I’ve been involved in an interesting Facebook chat around the definition of a startup, which has coalesced my thoughts on the approach of organisations towards innovation. Innovation has become a buzzword in the last few years, with both corporations and governments focused on the notion that they need innovation to remain effective and relevant. I’ve…
During this Public Sector Innovation Month, I thought I should focus my eGovAU posts a little more closely on the topic of innovation. I’ve commented previously on the ‘shiny new thing’ issue – whereby humans place unrealistic expectations on a new device or approach to solve a long-standing existing issue. It’s an issue that occurs…
It’s tough to be innovative in many organisations – there’s systems that try to regulate and direct change, managing its pace and impact, there’s personalities and politics at play competing over limited resources and there’s the inherent tendency for most to build cultures focused on stability and continuity over change, uncertainty and risk taking. It’s…
Australia’s Productivity Commission has just released it’s report on “Digital Disruption: What do governments need to do?“. It’s not too long a read. The key findings fit into a few pages, and provides enough of a helicopter view to get a clear view of the direction the Productivity Commission believes agencies should take. There’s implications…
Many organisations have begun integrating words from the language of innovation into their vocabularies. It’s increasingly common to hear terms like ‘fail fast’, ‘lean’, ‘agile’, ‘prototype’, ‘user-centric design’, ‘discovery phase’ and ‘startup’ used by both senior leaders and line staff when discussing the design of their services and development of IT solutions. More organisations are…
It is fairly well understood – even embraced – in government today that without taking some risk there can be no innovation. However it’s important to keep in mind that the reverse of that statement is not true: without innovation there can be no risk. Increasingly we’re seeing government agencies take at least baby steps…
This is a guest post written by Rosie Williams, a leading Australian Open Data Developer and Citizen Journalist, who created and manages infoAus.net and writes for NoFibs.com.au. It’s republished with her permission. Can open data really form the basis of a social good startup in Australia? I’ve come round to the realisation that doing open…
Late last week the shortlisted start-ups for the DataStart program were released – here’s why it’s significant and what happens next. In November 2015 the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, in parternship with Pollenizer Ventures, announced Australia’s first open data commercialisation competition, DataStart. Designed as a pilot to test the approach, entrepreneurs, data scientists…
Over the last year in Australian government there’s been increasing rhetoric around transformation (primarily digital) and innovation. This has come both from the political level, particularly since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, and from the administrative level, as the Secretary’s Board and an increasing number of senior public servants have internalised these terms within their…
Last week I was privileged to be invited to speak at the Canberra Startup Showcase, run by the UC Advertising and Marketing Society and EntrepreneurshipUC Society at the University of Canberra. Together with three other entrepreneurs, Mitchell Harmer of Sign On Site, Dawn Hayter of Urban Providore and Joe Mammolita of iCognition, we discussed our journeys and experience in entrepreneurship and answered…
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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