Showing posts with label gov20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gov20. Show all posts

Monday, April 09, 2018

How modern democracies face destruction if they can't stop building digital Maginot Lines

The recent revelations in the media about the collection of personal information from up to 87 million Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica and its use to influence political outcomes (successful or not), should be sending chills down the spines of everyone involved in information security, privacy and governance.

That people's data can be appropriated and used to manipulate democratic processes is a clear threat to the basis of democracies around the world - and governments appear to be flailing on what to do about this.

Now certainly corporations, such as Facebook and Google, have both legislative and business reasons to protect personal data. It's their lifeblood for making profits and without a sufficient level of public trust to keep people using these services these companies would largely disappear overnight.

However governments also have a responsibility to safeguard their citizens, and their own institutions, from external manipulations of their democratic systems - whether this come from foreign states, corporations or even particularly influential groups in society.

While Facebook is responsible for allowing a researcher to create an app that could such down the personal data of many people, even without their consent, it may not have been illegal for Cambridge Analytica to do this (although their subsequent use of this data for electoral manipulation may have been), and while Facebook may be investigated for privacy breaches, the consequences to Facebook and Cambridge Analytica appear to be more social than official to-date.

For me the spotlight is more on governments than the corporations involved. Laws exists to provide a legal basis for managing anti-social behaviour and power imbalances (such as between large organisations and individuals) such that the basic unit of the state, the individual citizen, has their personal rights protected and has clarity about their obligations as a citizen.

In this case governments did not have the laws and frameworks in place to detect, limit or even rapidly prosecute massive breaches of personal privacy or attacks on their own institutional validity.

Governments that cannot protect themselves or their citizens from external influences - whether these be physical or digital - do not remain governments for long.

I see the Cambridge Analytics scandals as another in a long series of examples as to how modern democratic governments have failed to put appropriate mechanisms in place to protect citizens and themselves from modern threats.

Like the Maginot Line built by France in the 1930s, governments are investing in expensive, unwieldy and inflexible infrastructures for past threats. And, like the Maginot Line in 1940, these infrastructures have proven again and again that they fail in the face of modern agile opponents.

Thus far the reaction by governments has largely been to acknowledge failure, promise to do better and then return to investing in legacy infrastructure, attempting to modify it as cheaply and as little as possible to address modern threats.

From the cascading series of security breaches at scale, rising digital interference in western elections and undermining of democratic institutions - I think the evidence is clear that the strategy is failing.

So what are governments to do? How do they adapt their approaches to address a threat that can come at any time, through any channel and often targets civilian infrastructure rather than state-controlled infrastructure?

The first step is to recognise that their current approach is not working. The political and commercial opponents seeking to weaken, influence, manipulate and destroy western states do not limit themselves to playing by western rules.

The second step is to recognise that this isn't a problem that governments can solve alone. Protecting government infrastructure is pointless if power grids and financial sectors are manipulated or destroyed. If a hacker wants to shut down a government office it is often easiest to cut their power or payroll than attack the government's servers directly. In the longer-term the public can be turned against a government through social media engagement using fake news and slanted reports.

The third step is to redefine what constitutes the state and what it values. Government is a tool used to govern a population. It is a component, but not the only, or even the most essential, in defining a nation's character or values.

Then, we need to rebuild our thinking from first principles. What do we value, and what do we not value? What conduct is appropriate, and by whom? How do we protect freedoms for citizens while defining their responsibilities? How do we educate citizens to understand that they have an active ongoing role and responsibility to help maintain our freedoms - that their obligation doesn't stop at a ballot box every few years? How do we redefine the role of corporations and other organisations (including government agencies) as good organisational citizens in a society? What are their rights and obligations towards citizens, stakeholders and shareholders?

This doesn't mean turning western democracy into security states. In my view the growth of state security apparatuses is a poor solution, part of the Maginot Line of centralised control that is failing so badly to protect democracy from a swarm of diverse threats. Indeed, the idea of decentralising security in favour of emphasising personal responsibility through education is, in my view, the best course to protect our nations' values.

We need an inclusive approach, backed by sound principles and collective values, that preserves what is important to our societies and inoculates us from unwanted external influences.

Without this we will lose who we are in protecting what we want - turning us into authoritarian states, the mirror of our enemies.

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Tuesday, August 01, 2017

Roundup from GovHack 2017

Starting in a single Canberra venue in 2009, GovHack is now the largest open data hacking competition for government worldwide, with over 3,000 participants, coaches, mentors and organisers across 36 venues around Australia and New Zealand.

Over a 46-hour period participants including coders, creatives, data crunchers and facilitators, redesign and reimagine citizen services and use open data to visualise fresh insights into government decision-making, taking part in a competition with over 80 prizes and a prize pool of over $250,000.

The event is organised and run by volunteers, but GovHack has support from the Australian and New Zealand Governments, all Australian state and territory governments and many local governments across ANZ, as well as a range of corporate sponsors. This was the first year that the Northern Territory became involved with the event.

Many senior public servants drop into the event over the weekend, and have a keen interest in using ideas from GovHack within their agencies.

This year Accenture was the Platinum Sponsor for GovHack, the first time a corporation has taken such a significant interest in the event - a trend I hope continues as these types of event gain steam as a creative way for companies and governments to innovate quickly.

Accenture sponsored two awards, the ‘Into the New’ award for Australia challenged participants to demonstrate innovation and new thinking in all forms. This could be new ways to experience and interact with public data or new approaches to citizen experiences that help citizen and governments journey into the new together. It attracted 138 entrants from around Australia, from a total of 373 projects submitted.

Accenture’s ‘Re:Invention’ award for New Zealand challenged participants to design a citizen experience that builds on something government already does to deliver a more effective and engaging way of interacting. It attracted 12 entrants from Wellington, Auckland and Hamilton, from a total of 66 New Zealand projects submitted.


GovHack by the numbers
While GovHack itself is over for 2017, state award events will be held in August, and an international Red Carpet event for National and International Award winners in October. You can view the closing video from GovHack 2017 here.

All the projects created this year are online in the GovHack Hackerspace, available for inspiration and learning – remaining online to provide hundreds of fresh perspectives on how government can deliver more value to citizens.

you can read more about GovHack 2017 in this LinkedIn post by a mentor, or on Twitter.

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Thursday, April 11, 2013

What competing Australian broadband policies really tell us about how Australian politics and government are changing

Yesterday the Liberal-National Coalition released its broadband policy for Australia, in front of a high-tech set at Sky News, in contrast to the Labor Government's NBN plan and current rollout.

I'm not going to go into the politics of this announcement, nor the potential economic and social impacts of the differences between the policies in the short and long-term for Australia.

Instead I'd like to focus on what, for me, is the real story. Technology has, for the first time, become a leading consideration in Australian federal politics.

Looking over the last fifty years, topics such as industrial relations, jobs, families, resources, taxes and the environment have all been prominent areas for political debate. 

