I was invited by the Ark Group to present at their Web 2.0 for Business seminar on how the State Library was using Web 2.0 applications. The presentation before mine was from the Office of Crime Prevention, which is part of the WA Police Department on their use of Facebook for School Leavers week. They have been using Facebook since 2005 to promote their stay safe and look after your mates messages as well their events. All very low key and well target, that is why most people over 21 knew nothing about them but from all accounts very effective.

Unfortunately, the school leavers site is undergoing major revision and the facebook presence for 2009 has not been launched. So like me you will have to check back in September or October.

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.

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.