Posts
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.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Follow the Gov 2.0 NSW Public Sphere today by video, audio or Twitter | Tweet |
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.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
US Army testing redeveloping manuals via wikis | Tweet |
The US Army is running a 90 day trial allowing service men and women to directly comment and edit seven of their 550 manuals online via a wiki-based approach to test crowdsourcing in the military.
Reported in the Army Times, Army to test wiki-style changes to 7 manuals, the article states that,
The people who write doctrine say that with things changing so fast in the field, it has been hard to keep the Army’s 550 manuals up to date and relevant.I wonder how many Australian government publications could benefit from crowd sourcing the wisdom of their audiences?
By letting the entire Army update the manuals, they say, more and better information can go out to a wider population of soldiers.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Government 2.0 Taskforce holding Open Forums in all states | Tweet |
Australia's Gov 2.0 Taskforce will be holding Open Forums in every state and territory of Australia over the next few weeks, seeking input from a range of audience groups - government, industry, academics, NGOs and interested others.
If you wish to influence the future of the Australian government's Gov 2.0 agenda, look for details and RSVP for one of these meetings from the Taskforce's website at http://gov2.net.au/roadshows/
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Introducing a common web reporting platform across federal government | Tweet |
Over the last few years I've often thought about the value of having a complete picture of web traffic to the Australian government.
This would require a common way to track and report on the usage of each discrete government website and the ability to track and measure the traffic between them over time (using anonymous user data).
I see enormous value in this approach. Firstly it would help government departments holistically understand how citizens see the inter-relationships between different government services and information across agency boundaries.
Secondly it would support smaller agencies to cost-effectively develop appropriate reports and access the data they need to improve their online presence and provide ROI for online initiatives. Rather than web reporting sophistication being a factor of agency size it would become a consistent core whole-of-government capability, regardless of agency size, budget, technical skills and inhouse web expertise.
Thirdly this approach would help executives and web professionals moving between government departments as they could expect a consistent level of reporting for the online space no matter where they worked. This would cut down learning curves and help improve the consistency of online channel management across government.
Finally, having standardised and consistent web reporting would lead to consistent and more accurate reporting to parliament of the overall size of the government's online audience, and the share held by each department, supporting decision making for the use of the online channel.
So could this be done?
I think it could.
We have precedents for whole-of-government licenses in the use of technologies such as Funnelback for search (which crawls all government sites for Australia.gov.au and is available for departments to use for their web search) and Adobe Smartforms for business forms (via business.gov.au).
The technology for whole-of-government online reporting is readily available without requiring major changes to how any department operates. The reporting could be deployed simply by requiring the addition of a small piece of code to every web page on every site, as is used by systems like Google Analytics and WebTrends On-Demand. Departments could even continue to also use their existing in-house tools if they so chose or exclude websites where special circumstances applied.
Through aggregating the reporting function, more funds and expertise could be focused on producing more meaningful and useful reports. Standard report templates could be developed for departments to use - or not - as they preferred.
Finally, this approach would provide cost and procurement efficiencies for government. Only one procurement process would be necessary to select the product, rather than individual processes being conducted by various agencies. The scale of the federal government means that government could purchase and maintain the tool at a much lower cost per department than it would cost a department to purchase an appropriate tool.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
PM launches first direct web chat | Tweet |
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday held his first live web chat on climate change with a group of 20 commenters from his climate change blog post.
While the chat apparently suffered from some technical hiccups and, reading the transcript, the PM's typing skills were limited (he stated that "my typing skills are a toal embarassment to my kids", it still received some well considered responses and achieved several major step forward for Government 2.0 in Australia.
Firstly, this was the first time, to my knowledge, that an Australia Prime Minister has participated in an online chat session with citizens as part of a mandated consultation process. This opens the door to using online chat as a mechanism in similar processes across Australian government.
Secondly the Prime Minister participated personally rather than via a proxy. No-one was typing on behalf of the PM, he was directly involved in the experience. In my view this sends the message that the government is serious about online engagement. If the PM is going to make the time and effort to directly engage constituents in online consultations, what excuse can senior public servants and Ministers have for refusing to similarly participate or permit their departments to engage?
Thirdly, the chat wasn't executed perfect, but it still managed to deliver beneficial outcomes and is publicly visible for scrutiny. I take this as an indication that, within reason, it is becoming more acceptable for government to take risks when using the online channel. We can experiment with new approaches, pilot concepts in order to establish their effectiveness and usefulness (rather than waiting for 'someone else' to trial them first) and incomplete successes can be considered learning experiences that assist in educating government in improving its approach in the future.
I'm very encouraged that the Prime Minister was willing to lead by example by holding and participating in an online consultation. I hope this is only the first of many trials in using newer technologies to connect better with the public - hear their concerns, thoughts and ideas, and allow the government to become better at our main duty of serving the citizens of Australia.
UK Prime Minister driving government 2.0 to address global issues | Tweet |
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has given an astounding presentation, Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good, in opening TED Oxford. It firmly establishes his interest and commitment to the use of new technologies by government to aid in the solution of global and national issues.
