#Twitter vs #LinkedIn in Australia: interesting comparison socialmedianews.com.au/twitter-v-link… #gov2au

— John Sheridan (@sherro58) March 23, 2012

To summarise, it highlights

“the number of Unique Australian Visitors to the site (UAV’s) per month, or an average between the UAV’s and user numbers reported by reputable sources.”

For February, 2012, the results were as follows:

4. LinkedIn – 2,200,000 (up 400,000)
5. Twitter – 1,800,000 (steady)

Of course, that month on month rise in LinkedIn is probably related to the use of LinkedIn in a work context (and thus reflects people being largely on leave in January!). Nevertheless, an interesting discussion ensued on Twitter regarding the relative take up of each in the Australian Public Service and their use in driving the Government 2.0 agenda.

We have some experience of this here in Queensland.

Eighteen months ago we started the gov2qld Community of Practice as a place to discuss, brainstorm and ultimately promote many of the initiatives under the Government 2.0 banner.

We deliberately created the group with three key points of contact to our target community.

1. A monthly face to face meetup
2. A presence on Twitter
3. A LinkedIn Group

It’s been interesting to see how those differing touch points have worked together to see the community flourish both in terms of interest (there are now close to 700 members of the LinkedIn group) but also in terms of the quality of conversations that are taking place (online and face to face).

Twitter has proved to be largely incidental.

Whilst we post information about events and discussions on Twitter, there are few re-tweets or conversations started.

Face to Face meetings have steadily risen in terms of numbers but have always been the most active in terms of discussions, ideas and collaboration.

This is an important lesson for the gov2.0 community. Online community simply cannot replace face to face interactions. It just cant. However, it can definitely compliment it.

LinkedIn has been the standout, though, in terms of maintaining the community and attracting new people into it.

Indeed my anecdotal observation is that a fair few public servants have joined LinkedIn solely (at least initially) for the purpose of joining the gov2qld community.

What we have learned very clearly is that face to face meetings build trust and ensure momentum, whereas our online community (primarily LinkedIn) maintains that community. The two are symbiotic. Without either I don’t think we would be where we are today.

What we have also learned is that people are unlikely to join ‘yet another’ online community ( we also started a gov2qld group on OzLoop which attracted an extremely small number of sign-ups) however, building a community within an existing community (i.e. LinkedIn)  has proven extremely fruitful for us.

I would have to add, however, that LinkedIn has proven to be a poor platform for online discussion! It’s incredibly hard to find discussions that took place even a short time ago and the layout of the Group pages gives at least one of our members migranes!

The power though is that the target audience for our community already, or at least to a growing degree, are already members – and signing up to a group is trivial for them.

As for me, in the past I couldn’t quite see the value of LinkedIn – apart of course, as an online C.V. and a place to be ‘head hunted’. Today, I think very differently. For me, LinkedIn is a place to keep up to date with and build community around those things that interest me – although I still reserve it for ‘professional’ things that interest me.

As such, to mis-quote the Apple add, it’s a thousand communities in one!

For me this was more than just symbolic. I wanted to acknowledge the importance to ancient cultures of storytelling and shared experiences in building and sustaining resilient communities. A message that I feel has somehow been lost in modern conferences but a message that is a key tenet of the GovCamp movement worldwide.

My hope was that GovCamp Queensland would be able to emulate the ‘stories round the camp fire’ approach of ancient cultures.

I wasn’t disappointed.

image courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattmurray74/

Statistics

On the day we had around 150 people attend with close to 40 ‘bar camp’ sessions facilitated by the attendees, countless more discussions over coffee or informal get togethers in one of the 5 bays at The Edge, three highly topical and far reaching panel Q&A sessions, one Australian premier movie screening and one inspiring keynote from David Wallace and, hopefully, many, many connections made that will live on into the future.

Open Space

Amelia’s Open Space session provided the framework for the day and the closing ‘Aha Moments‘ session brought everything together and provided us with a fabulous agenda for moving the discussions from GovCamp and out to the wider government community in our state.

The Edge

One of the stars of the day was the venue. The Edge at State Library of Queensland is almost the perfect location for a GovCamp, providing the creative spaces required to allow camp fire discussions to flourish, yet also providing A/V and other facilities on a par with any other venue in Brisbane.

Barcamp Sessions

Our barcamp sessions (sessions suggested and facilitated by the attendees) covered topics as diverse as Open Data & Emergency Management, Recreating the World Digitally, the Virtual War Memorial project in SA, Social Media Monitoring, Online engagement for Government 2.0, Internal Collaboration, Government Contact Centres, iGovernment and Reasons Against Open Data.

