MiramarMike.co.nz blog

Public Attitudes to the Sharing of Personal Information in the Course of Electronic Public Service Provision

2010-09-06T16:23:00.004+12:00

We can all assume that openess is "good", that the government should share and that we "know" NZ citizens are happy to provide personal information to the Government ... but is that actually what people think?

Professor Miriam Lips, Dr Elizabeth Eppel, Amanda Cunningham and Virginia Hopkins-Burns from Victoria University of Wellington have recently published their findings of their research paper entitled, "Public Attitudes to the Sharing of Personal Information in the Course of Electronic Public Service Provision".

The summary (view on web | PDF) states:

Our research findings demonstrate that the majority of participants had a benign view of information sharing intentions and practice in the New Zealand public sector. Generally, the participants in this study had a high trust in the New Zealand government and its agencies and thought that they are working in the best interests of citizens. Exceptions could be found among participants with a high dependency on social services; Māori; Pasifika; and self-employed participants.

That's probably how I'd feel about it - yeah, share away if it helps reduce the costs, mean I don't have to enter the same info twice (thrice, many+) and generally gets me a "better" service.

I was fascinated by the line "participants showed limited knowledge about the sharing - or non-sharing - of information between agencies." though and suspect it is a reflection of the wider perception a lot of us web-types have of the general populace which is, "They don't really get what the web companies are doing with their information". Of course a lot of you know how I am against using Facebook because of the ever changing default privacy settings of "share this" not being widely understood by their users. People just don't seem to understand that data flows.

I whole heartedly support those that expressed an "unease" with sharing private information (whatever that actually is) when the context was unclear - in a nutshell, what are you going to do with this? A simple question that, when data flows, can be a very difficult one to answer especially in this era of "once the data is set free who knows what amazing uses it can be put to" and I'm not suggesting it is set free from the boundaries of the Government but merely within and between the agencies.

Openness, when it comes down to it is a matter of trust. This is not new and applies to every interaction we have when we "set free" a piece of information be that by telling something in confidence, sending an email to a colleague or passing over something to a Government agency. The trust is that the value, to me, of passing the information to you is higher than the risk, perceived by me, that it will be misused.

And when it comes down to it that trust judgement being made is binary - I either trust you, or I don't.

The question then comes, how can I make that judgement for the future value of the information.

What I value today might be worthless, tomorrow might suddenly be worth a lot more. What's the decision to be made ... ?

------------------------

Read the full report online (using Google Docs viewer) or download the PDF.

And for those that care (you ALL should) how they performed the research:

The research methods used in this project were a review of available international and national
research in the field, semi-structured interviews with IR staff about the conditions and future directions of online integrated public service provision, and ten intensive focus group meetings with different members of the general public and across New Zealand, in May – June 2010. In total, 63 individuals participated in the focus groups. The focus group meetings were prepared and conducted in partnership with Colmar Brunton. For further information on the research design including the limitations of this research, the analytical framework developed for this project, and characteristics of the focus group participants and discussions, please see chapters 2, 3 and 4 of the full report. A detailed description of the research findings can be found in chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the full report.

OpenLabourNZ Public Event This Saturday (28th Aug)

2010-08-23T11:41:00.004+12:00

(and when there's a similar open event for National, ACT or The Green I will pop that up as well)

From Clare Curran (@clarecurranmp), Dunedin South Labour MP and "open government advocate":

I realise that you may not be able to attend this event. If you can't I hope you will participate in some way from afar and details on the live streaming will be announced soon. But I do ask that you circulate details of the OpenLabourNZ event to as many people as possible in your networks inside and outside NZ. This is a genuine attempt to develop a policy for a political party in an open way.
And if you believe in the principles of open government I hope you'll support, critique and even help, with advice and suggestions.
You don't have to support Labour or consider yourself political. It's about strengthening our democracy and opening up.
See my latest Red Alert post which contains details of registration (email open@labour.org.nz)
Doing things differently: OpenLabourNZ
New Zealand has consistently been a world leader in the development of democracy. Based around Labour’s long-held principles of fairness and decency for all New Zealanders.We are committed to a culture of openness and transparency which strengthens our democracy. A culture of participation, open dialogue, active engagement. That’s what OpenLabourNZ is all about.
If you want to participate in helping develop Labour first attempt to open up its policy development process up to the general public then register to attend.
Laurence Millar to facilitate OpenLabourNZ event
More speakers to be announced in next couple of days
Read rest of post here:
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2010/08/23/doing-things-differently-openlabournz/

