Pandemic planning… so where are the plans?

July 3, 2009 – 9:00 am

It’s the nature of pandemics… dealing with the unknown, on the fly, moving with the changing scenarios, making sure advice is accurate, robust, and up to date.

The State Services Commission (SSC) has a role in leading the Public Service and wider State sector during a pandemic. Our responsibilities are to provide advice on employment relations and help ensure that the Public Service and other essential services are able to keep delivering necessary services to the public.

So how has the SSC dealt with this? And how well have we done?

The last time the State Services faced a global pandemic was when bird flu came on the scene in 2004.

Since Novel A H1N1 09 virus infection (swine flu) reared its head the process has gone something like this:

  1. Dig out SSC Pandemic guidelines for bird flu on the website. Take calls from agencies that need employment relations information updated now. Aim to make it simpler, easier to understand, more logical and ‘step by step’, and give outlines and share the principles rather than the details.
  2. Take advice from the Ministry of Health, as the lead agency, and remove all health related information from our website. Because of the rapidly changing nature of the pandemic, channel all health related questions to the Ministry of Health website to ensure consistent health advice under constantly changing conditions.
  3. Take advice from the Crown Law office to ensure the legal rights of both public sector employers, and their employees, are considered and included.
  4. Liaise with the Department of Labour to ensure SSC advice and Department of Labour advice dovetail in to each other
  5. Informed the Minister of State Services, who -happily- is also the Minister of Health, about the advice.
  6. We continue to advise, work with and support agencies. We are committed to ensure a smooth flow of information as the scenario changes and advice is updated.

So how have we done? Please let us know what you think about SSC’s updated pandemic planning advice and any questions you have. And feel free to pass this on to anyone else you think would be interested in the topic.

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By Nick Mason | Posted in Guidance | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

For Whom The Bell Tolls

June 30, 2009 – 11:16 am

Today the redundancy bell in the Government CIO’s office will toll 10 times. Once each for Edwin Bruce, Isabel Regenaermel, Kaylene Murdoch, Mike Pearson, Liz Kolster, Janet Chambers, Lindy Siegert, Derek Rayner, Joanna McLeod, and Yenping Yeo.

While their battle here is over, they take the vision with them to other battlefields. The skills and experience they’ve gained are now available to other organisations for, as Hemingway would say, the good of the people.

Continuing with the For Whom The Bell Tolls theme, future battles that benefit people, businesses, and the community from government more effectively using IT and online services are likely to be guerrilla-style. Smaller, more agile and dispersed groups will be the norm. Amongst them will be many of our colleagues to whom we say au revoir today.

The bell will also toll one final time, for the Government CIO Branch. So that it can emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix. So that Shiva can complete the cycle of constructive destruction. So that a new era can dawn.

By Vikram Kumar | Posted in Editorial, News | Comments (5)

An introduction and a goodbye

June 19, 2009 – 4:21 pm

I have two things to talk about in this blog post.

1. You’ve been waiting a long time  since I first presented about government use of SMS , and now finally, I am very excited to be able to provide you with An Introduction to Government Use of SMS.  You can read it in full at the e-initiatives wiki (viewable only to those working from an NZ government IP), and add your own case studies (please), or you can download a printable version of the Introduction (PDF 192 KB). You can also read it in a slightly different and abbreviated form on the webstandards website.

I hope that as more agencies start to use SMS, they’ll share their experiences - both good and bad. Remember that if you’re spending public money and you mess up, if you share that lesson far and wide, you’re going to spread the cost of that failure too. As you’ll see in the next paragraph (spoiler alert!) I won’t be at the Commission to talk to you about SMS anymore, but my colleague Matt Lane will be, so if you have any questions, please email him. And/or also get in contact with Victoria University, who have a project named Effective Electronic Records Management in the 21st Century - the project is led by Professor Miriam Lips with research activities by Anita Rapson and Tony Hooper and you can email Anita on Anita.Rapson@vuw.ac.nz

