Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts

Monday, May 06, 2019

Mapping Canberra's startup ecosystem

I've had a continuing interest in start-up ecosystems across Australia, having been a member of several of these ecosystems & helping to mentor and support a range of start-ups over the years.

I've maintained a Canberra ecosystem map for about four years now, mostly for my own interest and to understand some of the relationships between different players and the startups they support.

This was inspired by work by BlueChilli on the defunct StartRail maps, which was based on some of the international work portraying startup ecosystems in the style of metro rail maps. Unfortunately they focused on Sydney and Melbourne, missing some of the smaller, yet equally vibrant, scenes in Perth, Brisbane and Canberra, all of which I am linked to in various ways.

Recently I've seen some sterling work by Gordon Whitehead mapping the startup ecosystem for the Hunter & Central Coast, which had been reinterpreted by Brian Hill of Laughing Mind.
As such I've decided to share my Canberra startup ecosystem map for anyone interested.

Also keep an eye out for the work by Chad Renando at StartStatus, who is engaged in a national effort as part of his Phd, which should provide a broader view of the Australian startup ecosystem as a whole (which tends to be city-based with a few cross-ties of various strength).

Chad has also done some intensive work looking at models for measuring startup ecosystems and identifying their strengths & weaknesses that will be very valuable to government, not-for-profit and corporate interests in years to come.

As for Canberra - here's my humble contribution....






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Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Governments are getting serious about innovation capability

The Australian government has been touting the importance of innovation for several years now, with the Coalition's innovation agenda recently conceded to be a political failure due to its lack of resonance with the Australian public.

However underneath the politics, government agencies across Australia and New Zealand have been vigorously expanding their innovation capability, as the The Policy Lab at Melbourne University recently reported.
"A vibrant public sector innovation landscape is emerging in Australia and New Zealand. Public sector innovation (PSI) units are increasingly being established by governments to bring new insights and approaches to policy design and the delivery of public services."
The Mapping Public Sector Innovation Units in Australia and New Zealand 2018 Survey Report identified at least 26 PSI units across Australian and New Zealand government at different levels, across agency-run, agency-led and industry-led units - and that only counts the units the researchers were able to identify, which missed units such as The Garden from Accenture and some deeply embedded innovation teams within certain government organisations.

Notably a number of these units remain new, with a quarter less than 12 months old, and more than half less than two years old, and small, with half employing 5 or less staff. As a result many of these labs relied on consultants and contractors with specialised skills to function effectively.

In Australia all of the agency-owned & led innovation units were focused on a single (funding) agency, whereas New Zealand has established two cross-government units, which work broadly across government.

Interestingly most staff at government-based units were long-term public servants. These units did not draw significantly on external talent from Australia's innovation networks - which raises alarm bells for me in terms of building a blend of talent with broad experience across the innovation ecosystem.

My personal experience with these innovation units has been mixed. Some are still very locked into public sector norms, and find it difficult to produce more than iterative innovations, whereas others have embraced the freedom to innovate and are already providing significant returns. In my experience the more diverse the staff experience, and the more 'liberated' from public sector norms, the more effective these units tend to be.

The areas of policy these units worked in were quite diverse, ranging across 'social issues, housing and welfare’, ‘Public administration and governance’, ‘Education’, ‘Health’, ‘Indigenous and Maori issues’, ‘Transport’ and ‘Policing, crime, and the justice system’ - a good sign that the value and need for innovation is  being recognised broadly across government, if not deeply.

Now while I have had concerns about some of these units turning into 'innovation ghettos' - where agencies tend to look to these units to provide the bulk of innovation within agencies, there are strong signs - particularly in New Zealand - that in many cases these units are functioning more as facilitators and amplifiers for innovation rather than innovation mines.

In my view there's plenty of innovation across government and the long-term challenges to realising this innovation as progressive improvement of government services, effectiveness and efficiency have included hierarchies stifling innovation based on source, poor pitch/amplification skills, limited capability to scale & execute, perceptual fears and budget mismatches.

If government innovation units can address these challenges effectively, then the future for these units looks bright.

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Thursday, January 19, 2017

90% of digital disruption is still to come (podcast)

A few months ago I interviewed with Andrew Ramsden of AlphaTransform, who has spent the last year capturing the thoughts of digital leaders around Australia (he also has a book in the works).

He's now published the interview as Episode 16 in his Alpha Geek Podcast - which is definitely worth checking out.

You can listen to the interview below, in which I suggest that we're still at the start of the digital transformation journey for society, for business and for government...

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Friday, December 02, 2016

CSIRO ON Innovation Bootcamp report - Innovation thriving in the public sector

I was privileged to attend CSIRO's On Innovation Bootcamp on Wednesday and Thursday this week, a two day intensive for CSIRO, university and other government teams transitioning concepts from government scientific research towards becoming startup companies.

This was the third round for the ON programme, with approximately 80 teams having now gone through the process to some degree. It was my second ON bootcamp as a volunteer mentor.

Hosted at UTS in Sydney and facilitated by Pollenizer's Phil Morle and Tristonne Forbes, 8 CSIRO teams, 10 university teams and one from the Defence Science and Technology Group went through the bootcamp program.

They spent two days testing and validating their customer, product and market assumptions to confirm whether their concepts could truly make it as a commercial product in the global market, then pitched their new businesses to three judges with extensive startup capital experience, competing for ten places in the 12-week ON Accelerator program.

The teams were supported by about 25 volunteer mentors from a range of startup and corporate backgrounds, as well as CSIRO ON's staff.

Comparing this bootcamp with the last one I'd attended, this time the teams were more mature. Many had prototypes and had either tested their products or found their first customers. Several brought along product samples, or wore team t-shirts emphasising their spirit and focus.

