http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog The public affairs practice in New Zealand Government Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:27:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Today, the Department of Internal Afairs launched data.govt.nz, a beta site where government agencies can register their non-personal data sets for use by members of the public and organizations. The department has also created a Twitter account @data_govt_nz to support engagement with communities of interest around the data sets. As ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2009/11/04/data-govt-nz/ I have, despite forces almost gravitational in their inexorability, resisted the urge to post about Twitter. Primarily because, over the last 18 months, the web has been awash with commentary about how to use the micro-blogging service. However, the publication this week by the UK Government's Cabinet Office of a ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2009/07/31/twitter-govt-nz/ There has been quite a lot of discussion about opening up government data over the last couple of months, both here and in other jurisdictions. In 2007, I posted on the UK government's Power of Information report, and the potential social and economic value that could be unlocked. At that ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2009/07/10/on-openness/ If you spend any time at all trawling around the web you inevitably encounter a lot of comment about consultation and engagement. In the public sector, this triggers an immediate tension between what we have historically delivered and the huge potential we see for online channels to deliver the sorts ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2009/06/26/consult-and-engage/ Demos, the UK think tank, this week published a pamphlet on the impact of social networks in the workplace. Called Network Citizens, the report is a qualitative study of six workplaces that documents their internal and external networks. Unsurprisingly, much of the focus is on the role of technology, and ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/11/02/networked-citizens/ While chatting with Matt Lane last week about what New Zealand examples of social media in the public sector we should add to the Government 2.0 Best Practice Wiki (a terrific initiative launched by Mike Kujawski, a Canadian public servant consultant) it occurred to me that by only including successes ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/10/19/embracing-failure/ In case you had missed it, the Prime Minister announced yesterday that the country will go to the polls on November 8. That puts us, public servants, fairly and squarely in the pre-election period. What does that mean? For public sector communicators there are a couple of issues that we ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/09/13/election-2008/ Last week, as part of the World Internet Project, Auckland University published The Internet in New Zealand 2007, a survey of 1430 New Zealanders' use of and attitude towards the Internet. It has some interesting findings, particularly for public sector communicators. The topline results of our usage habits are fairly unremarkable: ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/08/08/kiwis-usage-of-the-internet/ Colin McKay posted earlier this week about a fascinating piece of research published by the Canadian government. The paper, New Technologies and GC Communications [Word], is the first phase (the qualitative) of a survey into Canadians views on their government's use of Web 2.0 technologies. There are a couple of points ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/07/06/citizens-views-on-govt-20/ In April last year, I published a post on what I considered to be the 5 principles for Govt 2.0, one of which was open source government. This week, some academics form Princeton University have published a paper, still in draft, with the wonderful – if only slightly melodramatic – ... http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/06/08/open-sourcing-government/