To quote from the synopsis,
We're at a unique moment in history, says UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: we can use today's interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic -- and work together to confront the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and the economy.Despite being highly inspiring, the video (embedded below) is worth watching to gain an understanding of how seriously Government 2.0 and the benefits of new technologies are being taken in leading countries around the world.
Monday, August 10, 2009
British troops encouraged to use social media | Tweet |
As reported in Mashable, British Troops Told to Tweet and Blog,
Britain’s Ministry of Defence has told troops they’re free to use social media tools and should apply “common sense” when deciding what to share online.To support this effort the Ministry of Defense has released new Online engagement guidelines as to what is expected of troops.
What’s more, the MOD has said it will sponsor soldiers who want to use blogs and Twitter to share stories of military life with the outside world.
As the UK Defense News site states in the article, Forces encouraged to blog, tweet and engage online,
Social media - such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube - are an increasingly important way for Forces and MOD personnel to do business, engage with the public and keep in touch with family and friends.Based on the online engagement guidelines,
Armed Forces and MOD staff can talk about their work online without prior authorisation from their chain of command, as long as they stay within the advice.
This stance reflects efforts underway in the US to support online engagement by US Defense forces, which have recently undergone pressure with the US Marines shutting down Marine's social media access while a security review takes place.
Increasingly in the US online engagement is being seen as another front for military activities to counter how "just one man in a cave that's hooked up to the Internet has been able to out-communicate the greatest communications society in the history of the world -- the United States," (US Army Secretary Pete Geren).
OpenAustralia barred from republishing QLD's Hansard | Tweet |
It appears that the the Clerk of Queensland’s Parliament has barred OpenAustralia from republishing the state's Hansard on a series of grounds, in a blow to OpenAustralia's goal of making all of Australia's parliamentary Hansard records available online in a searchable format.
OpenAustralia has blogged about the matter, in the post, Queensland bars OpenAustralia from republishing its Hansard, republishing the email from the Clerk of the Parliament in full.
This is a good example of some of the challenges to government transparency and openness. There can be control issues arising from laws and policies which limit government openness which will need to be reconsidered at parliamentary levels.
There can also be education, responsibility, accountability, process and risk considerations around online openness. Who can approve the release of information, what are the foreseeable risks in doing so and how can they be mitigated?
Without a thorough understanding of the online medium, clear responsibilities and effective processes it can be hard in some instances to identify who has the right to approve government information being released.
OpenAustralia is speaking to other state jurisdictions about Hansard records (and has been for a number of months). It will be interesting to see whether the decision taken by the Clerk of the Parliament in QLD will become a precedent or an anomaly.
By the way, this is how Queensland's Hansard website looks.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Seeking innovative Gov 2.0 ideas? Here's some places to look | Tweet |
Government 2.0 is slowly coming of age, which means there are now many examples of innovative and successful sites and applications emerging around the world.
However it can be hard to find them.
Here are some places I look,
White House open innovations showcase
The US White House lists a number of clever, and very different, websites which demonstrate many different aspects of Government 2.0 thinking. As they are designed to stimulate government thinking and provide successful examples of working initiatives it's a great source of inspiration for public servants.
eGovernment Awards (by country)
There are a number of different eGovernment Awards around the world which generally include some of the most impressive examples of Government 2.0 activity. An obvious place to start is Australia's own e-Awards run by AGIMO. There are similar awards run in other countries such as the UK's e-Government National Awards, the European eGovernment Awards and the Electronic Government (EXCELGov) Awards for the Americas.
Twitter
If you want to innovative Government 2.0 ideas there's no better place to ask for help than some of the government-focused people on Twitter. One of them, somewhere in the world, is likely to have come across an idea and shared it via tweets. Often you can identify a number of innovative ideas simply by looking at the right twitter stream. This can be done without even registering for Twitter simply by searching Twitter for 'government 2.0', 'government innovation' or similar terms. Alternatively you can create an account and locate a group of government people to follow - possible via a service like WeFollow.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts provide regular updates when topics you select are discussed online. Setting up searches for terms such as 'government 2.0' or 'gov 2.0' (two of my alerts) are able to provide a daily or weekly dose of relevant results, including some of the most innovative government activity.
Where else do you look online to find innovative government 2.0 initiatives?
Have you voted for your priorities for Government 2.0? | Tweet |
The recent Public Sphere: Government 2.0: Policy & Practice, run by Senator Kate Lundy's office captured a number of views on government 2.0 in Australia.
These views are now in the process of being prioritised based on public feedback.
The prioritised views will be submitted to the Government 2.0 Taskforce to use in their work preparing a paper on how to progress Government 2.0 in Australia.
If you've not yet visited the Australia 2 website to define and comment on your top Government 2.0 priorities you've only a few weeks left to register your views.
Visit the Public Sphere priorities at Australia 2.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Do you monitor social media conversations about your department? | Tweet |
As a marketer I find the internet a dream channel for monitoring customer sentiment and concerns.