This maturity made it only more intensive as the teams thought through their MASSIVE vision, developed their roadmaps to success and tested their value propositions against the needs of their potential customers.

During the bootcamp all of the teams went on a huge emotional rollercoaster. Some arrived with a clear vision of their product and markets, but found that their target customers didn't perceive the problem they were addressing, or weren't prepared to pay for a solution.

Other teams were still forming (one I worked with hadn't met before face-to-face), or still saw their concept as an interesting research project rather than as a compelling commercial offering, and had to rethink their roles, approach and language.

I witnessed several amazing breakthroughs where teams realised that their initial thinking needed some adjustment, and pivoted their product, market or customer target to increase its chance of market success.

At the end of the two days all the teams had made amazing progress, and gave stunning three minute pitches. I don't envy the decisions the judges will have to make.

I've included a series of tweets below from the pitches which highlights each team's area of focus. Frankly I could see 90% of them going on to become successful, either as a business or licensing their technologies, with a number having market maker potential for creating global change.

Remember that all of these are public sector innovations - government-funded science that has become potentially valuable technology with vast commercial potential.

The list below is in the order of the pitches.

Virtual Training - VR training for healthcare professionals and families incorporating AI


NutriThick - an intensively healthy drink made from Australian seaweed that counters vitamin deficiencies amongst older people

RadVet - a tested cancer treatment for pets, that has already been successful in humans

MICE - a secure image sharing service for Doctors, to accelerate treatment through providing information to specialists

Green and Gold - a genetic approach to activating the leaves of plants to produce renewable fuel oils, including aviation fuel

VitiApp - a decision support system, particularly for vineyards, that helps farmers and their consultants make better decisions and produce improved wines and crops

detectORE - a simple in-the-field testing solution for mining samples to accelerate decision making and save money

Going for Gold - a non-toxic gold extraction technology that replaced the cyanide currently in use and can also increase yields for smaller gold miners by 50%

DrapeMeasure - a disruptive patternmaking system that uses 3D mathematics to provide faster and more precise measurements of 3D shapes (such as people for clothes), that has applications across the fashion, building and design industries

LuciGem - who have developed stable nanoscale diamond and ruby probes to explore and understand live cellular environments

Passive Radar - a system using environmental radio sources to map objects, providing enhanced situational awareness for military forces without revealing their locations with active radar

Wildlife Drones - who have developed an enhanced animal tracking system six times faster and able to collect substantially more data than existing methods, with applications across wildlife research, agriculture and pest control

Feraliser - an indigenous-driven initiative which transforms feral pigs into fertiliser, providing regional jobs and improving environmental and social outcomes.

SensorCloud - a data integration and analysis service that can digitally transform the agricultural value chain, by equipping agronomists and farmers with integrated and improved intelligence for decision-making

Australian Silicon Photonics - a group that has developed a low heat and energy consumption solution for moving data within data centres, and eventually within devices, allowing our digital networks to grow enormously at much lower cost and impact

D-Tech IT - an automated fish identification system for tracking fishing catches at source to avoid catching the wrong species and increase the efficiency of fishery operation

IOkeeper - a cloud security system that allows individuals and organisations to encrypt all the data they place or transfer through the cloud, keeping it safe even when cloud providers are hacked

DentalAR - a training system for dentists that uses augmented reality to quickly upskill students and allow trained dentists to access vital new information in real time to improve patient outcomes.

Robotic finger orthosis - a 3D printed custom robot exoskeleton managed by a mobile phone or smart device that helps people to recover more rapidly and completely from hand injuries

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Monday, August 01, 2016

Congratulations to GovHack for another fantastic year

The weekend just past featured the 6th GovHack event, involving over 2,000 participants in 280 teams across 41 locations in Australia and New Zealand working on 439 registered projects.

Effectively the world's biggest government hackathon, GovHack includes some amazing ideas on how to solve public challenges, using open data from agencies in innovative ways.

Whether you've previously heard of the GovHack event or not, visiting the Hackerspace (2016.hackerspace.govhack.org/projects), where all the registered projects are listed, is an inspiring way to start the morning and get some innovative ideas on how to address some of the pressing challenges facing your agency or organisation.

I wasn't actively involved in GovHack this year, due to family commitments, so don't have any insights from the ground on how the event went.

However from the social correspondence and general mood online, the event maintained the heights it attained in past years, while maturing further with better systems and challenge structures.

With GovHack managed by a second generation team (with the founder and key past organisers moving on or otherwise engaged), this year marked a major transition for the event.

The success of this year proves that GovHack isn't just a passion-play, but is a solid, sustainable, professional event that can become an important ongoing part of the open data movement, and tool for governments to foster citizen engagement, for a long time into the future.

Congrats to all of the organisers this year, who have made this possible.

Here's some stats from the event, based on the current information in the Hackerspace.

Total projects registered: 439
Total projects submitted: 351 (80%)

(Projects must be submitted to be eligible for judging)

The tables below show the number and percentage of submissions (Sub.) by territory, as well as submissions by 2015 population estimates.

As I measure it, the smaller the population per submission, the greater the level of engagement with GovHack within that territory - leaving ACT the most engaged, followed by South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, New Zealand and then Western Australia, with Victoria and NSW at the end.