Event details

Saturday 28 August from 10am – 3pm
Lion Harbourview Lounge on the second floor of the Michael Fowler Centre
Register as places are both free & limited - email open@labour.org.nz
The event will also be streamed live over the Internet + use of Twitter, Facebook and an online forum

NZ Moves To Embrace Public Sector Information Re-use And Open Data

2010-08-19T09:17:00.005+12:00

Thanks to Julian, a stalwart of the Open Govt Ninja's (become one), I have read Keitha Booth's excellent review of the New Zealand Government's moves to embrace public sector information (PSI) re-use and open data. She has concisely and fully described the "how we got here" and "the NZ environment" pointing to real-life examples of where data openness has lead to increased service for the community.

If you're working within a government agency, check it out to see what your colleagues are doing and how you already have the permission to open up your information and where you can too benefit from ensuring re-use via open data.

Topic Report 15: New Zealand moves to embrace PSI Re-use and Open data

European Public Sector Information Platform Topic Report no. 15 (published 13 August 2010)

Author: Keitha Booth, New Zealand State Services Commission

This report summarises the key features of New Zealand’s information policy environment and then describes the significant progress that has been made towards opening up New Zealand’s non-personal public sector information (PSI) for greater access and re-use.

New Zealand moves to embrace PSI Re-use and Open data (pdf) (word)

Māori Language Week + Google

2010-07-28T12:21:00.003+12:00

In New Zealand this week (26 July - 01 August 2010) is Maori Language week and I assume that everyone reading this blog will somehow, no matter how small, already be involved! As you are readily aware I have a large "online world" and so thought it would be appropriate for me to spread the word and get involved online.

Fistly, I went to the Te Taura Whiri i te reo Māori – the Māori Language Commission - website, http://www.koreromaori.co.nz/, and checked out the options for me which turned out to be full and easily put to use - expect me to get better and better at using the basics over the week (please, let me know if I'm mispronouncing anything :-)

I'm going to try and permanently translate my online bios/abouts such as @MiramarMike, Facebook, Google Profile ... let me know if I've missed any.

And finally, being a heavy user I thought I'd check out what they offer in way of support for te reo. Of course there has been the Māori version of the main NZ Google search site for some time (release post). Go to http://www.google.co.nz/ and click the "Google.co.nz offered in: Māori" link below buttons:

I also thought I might be able to add a "translate this page into Māori" opton to my website either via the toolbar or a gadget embedded onto the site but (Google Translate tools and Resource), unfortunately, Māori is not a language offered ... yet. Come on Google NZ, get working.

They do support Māori in their Google Translator Tookit which I'd urge those that can utilise to crack in and start using - read their blog post about the release.

Finally, the obvious question - how do I translate this page in Māori - leave me a comment

Collaboration At Its Finest

2010-07-14T11:41:00.001+12:00

Over on the WaveAdept blog (subscribe) you'll find two posts from me around "collaboration"

Online Collaboration On A Document – A Great Story

Sometime ago a few of the WaveAdept team were over in Sydney working hard (that’s our story and we’re sticking with it!). Whilst over in the Great West Island we stumbled over an opportunity that we believed the team really should have a crack at … but we only had an afternoon to gather our thoughts, write up an RFP* and get it out to the relevant people.

... read the full article >>>

The 3 C’s – Communication, Consultation and Collaboration

You’ve got the technology (be it Google Apps, SharePoint or whatever) and your IT people have integrated it, patched it, set you up and handed it over… now what?

Well, for a start, sit back and congratulate yourself that your organisation is:

Saving costs (NZ$2million per year for NZ Post with their Google Apps roll-out, and they’ve just started)

Freed up your IT staff to concentrate on your company’s particular ‘secret sauce’

No longer have to wait to benefit from the latest features

Instantly given access ‘anywhere, any time and (almost) any device’

Really, celebrate that you have switched from old to new.