2. As I mentioned above, from June 30 I will no longer be working at the Commission because my role has been disestablished. I would like to thank you all for reading and supporting this blog, which was the first big project that I undertook here at the SSC. I’d also like to thank all the contributors, especially Matt for his neverending enthusiasm, Richard Best for his amazing work on the contributor guidelines and sticky legal stuff, and the much-missed Laurence Millar for championing the project. I think it is vitally important that government opens up communication channels like this, and I hope that work will continue. I know that the blog is in safe hands with Matt in charge. I’d also like to thank the internet community in general for all the amazing feedback I got after my GOVIS presentation ‘Same Time, Different Channel’ which was essentially a summing up of everything I’ve done in my time at the SSC- it means an awful lot for me to be able to leave on such a high note. And of course, I believe in public/government participation, and the existence of the internet means I’m not really ever going to go away. See you at the next e-govt barcamp, no doubt…

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By Joanna | Posted in Govt 2.0, Guidance, Participation, research | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Building websites in 24 hours

May 19, 2009 – 4:05 pm

I don’t think it is controversial to say that when you work in government, you need to get used to things taking a while to happen. After all, having 4 million clients means a lot of accountability. That’s why it was so refreshing for me last week to be a volunteer at Full Code Press (on my own dime, and representing myself, not the State Services Commission).

FullCodePress was held, live at the CeBIT 09 conference in Sydney on 12-13 May. An Australian web team took on a New Zealand web team to build a complete website in 24 hours. Two non-profit organisations were selected to receive a complete website at the end of the 24 hours. New Zealand won the FullCodePress 2009 challenge!

Really though, the two winners were the non-profit organisations Rainbow Youth and the NSW Disability Discrimination Legal Centre who each got fantastic websites built for them. And I got to feel like a winner too, for being involved with such a fantastic event, and because of how much I learnt from the competitors and the judges about what is required to make a site good. 

What struck me the most about the event was the role that social media played to expand Full Code Press beyond the two teams who were physically at the event. As a volunteer I was blogging and twittering from behind the scenes, which allowed people at home to follow along with what was going on. Although I was supposed to be impartial-ish, it was fantastic to see the support the New Zealand team the Code Blacks got on twitter, including a large number of people who changed their icons:

fcp twitter    

It really made the world seem a little smaller, and it’s really interesting to keep checking the #fcp09 tag on Twitter, and see for instance, that Courtney from the Code Blacks (who also has a fascinating but unrelated twitter feed from the National Library) is still editing the content of the Rainbow Youth site, because she’s such a professional. I love that an event can be so inspirational to professionals who are at the top of their game, and I love that it can produce such great results. But I’m wondering - does it take a cross-Tasman competition to get people to work for a charity, or is there something that we could all do in our daily lives that would both challenge us and help others? Is there something that government could do via the use of new technologies to make it easier for charities to reap the benefits of crowd-sourcing? How about crowd-sourcing to improve government services and sites as well?  

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By Joanna | Posted in Participation | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Satisfaction with government’s online services

May 15, 2009 – 5:42 pm

Providing services online, done well, benefits both people and government.

Individuals, professionals, businesses, etc. who choose to use government’s online services benefit from “anytime, anywhere” access to government services. Agencies benefit by freeing up their frontline service delivery staff. Instead of routine transactions, staff can spend more time on complex, high-touch cases that enables both more effective and efficient services.

Yet, looking around in New Zealand, it seems that we’ve barely scratched the surface. In many ways, the potential from government’s online services to benefit both people and government lies untapped. Looking overseas, for example the Australian Excellence in e-Government Award, the breadth and usefulness of online services introduced each year seems impressive.

Can we do better?

One of the first steps is to get a better assessment of where we are. In the past, there have been some qualitative studies done by the State Services Commission as well as the New Zealanders Experience Research programme, which includes Kiwis Count. However, a missing piece has been a more quantitative understanding of online services at an all-of-government level.

Late last year the State Services Commission therefore undertook such a study and has today published the results online- Kiwis & Government Online Survey (2008). This survey provides an indication of respondents’ satisfaction with government’s online services, in particular those that are comfortable using the Internet to access government’s services.

