2013 update Selecting the right tool for the job of online citizen engagement

This report was brought to my attention by Sandy Heierbacher in the Online Engagement Group at LinkedIn, and I thought it well worth sharing more widely.

Also blogged about by Sandy at the US National Coalition for Deliberation and Democracy (NCDD), in the post The Promise and Problems of Online Deliberation, the report provides a look at how online tools can be used in citizen deliberation, with recommendations on which tools to use when.

The report is available from: http://kettering.org/publications/the-promise-and-problems-of-online-deliberation/

There's even a supporting infographic as below:

2013 update Do agencies unfairly assume that households have working printers?

While chatting with government folk in Victoria yesterday, the topic of printable PDFs in websites came up. Many agencies have them - large documents designed to be read on paper, rather than screen, and designed accordingly.

It made me ask the question: How many households actually have working printers and are able (and willing) to print large documents or forms?

The folks in the meeting couldn't answer, although one admitted that he didn't actually have a printer at home (despite working in an online capacity for the government).

This has now begun to intrigue me. is there an assumption in government agencies that every household that owns a computer must own a working printer as well?

Is there any evidence to justify this?

I've done a bit of looking today for statistics that might answer this question.

What have I found? Nothing that really answered it.

We have plenty of statistics from the ABS, Finance and other agencies and corporate entities on the number of households with computers and with internet access.

However none provides information on the number of printers in a household, whether they work or whether (given the cost of ink and supplies) people are prepared to print out those large documents with beautiful glossy full-colour images.

The most recent information I could find was from an e-waste brochure from Manly council, quoting the ABS as saying that in 2011, between households and businesses, Australians had around 5 million printers.

Given there's over 1 million businesses and around 9 million households in Australia, that means that as many as 5 million households, over 50%, may not have printers and be unable to print out those lovely documents on government sites.

How realistic is that figure? When I consider my wife and I as a sample of two, it actually appears plausible (and I understand how statistically unreliable that is).  While we are both professionals and knowledge workers, using computers and the internet as our primary tools - neither of us need to print often.

In fact my wife hadn't had a printer for years before we married, she either did things online or printed individual forms at work on the unusual occasion where this was required (and it was usually a form for work anyway).

I have a working printer now as I need it for work purposes. However until February this year I had also lived for several years quite happily without a working printer.

I had, however had a non-working printer. Why non-working? Because supplies were expensive and scarse. Printer manufacturers changed their cartridges when they changed their printers - making older printers harder to buy for. Why did I keep it? Because I might need a printer (although I never did until the supplies for it became impossible to buy).

So should agencies provide big documents on their sites under the belief that people will print them out at home?

Should they expect people to fill in forms online, and then print and sign them?

Perhaps - perhaps not. However it would be nice to see agencies making this decision based on evidence, rather than based on the assumption that every household with a computer has a working printer.

UPDATE:
Trevor Clarke has just let me know that his employer, IDC, tracks the movement of printers into Australia every month and quarter and reports on the number of households with printers. He tells me via Twitter that:

"IDC research shows 76% have 1 printer, 18% have 2. Only 7% don't use. Survey of 2000 Australian households in 2012"

So there's is some evidence that most Aussie households have printers. Good to know!

2013 How should governments treat mobile apps in an age of open data?

EmergencyAUS app

I had a very interesting conversation the other day regarding the challenge of government mobile apps in the age of open data.

The example used was the EmergencyAUS app, which has been developed by Gridstone Pty Ltd.

As an app created by a commercial entity, EmergencyAUS aggregates emergency information released by a variety of state and federal agencies and presents it through a single interface.

The public can also take photos of emergencies and share them through the app. Best of all the app is free to use

Alongside this, Australian governments have also released mobile apps related to disasters and

DisasterWatch app

emergencies. Federally there is Disasterwatch, released by the Attorney-General's Department, which also aggregates emergency information from a variety of state and federal agencies.

At state level there's several emergency apps now available, but particularly notable is the Victorian Country Fire Association's CFA FireReady app.

This is available across all major mobile platforms and while it focuses on Victorian fire emergencies (including backburning), it also allows the public to take photos of emergencies and share them through the app. These photos can even be used by the CFA to help inform their staff regarding developing issues.

Essentially the commercial app and government apps are competing. They all aggregate information from openly released emergency and disaster data and all have a similar aim - to help inform Australians of critical events occurring near them or near their families and friends.