But once the party is over you’re going to have to get back to work getting the true benefits from your new toolset.

... read the full article >>>

#tweet4yourteeYouTube Mission + NZ Google Barcamp

2010-07-10T11:24:00.004+12:00

The Tweet 4 Your Tee guys are pretty bloody awesome because not only do they manage to arrange a tweetup for their promo video but they SPONSOR THE NZ GOOGLE BARCAMPS!!

Thank you.

And of course I have my @MiramarMike t-shirt from the Wellington @NZGoogleBarcamp.
Get yours for the Auckland event (Sat 21st Aug) and @Tweet4yourtee donate NZ$10 dollars to the event!

Now, watch the video to see how many local Twitter peeps you can spot (@smrtgirl right at the front there ;-). Then, get over to their online store and buy yourself a T-shirt with your @Twitter name on it.

The Real Life Social Network v2

2010-07-08T02:02:00.000+12:00

A common sense, obvious and leading presentation from Paul Adams who is the "Senior User Experience Researcher" at Google. If you want to know about Facebook's weakness it's the word "friend" - and we all know it, it's been the butt of jokes for ever and it's the reason we all feel uncomfortable using it - what is a "friend"?

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

Paul's "about":

Senior User Experience Researcher at Google. I’m the research lead for sociability, and I work with teams building products and features for the social web. I’ve previously worked as a User Experience consultant at Flow (working with the BBC, The Guardian, Vodafone, London Underground, and others), and as an Industrial Designer at Dyson

6 Phases A Government Agency Goes Through When Asked To Open Up Their Data

2010-06-30T15:44:00.002+12:00

Finally got around to catching up with the Guardian's TechWeekly podcast from 8th June and for those, like myself, that are advocates of "open government" / "open data" (can you have the one without the other?) you should get yourself along to around the 25min mark to hear Tom Watson (UK Labour MP) who:

... was instrumental in helping the previous [UK] Labour government understand the value of opening up its public records, shares his view on the reasons why openness should be valued – and what he had to do to convince his political colleagues

I strongly advice all those 'working;' in this field to listen to his views and approach!

I especially loved his excellent "6 point plan" in regards to the "institutional response to data release":

Denial that the Minister is asking for this stuff
Resistance
Moral Panic when they realise you're serious
... after the release ...
Outrage that this stuff is being given away and it's out there
Period of reflection
Finally there is innovation
("this is where success is a thousand fathers and mothers and everyone says it was their idea and what a great initiative it " :-)

Also his ego-less (for a politician) approach to working with the current Government is a pleasure to see - so grown up and a million miles from the school yard antics we get to hear about in the mass media.

'NZ Open Govt' Calendar

2010-06-30T08:35:00.004+12:00

Ok, so Craig Thomler popped an Aussie calendar up first with his Gov 2 and social media events calendar for Australia to which I thought, "Shame there's not enough NZ events to warrant a calendar" - I was wrong, the demand is there so let's crack into a similar calendar for NZ.

The "NZ Open Govt' calendar is based upon the barcamp calendar from the NZ Open Govt Data Barcamp and Hackfest event. That means it's open to all members of the associated Google Group already.

If you want to add an event to the calendar let me know and I can do it for you OR, even better, give you the access to do it yourself - mike.riversdale+nzopengovt@miramarmike.co.nz

Links:

"Everyone" On The Internet Isn't Always International

2010-06-23T08:51:00.000+12:00

Another in the series, "No, the Internet isn't international" - pt1, pt2, pt3

Google released it's Google Voice service with the headline, Google Voice for everyone.
Of course the 'everyone' referenced was 'everyone in the USA' ... check out the blog comments.

It is actually a serendipitous discovery for Google that a) they are a no-borders company; b) their Google Voice service is obviously eagerly awaited all around the planet.

"No-borders company" ... hmm, actually no, they are not. They are legally a USA company with the majority of their staff working within the US. They have (large) satellite offices around the world that feed back to the main US corporation. Their services are perceived as being ubiquitous and global but even that perception is false - you can't get a blogger account in China, never have been able to.