The survey also looks at respondents’ perceptions of various other aspects of online services, including channel preference and their ideas on better promoting government’s online services.

There are numerous insights in the survey but there are two that stood out for me.

First, the most important aspect for respondents transacting with government online is that their privacy is protected. At the same time, it is also the aspect that they most agreed with as being true about their perceptions of transacting online with government. This means that protection of privacy when transacting online with government represents a congruence of importance and perceptions- a very good result for both people and government.

Second, for slightly more than half the respondents (54%), emails were the preferred way for agencies to get in touch with them routinely. While emails to contact an agency are clearly not a preference, getting emails from agencies seems to be favoured by many.

There are many more interesting findings. Have a look at the survey and let us know what you think.

By Vikram Kumar | Posted in News, Strategy, research | Comments (0)

Government in the global village

April 30, 2009 – 3:40 pm

I leave my position as Government CIO tomorrow, and this is my last post on InDevelopment.  Over the last five years,  it has become crystal clear that we are in a single, globally connected world - both through the widespread use of internet based technologies by individuals everywhere, and through the common issues faced by all governments in responding to the challenges that this creates. 

The world has changed

The economics of ICT have been dealt another disruptive shock by the advent of cloud computing.  At the end of the 19th century, each organisation made their own arrangements for power generation.  The construction of the electricity grid fundamentally changed the cost of power, and inexorably led to the decline of organisation-based power generation, although this was strongly resisted by the suppliers and managers whose positions and expertise was based on effective management of power generation equipment.  We are seeing a similar shift in the world of information processing through the advent of the “cloud computing”, well described in the book The Big Switch.  

In addition, we are seeing a levelling of person to person connectedness that bypasses traditional channels.  This creates the opportunity for groups with a common interest  to create a tight community where ideas are generated, discussed, refined and crystallised from a diversity of participants. The velocity of circulation of information, across organisation and national boundaries, is faster than interactions between people physically located in the same building. It really does not matter where you are in order to join a discussion, which has a huge impact on the economics of social production. The Wealth of Networks explains this further.

 And a third example of how the world has changed is from the Gartner Symposium analysts keynote. “Business users are reading about technology and seeing new possibilities Did you see the BBC story about streaming video through your cellphone direct to a web site? Could we use that to improve our service calls? These business leaders don’t need IT to do this for them, they can fund it themselves because: Technology is no longer scarce; Technology expertise is no longer the domain of IT; and Technology is no longer a capital expenditure”

How is government to respond to these challenges?  Two areas need priority attention, and feature high on the agenda of government CIOs around the world. 

Offshore data

What do we need to think about when making decisions on where to locate government data? SSC released guidelines for the use of offshore ICT service providers earlier this month, which were incorrectly interpreted by some as being “protectionist”.  My view is that they were the exact opposite - they recognised the economic reality of cloud computing and that government would have to make a choice between operating our computing systems in New Zealand, and using offshore data centres at 20-25% of the cost.  What are the factors that need to be weighed up, and how compelling is the case for retaining data onshore, with the consequential cost premium.  As I outlined at the start of this blog, the shift is inexorable, and NZ will never have the scale to establish a data centre at the price points available from cloud computing, so we will need to decide how much value we place on the areas of risk outlined in the guidelines.

Open up government data

We need to recognise the network effects of opening up government data in a form that means others can access it. Economic value is created by businesses building innovative new services using government data. Public value is created by enabling a richer and deeper understanding and dialogue among interested individuals about what the data tells us about our lives.

We can immediately think of reasons why it is not a good idea - there has been no demand for the data we have already published, the data quality is not up to standard, the data was only collected for a specific purpose, the data will be misinterpreted, we do not have sufficient resources to properly present the data. In my view, all these perceived problems come from a historic perspective on information and data that is not adequate for a 21st century information economy, and does not reflect the new network economics outlined in the Wealth of Networks. 

