Google has announced that it will progressively end support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 during 2010 – beginning with Google Docs and Sites in March. Youtube, another Google company, is also phasing out support. Announced in the Google Enterprise blog post last week, Modern browsers for modern applications, Google Apps Senior Product Manager, Rajen Sheth,…
The US Defense department is currently investigating the development of virtual parents to allow children to communicate online with parents who are on active duty. Reported by Nextgov in the article, Military hoping chat bots can comfort children when parents deployed, the article states that, the military says it’s seeking to “develop a highly interactive…
The new Smart Regions website showcases 40 European egovernment initiatives between 2002 and 2007. One of the primary messages of the site is the need for government to connect and work together, across teams, agencies, departments, levels of government, with business and with community. Only by doing so can states and councils become more productive…
Long-serving public servants are familiar with the challenge of balancing customer, agency and political wishes, with a clear understanding that the role of the public service is to implement the policies of the government of the day and not to be customer advocates or lobbyists. In the commercial sector similar challenges are often faced between…
A useful article in MyCustomer.com outlines how egovernment has become a central plank in the UK government’s drive to provide, Service, service, service: The new public sector mantra The article looks at how the focus has shifted in the UK from the 2005 aim to get all services online to use the online medium positively…
There are a variety of ways to simply and cost-effectively offer customer support online and, given that it’s not yet common in the Australian public sector, I thought I’d quickly outline my own thinking on the case for and against offering this type of service.In this post I’ll focus on text chat – the simplest…
Following from my post this morning on Telstra’s use of Twitter, Chris Brogan wrote an excellent piece last month on how organisations can use Twitter to better engage their customers titled, 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business. For me (as it was for Chris) the number one reason or idea for using this type…
Telstra recently took up ‘tweeting’ as a channel for providing customer service. Discussed via their Nowwearetalking site, there’s been a lot of initial feedback on the approach taken. Telstra has also linked to some of the broader online commentary in their post. This step helps legitimise Twitter and microblogging as a customer service option for…
It’s still unclear to me whether a national version of Fuelwatch will be launched due to the political discussions underway (the WA version is at www.fuelwatch.com.au), however a US site named Fuelly has turned the concept on its head to create a useful user-centric site, which would lend itself effectively to extending a Fuelwatch-style approach.Fuelly,…
From my experience in government, both as a customer and as a public servant, I’ve discovered that when addressing emails from citizens, government agencies often treat email as surface mail rather than as a phone call. This means that citizens who choose an electronic communications route can often expect response times measured in weeks or…
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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