Monday, November 09, 2015

Guest Post: Three secrets to unlocking digital government. And you'll never guess what they are...

This is a guest post from Alun Probert, founder of GovComm and former Director of Communications at the NSW Government. It has been republished from LinkedIn with his permission:
Working in Government communications, it’s practically impossible nowadays to avoid discussions of all things “digital”. From the most extreme and simply distracting notion of “Disrupting Government” to the more sensible focus on the incremental improvement of all levels of service delivery, public sector teams worldwide are appropriately looking to the new world to streamline, improve and engage.
For organizations as vast as Government, the digital age brings potential enabling solutions in many disparate areas. Already locally, Service NSW has made an impact as it seeks to take transactions online in the same way that the banks did with the creation of online banking. Similarly, across Australia, government service delivery is being improved in a multitude of ways, from the provisions of free timetable apps to use of voice recognition software and other tools that reduce the complexity of simply making contact.

And in the Government marketing and communications field, outsiders may be surprised to hear that Government departments were early adopters of social media. The various police and emergency services may have been unexpected early users of tools like Facebook but nowadays they continue to evolve and improve approaches to content creation, accessibility and governance while others still debate “social media policy”. At least one head of a high profile department in the emergency services area has said that he couldn’t now imagine business without access to key social media tools. 

Meanwhile, and entirely unconnected in different departments, Governments were also early adopters of successfully using digital media channels to tightly target their broadcast messages, particularly to young people warning of the dangers of smoking and irresponsible driving. 

And all the way back in 2008, after years of booking multiple pages of newspaper jobs ads each week, I was involved in moving Government recruitment advertising online as the "new medium" was both more effective and a fraction of the  cost. I’m not sure I’ve ever written a more compelling or simple business case.

And coming bang up to date, one of the most extraordinary milestones of my time in Government was to see two “digital” campaigns, Pretty Shady and Get Your Hand Off It each achieve more than a million views on You Tube. From my time in the media, I knew that demonstrating actual results was the publisher's Holy Grail and here was a medium that showed us we had a million views. One million. It's probably more now. (I’m told the Victorian Government also launched a digital campaign called Dumb Ways to Die. Did quite well apparently*.) 

So in summary, we’ve got Governments across Australia looking variously at digital service delivery, increasing community engagement through social media enabled dialogue and departments everywhere launching apps and other digital tools to improve access to information. The “Open Government” movement is seeing increasing amounts of data released for public access and money is being saved across the board through the use of digital media for advertising. 

So I confess I’m getting a little frustrated by the amount of time and effort being spent talking about “Digital Government” as if it were some futuristic (and distant) ideal. It’s inevitable that notoriously risk averse organisations will want to take their time and work on the process, but clearly, the problem with applying old style market analysis in the digital age is that your findings might tell you to buy MySpace.

Taking into account the appropriately careful approach that public sector organizations must take, it seems to me that instead of further abstract discussions on digital government, instead there are three initiatives that would be useful areas of focus:

The first is that we all have to help make sure that everything that is happening in the next few months at the DTO is shared across Government departments. Everything. Methodologies used and not used, risk management strategies and performance reports. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that based on their current impressive record, the DTO team will make this happen. The rest of us though need to help spread the word far and wide. Not everyone is currently listening.  

Secondly, we must find ways of sharing all the proven "home grown" solutions with other organizations in the public sector, ideally worldwide. It’s undeniably true that there are differences between states and indeed countries, but the single biggest learning of my time in Government was that the similarities are often more important than the differences. (eg Most nations have an issue with obesity. All those that have cars and mobile phones have a problem with people texting while driving. It’s plain daft to look at these problems as local issues. Even if we can just get into the habit of sharinginsights, we will always be better off than starting with a blank sheet of paper.)

Thirdly, and possibly the hardest thing to achieve is we must find ways of giving people in public sector organisations permission to fail in the pursuit of better. As long as lessons are learned, failures can always be learning experiences and it’s the role of new public service leaders to create environments that allow this to happen. 

If we can make these three areas our focus, we can reduce the amount of time pontificating abstractly about “Digital Government” and instead put our wholehearted support behind the people who are best placed to make it happen. 