Social media and search engines can be easily and cheaply tracked to provide fast feedback on various initiatives. This helps organisations shape their campaigns and responses to external events.
I'd recommend that this is equally of enormous value to government, where perception and citizen sentiment can strongly influence political views and processes.
If your department isn't keeping an eye on what people are saying about you and your key topic areas (and Minister) online, then you may be missing an enormous opportunity to get early warnings on potential growing issues, to adjust campaigns and programs to take advantage of trends or to tap into popular sentiment to shape new ideas.
One example of effective use of social media monitoring is from the US Army, who closely monitor blogs and social networking sites to track the public response to various events.
The article, Air Force checked blogs, Twitter to gauge New Yorkers' anger about flyover, from NextGov, discusses how the US Army used online monitoring to track and respond to the public anger resulting from their fly-over of New York in April.
Within an hour of the flyover the Army knew it had the makings of a public relations disaster on its hands and was able to begin putting in place a response.
The Army has also used the learnings from this experience to educate further activities and use online media to ensure that citizens are receiving the facts about events.
This type of approach has many applications across government, from emergency management through to reviewing the response and level of accurate coverage of ministerial announcements.
So if you're not yet using the online channel to track citizen sentiment you may be doing your department and Minister a disservice.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Building a business case to move from IE6 to a modern web browser | Tweet |
Here's some notes useful for a business case justifying an upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to a more modern web browser that I prepared last week for a colleague at another organisation.
It supports the priority in Australia 2 to Upgrade all government web browsers.
Please add to them in the comments if you see points I've missed.
Goal
Encourage a government Department to upgrade from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) to an industry supported web browser.
Background
The IE6 web browser was originally released by Microsoft in 2001.
Over the last eight years it has been updated twice, Internet Explorer 7 was released in October 2006 and Internet Explorer 8 in March 2009 (with developer previews available since March 2008).
Since 2001 the entire web browser market has changed. Netscape ceased developing Navigator (in December 2007) and new browsers entered the market including Apple's Safari in November 2003 (version 4 released June 2009), Mozilla Firefox in November 2004 (version 3.5 released June 2009) and Google Chrome in December 2008.
These entrants, and the long-standing Opera web browser, have significantly driven innovation in the market.
IE6 support
The IE6 browser, being two versions behind, is no longer supported by Microsoft and is in rapid decline in community usage.
Major websites and organisations are progressively ceasing support for IE6, meaning that increasing numbers of websites are not accessible using the browser. For example, Google, the top accessed website in Australian and across the world, has advised that it will no longer be supporting IE6 for its applications.
A campaign to encourage people to shift away from IE6 has been operating online for several years with significant success and has support from Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Balmer, who stated that,
Microsoft recommends end users that are browsing the web with Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade today to benefit from numerous improvements including security features and usability enhancements.Web standards
Interoperability is key to enabling developers to continue to create great user experiences on the web. Our commitment to the technical community continues with our significant investment in Internet Explorer 8.
We continue to believe in the importance of supporting the end users and encourage the technical community to work with us in securing a good transition for the users that today are using IE6.
IE6 does not adhere to web standards as defined by the WSG and as reflected within the Acid2 test.
As stated in Wikipedia's page about Acid2,
Acid2 tests aspects of HTML markup, CSS 2.1 styling, PNG images, and data URIs. The Acid2 test page will be displayed correctly in any application that follows the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force specifications for these technologies. These specifications are known as web standards because they describe how technologies used on the web are expected to function.Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3 and Safari 2+ all successfully pass the Acid2 test. IE6 and IE7 fail to pass the Acid2 test (as did earlier versions of other web browsers).
This test will eventually be supplanted by the Acid3 test, which is currently only passed by Safari 4, Opera 10 beta and Chrome 3.0.17.
It is not yet necessary for organisations to use Acid3 compliant web browsers as not all the test conditions within Acid3 have been passed by the W3C at this time.
Browser market shares
IE6 is currently in rapid decline, with the primary users being organisations who have not yet upgraded to more modern web browsers. Home users have predominantly upgraded to more modern web browsers.
It is estimated that Internet Explorer has between 52 and 74% web browser market share in July 2009 depending on the specific measurement site (source: Usage share of web browsers). Firefox has between 18 and 31%, Safari 2.6 - 4.1%, Chrome up to 3.1% and Opera up to 3.3%.
Internet Explorer 6 is estimated at having 15 - 25% market share globally. However in Australia this share is reportedly much lower, at around 9% (StatCounter)
Benefits of an upgrade
- Moves the organisation to a supported web browser,
- greater compatibility with web standards,
- future-proofs the organisation's web browsing for several years (as major sites cease IE6 support),
- aligns staff with citizens' use of the internet - statistics for Australian web use show that the Australian public predominantly use modern browsers,
- provides a greater level of security whilst browsing,
- supports tabbed browsing (opening multiple pages in one master window),
- allows use of modern web features within the organisation's intranet,
- there is no product cost for an upgrade from IE6 to a modern web browser.
