The US government has taken the first step towards meeting President Obama’s pledge to make US taxpayer funded information freely available online in reusable formats late last week with the launch of the Data.gov website. At launch the site featured dozens of datasets from around 20 Federal agencies ready to be used by the public,…
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has launched a blog that allows the public to comment on ongoing development of the ABS website. Named ABS βetaWorks, the site is to my knowledge the first of its kind in the world for the public arena. It features a number of improvements that the ABS is working…
I’ve previously discussed how actively the US has taken up Twitter as a communications tool in government circles – as have the UK, Canada, Israel and several other countries. Looking at the website Who Politicians Tweet, there are now more than 130 US Federal politicians using Twitter, or around 24% of all 535 elected members…
I’ve just come across a media release from Nielsen (PDF) from March this year indicating that internet use by Australian internet users reached 16.1 hours per week in 2008, soaring ahead of TV at 12.9 viewing hours per week (radio sits at 8.8 hours). This suggests that the average Australian internet user is spending 20%…
Single sign-on is often seen as one of the Holy Grails of the internet – the ability to use a single logon to access all your secure online accounts and conduct transactions with whoever you choose. This is seen as a way to make life easier for citizens/customers, allowing them to move easily from provider…
eGovernment, or government 2.0, is often discussed as a means to create greater transparency in government. However has there been a clear definition of what transparency really means for government in Australia? At the furthest extreme transparency would be like living in a glass house with glass furniture – everyone could see in and view…
The W3C has published an excellent paper named Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web. I commend it to anyone developing egovernment policy. As stated in the foreword, This document is an attempt to describe, but not yet solve, the variety of issues and challenges faced by governments in their efforts to…
Typically government and commercial media teams spend time identifying publications and journalists that have the most appropriate audiences for an organisation’s products and services. They commit energy to building constructive relationships with those that have influence over the members of the public they are trying to engage, tailoring stories to suit their individual needs. Why…
Mosman council has published information and guidelines for how their organisation will engage citizens via Twitter. It’s very clear and well-constructed, providing a model for how other government agencies can represent a Twitter channel publicly, building on my post on Getting started with Twitter in Australian government. By the way, if you were wondering how…
Earlier this week Us Now film Ltd announced that Us Now, its documentary on how the Internet is changing how citizens engage with and what they expect of government, was available online for free viewing, download and distribution. What is the film about? In the words of its creators in the UK, In a world…
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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