A wrapup of the Public Sphere 2: Gov 2.0 by Senator Kate Lundy. She discusses what worked well, some possible outcomes and thanks to all the people who contributed to making the topic (and the event) successful.
Information about Pubilc Sphere 2: Gov 2.0 is at http://www.katelundy.com.au/category/campaigns/publicsphere/open-gov/
Screenr version at http://screenr.com/JZ8
Transcript:
Today I'm going to talk about my Gov2.0 Public Sphere.
It was our second Public Sphere event and the first thing I'd like to do is put out a big thank you to everyone who helped with the day. Obviously Pia Waugh was instrumental in the organisation and how the event rolled out and it was a terrific success. But also the group of volunteers who gave their time and effort to make sure it worked. I'd also like to thank everyone who participated: we had over 1500 people viewing the live wall and watching the event in some way and hundreds of people actively contributing to Gov2.0. It's an experiment. And what we've been able to demonstrate in the Public Sphere is you can do online policy consultation using social media and get an effective, meaningful outcome. The actual issues that we discussed I think will make a big difference to the direction of the Federal Labor Government and I am really pleased to see so many great ideas emerge.
I think some of the important ideas that came out of the Public Sphere event included the openness and accessibility of Public Sector Information. This is a theme that was across a lot of the discussion and talk, but really sits at the heart of what constitutes a more transparent and accountable government. Importantly, too, with access to Public Sector Information, that's easy, both the public and private sectors can innovate with that information and provide even better services for citizens.
One of the issues I've been involved in for many years is government procurement. With ICT we know through many years of controversy there's a right way and a wrong way about going about procuring your ICT hardware, software and services. I'd like to think that the Gov2.0 initiative by the government and some of the ideas in this Public Sphere will improve how we procure ICT services.
One of the particularly important presentations I think was by Michael De Percy from the University of Canberra. He spoke particularly about the challenges of working with online communities. And the Public Sphere in itself was a good example about how constructive that can be. It needs to be inclusive, you can't overly control what's going on, but really trust the wisdom of the crowd in putting forward those ideas and have a good system for organising those ideas.
I think one of the reasons the Public Sphere worked so well is, that we use the wiki to frame those ideas, express the recommendations, and report back on the whole event in a very collaborative way. So a particular thank you to people who made a contribution to the wiki after the event itself.
I really liked the way people used twitter during the Public Sphere. We had a great deal happening on the Public Wall that we could see coming through twitter and particularly when we got a tweet from Kevin Rudd. I think it shows that he is pretty switched on now with his twitter account and using it quite effectively. And I was certainly grateful for promotion of the event that his tweet caused.
Another aspect of the Public Sphere event that I thought worked really well that Minister Tanner and Minister Ludwig decided to use the Public Sphere event to launch the Gov2.0 Task force. This was a great opportunity for everyone who came along to the event who was able to hear directly about that particular announcement. But it also meant that the chair of the Task force, Professor Nick Gruen, was able to issue an invitation directly to all of us at the Public Sphere to provide our feedback directly to that Task force. Not only did Prof Nick Gruen come along directly to the Public Sphere, but we had several other members of the freshly announce Task force at our Public Sphere event: Prof Brian Fitzgerald was there, Lisa Harvey, Martin Stewart-Weeks. Allan Noble from Google was supposed to be there, but he was amply represented by Raul Vera. So we were really pleased to have them there. We know Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum was online and we saw a couple of tweets coming in through the day from him as well. So, thank you to those Task force members whose commitment was obvious by their participation in the Public Sphere and their commitment to these issues and public policy related to Gov2.0 to date.
So, thank you particularly to the Ministers for acknowledging the Public Sphere in the way that they did and I'd like to invite everybody who was involved in the Public Sphere to take the time now and provide input to the Gov2.0 Task force.
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Kate Lundy: What I do for Open Governmentby KateLundy1,141 views
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