So, OK, Google isn't global but the perception is that they "think global".
The same for Facebook ("credits", one monetary system for the whole planet anyone), Amazon and all the other major Internet players.

But they don't.
When it comes down to it they are local US companies staffed by local US people that, naturally, think everyone else is awake when they are and goes to sleep when they do.

Perception != reality

The Internet Isn't International ... Again

2010-06-08T13:01:00.000+12:00

More in my Kiwi-centric "the Internet isn't really international, is it!" series - pt1, pt2

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us [video]

2010-06-03T15:04:00.000+12:00

But we carry on rewarding with $$$ rewards - crazy eh!

Deep Amongst The Technicals Google Talks About People

2010-05-21T13:16:00.002+12:00

[cross post with WaveADept blog]

Google I/O 2010, this year's annual developer event Google hosts, has been full of interesting announcements, (re)releases and developer goodies (we are particularly interested in the Gmail contextual gadgets, expect more news from WaveAdept) and whilst we are certainly happy for our clients that Google Apps is expanding out to become a "platform" onto which the commodities of mail, calendar, documents can be built, we were chuffed to see the following session sandwiched inside the agenda.

How to lose friends and alienate people: The joys of engineering leadership from Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman.

Whilst the session was aimed at "engineering leadership" it can, of course, be applied to any team.
I love that they start of saying that the word "manager" isn't useful anymore (was it ever).

But hey, don't take our word for it, here's the Wave used to annotate the session AND the video will be up on YouTube sometime soon.

The Evolution Of Privacy On Facebook

2010-05-17T22:24:00.003+12:00

I'm sure you've all heard the hullabaloo from the digerati* (the people that jump onto the technology as soon as it comes out and leave it it in disdain when "real people" appear ... believe me, it happens) about the changes to Facebook's default privacy settings allowing more and more of the stored data to be accessed by anyone, anything or any app.

So what, some online site changes it's default settings, who cares eh!

Two reasons why "So what":

They have 400 million users
They don't care about any of them

So now we have (conveniently for Facebook):

The "flashing 12" problem
The "surely they won't do anything bad" issue
The "Meh, I don't care" attitude

"Mike, this is all just computers, just too bloody technical for me - leave me be as I have some friends to talk with and a photo to post!!" I tried to tell everyone but it just wasn't getting through. And then I found this ... The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

Go to the site and click on the graphic to see just how Facebook privacy has been slowly eroded from you.
We start with:

... and currently have:

YES! It's nearly ALL public now.
Not just public to everyone on the Internet, I mean "people" but to any applications people care to write. And they can write applications that bring Facebook information (perhaps when you're away for the weekend) together with your phone number (posted on an online email group from your email signature) which means they get your address and ... http://pleaserobme.com/

And that's just the simple stuff *I* can think of.

More from me:

* I am probably one - you tell me

RWW Mobile Summit Keynote Presentation, May 2010

2010-05-17T21:11:00.001+12:00

Richard (McManus) doing what Richard does so well - taking a technical subject and distilling the key trends out of it so we can all see where the future is (probably) going.

RWW Mobile Summit Keynote Presentation, May 2010

View more presentations from Richard MacManus.

Brilliant! Google Chrome Speed Tests Video

2010-05-07T01:25:00.001+12:00

That's how to make a point!

These speed tests were filmed at actual web page rendering times. If you're interested in the technical details, read on!

Equipment used:

- Computer: MacBook Pro laptop with Windows installed
- Monitor - 24" Asus: We had to replace the standard fluorescent backlight with very large tungsten fixtures to funnel in more light to capture the screen. In addition, we flipped the monitor 180 degrees to eliminate a shadow from the driver board and set the system preferences on the computer to rotate 180 degrees. No special software was used in this process.
- 15Mbps Internet connection.
- Camera: Phantom v640 High Speed Camera at 1920 x 1080, films up to 2700 fps

"Why does allrecipes.com in the potato gun sequence appear at once, and not the text first and images second? And why does it appear to render from bottom of the screen to the top?"

Chrome sends the rendered page to the video card buffer all at once, which is why allrecipes.com appears at once, and not with the text first and images second. Chrome actually paints the page from top to bottom, but to eliminate a shadow from the driver board, we had to flip the monitor upside down and set the system preferences in Windows to rotate everything 180 degrees, resulting in the page appearing to render from bottom to top.