Projects by Country

CountryReg.Sub.% Sub.
Population
Sub./Pop.
Australia
373
291
78.0%
23,781,200
81,722
New Zealand
66
60
90.9%
4,596,700
76,612

Projects by Australian State/Territory

State/Territory
Reg.
Sub.
% Sub.
Population
Sub./Pop.
Australian Capital Territory
51
44
86.3%
390,800
8,882
New South Wales
70
45
64.3%
7,618,200
169,293
Queensland
84
70
83.3%
4,779,400
68,277
South Australia
60
49
81.7%
1,698,600
34,665
Tasmania
13
11
84.6%
516,600
46,964
Victoria
69
48
69.6%
5,938,100
123,710
West Australia
26
24
92.3%
2,591,600
107,983

Projects by Region and Local event - Australia

RegionLocal SiteReg.Sub.% Sub.
ACTCanberra
45
39
86.7%
ACTCanberra Heritage Hack
6
5
83.3%
NSW
Camperdown Games for Learning
4
4
100.0%
NSWParramatta
6
5
83.3%
NSWSydney Official
55
32
58.2%
NSWTyro Fintech Hub
5
4
80.0%
QLDBrisbane Maker Node
11
7
63.6%
QLDBrisbane Official
42
35
83.3%
QLDBrisbane Youth Node
1
1
100.0%
QLDFar North Queensland
1
1
100.0%
QLDGold Coast
6
4
66.7%
QLD
Ipswich
4
4
100.0%
QLDLogan
6
6
100.0%
QLDRockhampton
3
3
100.0%
QLDSunshine Coast
6
5
83.3%
QLDToowoomba
4
4
100.0%
SAAdelaide
36
31
86.1%
SA
Adelaide Maker
2
1
50.0%
SA
Mount Gambier
9
9
100.0%
SAOnkaparinga
5
2
40.0%
SAPlayford
7
5
71.4%
SA
Port Adelaide Enfield
1
1
100.0%
TasHobart
7
5
71.4%
TasLaunceston
6
6
100.0%
VicBallarat
9
8
88.9%
VicGeelong
5
4
80.0%
VicHack for Wyndham
5
5
100.0%
VicMelbourne
36
20
55.6%
VicMelbourne Mapspace
14
11
78.6%
WAGeraldton
3
2
66.7%
WAPerth
23
22
95.7%

Projects by Region and Local event - New Zealand

RegionLocal SiteReg.Sub.% Sub.
NZAuckland
16
15
93.8%
NZChristchurch
15
12
80%
NZDunedin
1
1
100%
NZHamilton
10
9
90%
NZNapier, Hawkes Bay
2
2
100%
NZNorthland
1
1
100%
NZQueenstown
3
3
100%
NZWellington
14
13
92.9%
NZWhanganui
4
4
100%

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Friday, July 01, 2016

The awesome finalists in the Public Sector Innovation Awards

It's tough to be innovative in many organisations - there's systems that try to regulate and direct change, managing its pace and impact, there's personalities and politics at play competing over limited resources and there's the inherent tendency for most to build cultures focused on stability and continuity over change, uncertainty and risk taking.

It's even tougher in environments with the level of governance, public scrutiny and bureaucratic overheads that is seen across much of the public sector.

However the Australian Public Service has been taking steps for a number of years to shake off the shackles and support and foster innovative behaviour, with some very clear successes along the way.

One such success has been Innovation Month - designed several years ago by a bunch of mid-level bureaucrats with senior support and approval) who were passionate about sharing the innovation in their workplaces, and connecting the many innovators and intrapreneurs, and those aspiring to innovate, across the public service.

Fostered and supported by the Public Sector Innovation Network (PSIN), and the Secretaries Board, the month has gone from strength to strength each year.

Another emerging success is this year's inaugural Public Service Innovation Awards, also supported by the Secretaries Board and PSIN and managed by IPAA ACT as an addition to their annual public sector awards.

I've had a very small role as an assessor for the Awards, and was proud to see the level of innovation on display by a number of the applicants.

Most of the entries featured innovations that have had little or no public exposure - the media just isn't interested in public sector successes (or learning experiences that don't result in a big 'bang') and agencies remain poor at promoting their achievements (where the credit is often appropriated by politicians who just happen to be in the right Ministry at the time).

These are all real achievements by real public servants - and they deserve to be recognised, lauded and pestered with questions (on how others can achieve similar great outcomes), for the work they have done.

The finalists have now been selected and have pitched to the judges (armed with training from some of Australia's top pitch professionals) - with the winners to be selected in a few weeks.

I've included the list of the finalists below, and images of the teams are over at the IPAA ACT website.

Keep an eye out for the winners later this month.

Finalists in the Public Sector Innovation Awards

  1. Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission - Charity Portal
  2. Department of Defence - REDWING Project
  3. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - The establishment and operation of the innovationXchange
  4. Geoscience Australia - Mineral Potential Mapper
  5. Department of Finance - govCMS
  6. Tourism Australia - The World's Biggest Social Media Team
  7. Australian Taxation Office - Small Business Fix-It Squads
  8. Department of Defence - PyroFilm
  9. IP Australia - Patent Analytics Hub
  10. Australian Financial Security Authority - Quick Motor Vehicle Search
  11. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet - Changing Recruitment in PM&C
  12. Australian Taxation Office - Cloud software authentication and authorisation


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Friday, June 10, 2016

The increasing importance of role models in the public sector

Role models are incredibly important for humans across both their personal and professional lives.

Role models can help show us and make us believe we can exceed our own boundaries. They can open doors and windows to new ideas, fostering innovation and positive change.

The more restricted and limiting the environment, the more important role models become. They show us where the gaps and opportunities exist and help shine a light on dark paths where many would otherwise fear to tread.

If you doubt humans need role models at every stage in their lives, watch this video showing how even a doll can become a powerful role model for a child - and the movement behind it is helping shift views across society.

The importance of role models is understood by governments, who seek to lift up those that support their agendas. Awards like Australian of the year and Young Australian of the year are examples of how exemplary citizens can be held up as national role models, presenting values and attitudes that we can aspire to share.

