new is using online tools to facilitate the process. This has been used successfully in various places around the world, (including Brazil) including at local council level in Australia.
However, for the first time that I'm aware of in Australia, the approach is about to be trialled at a state government level in NSW by Heathcote MP Paul McLeay.
The approach was announced via his website with a video, which details how the process will work.
It has also been the subject of a post by Paul at ON LINE Opinion titled, Web 2.0: citizens choose how to spend public money.
The article attracted criticism from the Sydney Morning Herald over the authors' choice of words regarding the Premier of NSW's use of Twitter. However it should also be noted that the quote was misattributed as only being from MP Paul McLeay, not from all of the authors, and the Herald didn't mention the point of the initiative in the first place.
However the experiment in edemocracy has attracted more positive views from others who have focused on the initiative, such as from Online Community Engagement's post Paul McLeay's e-democracy initiative - 3 cheers from us but the Herald is not impressed!.
I often wonder how the Australian public would prefer to spend 'government' budgets - the money that taxpayers give to the government to be used in their benefit.
Even with the understanding that the community won't have all the same information on which to make their decisions it would still make an interesting experiment to see the choices they make and the reasons behind their decisions.
Crowdsourcing Australian History using Web 2.0 | Tweet |
Nick Gruen over at the Gov 2.0 Taskforce has reminded me of a project I took a look at last year but have never mentioned in this blog.
It's the National Library of Australia's Historic Australian Newspapers archive, which contains digitalised versions of Australian newspapers from between 1803 and 1954 (which are not covered by copyright).
The archive began with the intention of using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to digitalise the newspapers to make them accessible and searchable online - a vital resource for researchers and geneologists.
However the project took this a step further - allowing the public to correct OCR mistakes in text with extremely low barriers to entry.
This led to over 2 millions lines of text being corrected in 100,000 articles in the first six months, with corrections undertaken by 1,300 users from around the world (78% from Australia). In fact there wasn't a single hour in a day when corrections were not taking place - and there were no instances of vandalism.
The IT Project Manager, Rose Holley has written a great report on the project, detailing how the crowdsourcing initiative was suggested, the process they used to understand and manage potential risks, test and establish the system and how successful it has been - including profiles of some of the top participants and what motivates them to contribute.
This report, Many Hands Make Light Work: Public Collaborative OCR Text Correction in Australian Historic Newspapers (PDF), is a must-read for anyone in the Australian public sector considering how they can get the public involved in their online initiative.
The project is ongoing - with more than 2,294 registered users in February this year.
So why not get involved yourself - even just to understand how such a system might work.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
NSW trialing video Hansards and auto-translation - looking for comments | Tweet |
As discussed in NSW MLC Penny Sharpe's blog last week, the NSW government is trialling video Hansard for proceedings in both NSW houses.
Videos are tagged via the Hansard transcripts to improve searchability - though at present the search system implemented finds the video clip, but not the precise time within the video.
In addition to the video, NSW is also trialling auto-translation of Hansard transcripts into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish (though unfortunately not Klingon). This offers the exciting prospect of being able to provide the discussions in parliament in the languages of some of the different cultural groups across Australia. In my view this is even more significant for supporting Australia's multi-cultural democracy than watching parliament in action.
To trial the system, go to www.visionbytes.tv and login using nswparl as both the username and password.
If you have feedback, please comment on MLC Penny Sharpe's blog.
What's your view on collaborative legislation? - US Congressman piloting collaboration on Health Care Bill | Tweet |
Collaborative legislation is one of the potential outcomes for Gov 2.0 - a process whereby those affected by legislation can be directly involved in the process of developing it, or even write their own legislation as a 'community bill' for government to consider.
We've seen some work around the edges of this space over the last few years, with the New Zealand Wiki Police Act and even with the Gov 2.0 Taskforce in Australia, who made their beta issues paper available online for comments before finalisation.
Now one of the US Government's best know Gov 2.0 advocates, Republican Congressman John Culberson, has take a further step, making the proposed US Health Care Bill available online for comments and annotations by his constituents.
I'm very interested in whether a collaborative legislation approach could work in Australia and what could be the barriers to it being successful. Anyone have views on this?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Parliament House Clerk advocates online engagement for parliamentary committees | Tweet |
In a recent submission (PDF) to the Federal government's Inquiry into the effectiveness of House Committees, I C Harris, the Clerk of the House, suggested that
Technological developments offer tremendous potential to extend the reach of communities work in times of community participation.The submission provided an example of how one government committee had successfully engaged with public online forums to inform and encourage participation in inquiries and consultations and also discussed some of the other online tools potentially useful to government consultation processes, for example,
It is possible to envisage committees, for example, hosting on-line forums or blogs and participating in social networking sites in some form to reach groups, particularly younger Australians, and seek their input into particular issues. Use of technology in this way will be a useful adjunct to the more traditional methods of operation for committees.It also went on to details some of the benefits of using online engagement, such as increasing the reach of consultations and reducing travel costs.