All have had their time in the sun as major electoral issues, while technology issues have largely remained off the main political radar, a minor concern dealt with by individual representatives or Ministers but not capturing the attention of Prime Ministers or entire governments.

Even the internet filtering proposal put forward by the Labor party in 2007 was released quietly only a week before the election, extensively tweaked and adjusted (with at least seven versions over three years) and finally abandoned with some face-saving - yes it became more public than previous technology-related topics and an election issue, but only a minor one, largely dealt with by the responsible Minister rather than a Prime Minister and entire government.

With the NBN and Coalition broadband policy we have seen a very different approach, with technology becoming a major and central electoral issue for the first time. The NBN is a leading topic for the Prime Minister and all of her Ministers, while the Coalition has taken the step to publicly release their rival policy a long way before the election, demonstrating the importance they place on countering the government's position.

This is unprecedented for what could be considered a technology issue and reflects the growing importance placed on internet access and use by Australian communities, businesses and government itself.

So what does this mean for the future?

The importance placed on broadband, whatever the outcome of the next election, means that politicians and their advisors are having to learn more to talk on technology topics, to discuss areas like broadband, ehealth, elearning, video conferencing and digital content.

Politicians who saw the internet as simply additional channels for communicating messages to electorates are now required to come face-to-face with how their electorates are using these channel and wish to use them in engaging with governments.

This flows to politicians having to learn more about the opportunities for governments to use digital channels to become more efficient, cutting costs, improving communication and engagement and becoming more open, transparent and collaborative.

In fact it is unlikely we'll see many new politicians enter parliament who don't have some awareness, appreciation and understanding of the value and importance of technology to Australia.

For a long time people working in and around the technology industry have deplored the low attention played to technology in politics and, besides a few leading lights, the lack of understanding of the potential ability for digital technology to drive Australia's economy and improve our governance.

I think this time is now coming to an end. 

With politicians more aware and engaged with technology issues, due to their higher awareness in the public eye, the implications are that all political parties at all levels of government will need to pay more attention to the impact of technology on society and on government.

They'll need to begin to think more deeply and holistically about how to leverage technology to improve their communities and their government agencies.

The notion of Government 2.0, or whatever political parties choose to call it, will become a more important part of their policy platform and there will be more focus - and funding - for how agencies go about using digital channels to improve government policy development and operations.

We're at the end of the beginning for Government 2.0, and at the beginning of an appreciation and understanding that Government 2.0 is simply Government.

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Monday, February 25, 2013

Infographic: The Australian Government's commitment to open data

Last Friday the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner released a major report on the release of public sector information by Australian Government agencies.

The report, Open public sector information: from principles to practice, is available online and is a relative straightforward read.

The OAIC also released the aggregated data for the report into data.gov.au - modelling the behaviour that other government agencies should follow (though I would have preferred raw data).

This contains lots of additional data worth reviewing that someone who just reads the report won't learn. You can find this file from: http://data.gov.au/dataset/data-from-the-oaic-public-sector-information-survey-2012/

I've developed a three page infographic (embedded below) using some of the data released for this report to explore the Australian Government's commitment to open data and the types of challenges agencies say they face.

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Friday, June 22, 2012

What may a 2.0 organisation look like?

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 suite a changing nation?

The wrong changes could lead to massive costs and organisational failures, so identifying the right type of changes (as near as possible) is a necessary first step once an organisation has reached a point where it recognises and accepts it need to make changes.

Fortunately there's lots of people thinking about this around the world, and in the US, over the last six months, a group of 900 people, spearheaded by Jonathan Opp and Chris Grams and as a joint collaborative effort by the MIX, Saba, and the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, have conducted a Management 2.0 hackathon (inspired by software hackathons) to consider how management and organisations will need to adapt to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Entitled The Management 2.0 Hackathon: Using the inspiration of the web to hack management, the process resulted in the blog post (linked) and the marvellous report embedded below.

The report is available for download under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

I strongly recommend that you take a look at the report and consider circulating it to your senior leadership team. It may provoke new thinking and support your organisation's efforts to identify and implement the right changes to ensure your organisation remains relevant, influential and effective into the future.

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Thursday, June 02, 2011

Coping with the challenges of two-speed government agencies

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about 21st Century society vs 19th Century laws and policing. My post discussed the interview and arrest of Ben Grubb, an Australian Technology Journalist, by Queensland Police in the context of the challenges for legislators and law enforcement in remaining current and relevant in a quickly digitalising world.

A second issue arose on Twitter related to a response by @QPSMedia to a question. The QLD Police Media Unit stated publicly that Grubb had been interviewed but not arrested.

Unfortunately this was untrue at the time. Grubb had been placed under arrest. @QLDMedia corrected their statement as soon as they were made aware of the changed situation (and took a little flak over their correction for "being too informal" - but that's the value of Twitter, short, fast and personable).

My understanding in this case is that the Queensland Police Media Unit had checked and obtained high level clearance for the original 'interview' tweet. As far as they had known the original information was correct at the time of tweeting.

I'm not about to criticise @QPSMedia for providing information they believe is correct at the time and then amend as soon as the error is recognised - that's actually very good practice. Frankly, considering the Queensland Police is a 24-hour organisation with 15,000 staff and over 5.2 million interactions with the public each year, it is unreasonable to assume that every interaction will be perfect.

Even if you could effect a communications accuracy rate of 99.999% (with humans mind you, not machines) this would still leave room for one mistake each week (52 per year).


What this particular situation does highlight for me is a major challenge for government agencies as they begin adopting social media. They are becoming two-speed organisations.

The small teams in agencies that manage online channels and engage via social media are developing the culture, systems and processes to support rapid, open and less formal communication. They have, or are becoming, attuned to how to communicate effectively online and often provide broader advice and support to other teams in using these channels.

However the areas that haven't embedded social media in their toolkit - the much larger 'rumps' of these agencies - are still operating on pre-internet systems and timeframes. Their focus isn't speed, but quality and diligence. They seek to ensure that information is triple checked before it is announced and that policies and communications are carefully deliberated and crafted to be precisely accurate in every particular.

This means that whenever there is a need to respond quickly to public needs in a crisis or event, the social media team is ready and able to rise to the challenge (as @QPSMedia did in the Brisbane floods). However they may still struggle to source relevant, accurate and timely information from the rest of their organisation (as did @QPSMedia in the example I first provided).

This may create communications and engagement breakdowns or slowdowns, leave agency social media teams looking ineffective or evasive and damage their ability to manage online relationships and incidents in effective ways.

These slowdowns may ultimately impact on the overall reputations of agencies, leaving them looking slow or ineffectual.

So how do we manage these two-speed government organisations?

In the long-term we might see agencies capable of operating at internet speeds, with systems and processes that allow them to manage their data flow and quality needs while also meeting the public's desire for fast information.

In the short-term, as our organisations evolve, it is critical to consider bridging tactics to allow agencies to operate at both speeds - deliberative and internet.

These tactics can include preformatting messages wherever possible. For Twitter a former staff member in my team termed these 'Tweetplates', which could be pre-approved by management and then reused without additional approval requirements.

