Date: Wednesday, 14 October, 2009
Time: 6:00pm for a 6:30 start
Venue: The Burns Club, 8 Kett St Kambah, ACT 2902

Passion is what has made Senator Kate Lundy’s Public Sphere events so successful, the passion still exists and these events have created a flow on effect which is filtering down through all levels of Government. Public Sphere events are being organised and run at the grass roots level in state and local government environments. The passion and move to action has not dulled or lulled, in fact it has had a snow ball effect, people still feel a strong connection and the open collaboration continues along a strong and healthy path. My measure for judging the Taskforce effort to be wanting is the lack of re-tweeting of the #gov2au hashtag.

The Taskforce would do well to take a closer look at the Public Sphere model and how it propagates itself, speak to Kate Lundy & Pia Waugh ask them how they did it. The key will be relationships and effective use of Social Networking tools, Pia watched the twitterverse and worked out how to map the relationships of value and turned those into hands on real time marketing machines.

Regarding the Public Sphere model and it’s use by the Taskforce there are plenty of people out here with passion, knowledge and willingness to help you. We figured out through open discussion in an online forum that we needed a different model for communicating and encouraging participation from the public sector.  A barcamp model wouldn’t work and a cathedral model wouldn’t work, but a combination of the two, a slightly structured and preplanned barcamp style which is Public Sphere has now been proven to be a highly successful way of reaching out to the grass roots communities and engaging with the public sector as well.

Taskforce you have a whole community out here ready, willing and able to assist you I suggest you use it before any more of the passion dies.

Nicholas Gruen opened the event with a brief overview of the format and introduced the panel members for the day, which were Nicholas Gruen, Ann Steward (CIO AGIMO) and Glenn Archer (CIO DEEWR). The attendees were then asked to suggest topics for discussion over the next 2 hours.

The topics chosen were:

1. Information Management
2. Copyright
3. Information Quality
4. Culture Change

There was a lot of discussion regarding Web 2.0 and how it could be used to implement Government 2.0 and most of the discussion was of some value.

The discussion regarding ‘Information Quality’ was very interesting and I raised the point that if service delivery methods were delivered electronically then data integrity would be greatly increased and the likelihood of information being incorrect or out of date was greatly reduced.  Glenn Archer fully supported this view and raised a case in point which demonstrated this. Centrelink’s online service delivery solution which allows Centrelink customers to manage and maintain their own details is a huge success and proves an increase in both data integrity and validity. Imagine how much more that could be increased if Centrelink went a step further and delivered all of their services online, in particular unemployment benefit applications. Department of Human Services Illinois – case study

The discussion regarding ‘Culture Change’ was another one which completely surprised me with its content. It was acknowledged by the panel that there were issues within the Senior Executive Service (SES) with risk averse and innovation resistant attitudes making it difficult to implement change, it was noted that this attitude needed to be changed and a more Government 2.0 attitude adopted among the SES.  I asked how they were planning to drive this change and whether the change would be driven from the top down or some other method.

The responses from all three of the panel members were very positive and Ann Steward advised that the change in the SES would be driven from both directions, from the top down and the bottom up.  It was also mentioned that the Politicians wanted this change and therefore it would happen.

I personally find this an enlightening and fresh approach and feel that the taskforce have a long but rewarding job ahead of them.

For now, what can we do out here in grass roots land to help? Those who are attending the remaining Roadshows should read through the Taskforce issues paper, think about the questions they are asking in there, think about useful topics for discussion and go to the Roadshows prepared.

-quote from media release-

“IT will be the principal means to deliver the economic and productivity growth needed to drive innovation across the entire economy,“ Senator Carr said.

“IT is critical to Australia’s directly employing more than 400,000 Australians.

“Council members have been drawn from across the IT spectrum and include representatives of industry, suppliers, users, education, research, government and unions.

“The breadth and depth of experience on offer in the council will ensure that it delivers on its objective to champion innovation through the use of IT.”

The Government’s National Broadband Network will be vital to delivering this smart technology.

Council Chair, Mr John Grant, Managing Director of Data#3 Pty Ltd said the Council would develop a strategic agenda.

“The Council will have a wide agenda to consider innovation within the IT industry itself plus the application of technology to create innovation across the broader economy. It will apply the Government’s published innovation framework as it works closely with all stakeholders to execute this agenda,” Mr Grant said.

“The IT sector has its own well earned reputation for having an innovative and entrepreneurial culture. Harnessing that talent for the greater benefit of Australian industry will be one of the Council’s greatest opportunities.”

-end quote-

I think this is absolutely brilliant and look forward in particular to the last statement being utilised.  To date federal government have gone with a “what we know is safe” approach and have been afraid of innovation.  I applaud this step in the right direction and harbour great hopes that innovation and change in IT in goverment become a reality.

