Cambridge, Maryland recently played host to a panel discussion involving the United States, the U.K., New Zealand and Canada (at the Interagency Resources Management Conference) , countries that it should be apparent from reading this blog, are all leading the way in the adoption of new technologies in improving government and enabling e-democracy.
From the FCW article
“It is Government 2.0, not ‘Web 2.0,’” said John Sullivan, the United Kingdom’s chief information officer, at the conference
The reason to make the distinction, is that the collection of tools that people think of as being part of the Web 2.0 family are tools, he said. Government 2.0 is a business approach revolving around the idea of opening the workings of government more directly to citizen involvement and input. How a government organization accomplishes that might or might not involve Web 2.0 technologies, he said.
All of the countries involved in the discussion have taken significant steps. In the U.K., citizens have the right to petition the prime minister’s office on any issue, Suffolk said. Now they can do it online. In New Zealand, the government created a wiki so that citizens could offer their opinions on the rewriting of a longstanding law, said Laurence Millar, New Zealand’s CIO.
The wiki drew much larger response than earlier efforts to solicit comments on social networks Facebook and MySpace, he added. The ability to build directly on what others have said seemed to make the difference.
Karen Evans, administrator of e-government and information technology at the Office of Management and Budget, said the overriding goal of Government 2.0 should be “taking government back to the citizens.”
However, there remain some difficult issues, Millar said. One is the trend toward incivility among Internet posters. Shielded by the anonymity of an alias, some people choose to launch profane personal attacks rather than contribute to reasoned debate.
“You can get some fairly vicious comments made,” he said. “We’re seeing maturity on some sites, but we’re still seeing a lot of the infantile invective that bedevils us.”
The New Zealand Government have just released their Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 the consultation period runs from April 14 to May 12 2008 at www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz There is also a wiki at this site which invites public collaboration on the strategy. http://wiki.digitalstrategy.govt.nz
Here are some excerpts from the draft:
“In the few years since the 2005 Digital Strategy, we have seen changes in the ways people communicate, interact, do business and experience their histories and cultures,” the draft strategy says.
“Today’s digital technologies are enabling new expressions of New Zealanders’ sense of identity and community on screen and online. New business models are emerging, disrupting the old. Citizen-centred transactions have the potential to transform government. Smart digital technologies are enabling us to do things faster but with fewer resources.”
The Strategy focuses on issues such as the emerging net-generation, the read-write web, digital broadcasting, digital culture,and legal issues.
(I note also that the public consulation wiki is using Screw Turn wiki which is the wiki solution we have decided to use here in Ireland for our own public consultation wiki- coming soon.)
Here is an outline of the NZ Digital strategy from the strategy website:
Vision Creating Our Digital Future
New Zealand will be a world leader in using information and technology to realise its economic, social, environmental, and cultural goals, to the benefit of all its people.
The Digital Strategy is about how we will create a digital future for all New Zealanders, using the power of information and communications technology (ICT).
The Digital Strategy was launched on 16 May 2005 and is made up of three key enablers.
Find out more about the sections of the Digital Strategy Content
Information made available through digital networks. “Information” is a broad concept that encompasses national heritage collections, government information, Māori language resources, research databases, traditional cultural products such as literature and history and new cultural products from the creative industries and entertainment, as well as relationships that can be conducted through online facilities (e.g. e-learning, online GST returns or Internet banking). The term also includes the information generated by government, businesses and community organisations. Confidence
Developing the necessary skills at all ages, in all parts of society, to use and participate in ICT effectively. Such skills include functional and digital literacy and the ability to take part in an interactive electronic environment. Confidence also encompasses the dimension of trust in using ICT and addressing the challenges that may slow ICT uptake such as spam and electronic crime. Connection
Affordable access to viable ICT infrastructure such as telecommunications networks, computers, mobile phones and other devices.
The Digital Strategy is about considering these three components together. Content provides the reason, confidence provides the skills and trust, and being connected provides the means. The Digital Strategy also recognises that businesses will have different drivers and needs from those of Government and wider Community groups. Our evolving Action Plan takes these differences into account.