- Some legacy internal systems may not be fully interoperable with modern web browsers,
- security impacts will need to be investigated to ensure there is no increased risk of systems penetration,
- greater ability to access modern websites may increase internet use for work purposes - thereby increasing network load.
- Political risk for Minister if questions asked within parliament on reasons for use of old and unsupported technology (as is already occurring in the UK),
- organisation will continue falling further behind current web standards,
- organisation will progressively lose access to key online services as they cease IE6 support,
- greater security risks due to less security in IE6 than more recent web browsers,
- increasing difficulty in upgrading internal systems that require web browsers as modern versions of content management systems and other web-based solutions are less and less likely to support IE6,
- need to invest in optimising (dumbing down) the organisation's websites for IE6 simply to support staff,
- difficulties in meeting web standards if testing cannot be conducted on modern, web standards compliant, web browsers.
Contribute to the study on public sector innovation | Tweet |
The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR) is holding a series of focus groups through August to give Australian federal public servants the opportunity to share their views on innovation in the public sector.
If you're a federal public servant interested in having your say on public sector innovation, you can learn more at DIISR's site on the page, Advancing Public Sector Innovation - Focus Groups.
You can also follow the project on Twitter as @PSInnovate.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Case study - Twitter's use in emergency management | Tweet |
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is now regularly using Twitter and other online channels to supplement offline media when providing emergency announcements and information.
This has meant more than simply setting up a Twitter account and sending messages, the agency has invested in training videographers and educating staff on how to use new media effectively to inform the public.
This has been covered in a case study released by FEMA in its website, FEMAinfocus: FEMA Twitter Media Availability with Administrator Paulison.
In this FEMA describes Twitter as,
The social media tool Twitter www.twitter.com (which FEMA uses under the account femainfocus) is a free web-based interface that allows for cell phone messaging to be distributed to large audiences. Thus, the tool works well for FEMA to promote individual preparedness and information avenues.
NextGov has also covered FEMA's use of social media in the article, FEMA takes open approach to social media.
Combined it provides a clear picture of how Twitter and other social media tools can be valuable in emergency situations.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Blogging's impact on governments in the Arabic speaking world | Tweet |
Often those of us living in English-speaking countries focus on what is going on in other English-speaking nations, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, UK and so on. There's a perfectly good reason for this, many of us don't speak the languages used in other blogs around the world.
However the impact of social media is global, and doesn't only, or mainly, occur in English or in Western countries.
A good example of this is a recent case study looking at Arabic blogs, entitled Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent.
Conducted by Harvard University the study,
... identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active blogs, created a network map of the 6,000 most connected blogs, and with a team of Arabic speakers hand coded 4,000 blogs. The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs.The study found that the majority of Arabic bloggers were young males, though there was a significant pocket of female bloggers in Egypt. While many blogs were in Arabic, a number were also in English or French - largely based on the influence of former colonial powers.
Most Arabic blogs focused on personal diary-style observations, with personal life and local politics being more of a focus than international affairs, per the quote below,
But when writing about politics, bloggers tend to focus on issues within their own country, and are more often than not critical of domestic political leaders. Foreign political leaders are discussed less often, but also more in negative than positive terms. Domestic news is more popular than international news among general politics and public life topics. The one political issue that clearly concerns bloggers across the Arab world is Palestine, and in particular the situation in Gaza (Israel’s December 2008/January 2009 military action occurred during the study). Other popular topics include religion (more in personal than political terms) and human rights (more common than criticism of western culture and values). Terrorism and the US are not major topics. When discussing terrorism, Arab bloggers are overwhelmingly critical of terrorists. When the US is discussed, it is nearly always critically.The study also found that terrorism was also generally not a leading topic of conversation and,
... when discussing terrorism, Arab bloggers are overwhelmingly critical of violent extremists. We consider this a positive finding, although qualified because the issue of attitudes toward terrorism hinge on the term’s interpretation across the Arab world. Whatever its presence in other, less ‘public’ online venues, overt support for violent global confrontation with the West appears to be exceedingly rare in blogs. However, it is not unusual to find blogs that criticize terrorists on the one hand, and praise Hamas or Hezbollah for violent ‘resistance’ to Israel on the other.We've already seen the impact of blogging on countries such as Iran (which is Muslim but not Arabic), which is sometimes considered the third largest nation of bloggers.
I'll leave you with one of the most powerful paragraphs from the report itself, discussing the
...collision of old realities and new technologies taking place in the Arab world, and a surprising number of elements intertwine in them: abuse of power, legitimacy of authority, the power of television, the ubiquity of video cameras, feedback between blogs and the press, traditional vs. modern sensibilities, freedom of expression, the power of online voices, and the scope of political arenas—local, national, pan-Arab, pan-Muslim, global. At stake in this collision are both the symbolic construction and the hard power of ‘The Public’ across the region. Notable is the seamless combination of modes of communication into a single system: face-to-face interaction (including cattle prods), mobile phones, television, newspapers, and multiple genres of Internet sites (blogs, forums, chat rooms, video sharing, photo sharing, etc.). Increasingly, these comprise an emerging networked public sphere, in which the power of elites to control the public agenda and bracket the range of allowable opinions is seriously challenged.
