I’ve been monitoring the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) public consultation on the current social media guidelines for Australian public servants (APS). While they clearly aren’t interested in comments from former or potential future public servants, having neglected to publish, or even link to, my comments – which I submitted to the APSC four weeks ago – there’s…
Over the last few years we’ve seen increasing attention on the use of personal technology by politicians. From our current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who uses Wickr, to Hilary Clinton’s use of a personal email server, and even the struggle President Barack Obama faced to use an iPhone, politicians – like the rest of us…
I had a great chat on Monday with one of the best online comms people in federal government, which touched on how the role of social media has evolved within agencies and how this matched the overall evolution and maturing of social use by the community in general. I’ve thought through this and roughly mapped…
I’ve witnessed indigenous communications teams in government agencies dismiss the use of social media in indigenous engagement out of a belief that indigenous Australians prefer face-to-face communication and that those in remote communities had significant access issues to the Internet. While these two views may be true, it’s good to see some actual research on…
On Tuesday 16 September I participated in the panel for the National Library’s Digiculture event: Social Media and the Public Sector, along with Facebook’s Mia Garlick and the Department of Finance’s John Sheridan. It was well attended and well-discussed on Twitter (under #digiculture), with the biggest laughs of the afternoon coming from the surprising (blooper)…
I’ve been tracking the number of Australian Federal politicians using Australia’s leading social channels for two years now, seeing the number using at least one of Facebook and Twitter grow from 79% in April 2012 to 90% in November 2013 to a current level of 92%. What’s even more interesting is in the details, which…
A few years ago I heard it said by political advisors that one hand-written letter to a Minister counts for more than 100 emails on the same topic. The perception was that if someone sat down and wrote their thoughts in long-hand it showed more interest and commitment than if they typed and posted them…
There’s a great article over at TechRepublic by Lyndsey Gilpin on how the computer algorithm behind HealthMap detected the recent Ebola outbreak nine days before it was identified by health authorities. In How an algorithm detected the Ebola outbreak a week early, and what it could do next, Gilpin describes how by tracking, collating and corroborating…
One of the most major challenges for governments and societies around the world today is the rapidly declining trust in politicians, institutions and governance systems. I’m willing to make the claim that politicians today are no more corrupt, self-serving or beholden to special interests than politicians were fifty, a hundred or even a thousand years…
There’s been a great deal of scrutiny of the APSC’s revised guidance on social media participation by public servants since it came into effect in early 2012 (coincidentally about the time I left the public service). Initially dubbed by some parts of the media as the ‘Jericho amendments‘ (sorry Greg!), the 2012 guidance has regularly…
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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