I was reading through the comments on my post on Make government data freely available, and found Gav’s (RedIguana) comments particularly thought provoking. …Government also must create national standards for data, for example in terms of controlled vocabularies, etc, to ensure that data can in fact be aggregated nationally. It is no good if each…
Arthur C Clarke, the renown science fiction writer, formulated three laws of prediction, the third of which stated; “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We seem to have largely reached this point in society. The majority of people do not understand how an internal combustion engine works, let alone a microchip or mobile…
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen in government websites is excessive use of words. Government agencies often treat each website page as a stand-alone fact sheet. This means they err on the side on completeness, leading to wordiness. Most of us have seen the research. People don’t read wordy, jargon-filled pages – they skim….
1) Our traditional ad agency tells us so – and as radio, print and television advertising is more profitable for them, they must be right! 2) It’s easier to simply build a bells and whistles website, promote it via traditional means for a month and then ignore it. Our audience will find it, really. 3)…
When making major decisions government departments commonly consult broadly to capture the various views of different segments the community. However when engaging in live or online public discussions, the same departments are often highly concerned about the risk of people expressing strong contrary views. It’s one of the contradictions I’ve found in government – a…
I have a very strong view on who owns a government agency’s website – it’s operated by the agency on behalf of the public. The teams who look after the code, functionality, design and content are custodians and gatekeepers who ensure that the website; works (is online 24/7) meets all required standards uses appropriate current…
My experience in both the public and private sectors has been that organisations often face enormous resistance against the introduction of social media channels for staff. Given how new social media tools are, this, in my view, reflects similar resistance to other new innovations, such as the introduction of: phones on every desk (staff could…
This is a fantastic example of how blogs and other Web 2.0 tools can be used to support government initiatives and help reduce project costs. First I should note that I know Nathanael Boehm, one of the members of the project team. He’s an early adopter of web technologies, with a great deal of experience…
New Zealand is a beautiful place to visit and I have fond memories of my last trip there. It also happens to be one of the most happening places in eGovernment, at least in this part of the world. In fact I feel a little disappointed in Australia’s progress at the national level compared to…
I’m on a bit of a social media kick this weekend due to all the fantastic resources I’ve found on the topic in the last several days. I wanted to flag a couple of these in particular that I found useful, and may be useful for others. My first great find was a CIO magazine…
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); })();