Similarly the importance and practical use of role models is understood by business, by the arts and by not-for-profits, which all hold up those exceptional individuals who model the behaviour that others seek to exemplify, to encourage productivity, ethical conduct, creativity and selflessness.

The concept of role models is even understood within the public service, where exceptional service and good behaviour can be recognised through awards and speaking opportunities. From the Public Service Medal to the new Public Sector Innovation Awards, role models are recognised to help illuminate the conduct and behaviours that the public sector seeks to encourage.

This is why role models are increasingly important in the public sector. With increasing digital transformation across society, new tools and new problems emerging as sunset industries fade and new ones rise, the public sector's role is changing increasingly quickly.

What does it mean to be a public servant in an era when the customer is kind and every citizen holds a supercomputer in their hand? How does government continue to reinvent itself - its policies, structures, performance criteria and behaviours - to remain relevant and effective in an age when people expect instant customized service?

While I worked in government I was alway conscious of being a role model for digital innovation. My blog made me more visible, but my conduct and work made me an example that others could learn from and follow.

I was also very conscious of the other role models within my sphere who similarly blazed trails, did great work and were held up as exemplars of what public servants could and should do. I continue to admire and be inspired by many of them to this day.

While many of these faces have now changed, in the public service, due to life changes and new opportunities, there's just as many, if not more digital and innovation role models in government today. Whether publicly recognised and held up, like Paul and the team at the Digital Transformation Office, or working within agencies, like the members of the PS Innovation Network, these individuals are modeling the behaviours and conduct the public service needs to adopt to move forward with Australian society.

But what happens if agencies or powerful public sector senior managers see these role models for innovation and change as threats - to their egos, job security or just don't fit their view of how the world they believe they control should operate?

I've seen few acts more cowardly or despicable than cutting down a positive role model for selfish personal reasons, or to preserve and protect a poisonous culture.

Indeed this too becomes a role model, of the worst kind - a negative influence that spreads fear and uncertainty. "If my role model can be cut down, then what could I do" can run the thinking, leading to the growth and spread of a negative 'prisoner' culture where no-one dares to raise their head, challenge poor decisions or demonstrate innovation or leadership.

Yes role models are powerful in the public service - both for the good and the bad.

For the public service to prosper in the digital age, to become agile, adaptable, citizen-centric and innovative, from the heights of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to outlying agencies like CSIRO, from top agency executives to graduates, positive role models must be elevated and negative role models cut without remorse.

To everyone who is a positive role model in the public service (whether you know it or not), everyone who models leadership, innovation, digital expertise and amazing stakeholder and citizen engagement, those who are collaborative, giving and supportive and love helping their colleagues and Australia succeed and grow - I salute you.

Once you grow tired of the good fight and retire the field, do so with honour, knowing that no matter whether you leave by choice or necessity, your impact has been profound, recognised and valued.

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Thursday, April 14, 2016

Building an Open Government Partnership plan in Australia from the edges to the centre

On Monday this week I participated in the cocreation workshop for Australia's Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan (NAP) commitments.

For background on the Open Government Partnership (OGP), refer to opengovpartnership.org, and for Australia's membership process refer to my blog post on the history (egovau.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/contribute-now-to-australias-open.html) and the government's site (ogpau.govspace.gov.au).

The workshop involved roughly 60 participants from civil society, government agencies and individuals interested and involved in the process and both available and able to self-fund a Canberra trip to be involved.

Many had previously submitted ideas for potential commitments that the Australian government could make to improve the transparency and accountability of our national governance in the OGP consultation period between December 2015 and March 2016.

The group had over 300 submissions to consider and refine to a much smaller number of potential commitments for the Australian government to consider and, hopefully, endorse in the first Australian Open Government Partnership National Action Plan - joining 68 other countries that have made, and implemented, hundreds of similar commitments over the last five years.

The day (which largely followed the agenda) opened with an introduction by Amelia Loye (@emotivate), who the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had appointed this year to lead the stakeholder engagement process following the work I'd done to lead OGP information sessions last December.

Amelia laid out the challenge ahead - to take the hundreds of ideas for improving government openness, transparency and accountability (some detailed, others thought bubbles) and refine them down collectively into a set of solid and measurable commitments that Cabinet could endorse and the Australian public service implement over the next two years.

The Australian government's commitment to the process was reaffirmed by both the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's David Williamson, Deputy Secretary of Innovation & Transformation and by the lead officer on the OGP National Action Plan, Toby Bellwood, who made it clear that this was not a once-off project, but the start of a journey.


After taking questions on topics from the continuity of key transparency agencies, such as the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (answer: can't comment), to the depth of commitment by Departmental Secretaries to the OGP process (answer: Secretaries Board has not yet been engaged), we got down to work boiling hundreds of submitted ideas into actions that the government could consider for inclusion in Australia's first National Action Plan.

With six active tables, and rough guidance on an approach, people self-selected by their topics of interest (Access to Information, Public Participation, Fiscal Transparency, Open Data, Fostering Innovation and Government Integrity) and got down to work.

Each table self-organised and employed a slightly different methodology to sorting through between 20-100 submitted ideas on their topic and categorising them into broader commitments.

On the Public Participation table we integrated world cafe and card sorting techniques through the morning to develop two broad commitments. People flowed between tables, with a few 'anchor people' remaining to pass on the consensus views.

By lunch a total of 18 commitment concepts had been developed across the six tables and a process of 'dotmocracy' saw the top commitments voted on by the entire room.

From here smaller groups worked on framing commitments using the National Action Plan template, resulting in 13 documented commitments, with another undocumented commitment around creating a (sorely needed) formal mechanism for engagement between the public service and civil societies.