"Why does the top one third of the page appear first on the weather.com page load?"

Sometimes only half the buffer gets filled before the video card sends its buffer over to the LCD panel. This is because Chrome on Windows uses GDI to draw, which does not do v-sync.

"The screen wipes are so smooth - how was that achieved?"

The screen wipes up in a gradated wipe because LCD pixels take around 10ms to flip and gradually change color.

For behind-the-scenes footage of how this video was made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oarMXGq3gI

Let 'Em Know

2010-05-06T03:29:00.003+12:00

I'm lucky enough to be a part of a conversation on the ninja-talk@groups.open.org.nz mailing list where I get to hear amazingly passionate people talk about how they want to actively help NZ Government become an open and sharing set of organisations.

And being mainly self-confessed geeks (with a seemingly inequitable love of live offline quirkiness) the focus of many is to solve the NZ traditional "closed approach to governance" by using a computer. But there are also those that want to be real about it all and actually get physical in their approach - talk to people etc etc ...

Nat Torkington popped up these few "real and active" actions that all Kiwi geeks can do in order for those in power (mostly politicians but by no means limited to that happy band) to get to hear the "open up our data!" request:

Register where you live, to find your local MP's Office

Commit to regular meetings (collecting dates and times, reporting back)

Discussions and briefings, talking points of things to take to those MPs with a regular series of examples of stories in the news

Illustrate the points we want to make (lock-in, open standards, patent evil, copyright holder abuse, etc.)

Work Can Be Social

2010-04-22T12:58:00.000+12:00

Maybe this is what some middle manger types are worried about with the inevitable* move to social IT - social means talking which can sometimes be, heaven help us, fun.

The following tweets, from earlier this year, are labelled "VodafoneNZ" and "TelecomNZ" but really, they are between two people with a sense of humour that work at places that happen to be in competition. I love it.

Here's the original tweets: TelecomNZ -> VodafoneNZ -> TelecomNZ (can't discover link, darn!)

* inevitable because we are social animals and therefore all our tools inevitably become social tools.

[URGENT] Want A Free/Open Internet, The "Wellington Declaration" Is Ready For YOU To Sign

2010-04-12T11:03:00.002+12:00

(note: you need to sign the declaration by 9am Tuesday 13th - get into it!)

ACTA, that secret(ish) international agreement being negotiated between the governments of USA, the European Commission, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, Canada, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates.

A quick overview of ACTA from Wikipedia:

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual-property-rights enforcement throughout the participating countries. Its proponents describe it as a response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works." The scope of ACTA is broad, including counterfeit goods, generic medicines, as well as "piracy over the Internet".

A document leaked to the public in 2008 includes a provision to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide information about suspected copyright infringers without a warrant. A March 2010 leak included the proposed text for this provision.

The negotiations for the ACTA treaty are conducted behind closed doors and are not part of any international organization ...

Issues in a nutshell:

No-one officially knows what they are negotiating
From leaks it is plainly NOT about counterfeiting
In New Zealand we have already said NO to "3 strikes and you're out" but this seems like another way of bringing it back in

Each round of negotiations are held in one of the countries signing up and it's New Zealand's turn (to be held in the Intercontinental Hotel in Wellington) this week.

Notable New Zealand organisations and people are against the ACTA negotiations in their current form (ie, secret) and some of the leaked prooporals within the agreement. One the most vocal of these is InternetNZ, the organisation designed to protect and promote the Internet within New Zealand.

Last Saturday, at an event called PublicACTA (#PublicACTA: Twitter, Google), they brought together many people to thrash through the issues which culminated in "The Wellington Declaration".

I urge you to read the Declaration: http://publicacta.org.nz/wellington-declaration/

And then I ask you join with the many others interested in protecting their digital rights online to sign the petition to endorse the Wellington Declaration:

Signatures added by Tuesday morning NZ time will be appended to the Declaration when it is communicated to the NZ Government negotiators, who we hope will circulate it to all the ACTA delegations.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Google -- But Were Afraid To Search For!

