Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce Final Report

The Australian Federal Government released the final report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce on 22 December 2009.

Web 2.0: The New Tools for Democratic Conversations – A snapshot of Initiatives in Government

This paper provides an overview of developments in the use of interactive online communications described as Web 2.0 and when applied in government, better known as Government 2.0.

Government 2.0 Action Plan - Victoria

The Victorian Government 2.0 action plan involves direct citizen engagement in conversations about government services and public policy through open access to public sector information and web 2.0 technologies. It also enables collaborative working which is both open and engaging.

Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce Draft Report

The Taskforce has released its draft report. Comments are due by 16 December 2009. The invitation to "engage" is both a call to action and affirmation of the vision towards which that action leads. This is the promise of Government 2.0. "Engagement" is what Government 2.0 is all about.

Country Fire Authority wins 2012 Government 2.0 Award

The Excellence in eGovernment Awards were announced at CeBIT Australia, in Sydney, on Wednesday 23 May 2012. The Governnent 2.0 award was won by the Country Fire Authority Victoria in collaboration with other Victorian fire and flood services for their Social Media Emergency Management Integration.

Dynamic Technologies for Smarter Government - Unlocking Knowledge in the Web 2.0 Age

Web 2.0 or Gov 2.0 technologies, based on social networking and online interaction and collaboration, have the potential to break-down information silos, improve decision-making processes and encourage collaboration.

Elizabeth Losh - If You Can't Control the Data, Consider the Message

Paper presented by Elizabeth Losh, Writing Director of the Humanities Core Course at U.C. Irvine, at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC on Tuesday 25 May 2010.

Getting Under the Skin of Government 2.0 - Issues, Insights and Implications

Presentation to the New Media Group, Victorian Government, Melbourne, March 2010, by Martin Stewart-Weeks, Director, Public Sector (Asia-Pacific), Internet Business Solutions Group.

Google Trends - eGovernment, e-Government, Open Government, Government Data, Government 2.0

Google Trends and Google Insights for Search are now one service. Below is a comparison of the interest in egovernment, e-government, open government, government data and government 2.0 as depicted in searches on Google from 1 January 2007 until September 2012.

Gov 2.0 Summit 2010: Ellen Miller - Open Government Scorecard

Paper presented by Ellen Miller, The Sunlight Foundation to the Government 2.0 Summit in Washington DC on September 7, 2010.

Gov 2.0 Toolbox: Glossary of Applications

Definitions of terms used by practitioners in the government 2.0 sphere.

Government 2.0 - Getting started in the social web

Paper presented to: Participating in the Social Web: Government 2.0 Government Web 2.0 conference, Ottawa Ontario November 17, 2009, by Tamera Kremer / Partner, Strategic Consulting, Teehan+Lax. Provides a Government 2.0 primer on using social media to engage with citizens.

Government 2.0 - Google Insights for Search

This graph provides an indication of the level of interest in government 2.0, as presented by the volume of searches using the Google search engine.

Government 2.0 Action Plan: Background Research

For the Victorian Public Service - VPS, Gov 2.0 is the next development in an expansion in Victoria's online government presence and investment in e-Government since the 1990s. The use of this new media by government sits alongside and complements existing practices and VPS Hub which provides a WoVG platform and online space to collaborate across the VPS. This report documents the research and development of the Government 2.0 Action Plan launched on 12 August 2010.

Government 2.0 Report Card

Presentation by Darren Whitelaw - Smart Government Australia 2011 conference, Tuesday 6 September 2011. There's been plenty of open government initiatives in Australia in the six years since the phrase Government 2.0 was first coined. This presentation looks at the importance of Gov2.0, scores performance within Australia, and identifies some great examples and ideas.

Jack Dangermond - GeoEnabling Gov 2.0

Paper presented by Jack Dangermond from ESRI at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC on Thursday 27 May 2010.

Kate Lundy - The Path to Open Government: The Pillars of Gov 2.0

Paper presented by Australian Senator Kate Lundy at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC on Wednesday 26 May 2010 which discusses the three pillars of Gov 2.0: democratising data, citizen-centric services and participatory democracy.

Local Government 2.0 - Current practice and development opportunities

Social media in Local Government a few examples - and ways ahead

Opportunities and risks associated with Gov 2.0 information sharing arrangements

by Andrew Schatz, Australian Government Solicitors Office Adelaide and Justin Davidson, Australian Government Solicitors Office Canberra. Paper presented to the CeBIT Australia Government 2.0 Conference, November 2010. Topics covered include: Gov 2.0 information sharing opportunities, Fragmentation in information management, FOI and privacy laws, Archives / document retention laws, Secrecy and confidentiality issues, Other legal issues, Risk mitigation strategies, Enforceability of electronic contracts, Guidelines for enforceable eContracts.

Redefining Public/Private Partnerships

Paper presented by Nicholas Gruen to the Gov 2.0 Summit, Washington DC, September 7-8, 2010. Nicholas discusses the concept of a new 'economics of abundance in which public goods are privately provided. He puts forward the point that Government 2.0 means nothing less than a new relationship between the public and private sector to achieve common goals.

Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0: Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce

Government 2.0 Taskforce, December 2009. "Government 2.0 or the use of the new collaborative tools and approaches of Web 2.0 offers an unprecedented opportunity to achieve more open, accountable, responsive and efficient government. Though it involves new technology, Government 2.0 is really about a new approach to organising and governing. It will draw people into a closer and more collaborative relationship with their government. Australia has an opportunity to resume its leadership in seizing these opportunities and capturing the resulting social and economic benefits..."

We Must Run Government IT Like A Startup

by Jonathan Feldman. Information Week - Government, January 22, 2013. "Government 2.0 is about more than social media. It requires throwing out outdated processes and adopting new models of success... Governments -- slow, lumbering and unresponsive -- must adopt a startup culture. Old way: command and control. New way: decentralized collaboration on shared goals. Political factors and life in a fish bowl discourage government staffers from engaging in experiments with any risk. After all, if their experiments don't work out, they'll be derided for spending taxpayer money on a boondoggle, a potential career limiter..."

Social media and Gov 1.5

by Jeffrey Roy, Canadian Government Executive, Vol. #18 Issue #10, Thursday, December 20, 2012. "As governments seek transformational change to shift from austerity to agility, there is much enthusiasm for social media as a platform for renewal. Yet despite lofty objectives and genuine experimentation, any objective assessment of social media’s public sector impacts thus far would be decidedly mixed. We’ve arrived at a place described by one leading Danish e-government expert, Jeremy Millard, as "Gov 1.5." What explains the limited progress? Traditional government and democracy have long been predicated on stability and methodical structures, resulting in a pace of change intentionally more guarded than in the marketplace. Moreover, historical research on information technology tells us that those with power tend to utilize IT in efforts to reinforce and expand that power, rather than relinquish or share it. Both factors explain how social media has come to be embraced primarily as a communications medium rather than a participative platform..."

How Asia is taking the Gov 2.0 lead and Australia needs to look north for inspiration

eGov AU - Craig Thomler's professional blog - eGovernment and Gov 2.0 thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective, Friday, November 9, 2012. "Over the last few days in Singapore I've had the opportunity to have some very interesting discussions with government and academic representatives about the state of egovernance and Government 2.0 across Asia - perspectives we all too rarely hear in Australia. This is a major shame for government officials in Australia, who are not exposed as regularly to the fantastic insights and practices from countries that are, in some areas, leading Australia in their online engagement..."

Gov 2.0 in the Continuing Evolution of Connected Government

Gov 2.0 Radio, Posted by G2R on October 25, 2012. "In a special live recording of a session at CeBIT Gov 2.0 Conference in Australia's capital city Canberra, facilitator John Wells leads an interactive discussion with a panel featuring: Zachary Tumin, Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Deirdre O’Donnell, Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner NSW; Martin Stewart-Weeks, Director, Public Sector Consulting APAC, Cisco...."

Listen to internet radio with Gov20Radio on Blog Talk Radio

'Government 2.0' and 'Citizen 2.0'

Campaign for Stronger Democracy, May 22, 2012. "Judy Grundstrom recently gave a presentation at Ignite Minneapolis (similar to TED Talks) on the government and social media. She asks whether 'government 2.0' is ready for 'citizen 2.0.' While government agencies (and large companies, for that matter) are getting better at pushing out information on the web, only a few actually interact with those who respond to them on social media..."

Papers presented to the Creating Open Government Conference 20-22 August, 2012 - Sydney

Hosted by the NSW Information and Privacy Commission, the conference aimed to encourage discussion and debate around ways to improve transparency and promote confidence in government by increasing access to government information. Contents include: Is Integrated Government possible? The Forsskal Oration; Accountability - How open government is accountable government; Access - The ROI of access to government information; Engagement - working with citizens for better services; Enabling Tomorrow's Open Government; 9 Steps Social Media Strategy; 8 Ways to Deal with Negative Social Media; Mobile Apps - When, How and Why? Advancing privacy in your agency; A Guide to Making Privacy Management Plans; Privacy Management Plan assessment checklist for agencies; Advancing privacy in your agency – participant manual...

Service design for public sector: questions before answers

by Gov20Radio. BlogTalkRadio, Friday, August 3, 2012. "The emerging discipline of service design is playing an increasingly important role in the public sector..."

Listen to internet radio with Gov20Radio on Blog Talk Radio

Sharing policies, patterns, recipes and code across government

eGov AU - Craig Thomler's professional blog - eGovernment and Gov 2.0 thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective, Tuesday, July 24, 2012. "This morning at the Drupal Downunder event I learnt about the New Zealand Features site which shares recipes for re-usable Drupal code and patterns across NZ government. To me this is representative of one of the significant opportunities I've seen for government in Australia emerging out of Gov 2.0 thinking and tools is the ability to share between agencies... In Australia we're a little further behind. While sharing definitely goes on, with some agencies, such as DEEWR, happy to share their web code and patterns with other agencies. I'm aware of code and pattern sharing for tenders, for research and for other activities where agencies go through the same processes, though often for different ends. However we've not yet seen a central site within government for sharing these things. A place where agencies can store their staff policies, communications plan templates, business planning processes, emergency management frameworks, tender documents, research surveys, website code and patterns and more, so others across government can learn from, build on, modify and/or repurpose them - then submit their improvements back into the system..."