With the Clerk of the House supportive of the concept of online platforms to improve consultation processes, I wonder how long it will take until the parliament - and government departments - begin more broadly using online channels to aid consultation processes.
There does appear to be a limited supply of people with professional skills in conducting these consultations, or even costing and planning them in Australia. I think this presents an enormous opportunity for anyone who has or can build significant experience in the area as they will be in high demand in the future.
Does your department have social media guidelines in place? | Tweet |
Various research reports have indicated that at least 50% of Australian internet users participate in social networks.
Forrester's Groundswell profiling tool suggests that 23% of Australians aged 18+ actively create content online; 31% are 'critics', providing comments and feedback online; and 50% are 'joiners' of social networks, forums and online groups.
So should we expect Australia's public servants - most of whom are internet users - to be any different?
It seems reasonable to me to assume that more than half of public servants are actively participating online - discussing topics of interest to them, leaving comments on forums, social networks and news sites and building their social profile.
We're also seeing more government departments officially employing social media to engage their customers, having staff who are responsible for creating and maintaining Facebook pages, blogs and other online presences on behalf of the department.
However how many government departments and agencies have formally endorsed and communicated the APSC's Interim protocols on online media use to their staff, or developed their own guidelines regarding social media?
What is the legal position of a department if it finds staff using social media in their own time in a way senior management disagree with but where there are no formal guidelines in place?
What is a department's effective position in situations where it is launching social media initiatives while simultaneously blocking staff from viewing these initiatives using departmental equipment? We don't block staff from viewing our radio, print or TV campaigns.
These are thorny issues for departments - particularly for those that are having to confront these issues on the back foot, rather than proactively assessing their situation and putting guidelines in place.
They will become even thornier if left unresolved - potentially leading to management/staff disputes, legal risks, media risks and political risks for Ministers.
So has your department taken steps to devise, endorse and communicate official guidelines on social media use? Or has it accepted the risks it is taking on by not taking these steps?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Participatory democracy, Web 2.0 and the Government 2.0 Taskforce - on Radio National | Tweet |
If you missed the Future Tense program on Thursday morning (24/9) regarding Participatory democracy, Web 2.0 and the Government 2.0 Taskforce, it's now available on the ABC National site, including an extended interview with Nicholas Gruen, the Gov 2.0 Taskforce chair, that wasn't broadcast.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Gov 2.0 Taskforce requesting additional project ideas | Tweet |
The Gov 2.0 Taskforce has blogged that they are looking for further ideas they can fund for Gov 2.0 projects.
So if your Department - or you personally - have project concepts that require some extra funds to get off the ground, read the post Allocating the project fund: we want your ideas and make a submission.
Defining success for web projects | Tweet |
Not all projects completely succeed. For a variety of factors some do not meet some or all of the original goals laid out for them.
There is a tendency to label these projects as failures, to totally write them off and be more cautious when initiating similar projects in the future.
In the web space, which is changing fast, many projects are firsts of their kind. This can make it harder for organisations to allocate appropriate resourcing, time or constraints, or to set appropriate success criteria. There may also be unanticipated side effects which can distract from the project's focus.
This can lead to failures in otherwise reasonable projects, failures which could be prevented through a better understanding of project needs.
When web projects are considered failures, organisations can become more cautious and less willing to attempt similar projects or place additional constraints on how projects are run. These can reduce the likelihood of subsequent successes and lead to dininishing returns and greater reluctance.
So how do we, as web professionals, help organisations engineer for greater success in web projects?
Firstly it's important to speak up during the initial planning stages. To provide honest views of what resourcing and time is required to achieve the project's goals. There's no point in beginning a project with inadequate resourcing - it doesn't serve the government, the agency or yourself.
Where time and resourcing isn't flexible, it is important to negotiate and clarify the criteria for success. Make sure all the stakeholders have a common understanding of what success looks like and how probable it is given the constraints.
It is also possible in some organisations to define certain non-critical projects as experimental, with an underlying goal of increasing knowledge within the organisation. In this case you can define success as identifying approaches that do not work. While this may sound like a cop-out, defining success as failure, remember how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb - he 'failed' many times, allowing him to learn what did not work in order to focus on an approach that would.
It is also important to record all the unintended impacts of a web project. Sometimes a project can be successful in areas important to the organisation but outside its defined goals. An example of this is the post-it note, which resulted from experiments by a 3M employee, Spencer Silver, to develop a strong new adhesive. The adhesive was a failure - it was super-weak - however Silver kept the formula. Four years later another 3M employee, Arthur Fry, discovered that the adhesive could be added to the back of paper notes and stuck to things and removed without causing damage. After another six years convincing 3M of the commercial value (which he eventually did by providing prototype post-it notes to the executive assistants of senior managers) it finally was released in the market as post-it notes.