Finishing up in the afternoon, I was largely happy at the progress made, though comments on the same day by the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet about restricting Freedom of Information took a lot of the shine off the process.

Having a Deputy Secretary of the DPMC say the government was committed to openness and the Secretary say, on the same day, that public servants must be protected from scrutiny with FOI restrictions, doesn't evidence a deep senior public service commitment to support the Prime Minister's OGP commitment.

However the commitment of the OGP team in DPMC is clear.

The excellent and inclusive approach from Pia Waugh and her successor Toby Bellwood speaks volumes about how some public servants understand and support the need for governments to transform their culture to remain effective and relevant in a more accountable and transparent world.

I'll provide a more targeted post on the topic of senior bureaucrats wanting restrictions to FOI tomorrow.

Back on the OGP process, now that some commitments and supporting actions have been drafted, the government will be following a process of reviewing them through the Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC), then costing and putting them into a Cabinet approval process, potentially with other suggestions from government agencies.

This isn't quite the 'partnership' process that I had hoped for, and runs the risk of having agencies discard any commitments that they feel are uncomfortable (ie ambitious or confronting), either by directly burying them or by laying potential risks and costs onto these commitments to an extent that makes them seem unworkable.

Having seen public servants use this tactic on other matters, I will be very interested to see what makes it to Cabinet for review.

However this is only Australia's first OGP National Action Plan, and no matter how fantastic or flawed it is in meeting the OGP goals of ambitious targets that stretch agencies, it still shifts the conversation a little further in the right direction.

Future plans will build on this one, being collaborative in their design and ambitious in their execution, leaving me optimistic that Australia's Open Government Partnership process will deliver fruit for our democracy and support broader and deeper effective engagement between the public sector and the people of Australia.

For another perspective on the day, Cassie Findlay has published a great piece. I'm sure there will be a few other reflections in days to come.

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Thursday, December 17, 2015

What does membership of the Open Government Partnership mean for Australia?

On 24 November Prime Minister Turnbull sent a letter to the global Open Government Partnership (OGP) Secretariat confirming that Australia would progress to full membership of the OGP by July 2016 (continuing the process started by the former Labor Government in May 2013).

Australia will become the 69th member of the OGP, joining countries such as the USA, UK, Canada, The Philippines, Mongolia and India.

The consultation process is now underway, supported through the OGPau website and a consultation wiki at ogpau.wikispaces.com.

I've been supporting the process through facilitating a number of Information Sessions on behalf of PM&C to help build community awareness about the initiative, to address questions and build engagement with the process.

Canberra's session was livestreamed and the raw replay is below.


I am also involved in the establishment of the Australian Open Government Partnership Network, a network of civil societies and individuals that support the goals of the OGP and aim to work productively with the Australian Government to help Australia achieve them as a nation.

If you're outside government and wish to stay informed about the process, or get involved in a network of people interested in the OGP's goals, learn more at aogpn.net

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Friday, July 17, 2015

Have you visited data.gov.au lately? We're beginning to witness the 'Open Data Multiplier'

PS News has a great report on the growth of data.gov.au - linking to a report on the Department of Finance's blog which indicates the site added 100 datasets in June.

The site has also upgraded to provide more data visualisation capability for users, as well as a responsive template for improved mobile access.

Most interesting was the high use of the service over GovHack, with 4,755 user sessions by 2,618 users. The most popular datasets included intellectual property government open data 2015, ABC Local online photo stories 2009-2014 and sample household electricity time of use data.

I've written about some of the interesting Govhack prototypes over at The Mandarin in the article, GovHack 2015: a wildly successful idea that keeps spawning more, where I also wrote about how participation is a useful way for agencies to test and support 'edge' innovation without committing scarce personnel and funds.

From what I've been hearing over the weeks since Govhack we're reached something of a tipping point with open data in Australia, with governments beginning to seriously recognise the value of sharing data in this manner.

Those benefits are not just external to agencies, such as transparency, economic growth or community engagement, but also internal.

Internal open data benefits to government include improving agency decision-making (through greater awareness and access to collected data), improved data quality and fostering innovation and creativity.

As a result of reaching the tipping point, I expect to see continuing significant growth in the quantity and quality of open data available across Australia, as well as more targeted and useful data as agencies become more sophisticated in their data release (as I've outlined previously in my Open Data Generations Roadmap)

This will stimulate what I've termed the Open Data Multiplier.

As with the network effect, where the value of a network increases exponentially with the number of participants (think about telephones or the internet), the Open Data Multiplier means that each additional dataset released for reuse creates a growing number of possibilities to combine it with existing data, or use it on its own, to prompt even more interesting and diverse innovations.

However the Open Data Multiplier only operates when the community and agencies are engaged with open data. Without this community both inside and outside of the public sector, data sits 'on the shelf', generating no value at all.

This is where volunteer-run events like GovHack are valuable for fostering a positive civic hacking culture.

Agencies also have a role in fostering both an internal and external culture of data-based innovation through supporting GovHack and similar events, and running their own separate challenges on agency-specific topics (as Transport for NSW and Public Transport Victoria have done).

The internal benefits don't stop at data either. The same challenge model, once adopted by government, can be used more broadly for policy and service design and in finding diverse solutions for government problems - as has been successful in Challenge.gov and is used by VicHealth and thre ACT government.

Indeed I ran a similar service design challenge for the Victorian Government at GovHack, the first exploration of such an approach at that event. The learnings will help guide Victoria's government in identifying when to use similar approaches and in designing and running future challenges.

All of this follows on from opening up government data, creating a more permissive and experimental sandpit for innovation and sharing.

And it starts with a visit to data.gov.au - have you visited lately?

