Gov Web2.0 showcase

Red Cross MidWest Flooding

Using Wordpress.com, Flickr, Youtube and Twitter to keep the information flowing

My experience with NFP organisations, particularly the larger ones is that they are conservative in their approach to almost everything including new technology. So I was very surprised when I got pointed to the American Red Cross MidWest Flooding Online Newsroom thanks to Rex Hammock.

Somebody inside the American Red Cross has got it right, using of Wordpress.com, Youtube, Flickr and even Twitter to create a quick, low cost and effective way to get across information to the world about the impact of the recent flooding in the Mid West US and the American Red Cross’s role in providing relief.

A lesson for anybody who needs to create an effective communication tool, quickly and on a tiny budget.

transperth.wa.gov.au

There is one government agency in Western Australia who is being innovative. Their web site is very ordinary, their trip planner is clunky and do not try to download timetables. However, it is outside their website where their innovation lives.

First there is their partnership with Google Maps to provide Western Australian public transport information to Google Transit. The results is what the Transperth trip planner should be, simple, easy to use and effective. My understanding is the partnership started to provide a public transport option on Google Maps. So that if you ask Google Maps for direction, you get a button offering public transport.

I have used it a numbers of times and it has just worked. Unfortunately it is not perfect, if you are travelling on the North South rail line. Google Transit states you need get of the train at Perth Underground station and wait for the next train, instead of staying on the current train. Also there is no guarantee that the information is up to date, Google only uploads the data from Transperth every week and updates the Transit data less frequently.

The big surprise is that Transperth is not promoting the service, the answer is a mix of it shows up their own journey planner and the imperfections with the services. I am sure working with Google the imperfections could be resolved, minor changes to the format of the timetables uploaded to Google Transit and arranging urgent uploads when major timetable changes occur. It is just such a good service that needs to be promoted and used.

Another service that also has not been promoted is the new Transperth mobile site 136213.mobi. Launched about a month ago, it provides useful functionality to mobile users. Sitting at a bus stop wondering when the next bus wil arrive, point your browser at 136213.mobi, select the first option, put in your bus stop number and you get the time of the next few buses due past your stop.

In the near future, Transperth will be launching an SMS gateway. Which will suddenly make sense of the numeric .mobi URL.

Future Melbourne

The City of Melbourne is using a wiki to consult with their stakeholders about the direction the city should take for future, to 2020 and beyond.

The wiki is only one tool in consultation process, but I am very interested in seeing the direction this will take. Seeing this is first time a wiki has been used for this level of consultation as far as I know in Australia.

If it is successful and I expect it should be. I hope other Governments in Australia, on all levels, local, state and federal will look at using wikis or similar tools to provide non traditional methods of consultation.

NZ’s Identity Verification Service

I find it hard to believe the UN ranking New Zealand 10 spots below Australia (18th and 8th respectively) in their e-government readiness rankings.

New Zealand are doing some of the most innovate work in the world in e-government, just look at the Police Act wiki. The latest challenge taken on by NZ is their All-of-government Authentication Programme. The Identity Verification Service (IVS) is a federated identity system that citizens can use to interact with all government agencies on the web.

While there are people concerned about the privacy issues, a single identity makes data matching easier. I will assume that the current safeguards about data matching will cover any new system and that the only data that will be available to agencies is the identity and possibly contact details (address, phone number, email etc.).

The advantages to both government agencies and individuals are considerable. An individual will only have to prove their identity to one government agency to be able to interact will all government agencies online, without having to prove your identity and all that entails to each agency. For government agencies there will be some work to modify existing system to deal with the new identity system. But all future systems, will only have to deal with a single system, with the development (including costs) spread over a large number of agencies. The big plus is that the agencies will not have to create and authorise identities for all their customers, as process will be shared across all agencies.

If I was on the east coast of Australia I would be looking at going to the Managing Identity in New Zealand: Conference 08, even though I do not expect anything similar in Australia soon, due to the extra level of federal, state and local government here.

aka Spook 2.0

A wiki that covers a over a dozen different agency, with over 35,000 articles, 200,000 pages, 37,000 users, 100 new articles and 4,000 edits a day is pretty impressive. Especially when you find out the agencies involved are intelligence agencies who had reputation for being less than willing to share their information. It has to be said this is a very successful wiki implementation.