Most important of all, it's important to help organisations understand that a partial success isn't necessarily a total failure.
In most projects, even those that are regarded as catastrophic failures, there are components that succeeded. These successes can sometimes be just as important as the failures for educating future projects - there's even a saying for it, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".
Particularly in large web project, or where web forms part of a larger project, it is important to differentiate between the parts that failed and those that succeeded - to acknowledge the successes even where the project is rated as an overall failure.
While this approach holds for all aspects of projects it is particularly important in the web space. As the internet is reasonably new for most organisations, some people can be more sensitive towards perceived failure in the area and more willing to use it as an excuse to kill or restrict future projects.
This is simply human nature - we fear the unknown and attempt to limit its impact on us through controls or avoidance. This is mirrored in project management strategies which define and minimise the potential impact of what we don't know through risk mitigation techniques and project controls.
So if you find yourself in the midst of a project hurtling towards failure, make sure that you spend time identifying what is going right as well as what is going wrong.
If the web component (or any other component) is meeting its goals - or at least providing key insights and tools that will enable future projects - make sure these are highlighted to the organisation and that these learnings are shared outside the project team.
Even where you cannot save the project, you can at least add to corporate knowledge and prevent the organisation from mistakenly throwing out that baby with the dirty water.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
What does the internet believe about you? | Tweet |
MIT have developed an interesting visualisation tool which can be used to map various online statements about an individual and present a chart which provides a view on what is known or believed about them.
While it's really a toy at this stage, it shows the potential for mapping the view of the public towards individuals or organisations in a more holistic fashion, based on online commentary.
Why not see what the internet believes about you at MIT Personas.
Here's what it believes about me:
OzLoop launches | Tweet |
Steve Davies, one of the top proponents of Gov 2.0, has launched aversion of Govloop specifically for Australian public servants named OzLoop.
The site aims to support public servants in collaborating and sharing experience and expertise in the same way GovLoop, which is now over a year old, supports over 10,000 US public servants.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Top ten announced for The Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics | Tweet |
The finalists of the 2009 global egovernment award, The Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics have been announced.
Courtesy of Victoria's eGovernment Resource Centre, the top 10 finalists are:
- The Democracy Center, represented by Jim Shultz, Executive Director (Bolivia)
- CLIME, Center for Liberty in the Middle East, represented by founder Eleana Gordon (USA)
- DiploFoundation, represented by founder Jovan Kurbalija (Malta)
- EUProfiler, represented by project manager Alexander Trechsel (Switzerland)
- Peter D. Greenberger, Team Manger “Elections and Issue Advocacy”, Google Inc. (USA)
- The Iranian protesters (Iran)
- Nazaha, the Arab web portal in the fight against corruption, represented by founder Ibrahim Fahmy (Egypt)
- Pollitika.com, represented by founder Marko Rakar (Croatia)
- Joe Rospars and Obama’s New Media Team (USA)
- Twitter (USA)
Of the Australian nominees, Senator Kate Lundy was ranked 13th and I was ranked 15th out of the final 26 shortlisted.
I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me or voted for Senator Lundy.
Next year I hope we see more Australians and Australian sites nominated for the award.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Gov 2.0 Taskforce announces second project round - asks for quotes | Tweet |
The Gov 2.0 forum has released a second round of projects for quotes including for a Whole of Government Information Publication Scheme, Online Engagement Guidance and Web 2.0 Toolkit for Australian Government Agencies, Framework for Stimulating Information Philanthropy in Australia and Hypotheticals — Ethical and Cultural Challenges of Digital Engagement by Government - amongst other projects.
Full details of the projects are available at the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's blog in the post, Submit a quote for our round two projects.
If only I didn't have a full time job already :)
Encouraging government departments to embrace accessibility standards (WCAG2) | Tweet |
Some things are better communicated by song than words, for example the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (WCAG2).
If you're struggling to get your department to understand the importance and detail of the WCAG 2.0 standard, why not send them this video.
Note that WCAG 2.0 has not, to my knowledge, been endorsed yet by the Australian Human Rights Commission, whose latest World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes dates back to 31 March 2009.
Google launches site for Australian public sector | Tweet |
Google has launched a Google Public Service site for Australia showcasing some of the tools they provide and how they can and are being used by government agencies around the world to engage with citizens and empower public servants and politicians.