CFA FireReady

Generally governments in Australia take the position that they do not compete in providing services where commercial entities are prepared to do so. They essentially try to minimise where they compete with private enterprise.

So this example raises some clear issues. As government releases more data in reusable formats (open data), there are likely to be more commercial entities who use this data to create mobile apps or other services.

So should governments stop making apps for this data, and leave the field to commercial entities?
Should governments restrict themselves to apps for data that doesn't have commercial value?
Should governments continue to compete against private firms in creating apps?

To answer these questions I think it is vital for government to begin to think about mobile apps (and websites for that matter) as strategic assets and infrastructure rather than costs or PR tools.

Mobile apps as infrastructure

Government built the telephone network in Australia because it was not commercially viable for a private player to invest in this type of infrastructure. We're now repeating this process with the NBN. We did the same with roads, electricity networks, water networks, the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas and other core infrastructure.

However past a certain point it became viable - even desirable - to sell some of this infrastructure to private concerns, with appropriate legal safeguards in place (such as foreign ownership in Qantas and Telstra's universal service obligation).

To develop some new infrastructure governments began looking at public private partnerships - such as toll roads and utilities such as ActewAGL (the ACT's electricity provider).

These have either taken the form of co-investment in development, and co-ownership in some fashion, or the form of complete private ownership, with the government simply providing incentives, support or ideas to the private sector.

Finally there's infrastructure that government has been totally hands-off during development - such as for mobile networks and for virtual infrastructure including search engines.

Mirroring these to mobile apps (or websites), there's five categories for government to consider:

• Critical - apps which governments consider core to its ongoing business and therefore both creates and maintains, retaining ownership on an indefinite basis (though commercial entities may create their own versions).
  ie: Emergency management apps, train/tram/bus timetable apps
• Very important - apps which governments believe must be provided and will make, however are not critical for them to own on an ongoing basis, and therefore may sell to private concerns (with appropriate distribution and maintenance conditions and perhaps a 'resumption' clause if the private concern ceases development)
  ie: Traffic or toilet map apps.
• Important - apps which governments prefer are developed, but are only prepared to partially invest in - via partial funding or other support or a partnership with private entities.
  ie: Crime statistic/locations, parliamentary information or library/gallery works apps.
• Interesting - apps that governments find interesting, but not worth investing in. In this case they may release the ideas and data for the apps and leave up to private enterprise to develop - or not.
  ie: Sports field locator or health information apps.
• Uninteresting - apps which government doesn't care (from a public benefit perspective) whether they are created or not and leave entirely to the private sector.
  ie: most apps you'll find in app stores

Based on this model government agencies need to think about the criticality of a particular app to their core business and act accordingly, treating the apps as an infrastructure investment.

Here's examples of my thinking.

Critical apps
Emergency and disaster apps can be considered critical public safety tools, provided by governments to ensure citizens are informed and supported in times of crisis.

As a core function of government, while private sector organisations may also develop them, agencies would still develop and maintain good quality apps to ensure public safety and information concerns are met.

While commercial entities may develop similar apps, this is not a reason for government to cease maintaining its own, as the government must ensure that a service is provided to the community and commercial entities may stop maintaining - or even withdraw from sale - their apps at any time, leaving a gap that the government's apps will continue to fill.

Very important apps
Traffic apps, while very important for managing traffic congestion and supporting productivity, are not core to the responsibilities of government agencies, but offer significant public value.

Therefore governments would develop these apps, but potentially may sell them to private concerns to maintain and profit from, with provisos that they deliver a certain quality of information and, should the private company decide to stop maintaining the app, the code and app go back to the agency (like an exploration lease for minerals).

The sale of these apps should be considered a cost-recovery exercise as well as pricing the value of the service to the community, ensuring that the public receive some return for the value transferred from public to private hands.

Important apps
Parliamentary information apps, such as ones providing Hansard feeds and information on proposed laws and parliamentary schedules are useful and important to government, however are not essential, or very important to government. Hence it makes sense for government to contribute to the development of these apps - financially or through support - however government shouldn't invest in their creation.

Co-investment might be done through grants or matching funds - such as if a private entity ran a Pozible or Kickstarter fund raising activity and an agency agreed to match up to $X dollars raised.
Support might include access to key individuals, research or data which would support the creation of these apps, or promotion of them through Ministers and agency media contacts and networks (potentially with a level of endorsement).