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Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Intrapreneurship and the art of digital transformation - improving how government operates

It's been a tough week to resume blogging about digital government, egovernance and Gov 2.0, with the attention of the media, public, public service and politicians fixed on politics rather than the operations of government.

However the nature of government, and of humans in general, is that politics is always a key element in getting stuff done (or undone as the case may be).

When it comes to improving how government operates and serves the public, in my view the goal or outcome of Gov 2.0 (whatever buzzword is used to describe the topic), the political element must always be considered part of the fabric of the process.

Little gets done without the authorisation and example of management, or at least a blind eye from those at the top allowing gray space in laws and policies for changes to creep through.

The discussion and debate over whether (and how much) innovation can occur in government, whether agencies can transform themselves to meet citizen expectations while reducing costs - as typified by the concept of Digital Transformation - thus must consider the political elements as well as the practical.

Do the political masters of the public service support Digital Transformation and what does 'support' mean in practice? Do the appointed heads and senior executives of government agencies embrace and champion the change, despite potential disruptions to their orderly structures and ongoing policy challenges? Do the middle management understand completely the vision and goals of the process, and can it be aligned with their practical day to day struggles to allocate the right people and resources to meet the goals of their agencies? And are the officers who undertake many of the roles requires to keep the machinery of government operating mentally and physically prepared to change their habits in pursuit of change?

Aligning these factors is a challenge at an agency level, at a whole-of-government level it becomes even more so, but it is a challenge that public servants face after every election, Ministerial shuffle or machinery of government change.

Indeed often the challenge is that there's simply too much and too frequent change in government for officers to become familiarised with the last set of changes before being thrown into new ones, with the leadership - political and operational - finding it hard to bed down new systems before being confronted with new ones,

This blend of stability, structure and chaos into which the announcement of the creation of a Digital Transformation Office has been made, at a time when the nation is discussing questions of national leadership and the public sector is still bedding down the machinery of government changes of 12 months ago, and the Ministerial changes of last month may thus seem a very challenging environment in which to achieve success.

Having come from an entrepreneurial environment, and having successfully intrapreneured in government, participating in and running teams of technologists and business professionals, my view is that the current moment in government is possibly the best time and opportunity for groups seeking to create change that we've seen in a few years.

Innovation flourishes when the status quo is uncertain and malleable, not within environments where structure and objectives are clear cut and certain.

When organisations are clear on their objectives, have optimum structures to achieve them and have leadership focused on the task at hand, innovation is kept to the margins, providing incremental improvements to maintain the status quo.

But when the status is not quo, when change is the norm and the goals are less clear, innovation can be bolder and  more revolutionary. It becomes possible to consider radical options, to allow a greater risk of failure in the pursuit of larger outcomes and success.

For digital transformation to succeed it must be possible to link together disparate systems and thinking from across government, to smash through existing silos and processes when considering new designs for policy creation and delivery and rebuild the mechanisms that underpin the operations of government not just in new forms, but in new ways.

There's no better time to attempt this then when existing silos are fragile and the pressure of falling budgets, personnel and loss of expertise is mounting.

The challenge will be to gain the advocacy and mindshare required to drive through the transformation agenda alongside the competing priorities that agencies now face.

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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

GovInnovate Day 1: Government must do more than tinker around the edges

This morning at GovInnovate 2014 we heard a keynote from Dominic Campbell, founder and CEO of FutureGov.
Dominic made a strong point that governments can't continue to cut 5% from their costs each year and expect to continue to improve service delivery.

He said that ultimately this strategy would stop agencies from being able to deliver effectively services, potentially resulting in disastrous collapses, social damage and even deaths.

As such, Dominic suggested that governments needed to invest in redesigning their service delivery from end-to-end, employing a design-based process and codesign principles to involve the people who receive the services in the conceptual design of how the service is access and delivered.

As an example, Dominic pointed to the Casserole system his company had codesigned as a replacement to increasingly costly and unviable 'meals on wheels' services.

Taking a transactional approach, Casserole recognised that meal delivery was based on supply and demand. Some people wanted to eat, while some had surplus food or enjoyed to cook - what they had to do was design a system to connect the two groups in a mutually beneficial way.

Using a codesign approach, FutureGov developed Casserole to connect home cooks with people needing food provision.

Casserole was developed without the involvement of government, initially prototyping on a single street. It subsequently expanded to a council region and now extends across many council regions in the UK - to the places where it is wanted and needed.

Over 5,000 cooks are now registered with the system, with relationships between food provider and receiver having lasted up to three years so far.
The keys to the success of the service were the inclusion of users in the design process and the elegant design of the solution, which respects users and makes it as easy as possible to access and use.

The project has had side social benefits as well, fostering strong relationships between people which improves their quality of life.

Dominic believes that this kind of design process, involving the 'relentless exposure of bureaucrats to communities' will lead to far better services for citizens, delivered at lower costs to governments.
However they do not naturally evolve from a progressive cost-reduction approach. They require a reinvention of government services.

In conclusion Dominic pointed out that the community is done waiting for government and increasingly looking for alternative solutions to meet its needs.

If government doesn't get on this curve, it will become increasingly ineffective and irrelevant, undermining the supposed 'efficiency' of reduced cost through degraded service delivery.

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Monday, November 03, 2014

The future of intelligence is distributed - and so is the future of government

In 2011 an IBM computer, Watson, beat human competitors at Jeopardy! 

This was a new landmark in artificial intelligence - a computer capable of correctly responding to plain English questions, in real time, by figuring out their intent.

At the time Watson was a computer as big as a room, and it was the only one of its kind in the world.

The original Watson still exists, as discussed in this Wired article, The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World, however it is no longer alone.

Hundreds of Watsons are now in operation - not as room-sized computers, but operating 'in the cloud', as distributed software across thousands of open-source servers.

