Over in the UK, Helpful Technology has released ‘The Digital Engagement Guide‘, which aims to become one of the best sources of useful examples, tools and practical advice about how UK public sector organisations can engage online. The site touts itself as “Part bookmark collection, part reference manual, part Q&A site, it’s a place to get…
There’s often lots of small – and not so small – activities that communications teams want to carry out online that would make their jobs easier, but aren’t really tasks to give to IT teams. For example, you may wish to update your agency’s Facebook and Twitter profile pictures when your logo changes, automatically post…
Brought to my attention by @maxious, the ACT government has said in response to their Estimates process that they are building a data portal which they aim to have ready in July 2012. Discussed in ACT’s Hansard, Andrew Cappie-Wood, Head of Service and Director-General for ACT, said that, “There is a lot of interest in…
Would you mandate that all your staff must use social media, at least to give it a try? That’s what one company in the US, Domo (a business intelligence startup), has done. The CEO, Josh James, has mandated that all 130 of Domo’s staff complete 20 social media and online tasks over eight weeks, from…
Australia is an interesting country. We’re one of the world’s oldest democracies, with a strong tradition of free and independent (of government) media. We have universal public health care and a strong separation between politics and religion and between politics and the enforcement of our laws. We have an apolitical civil service with an extremely…
As the world changes, so must our institutions – particularly government, including government agencies. Without getting into how hard or easy it is for government agencies to change (recognising there’s a diversity of views), any change should, necessarily be for the better. So how should they change? In which ways should they reinvent themselves to…
With the news this week that Fairfax is following News Ltd in introducing paywalls to their major metro online news mastheads, organisations need to think deeper about their social media strategy. With a paywall strategy two things happen. Firstly a large number of people stop using the paywalled websites. For example it’s been reported in…
The UK Cabinet Office recently released Social Media Guidance for civil servants. The guidance goes far beyond the level and sophistication of material I’ve seen from many other jurisdictions, offering support and useful advice, not just rules and warnings. It also provides advice to CTOs and CIOs on how to oversome some of the technical…
We’ve often seen contrary positions taken by western democratic governments on the value of the internet – whether it can be used for good, or is a pit of evil. The US government, for instance, has promoted freedom of speech on the internet internationally, supporting the use of Tor and other tools to allow bloggers…
GovCamp Canberra looks like it will be a fantastic event (I’ll confirm afterwards as I’m attending). If you’ve not registered to attend, it’s probably too late to be there in person – though if you’re on the waiting list you may get a spot at short notice if anyone pulls out. However GovCamp will be…
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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