Interesting apps
Interesting apps, such as one providing the location of all sports fields in a city, might be suggested by a council or agency as an idea, based on data they've released or an identified community need. A paper prototype or business case prepared, but rejected, within the agency may even be released to flesh out and provide context and direction for the app. However agencies and councils would not deem these apps important enough to co-invest in or support, leaving it up to the private sector whether to take on and own the idea or not.

Charging for mobile apps

Another consideration for governments is whether they should charge for apps they create and manage.

I have mixed views on this. There are definitely services that government provides as 'user-pays'. Why should people who don't use the app share in paying for its development and maintenance?

Charging for an app can also provide some funding for its maintenance and improvement over time - very useful where government agencies provision for app development, but have a time limit on funding for it to be maintained and improved, updated to reflect changes in mobile operating systems or even released on new platforms as they emerge.

However in many of these cases the mobile app may not be core to government service provision and potentially could be provided by the commercial sector rather than the public. Perhaps it should be sold off, or left to private hands rather than maintained by government.

If there's a mobile app that your agency is considering charging users to buy or use, perhaps, instead, it is a candidate for sale to a commercial entity to run and maintain, with the sales price being the value of the app.

Or if it is core for government agencies to provide as part of their service mix, should it really be charged for?

In summary

When having a discussion in your agency regarding whether you should make a mobile app, or leave it to the private sector to do - or are thinking about charging users a fee to buy or use your app - it is useful to consider the five categories above and into which your mobile app fits.

If the app is core to your agency's operations it should probably be developed and managed under your agency's watchful eye. If it isn't core, you should think about how important it is and use this to frame your decision on whether to build it yourself, support a private entity to do so or simply give the idea away.

2013 Are organisations failing in their use of social media and apps as customer service channels?

Guy Cranswick of IBRS has brought my attention to a media release about a new report from Fifth Quadrant, a leading Australian customer experience strategy and research consultancy, on social media and smartphone app customer service enquiries.

The report looked at how many Australian consumers had used these channels for customer service enquiries and why they'd used, or not used, them.

The figures are quite dim reading...

The study (of 520 participants) indicated that only 16% of Australian consumers have ever used social media for a customer service enquiry and less than one in 10 Australians had used this channel for customer service in the last three months. Gen Y ran 'hotter', with 29% having ever used social media for a customer service enquiry.

Why didn't people use social media for these enquiries? The survey broke down the reasons as follows (multiple reasons allowed):

• 32% said it isn't personal, 
• 30% said they did not know that they could,
• 30% said they were concerned with security issues,
• 22% said they thought it would take longer than a phone call, and
• 20% said they did not think it would be a good experience. 

The research also looked at smartphone apps and their use in customer enquiries. Here the figures were even lower. Only 15% of Australian consumers had ever used a smartphone application for a customer enquiry (20% amongst Gen Y), and only 8% of consumers had used this channel in the last three months.

The reasons for not using apps were similar to social media:

• 41% said they did not know they could,
• 21% said they thought it would take longer than a phone call,
• 16% said they thought it would make the process slower to talk to a customer service representative,
• 15% said they did not think it would be a good experience, and 
• 13% said that they did not think it would be easy to use.

My immediate reaction was to say that, well, social media and smartphone apps are still very young and immature, both effectively five or less years old as mass communication and engagement channels. It takes time for organisations and customers to adopt their use for customer service.

However, other research suggests that this may not exactly be the case.

Fifth Quadrant’s 2012 Customer Service Industry Market Report (with 120 business participants) found that 69% of Australian based organisations had implemented social media and 23% had implemented smartphone apps for customer service. This is a small sample, but still statistically significant.

In other words, while 69% of organisations will accept customer service enquiries via social media, only 16% of Australians have used this approach and while 23% accept these enquiries via smartphone apps, only 15% of Australians have used these channels.

So if organisations are offering these channels, why do so few Australians use them?

More of Fifth Quadrant's research offers a clue...

How many times should a customer have to contact an organisation to resolve a customer service issue?

Fifth Quadrant reports that the level of 'first contact resolution' (where a customer only needs to contact an organisation once to have their query resolved) is much lower for social media or smartphone app than for phone contacts.

• Phone: 78% of queries handled in one contact
• Social media: 59%
• Smartphone app: 51%

In other words, 41% of people attempting to use social media and 49% of those using smartphone apps will have to contact the organisation multiple times (often resorting to phone) to resolve their query.