As access is restricted, due to the nature of the wiki you need to search from information about Intellipedia, from CIA press release and off course the Intellipedia Wikipedia entry. I would recommend reading both and looking for more information of the web on how Intellipedia became so successful. Because if you every need a good example of a cross agency wiki working, Intellipedia is it.

Finally a WA Gov blog?

Well not quite, it is a blog complete with comments, but it is not strictly from a WA State Government Agency. Bentley technology precinct is combined efforts of the WA Department of Industry and Resources, two local governments, the City of South Perth and the Town of Victoria Park and Curtin University of Technology.

The aim to promote the Bentley technology precinct as a centre for ICT development in WA and the region. And what better way than using a blog. A few cynics will say a blog is passe but it is far better than 10Mb PDF newsletters (which you can download from the site).

Seriously, this is an attempt to engage the community and hopefully it will become a good tool and an example to WA State Government agencies that blogs can be effective two way communication devices.

aka living on the wrong side of Oz

Sometimes I am just stuck on the wrong side of Australia, Ruth Ellison just posted some excellent upcoming events and I am only a little jealous, particularly:

Canberra Web Standard Group

Canberra Web Standards Group is happening tomorrow! We have two interesting topics covering GovDex: a tool to support collaboration across government agencies, and Wikis at work and it’s FREE.

More information and registration can be done at
http://webstandardsgroup.org/meetings/index.cfm?event_id=150

IA Cocktail Hour

Another free event for the Information Architects (IA) community and those interested in this space. This will be held tomorrow straight after Web Standards Group meeting.

More information can be found at
http://iacanberra.org/2008/03/26/ia-cocktail-hour-27-march-2008/

I might be a little late posting them here, they are already underway right now.But if you are in Canberra, you should pay attention to the Web Standards Group and IA Canberra sites or Ruth’s blog. These are great opportunities to learn and network.

The report itself is an old school 3.5Mb PDF, it is the contents that are more interesting. In compiling the report, the authors reviewed 618 websites, covering every single House and Senate Member, committee, and leadership websites of the United States Congress.

It is the trends that it reported that make it an interesting read, of the 618 websites:

• 25% offered RSS feeds,
• 56% offered video,
• 11% offered podcasts.

These are fairly interesting statistics given that the websites are not centrally managed, with most managed by staff of the individual Congressman or Senator. It also shows that American politicians are far more internet savy than their Australian counterparts. The web is used as a tool to communicate with their constituents, unlike Australia where with the exception of Andrew Barlett, politicians see it as a repository of media releases, policy statements and videos (both polictical and embrassing, no wonder they want to make the internet safe for children.

My next task is to have a look at the 4 sites, that have consistently earned gold stars for the last 4 reports.

The aim of this site is to showcase government web2.0 sites, but in this case I will make an exception because the 2020 Summit community site shows what can be done quickly and on a nonexistent budget.

On Monday morning there was a conversation on twitter between Laurel Papworth and Stephen Collins about the need to get people who understand the web into the 1000 attendees at the 2020 Summit. Within an hour 2020summit.org was created by Stephen and live.

Even if you are not interested in the 2020 Summit (and you should be), it is interesting to watch the web site evolve and see how the talented people behind the site engage the community. A lesson for anybody interested in building a site to engage a community.

The National Public Toilet Map

The National Public Toilet Map just seems to be one of those off the wall ideas, lets build a website that helps people find public toilets. Most people would of thought it was a crazy idea, but somebody had the gumption to stick to their guns and this website was created. There are a number of people that would really find this website useful and it is good for raising awareness of the National Continence Management Strategy. I was just surprised I did not know how many and the location of public toilet near my office.

So is it Web 2.0 ;-), well it has a the trip planner and you can create your My Toilet Map. It makes good use of maps. Though I find Where Is a little clunky compared to Google Maps in my opinion, but it does the job.

Add user ratings and comments and you would have a fully fledged Web2.0 app. Still this was a surprising find, I never expect to find such a well developed web app from a government site on a low key but important

Hat tip to the Questacon blog