Recently Annette Obermeier and I had the pleasure of working with Fiona Keough, CEO of the ATA, on a brief study of trends in Australian local government service centers. Thirty-four local government service center professionals participated in a survey that allowed us to better understand how Australian local government service centers are changing and compare this information with trends in [...]

On its own, open data certainly has its uses, but they are limited. And the attention it continues to get makes it harder for anyone to talk about what makes data really powerful – open services. So what are open services? An open service is one that is freely available to everyone to use. The [...]

Based on my experiences from the fore-runner to 2012′s “Digital by Default” PS Public Service Events conference, I wasn’t expecting much more than “interested conversations.” How wrong was I… Why Sponsor Again? Let’s back up a little…  why did KANA sponsor, speak and exhibit for a second year? Quite simply because actual ‘Digital by Default’ events [...]

Whilst public sector organizations are similar to commercial sector organizations, and indeed both have a lot to learn from each other, public sector organizations have a number of characteristics that are largely unique to them. In the public sector, particularly local government, many services relate to a location, whether its someone’s home address or a [...]

It’s unbelievable in this day and age that companies, both large and small, are still refusing to handle even the simplest of the digital channels, email. Earlier this year, my wife and I went through that simultaneously painful and exciting experience of shopping for carpets (amongst other things) for our new house.  Like Liam Neeson, [...]

In David Moody’s article titled “The Emergence of the Digital Citizen,” (PART 1, PART 2, PART 3) he boldly, yet I believe very accurately, predicts that by 2020 phone-based communication will represent the lowest percentage of government interactions. A key trend that supports David’s viewpoint is the rapid transition from “basic” mobile phones to smart [...]

In this third and final part of the series on the Digital Citizen, I introduce the challenges government faces in servicing the Digital Citizen (read Part I and Part II). By now you know that the Digital Citizen is ready and waiting, and that whilst you might believe they bring opportunities for government, you also know they [...]

This is the second in a series of blogs on the Digital Citizen. The first, ‘The Emergence of the Digital Citizen – Part One’ outlines my thoughts on how the use of new technologies ,like social media and smart phones, have gone mainstream everywhere except government. That said, this blog highlights a few great examples [...]

Few will argue that the ‘digital citizen’ is a reality today, but many will still cite statistics that show – beyond a shadow of a doubt – that phone-based communication still represents most of government interactions. Whilst true, my problem with this is that I believe many infer this is the way it will always be… [...]

I made this assertion recently during my plenary presentation at the Transformation through Technology conference in London. Thankfully, I didn’t get lynched… The rationale behind my assertion is this…  whilst technology can certainly inspire a vision for transformation, it alone is not enough and without other factors, the likelihood of achieving the expected outcomes is significantly reduced. [...]