I expect that the Arabic world already has things to teach Australia about online engagement.
The full case study is available online (PDF).
Here's the visual representation of the Arabic blogosphere from the case study.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
WTF is social media - one year on | Tweet |
If you excuse the suggestive language, this slideshow provides an excellent birds-eye view of the extent of the social media landscape.
It is worth comparing with the version released a year ago to see some the growth and changes that have driven social media into mainstream society.
View more documents from Marta Kagan.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Rate Australia's Gov 2.0 priorities from PublicSphere | Tweet |
Priorities from the recent Government 2.0 Public Sphere are now available for public comment via the Australia 2 BETA website before being handed over to the Government 2.0 Taskforce for consideration.
For a recap of the Public Sphere visit Senator Kate Lundy's website.
To comment and vote on the top Government 2.0 priorities visit the Public Sphere section of Australia 2 BETA.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
How engaged is your department online? And how does it affect your success? | Tweet |
Charlene Li, one of the writers of Groundswell and ex-Forrester analyst, has launched a new initiative which compares the financial success of organisations with their level of online engagement and allows organisations to compare how engaged they are online.
Named Engagementdb, the site provides graphs and case studies on how various organisations have engaged the online world and allow organisations to rank themselves based on a simple 5 minute survey.
There is also a fantastic report which provides compelling evidence of the link between online engagement and commercial success. Named The world's most valuable brands (PDF) and while tilted towards the commercial world, it provides valuable insights into the value online engagement generates in terms of brand visibility, engagement, customer satisfaction and advocacy.
The report provides insights into the different approaches being taken online, looking at the depth of engagement - from wallflower who are just dipping their toes in (such as McDonalds and BP), through to Mavens who have fully integrated online engagement into their strategy (Starbucks and Dell).
The report also provides evidence that if you increase your online engagement you increase your offline success, it's a thought-provoking read.
Is Microsoft 'Ask a Pollie' site really Gov 2.0? | Tweet |
Microsoft Australia has launched a trial site 'Ask a Pollie' which allows citizens to watch and potentially participate in topic-based discussions around set topics between politicians and expert panels.
While the intent may be to promote dialogue between politicians and their constituents, as Ron Lubensky points out in his Deliberations blog, the site is more of a Dorothy Dixer 2.0.
While there is a 'forum', the design and approach of the site doesn't really support a Web 2.0 approach, with the following tag line in the site's summary,
Watch our panel of politicians and experts debate a series of topics over eight weeks – with a new topic each week, ranging from the economy, to online safety for our kids.Watching is the antithesis of Web 2.0 - which is about user-generated content and interaction.
I think this type of site reflects the efforts of institutions and large companies to loosen some of their control over the debate and step across the line into a user-centred world.
While I applaud the attempted step forward, I think there's still a long way to go.
What would be a Web 2.0 (or Gov 2.0) approach?
Firstly the topics would be set through user-based participation (not by politicians or corporations), with citizens suggesting, commenting and voting on topics to prioritise them for discussion (potentially with central control over the topic area - such as opengov.ideascale.com).
Next the discussion on the topics would be led by citizens - through their submissions and comments - with politicians and 'experts' providing a supporting role, offering facts and policies and participating in discussions.
The politicians or experts do not get centre-stage, getting to 'discuss' the topic while citizens are only able to 'watch' and comment. In fact the bulk of information would be supplied by citizens, with politicians responsible for 'watching' or 'listening' to the views of the community and then reflecting this back into policy discussions.
Examples of this approach now abound, with the US having conducted several discussions in this manner and other countries, such as France, also pursuing such an approach (via www.ensemblesimplifions.fr).
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
UK government releases template strategy guide for Twitter use by Departments | Tweet |
The UK government has released a 20-page Twitter templated strategy guide to assist departments in using the channel to engage and support citizens.
Adapted from the strategy used by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at BIS, the guide provides a comprehensive view on how to begin using Twitter and how to use it in a professional manner.
You can view Neil's post about the strategy in a guest post on the UK Cabinet Office site, Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments.
The template itself is available from Scribd to view online and can also be downloaded as a PDF (or in plain text from the Scribd site).
Reflecting that over 19 UK government agencies are now using Twitter (compared to three in Australia and over 40 in the US), the strategy has already received widespread international attention.
How should transparency in government be enforced? | Tweet |
While open government advocates are calling for governments around the world to be more transparent and accountable, one of the issues that has to be worked through is how to ensure that the data made publicly available is complete and accurate.
Generally transparency costs dollars - even online. Therefore there needs to be suitable commitment to 'watching the watchmen' to support data transparency.
Since the US government has already mandated more open and transparent government - a process in mid-stream in Australia - they are now considering the appropriate governance for accuracy and other issues in making transparency 'stick' in a culture where secrecy has been a defining trait for many years.
