Government runs on rules. Policies, processes and procedures designed to address every contingency and plan for every possible risk in order to provide equity, stability and certainty. However, as experience has shown time and time again, we cannot predict the future. While we continually attempt to plan ahead, largely these plans are based on extrapolating…
Mark Scott, the Managing Director of ABC, has written a very interesting piece in Unleashed about the future of ‘old media’ empires entitled, Media after Empire. While it’s not specifically about Government, I thought it had some very interesting comments about ’empires’ which resonate with some of the challenges that the public sector faces in…
How would it change the management of your website if anyone could make an unmoderated public comment about any page at any time – totally outside your control? How would your Minister and senior management respond if people could freely critique your content, pointing out any errors or misleading statements or airing their complaints (and…
NSW MP Paul Macleay has opened voting on projects to receive a portion of the economic stimulus package allocated to his electorate, Heathcote. To view how this example of community budgetting works, visit Paul’s site at www.paulmcleay.com.au. Note that you must live within the electorate to participate.
OpenAustralia is holding its second HackFest in Melbourne on Saturday 26 September and is inviting programmers, designers and interested people to attend. Details of the event are over at Anyvite. If you’re interested in going along, RSVP by 23 September as they are limited to 30 spots.
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…
Over the last week US media has been buzzing with the story of Canadian musician Dave Carroll, whose US$3,500 Taylor guitar was broken on a flight on United Airlines. Carroll reported that people on the plane had watched with horror as United baggage handlers had roughly handled and thrown his and other guitars while putting…
I highlighted the online Netflix prize quite some time ago as an example of how an organisation could work with its community to drive innovation. Netflix has a longstanding prize of US$1,000,000 on offer for the group who could improve their online movie/TV recommendations engine by at least 10%. The goal is to substantially improve…
The Government 2.0 Taskforce are asking for the public to vote on their preference of user-submitted banners for the taskforce website. There are 24 banners to choose from, of a very high standard. While this vote is non-binding (meaning that the Taskforce reserve the right to pick a different banner to the public) the process…
At the Government 2.0 Public Sphere Camp, Ministers Tanner and Ludwig have announced the creation of a Government 2.0 Taskforce. Chaired by Dr Nicholas Gruen, the Taskforce is made up of fifteen policy and technical experts and entrepreneurs from government, business, academia, and cultural institutions. The taskforce has two main streams, to increase the openness…
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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