[LINK] Lundy backs web 2.0 to cut costs

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
(This my second attempt to send this to link. Apologies if it turns up 
twice)

I don't think that Web2.0 or Gov2.0 is about cutting costs. To me the 
benefits are about improved communication channels.

And I also don't agree that "if social networking tools became part of 
normal workflow in government processes, public servants wouldn't be 
overwhelmed with their workloads."

It is more likely that they would get overloaded with masses of 
messages, many of which would be low value.

</brd>

Lundy backs web 2.0 to cut costs
Fran Foo
August 04, 2009
The Australian IT
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25878099-15306,00.html

Labor senator and technology evangelist Kate Lundy has admitted that 
government service delivery fell short and social media tools like 
Twitter could help bridge the gap and even slash costs.

The second Public Sphere event in Canberra found that if social 
networking tools became part of normal workflow in government processes, 
public servants wouldn't be overwhelmed with their workloads.

But Twitterers aside, Australians want to see unnecessary technological 
barriers -- like the e-tax software only running on Microsoft Windows 
computers -- come to a halt.

The tax office's 2009 e-tax program is compatible with IE6, IE7 and 
Firefox 3. It works on Windows 2000 Professional, XP and Vista.

"Government service delivery has such a long way to go and, as a senator 
for 14 years, I deal with a lot of constituents who have genuine 
complaints about that," Senator Lundy said.

"For me to be involved, you can imagine that the level of frustration 
among my constituents must be pretty high," she said.

Senator Lundy said there was a view that social media presents a 
"remarkable and unprecedented opportunity" to improve the relationship 
between government, government service providers and citizens.

There was no immediate answer as to how exactly micro-blogging site 
Twitter or social networking website Facebook could solve these issues, 
and she warned that there was no one-size-fits-all solution for 
government departments and agencies.

However, open standards had to be embraced if Australia were to succeed 
in the digital age.

The government could take a lesson from the private sector; Telstra's 
BigPond arm takes complaints and offers customer service via Twitter.

Senator Lundy is championing the Public Sphere event in Canberra which 
released its briefing paper last week on government 2.0 policy and 
practises in Australia. Nearly 200 people attended the event, while 300 
people used Twitter. It gathered more than 100 comments on the main 
website and all feedback has been collated to form the backbone of the 
briefing paper.

The findings will be handed to the Government 2.0 Taskforce, chaired by 
Nicholas Gruen, which is looking at ways to engage citizens online and 
making government information more accessible.

The taskforce will report on its findings by the end of the year, 
including whether to follow the example of Britain, which last week 
unveiled a 20-page guide on how to use Twitter for public servants.

Key recommendations from Public Sphere include government agencies 
accepting all forms of data and an upgrade of all government 
web-browsers to a reasonable standards-compliant browser.

"Where useful and possible, government agencies should facilitate 
accepting updates to data from the general public, such as updates to 
mapping information or to information sheets.

"Where possible this could be streamlined through wiki style or 
automated revision systems to simplify the process of accepting changes, 
while also tracking who contributed what and the ability to roll back 
changes," the paper said.

The browser refresh was timely as many government agencies and 
Parliament House used Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 as the standard.

"All government employees should have access to a modern, secure 
web-browser in which they can actually use web 2.0 applications," it said.

The third Public Sphere will examine Australia's ICT and creative 
industries development. The first touched on high-speed bandwidth.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au


-- 
 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au