We had 3 main rooms and 5 bays in which to discuss, present, demo and debate.

Organisers

The other stars of the day, for me, were the organising team. Not only have they been meticulously planning the event for 4 months but they were also busily running around solving the challenges that arose on the day ensuring everything ran according to plan.

We even managed to ensure the left over meals provided for the ‘no-shows’ were put to good use within the homeless communities in Brisbane through the Salvos!.

Participants

Of course, the event was only a success thanks to the passion and contribution of all the attendees. It was great to welcome guests from inter state (with the ACT, NSW and SA well represented) but it was even more wonderful to see so many people from our state working on or thinking about so many interesting things.

Session Remorse

For me, I had what John Sheridan described as ‘Session Remorse’. There were just too many amazing sessions happening in parallel and I would have loved to have been at all of them! Twitter is great for capturing the essence of sessions even if it wasn’t possible to attend them. But far from being disappointed by not being at each one, I’m actually delighted by how much is happening in our state and by how passionate this group of public servants and others are to see real and sustainable change within government here in Queensland.

Moving Forward

It’s this passion that encouraged Amelia and I to start the gov2qld community of practice and this passion that will create real waves in our state. The Community will carry on sharing ideas, experiences and learning, and we will continue to be a space to incubate ideas, foster innovation and encourage active participation.

The most exciting thing for me from GovCamp 2012 is the momentum it has created. At least one major initiative has already been seeded out of the day around presenting an evidence based case for Open Data across Queensland government. Stay tuned for more details on this!

GovCamp Queensland 2012 was simply the continuation of an ongoing conversation … but what an amazing day it was, and will, I’m sure, prove to be.

Thank you to everyone who made it possible! Here’s to next year. Follow @gov2qld to be kept up to date with future un-events.

(images courtesy of Matt Murray and David Eade).

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk at the launch of hack::brisbane

Last weekend saw the official launch of the hack::brisbane competition by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Graham Quirk during the one day Hackfest Brisbane mini competition.

Both competitions are based on usage of the 50 recently released data sets from Brisbane City Council under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) open license.

Covering all manner of data, from bus stop locations to eat safe ratings; from CityCycle locations to dog parks.

The hack::Brisbane competition challenges the developer community to help improve Brisbane through the creation of creative new apps, websites or tools that use Brisbane City Council data.

The coveted 'Hack Brisbane' T-Shirt!

Of course, this is not the first council to open its data and sponsor an apps competition, but it’s fairly unique in that it is offering prizes in two catagories for both competitions. An Open Catagory covering any data set and any application; and an Access and Inclusion Catagory for an app or website using Brisbane City Council data that helps make Brisbane a more accessible and inclusive city.

To be considered in this category, the app or website should focus on making facilities and services universally accessible to all residents and visitors – be they people with disability, carers, seniors, people with temporary impairments or parents with young children.

The Hackfest event was supported by NICTA’s e-government cluster and by the gov2qld community of practice, with a  representative from each being on the judging panel for the day, along, of course with a representative from the primary sponsors (and prize, venue and t-shirt provider) Brisbane City Council.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the judges and, like my fellow judges, was amazed by the quality of the entries after just 8 or so hours of programming.

Some of the apps from the day are showcased on the Council website.

The winners were chosen based, amongst other things,  on originality and usefulness to the community with the winning app in the Open Category being an Android app called ‘Brisbane Toilet Finder‘ by Jack Marrows.

Brisbane Toilet Finder is an app that locates the closest public toilet to a person using an Android phone.  The longitude and latitude of each toilet provided by the dataset is used with the geolocation capabilities of Android phones to direct a user to the closest toilet with only one click.

image courtesy Brisbane City Council and Jack Marrows

Looking at the UI, it is evident that all of the additional information about a restroom provided by the dataset is shown to the user such as, accessibility and opening hours.  Furthermore, using the Google Street View API it was possible to display a thumbnail picture of the toilet to the user.

The app also allows users to view the average cleanliness of a toilet for a given day and rate it.  The data generated by users rating the public facilities has the potential to be used by the BCC in the future when planning the allocation of resources.  These ratings are stored in the cloud using a webservice built upon Google App Engine.

Finally, users can get direction to the toilet from their current location by a single click.  This was implemented using the Android Google Maps API.