A few weeks ago NextGov interviewed Earl Devaney, head of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board in the US. This panel is responsible for placing details of the $787 billion economic stimulus spending online via a revamped Recovery.gov site and preventing waste, fraud and abuse of the money.
As the article's headline states, Transparency will be embarrassing.
This potential for embarrassment can lead into the potential for incomplete or fraudulent reporting, which is why Devaney's Board will be using 40 inspectors to monitor US agencies and ensure that they provide accurate and timely data for public view.
The rest of the interview is an interesting discussion around how the Board will be enforcing transparency and the tools it will have at its disposal to manage any data accuracy issues.
I think Australia has a tremendous opportunity to monitor how successful the US is in this transparency initiative, then learn from and legislate appropriately to mitigate any holes that appear.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Government 2.0 Taskforce - official Issues Paper formally released | Tweet |
The Government 2.0 Taskforce has released the final version of their official issues paper,Towards Government 2.0: An Issues Paper.
Some of the key questions raised include,
- How can we build a culture within government which favours the disclosure of public sector information?
- What government information should be more freely available and what might be made of it?
- What are the major obstacles to fostering a culture of online engagement within government and how can they be tackled?
- How can government capture the imagination of citizens to encourage participation in policy development and collaboration between citizens and government?
The Issues Paper is open for feedback until COB 24 August 2009.
Interestingly, the beta Issues Paper, which was only available online for four days, attracted 108 comments. That's the type of extraordinarily fast feedback that can be generated through online consultation.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Canberra Google Wave Hackathon Day | Tweet |
Due to the efforts of volunteers, a Google Wave Hackathon is being held in Canberra at the ANU on Saturday 8 August to explore coding possibilities for the new Google Wave platform.
The free and unaffiliated event will feature a Google representative giving an introduction to Wave's API, followed by an opportunity to work with the code to explore potential applications that make use of Wave.
The event is primarily designed for developers, however may also interest designers and user-experience professionals who wish to gain an in-depth understanding of Wave ahead of its public beta release.
For government to effectively continue to serve citizens online it is important that public servants stay connected to the latest developments in order to critically assess how they may be used in the public interest.
Full details are below. Places are limited - book fast!
Canberra Google Wave Hackathon Day
Saturday 8th August
PROGRAM:
9:30am Registration
10:00am Talks
A presenter from Google (details available soon) will give an introduction to the Wave API.
If you have already been developing for Wave, please consider giving a short presentation about what you have done (doesn't have to be a formal presentation).
12:00 pm Brainstorming Lunch (BYO or we will take orders & payment for pizza at registration)
1:00 pm Hacking
5:00 pm Demos
7:00 pm Head out for dinner at restaurant (at your own cost).
LOCATION
Room N101, CIST Building, ANU, North Road, Canberra
REGISTRATION
You must register if you wish to attend so that a Google Wave Developer sandbox account can be created for you. Registrations will close on Tuesday, 4th August so that the accounts can be created.
Numbers are limited, so please register as soon as possible at: http://tr.im/cbrwave
This day is being organised by volunteers who are interested in Google Wave development and thought it would be useful to have a Google Wave developers day in Canberra. Please indicate if you are willing to assist with organising and running the day. Contact brenda@moon.net.au for more information.
We will be providing WiFi internet access, but you will need to bring your own computer. Please have a look at the developer information on the Google Wave site (http://code.google.com/apis/wave/) as an introduction.
UK Ministers probed about continued Internet Explorer 6 use in their departments | Tweet |
I've posted previously about whether it is time for government departments still using the nine-year old Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade to a more modern web browser.
This topic has become a matter of political interest in the UK, raised in a question to British Parliamentary Ministers last week and reported in an article in Kable, MoD sticks with insecure browser.
Members of the armed forces will carry on using Microsoft's outdated Internet Explorer 6 browser, contravening the government's own advice on internet security.This should raise a flag for senior Australian public servants, who need to consider whether they risk negative political attention to their Ministers and the government due to any policy restricting their department to this old and non-standard web browser.
According to parliamentary written answers received by Labour MP Tom Watson, the majority of departments still require staff to use IE6. Most have plans to upgrade to the more secure IE7, and some to IE8, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has no plans to change.
The use of such an old browser can also raise tensions when Departmental staff are attempting to view the web in the same manner as their customers, who are more likely to use Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3 or Safari.
This can lead to issues testing usability and accessibility, issues viewing websites no longer optimised for Internet Explorer 6 and when staff are attempting to co-browse the internet with customers whilst on the phone.
Labour MP Tom Watson was quoted in the Kable article, stating,
"Many civil servants use web browsers as a tool of their trade," he told GC News. "They're as important as pens and paper. So to force them to use the most decrepit browser in the world is a rare form of workplace cruelty that should be stopped.
"When you consider that the government supported Get Safe Online initiative advises that companies should upgrade from IE6, you would imagine that permanent secretaries would like to practice what they preach," he added. "Why civil servants should not be given the choice to use Firefox or Chrome or Safari is beyond me. UK web workers deserve better."