The people currently working in the public service. 
It’s probably not a great idea for another money spinning conference, but it is a cause we can all get behind. 

#letsdoit
About the Author.
Alun Probert is a communications and marketing veteran and having worked on comms with five different Premiers in a decade in Government is now Head of GovCom, independent specialists in public sector communications and engagement.  

Get in touch at alun@govcomgroup.com.au
*Astonishingly, Dumb Ways to Die has been seen by over 100 Million people.

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Friday, November 06, 2015

Economic value should be a benefit, but not the reason for open data

I've been reading various views and reflecting on the DataStart competition.

There's a shift I've been observing in how some people in government talk about open data that is making me quite uncomfortable.

I like that the commercial world is finally taking note of the value of open data and the prospect to build businesses using it.

I like that corporations are beginning to adopt some of the techniques of openness pioneered in the public sector and use them to build usability, value and (hopefully) profits.

I like that the government is taking a firm position on innovation and has finally begun to realise that Australia needs to have a strong and effective digital strategy with senior leadership to remain a relevant first world nation in a world increasingly built on data.

However there's one thing that does concern me.

There's been a progressive shift in language from certain government levels that suggests that the primary reason for releasing public sector information in open, reusable formats is for economic benefit.

Other benefits, such as the ability to hold government to account, improve policy development and assessment and the social benefits of open data in areas such as health, emergency management, education and employment, have been downplayed or ignored.

We've seen hackathons run in Australia on government data for six years now, with over 1,500 web services and apps developed by teams.

The vast majority of these apps and sites focused on social, policy or accountability benefits - very few were developed specifically with economic goals, even in competition categories focused on entrepreneurship.

These competitions have showcased a wide variety of benefits for open data, and agencies have, for the most part, heard this. However the language from the top of government is all about commercialisation and creating businesses from data, the other benefits ignored.

Exemplifying this trend, the DataStart competition doesn't specifically exclude non-commercial entrants, however there's no cash prize at the end for any such winner, the $200,000 investment package prize is restricted to those entrants who squeeze out a commercially viable business (as defined by RightClick Capital and Polleniser).

Other entrants can get, at best, some support from the Department and maybe a five-day start-up bootcamp in Sydney.

The message being sent is clear - non-commercial ideas for open data need not apply.

Essentially the DataStart competition puts the economic benefit of open data ahead of any other benefit - and again this isn't a bad thing. There's reason to support the commercial value of open data, just as there's reason to support the social and policy value of this data.

What is concerning is that the message from government is shifting towards making this economic benefit the main reason for opening up, or improving the quality, of government data.

This could lead into a situation where the data prioritised for collection, cleaning and open release is the data with commercial value, over data that has accountability or social value to Australia.

It attaches a price signal to open data - it must be commercially valuable, or it's not valued.

This flies against the spirit and full value of open government data.

I hope that we do not see governments making commercial decisions on whether to open up data based on the number and perceived economic value of the start-ups they foster.

Government has a bigger role in this, it should focus on public value - balancing how this is achieved, via commercial value, social value or the accountability necessary for a democracy.

So yay for DataStart, but it would be unfortunate if economic value became the reason, rather than one of the benefits, of opening up Australian government data to the public.

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Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Government launches DataStart fund to foster open data startups, but which problem is it trying to solve?

A few days ago the Australian government announced the launch of the DataStart fund, to be managed by Polleniser and with the involvement of RightClick Capital, which aims to foster open data driven startups with commercial ideas.

The pilot nine month process will see 20 startups pitch to a board of government and industry judges, with a winner to receive $200,000 in support to get their business off the ground.

This is an area that people in the open data scene have been discussing for a few years now, on the back of the low rate of initiatives coming out of hack events in Australia that go on to some form of commercial existence, let alone financial success.

Initiatives in this area are always good, however I worry about what problem this is designed to solve.

Is it the government's problem that startups aren't using lots of open data to facilitate their businesses, or is it an actual problem where startup businesses with viable commercial ideas involving open data cannot locate appropriate funding options?

I wonder whether the first step should be to ensure that the open data being released by government is both the right data for companies to use to deliver on commercial needs and is being released to a commercial standard.