The legal, policy, and moral position is clear  - New Zealanders own the data, having paid for its collection through taxes. These “problems” will all be solved by the community, and our role as government is to give priority to this. 

We can expect to see two other significant effects, in addition to value creation, from freeing up government data.  Firstly, we know that government acting alone cannot achieve the outcomes  - stronger economy, better education, sustainable development, safer cities, healthier communities - that New Zealand needs if we are to have affordable government in the future.  These outcomes will arise from government, individuals, NGOs, businesses, communities and whanau working together.  By opening up data, government demonstrates (by reducing information asymmetry) that they are committed to working with others parties in an equal partnership.

Secondly, the increased transparency and accessibility of government data will increase the level of trust that NZers have in government. Trust is our “bottom line” - the foundation of the democratic process, the core value espoused by the State Services, and an area for continuous investment if we are to maintain our position of world leadership.  Further insight into this can be found in the Transparency 2.0 article in Transparency and Open Government.

Where to from here?

I have been privileged to be in a leadership role for government use of ICT since I joined SSC from the private sector in March 2004. I look forward to commenting from the outside looking in, and observing these changes which are fundamental to the way governments will need to operate in the future - globally and transparently. New Zealand is well positioned to maintain our current leadership role.

 

Laurence Millar

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By Laurence Millar | Posted in Editorial, Strategy | Tagged | Comments (7)

Guidance on monitoring, and interacting on, social media

April 24, 2009 – 2:23 pm

When I was at university, I studied some psychology. I vividly remember learning about deindividualisation; losing the sense of individual responsibility for your actions (sometimes through a false sense of anonymity) leading to anti-normative behaviour. One of the lesser-known examples that the lecturer gave, was an experiment in 1973, where six males and six females (all strangers) were put in a dark room together. By the end of the first hour “participants began to get physical; half hugged each other, some became intimate” (my emphasis). In this instance, deindividualisation lead to non-aggressive behaviours, but more often than not, it goes the other way.

Imagine speaking at a conference, blindfolded, and not being able to hear the ambient reaction of the audience to your material (also, the audience is really, really big, and can permanently hyperlink to any of the comments you make). This is pretty much social media on the internet.

If social media is used well, organisations, individuals who work for organisations, and private individuals now have an unprecedented opportunity. This is an opportunity to both extend our reach, broadcasting messages to many others, and (more importantly) participate in existing relevant conversations.

Social media is now part of our communications ecosystem and is thus part of business as usual.

Published guidance

After feedback on the draft guidance on Social media monitoring and interaction, as well as further discussion with the Commission’s Trust and Values team, we’ve made some changes.

We’ve divided the document into two:

The Principles for Interaction have been stripped back to an even shorter and simpler form. This was to avoid any confusion that they may be in conflict with existing agency codes of conduct. The message is that the same old expectations of conduct apply on new media:

We must be fair, impartial, responsible, and trustworthy

When we use social media in a private capacity we must, as we always have had to, take care that we do not harm the reputation of our organisation.

No significant changes were made to the Implementing social media monitoring. As before, it duplicates the many guides available online that will help you monitor activity on social (and traditional) media as a means of managing your organisation’s reputation.

I feel that these pieces of guidance mark a maturation point for our use, and expectations of use, of social media.

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By Matt Lane | Posted in Guidance, Integrity & Conduct, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Government Projects the Agile Way: Can It Be Done?

April 16, 2009 – 10:23 am
GOVIS logo

On Monday 6 April 2009 GOVIS hosted a forum exploring the opportunities for—and issues facing—the adoption of Agile development methodologies in the government space. The forum featured a panel of four people representing several different viewpoints: Mike Lowery, Agile evangelist; Liesle Venter-Wagner, developer; Mark Pascall, vendor; and Andy Neale, client. The forum was introduced and managed by Mark Leicester, Senior Technical Analyst with the Strategy and Innovation Team, GCIO, State Services Commission.

After a short overview of Agile the panel discussed Governance of Agile projects, The Vendor/Agency relationship, and Getting started with Agile. Then the audience was then invited to vote for three topics from a longer list. The audience chose Being Agile, Agile myths and legends and Reconciling Agile with government procurement processes. The session was recorded and is summarised below.