What we loved about the app was it’s simplicity. A number of entries mapped the location of toilets but this one was based on the premise that, at any given location you don’t want (or need) to see all toilets in Brisbane – just the one closest (or the next one if you’re not happy with the rating of this one etc).

The ability to rate the cleanliness of the toilet and the potential for that information to be fed back to council in real-time provided what, for me, is the real benefit to council of opening up dataset- crowd-sourced feedback to help deliver better services to the community.

(Jack also talked about potentially adding QR code reader capability to the app so that Council could attach a QR code to each toilet block making the process of rating a given toilet even easier).

The winner of the Access and Inclusion Category was the ‘Accessible Brisbane’ app by Mike Burns and James Kennon (and also featured on Chanel Ten News that evening!).

image courtesy Brisbane City Council, Mike Burns & James Kennon

Our application, Accessible Brisbane, addresses the fundamental shortcomings of the Access Brisbane database (which, ironically, is its ‘accessibility’). We took the data in the Access Brisbane database, and added a spatial dimension to that data. Then the Accessible Brisbane app puts it in context by giving the user information about accessible venues nearby. Accessible Brisbane also allows the user to quickly and easily contribute new information to the community. Through the Facebook connection, users are motivated to contribute, which addresses the other shortcoming of the Access Brisbane database (ie, the lack of up-to-date data).

The dataset we used was the Access Brisbane database, which we mashed with data from the Google Places API using some matching algorithms that we wrote.

The great thing about this app was it’s focus on building a community to improve the data using existing social networks (Facebook).

You can see more about these apps, and some of the other great entries on Council’s website.

lunch sponsored by Domino's

Of course there are those who see little long term value in these app competitions – and, to be honest, I might have put myself in that camp a while back. Now I see things differently. Opening up data in this way provides potential for economic benefits through new applications, sites and analysis of multiple data sets being generated within a jurisdiction (we’re now starting to see the latter in the UK).

But for me, the value is far more than that. It’s about fostering and encouraging a culture of innovation in the context of government; it’s about government and the community working together; but mostly, I believe, it provides a way for the resources of the public service to be supplemented by passionate and motivated citizens (even if it’s just providing feedback on the state of a given toilet block!)  in order to deliver even better services for the community.

And we’re not done yet!

It’s so exciting to see our community involved in three big events in Brisbane over the next two weeks. Whatever your particular interest area under the “Government 2.0″ banner, there is something for you.

HACKFEST BRISBANE

Kicking off this coming Saturday (26th November) with Hackfest Brisbane – a one day hackathon based on recently released data sets from Brisbane City Council.

HackFest Brisbane is timed to coincide with the launch of the hack::Brisbane competition that challenges software developers to help improve Brisbane with creative new apps or websites that use Brisbane City Council data.

For more information and to register head here:
http://data.brisbane.qld.gov.au/

DEMOCRACY 2.0 SEMINAR

Next week (Tuesday 29th Noveber) Chris Quigley, the founder of the UK based digital democracy firm Delib, will share his experiences and insights working with the Obama and Cameron Administrations in the US and UK on a range of online community engagement, crowdsourcing and mass collaboration projects.

For more information and to register head here:
http://linkd.in/gov2qld_delib2011

GOV2QLD CHRISTMAS EVENT

On Thursday 8th December, we get together for our final group event of the year to “Celebrate the Success of Government 2.0” in our state.

We have some fabulous speakers including Simon Finn MP and it will be a great time to network with peers from other agencies and authorities.

More information and to register:
http://apsozloop.ning.com/group/gov2qld/forum/topics/government-2-0-in-queensland-community-of-practice-event-8th

(Spaces are limited for all events so be quick!)

Thanks all for a fabulous year for our Community of Practice. Look forward to seeing you at one, or all of these special events.

1. it provides the potential for a wider range of opinions, experiences and ideas to be garnered
2. It provides a platform for more efficient management of large scale consultation activities
3. Its easier and more fun for stakeholders than attending community meetings or being badgered on the streets while rushing to a meeting your late for.

(The latter point is, of course, not to say that traditional methods of engagement don’t have huge value. My IAP2 qualifications and experience have taught me of the unique value of many other community participation techniques and I too get frustrated with the current swathe of smegs who preach that online consultation is the only way to engage).

But assuming we are talking solely about reaching new stakeholders through online consultation, what’s the best way of promoting such consultation activities with them?