This significantly increases the cost of the interaction to the organisation and the customer and reduces customer satisfaction.

So what's the issue? Poor organisational implementation of social media and app channels.

Fifth Quadrant's Director, Dr Wallace said,

“There is no question that social media and mobile channels will be important in the next few years as the percentage of consumers who use these channels for customer service doubles year on year. Rather, it is a question of how effectively organisations address the supporting business processes and skill levels of social media customer service representatives.

The challenge for Australian business is that they typically do not consider Multi-channel Customer Experience as a strategy, hence these new channels lack integration, they do not have accurate revenue and cost models and there is poor data analytics. This has resulted in a sub-optimal channel deployment and as the research shows, ultimately, a sub-optimal customer experience.”

So let's go back to the reasons again...

• There was an awareness issue (social media: 30%; apps: 41%).
  Organisations need to integrate information about the ability to engage them through social media and apps in their promotion, packaging and engagement.
• There was a speed/perceived speed issue (social media: 22% (take longer); apps: 21% (take longer) and 16% (slower)).
  Organisations need to integrate these channels with their other customer contact points, building the protocols and processes to make it faster and easier to engage online than by phone.
• There was an experience/usability issue (social media: 30% (not personal), 20% (experience); apps: 15% (experience) and 13% (easy to use)).
  Organisations need to codesign their channels with customers, putting extensive work into the upfront experiential design to make them an easy to use service with a great user experience. The investment in design is more than offset by the long-term cost savings in moving people from high-cost phone to low cost online service channels.
• There was a security issue (social media 30%).
  Organisations need to take the same actions as ecommerce companies did to reduce this to a minimum, providing context, clear security measures and escalation and rectification mechanisms that assure users that they won't be disadvantaged by any security problems.

Overall, organisations need to run these channels as part of their customer service framework, not remotely via communication, marketing or IT teams.

Want to learn more about the research and report?

See Dr Wallace's blog, Your call.

And here are some of the key findings from Fifth Quadrant’s 2012 Customer Service Industry Market Report (n=120):

Social Media:

1. In Australia, the predominant share of the 22 million daily customer interactions handled by contact centres is still handled by live agents (52%). Despite industry increasing the implementation of social media as a customer service channel, Share of Contact Handling by Social Media channels is 0.2%
2. Amongst organisations that offer social media as a channel for customer service, 67% report that the marketing department is responsible for managing it.
3. 63% of organisations in the study have only had social media as a channel for customer service implemented for 1 to 2 years.
4. Amongst organisations that currently have social media as a customer service channel only 29% reported their contact centre has the ability to escalate a social media query through to a customer support application that links through to an agent.
5. Past three months usage of social media as a customer service channel has doubled in the past 12 months (4% 2011; 8% 2012).
6. The proportion of consumers who believe they will be using social media more often in the future has also nearly doubled from 4% in 2011 to 7% in 2012. 
7. When asked whether they had received a response from an organisation via a Social Media network to comments they had made through Social Media, only 7% of consumers reported that they had. About 5% of consumers claim to have received essential information posted via a Social Media network. 14% of consumers report they have received information from an organisation via social media about new products and services. 

Smartphone Apps:

1. Amongst organisations that offer smartphone apps as a channel for customer service 50% report that the marketing department is responsible for managing it, with a further 33% reporting that IT is responsible.
2. 50% have only had smartphone apps as a channel for customer service implemented for one to two years, with 33% reporting smartphone app has been available for less than 12 months. 
3. Amongst organisations that do not currently offer smartphone app as a channel for customer service, 25% report they have no plans to. 
4. Further to the existing 8% of consumers who have used a smartphone app for customer service, a further 33% of consumers report that they are likely to use a smartphone app for a customer service enquiry in the next 12 months. 
5. Amongst Gen Y consumers, 29% report that they will be using smartphone apps for customer service issues more often in the next 1-2 years. This is significantly higher compared to Baby Boomer (8%) and Silent (4%) generations.

2013 Having a website crash due to high traffic is a failure of management, not load

Today has provided an interesting lesson for several organisations, with the crash of both the David Jones and ClickFrenzy websites in Australia.

But first, some background.

ClickFrenzy is a new 24-hour sale for Australian online retailers starting from 7pm on Tuesday 20 November.