People can access the intellect and computing power of these Watsons through any computing device connected to the internet.

Even more significantly, like many artificial intelligences, Watson is a learning machine that gets more knowledgeable and able to find insights the more it learns. Whenever a Watson learns something, making a new connection, that knowledge is shared with every Watson - making it a distributed intelligence, able to learn at rates far faster than even a single supercomputer, or human, is able to learn.

The power of Watson isn't in the revolutionary algorithms that power its learning, it's in the network itself - how separate Watsons can share knowledge and learn from each other.

This is how humans evolved civilisation - by capturing, codifying, storing and sharing knowledge in sounds, images and words to pass it on from one individual to another.

However Watson hints at a more robust future for human intelligence, and for how we govern ourselves.

Humans have proven over the centuries that having more learners with better knowledge sharing means faster progress and better decision-making. Books, universal schooling and the internet have shown how dramatically a society can progress when appropriate knowledge sharing systems are in place.

The key is to focus on the size and complexity of the networks, not the expertise of individual 'nodes' (you might call them humans).

For computers this means that the more Watsons we create, and the more complex the knowledge sharing between them, the faster they will learn.

For governments this means the greater the transparency, and the more informed citizens are participating in knowledge sharing, the better the decisions and outcomes will be.

Now this isn't how government is currently constituted. The notion of representative democracy is that governance is handed to experts and specialists who live and breathe government so the rest of the population doesn't have to.

We elect politicians who are supposed to representative the interests of their electorates, and appoint bureaucrats whose role is to provide specialist knowledge and operate the machinery of government - develop policy, design and deliver programs, enforce laws and support citizens in emergencies.

By its nature this approach to government relies on experts who are placed separately to the population - often even physically removed and concentrated in a city like Canberra, Washington, Ottawa, Brazilia, Naypyidaw or Putrajaya.

This group (elected and appointed public servants alike) tend to become inwards focused - focused on how to make government keep working, not on whether it actually works and delivers for citizens.

Particularly inwardly focused governments tend to become so removed from their citizens that they are overthrown - though they've usually replaced with a not-dissimilar system.

Now we can do much better.

Rather than focusing on electing and appointing individual experts - the 'nodes' in our governance system, governments need to focus on the network that interconnects citizens, government, business, not-for-profits and other entities.

Rather than limiting decision making to a small core of elected officials (supported by appointed and self-nominated 'experts'), we need to design decision-making systems which empower broad groups of citizens to self-inform and involve themselves at appropriate steps of decision-making processes.

This isn't quite direct democracy - where the population weighs in on every issue, but it certainly is a few steps removed from the alienating 'representative democracy' that many countries use today.

What this model of governance allows for is far more agile and iterative policy debates, rapid testing and improvement of programs and managed distributed community support - where anyone in a community can offer to help others within a framework which values, supports and rewards their involvement, rather than looks at it with suspicion and places many barriers in the way.

Of course we need the mechanisms designed to support this model of government, and the notion that they will simply evolve out of our existing system is quite naive.

Our current governance structures are evolutionary - based on the principle that better approaches will beat out ineffective and inefficient ones. Both history and animal evolution have shown that inefficient organisms can survive for extremely long times, and can require radical environmental change (such as mass extinction events) for new forms to be successful.

On top of this the evolution of government is particularly slow as there's far fewer connections between the 200-odd national governments in the world than between the 200+ Watson artificial intelligences in the world.

While every Watson learns what other Watsons learn rapidly, governments have stilted and formal mechanisms for connection that mean that it can take decades - or even longer - for them to recognise successes and failures in others. 

In other words, while we have a diverse group of governments all attempting to solve many of the same basic problems, the network effect isn't working as they are all too inward focused and have focused on developing expertise 'nodes' (individuals) rather than expert networks (connections).

This isn't something that can be fixed by one, or even a group of ten or more governments - thereby leaving humanity in the position of having to repeat the same errors time and time again, approving the same drugs, testing the same welfare systems, trialing the same legal regimes, even when we have examples of their failures and successes we could be learning from.

So therefore the best solution - perhaps the only workable solution for the likely duration of human civilisation on this planet - is to do what some of our forefather did and design new forms of government in a planned way.

Rather than letting governments slowly and haphazardly evolve through trial and error, we should take a leaf out of the book of engineers, and place a concerted effort into designing governance systems that meet human needs.

These systems should involve and nurture strong networks, focusing on the connections rather than the nodes - allowing us to both leverage the full capabilities of society in its own betterment and to rapidly adjust settings when environments and needs change.

We managed to design our way from the primitive and basic computers of the 1950s to distributed artificial intelligences in less than 70 years.

What could we do if we placed the same resources and attention on designing governance systems that suited modern society's needs?

And it all comes down to applying a distributed model to governance - both its design and its operation, rather than focusing on the elevation of individual experts and leaders to rule over us.

It's a big challenge, but for a species that went from horses to spaceships in two generations, it surely isn't an impossible one.

And given that societies thrive or die depending on how they are governed, are we willing to take the the risk and hope that our current governance and political systems simple evolve into more effective forms within a human lifespan?

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Friday, September 19, 2014

Designing the sharing state - an interview with Steve Schmid of the Open Technology Foundation

This is the fourth in a series of interviews I'm doing as part of Delib Australia's media partnership with CeBIT in support of GovInnovate. I'll also be livetweeting and blogging the conference on 25-27 November.

View other posts in this series.

With thousands of governments at local, state and national level around the world that need many of the same technological systems to govern effectively, why do governments often believe they must develop new enterprise systems and their related assets (ie guidelines, policies, methods and other shareable ICT assets) from scratch?