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Are you engaging bloggers in your media mix? | Tweet |
No-one really knows how many blogs are operated by Australians.
However it could be up to 4 million, if you refer to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere report 2008, which reported that 3% of global bloggers were Australian and over 133 million blogs had been created since 2002.
Likewise Forrester's Groundswell research found in late 2008 that 25% of online Australians were 'Creators' - likely to operate a blog or contribute content online.
Large numbers of Australians also tend to read blogs, with AGIMO reporting that 22% of online Australians read blogs at least monthly.
Even if you didn't accept that 4 million figure, there are at least thousands of Australian blogs, a number of which already attract audiences significantly greater than the circulation of regional Australian newspapers.
These top blogs are legitimate media outlets in their own right, providing news and commentary that influences the views of the community. They often break news stories and are quoted or used as sources by legacy media outlets.
In the US bloggers have become an important channel for both companies and government. Commercial goods marketers court 'mummy bloggers' a large and vocal group that can significantly affect the use of household products and major personal purchases. Movie makers target film buffs, who command enormous influence over viewing habits, as do computer game makers work with community advocates who blog and establish fan sites for games.
Politically both major US parties fete top bloggers as they do other top reporters, reflecting the enormous effect they have on electoral decisions and fund raising.
From a government perspective, agencies are briefing bloggers on medical crises and product recalls, as well as educating and engaging bloggers to support government initiatives and programs.
So back in Australia, where do blogs figure in your media and communications plans?
When launching a new program, or making a new policy announcement, does your Department seek to engage bloggers alongside legacy media representatives?
Or are they ignored and left to report whatever they like?
I believe that Australian government departments needs to follow the lead of the US, identifying and engaging the appropriate bloggers to support various government initiatives.
How should an Australian government department identify the top blogs that post on subjects appropriate to a particular program or announcement?
This is fairly easy to do. Firstly a number of top lists exist for Australian blogs, from purely the Top 100 blogs by traffic numbers through to topic and demographic specific lists, such as the Top 100 Women Bloggers or the Top 100 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs.
Another approach is to locate the top blog authorities on a topic and look at their blogroll, the list of blogs that the author reads. These are often topic specific and a quick way to build a list of blogs for a topic area.
Once you have a list of relevant bloggers, the next question is how do you approach them successfully?
Generally bloggers are not journalists and do not often use media releases and wire services to source news. Instead they seek out information that is interesting to the blog writer, who then advocates it to their readers.
Therefore departments need to spend some time understanding the material in each blog and even consider becoming a contributor by commenting on posts to offer extra information, correct errors or make general observations.
Once you have this understanding, you can approach the blog owner in the appropriate way, seeking to build a relationship rather than become a 'news source'.
This requires greater time and effort than producing and distributing a media release, however you only need a few strong blog relationships. If the owners of these blogs are interested in posting about your program other blogs will pick up on the story and spread it further.
So, in summary, blogs are a legitimate communications tool with significant reach and diversity. However they need to be treated a little differently to legacy media, with an approach focused on knowledgeable relationships rather than on media releases and kits.
When used effectively blogs can be enormously powerful in marshaling word of mouth to spread the facts rather than the fictions. However they are also a tool to be used with caution as, like other media, they may not always pick the angle you want promoted on a story.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
eGovernment Resource Centre launches eGovernment Forum | Tweet |
Victoria's eGovernment Resource Centre has launched an eGovernment Forum to support the online discussion of eGovernment topics by Australian public servants and interested parties.
At discussed at the site, the eGovernment Forum invites,
open participation and diverse viewpoints to be shared with others relevant to the topic of eGovernment, Government 2.0, Web 2.0, Government website best practice and related disciplines.The forum can only be posted to by registered members, however posts are visible to the general public.
Shifting from Gov 1.0 to Gov 2.0 | Tweet |
Sometimes it is difficult for those of us who are new to the public sector to really appreciate the scope of the changes required to transition government institutions and cultures from a 1.0 to 2.0 mentality.
It's not simply a process of mandating a directional change from political levels (though this is an important and needed step) and educating public servants and elected officials to the benefits, and risks, of Government 2.0. There is also a process of change required across well-established practice and culture, processes, policy and legislation, not to mention transforming the systems and mechanics of government to suit the new global age.
All of this must be done without damaging the ongoing business of government - the provision of services, maintenance of infrastructure and management of all the behind-the-scenes activities that government is responsible for.
The Washington Monthly has published an excellent article on this topic, looking at the challenges faced in the US during this transition, which is being driven very strongly from the top.
The Geekdom of Crowds looks at how some of the mechanisms of Government 1.0 are pushing back on Government 2.0, reducing the effectiveness of government transparency and data sharing and the impact of citizens who are often far more able to open up government from the outside than are those within the political and bureaucratic machinery.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The different ways organisations allow their employees to participate in online media | Tweet |
When I thought of this topic I came up with four distinct groups that organisations fall into when considering how their staff may engage in online social media,
- Ignore
- Disallow
- Manage
- Allow
However whilst researching this post I found a fantastic article by Jeremiah Owyang in his Web Strategy blog, which did a far better job than I could of exploring these stages.
