Her premise is that the divisions that exist in society exist in on-line society. The truth of this has important implications for engagement online:

This entry ( i think) should have been titled Society 3.0, Government 1.0

Can we just stop with the talk about “online society”. It’s just media after all. The problem is that we can’t help but inflicting our old ideas about media = broadcasting media from institutions to communities like the one coalescing around this (institutional inspired) domain’s enquiry.

We’ve come past web 1.0. = the brochureware period.
And well down web 2.0 = the ‘interactive’ tool period (starting with wikipedia, ending with youtube)
Now this Web 3.0 period (into the clouds) is starting to focus on “real time communication” tools. This can’t be progressed until institutionalists start looking past their institutional servers and phone numbers, and figuring out how they can support “their” common public’s enquiries. More importantly, how they leave their enquiries at a DNS, which any librarian can direct an interested party to – after/during a series of events.

We’ve got to the first step of 3.0. We’re ‘capturing’ not ‘producing’ at this DNS. Fantastic! Now all we need is a good National librarian to classify it, so when we reach web 7.0, we can say “do you remember?” and find it.

I think that everyone on this forum, in the words of the man with the cowboy hat, should do themselves a favour and study it.

I think it could be especially useful to people within agencies that deal with delivery capability and interoperability.

While we can theorise about where we need to get to, the sheer size and complexity of government will organically create obstacles and the paper is a good road map to what those obstacles might be and it offers some really sound ways to begin the process of overcoming them.

Most importantly, it paints a picture of the opportunities that will come from embracing interoperability and I think that the carrot over the stick will be the way to entice agencies to engage.

The key to developing any good system is to let it evolve through use rather than do too much planning. Good systems are those that react and adapt to the environment. To that end being too prescriptive in how we do things tends to constrain and limit. However, setting goals and knowing if those goals are being achieved works more effectively.

For example, I think legislation would be more effective if it concentrated on the explanatory parts and how we would know if the objectives were being achieved rather than on the details of implementation. Perhaps the task force could come up with a set of policy goals and a way of measuring if those goals were being met – rather than worry too much how the goals were to be achieved. That is, let the systems evolve by setting in place objectives and ways of knowing if the objectives are met.

Perhaps something like the following.

Geospatial data collected by government and non government agencies should be accessible to anyone who wishes to use it.
Measure what is collected and see if the objective is being met by measuring accesses or use.

To give another example

Personal data collected about an individual by any organisation should be accessible to the individual.
Measure what data is collected and how many individuals are aware of it.

or

Policy Implementation Bodies such as the ABC board, the Reserve Bank, the Directors of quangos should have a wide representation.
Measure by how much those who want to have a voice in those matters feel they have been heard or would be heard if they wanted to say something.

or

Data on which governments and organisations make decisions is to be accurate and timely and available at an appropriate level for its purpose.
Keep inventories of data in different areas of both government and non government data, its accuracy, timeliness and availability and publish the measures.

or

…..

This means we have to provide ways for voices to be heard but do it in ways that will not compromise privacy and in ways that can work against citizens. We do it with secret voting and we can do it with other information. Imagine how much better our statistics would be if the Bureau of Stats was able to electronically follow the transactions of their representative samples (or even the whole population) in real time.

By helping citizens provide information to governments then government information can become much richer for the citizens.

We know that when we free up the flow of economic activity with free trading we get better outcomes. The same applies to other information. That is the more we can “trade information” the more we get non-zero outcomes.

I would like to point you to a document we did in AGIMO a few years back, 2006, the Access and Distribution StrategyTo be honest it went under the radar pretty much. It was overshadowed by the 2006 eGov Strategy. But it is a good paper and we should think how we can include this as a broader consideration in the Gov 2.0 work.

In much the same way I block or reject messages or friend requests from marketers or anybody who smells like they are trying to sell me something – I would do the same if a government dpeartment or agency tried to “connect” with me using social media. And if they got all groovy and cool about it then I would be even more suspicious. However, if somebody I am connected to organically (whether the is a purely online connection or somebody I know in the real world) reccommends me a link to something I may be interested in knowing about or participating in I will invariably take a look. This type of referral would be the best way for government content to reach me (and I suspect most other people) online. For this viral dissemination to work departments and agencies need to begin by putting something up online that is worth sharing. In this sense the Australian government still very much needs to get their web 1.0 strategy right before they can suceed at 2.0…3.0…

I like the idea of using community groups as “go-betweens”. It can solve many issues of credibility, access and language.

Gov2.0 reimagines government in a radical way. Gov2.0 is citizen driven. Instead of pushing information out, invite people in.

Create transparency and facilitate conversations. Give people access to information and let them spread it to their own networks, in their own voice.

It’s about embracing the social, open source, collaborative community elements of the 2.0 evolution and using the transparency this creates to engage people in discussion and improve accountability.

Information transparency and open access to data allows people to make more informed choices and be more responsible for their own actions – and it makes an even larger group of people responsible for keeping track of what’s going on.

At the heart of Gov2.0 is a challenge to citizens to stop being passive, to stop leaving it up to others to make decisions. It’s about giving people a voice and a way of actively engaging in making a contribution and a difference in their world.

If that world happens to be World of Warcraft – so be it!