Forbes magazine has asked whether IT departments are their own worst enemies, in an article, The un-marketing of IT, citing examples such as, Promoting e-mail use but limiting inbox storage and file attachment sizes. Touting the Internet as a data goldmine, then blocking people from visiting so-called non-business sites. Providing people with a PC as…
The Gershon Review of the Australian Government’s Use of Information and Communication Technology report has been released by the Department of Finance, and it makes for an interesting read.Peter Gershon’s key findings were that, 1. There is weak governance of pan-government issues related to ICT. 2. Agency governance mechanisms are weak in respect of their…
With a ICT staffing crisis already underway in Australia, it’s interesting to read in USA Today that in the US Women (are) fleeing tech jobs because of (the) glass ceiling. I’ve never understood why people discriminate at the office on the basis of gender, and I hope that with Australia having a female Federal Government…
Thank goodness that another Australian institute has taken the step to start placing a pictorial history of Australia up in Flickr. As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in the article, Australian history gets Flickr treatment, the State Library of NSW has begun loading its photo collection into the online image library. It can require…
Brought to my attention by a reader, the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, has begun using evoting to support it’s participatory budget setting process. Documented in the research report, e-Participatory Budgeting: e-Democracy from theory to success? (PDF), the experience is a very interesting example of the use of…
There’s a lot of activity in the online forms space across Australian government at present and it is proving to be an area of real cost savings and environmental benefits for public sector organisations at all levels. Business.gov.au has supported a centralised whole-of-government approach to business focused forms for several years now and its forms…
I have participated in the beta testing of software for over 20 years now – it’s a great way to get an early look at new developments and to have a level of influence over the development process as a customer (in one case I was even hired as the lead designer on a subsequent…
The first public comments from the government on the Gershon Report are beginning to emerge, with The Australian reporting on Thursday, Tanner targets agency wastage in bid to save $1bn. The article basically focuses on duplication of effort and costs by departments who separately procure IT equipment, software, services and office rent. My feeling is that…
Over in California a controversy over the level of public access to public information flared up where the The Bee newspaper in Sacremento published a searchable online database of public sector officials and their salaries. The newspaper simply pulled publicly available information together into a single source – no information was assumed or obtained illegally. This has…
The US has had a number of voting dramas over the last ten years, probably none so well documented as that of the Florida recount in the 2000 Presidential election that saw George Bush Jnr win. As a result of the paper ballet issues uncovered by this and other elections, the US has introduced e-voting systems,…
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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