Frankly while I totally support the increasingly open release of data there's very little that I see being released at a commercially ready level and granularity. Weather and public transport data at state level being a few of the exceptions.

There will be startup opportunists who bake a little open data into their startups to access this fund. There also may (I hope) be a few hack participants able to take their open data fuelled ideas forward in a more commercial way.

I am sure the government will happily support both types through this initiative in the hope this creates some momentum - and I truly hope it does.

However unless these start-ups have solid ideas with strong business cases and could essentially be profitable even if they had to collect the data themselves or pay for it, by and large government is still an unreliable source of timely and relevant open data.

Right now data.gov.au has a shoestring budget and no funds have ever been allocated by an Australian government to support agencies to develop and implement effective open data release processes.

While the team at data.gov.au has done a fantastic job with very little, and the ball is now truly rolling in agencies, which are increasingly interested in releasing datasets for public reuse, the lack of foundational funding means that the frequency of data collection, data quality and data release tends to be highly variable across government open datasets.

Right now I would prefer to see funds reinvested into ensuring government provides reliable data rather than on fostering businesses build on data sources that are insufficiently robust or could disappear overnight with a Ministerial or agency-level decision.

I know both the government and Polleniser are authentically enthusiastic and supportive of fostering open data driven startups. I hope that in coming weeks we see budgets allocated to help agencies provide reliable and robust open data sets, not just to fostering companies built on an unreliable base.

For now, register for a DataSmart information session (to be held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra at DataStart.com.au (I will be at the Canberra event, so feel free to say hi).

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Friday, October 30, 2015

Come along to IAP2's November Canberra session on 'Introducing collaboration into the process of planning online participation'

I will be presenting at November's IAP2 session in Canberra from 6-8pm on 'Introducing collaboration into the process of planning online participation'.

The session will look at how to get internal stakeholders onboard and on the same page for an online participation process, particularly when they have disparate experience and understanding of digital approaches.

Using real world examples, and an interactive session involving Social Media Planner, attendees will get to work through the process of aligning stakeholder expectations and needs while building their understanding and support for an online engagement approach.

Presenter: Craig Thomler, Director, Social Media Planner
Time: Tues 10 November 2015, 6 for 6.15 pm (finishing about 8 pm)
Venue (TBC): Canberra Innovation Network, Level 5, 5 Moore St Civic

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

Fostering Entrepreneurship and innovation in Australian universities

Last week I was privileged to be invited to speak at the Canberra Startup Showcase, run by the UC Advertising and Marketing Society and EntrepreneurshipUC Society at the University of Canberra.

Together with three other entrepreneurs, Mitchell Harmer of Sign On Site, Dawn Hayter of Urban Providore and Joe Mammolita of iCognition, we discussed our journeys and experience in entrepreneurship and answered the questions of the gathered students.

It was an awesome experience. Each of the entrepreneurs had a very different background, and were at different stages in their company development, providing a broad cross-sectional view of what it's like to found and build a business in Australia.

Fostering entrepreneurship at Australian universities is critical for Australia to build future businesses and grow the economic opportunities for all Australians. The level of interest from attendees, including several who were already seasoned entrepreneurs while still in their early twenties, demonstrated that passion for entrepreneurship was alive among young Australians.

All they needed was the knowledge and tools to realise their passions, avenues to learn from more experienced business owners and access systems that can leapfrog their learning and avoid at least some of the pitfalls.

While I was expecting some interest from the students in Social Media Planner as a tool to support an aspect of business planning, I didn't anticipate how popular it would be - several students bought decks on the spot and more have followed up after the event.

This suggests to me that tools like Social Media Planner have a valuable place in helping our future entrepreneurs to define, refine and test their ideas, preparing them for the business landscape of the future.

I'm glad I could provide some knowledge and support to the students of the University of Canberra, and hope I can continue to support younger people in their journey towards entrepreneurship for years to come.

I hope governments, corporations and universities also recognise where and when our education system needs to be supported by relevant business experience and appropriate business tools.

Without appropriate support many potential Australian enterprises will fail, or not achieve their potential success, restricting Australia's economic development and success.

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