Yesterday evening I watched an interesting TED talk by Eli Pariser, Beware online “filter bubbles”. The talk discussed the increasing personalisation of search engines, news sites and social networks, using algorithms to selectively present or hide search results, content and comments based on a user’s actions. Pariser raised the importance of the flow of information…
It makes me really upset when I visit a government website and find it written in dense technical or bureaucratic language. I can appreciate the desire of public servants to be precise and accurate in their choice of words, but often the language chosen is incomprehensible to people without two degrees and ten years experience…
I’m at Media140 in Brisbane today on the panel Web 2.0 or Web too far? where six of us will be discussing how the internet can be used to “distort, misinform and distribute propaganda” and how we should use the web to democratise scientific knowledge. This is a key topic for governments as well. The…
For a very, very long time (more than ten years) I’ve been asking marketers and communicators in commercial and public sectors why they invest so heavily in producing and showing advertisements for channels which fewer and fewer people are watching and invest so little in the newer channels emerging. In most advertising budgets there’s still…
Here’s the current line-up for BarCamp Canberra presentations today. LT1 – Big Theatre 9.30 How to deliver a kick ass presentation 9.50 Make Hack Void Community Update 10.10 Interact, robotics, wearable computing 10.30 Minecraft 10.50 Communication Science and Skepticism 11.10 E-Dialogue 11.30 Possible Skeptitechnical Improv 11.50 Enabling Digital Society – the gov part 12.10 Web…
Joining the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and a host of other jurisdictions already leading the way around the world, the Australian Government has now launched its official government data sharing website, www.data.gov.au Announced by Special Minister of State, Gary Gray, in the post Release of data.gov.au on AGIMO’s blog, Minister Gray said that,…
At least one state agency in the US, Maryland Division of Correction, recently started requiring employees to provide their personal Facebook password and allow their employer to scrutinise their account as a condition of continued employment. Apparently this request wasn’t illegal – although it breaches Facebook’s usage policy (which could mean the employee loses their…
I hear a great deal of discussion by colleagues (and have engaged in it myself) about the lack of trust within organisations. “There’s all this process because our senior leadership doesn’t trust its own staff.” “If they’d just trust the [Communications/Web/IT/Finance/Procurement/Program/Policy] team – we know what we are doing and have some very talented people…
I’ve just updated my list of Australian government blogs, checking the list I had is still valid, looking for others (frankly they’re not that easy to find, you need to promote them and link to them from your sites guys) and checking the post frequency and level of comments. My assessment is that Australian public…
Governments around the world are struggling to manage the dual challenges of maintaining IT security while also enabling their staff to do their jobs in a digital world. The Australian government has endorsed social media engagement by staff in its Open Government Declaration, stating that; Agencies are to reduce barriers to online engagement, undertake social…
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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