Progress on Government 2.0

By Ann Steward - AGIMO Blog, 6 July 2012. "The Government 2.0 Taskforce was established in June 2009 to investigate new Web 2.0 approaches to government information and government engagement with the public. A Government 2.0 Steering Group was formed in July 2010 to oversee the implementation of the Government’s response to the recommendations of the Taskforce’s report, Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0. The Government generally agreed with 12 of the 13 recommendations of the report and the Steering Group created a Government 2.0 Work Plan to implement these recommendations. The concluding report of the Steering Group was noted by the Secretaries' ICT Governance Board at its meeting on 5 June 2012. This acceptance marks the conclusion of the formal Government 2.0 Work Plan..."

Citizens' attitudes toward Open Government and Government 2.0

by Taewoo Nam, University at Albany, SUNY, United States. International Review of Administrative Sciences June 2012 vol. 78 no. 2 346-368. Abstract - This empirical study sees Open Government and Government 2.0 as a new ends and means of e-government in the United States. The analysis of the data from the Pew Research Center’s national survey (2009 Government Online) highlights what influences American citizens’ attitudes toward Open Government and Government 2.0. This article presents four main findings. First, while the use of existing e-government services does not significantly influence attitudes toward Open Government, recent use of Government 2.0 does contribute to positive attitudes toward Government 2.0. Second, those who value transactions with e-government have a positive attitude regarding Open Government and Government 2.0. Third, general trust in government leads to a positive attitude toward the new ends and means of e-government. Finally, frequent Web use and broadband adoption do not affect citizens’ attitudes concerning the new modes of e-government. The study reveals that citizens’ attitudes toward government workings do not change much with the introduction of new goals and tools of e-government..."

2.0 is changing definitions of public goods. Or is it?

by Gov20Radio, Thursday, June 7, 2012. "Nicholas Gruen, economist and former chair of the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce debates the ways in which 2.0 thinking and technologies are changing economic definitions of public goods..."

Adventures in Victoria – Gov 2.0 presentation to WebNetwork

by Craig Thomler. Delib Blog, Posted on May 1, 2012. "While Chris was enjoying his afternoon on the Mornington Peninsula, I was finalising my slides for a presentation to the Victorian WebNetwork in Melbourne for the next day. The talk was held at the Municipal Association of Victoria's offices in Melbourne. It involved a horizon scan of Gov 2.0 in Australia (from me), followed by a even broader view of several international online initiatives by government from Chris. I have embedded the slides and also wanted to highlight a few key Gov 2.0 changes and successes I've witnessed in Australia..."

'Government IT' is not the same as 'Gov 2.0'

by Alex Howard. Gov20.Govfresh, April 24, 2012. "'The first real insights into where we stand on Gov 2.0?' Really? Are Govloop and the staff of the Dorobek INSIDER being serious? From a n=100 survey of government IT professionals? Think back to a similar survey of IT pros in 2010. There's also a large community of people around the country who believe they've been sharing 'real insight' into the area for years, including many readers and contributors at Radar or Govfresh know, along with, it's worth noting, Govloop itself..."

From talking at citizens to talking with them

by Craig Thomler. Canberra Times, May 1, 2012. "... It's tempting to treat social media as merely an extension of traditional communication channels. However, in reality, there is a huge leap from engaging with citizens through time-limited vertically managed, one-way channels, where technical limits shape the dialogue into particular forms (TV, radio and print), to freer-flowing, two-way conversations, where agencies are an equal participant in the discussion. Your customers - and staff - can now create their own virtual newspapers, radio stations and television channels, or hold national discussions without your involvement. Organisations therefore need to rethink their approach to dialogue and engagement, rebuilding from the ground up..."

Government 2.0 Action Plan

The Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet requested the development of a Whole of Victorian Government (WoVG) Gov 2.0 Action Plan to be implemented across the Victorian Public Service (the VPS). Here you will find documents and materials supporting the rollout of government 2.0 initiatives across the Victorian Government.

Government Information and Data

Articles and resources about e-Government initiatives related to the provision of open government information and data including publications and freedom of information.

Government Wiki use

Articles and resources about the use of wiki websites by government to allow collaboration on government initiatives by multiple authors using a web browser interface.

Second Life in Government

Examples of how governments are making use of Second Life or virtual worlds to reach their citizens.

Social Networks and Social Media in Government

Articles and resources about government use of social networking and social media tools as well as best practice examples of how organisations can make use of social media to intereact with their customers.

Web 2.0

Articles and resources about the implementation of Web 2.0 technologies with an emphasis on government.