Both the Senate Inquiry report on Census 2016 and the Review of the Events Surrounding the 2016 eCensus (by Alastair MacGibbon, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security) have just been released – I’ve embedded both reports below (so they appear in one place). They are a good read with some useful recommendations…
In the news today is a story about how the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has issued guidance to staff on how to manage their personal profiles on Facebook. According to the The Age’s article, ‘Nanny state!’ New crackdown on public servants’ Facebook the department “now insists its public servants lock their personal Facebook…
More and more organisations are finding themselves the focus of social media crises. Whether the crisis originates online, or from another source, it is frequently expressed, shared and amplified via social channels, and can become a matter of national or even international attention very rapidly when handled poorly. Many organisations still struggle to deal effectively…
While travelling to and from the GovHack international awards red carpet event (which was great BTW), I’ve been reading ‘So you’ve been publicly shamed‘, the latest book by Jon Ronson (the author of The men who stare at goats), and was reflecting on some of the experiences he talks about. A common theme throughout the…
While agencies often invest significant money into tools for tracking trends on social media, one of the simplest ways to detect and monitor the rise and fall of key topics and issues online is through Google Trends. Google Trends tracks the frequency of use of specific search words in Google searches. This represents the majority…
Something that scares me enormously is the house of cards that many (if not most) governments have built with their IT systems. It can be witnessed every time government agencies get ‘MOGed’ – Machinery of Government changes where parts of agencies are shifted to other agencies to meet the latest political whim. In these cases…
I’m currently in Singapore, having just finished running a two-day masterclass for Singaporean public servants on how to use social media in emergency management. It is a very interesting topic and one I don’t think is high enough on the radar in Australia or many other countries, although there’s now plenty of case studies on…
I’ve had several discussions lately with people managing official government social media channels about the most difficult moderation challenge they face – their families and friends. It is very common practice for people launching a new social media channel for their agency to tell their friends and relatives about it, both to share something they…
This has been an insightful week for organisations using, or considering using, social media with three successive events demonstrating how far power has shifted to the public and illustrating how Australians companies are struggling to engage effectively online. First up was Qantas with its poorly timed “Qantas luxury” promotion. Qantas launched the Twitter competition by…
In Australia many people still treat microblogging tools such as Twitter with scepticism and scorn, or even dismiss it outright as a tool for ‘discussing breakfast’. While the more negative views are beginning to shift, due to the active role Twitter played in the Brisbane floods, Australians still largely consider microblogs as a tool for…
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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