On a side note the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research might start with a revamp of their existing web site to make it accessible.  It is not accessible in its current form it generates 179 warnings on the homepage alone when an accessibility tool is used on it.

Even in my house this isn’t good enough, I am using a Dell running Vista, yay! I can lodge my tax return using the very convenient eTax application, but my 16 year old daughter who has a part-time job at Boost Juice cannot because she is using a MacBook Pro.

Something needs to be done about this, and it needs to be done right now and made available to the public in the next couple of months.  The lodgement date should be extended for people who are effected by this accessibility issue.

This really is something that should also be under HREOCs jurisdiction as it is a basic Human Right to run whatever operating system you choose to run.

Whilst the conversation was lively and animated, it was not structured and there were multiple coversations going on at once.  The people involved are all very passionate about assisting with change in Government and nearly all have very strong personalities and views.  There was much discussion and examples of what is currently not working in Government or is oudated and needs to be addressed.  End result was that only a few people really got to speak their mind and I am not sure how much of what was being said was truly useful to the taskforce at this point in time.  It was a great lunch and there was much enlightening and useful information.

My advice to the taskforce regarding Social Media would be to create a list and priortise, of course at the top of the list would be a Whole of Government Framework for Social Media Engagement.  All the agencies and different levels of Government are mostly very new to this, even on an indiviual personal level (individual employees), they need a high level set of “Rules of Engagement” as a starting point.  As part of the taskforces project based funding they should perhaps look at running an internal staff based Social Media program in one of the Agencies, uses could be polling staff for opinions, internal interest groups (Agency soccer team) and organising social events.  At the same time they could perhaps run an external Social Media program with another Agency which engages with citizens through applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

This is a massive task, policy needs to be rewritten as does some exisiting and nonexisting legislation.

Each Agency will need existing staff either trained, and trained well in Social Media or engage an existing Social Media resource, with individual agencies adopting the Whole of Government Framework and adapting to their Agencies needs.

Possible uses and benefits to Government in engaging in Social Media are enormous, the Victorian Bushfires are a prime example of disaster monitoring, engaging with citizens for opinions on policy changes, changes in legislation etc, the feedback is in realtime and immediate, hugely powerful.

Another truth which Government needs to realise is that even though they are blocking Social Networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, some of their employees are still using these tools through wireless and mobile devices.  Social Media Policy has now become an urgent issue for Government as it is already happening and in this situation firewalls are useless.

One thing which astounded me was that there were virtually no questions directed at speakers from the twitter stream after an initial burst of 10 questions during the first morning session.  There was only one single question directed at a speaker during the rest of the day.  To give some perspective on this there were 31 presentations and during the first session there were 4 speakers, why were there no questions from the twitter stream for the other 26 presentations.  This was a stark contrast to how the twitter stream behaved during the first Public Sphere, there were way too many questions from the twitter stream during Public Sphere 1, we had to choose only 2 questions per speaker.

I thought about it today and I believe the reason for this is the subject matter of Public Sphere 2.  Public sphere 1 was about the National Broadband Network and how high speed broadband would change the way we use the Internet.  This is a very hot topic for all Australians and is not just a topic for people who have a strong interest in Government, therefore the audience were more informed and more passionate about the broadband topic and already had a very strongly formed opinion on the topic.  Hence way more questions were put to speakers.  The broad topic of Government policy regarding Government 2 had not already been a hot topic on twitter hence the majority of twitter users who participated were less prepared.

The lack of questions from the twitter stream did not particularly worry me yesterday as the twitter stream was going ballistic, it was extremely hard to keep up with it and remain focused.  My eyes never left the screen except for a period when the wifi went awry.   Over 2600 tweets flew past my eyes yesterday, from over 300 participants.  The topic is still doing well today and the tweets are up to over 2700 tweets with 322 participants.  I have left my hash tag search in place from yesterday and have again been monitoring the stream today and answering questions where I can.

In fact the conversation in the stream has turned to an effort to expand Public Sphere and take it to the NSW Government with many contributors very eager to see this happen.  I see this as a natural stepping stone to expanding the Public Sphere model we have developed across all levels of Government, this will give all levels of Government easy access to public opinion on Government making it incredibly open and collaborative.

I would like to see the new Gov 2.0 Taskforce announced by Minister Lindsay Tanner yesterday implement the Public Sphere model as a whole of Government framework collaborating with the public.

These systems don’t need to be replaced nor the legislation rewritten in order to make significant changes to the user experience and customer engagement processes.  An inexpensive and fast win solution to this problem is use what is known as middleware to build a new application layer which provides a dynamic wizard like interface to the citizen, and automatically feeds data as needed into the existing legacy systems.

