Opening up data is one thing, but using it in a productive way is another. Data may be released in formats that are hard to reuse, data may be ‘dirty’ (with mistakes) or incomplete. However when organisations release data in machine-readable formats, with a reasonable level of completeness, it can be surprisingly easy for even…
As an advocate for Gov 2.0 and open data I frequently encourage government agencies to work more closely with communities, tapping their expertise and experience to improve the operations of government. However I’m not blind to the risks of community involvement. Welcoming the crowd risks welcoming individuals, groups and organisations with agendas which may include…
Over the last two days I’ve been down at the Technology in Government conference – an event I thought went very well, with a great group of speakers (including the UK Government’s CIO Liam Maxwell). I gave a presentation this morning, and chaired the afternoon, for the Connected Government stream and have uploaded my presentation…
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia has released a free guide to Best Practice in Content Moderation for social media channels, drawing on the experience of organisations like Quiip and Dialogue Consulting. The guide, while targeted at the private sector, is quite applicable to the public sector. It references many of the same steps I…
With the change in Australia’s Prime Minister last week, the resignation of a large handful of Ministers, and the announcement of new Ministers this week, we’ve seen some interesting approaches to shutting down Ministerial Twitter accounts. Senator Jacinta Collins closed her Ministerial account with two very-matter-of-fact tweets, redirecting people to the new Ministers: This account…
A classic ploy by media and PR professionals to kill an unwanted issue has been to ‘deny it oxygen’ – refusing to comment or engage on the topic publicly, via news media or other channels. The approach has traditionally worked very effectively for both public sector and commercial communicators. Devoid of any official information, or even denials,…
A month ago (20 May) I sent an email to Malcolm Turnbull, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband, in my capacity as a Government 2.0 commentator, asking a range of questions about how a Coalition Government, if elected later this year, would approach Government 2.0 and federal agency use of social media in official engagement…
Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Victorian Government’s Communicators’ Group, discussing how effective government had been at meeting the challenge of rapid change throughout the last thirty years. As part of my presentation I revisited the area of government 2.0 – giving my view that there’s no longer such a thing – it’s now…
I’ve realised I’d not yet blogged about this month’s Gov 2.0 event in Canberra, which is being run by the Department of Finance and combines the Gov 2.0 crowd with the Australian Government’s Cross Agency Social Media Forum. The event – which is coming up next Thursday, 23 May at DEEWR’s auditorium on Marcus Clarke…
Some will remember the knots that RailCorp tied itself into in 2009 when attempting to sue three developers for packaging Sydney rail timetables into mobile apps. How things have changed. Recently the NSW government applauded one of those developers for his mobile app, which has reportedly been downloaded a million times. However the agency which…
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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