So rather than re-inventing the wheel, I recommend looking at this post, Breakdown: The Five Ways Companies Let Employees Participate in the Social Web.
Another post on the topic was made in the I'm not actually a Geek blog, Early: Companies Deputizing Their Employees as Brand Managers, who developed the image below.
My personal view is that organisations now need to move quickly towards the managed engagement approach to address the needs of customers. Ignoring or disallowing social media use is no longer a viable strategy.
How far an organisation moves from a carefully managed approach to a more general allowed approach is another matter. In my view it is closely reflective of the level of trust an organisation has in its staff and how well they guide and train them in the rights and wrongs of engagement.
Right now many organisations provide regular staff training on fraud prevention, financial management and similar types of processes and procedures. Perhaps in the future they will include training in social media engagement in this mix.
Comment on Government 2.0 Taskforce issues beta paper - but only til 23 July | Tweet |
The Government 2.0 Taskforce has released its beta Issues Paper for public comment. If you're interested, you have until Thursday 23 July to provide input before they finalise their terms of reference.
Friday, July 17, 2009
What other government blogs would you like to see? | Tweet |
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?
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.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Operating web and IT in an abundance mindset | Tweet |
Chris Anderson, the owner of Wired, recently wrote a very thought-provoking article about the need for organisations to consider how to operate within an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity-based one in his article, Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity.
Chris uses one example of how Wired used to restrict the email and file space provided to every staff member, with the IT team prompting staff regularly to delete files so as not to fill up the server.
One day he asked his ICT team how much file storage space Wired had for staff and was told that they had 500Gb - half the size of the 1 Terabyte hard-drive in the home computer he had recently bought for his kids. As he said,
My children had twice as much storage as my entire staff.I have had a similar experience in various organisations I've worked at. Despite falling storage and computing costs, organisations often place heavy restrictions on staff computing power - for what reason I'm not sure.
Cost probably isn't a good reason for this scarcity mindset. If, for example, a 5,000 person organisation only allowed each staff member 200Mb in file and email space, that would mean the organisation had limited itself to 1,000Gb (1 Terabyte) of storage for staff.
Looking quickly at hard-drive prices, a 2 Terabyte commercial quality hard-drive costs about AU$500.
In other words, now you can buy twice as much staff file storage as the example organisation above for only $500 - and the price is going down.
Now consider the staff side of the equation. Files keep getting larger, as do emails. If you assume that each staff member spends 10 minutes each month reorganising their file space to prevent them from going over the organisation's limit, that's a cost of 50,000 minutes or 833 hours each month.
Assuming that each hour of staff time is worth around $50 - including wages, equipment and overheads - that lost time costs the organisation $41,650 in productivity, or $499,800 each year.
To put this in perspective, if the organisation removed the limit on file space and compensated by spending $500 (2 Terabytes) on extra storage it would save $41,650 in staff productivity costs - each month.
That's an ROI of 833% - each month.
Naturally there would be some other costs - servers, redundancy, electricity and the need for effective search technology. However the outcome would remain the same, the organisation is better off investing in more storage than in enforcing a 'scarcity' mindset.
File storage space is only one example.
I've also seen organisations struggling on low bandwidth, slowing down applications and internet services - therefore hindering productivity. With the ability for ISPs to provide adaptable bandwidth there's not really much excuse for this type of approach.
Equally organisations often provide their staff with outdated equipment and applications, which also reduces productivity. In many cases staff now have cheaper and more powerful systems and software at home.
While sometimes software is 'held back' to older versions due to security concerns (or lack of staff to check and approve security), the reality is that most modern software is more secure than older versions of applications.
Restricting software and hardware for security purposes can result in the opposite effect - reducing the organisation's security. If staff are forced to send work home to finish it, or go home to view websites and use online applications, this can raise the risks to the organisation.
Again this type of approach reeks of scarcity and cost-focused thinking, rather than an abundance and productivity-focused approach. It probably costs less for an organisation to employ contract staff to security-assess vital applications than it costs the organisation in lost productivity. Even though upgrading the applications may be expensive the net productivity and security gains for the entire organisation can be significant.
Another example is around the use of web services, which are extremely low cost and easy to test and trial. Organisations need to allow staff to experiment with these tools in appropriate ways, rather than requiring them to always follow tender-based processes to procure expensive custom-built alternatives, or have them coded in house (also at significant opportunity cost).
Finally organisational websites are often managed on a scarcity approach, with limited bandwidth and storage space, or with information cut-down from what is provided in print publications.
Again this applies a scarcity mindset. Domains are cheap, storage is cheap, bandwidth is cheap and an appropriately organised website can have great depth of content at relatively low delivery cost (certainly much lower cost than phone, mail or face-to-face).
So, in conclusion, at least in web and IT matters organisations need to consider an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity one.
They have to consider whether their policies and procedures aid or harm staff productivity and whether the cost of managing and policing some restrictive policies (such as file storage) is worth the productivity hit.
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