Based on the US 'Cyber Monday' sale, which now attracts over 10 million buyers, ClickFrenzy was designed to entice Australian online shoppers to buy from local online retailers by offering massive discounts on product prices for a short period of time.

The event was announced over a month before it was due to start and has been promoted through newspapers, online and in some retail stores, with the ClickFrenzy team expecting thousands of shoppers to log on, likening it to a "digital boxing day sale".

I've kept an eye on the ClickFrenzy site and signed up to receive an email alert when the sale began.

Just before the sale started I hopped back onto the ClickFrenzy site to see how it was going, and only saw a basic page of text, with no graphics or formatting. Puzzled I tried reloading - and the site wouldn't load at all.

That's when I hopped onto Twitter and learnt from the #clickfrenzy hashtag that the ClickFrenzy site had already crashed from the load and no-one had any idea when it would be back online.

This meant that the list of participating retailers (many of whom had been kept secret) was inaccessible. No shopper knew who had the specials, meaning few sales could occur. Of the retailers that were known to be participating, two-thirds of their sites crashed too (such as Priceline and Myers).

In competition with ClickFrenzy, David Jones had decided to run its own independent 24-hour sale over a similar time period. Their sale, named 'Christmas Frenzy', was to be run from their main website.

How did their launch go? Their site also crashed, and was down for several hours, taking down not only the shopping site but all their corporate information.


So we had two major online sales on the same day from Australian retails, and both experienced crashes due to the volume of traffic.

What was to blame? Both claimed the failure was due to unprecedented demand. So many people tried to get onto both sites that their servers could not cope (the same reason given for the mySchools website issues at launch in 2010 and the CFA website issues during the Victorian fires in 2009).

Let's unpick that reasoning.

The world wide web is twenty years old. Amazon.com is 18 years old. The US 'Cyber Monday' sale is six years old.

David Jones is an experienced retailer, with significant IT resources and has been operating an online store for some time. Their Christmas Frenzy sale was planned and well promoted.

Click Frenzy is being run by experienced retailers as well. They built an emailing list of people interested in the event and also widely promoted the sale. The retailers supporting them are large names and operate established online shopping sites as well.

In both cases the organisers had a wealth of experience to draw on. The growth of Amazon, the US Cyber Monday sales, their own website traffic figures and email list sign-ups, not to mention a host of public examples of how to manage web server load well, and badly, from media sites, social networks and even government sites (such as mySchools and CFA examples above).

There are many IT professionals with experience on how to manage rapid load changes on web servers.

There's scalable hosting solutions which respond almost instantly to fast-increasing loads, such as during an emergency or with breaking news, and 'scale up' the site to support much larger numbers of simultaneous users. (Though in the case of Christmas Frenzy and Click Frenzy a large increase in load was expected, rather than unexpected.)

There's even automated processes for testing how much load a website will be able to bear by simulating the impact of thousands or millions of visitors.

In other words, there's no longer any technical reason why any organisation should have their website fail due to expected or anticipated load.


Load is not a reason, it is a justification.

We have the experience, knowledge and technology to manage load changes.

What the Click Frenzy and Christmas Frenzy failures illustrate is that some organisations fail to plan for load. They haven't learnt from the experience of others, don't invest in the right infrastructure and may not even test their sites.

They are literally crossing their fingers and praying that their website won't crash.

A website crashing when it receives a high level of load that could be expected or planned for is crashing due to a failure of management.


The next time your agency's management asks you to build a website which is expected to have a big launch or large traffic spikes, ask them if they're prepared to invest the funds necessary for a scalable and tested website, built on the appropriate infrastructure to mitigate the risk of sudden large increases in traffic.

If they aren't then let them know to cross their fingers and pray - and that a website crash due to high traffic is a failure of management, not load.

You might even get a Downfall parody video to memorialise the failure - as Click Frenzy received within two hours of their launch crash.

Is Parliament House the peoples' house? Beth Noveck: Demand a more open-source government

Is Parliament House the peoples' house or the government's house?

This is one of the fundamental considerations within the open government movement. Does government exist to serve the public? Who participates in developing policy, creating laws and deciding what is best for citizens and communities?

Beth Noveck, in her TED Global presentation, Demand a more open-source government, poses a number of challenges to citizens and governments around the world to open up governance processes, involving citizens at every stage.

Brought to my attention by Andrew Krzmarzick of Govloop, Beth Noveck Delivers Terrific TED Talk on Open Government, Noveck's talk is the best I've seen on the topic this year.