I wrote the following notes in response to a question in one of our gov2qld community of practice meetings some time ago. Some of the content is dated (I now no longer have a ‘heavily pregnant wife’, instead I have a gorgeous son! …. ermmmm …. no, that sounds wrong, I still have a wife as well, just not a pregnant one – you get the gist ) but the concepts remain valid.

It seems to me that promotion of online consultation events using traditional (i.e. non-online) promotion methods simply doesn’t work (or at least it definitely doesn’t work for me).

The only time I have been persuaded to partake of an online consultation relevant to me is when I have been able to ‘click and comment’. By that I mean, I am at my desk, I am in ‘browse internet mode’ (also often called ‘procrastinate mode’), I am presented with a link to a consultation and I click it to comment.

I am not in ‘browse internet mode’ when I am on a bus or train and see a billboard referring to a consultation. I am not in ‘browse internet mode’ when I am sitting in the comfy green reclining chair reading the local newspaper which contains an ad from my local council for a consultation; I am not in ‘browse internet mode’ when I am opening my council rates notice (instead I am in ‘angry mode’ and certainly not in the mood to read any enclosed flyers or newsletters from council – however, I might read these in green chair mode later – see previous).

So promoting an online engagement activity to me, and I suspect many others, when I am not in browse mode is unlikely to have the desired effect.

But when I am in browse mode, how, and through what channels, can I be presented with a link to a consultation and persuaded to ‘click and comment’?

Well, I check my emails about 1000 times a day. All 5 email accounts (it’s a long story). And when I’m in ‘email mode’ I can usually be easily persuaded to move to ‘browse mode’. (In fact, a recent Community Engagement conference in Melbourne noted that links in emails is one of the most effective ways of driving people to online consultations). I also check Facebook about 5 times a day and if I follow the agency that has the consultation then I might be tempted by a feed update containing a link. But of course, that relies on me following said agency, which, for some, I do now, thanks to the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi). I also live on Twitter. So if I follow an agency then you can bet that I’ll see the link to their consultation. And when I’m reading tweets I am simultaneously in ‘Browse Mode’, ‘Procrastination Mode’ and ‘Please show me something interesting mode’

And finally, I belong to communities of interest.

On LinkedIn I belong to a number of groups covering varying subjects, including those that cover the mechanics of online consultations – easy target! But I care about the environment too and belong to a few online communities. I love Organic Gardening and will happily comment on Community Gardening or local sustainability initiatives – if they are promoted through the online Gardening groups I am a member of; I love to sail and belong to sailing communities who care about ocean conditions and boat facilities in my local area. I have a (very) pregnant wife and so am (temporarily) interested in all sorts of issues ranging from vaccinations, family assistance, pain relief and more pain relief – again, if they are promoted through the likes of BubHub.

My point? When I am consuming or contributing to these communities I am simultaneously in ‘browse mode’ and I’m a qualified target for your consultation (if it relates to the environment, the ocean, foreshore planning, community gardens, child health and well-being, pregnancy pain relief etc). So come find me, don’t wait for me to come find you. I probably wont.

An interesting example comes from the UK Department of Innovation where they created widgets that allow other communities to lift consultation questions onto their own community websites. Websites that were built around a community. Websites that weren’t government websites (where people were unlikely to go of their own volition). Yes, there are times when someone will refer me to a consultation or I’ll see a print ad for it and actively seek it out. But these are few and far between and usually only when I am really passionate about a certain subject.

So, what are effective ways to promote and drive visitors to online engagements?

I believe it’s a question of channel and community. Using channels that enable ‘point and comment’ and communities that already exist and are already discussing the issue (or related issues). It’s about embracing and extending that old notion of fishing where the fish are … but then bringing them back to your aquarium (to use the words of my colleague and very good friend Amelia Loye).

Oh, and catch me in ‘procrastination mode’ – that’ll usually do the trick!

It was published in 2008 and so is a little dated now, but the concepts and challenges faced by the records management community in the light of the meteoric rise in use of social media tools by government agencies – both internally and externally – is as relevant today as it was when first published.

As I mentioned last night, I spend half of my time in the world of Records and Information Managers (as Product Manager for Objective Corporation) and half of it in the world of Government 2.0 (as co-founder and coordinator of the gov2qld community of practice) and one of my desires is to facilitate a shared understanding of both communities in the challenges and opportunities of the other.

Steve’s book provides a perspective on Records Management that I believe is extremely useful for all those of us pushing ahead with Government 2.0 initiatives and an insight into the challenges that the records management teams face because of the vast increase in content production and new (and subtly different) content production channels that have emerged over the last few years.