Material or entire websites that aren't time sensitive can be prepared, reviewed and approved ahead of time, then used as needed in crisis (such as a list of hospital locations or standard emergency instructions). They should be reviewed periodically to keep them up-to-date.

It is also possible to use delaying tactics - to a point. Rather than answering a question immediately it is acceptable to acknowledge the question, indicate that you're working on an answer and that you will provide the answer as soon as possible. Of course it remains necessary to actually answer the question when you said you would.

Are there other tactics I've missed? Add them in the comments below.

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Monday, April 18, 2011

Advertising agencies, digital agencies, web developers & printers - you need to understand government's online requirements

It has been an interesting experience working with advertising and digital agencies, web developers and printers while in government - particularly having been on the other side myself for more than ten years.

While some are very good, others definitely 'need development' - particularly in the web delivery space.

Government has a number of requirements for websites and other online properties, however it sometimes appears that these are not always well understood by service providers - or maybe it is simply that some may occasionally seek to 'cut corners' on quality to increase profit margins.
 Service providers are expect to know the mandatory government web requirements when responding to government tenders. As AGIMO states in the WebGuide:
Service providers should be familiar with the Mandatory Requirements and the other guidance provided by the Web Guide when responding to Australian Government tender processes for relevant services.
Below is a list of things that service providers really, really need to know when building Australian Government websites:
  • Complying with WCAG's accessibility minimums is a mandatory requirement for government
    I've been told by supposedly experienced (private sector) web developers that the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 doesn't apply to government, and that it is optional for governments to meet WCAG requirements as it is a 'non binding international agreement'.
    I've also been told by web developers that they won't implement some accessibility features because they 'believe the site is accessible enough already' - despite not meeting WCAG standards.
  • A scanned document turned into a PDF isn't accessible under WCAG 2.0
    Telling me that a scanned document - essentially an image - is accessible to screenreaders if it is converted to PDF doesn't communicate that you're a 'web professional with more than 10 years experience'.
    A Microsoft Word document or InDesign file converted to a PDF also won't meet the Australian Government's minimum standards.
    When you provide PDFs to government, if you are not also providing the content in an alternative accessible format, you will often not meet your contractual requirements.
  • You must include a privacy statement, disclaimer and appropriate copyright notices on government websites
    Telling government staff that a 'Website privacy policy is only necessary if you're collecting email addresses or other information online' is incorrect and creates significant risk for your client.

  • Government Departments can use social media channels
    There is no stricture forbidding Government agencies from using social media channels for communication or engagement activities. In fact many already do - and often in more advanced ways than the private sector.
    There's also no 'conclusive study showing that Australians don't want to associate with agencies or government campaigns via social media channels'.
    There's also limited need for government to engage 'social media experts' who don't understand how to use social media services - such as having a Twitter account that doesn't use hashtags or retweet others or writing a Facebook strategy that just lists the standard Tabs and doesn't provide evidence of expertise in using 3rd party applications or iframes to customise a Page.

    Having an account illustrates you're aware of a channel, using the account well demonstrates your expertise.
  • Building a fake persona on a social media channel then revealing it as fake and a government promotion can be considered false and misleading practice
    Suggesting to a government agency that they should create fake personas and interact as though they were real, build a following or trusting friends and then unveiling the activity as a campaign at the end isn't good advice to provide any organisation.
    Sure there's LonelyGirl and the Jacket Girl, and several other instances of actors used to create fake personas - but never by government agencies. Providing the truth is important in government campaigns and being authentic is important to build trust and respect online. Creating fake personas usually isn't conducive to these and can also break the acceptable usage terms of services such as Facebook (which you should read).
Finally here's some tips - collected from discussions with my peers across a range of government agencies and jurisdictions:
  • We don't need you to build us a CMS and we don't want to finance the creation of your own 'you-beaut' in-house CMS and then pay you every time we need it upgraded. Consider building expertise in an off-the-shelf product - particularly an open source platform with global support.
  • Frontpage doesn't qualifies as a modern web development tool used by experienced professionals. It also leaves code in your pages if you don't edit it out (caught!)
  • We do often notice when you copy code and leave the original author's name and credentials in the (web page) source without appropriately compensating or crediting them.
  • Everyone knows that designers love arty fonts, but if the government agency doesn't own the rights to them they can't use them. 
  • Making all the text links in a website into images isn't a good idea - it makes them inaccessible!
  • Audience usability testing should almost always be a required step in web design. Even if your random sample of three staff really liked the design and could use the functionality, what does the website's audience think?
  • Background music is never acceptable in a website. Self-playing video is only acceptable where there's accessible alternatives and the video can be controlled by the user.
  • Government agencies don't want to pay for your custom reporting system that only you can access so you can give us interpreted results for web traffic. Use a standard web-based platform and give the agency access to the reports.
  • Don't tell agencies it will cost $5,000 per month to host a small government website via your ISP. Particularly when their website lists their prices (up to $30 per month) - oops!
  • When a government agency asks for an email newsletter system with double opt-in subscription, bounce detection, automated unsubscribe, open and click-through reporting, simply using a web-form to collect email addresses and sending emails via Outlook is not a quality outcome.
  • When asked to design a website for an agency to implement in-house, don't provide code or custom functionality that can't be used or build on the agency's platform.
  • It doesn't cost $10,000 to add a share button / reporting system / embed a YouTube video into the website - particularly when the agency is providing all the code for you.
  • You're not a 'Government 2.0 pioneer' if you've never heard of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce, the eGovernment Resource Centre or this blog. Knowing Obama used social media in his first Presidential campaign no longer earns brownie points.
  • Even if this is 'the first time' a government agency has asked you to make a website or PDF accessible to WCAG 2.0 standards, that doesn't mean that your previous standard will meet current government needs.
  • Just because your contact in government hasn't had previous experience developing websites doesn't mean they aren't supported by people who have a lot of experience.
Any other gems out there that people are prepared to share?

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Thursday, April 07, 2011

How much would you pay for government transparency?

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 was lauded globally for its role in supporting the US government to become more transparent, and allow citizens to analyse and repurpose public data.

However in March the first rumblings appeared. Apparently the site's visitor levels had plateaued, and Congressional budget cuts threatened the ongoing survival of the website as well as a range of others including USASpending.gov, Apps.gov/now, IT Dashboard and paymentaccuracy.gov (as well as a number of internal government sites including Performance.gov and FedSpace) dedicated to making government policies, processes and information more accessible to citizens.

When I first read about the closures in ReadWriteWeb's article, Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut on 31 March, my first thought was that this was a clever April Fools prank designed to wind up open government advocates.

This was followed by the GovFresh post on 1 April, Congress weighs deep cuts to funding for federal open government data platforms and assorted coverage across a range of government IT and news websites.

However over the last week it has become clear that this is a legitimate issue, due to budget cuts the US Congress is proposing.

