Are many heads better than one (or a few)? In the past the answer was often no, because the mechanisms used to collect, collate, rate and assess the suggestions and recommendations of hundred, thousands or millions of people were cumbersome and time-consuming. In fact whilst our society was originally built on the democratic principle of…
I’ve been reading a post by James Dellow at his Chieftech blog, Using Twitter as a benchmark for Australian local government use of social media. He compared the 90 out of 468 (approx. 20%) UK councils using Twitter to the 3 out of 677 (less than 1%) Australian councils using the tool to engage online,…
Government often has a narrow path to walk when engaging online, some of the measures in place to protect the privacy and security of citizens and government officials can conflict with efforts to improve the transparency and openness of government processes. Hence this article from the New York Times, Government 2.0 Meets Catch 22. The…
I’ve been too busy and tired this week to really commit to putting much content into eGovAU – which doesn’t mean I’m not listening and thinking about what is happening in the wider egovernment world. So instead of a regular post I thought I’d share some thoughts that have particularly stuck with me this week….
Wellington city in New Zealand is preparing for its next ten year plan (2009-2019) and has launched a website, Wellington long-term plan, to facilitate citizen involvement in the planning process. The site features an ideas market-based discussion area allowing citizens to suggest ideas, then vote on different suggestions to provide their vision and priorities for…
The UK government’s HM Revenue & Customs service (roughly equivalent to the ATO) has launched an online consultation site seeking public input into its proposed charter. Named Have your say the site asks citizens to answer questions around the proposed charter and provide their views of what it contains and should contain. It’s a fairly…
Marketing just isn’t the same anymore – customers are harder to reach, they trust brands less and spend their time listening to each other rather than to media or to corporate or government marketers and communicators. Yet many comms and marketing people are still stuck on the ‘shout louder and longer‘ theory. If someone isn’t…
The music industry has a maxim – most people prefer to buy and listen to the music they listened to in their late teens or early twenties. Of course they still listen to, enjoy and buy other music, but at the end of the day the Beatles, BeeGees, ABBA, the Rolling Stones and other bands…
Mosman Council is well known to online advocates in government as one of the leading public sector organisations in adopting online tools for consultation and engagement with their public. As reported in the Online Community Consultation blog, Mosman has launched its ‘Planning Mosman’s Future‘ online consultation site with video and forums. It’s a great example…
The International Association for Public Participation has developed a Community Engagement Spectrum (PDF) to assist public servants in selecting the right approaches to use in different forms of public engagement. The Online Community Consultation blog has built on this, with a post, Which Online Tools are Right for your Project? detailing a chart of some…
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); })();