With the election over, Prime Minister Gillard has promised to throw open the curtains and let in the sunlight, a more open government than ever before. With a government consisting of 72 Labor MPs, a Green MP and three Independents, media commentators are saying that more negotiation and consultation will be required than ever before….
The other day I came across a couple of experienced communications professionals who were unaware of Lolcats and several other well-known internet memes. I believe it is quite important to understand the language, trends and traditions of a medium that you wish to use to communicate with and engage your audiences, so in the interests…
Last month I gave a presentation to around 100 people at the Department of Innovation regarding the use of social media in Australian government, alongside Todd Wright of Threesides. With permission Innovation have published the presentations and video over at their Innovation Blog to share the seminar with others across the public service. I’d love…
Bang The Table has released an excellent video piece on their moderation system (titled 24/7 moderation), including a part where Matt Crozier (one of their founders) says that independent moderation can be very important for government organisations in order to avoid risks of claims of censorship when they must remove some comments from a forum,…
I’ve been reading up on the gaming of the Time.com 100 Poll in 2009, where vote rigging saw the founder of 4Chan elevated to the top position and the order of names in the poll manipulated to spell out ‘MARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME’ (see the video below). While there are often legitimate reasons to create…
The government for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has just launched a consultation asking for the community’s views on what the city should be like in twenty years time. The Canberra 2030 consultation has gone some way to integrate Web 2.0 tools. It allows residents to submit ideas and vote on the ideas of others…
Some of you may be aware of the Mercury 10 national counter-terrorism exercise currently being held in Australia, involving a variety of government bodies. While this type of scenario is only one of potentially many different types of crises or disasters that could occur, natural disasters, pandemics, rocks from space, and so on, it does…
I’ve been speaking with a few lawyers and solicitors lately regarding the risks of various social media initiatives and tools. Today, over lunch, it struck me that lawyers rarely – if ever – speak about the legal benefits of social media, the ways in which the use of social media can provide better outcomes for…
As covered in The Australian’s article, Australian Bureau of Statistics embraces world of blogs and wikis, the ABS has implemented an internal collaboration platform supporting blogs, wikis and collaborative documents. The article reports that 30% of staff have begun using the wiki and blog functions. If reported correctly this reflects a huge demand for internal…
Brought to my attention by Mia Garlick via Twitter, the UK has redeveloped its legislative database with a focus on reuse by external parties. The recently released site legislation.gov.uk covers 800 years of legislation from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. According to an article from Cornell University Law School, Legislation.gov.uk, John Sheridan, Head 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.
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