If it interests you, you may also find Google's public sector blog worth reading.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Vic government releases report on Australian Gov 2.0 initiatives and online take-up | Tweet |
Information Victoria, in the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development for the Victorian Government has released a report, Web 2.0: The New Tools for Democratic Conversations – A snapshot of Initiatives in Government.
Available at Victoria's eGovernment Resource Centre (using the link in last paragraph), the report provides an excellent snapshot of many of the different Gov 2.0 initiatives currently in operation across Victoria and Australia, plus a couple of prominent international examples.
The report also provides a great overview on Australian use of online social media - demonstrating how it is permeating our culture.
If you're seeking examples to justify that your proposed Gov 2.0 initiative has local precedents, or that there is a large and growing audience for the online medium, this report is an extremely useful reference.
I was alerted to this report by David, who posted a comment on my post on Tuesday about the New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework.
Monday, September 14, 2009
US Army to launch Apps for Army Competition | Tweet |
In the style of the Apps for America competitions, the US Army announced at the Gov 2.0 summit that it would hold a competition for soldiers to develop software to help the army fight wars and carry out its missions.
Reported in Information Week Government, Gov 2.0: Army Announces Apps For Army Competition, the Army views the approach as a way to break down silos and create cheap and effective software, helping reduce the cost of having military-grade applications developed.
All entries will be hosted on the Defense Information Systems agency's open source code repository, Forge.mil.
Given the massive savings reported by Washington DC when it ran a similar district-based competition, it will be interesting to see the level of value that can be achieved within the armed forces.
US launches Gov 2.0 consultation on national broadband network | Tweet |
The US is a little behind Australia in considering a National Broadband Network, however it has taken a very different approach in consulting and engaging citizens, opening up the discussion to the US community in a Gov 2.0 manner.
The US Government's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched Broadband.gov as a web 2.0 enabled site to manage the central conversation around a US National Broadband Plan.
It has also introduced an Ideascale portal for individuals to raise, vote on and discuss ideas and potential challenges at national and local levels and shake out the key issues for the community.
The FCC also has a blog, Facebook site, interactive Twitter feed (where the FCC responds to questions), YouTube channel and RSS feeds. It is also holding face-to-face and webinar workshops to discuss what US citizens want in a broadband network. All of these workshops are recorded and made available online.
What I think is most important is how the FCC is using these channels in a consistent and integrated manner to support public discussion and engagement.
Often organisations don't have a strategy (communications plan) behind their online engagement channels and, as a result, they do not function in a synchronised and mutually reinforcing manner - and in some cases can act against each other, reducing the effectiveness of an online conversation and reducing the online credibility of the organisation.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Melbourne OpenAustralia HackFest coming up on 26 September - sign-up now | Tweet |
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.
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.
Cluetrain for Government | Tweet |
Some of you may have read The Cluetrain Manifesto. This is widely considered to be one of the seminal works for Web 2.0, albeit being written in 1999, before the expression Web 2.0 was coined.
The Cluetrain Manifesto outlined 95 theses for how markets would develop and people behave online, forshadowing the growth of social media.
Now Steve Radick over at the Social Computing Journal has published a 'cluetrain' for governments, with 20 theses that it would be wise for public servants to read and consider.
The theses are available in Steve's article, Twenty Theses for Government 2.0, Cluetrain Style.
Read them now.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released | Tweet |
Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre, I've become aware of the New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework that was release late last month.
Structured as a discussion paper, it sets out guidelines for the use of 'no copyright' and Creative Commons use across the NZ government to support the release and appropriate re-use of government generated data and materials.
One of the issues it aims to address is,
current confusion, uncertainty and criticism on the part of members of the public around Crown copyright and licensing, including difficulties being experienced through the various and inconsistent licensing practices across the State Services.
I believe this would resonate with organisations such as OpenAustralia who are attempting to reuse government data in Australia (and recently had their request rejected by Queensland).
The document provides a thorough guide to Creative Commons copyright in New Zealand.
It also includes a handy review and release decision tre to make it easy for government departments to select the licensing most appropriate for their data and documents. On first glance this tree looks jurisdictionally agnostic - meaning it could as easily be applied in Australia as it could in New Zealand.
The entire document has been released in a blog-style format, supporting comments on each page (though there are none visible to-date).
I don't expect Australia to be that far behind.
Monday, September 07, 2009
NSW launches 'Apps4NSW' with $100,000 in prizes | Tweet |
Launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere on Friday, Apps4NSW is the first Australian public competition for reusing online NSW government data to create useful applications for the public.
Quoting the new site,
In the competition, individuals and groups will compete for cash prizes by creating ideas and software application prototypes that can be used on websites and mobile devices. This competition will foster collaboration between NSW citizens and the Government as well as promote and highlight innovation in the digital media sector.This reflects the App for America competition that has been running for two years in the US, and a similar competition recently run in the UK via the site Show us a better way.