This question triggered the creation of one of Australia’s most interesting and innovative organisations, the Open Technology Foundation.

Founded in 2011 with the support of the South Australian government and Carnegie Mellon University Australia, the Open Technology Foundation (or OTF), has the mission to help facilitate technology sharing at all levels of government across Australia and New Zealand.

The OTF’s leader, Stephen Schmid, is passionate about the work his organisation is doing.

“All governments perform the same basic functions but historically we have built our own solutions to meet a need. This tide is changing."

He said, “a very cost effective method of provisioning services is to investigate and potentially reuse what other governments have done when faced with the same challenge – sharing rather than reinventing."

Steve isn’t a newcomer to this vision for government.

After working for Microsoft in Redmond, Worldcom in Colorado Springs and IBM, Steve’s last role in South Australian Government was as Director of the state government’s ICT division, which is responsible for whole-of-government voice and data systems.

“A single data network and voice network servicing all government departments provides significant efficiencies”, Steve says, “Other states could leverage this model as they explore opportunities for converged technologies.”

This work led Steve to the view there was a strong need for a sharing program to support connected governments, and through his role at the OTF he’s working to build a bridge for cooperation between jurisdictions.

The work has already had some significant successes.

“We work cooperatively to facilitate sharing between public administrations across Australia and New Zealand. The OTF is also working on a range of projects with Vietnam and implementing a global knowledge-sharing platform for interoperable technology solutions”

The road has, at times, been bumpy. Steve says that “one federal agency asked us ‘who gave you approval to represent Australia”.

He told me that he doesn’t see the OTF as representing Australia, “we represent our members, jurisdictions who wish to participate in a sharing program with other jurisdictions. We create our own mandate. And everything the OTF does is open to every jurisdiction, with a focus on tangible outcomes.”

Sharing technology resources isn’t simply a nice idea. Steve believes there are significant opportunities to reduce the cost of provisioning public services while improving service delivery, “we’re here for Australian & New Zealand governments to leverage the investments of other jurisdictions and reuse them – in software, materials and other services. We also help share our [AU & NZ] knowledge with other countries, especially in the Asia Pacific region.”

Steve is not the only one who believes these outcomes are worthwhile.

A number of key Australian agencies and governments are represented on the OTF’s governing council. This includes Defense, the Bureau of Meteorology, the New Zealand Government and Australian state governments such as NSW, Queensland and South Australia.

Steve says that there’s also some urgency about the work. Europe is moving ahead with interoperability solutions and technology sharing at a great rate, and the US is moving forward with NIEM, the National Information Exchange Model.

He says that “Australia is still at the starting line, and we can’t afford to be there much longer.”

Steve also discussed four projects the OTF is working on for delivery in the next twelve months.

“Our first project is about modern design for a sustainable government”.

Steve says the aim of this project was to provide a set of principles for developing portable government platforms, including associated guidelines and procurement clauses.

“There was an interoperability approach developed by Australian government back in 2006, but things have progressed since then.”

The OTF aims to deliver an outcome that allows platforms to be portable not only in Australia and New Zealand, but globally.

“European Commission have expressed interest in being involved and we will potentially also have the UN involved, linking into all major regional governments at a global level.”

If the project is successful it will make it far easier for agencies to add standard principles into their procurement clauses. For Australian technology companies this opens a door to global business, providing clarity on how they provide a specific service.

Steve says that they hope to turn the project over to a standards body at a future stage to ensure its sustainability and broader uptake.

The OTF’s second project is related to managing shared guidelines for internal ICT management and for managing vendors. He believes this project will assist both governments and vendors.

“Having vendors spend additional money to meet the separate requirements for each jurisdiction adds significantly to the cost of software to government and the development costs of vendors.”

Steve says that common shared guidelines for many of our technology needs that can be used as a baseline for our public administrations would remove this extra cost.

The project is being led by the NSW government with the initial goal of developing a set of guidelines for cloud that can be shared and reused across jurisdictions.

OTF involves all of its participating jurisdictions in the development process, and hopes to use it as a model for further shared guidelines.

The third project involves investigating whether the European Commission’s eProcurement platform can be reused by Australian governments.

“The EC’s platform was developed to be an end-to-end eProcurement platform for European countries and was released under an open source license. We’re evaluating modules of the platform with Australian state governments to test whether it meets their needs. So far we’ve found it just works, out of the box”

Steve says that the platform, Open e-PRIOR, has been developed to international standards that suite Australian governments and is a good example of how systems developed elsewhere in the world can be reused by local jurisdictions.

“We’ve found that most governments are willing to share most of their investment in ICT with other governments, beyond their secure systems. The primary barriers to sharing are the cultural ones and appropriate licensing.”

Finally, Steve says the OTF is working on building a platform for managing shared enterprise platforms.

“Our member governments feel there is no place for them currently to place their shared enterprise platforms for reuse by other governments.”

Steve says this isn’t simply a Forge for code sharing, but a robust system that incorporates management and support to provide the quality control and support necessary for large government system.

The development of this ITIL-based platform is being led by the Queensland government, with the support of other OTF members. If successful it could revolutionise how Australian governments share their shareable platforms.

Steve believes these projects are some of the foundation stones for building a technology-sharing environment for Australian and New Zealand governments, and go far beyond earlier government attempts at interoperability.

If successful Steve believes they will help herald in an age of more connected and responsive government, dramatically cutting the cost and need for agencies to develop their own new systems.

It’s a big goal but a worthy one.

“Gaining the required levels of participation to make this sharing cooperation a real success story is challenging, but with the continued support of our member governments and networks, we will all benefit in the long term.”

You’ll be able to hear more from Steve at GovInnovate on 25-27 November in Canberra.

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