I was going to write a review of the book but James Lappin at tfpl blog has done such a good job that I’ll just link to his, and recommend both it, and Steve’s book to both the records management community and the government 2.0 community.

(Incidentally, for those of you going to the InForum conference in Darwin later this year, Steve will be speaking at that event, as will gov2qld’s very own David Schulz and one of last night’s panelists Troy Pullen).

click to enlarge

Exciting times for the gov2qld community as we have just welcomed our 400th member to the group and are actively working with practitioners and advocates in other states around Australia to roll out similar Communities of Practice in other locations. More details soon!

The next gov2qld networking event will be held at the headquarters of Queensland Police (full details below).

This month we will focus our ‘Government 2.0 Intensive Care’ session on a subject that is often overlooked in the excitement of Government 2.0 initiatives, that of Preservation and Record Keeping.

It’s a subject that was very much front of mind during the deliberations of the Government 2.0 taskforce and I’d recommend the report produced for the taskforce by Recordkeeping Innovation as pre-meeting reading.

Once again we will have a panel discussion with Troy Pullen from Queensland State Archives and James Kliemt from QPS. There will be lots of opportunities to ask questions, discuss your own experiences and most importantly relate the subject matter to your own situations.

Of course, we’ll also have our usual networking session, a look at whats in the news from a Government 2.0 perspective and a chance for you to raise burning questions or issues of the group in our ‘Government 2.0 Surgery’.

Please note we will revert to our previous start time of 5.00pm to enable those that need to get home at a sensible time to do so. For the rest, there will likely be a few takers for drinks afterwards (since the venue is an alcohol free zone).

When: Thursday 11th August 2011, 5.00-7.00pm

Where: Queensland Police Headquarters, 200 Roma Street (between Makerston and Garrick Streets). Once inside the main foyer, turn left just before the security gates. See map below.

RSVP: Please RSVP on the LinkedIn Event page or by emailing gov2qld@gmail.com

It’s free and everyone is welcome!

Many thanks to our hosts Queensland Police Service and our wonderful sponsors, Mammoth Media.

… and thank you for your continued participation in our Gov2qld community!

Venue:

View Larger Map

click for larger image

The next gov2qld networking event will be held at the Gardens Point Campus of QUT (full details below).

This month we will focus our ‘Government 2.0 Intensive Care’ session on a subject that many of you are talking about if not actively working on at the moment, the use of Internal Social Media within agencies and departments.

We will look in particular at efforts to incorporate tools like Yammer into the culture of organisations with some success stories but also some challenges encountered. This will be another panel discussion with lots of opportunities to ask questions and discuss your own experiences.

Of course, we’ll also have our usual networking session, a look at whats in the news from a Government 2.0 perspective and a chance for you to raise burning questions or issues of the group in our ‘Government 2.0 Surgery’.

Please note the start time of 5.30pm due to restrictions on the room, and also we have not (yet!) been able to find a sponsor for this event however Sarah has invited the group to the Reading Room Birthday Party after the gov2qld event so there will be plenty of opportunity to network over a drink or two there.

When: Thursday 14th July 2011, 5.30-7.30pm

Where: Level 12, S block, QUT Gardens Point Campus

RSVP: Please RSVP on the LinkedIn Event page or by emailing gov2qld@gmail.com

It’s free and everyone is welcome!

Thanks for your continued participation in our Gov2qld community!

Professor Beth Noveck

UPDATE: Unfortunately Beth Noveck has had to cancel this visit due to health reasons. We wish her a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing her here in Brisbane in the near future.

Exciting to see that Professor Beth Noveck is visiting Brisbane on Monday 25th July and will be speaking at a free event organised and hosted by QUT.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald will be joining her in the session where both professors will talk on Government 2.0 – Theory and Practice.

Professor Noveck has been at the forefront of this work in the USA and internationally. Her book Wiki Government provides conceptual depth to the ideas while her leading role in the Peer to Patent Project and most recently The Open Government Initiative (within the US government) have established her as an expert practitioner in the area. Professor Fitzgerald, a member of the Federal Government’s Gov 2.0 Taskforce in 2009, and his research team at QUT have lead international thinking on new models for licensing of public sector information since their discovery in 2004 that Creative Commons licences could be applied to public sector information. His two volume edited collection on Access to Public Sector Information: Law Technology and Policy is a key resource in this area.

Highly recommended to all of the @gov2qld community. More details and RSVP information here.