In response the Sunlight Foundation has launched a campaign to Save the data and a range of influential open government advocates have weighed in, such as Tom Steinberg, the founder of the MySociety charity in the UK who is now working in the UK Cabinet Office to support the UK Government's open data initiatives.

Apparently the collective cost of all the websites is around US$32 million (just over a dollar a year per US citizen) - representing 0.09% of the US budget and only 7.7% of the US government's Freedom of Information Act costs. Some commentators have pointed out that other methods of releasing government data are far more expensive and less inclusive or effective.

With parts of the Government 2.0 program (particularly the IT Dashboard and TechStat process) credited with saving the US Government billions in IT costs, the cuts of US transparency initiatives may cost the US enormously.

The proposed cuts raise several very important questions.

How much are nations - and citizens - prepared to pay for government transparency?
And how much transparency are we prepared to trade off for short-term tax saving?

How should the value of transparency be measured?
By the number of people accessing government data, or by the flow-through impact on harder to measure government cost savings and economic benefits?

How can transparency become embedded in government for the long-term?
Particularly when it may be elements of the political or administrative system who wish to constrain transparency for various legitimate, or otherwise, reasons.


It will be a fascinating, and perhaps deeply troubling, process to see how the US answers these questions - and how Australia answers them as well.

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Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Ignorance (of social media) is risk

I still encounter a large number of public servants - from a variety of agencies and at a range of government levels (local to federal) - whose experience of social media is limited to Facebook and Twitter - or less.

Most appear to be unaware of the steps the Government has taken to integrate social media into business practices - mentioning the Gov 2.0 Taskforce and Declaration of Open Government provoke blank looks. Few have heard of the many civic tools and government initiatives that have taken place online - and even fewer appear to actually participate.

Some of these people are senior decision makers. Others provide advice and operational leadership in support of senior decision makers.

I find this a very disturbing situation for the public service and government in Australia. To me the largest and most damaging risk facing any activity is ignorance. When you don't know what you don't know there is rich ground for poor decisions, human error and missteps.

The situation provides opportunity for 'snake oil' salespeople - sometimes masquerading as well-paid consultants - to provide dangerous advice and poorly considered ideas about the use of social media which cannot be accurately assessed and considered where staff experience is lacking. These ideas have the potential to seriously damage reputations in the public service, agencies and governments.

Social media has been immensely popular in the community for at least five years and some government departments have supported internal collaboration through forums for at least twenty years.

Surely there has been enough time to expect more active learning by people who seek operational and strategic leadership roles.

There are a plethora of seminars on social media, volumes of information online and excellent case studies of Australian and international best practice.

Understanding where social media fits into the media mix for communication, engagement, collaboration and productivity improvements needs to stop being the preserve of a relatively few specialists and become a core capability, skill and toolset for many public servants.

Perhaps that is what is needed - to make an understanding of the strategic use of social media communications and engagement channels a core part of public service capabilities.

It certainly touches on a range of capabilities we already expect public servants in the Australian Public Service to master in the Integrated Leadership System. For example, at the EL2 level, looking at only the 'Shapes strategic thinking' capability, there are a multitude of ways in which social media enables and extends the ability of a public servant to perform their duties:
  • Encourages others to provide input and comment on the strategic direction of the business unit.
    (social media channels may be an effective means for supporting provision of this input)
  • Communicates with others regarding the purpose of their work and the relationship between work unit objectives and organisational goals.
    (social media channels may be an effective method of supporting this communication)
  • Considers a wide range of issues and their implications for the business unit.
    (to consider any issues presented by social media you must have a good understand of social media channels)
  • Identifies critical information gaps and asks a range of questions to uncover valuable information.
    (as a major channel for engagement and communication, public servants without a working understanding of social media have critical information gaps)
  • Sources information on best practice approaches adopted in both the public and private sectors.
    (there are many examples available of best practice social media use to address a wide range of business needs in both public and private industry)
  • Scans the internal and external environment for new trends and recent developments that are likely to affect own business area.
    (how can you effectively scan the environment today without monitoring social media channels and online peer groups)
  • Gathers and investigates information and alternate viewpoints from a variety of sources through formal and informal means; explores new ideas with an open mind.
    (social media leverages the capability to gather and investigate information and viewpoints - both formally and informally. The use of social media in any initiative must be considered with an open mind, based on best practice examples, rather than media spin)
  • Draws accurate conclusions and presents logical arguments that address key issues.
    (drawing accurate conclusions and presenting logical arguments involves understanding the underlying material. Public servants need a working understanding of social media in order to do this for initiatives which could be supported by its use)
  • Explores various possibilities and generates innovative alternatives.
    (social media is a key tool for exploration and the discovery and support of innovative alternatives)
Whatever system is used in your public service, there will be key ways in which social media knowledge and capability will empower and support staff to perform their roles effectively.



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Friday, April 01, 2011

'Keeping the bastards honest' - government's new role in combatting mainstream media mistakes

Traditionally one of the roles of the 'free press' is to keep governments honest, to shine a light on inappropriate conduct, poor decisions and uncover corruption, falsehoods and backroom deals.

With the advent of social media I've been watching this role slowly twist into new forms and relationships.

One of the more interesting developments has been the take-up of social media by government to correct media mistakes.

Last century, when the 'big three' traditional media were the primary conduit of information to the public, often it was hard for government to challenge incorrect statements in the press. Politicians and agencies had to rely on 'friendly' media to carry the facts, and sometimes their voices were drowned out by commentators repeating a mistaken line.

With the growth of social media channels into highly effective news collection and distribution platforms, there is now a more even playing field.

Traditional media outlets can trumpet their view of the news and facts, just as they have for the last century or so. However government is also able to build and mobilise its own media distribution networks - at low cost and with massive reach.

This has led to a sea-change in the relationship between media and government which is still being worked through by all of the players involved.

Possibly the first strategic use of social media channels to correct media reports was by the US White House's Press Office several years ago. The Press Office naturally began to follow journalists via Twitter, 'listening' to their public messages as they discussed breaking stories, formulating their angles and swapping information.

However the Press Office did more than listen, President Obama's Press Secretary also engaged directly with journalists, correcting mistakes they tweeted and offering new information where warranted and appropriate.

Suddenly the US government was able to respond to news reports before they were reported, influencing and shaping stories through injecting facts and correcting misinterpretations.

Why did they do this? Correcting a journalist's facts before they publish is much more efficient then attempting to correct the facts in the public's eye after a journalist has published. You only need to influence a few people, rather than influence an entire nation.

Note that this approach wasn't effective for closing down legitimate stories (or even illegitimate ones), and the White House's Press Office did not use it in this way. The approach did, however, reduce the number of errors in stories, allowed better media preparation ahead of time (therefore allowing the government to research and provide more complete answers) and it saved public time and money - more efficient for citizens.


However this process only really targeted journalists. After a little longer, government organisations, again led by the US Press Office, began to also use social media to directly address misinformation and myths put about by media outlets.