There's also a great blog post about the presentation at the TED site, Demand a more open-source government: Beth Noveck at TEDGlobal 2012

I strongly recommend that you watch Noveck's talk and share it widely with your colleagues.

 

Mapping open data site generations

Over the last three years we've seen an increasing level of sophistication and capabilities in successive generations of open data sites.

To aid governments in their open data journey, I've mapped five generations for the progressive development of open data sites, detailed in the document below.

Please feel free to reuse the information within the bounds of the embedded Creative Commons license.

My next task is to release a view of open data sites around the world mapped against these generations to provide a view as to who is leading and who is lagging in the open data stakes.

Redesigning government: Does the terminology of government hold it back?

I had an interesting discussion last week with a colleague about the terminology of government.

We talk about politicians as moving the 'levers of power' and departmental restructures as 'machinery of government' (MOG) changes (sometimes used as a verb "we got mogged!")

Lack of progress in bureaucracy is called 'spinning wheels' (which often appears to be what's going on while officers are 'fine-tuning' policy), while government communications is often referred to simply as 'spin'.

So why are these machine-like industrial era metaphors still used to apply to government?

Yes, that's right - industrial era. The term 'machinery of government' is thought to originate from 1861 with John Stuart Mill in Considerations on Representative Government - who argues against the tendency to consider government as a controllable, predictable machine.

I've previously written of the difficulties inherent for a government, structured under 19th Century principles, attempting to use 20th Century technologies to govern in a 21st Century world.

in this respect, if governments are seeking to move forward, surely they need to consider the terminology they use as well.

Let's use the example of another industry, medicine. From the 16th Century doctors began to think of humans and animals as complex machines, first clockwork and then, from the 19th Century, as a powered machine, the heart as a pump, stomach as a factory (with food the fuel), nerves as wires and joints as pistons.

Through the 20th Century this view became more sophisticated as we built a better understanding of how the body operated. New post-industrial technology paradigms were used to help conceptualise and communicate this understanding. The brain was considered as a computer, the nerves as a network and with our face and limbs the 'peripherals' that allowed us to interface with the outside world.

Each paradigm helped the doctors of the time to build a conceptual framework on which to view and understand the body and address its ills. Each was a partial model of what was really occurring, but was sufficient (based on the knowledge at the time) to provide a foundation for decision-making and treatment.

Government is still using industrial era terms and concepts, 150 years after Mill's book.

Our understanding of government and society has changed. our technology has changed. The outcomes that government is expected to deliver has changed.

Does industrial-era terminology still provide the right models for government? Are politicians still 'pulling the levers of power', or negotiating equitable solutions in partnership with other organisations and communities?

Should departmental changes be considered 'machinery' - moving parts from one department to another,  like moving parts from one machine to another, or considered within a context of matrix governance, where departments do not exist and public officials work across silos and functional in ad hoc teams to meet specific objectives and goals?

Can we conceptualise a 21st Century model of government using 19th Century terminology, or do the words, and the shape they lead our thoughts into, limit government to outdated modes?

To use a final industrial-era phrase, how do we 'break the mould' for government, unleashing new forms of governance that suit modern society?

What modern day terminology should and could we use to reshape our own models of government and describe a new collaborative, open, governance web suited to modern day society?

Public Sector Design - Design & Thinking Screening

Heard about design and design thinking but not sure what it is or what it has to do with the work of the public service?

Interested in design but want to know more? Want to meet others interested in design in the public sector?

I've just learnt about a great upcoming event that is being hosted by the Australian Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Design and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

It's the screening of a new film about design - 'Design & Thinking' - to be held on 20 September from 5:15pm and followed by drinks and nibblies.

To learn more go to: http://publicsectordesign.eventbrite.com.au/

About the film

"Design Thinking was applied as a term and methodology by a design firm in 2008.

It was received as a tool to solve every problem, from daily life decisions to business challenges to world hunger problems.

Attention and debates followed; some insisted on design education in all K-12 schools, some declared it is just marketing tool for that firm, some hoped it would turn his company into Apple. Some said it's nothing new, just a new packaging of how creative people do things.

How do we fully engage organizations to think about the changing landscape of business, culture and society? Inspired by design thinking, this documentary grabs businessman, designers, social change-makers and unlikely individuals to portray what they have in common when facing this ambiguous 21st century.