Read More »

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By Mark Leicester | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (5)

Government Use of Offshore Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Service Providers: Advice on Risk Management

April 15, 2009 – 5:05 pm

Today the State Services Commission released the final version of advice for government agencies on managing the risks of offshore ICT contracting. The advice is supplemented on the website with a 2-page summary and an FAQ.

The public consultation (18 October – 16 December 2008) was very successful with several major vendors submitting comments. The vendors were generally supportive of the work but were concerned that it was risk- rather than benefits-focussed. They felt it could be used as an excuse for avoiding not just any consideration of offshore suppliers but even consideration of locally-based offices of international companies. We have acknowledged that concern.

Following the consultation, we’ve changed the title to more clearly reflect the document’s scope. We’ve increased the information about agencies’ responsibilities to conduct open and transparent procurements in accordance with the Mandatory Procurement Rules, New Zealand’s international treaty obligations and other good practice advice from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Office of the Auditor General. The stronger language in the introductory sections emphasises our focus on managing the risks.

For those of you who read the PDF version of the Interim Guidance, you’ll notice that the layout of the material has changed. Now, both HTML and PDF versions have the same layout. That layout incorporates the risk mitigation information in the relevant sections that explain the risks (as well as in an appendix). This will improve usability of the information and reinforce the message that we are advising risk management not risk avoidance.

We received preliminary feedback from some agencies who have considered the advice in the light of particular projects they had at the time. They say they have found it helpful in thinking through the issues and identifying where they needed to pay more attention.

The advice does not introduce any new policy nor does it create any new requirements for agencies. It provides information to help agencies meet their obligations under existing procurement policies, international obligations, the Public Finance Act, the Privacy Act and the Public Records Act.

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By Lindy Siegert | Posted in Guidance | Tagged , | Comments (0)

A wizard behind a curtain

March 13, 2009 – 4:01 pm

NZGovtFeeds logo
Since March the 3rd of this year, @NZGovtFeeds has been republishing various New Zealand Government RSS feeds as a Twitterstream on Twitter and on a FriendFeed account.

This is a simple but powerful example of a third party outside of Government adding value to information that Government is providing. I am uncertain which Government departments could have considered it their responsibility to create an aggregated RSS feed for all-of-government and then convert it into a Twitter feed, but the moral of the story is in this day and age, no government department should be doing this if this will be done by a third party.

And this can only be done if the content is in a format which is open enough to enable reuses.

On this point, NZGovtFeeds keeps a list of “invalid” RSS feeds coming out of government, a list of agencies without RSS feeds (sadly the list contains 80 organisations), and publicly laments:

“There are a lot of NZ Government RSS feeds that have useless titles such as “Latest News” and “Updates”.
We suspect this is due to an inward view on the information and the feeds are designed by people that only work in the one place and to them it is obvious - not thinking of the reader”

“If I Don’t Know Who You Are, I Don’t Care What You Say”

In January, Adriel Hampton wrote a post titled If I Don’t Know Who You Are, I Don’t Care What You Say* proposing exactly that: anonymous content carries no currency (or maybe shouldn’t carry currency?). I disagree with Adriel: Wikipedia has a lot of anonymous content, and while sometimes incorrect, it is not something to be ignored.

If information is provided anonymously, there is simply a greater obligation on the consumer of that information to verify its sources and processes (even if these sources and processes are transparent). Once content is attributed to a person, and you know and trust the person, that simply means you can take it on their word that there is no silliness going on (or you can still verify).

For this reason, I was delighted when the the curtain was pulled back on Sunday.

The wizard behind this curtain

Taadaa!

I would like to thank and congratulate Mike Riversdale on acting as a role model for all of us.

I’m hoping there will be plenty more wizards and curtains to come.

* Edit: I originally accidentally linked Adriel’s later post If I Don’t Know Who You Are, I Can’t Evaluate What You Say

By Matt Lane | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (4)