There will be two competition categories:
* ideas for applications or services based around public or government data, and
* prototype software applications that demonstrate the idea in action.
In conjunction with this announcement, the NSW government has also announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released.
Data.nsw.gov.au announced - open NSW data feeds for reuse coming soon | Tweet |
The NSW government has announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released.
Announced at NSWSphere last Friday, alongside the release of the Apps4NSW public competition, data.nsw.gov.au will first release RTA data around the end of September - conclusively ending the controversy that began when NSW Rail threatened four developers with legal action for repackaged NSW rail timetables into applications for iPhones, breaching copyright.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Gov 2.0 Taskforce launches brainstorming site - suggest your project ideas | Tweet |
The Gov 2.0 Taskforce has launched a brainstorming site (via Ideascale) to source ideas that will help the Taskforce meet its goals.
The first brainstorm is asking for ideas that consider the question, "How can the Government 2.0 Taskforce best meet its Terms of Reference?", however is also capturing related ideas.
There are cash prizes for ideas selected by the Taskforce, based on the brainstorm's Terms and Conditions.
So if you have an idea, or wish to vote on the ideas submitted, visit the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's Brainstorming site - or view the latest ideas submitted in the left column of my blog (eGovAU).
Friday, September 04, 2009
If you can crowd source developing a car, what can't you crowd source? | Tweet |
Fiat in Brazil is currently crowd sourcing the development of an concept car for 2010, the Fiat Mio.
The concept is that the public (from anywhere in the world) can submit ideas for what they'd like to see in a car, these ideas can be voted and commented on by others and Fiat engineers will draw from these ideas when developing the concept car.
The site uses a translation tool to allow ideas to be translated into any of five languages with a click of a button, making it truly international in scope.
Already there have been thousands of ideas submitted and voted on and there's a very active discussion of the car on Twitter (largely in Spanish).
To top it off, the project is being developed under a Creative Commons license - making the ideas reusable by other car makers.
Please remember that all content will be free. Fiat believes that the information generated in this project should be shared without restrictions for use by simple users or engineers and manufacturers, and other vehicle manufacturers.If an organisation such as a car maker, in a highly competitive and complex industry, is able to crowd source the development of a concept car, one of the most complicated machines used by man, think of the possibilities for crowd sourcing government initiatives, programs and policies.
Follow the Gov 2.0 NSW Public Sphere today by video, audio or Twitter | Tweet |
If you, like me, aren't able to make it down to Parliament House in Sydney for Gov 2.0 NSW Public Sphere today, at least try to follow the Twitter stream (search on the hashtag #nswsphere), watch the video stream or listen to the audio stream for the day (details to be provided in the NSW Public Sphere site.
The more people who participate, in person or digitally, the greater the value of the event.
As a warm-up, here's a video Matthew Hodgson has put together for the NSW Public Sphere.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
How should a government department develop a social media policy? Start a blog! | Tweet |
In July the US Department of Defense launched a new blog, the Web 2.0 Guidance Forum, for the purpose of sourcing input from the public to be used as they develop a social media policy for the armed forces and their families.
Reported in Nextgov, Defense asks the public for help forming social media policy, the approach appears to have worked quite well. When the consultation closed on 20 August it had amassed over 260 targeted comments, including a number of ideas that had not previously been considered by Defense.
Given this approach seems to have repeatedly delivered positive outcomes, in the US, UK and even in Australia - why are we still using it so sparingly in government policy development?
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Is the social media revolution merely a fad? | Tweet |
Watch the video below, then I'd like your opinion.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Integrating an online community engagement strategy | Tweet |
When I wrote my first online community engagement strategy for Telstra's Wireplay service in 1997, one of the factors I considered was how to 'complete the loop' - integrate inbound and outbound online channels to reach, engage and promote interaction across the widest possible audience.
In those days we used mass media, product sponsorship and events as the drivers to build audience reach and awareness and online forums, IRC chat, newsgroups and email to interact online and generate repeat traffic.
It was an effective combination - although limited by 2009 standards.
Today there are more online channels alternatives when building an integrated marketing or engagement strategy, however the principle remains the same,
- Use media (inc online) channels to drive initial traffic to the site
- Make the on site barriers to engagement and interaction as low as possible, provide rewards for activity and a variety of ways to engage/interact to suit different comfort and skills levels
- Promote return traffic through alerts and email news
- Build audience by providing reasons for visitors to refer your site to others
- Increase your reach by providing options to integrate your content into other sites
Sometimes their strategy was to spend their month on building and launching an online engagement site, then hope people like it enough to spread the word themselves - the build it and they will come approach.
Sometimes organisations treat the delivery of a website as the end of the project - rather than the start.