In Australia this was seen most prominently recently in the Queensland floods, where the Queensland Police Service released a series of 'mythbuster' tweets and Facebook posts to counter misinformation being published in traditional media.

For example:











The same approach is now being undertaken by Sandi Logan, who tweets for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

The same approach is being used widely overseas during crisis or when particular topics are being discussed - or ignored - by the media.


I see this as a lasting change in the balance of power between media and government.

Media still has an important and significant role to report, analyse and dissect the events and issues of the day. It is still critical for investigating matters which organisations or individuals are sometimes reluctant to bring into the public eye.

However government now has a new and even more important role, keeping the media honest - ensuring that citizens are able to access factually accurate information that, sometimes, the media overlooks, gets wrong or even suppresses in order to create a sensational, controversial and, most importantly, commercial story.

Agencies resisting the use of social media channels may be doing themselves, the public and their Ministers, a disservice. By waiting passively for media to contact them, or reacting to media reports rather than proactively listening to journalists and communicating the facts, they may be allowing the level of misinformation in the community to spread unnecessarily.

This makes it harder and more expensive to correct mistaken impressions - particularly in emergencies - and increases the reputational risk for agencies and their Ministers.


Openness and transparency in government fostering accuracy in the media. Who would have thought?

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch with Alison Michalk on Community management - 13 April 2011

At the next Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch we're taking a look at a topic rapidly growing in importance for government agencies - managing and moderating online communities.

Quiip Director and Community Manager, Alison Michalk, will provide her insights into online community management, user-generated-content moderation and risk mitigation within the Web 2.0 space.

The presentation will draw on Alison’s experience with a range of private & public sector clients; demonstrating the various roles within community management along with strategies to enhance peer-to-peer dialogue and foster campaign support.

Alison Michalk is a respected practitioner in the online community management field. Based in Sydney, Alison has been working with online communities for over eight years. Her specific areas of interest include community governance and engagement, user behaviour and user-generated content moderation. Her experience building and managing online communities extends from start-ups through to large corporations, where she has managed a team of 30 moderators on Australia’s largest parenting website, Essential Baby (Fairfax Digital).

Alison has been featured in the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Community Management and Communities of Purpose white paper, and is a respected blogger on community management issues. Alison Michalk and Vanessa Paech (Lonely Planet/BBC Community Strategist) co-convene the Australian Community Management Roundtables, founded in 2008.

In mid-2010 Alison launched Quiip, an Australian-based community management and moderation business where she works with private and public sector clients including the Department of FaHCSIA’s youth initiative ‘The Line’.

When is the Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch?
13 April from 11.45 to 2pm.

Where is it being held?
The Gov 2.0 Canberra lunch in April is back at the Members' and Guests Dining room at (new) Parliament House hosted by Minister Gary Gray, Australia's Special Minister of State. Please note the special instructions in the event page.

How to register: Go to the Eventbrite page and request a ticket.

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Monday, March 28, 2011

A cartoon history of social media (via PeopleBrowsr)

Many people I encounter consider social media as Twitter & Facebook - which is pretty much all that gets reported on via traditional media.

However the scope and history of social media is much richer and deeper than this.

PeopleBrowsr recently commissioned a cartoon history of social media, which starts with the first robot messageboard - in 1930.

Even this cartoon merely skims the surface and doesn't go further back to pre-digital social media channels that existed before the 'big three' traditional medias grew up during the 20th century (newspapers, radio and television).

However it does go deeper than the Twitter/Facebook view of the social media universe.

For a commentary on the cartoons, visit the PeopleBrowsr blog

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Friday, March 25, 2011

Is it practical for government agencies to block web-based mail?

The Australian National Audit Office has just released a report 'The Protection and Security of Electronic Information Held by Australian Government Agencies' based on a review of the approaches to information security by four agencies, the Office of Financial Management, ComSuper, Medicare Australia, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Amongst other recommendations was one which has been much discussed on Twitter this morning, "emails using public Web-based email services should be blocked on agency ICT systems, as these can provide an easily accessible point of entry for an external attack and subject the agency to the potential for intended or unintended information disclosure."

This reflects the recommendation in the Defense Signal Directorate's Information Security Manual, the 'bible' for Australian Government agencies when it comes to ICT security, which states on page 100 that:
Agencies should not allow personnel to send and receive emails using public web-based email services.

The concerns are very clear and relevant - web-based email systems can easily be used, inadvertently or deliberately, to distribute large quantities of citizen's personal information, or an agency's In Confidence or other classified information rapidly and to large numbers of people, making it impossible to contain the spread of the information.

Web-based email is also a potential source of attacks against an agency, through viruses, worms and trojans in email attachments (which may not be able to be scanned at the same level as Departmental email can be) and through web-links in emails to compromised websites.

I don't dispute these real concerns. They are concerns for corporations as well.

However, I do ask - what is 'web-based email'?

Most people are aware of the classic web-based email services, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo mail and Gmail amongst many, many, many similar services (here's a list of 18 web-based email services - and that's just a start!)

These services follow a standard email model - an inbox, outbox, capability to send and receive email, with attachments and some ability to organise and file emails into folders. Most have automated spam-checkers too, some exceptionally good.

However while they LOOK like email software, they aren't really email software. They are simply web pages providing access to text, links, file upload/download and some buttons.

Any webpage can be designed the same way. In fact it would be hard to find any webpage without at least two of the same features.

In other words, while they look like email and act like email, they're really no different from going to any website which allows people to click on a link or download a file.

Regarding the risk of downloading or clicking on a link with a malicious payload (virus, trojan, etc), web-based email web pages provide no additional risk to standard web pages except, perhaps, that they have content targeted to an individual with a government email address.

There may actually be less risk in using popular and widespread web-based email services as they do employ sophisticated scanning techniques to limit spam and malicious payloads. It is in their interest to not allow their users to become infected with viruses as their business would suffer as a result.

In fact, in some cases the large web-based email providers may offer more security in preventing spam and viruses than a corporation or government agency can offer to its staff using official email accounts. The large web-based email providers have hundreds of millions of users and their business is providing web-based email, meaning they hire the best talent, employ leading edge solutions and invest far more into their email security than most corporations or government agencies can afford.


I've only talked about the identifiable web-based email systems so far, there's also several broader considerations.

More and more online services are implementing systems like web-based email for sending and receiving messages within a web browser.

This includes services like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare, Ning, Amazon, all forum systems and micro-blogging services like Twitter (allowing direct messages). Most ISPs offer web-based access to home email accounts. Even your bank probably does it.

In all cases these services provide you with the ability to send and receive messages, including links and sometimes also attachments.

They effectively act like web-based email services, without having the same name.

To block web-based email systems can be tricky without blocking access to the provider's other services, such as Google's analytics and webmaster systems. However it is (mostly) possible.

To block these other pseudo-web-based email services without blocking their service is most probably impossible in most cases. That would mean blocking staff from being able to monitor or interact (officially) over social media services, or even from accessing their bank accounts from work.