Just thought I would draw attention to New Zealand’s E-Government Website http://www.e.govt.nz/
The site is a resource for government agency people in New Zealand who need up-to-date, easily accessible and authoritative e-government information & resources to assist them to achieve their agency’s e-government goals.
The e-government goals:
By 2007, information and communication technologies will be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes.
By 2010, the operation of government will be transformed as government agencies and their partners use technology to provide user-centred information and services and achieve joint outcomes.
By 2020, people’s engagement with the government will have been transformed, as increasing and innovative use is made of the opportunities offered by network technologies.
The Public Sector Intranet (psi.govt.nz) aims to provide a single point, accessible by all public servants, where they can share information with their colleagues. It makes it easy for people to find information they need for their work, and make contacts in other agencies. It enables a sense of community, shared interests, and cross-agency cooperation.
The Public Sector Intranet (PSI) is provided by the NZ State Services Commission. The Commission launched PSI as a full production system in mid-June 2006.
The homepage lists some outline information about the Public Sector Intranet:
Why do we need PSI?
To achieve shared outcomes and work across agency boundaries, we need tools which support cross-agency work. We can all use PSI to gather together useful information across agency boundaries.
Benefits of the PSI
We can organise and share information and resources for our colleagues to reuse, reducing duplication of effort and promoting collaboration. We can share good practice and specialised services designed for cross-agency use. We can find and access our online-communities and locate useful contacts.
There is no charge for joining or using the PSI.
What will be on it?
Information you can expect to access through PSI:
news and links relevant to all agencies
toolkits and good practice
online communities and cross-agency projects.
How can my agency join?
Most public service agencies, non-public service departments and Offices of Parliament have already joined
State sector agencies that are interested in using PSI, are invited to contact the PSI Team.
The NZ ‘E-Government’ Strategy seems to have been recently expanded into an overall ‘Digital Strategy’ involving a large degree of public consultation
The Digital Strategy is about creating a digital future for all New Zealanders, using the power of information and communications technology (ICT) to enhance all aspects of our lives. It is an action plan for ensuring New Zealand is a world leader in using information and technology to realise our economic, environmental, social and cultural goals, more on the digital strategy…
It seems to me that New Zealand may be leading the way in developing an approach to formulating Government Technology strategy. Hopefully a few of the powers that be in Ireland are paying some attention…
Video of Tara Hunt Presenting her talk on Government 2.0 “Architecting for Collaboration” (May 26th 2007) to some New Zealand Government officials and staff at GOVIS and here also are the accompanying slides (hosted on slideshare.net). Its an excellent and inspiring presentation on Government as a platform, discussing 2.0 technologies and their role in enabling engaged citizens to collaborate with government organisations in decision making and progressing government in this new web 2.0 era, the main themes are openness, collaboration and community.
Here also is another excellent presentation from Tara called “Government Next” also available on slideshare.net. I highly recommend anyone who is working in IT in government or is interested in IT and government to watch these presentations. Tara has collected a lot of thought from various sources in addition to her own insights she is obviously influenced by Tapscott and Williams book ‘Wikinomics‘ and Chris Anderson’s book ‘The Long Tail’. She also covers Microformats, wikis and a number of other Web 2.0 technologies. Essentially encouraging government organisations to serve as a platform for the development of business and industry. She calls for governments to open APIs to their data and enable businesses to build new services on top of this data, to enable corporate mashups and perhaps to imagine and deliver new services that the government organisations might never have foreseen. Here are two examples of citizen created ‘mashups’ : Chicagocrime.org and the Irish Dartmaps, although in the case of Dartmaps at least, its creator had to ’scrape’ the data from a government website instead of connecting to a useful government created API.
Overall the case for government organisations opening their public datasets to their citizens and industries using open APIs seems a strong one, and after all, it is the public’s data in any case.
Finally here is the video ‘Day of the Long Tail ‘ which is referred to and presented during Tara’s architecting for collaboration presentation listed and linked above..