And sometimes the value of word-of-mouth promotion and an outreach strategy is not recognised - some organisations still believe that the mass media is the most powerful traffic driver.
Fortunately for those of you struggling to enlighten organisations who believe any of the above, IAS B2B has published an integrated channel strategy diagram which provides an excellent illustration of how to effectively design an online community engagement approach.
I've included an image below, and you can download the integrated online strategy diagram PDF here (103kb).
At first glance the diagram can appear a little daunting - which is possibly why Marc Keating has made an accompanying video to explain it in depth.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The most difficult leap for Government is not from 1.0 to 2.0, but from consultation to collaboration | Tweet |
With all the hubbub about Gov 2.0 at present it's often forgotten that a lot of what is being attempted is simply taking what is already done in other mediums and doing it online.
For example, online engagement and consultation is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary step. Where governments used to host robust town hall meetings, they are now conducting these discussions online.
In most cases this lowers the consultation risk for governments,
- every audience question or comment can be moderated before it is public,
- there is no physical proximity and therefore less risk to the health of political representatives,
- discussions can take place over time (and with no time limit), allowing greater participation and reducing impositions on the time of everyone involved,
- they cost less - no venue or travel expenses, no security contingents or vetting,
- there are less errors or gaffes as aides and advisors can vet the representative's words for factual and political errors before they are published, and
- the political representative's words will not be distorted as easily through word of mouth. Anyone can go to the online consultation and review what they actually said.
Gov 2.0 ups the ante, changing the definition of what should be made public and requires processes and systems to be revised, however it doesn't require entirely new behaviours and approaches - data is collected, stored and reported now, in the future only the access and formats will change.
The real challenge for governments in Gov 2.0 is moving to a collaborative or participatory model. This is a fundamental shift in the power arrangement - the government is no longer central to the relationship, it is simply working with partners to achieve agreed goals.
In a collaborative environment the government doesn't control the terms of the discussion (as in a consultation), control the message (in a promotion) or set the parameters on what and how data will be released from internal silos. Instead the government is merely one of the players at the table - and often not the most influential.
Overseas we've seen some examples of this collaboration in action, generally initiated by the public and then seeing their governments forced to participate based on the number of people in the community involved.
One example is Fix my street, a UK-based community-developed service allowing people to report local infrastructure issues that their council is responsible for maintaining, such as potholes, street lights, pavements and blocked drains. Looking at the site, there have been over 50,000 issues reported, with over 1,200 fixed in the last month - by councils forced to pay attention to their community's needs.
It's hard to find lots of other examples as yet - and it's even difficult to think of the potential shapes of collaborative initiatives - possibly because our paradigm is still too narrow, the internet as yet too young.
I'm not yet sure whether or to what extent the principle of collaboration will take hold in governments. There needs to be further changes in government policy and processes, society, education systems, legal systems and the concept of ownership for effective collaboration between a constituency and its government to become streamlined and fully effective.
However, in my opinion, collaboration is the space where both citizens and government can see the greatest benefits from Gov 2.0 as it engages the community as an equal stakeholder in the development and management of public goods.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Finalists of Apps for America 2 announced | Tweet |
The Sunlight Foundation has announced the three finalists for the Apps for America 2 competition.
These finalists represent the best online social innovation sites developed by Americans to make the US government more transparent.
I'm hoping that we'll soon see a similar competition held here in Australia.
28 reasons why organisations avoid social media - (try it as bingo) | Tweet |
Jeff Bullas has written a fantastic post, 28 Reasons Why The CEO Is Afraid Of Social Media, which lists many of the reasons given by organisations when resisting getting involved with online social media.
While he's followed up with another great post addressing many of these concerns, 9 Ways To Convince The CEO To Use Social Media and Enter The 21st Century, I thought his first post was so good that it deserved to be turned into a Social Media Bingo game.
Below you'll find Jeff's 28 reasons arranged on a single page, ready to be downloaded and used as Social Media Bingo.
If your organisation is still avoiding engagement with social media, see how many of Jeff's reasons apply - and let me know how many you managed to cross off!
Social Media Bingo
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Are you supporting Australian gov 2.0 initiatives? | Tweet |
There are a lot of people interested in Gov 2.0 and social media these days - it's no surprise given the level of commitment indicated by political leaders in Australia and the dollars beginning to become available in the area.
However few of them appear to be actively contributing to the Gov 2.0 discussion in Australia.
Considering the number of people signed up to the Gov2 Australia list and attending Gov 2.0 events, by my estimation less than ten percentage of people are contributing over 80% of the discussion.
Now this isn't necessarily a major issue. Many people are new to the area and listening and learning, or are simply shy. What does concern me is whether this quiet majority are supporting the various Gov 2.0 initiatives being rolled out by Departments.