Another consideration is the vast array of services that could not remotely be described as having web-based email qualities but still allow people to share information online.

These services, like YouSendIt, DropBox, Scribd and a host of others (including web-based FTP services provided by ISPs and others) allow people to upload a file, or often many files, and share them widely. There are also services for making comments - every newspaper has one - and many services for anonymising where the data is coming from to prevent detection.


Now all of this may still be manageable if it were only defined organisations who provided all these services. However the barrier to setting up a new service that looks and performs like web-based mail, or allow files to be transferred is almost invisible.

Open source software exists to allow any person to create their own service in a matter of hours. Web-based systems allow you to create a web-based email facsimile in a matter of minutes. These services are widespread, easily discoverable and cheap.

People can set one up from home, or any public access computer and then access it at work. That's if they are not amongst the nearly 40% of Australians with personal smartphones, or the millions of others with laptops, netbooks and tablets and 3G connections to the internet. Personal internet connections at the office, every day.

I don't envy the job of ICT Security Advisors.


If an agency wished to prevent staff from sending files and information online to unauthorised recipients, or prevent the possibility of staff clicking on links or downloading files from the web that may carry viruses, there are only three solutions.
  • Whitelist a bare minimum number of sites that staff can access,
  • turn off internet access completely, or
  • establish effective policy guidance and education for staff, have managers monitor use and ICT Security advisers provide support and training.
While it may be easier for organisations to pick one of the first two options, they will experience staff backlashes, have difficulty recruiting younger people (now including people in their 40s) and be unable to effectively engage and respond to changing global and national events.

These approaches won't necessarily limit the use of personal internet-connected devices at work, many more staff might bring them in to get around the security settings (so they can do their banking and respond to critical personal events). These approaches may even increase the incident of information leakage as disgruntled staff use the fax or photocopy and walk out the door.


The third option, which requires extensive senior leadership and support, is more effective in the long-run, however a harder sell due to the time and ongoing education commitment. However it is, in my view, the only approach to managing the use of web-based email and all similar services - in effect the entire internet - which serves the long-term interests of governments, agencies and staff.

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Friday, March 18, 2011

The coming open data battle - government versus commercial interests

I'm a big fan of opening up as much public sector information as possible in easily discoverable and reusable ways (taking into account privacy, security and commercial-in-confidence considerations).

The data allows citizens and organisations to build a more informed view of their government's activities, a good accountability measure.

It also allows the development of useful applications and services at low cost and even lower (frequently free) prices. Sure they may not be as polished as multi-million dollar services developed by governments or big business, however they allow citizens to choose the tools that work best for them. Government or big business can always use these learnings to build on.

Open data also allows government agencies to see what data other agencies have, and lets them use it to improve their models, understanding and policy. While often overlooked in the rush to provide data to citizens, often agencies have as much trouble discovering and accessing data from other agencies as citizens do.

However as more public sector data gets released, losers are also emerging, some with deep pockets and effective lobbyists.

Who loses when government data is released for free? Several groups spring to mind.

First are companies that make their living from licensing public information and selling it on (often with value-adds) at a mark-up. These companies allow agencies to extract a market price for their data without having to contend with the complexities of the open market. They often have a monopoly position, controlling access to a source of public data, and can be very resistant to losing their monopoly or seeing the data 'devalued' through free release.

Second are companies that rely on getting data first to build their edge. This includes stock market traders, where having information a few hours earlier than the market may be worth millions. It can also include the media, who thrive on 'exclusives'. Where data is released to specific journalists under Freedom of Information or through other channels ahead of others they have an informational edge over their rivals.

Next are organisations who prefer to obscure the true cost of goods and services in favour of complexity. Where customers can't compare prices effectively they can't make the best price decision, therefore they may choose expensive services based on brand and never realise they are paying more than they should. Sound like any industry you know?

Finally there's groups within government who prefer to keep citizens at arms length. Those who do not want too much scrutiny of their decisions or who believe the public won't understand the broad context under which they were made. This group believes in only telling the public what they think the public needs to know.

We're starting to see some of these groups flex their muscles in jurisdictions that are releasing a great deal of public sector information, or who are legislating for organisations to become more transparent.

One group currently resisting openness in the US are airlines. In the New York Times article, This Data Isn’t Dull. It Improves Lives, the journalist reports that,

...the Department of Transportation is considering a new rule requiring airlines to make all of their prices public and immediately available online. The postings would include both ticket prices and the fees for “extras” like baggage, movies, food and beverages. The data would then be accessible to travel Web sites, and thus to all shoppers.

The airlines would retain the right to decide how and where to sell their products and services. ...
The approach would make markets more transparent and efficient - allowing consumers to make a decision on flights based on complete knowledge.

So do airlines support this approach? Well, not completely. They wish the right to choose when and how they display their fees - choosing to control the flow of information and force consumers to continue to make sub-optimal decisions on partial information.

This reflects the situation in Australia with the Rudd Government's attempt to launch Fuelwatch and GroceryWatch websites. Petrol and grocery companies weren't particularly supportive of having the true cost of their products visible to consumers before they were at the service station or in the store. Once consumers were there it was far less likely they'd leave and shop elsewhere because of price. Of course the reason given was the complexity of exposing the prices publicly, although they don't seem to have this issue at the checkout.


Another example I have been watching is in Canada, where there's been an active discussion of the decision of BC Ferries to release FOI requests online at the same time they are released to the requester (where the request doesn't involve personal information).

Journalists have complained that the approach means they won't get an exclusive, removing their financial incentive for requesting government information in the first place. One journalist in particular, Chad Skelton, has written a series of pieces detailing why it is so important that governments allow media to profit off FOI requests, as otherwise they are unlikely to ask for this information and it won't be exposed for the public good. One of his articles worth reading is Why David Eaves is wrong about BC Ferries' Freedom of Info policies.

It is an interesting point, however I tend to sympathise with David's view - government information laws should not be designed to support the financial goals of media outlets, or any other organisations, over the goals of public openness and transparency. These laws should be designed to ensure that public information gains public scrutiny, not so that journalists can 'make' their careers with exclusives.


As we see more public sector information released by governments I expect we'll see more battles over its release. Some forms of opposition will be passive, providing information in the least usable formats possible or hidden away in websites; other forms will be active, direct refusals to release information (because it is incomplete, the context wouldn't be understood, or it isn't useful), court cases from commercial interests asking for information to be suppressed, or even active information sabotage where data is destroyed rather than published.

Reputations and fortunes can be made and lost over access to information. It is unlikely that entrenched interests will support changes to the playing field without putting up an ongoing fight.

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Is the world obsessed with Facebook?

Facebook's active membership now exceeds 500 million users - that's 1 in 13 humans. If it were a country it would be the third largest on earth.

Its usage in Australia accounts for roughly 29% of the time spent online. Based on the average Australian internet user spending around 18.8 hours online each month (as discussed at Social Rabbit), that means, on average, we're spending just under 5.5 hours per month using Facebook, slightly over an hour per week.

