Everyone knows what brands are, ‘products’ that have been strongly linked to a specific (brand) name, lifestyle, belief or emotional attachment in order to establish their relative value to consumers. As defined by David Ogilvy, a brand is: The intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and…
The NSW Board of Studies has launched the 2009 Premier’s ANZAC Memorial Scholarship students blog. The blog features personal accounts by senior high school students selected to go to Gallipoli to participate in ANZAC Day commemoration activities. The blog is a very personal way of connecting students with Australia’s past, supporting the scholarship goal of…
It’s uncommon (at least in Australia) to see a government-related initiative promoted as a leader in innovation. It’s even rarer to see publications such as Fast Company, with its focus on the most innovative companies in the world, feature government-related initiatives. However this year Fast Company’s profile of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” is…
Jakob Nielsen, often considered one of the world’s leading thinkers on usability, has discussed the mobile web in his latest Alertbox monthly update, equalling the state of mobile websites today as similar to the state of the desktop internet in 1998. I tend to agree that for many organisations this is the case, with Nielsen’s…
The ATO has begun a two month trial of allowing the use of credit cards to make payments of all tax liabilities (up to $10,000 in value) via the government easypay site. Details of the trial are on the ATO website. When looking at egovernment, supporting credit cards payments is one of the few ways…
Online social media is becoming an important tool for governments to engage citizens during emergencies to rapidly disseminate information. in fact it is even beginning to be credited with saving lives during health crises. According to Nextgov, Federal health agencies relied heavily on social media to inform the public about the recent outbreak of salmonella…
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…
There’s been a lot of ‘bitsa’ initiatives in Australia around the online channel as both the private and public sector come to terms with the new online options to support communication, collaboration, consultation and engagement. However it’s been rare to see effective integrated use of online channels in a co-ordinated fashion to support ongoing initiatives….
Capitalising on the huge Australian audience on Facebook (over 4 million people) and MySpace, the Victorian government has bolstered its online response to the Victorian bushfires by developing a widget that provides news and updates while encouraging donations. The widget is available from the Premier’s website and is also in Vic Premier’s own Facebook profile….
The micro-blogging platform Twitter was the breakthrough social media tool for journalists in 2008. It became a pipeline for breaking news for both professional reporters and citizen journalists, with the massacre in Mumbai, the Hudson River plane crash and Obama’s inauguration highlighting its effectiveness as a source of live, user-generated online content. The statement above, from a recent article published in MediaShift,…
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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