The Gov 2.0 area in Australian is still an infant and the scrutiny on Gov 2.0 initiatives is intense, so any indication that they do not work - such as through low participation or destructive, rather than constructive criticism, can easily set back any Department's attempts to move into a new and, frankly, scary space.
So if you're one of the quiet majority, please consider taking a small step to support the rest of the Gov 2.0 community - post a comment at a government blog, provide feedback on an online consultation or follow and retweet a government twitterer.
Most importantly, look for opportunities within your own agency to promote the initiatives of other departments to your staff and audiences.
If you're not sure which initiatives to support, here's a few to choose from,
- the Gov 2.0 Taskforce,
- DOHA's yourHealth health reform consultation,
- ABS's Betaworks website redevelopment project, or
- the Prime Minister's blog
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Do we risk too much by risking too little? | Tweet |
Government by nature is risk-averse.
There's very good reasons for this, as many decisions made by the government are life-influencing for large numbers of citizens.
For example, a simple policy change can have widespread, even catastrophic effects on certain groups in the community. Equally, bold sweeping changes can have significant political impacts, not always to the benefit of the party in power.
Therefore it is generally safer (and often required) for government organisations to be cautious in decision-making - spending the time necessary to ensure that as many voices and views are heard and making the minimum possible changes necessary to improve the system without damaging peoples' lives.
However risk-aversion can have its downsides,
- change is generally slow to occur,
- new ideas take a long time to be adopted,
- decisions are sometimes considered in relation to risks alone - ignoring the benefits,
- organisational structures grow rigid and hierachical - attracting people who seek to strengthen the risk-averse culture and are more resistent to change,
- mistakes become seen as failures rather than learning opportunities,
- managing costs is progressively more difficult (as savings come from reducing functions rather than employing innovative solutions),
- the organisation can progressively become out-of-tune with it's customers and community - making it less effective at meeting its purpose.
Similar to the biological world, highly risk-averse organisations usually do better in stable and predictable environments which change slowly or not at all. Whereas more risk-tolerant organisations usually do better in fast changing and variable environments.
But here's the rub. Business environments are not uniformly stable or variable.
At any point in time some elements of an environment are likely to be quite stable - for example the laws and protocols defining an organisation's existence.
At the same time some aspects can be changing quite rapidly - such as the news of the day and the situations of customers and communities.
Other aspects may fall between the extremes, staff levels and skills and supplier prices.
One of the fast-changing areas is, naturally, online - which has evolved from basic text only bulletin boards twenty years ago (before the net) into real-time audio-video data exchanges today.
Where an organisation is risk-averse it is likely to be slower to enter the online arena, or make use of the tools and techniques available. This leaves the organisation behind the current trends in the community, potentially leaving many citizens frustrated and annoyed (as they cannot simply go online to do what they want to do).
Even worse this risk-aversion can lead to an organisation struggling to keep up, not having the inhouse expertise to fully understand and realise the benefits of emerging solutions that could save it significant costs or improve service delivery, or leaving the organisation potentially facing much larger 'catch-up costs' in the future.
In other words, by applying a risk-averse risk management approach to highly variable situations, an attempt at risk management can achieve the reverse - increasing the risk for the organisation.
So how does an organisation address this?
In my view it means we need to consider the rate of environment change in our risk management strategies - applying the appropriate approach for the environmental element.
Therefore while many areas within an organisation can make do with a risk-averse management approach, there must be sufficient flexibility within the system (or a different system entirely) for fast-changing and variable areas, which need a more risk-tolerant approach.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Is the Australian government equipped to provide collective public goods online? | Tweet |
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Wordpress.
What do all these online services have in common?
They are all part of the world's virtual infrastructure, providing collective public goods that many people, including many Australians, use on a daily basis - whether for the storage, organisation, distribution or discovery of information.
They are also all privately owned and operated (for profit or not). There are few if any similar virtual collective public goods provided by governments.
Finally, from a national security and self-sufficiency standpoint, none of them is Australian owned or operated. If a foreign jurisdiction decided to close down or block any of these services, Australia would suffer at least a temporary economic loss.
On Friday, at the Public Sphere Q&A session with Gov 2.0 Task Force members, the Taskforce's Chairman Dr Nicholas Gruen stated that,
I think it was the government’s job to build Google, Facebook, Twitter. I’m quite serious about that.
While, for some, this statement might appear unusual - or even absurd - Dr Gruen is stating that one of the core purposes of government is to develop and provide infrastructure for its citizens, public goods that benefit nations and states but are often too expensive, unprofitable or may be a national security risk if left in the hands of private or foreign entities.
Traditionally public infrastructure has focused on physical systems - rail and road networks, hospitals, libraries and schools, sewage, water and electricity networks, telegraph and phone systems, buses and trains. Or on communications and informational systems such as newspapers, television and radio stations.
