John Sheridan posted a link on Twitter to a very interesting analysis of the impact of social media on the revolutions across the Arab world over the last year. The paper provides strong evidence that social media was one of the key causes of these revolutions due to its ability to place a human face…
It can be difficult to get a perspective on the Government 2.0 activities in non-English speaking countries. However thanks to Francis Irving, who posted an account in the My Society email list in the UK, forwarded to the OpenAustralia Community list in Australia, here’s a very interesting mini case-study on one initiative in Latvia. In…
Laws have always struggled to keep up with society, however rarely in such a vivid and public way as in Wednesday’s arrest of Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Ben Grubb, and the confiscation of his iPad. The incident, well reported in the SMH, occurred when Queensland Police responded to a complaint regarding a photo hacked from…
The Australian National Audit Office has just released a report ‘The Protection and Security of Electronic Information Held by Australian Government Agencies‘ based on a review of the approaches to information security by four agencies, the Office of Financial Management, ComSuper, Medicare Australia, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Amongst other recommendations…
I’m a big fan of opening up as much public sector information as possible in easily discoverable and reusable ways (taking into account privacy, security and commercial-in-confidence considerations). The data allows citizens and organisations to build a more informed view of their government’s activities, a good accountability measure. It also allows the development of useful…
I remember the great demonstration of November 1997. A plea went out asking citizens to gather outside their leader’s home to protest about major problems with the system. They were requested to be peaceful and law-abiding, to simply chant slogans, drink beer and remove their clothes. This demonstration was to be in Ultima Online, a…
Listening to the US’s National Public Radio (NPR) last week, I caught a story about how Chinese citizens are now using micro-blogging services (similar to Twitter) to communicate about missing or stolen children and, in some cases to locate them. According to The Guardian article, Chinese parents turn to microblogging in hunt for missing children,…
Today telecommuting often refers to people who work from home, logging into computer networks to prepare documents and exchange information remotely. However across the world we’re starting to see examples of much broader and more intense forms of telecommuting. Warfare Take for example the RQ-1 Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle that has been used since…
The internet is increasingly defining the 21st century. It has become the primary medium used to find and share information, the most commonly used news and entertainment medium and has unleashed an outpouring of creativity which commentators, such as Clay Shirky have described as “the greatest in human history”. Equally there have been pressures to…
Following on from our last exercise, Reasons for not releasing data in government, we’ve been discussing the benefits and risks of increasing (online) collaboration and consultation with citizens. Below is what the room came up with (and discussed). Please add your own in the comments. Note this is a raw dump – I’ve not sorted…
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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