After a fanfare opening around two years ago, the US government’s proposed budget cuts may force data.gov and seven other Gov 2.0 and data sharing websites to close down or dramatically curtail their activities. When first launched data.gov was the first national website for providing centralised access to government data in reusable formats. The website…
Listening to the US’s National Public Radio (NPR) last week, I caught a story about how Chinese citizens are now using micro-blogging services (similar to Twitter) to communicate about missing or stolen children and, in some cases to locate them. According to The Guardian article, Chinese parents turn to microblogging in hunt for missing children,…
Government is the master of the written word. Across Australian governments we probably produce billions of them each year, carefully organised into documents designed to impart knowledge and influence decisions. If you were to consider a medium-size agency producing, let’s estimate, twenty 100 page reports each year, fifty 2-page media releases and 200 4-page minutes,…
It used to be said that no-one ever got fired for buying IBM products. More recently much the same sentiment has been expressed about Microsoft. However that perception now appears to be under challenge. ReadWriteWeb reports in its article Google Sues US Government Agency Over Using Microsoft Only that, Google has filed a lawsuit against…
I’ve been tracking the discussion on the outing of Greg Jericho as author of the Grog’s Gamut blog by The Australian journalist James Massola. In the last seven days there have been over 100 posts, articles and interviews and nearly 2,000 tweets on the topic – discussing freedom of speech, anonymity, media power and public…
I believe that one of the major shortcomings in Australia is the lack of financial support outside the public sector for open government initiatives. The UK has the Hansard Society, the US has the Sunlight Foundation – but what does Australia have? Granted there is the embryonic OpenAustralia Foundation, a registered charity devoted to open…
On Monday, 27 September 2010, Grog, of the Grog’s Gamut blog, was outed by James Massola of The Australian as Greg Jericho, a federal public servant who happens to blog on matters of politics. Massola, in his article Controversial political blogger unmasked as a federal public servant, has questioned Grog’s right to challenge journalistic views,…
If you followed the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington earlier this month, you may have seen Nicholas Gruen’s presentation on redefining public goods. If you haven’t, it is well worth reviewing (see below) – as are many of the other presentations from the event. These presentations are available online, together with slides, from the event’s…
When organisations hire accountants they are allowed to use specialist financial software to do their jobs. When organisations hire customer service representatives they are given training and scripts and are then allowed to speak to customers on the phone – monitored for performance reasons but free to communicate in appropriate ways without approval of every…
Last month I gave a presentation to around 100 people at the Department of Innovation regarding the use of social media in Australian government, alongside Todd Wright of Threesides. With permission Innovation have published the presentations and video over at their Innovation Blog to share the seminar with others across the public service. I’d love…
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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