However it is time to consider whether that definition should be extended to include virtual public infrastructure. This includes the public goods used to store, discover and distribute information and communication online, just as physical public infrastructure has distributed water, words and people.
This thinking is in its infancy. Few governments globally are providing any of the virtual public infrastructure citizens will need through the 21st century - other than having their national broadcasters go online, as have all other broadcasters.
Of course there are digital initiatives such as the National Broadband Network in Australia and similar schemes being discussed in the UK, US and other countries. However these are examples of physical infrastructure required to support digital communications. Consider this similar to building the roads and railways of the past.
The next step is for governments to consider whether and what they need to provide as the virtual infrastructure that sits on top of these networks - the digital equivalent of buses and trains that will be required on our digital transport network.
So should governments have developed these online services (as Dr Gruen suggested)?
Should they be developing other virtual public goods? The online tools and services that commercial entities will never develop?
Or should they leave it up to the market?
To answer these questions I think we need to go a little deeper and consider whether governments are the most appropriate bodies to develop virtual collective public goods.
In most countries governments limit their online participation to information and service provision - consumer to government to consumer and business to government to business.
While there's no shortage of ability, there is little public sector fostering of direct citizen to citizen or business to business connections or even more complex arrangements such as citizens to government to business and vice versa.
This is often because of the tight restrictions many governments apply regarding what material can be stored and expressed via government-operated websites.
The risk of breaching individual privacy, allowing political commentary (as the public sector is apolitical) and breaching copyright is far more restrictive than were regulations on the use of the (previously government-owned) telephony system, or on public discussions in government-owned public spaces (parks, parliaments, sidewalks and government offices).
These restrictions makes it legally risky for a government department to directly support many online citizen-to-citizen engagements, and even places a significant burden on the governance oversight of citizen-to-government-to-citizen discussions.
So, besides reforming government regulations, or having citizens agree to blanket waivers when entering certain government-run spaces, how can government best provide public goods online?
One alternative is outsourcing. Funding private and not-for-profit organisations to deliver these services on behalf of government.
This has precedents in Australia, for example the jobs network and aid agencies receive government support in the form of grants and contracts to provide certain services on behalf of government.
There are also examples of government supporting (partially funding) private competition to public services - including private schools, child care and bus companies.
Perhaps governments will need to adopt one of these two models online, at least in the short-term while complex legislative and cultural changes take place.
Or is there another way government should meet citizens' needs for virtual public goods?
Friday, August 21, 2009
Is your team ready to implement Gov 2.0? | Tweet |
I found an interesting post on Govloop the other day by Martha McLean, Bureaucracy 2.0 – make sure your team is ready to stand and deliver.
This identified a challenge that is facing public servants - do we prepare our teams to engage in Gov 2.0 activities (possibly preempting the need), or do we wait for senior leadership to define the direction.
Over the nearly three years I've worked in the public service I was primarily focused on lifting the awareness of the online channel in the eyes of senior management. This involved putting in place appropriate reporting systems, flagging how the channel could be used to solve various organisational 'problems' in a cost-effective manner, and flagging all the outside research demonstrating that real people used the internet in real ways to resolve real issues - sometimes bypassing government services altogether.
I am hoping that over the next few years I can spend less time on the basics of internet education and spend more of my time helping develop public sector capabilities in utilising Gov 2.0 techniques and tools to improve government outcomes - through spreading knowledge and demonstrating successful outcomes.
It's a big vision, but all the best ones are.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
From concept to implementation - Digital Britain | Tweet |
The UK has moved forward from its recent Digital Britain report to release an Implementation Plan. This details how the government proposes to turn the actions within Digital Britain into reality.
A very interesting, and not overly long, document, the plan lays out clear governance structures, responsibilities and accountabilities for rolling out Digital Britain.
It's a model other governments could choose to use to take the step from Gov 2.0 vision to actualisation.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Are you making a submission to the Australia Gov 2.0 Taskforce? | Tweet |
The Government 2.0 Taskforce has been requesting submission in response to their recently released, Towards Government 2.0: An Issues Paper.
So far there are four submissions listed on the Taskforce's website.
Now while these may not represent all the submissions received to-date (as it may take time to process and put them online), it does worry me that out of Australia's 1.2 million public servants (based on Public Sector news) that there appears to have been so few submissions received to-date.
If you are involved with, affected by or interested in how government should change to face the challenges of an increasing digitalised society, than please read the Issues Paper and respond with your views via the submission process.
Or at least read the submissions thus far and reflect on whether your views have been reflected.
Your views may influence the direction the Taskforce and government takes in the Gov 2.0 space.
You have until the start of business, 24 August.
