Whether we call today the information age, the digital age or the internet age, it is very true that society today has changed radically from the society we saw fifty years ago. Massive personal access to information, entertainment and communication means this is the crowded age – every person has a plethora of choices and…
Opening up data is one thing, but using it in a productive way is another. Data may be released in formats that are hard to reuse, data may be ‘dirty’ (with mistakes) or incomplete. However when organisations release data in machine-readable formats, with a reasonable level of completeness, it can be surprisingly easy for even…
As an advocate for Gov 2.0 and open data I frequently encourage government agencies to work more closely with communities, tapping their expertise and experience to improve the operations of government. However I’m not blind to the risks of community involvement. Welcoming the crowd risks welcoming individuals, groups and organisations with agendas which may include…
Quiip and Delib Australia have launched the second annual online community management survey for Australia and New Zealand. The survey aims to help local organisations and individuals better understand the skills required to work in these professions, help uncover role challenges, training and support needs and the actual work and salaries that online community management…
Over the last two days I’ve been down at the Technology in Government conference – an event I thought went very well, with a great group of speakers (including the UK Government’s CIO Liam Maxwell). I gave a presentation this morning, and chaired the afternoon, for the Connected Government stream and have uploaded my presentation…
Martin Stewart-Weeks, Senior Director, Public Sector, Cisco Consulting Services, has written a fantastic article on the potential for technology to disrupt and create new possibilities for governments and the public sector. The article discusses how technology is changing the shape and speed of government, as well as many jobs in the public sector, and looks…
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia has released a free guide to Best Practice in Content Moderation for social media channels, drawing on the experience of organisations like Quiip and Dialogue Consulting. The guide, while targeted at the private sector, is quite applicable to the public sector. It references many of the same steps I…
In an example of openness in action, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/AI) is redeveloping The Guide to Opening Government using a collaborative approach. First developed by the T/AI in 2011 with leading experts, The Guide brought together key practical steps governments can take to achieve openness, supporting civil society organisations and governments to develop and update effective Open Government…
Australia now has eight whole-of-jurisdiction open data catalogues at state and federal level, alongside agency-based repositories such as at the ABS and Geosciences Australia. There’s now a recommendation, if not a clear mandate, that agencies release data in some kind of open form – although machine-readable data remains limited and some agencies have attempted to…
Now that Australia has finally sent a letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership, I’ve been reading examples of how other jurisdictions went about developing their National Action Plans (a requirement of OGP membership) to foster and support government openness. It is clear that one of the key attributes of the most meaningful…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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