With around 10 million Facebook users in Australia that equates to 54,520,000 hours per month, or 2,271,667 days or 6,223.7 people years.

Below are a couple of interesting videos providing more on the Facebook phenomenon.



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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Do governments have effective frameworks for allowing online protests?

I remember the great demonstration of November 1997. A plea went out asking citizens to gather outside their leader's home to protest about major problems with the system. They were requested to be peaceful and law-abiding, to simply chant slogans, drink beer and remove their clothes.

This demonstration was to be in Ultima Online, a massive multiplayer online game which, when launched, had a number of bugs and issues which frustrated gamers. One gamer decided that a protest in the game would be an effective way to bring the issues to the game developer's attention.

The protest was cancelled (the developers got the message), however it was my first exposure to an online protest movement - a gathering of people in a virtual space to protest a real concern (albeit in this case a game-specific issue).

Since that time, almost fourteen years ago, there's been many other online demonstrations on a range of topics. Some of the most notable include the candlelit vigils held in Everquest and Anarchy Online following the 9/11 attacks, and the 'Dead in Iraq' protest in 2006, recognising US deaths in the war (see video below).



As the world has digitalised and more people spend more time online it is logical that the internet becomes a significant channel for demonstrations and protests, as the internet has become for entertainment, social interaction, shopping and self-actualisation. As far back as 2007 the Washington Post was reporting Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online

Today Facebook and Twitter are central channels for organising and carrying out protests. Users are regularly asked by their friends to change their profile pictures, add a 'Twibbon', join a cause or take other steps to build awareness of or indicate their support for a given cause or issue.

Online petitions are also widespread and, in some cases supported and facilitated by governments, such as the UK ePetition website.

Many of these online protest approaches are peaceful and unobtrusive, although some are a little more direct - such as the GreenPeace organised protest against Nestle via Nestle's Facebook page.

Australia, and many nations around the world, have long supported the right of citizens to stage peaceful marches and demonstrations to call attention to issues or highlight disagreements with public policy.

In some cases these protests have stepped from peaceful into legally grey areas - acts that constrain the ability of authorities or organisations to take certain actions. For example, people forming picket lines to keep out 'scabs', laying in front of bulldozers, chaining themselves to trees, placing a ship between a whaler and a whale, blockading the entrance of abortion clinics, striking, throwing shoes and custard pies or even 'fax-spamming' organisations to stop them receiving or sending business faxes.

For the most part these activities don't result in the participants receiving major legal penalties, either significant fines or gaol time.

However Australia, like most nations, doesn't always have the same tolerance for the online equivalent of these types of protest activities.

Online protests involving blockades of websites are termed 'denial of service attacks'. The goal is to restrict access to an organisation's website - slowing it down or causing it to crash and become unavailable for a period of time.

While it is in many respects similar to a picket line or 'fax-spamming', denial of service attacks on websites are illegal in Australia and many other countries.

This is for good reasons, as these attacks can be carried out by criminal organisations as part of blackmail operations, as acts of wars by foreign powers or even to break down a server's defenses in order to steal confidential information and personal details.
In fact the Australian Attorney-General's office has said that attacks such as this should not be seen as "legitimate forms of protest activity but rather are public nuisance akin to vandalism" (in the SMH article Action stations as cyber attacks on Australia soar).

(It is also worth noting that the same activity is not always illegal - Sometimes 'denial of service' is not an attack - such as when thousands flooded to government sites to find information on Victoria's fires in 2009 or the load on the Bureau of Meteorology's site during the Queensland floods.)

This leave citizens in an interesting position. Acts that are accepted as legitimate expression of freedom of speech in physical environments, and may occur incidentally online, are not always considered legitimate ways of expressing oneself on the internet.

I'm not advocating that denial of service attacks should be legal, however governments and citizens in Australia do need to continue to consider the legitimate and acceptable boundaries for protest activities online.

When does digital activism become unacceptable and illegal?

And do citizens recognise or share the same line in the sand as authorities?

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Friday, March 11, 2011

Australian Government launches data.gov.au

Joining the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and a host of other jurisdictions already leading the way around the world, the Australian Government has now launched its official government data sharing website, www.data.gov.au

Announced by Special Minister of State, Gary Gray, in the post Release of data.gov.au on AGIMO's blog, Minister Gray said that,
...The release of public sector information in the form of datasets allows the commercial, research and community sectors to add value to government data in new, innovative and exciting ways.

Data.gov.au plays a crucial role in realising the Australian Government’s commitment to informing, engaging and participating with the public, as expressed in its Declaration of Open Government and Freedom of Information (FoI) reforms.

The new site currently lists around 200 datasets and links to other Government data catalogues such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Spatial Data Directory and the Queensland Government Information Service plus many other government data sites.

It includes tools to allow the public to suggest datasets they'd like released, to rate and comment on all datasets within the site, provide feedback and improvement suggestions and submit mashups or other data-based initiatives.

There's also a showcase of mashups and prominent Australian Government data-based initiatives.

Government agencies may submit datasets online and AGIMO has provided support for hosting datasets in a cloud-based storage solution if they're unable to host them effectively in their own sites.

It is quite an impressive site. AGIMO has clearly been listening to the community and building on the experiences of other government data sites around the world.

It will be interesting to see how rapidly the number of datasets grows and the innovative uses people put them to, developing services and new insights to support citizens, create value and drive public policy initiatives.

Below is a list of other government data sites around the world sourced from Govloop (built using Socrata) as a comparison.


Powered by Socrata

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Wednesday, March 09, 2011

What's your government agency's social media exit strategy?

While diamonds may be forever, Department and agency names, communications campaigns and government programs are not.

This poses an interesting challenge when planning social media strategies - how do you effectively exit from a channel when a campaign ends (as the money stops and people go), or reframe a social media presence when your agency is restructured, renamed and repurposed.

I have seen very few examples of effective channel closure or transition. In many cases the Twitter feed or Facebook page just continues to 'hang around' after it is abandoned - or an agency continues to engage through its name from two years ago.

The classic website solution is the forward, whereby agencies forward visitors to an old website (or campaign microsite) to their main or new website. However this approach doesn't work in most social media channels where forwards do not exist.

I have seen some use of generic terms, to allow Departments to change staff, structure and name but retain their social media identities. I've also seen examples where agencies have a manual forward in place - such as "This Facebook page is no longer active, please visit our new page at ... " or where people are invited to friend or follow a replacement account. However none of these approaches work in all cases.

So what is the solution for morphing your social media identity to match your changing agency identity?

Do we need the owners of social media services to allow name changes or automated redirects?

Is there a more effective strategy for Departments to retain their social media presence, as they retain their phone numbers, when names change and campaigns end?

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Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Doing good while improving security with ReCAPTCHA

There's still many government online forms and consultation systems that don't make use of 'human recognition' tools such as CAPTCHA to help verify that the people filling in the forms are humans and reduce the attractiveness of online government forms to large-scale automated attacks by bot-armies.