2010-03-03T10:30:00.002+13:00

(cross post from WaveAdept)

[disclosure: I am part of the volunteers helping to create this event]

From Android to Wave, Google Apps for your company to SEO for your website AND everything in between ...

http://nzgbc.org
Thursday 25th March, 2010: 8:30am-4pm
Bar Bodega, 101 Ghuznee Street, Wellington [map]
Ticket price: $0

The world's first free and independent Google-centric barcamp* is being held in Wellington on Thursday 25th March (8:30am-4pm) and we at WaveAdept are chuffed to be amongst the plethora of local, national and international sponsors of this community run event.

Of course a Google-centric conference could probably run for a week trying to cover all aspects of the Google services so we'll be concentrating WaveAdept's efforts on how Google Enterprise services save costs and provide value to Kiwi companies.

We won't, however, be using the event to push our services or Google products (that's for the more traditional events) but trying to get into the guts of what we in New Zealand think of the Google Enterterprise services (particularly Google Apps). For instance I have popped a proposed topic of, "Support from Google, what it is, what it isn't and what the gap is (and how to overcome it)" and Dave has just this minute added, "Biggest gaps - what is preventing wider adoption of Google Apps in your opinion, what is missing?"

We hope to not only see you all there (maximum of 150 spaces, over 80 have already been taken) but to have a good old yarn about Google which, let's be honest, is a fascinating subject on so many levels.

* A barcamp is a normal conference with one major difference, it is run by the attendees. This truly comes into play when the conference schedule is generated by all the attendees during the registration time, so get in early and mold this conference to what you want to talk/hear about.

We Have All Been Let Down By Those That Know Better

2010-02-26T10:27:00.009+13:00

The Internet was designed peer-to-peer BUT it doesn't run like that for the vast majority of people (we are clients logging onto servers). I so wish it did run in a true peer-to-peer manner and we all had had the support, focus and software from the complete computer industry to make that happen. We didn't (thank you Microsoft) and are unlikely to in the forseeable future.

What I mean by "support, focus and software" is that the IT industry had spent time allowing my wife to run her own infrastructure that would, as she wanted, connect out to her mates infrastructure. Of course, with the design genius of, say Apple, the technical expertise of Microsoft and software from local suppliers this could've generated a world where the word "infrastructure" isn't needed.

Peer-to-peer has never taken off because the focus has remained with the techies.

It was never focussed on my wife but on geek dreams.

Facebook is MASSIVE because it focuses on my wife.

Apple is WORSHIPED because it is driven by my wife's emotions.

Google is ALL ENCOMPASSING because they only deliver what my wife wants.

Maybe we were bamboozled in the early days by Microsoft and their cohorts, maybe.
I also know that we were let down by those that know better and still are unable to understand why my wife uses Gmail and doesn't run her own mail server*

Watch the whole video; my point is highlighted from 38min+

* I am bound to say that local voice Don Christie and his company, Catalyst, is an example of NOT being let down. Thank you guys & gals.

Vic Reeves At Google - Nice

2010-01-26T15:11:00.001+13:00

There's cool and then there's AWESOMELY COOL :-)

Been A While, Welcome Back And Hello From 2010

2010-01-22T08:27:00.002+13:00

I'm focussing on the NZ Google Barcamp that's being arranged for Thursday 25th March in Wellington that already has around 30+ saying they're coming (we're likely to limite it to 150 bums on seats).

Get the latest: http://groups.google.co.nz/group/nz-google-barcamp
And follow on Twitter: @NZGoogleBarcamp

And now, enjoy a giggle ...

Wellington Agile Barcamp, Sat 12th December

2009-12-03T09:33:00.004+13:00

Asked by the awesome Scrum Coach, Sandy Mamoli, to do my little bit and spread the word - the details:

12th of December from 9.30am to 2.30pm
Fronde, Queen's Wharf
"After"-party at the Chicago bar

Site: http://barcamp.org/BarCampAgileWellington2

Registration on the site or per email: rsvpwn@agileprofessionals.net

Twitter: agileWelly

Have fun if you're going.

The Request: Let's Make Technologies That Make People More Human And Not Less

2009-12-01T21:33:00.002+13:00

Brilliant (and funny)

Thank you TED on YouTube, once again