I feel sorry for the ABS guys this morning – they’ve just seen three years of planning and effort effectively blow up in their faces, and I expect many staff are now scrambling to address the issues from overnight in order to move forward. I know how dedicated and hard working they are, and how…
Over the last few years we’ve seen increasing attention on the use of personal technology by politicians. From our current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who uses Wickr, to Hilary Clinton’s use of a personal email server, and even the struggle President Barack Obama faced to use an iPhone, politicians – like the rest of us…
Next week Australia will be holding its 17th national census (since 1911), led by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which is itself celebrating its 110th anniversary as an agency (albeit with a name change midway). This is an auspicious occasion for another reason. While it has been possible to complete the census online in both…
The weekend just past featured the 6th GovHack event, involving over 2,000 participants in 280 teams across 41 locations in Australia and New Zealand working on 439 registered projects. Effectively the world’s biggest government hackathon, GovHack includes some amazing ideas on how to solve public challenges, using open data from agencies in innovative ways. Whether…
During this Public Sector Innovation Month, I thought I should focus my eGovAU posts a little more closely on the topic of innovation. I’ve commented previously on the ‘shiny new thing’ issue – whereby humans place unrealistic expectations on a new device or approach to solve a long-standing existing issue. It’s an issue that occurs…
It’s tough to be innovative in many organisations – there’s systems that try to regulate and direct change, managing its pace and impact, there’s personalities and politics at play competing over limited resources and there’s the inherent tendency for most to build cultures focused on stability and continuity over change, uncertainty and risk taking. It’s…
Australia’s Productivity Commission has just released it’s report on “Digital Disruption: What do governments need to do?“. It’s not too long a read. The key findings fit into a few pages, and provides enough of a helicopter view to get a clear view of the direction the Productivity Commission believes agencies should take. There’s implications…
Role models are incredibly important for humans across both their personal and professional lives. Role models can help show us and make us believe we can exceed our own boundaries. They can open doors and windows to new ideas, fostering innovation and positive change. The more restricted and limiting the environment, the more important role…
Last year Justin Trudeau, now Prime Minister of Canada, broadcast the launch of his campaign using Facebook Live, and livestreamed his party’s launch event. Also last year UK political parties made extensive use of Facebook for live online Q&A sessions, speeches and debates. Now it is Australia’s turn, with Malcolm Turnbull announcing today (and Bill…
I’ve had a long involvement in the energy industry, having cofounded two startups in the sector, one that is now listed on the ASX. Why energy, when my background is digital? Because the industries are extremely similar – far more similar than archaic regulations environments allow them to do. Like the media, for most of…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
'; loop.parentNode.insertBefore(w,loop); })();