However, even where government has added CAPTCHA security, I've yet to see an instance where this has been used for good, as well as security.

CAPTCHA, for those unfamiliar, is a technology whereby, when completing an online form, the user is asked to type in one or more words or calculate the product of a sum before submitting their response. The words or sum are presented in an image with 'background static' designed to make it hard for a computer to read.

In most cases, humans are able to decipher and type in the correct response whereas automated form completion systems, often used for spamming, are not.

Many CAPTCHA systems are also enhanced with audio CAPTCHA (where words are read out, amidst static and background noises), supporting vision-impaired people.

These systems are not perfect, however they do increase the barriers to hackers, reducing the prospect for spam submissions or attacks.

They also add a little time to each submission attempt - possibly ten seconds. This is negligible to an individual (in most circumstances), however as millions of people complete CAPTCHA forms each day, this adds up to a lot of time overall.

Initially CAPTCHA tools just presented random words, however a system supported by Google is supporting organisations to 'do good' as well as improve their security.

Named ReCAPTCHA, the system has integrated the work being done to digitalise books and documents. Rather than using random words, users are presented with words that computers could not understand during the document digitalisation process.

Each time a user completes a ReCAPTCHA, they are helping to decipher and digitalise the world's literature and records - preserving it into the digital age.

Assuming an average of two words per ReCAPTCHA, and each being repeated many times in order to validate the entry, there's a miniscule contribution by any particular individual.

However if, for example, 50 million people each verify themselves using ReCAPTCHA each day, with each set of two words presented ten times on average, a total of 10 million words in old documents and books that have been deciphered and correctly digitalised. Each day. That's 3.6 billion words per year.

So if your organisation isn't using CAPTCHA security on forms, or even if you are using a custom CAPTCHA technology, you might wish to consider exploring the use of ReCAPTCHA - which is free to reuse from Google.

Alternatively, of course, Australian institutions could develop their own type of CAPTCHA approach (for old newspapers, for example - or archival records). It would be a meaningful extension to the work the National Library of Australia is already doing.

Below is a video on the work being done with ReCAPTCHA.

Learn more about ReCAPTCHA.

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Thursday, March 03, 2011

What is muting Australian public servants online?

Over the last two years we've seen a concerted effort by governments across Australia to increase the level of online engagement, debate and discussion involving public agencies.

In 2009 the Government 2.0 Taskforce, commissioned by then Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and chaired by Dr Nicholas Gruen, conducted a six month process of engaging public servants via online channels, pioneering the use of blogs, Twitter and Facebook to demonstrate how it was possible for the public service to effectively communicate, engage, consult and be consulted online.

Late in the same year the Australian Public Service Commission replaced its Interim Protocols for Online Media Engagement (originally released in late 2008, with the updated Circular 2009/6: Protocols for online media participation.

Early in 2010 the Australian Government released its response to the Government 2.0 Taskforce's final report, agreeing with all except one of its recommendations (and simply deferring the remaining recommendation to after another related review was completed).

Since then we've seen the MAC innovation report, Empowering change: Fostering innovation in the Australian Public and the Ahead of the Game report from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, outlining steps to reform the public service.

There's been the Declaration of Open Government, the initiation of the Government 2.0 Steering Committee, the launch of GovSpace (a blogging platform operated by the Government and open to all agencies to use).

We've seen more than 260 government agencies and councils join Twitter, wide ranging activity on Facebook and a proliferation of social media policies at local, state and Commonwealth level.

Agencies in Australia are using social media in ways that would have been unacceptable and unachievable even two years ago, some demonstrating world class engagement online. Some states have comprehensive action plans in place and official usage of social media by agencies in some places is approaching one hundred percent.

I don't have the same level of information about Commonwealth agencies (there is no central register of activity or survey results, as there are for some states), however most have established some form of social media beachhead in support of campaign or corporate needs.


With all this official usage you might expect to see vibrant and active online communities of public servants discussing shared issues and best practice, or to see public servants listening to and contributing actively to online policy discussions.

Many groups set up for public servants seem to have reasonable memberships - several hundred people at least - however most of these members are silent, with at most 10% carrying on a halting conversation.

Blogs and forums established to discuss public issues are dominated by the same regular contributors, providing valid and thoughtful views for the most part, however still representing a fraction of the more than 100,000-strong Australian public service.


So what is going on? If over 75% of the Australian online public are actively using social media (as Neilsen has reported), what makes public servants different, what is muting Australian public servants from participating online?


There are a large number of public servants who keep their personal lives very separate from their work lives. They happily connect to their families and friends via social media channels, but don't perceive them as professional development or business tools.

I also still encounter public servants unaware of the Australian Government's Government 2.0 program. They either have never learnt about it through their usual newsgathering channels, dismiss it as an IT initiative, or are simply uninterested as they don't perceive Government 2.0 as having any direct relevance to their work or career.

There's also a number of institutional barrier in place. Despite the growing official adoption of social media in government, the 2009-2010 State of the Service report indicated that only 31 percent of APS staff and 28 percent of service delivery employees have access to social media and networking tools in the workplace.

Where there was access to social media and networking tools, the report indicated that the tools are being under-utilised for various reasons, including lack of staff awareness or interest (similar to my point above), or there was a lack of resources and agency policy restrictions.

In addition, only 10% of agencies reported that they had technical guidance available to employees on how to use social media and networking tools. Staff may not always feel they have the permission or the education required to use social media in a professional manner at work.

This is compounded by the use of adaptive filtering tools which do a fantastic job of blocking inappropriate websites, however may also block appropriate and important websites and social media channels used actively in agency business. As these tools work on the basis of blocking categories rather than individual sites, a simple misclassification by a vendor can limit a department's access to key sites for days or weeks. Social media channels - with a wide range of fast changing material - are often prone to being blocked.

There's also pressure on staff due to workload. There's limited time to innovate, experiment or improve work practices via social media and Government 2.0 approaches when staff are flat-out getting their jobs done the 'old' way.


So where does this leave Government 2.0 and social media adoption?

We have a strong and growing core of activity, with a small number of engaged participants and a wider group adopting these tools as their agencies recognise that the changes in Australian society preclude them continuing to use old approaches.

In many cases public servants engaged in communications and consultation activities simply have to include social media in their mix to generate effective outcomes.

Cost pressures are also taking their toll. As budgets tighten, public servants look for more cost-effective means to engage. I've often seem the most enthusiastic adoption of social media channels when budgets have been cut or in crisis situations where traditional media channels aren't responsive. Albeit this is sometimes constrained by a lack of expertise or shortages in manpower.

However many public servants still haven't made the link between social media and their jobs. They haven't had the time to reflect or consider - nor been presented with compelling cases of why they should adopt new tools - particularly where old ones continue to work reasonably well.

We haven't yet reached a tipping point, where the argument for and knowledge of the new approaches now available has overcome the resistance and systems geared towards more traditional approaches.

So in my view it is simply a matter of education, example, clear political and senior will and time - but how much time? No-one can really say.

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