What is design thinking?
How is it applied in business models?
How are people changing the world with their own creative minds?

It is a call to the conventional minds to change and collaborate."

Australia's first 3rd Generation open data site - from the ACT

The ACT government today announced the soft-launch of their new open data site,  dataACT, through their equally new  Government Information Office blog.

In my view this is now the best government open data site in Australia.

What makes it the best?

• Data is available in a range of common reusable formats - from JSON and RDF through RSS and XML - as well as CSV and XLS for spreadsheet users.
• Visualisation tools are built into the site, so data is not only useful to data scientists and programmers, but to the broader public who can chart and map it without having to leave the site.
• The built-in embed tool allows people to take the data and rapidly include it in their own site without any programming knowledge.
• Users can reorder the columns and filter the information in the site - again without having to export it first, and
• discussions are built into every dataset by default.

It follows a 'generational' path for open data I've been talking about for awhile.

Most open data sites start as random collections of whatever data that agencies feel they can release as a 'quick win', to meet a government openness directive. They then progressing through more structured sites with rigour and organisation, but still only data, through to data and visualisation sites which support broader usage by the general community and finally into what I term 'data community sites', which become collaborative efforts with citizens.

In my view dataACT has skipped straight to a 3rd Generation data site at a time when other governments across Australia are struggling with 1st or 2nd Generation sites.

Well done ACT!

Now who will be the first government in Australia to get to a 4th Generation site!

Read on for my view of the generations of open data sites:

1st Generation: Data index

• Contains or links to 'random' datasets, being those that agencies can release publicly quickly. 
• Data is released in whatever format the data was held in (PDF, CSV, etc) and is not reformatted to web standards (JSON, RDF, etc).
• Some datasets are released under custom or restrictive licenses.
• Limited or no ability to discuss or rate datasets
• Ability to 'request datasets', but with no response process or common workflow

2nd Generation:  Structured data index

• Some thought regarding selective datasets, but largely 'random'
• More standardisation of data formats to be reusable online
• More standardisation of data licenses to permit consistent reuse
• Tagging and commenting supported (as in a blog for the site), with limited interaction by site management
• Workflows introduced for dataset requests, with agencies required to respond as to when they will release, or why they will not release, data
• Ability to list websites, services and mobile apps created using data

3rd Generation: Standardised data index

• Standardisation of data formats with at least manual conversion of data between common standard formats 
• Standardisation of data licenses to permit consistent reuse
• Tagging and commenting supported, with active interaction by site management
• Data request workflows largely automated and integrated with FOI processes
• Ability to filter, sort and visualise data within the site to broaden usage to non-technical citizens
• Ability to embed data and visualisations from site in other sites
• Ability to list, rate and comment on websites, services and mobile apps created using data

4th Generation: Data community

• Strategic co-ordinated release of data by agencies to provide segment-specific data pictures of specific topics or locations
• Standardisation of data formats with automatic conversion of data between common standard formats
• Standardised data licenses
• Tagging, commenting and data rating supported, with active interaction by site management and data holding agencies
• Data request workflows fully automated and integrated with FOI processes with transparent workflows in the site showing what stage the data release is up to - (data requested, communicated to agency, considered by agency, approved for release, being cleaned/formatted, legal clearances checked, released/refused release)
• Support for data correction and conversion by the public
• Support for upload of citizen and private enterprise datasets
• Ability to filter, sort and visualise data, including mashing up discrete datasets within the site to broaden usage to non-technical citizens
• Ability to request data visualisations as a data request
• Supports collaboration between hackers to co-develop websites, services and mobile apps using data
• Integrates the capability to run hack events - potentially on a more frequent basis (form/enter teams/submit hack proposals/submit hacks/public and internal voting/Winner promotion)

5th Generation: Integrated data platform

• A common platform for all national, state and local data, with the capabilities for each jurisdiction to make use of all Generation 4 features.
• Integrated mapping environment for all levels of government, enabled with all available open data.

Chrome beats Internet Explore in browser stakes

There was surprising news from StatCounter earlier this month when Chrome topped Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser for the week of 14-20 May.

Sourced from CNET: Chrome now world's top browser, but beware the math

While this is only one of the services reporting browser use, represents only one week and is a global figure - so may not represent the situation in specific countries (such as Australia) - it is indicative of the changes underway in the web browsing habits of people around the world.