One of the traps people fall in to when designing a web interface for a paper based form is they think of the web application in a linear fashion, thinking of it like a wizard is a better idea.  Make the application dynamic, don’t force information that is not applicable to the user on them, skip things which are not relevant to the individual you are engaging with.  Combine multiple forms to fit a situation rather than forcing a user to fill in multiple forms and repeat information like their name and address details etc.  Take advantage of information you already have regarding the user and prepopulate all the information you have if they are an existing user.  Mr Smith who has just lost his job and is single with no kids doesn’t want to see all the form fields for spouse and child information, he only needs to see what is relevant to him.

Middleware doesn’t have to be expensive, Adobe ColdFusion is a good example of very inexpensive middleware which has Flex integration, PDF integration and a host of out of the box gateways and connectors.

Engaging citizens in this way enormously increases the completion of processes which represents a potential huge saving in both time and money, guarantees an increase in data and information integrity, and greatly enhances customer service delivery.

What I don’t have at the moment is a job, I would really love a job or at least enough freelance work to keep my head above water.  I have 12 years experience in the IT Industry with a focus on Adobe technologies (my skills are not limited to Adobe Technologies and are easily translated across platforms), more specifically:

Adobe LiveCycle
Adobe ColdFusion
Adobe Flex
Adobe AIR

I have worked in the web space for 12 years and have vast experience in many roles including but not limited to Technical Solutions Architecture, Project Management, SOA Solutions, Business Analysis, User Experience Design and of course the programming.  I have fantastic people skills and work well with clients and business owners, I have worked in Federal Government and in the Private Sector.  I am active in the local community here in Canberra and am the ACT Adobe Products User Group Manager, I was an Unorganizer at BarCamp Canberra this year and am an Unorganizer for the upcoming Gov 2.0 Camp in Canberra.  I am an active participant and collaborator in the Web 2.0 and Social Networking space.

I am a passionate and loyal employee when I do have an employer, please feel free to contact me if you think I may fit into a spot within your organisation.  Following are my contact details:

twitter: @rbuerckner
skype: ivanova1111 (yes I am a Babylon 5 fan)
m: + 61 404 675 028
e: rae dot buerckner at gmail dot com

The keynotes were given by:
Richard B Kimber, CEO, Friendster
Rebekah Horne, Managing Director, Europe & Vice President ANZ, Fox Interactive Media (Myspace)
Francisco Cordero, General Manager, Bebo

It became very obvious following the keynotes that there was a large gap in the speakers understanding of the meaning of Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration. With the slight exception of Friendster the keynotes were strongly focused on advertising and monetisation, with no discussion of Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration although the words themselves were spoken.

Richard Kimber (Friendster) was the better of the keynote speakers and demonstrated how Friendster was biggest in South/East Asia and crossed borders to reconnect families, friends and played a big part in connecting the developed world with the developing world.

Following lunch on day 1, the room was split into 2 and there was a marketing stream and an enterprise stream, I attended the enterprise stream. On day 2 there was a marketing stream and a Govenment stream, I attended the Government stream on day 2. Here are my notes mostly in dot point format from some of the presentations:

Chris Knowles – Web Manager – Heinz Australia
Chris launched the successful ForBaby internet social network for mums with babies, Chris’ presentation was very informative and a great representation of a fantastic online social network. Notes from Chris’ presentation:
• Alleviate entry barriers – keep it simple
• Reward frequent contributors to keep content flowing
• Identify and work with early adopters
• The launch is an insignificant part of the social network.

Jeremy Mitchell – Telstra
“Companies need a human face, customers want a say, Web 2.0 is the answer”

• Rewards outweigh the risk
• Trust your products and people
• It’s a conversation
• Don’t wait, just do it, it’s the future.

Ross Ackland – CSIRO – W3C Australia
Ross gave a thorough, informative, passionate, entertaining and very useful presentation on Web 2.0 from a W3C perspective.
• Social Networking = interoperability
• Standards are critical and drive interoperability
• W3C are driving the Semantic Web (Web 3.0)
• Start small
• Check credentials
• Expect training challenges
• Talk to others who have implemented
• Mobile web is a foundation technology for Social Networking
• Mobile technology is extending the way we use the internet
• Mobile technology has had a major impact on the internet
• You are 1/8 of a second away from everyone
• You are part of a machine
• Personalisation requires transparency
• The role of the Web is to raise Global awareness of climate, economic and energy crisis.

I have only included my notes here on presentations which were actually relevant to the topic of the conference, with the exception of Laurel Papworth and her awesome presentation on Mobile Social Networking, Laurel’s presentation was brilliant!