James Purser's blog

Craig Thomler (formerly of the federal Department of Health, now with Delib) linked to the following survey which I thought might be of interest to Local Government web people:

http://www.citizenspace.com/app/delib-au/cmsurvey

The final report will be free and a presentation will be given at an event later on in the year.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) has released a series of guidelines on how government departments should approach the use of Cloud computing in their operations.

As always they are focused on the federal level, however I think they would make an excellent starting point for any Council looking to develop their own policies regarding the use of Cloud infrastructure within their own operations.

AGIMO breaks it down into three areas:

• Privacy
• Legal
• Financial

I’d recommend you download and have a read. At the very least it will give us a foundation on which we can build our own policies.

Hi all,

You may have noticed a new menu item up the top there called "Local Government Media". This is a new thing we're trialing to build an archive of online media presentations, podcasts and vodcasts that relate to Local Government and working online.

So far we only have one podcast, gov20Radio and no presentations, but we're on the look out for more.

With that in mind, we've made it possible for Network Members to submit presentations to be included in the archive. Simply go this page:

http://lgwebnetwork.org/node/add/lg-presentation

Fill out the form and a notification will be sent so that it can be looked at and moderated. Note you'll be able to tag the presentations and we'll be building a tag cloud to make it easier to search exactly for the type of presentation that you're looking for.

We hope we can build a decent library of podcasts and presentations to ensure that everyone has access to the best possible knowledge base.

The Federal Government has released the guidelines for the second round of applications to the Digital Local Government Program. Now remember these are for councils who fall in the areas that the NBN will be covering in the next year so double check the criteria before applying.

From the press release

"The Digital Local Government program provides funding to local governments in communities that first benefit from the National Broadband Network (NBN) to help them improve their online services. The program encourages the development of online services that are replicable and scalable, and which other local governments across Australia can adapt for their purposes. It has the potential to encourage a step change in the quality, availability and speed of local government services.

The Digital Local Government program round two guidelines call for project business cases to be submitted by the 20 Australian councils that are eligible to apply for funding under round two, and call for these councils to submit business cases for funding by 30 March 2012. The guidelines also provide information on the objective and purpose of the program, as well as information to assist eligible councils to develop project business cases for funding."

To find out more go here:

Hi All,

We here at LGWebnetwork HQ are looking for contributions to the LGWebnetwork Blog.

All of you spend every day straddling the gap between Local Government and the Internet, and each of you would have encountered situations, worked through problems and developed strategies to deal with the conflicts and problems being the go between brings up.

We want to hear about them. Whether it's in dealing with Twitter and your Councillors, streaming your Council meetings or simply working through your experience in choosing the best tools for your Councils web presence, we think that sharing these stories can help others and create a bit of a library for future reference.

If you have something to  contribute, please let us know either via email:

lgwebnetwork AT gmail.com

or Twitter:

@lgwebnetwork

James

Things have been a little quiet lately on the LG Web Network so I thought I would give everyone a bit of an update.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is James Purser, and I am the Web Coordinator for the Local Government and Shires Associations. I'll be maintaining the LG Web Network (while Reem is on maternity leave) when I'm not ensuring that the LGSA's website is running smoothly and that any potential future website is full of the awesome.

Reem’s shoes are going to be hard to fill however I'm going to do what I can to make sure things keep going. 

We're going to be fine-tuning the LG Web Network website over the next few months to make sure that it continues to be a solid resource for Local Government web stuff. To this end we'll be re-working the groups and we are also putting the call out for guest blog posts on topics ranging from social media usage in your councils to tools you use and the problems you face.

We also really want to hear what you want from the Network. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know, the network is here to benefit you and your work.

Two events occured over the weekend that should be of interest to Local Government practitioners.

The first, GovCampAu was organised by the Everyready Bunny of Open Government, Pia Waugh and was held in Canberra at NICTA on the saturday. A bit of a structured barcamp it brought together people from all levels of government and outside to discuss current projects, future plans and challanges around three themes:

1. Citizen-centric services
2. Open data
3. Online public engagement

By the sounds of it, it was a great success. You can hear a wrap up of it on gov20radio here

The second excellent event involved the folk from Open Australia conducting a hack weekend in which they turned their sights on to those councils that aren't yet supported in the Planning Alerts website.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the Federal Government is seeking:

"stakeholder comments on draft guidelines for the Digital Local Government program"

As far as I can tell this means Councils and other Local Government related organisations. So if you want to have a say in how the Federal Government builds and runs the Digital Local Government Program and ensure that it benefits your Council then get your comments in quick as the cut off is close of business September 9 2011.

http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/programs_and_initiatives/digital_local_government_program