All major international reports on web browser usage have reported that Internet Explorer has been on a downward slide for several years, with Chrome or Safari picking up most of the market share shift and Firefox and Opera being limited beneficiaries.

While this reflects the growth of mobile browsing (Apple iOS uses Safari, Android devices use Chrome), it also represents a significant change in desktop and laptop computer use.

While corporate and government organisations remain major uses of Internet Explorer due to its lead in corporate management features (though Firefox and Chrome have moved to match these), households are choosing their main web browser based on speed, usability and usefulness.

Reliable Australian web browsing figures are harder to find - it would be very useful if organisations such as Google or Facebook (the top sites visited by Australians) released their figures.

However I can say that, from Microsoft's figures, Internet Explorer 6 use in Australia has fallen to 1.2% of the browsing public. This is a GOOD THING as IE6 is an 11 year old vendor-unsupported, insecure and standards non-compliant web browser, unsupported by many major websites and which adds, in my experience, 20-30% on the costs of any web development project.

I should note that Microsoft is trying to end the use of Internet Explorer 6 and has even begun taken steps to automatically upgrade people to more modern versions (beginning with Australia and Brazil).

You can learn more about Microsoft's campaign to end IE6 at their website, The IE6 Countdown.

Sorry if you are one of the remaining organisations using IE6, however my FOI request on web browsing and social media use across government has revealed that largely agencies have made or are making the move to upgrade.

From the now 65 responses I've been able to analyse, only 7 (11%) indicated they still used IE6 on desktop computers. While this is quite a bit higher than the national rate (1.2%), it is much smaller than I had anticipated. Of course if this includes large agencies the percentage of APS staff using IE6 may be significantly higher.

I've provided a breakdown below of the browsers that government agencies indicated they used.

Notes and caveats

• this represents 65 agencies, large and small, of 166 approached - so is representative but not population data
• many agencies used more than one web browser, so the figures don't add up to 65. 
• I've excluded browsers that no agency indicated they used (and I asked about all major browsers back to the time of Internet Explorer 6's release). 
• I forgot to ask about the use of Blackberry's browser on mobile phones - essentially every agency using Blackberries use this browser.

Intranet Innovation Awards 2012 open for entries

Step Two's annual global Intranet Innovation Awards for 2012 are now open for entry until 31 May 2012.

If you've done something extraordinary with your intranet this is a great way to get your organisation recognised for this work and share your idea with others across the intranet space.

The awards aren't just for entire intranets - you can simply enter a particular feature or tool - and you don't need to be a big organisation to necessarily win, many smaller organisations have done well where they've been agile and innovative.

For more information and to enter, visit http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/the-2012-intranet-innovation-awards-are-now-open-for-entries/

Victorian government launches consultation blog for a new Vic.gov.au site

The Victorian government has launched a blog asking users for their ideas on how to improve the vic.gov.au website as it goes through a redevelopment.

The /blog states that the aim of the redevelopment is to provide:

• an appealing new branding and identity for the www.vic.gov.au website 
•  a new and usable look and feel 
• a more modern and relevant site to visitors 
• an easier way to find information (improved search and a clear starting point and navigation options) 
• more dynamic content 

So far the blog has attracted 14 comments on its (so far) three posts - with several being comments from the blog team responding to user feedback.

Alongside the blog it is also possible to rate vic.gov.au at the Victoria Online Customer Satisfaction survey.

ACBI Broadband Apps Day 2012 in Sydney

I've just been let know that the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation (ACBI) is hosting a Broadband Apps Day at Australian Technology Park in Sydney on Friday 27 April.

As their summary about the event states, Apps - simple, useful applications that run on smart phones and tablets - are becoming increasingly popular, but where are the apps for next generation broadband in Australia?

Australian developers have produced many globally successful apps, such as Fruit Ninja and Flight Control. These have helped create an export market for many smaller companies such as Half Brick, Firemint and Traction Games.

  ACBI are holding this seminar to create a bridge between the technology sector, developers and the users of future broadband apps and, through this, help the public gain greater understanding of the potential value of broadband.

  What: ACBI Broadband Apps Day
When: 27 April 2012
Where: Australian Technology Park, Sydney.
Cost: Free

  Register online at: http://broadbandappsday.eventbrite.com.au

  ACBI is a partnership between CSIRO, the NSW Government, NICTA and NBN Co, and you can follow them on Twitter at: @Apps4Broadband