ReemA's blog

As part of seeking feedback and input into the 2011 conference we were asked to put together a survey of NSW Local Government and the web. This survey was launched last week at the 2011 Fourth Annual Local Government Web Network conference held in Sydney on 18-19 August 2011.

The newest issue of Stories Magazine is now available for download. if you would like a hardcopy version, please contact us

i just came across this nifty infographic from Advertising Agency Burson Marsteller that sets out the use of social media in the Australian marketplace and how it sits against maintsream media outlets as well as a few other details:

Great little video by the Victorian Department of Justice on Social Media at work, found via Matt Crozier

I was lucky enough to be invited for the second year to present at the Association of Local Government Information Manager's Web Symposium, a conference similar in format and spirit to our LGWN conference.

This year, I managed to spend a couple of extra days of my own time exploring Wellington, and it's spectacular cultural history museum Te Papa Tongarewa and of course it's fabulous food!

But the main reason I visited was of course, the conference.

One of the great suggestions we had with regards to the 2011 Conference was to do a survey of the current state of the web in Local Government in NSW.

The point of this survey is to provide a brief snapshot of how councils in NSW are currently managing their web environments and is based on the survey from New Zealand’s Association of Local Government Information Manager’s Web Network

Our survey is not intended to rank or judge any council, but is merely a seeking to take a snapshot of the current environment.

The survey will be open for a month, and will close at 5pm C.O.B. 22 April 2011

It will also be published in the Local Government Weekly to capture those not part of the Web Network.

The results of the survey will be made available at the Local Government Web Network Conference and on this website. The results will be anonymised prior to release.

Take The Survey

Last Friday I stumbled upon a tweet by @NaomiMorris about a new council reporting iPhone app.

It's called SnapSendSolve, and picks up on the "Fix my Street" endeavour that has been kicking around Australia in various forms, such as "It's Buggered Mate" for the last 18 months or so.

I got in touch with the developers, and spoke to Danny Gorog, one of the directors of Melbourne based Outware Mobile to find out more.

Gorog explained that they had already had some exposure to council data via the development of their RiderLog app for the Bicycle Network. Then, the launch of the Victorian competition App My State pushed them to expand and retool the data to create this new app. They came overall fourth in the competition and did score the Youth Prize until it was noted that they weren't youth!

*Update*

Ok, to make it a little easier to get feedback,  I've set up an Ideascale like we used a couple of years back. A click and you can vote on suggestions. Get to it!

http://lgwn2011.ideascalehttp://lgwn2011.ideascale.com

There are lot’s of things that go into putting on the conference and I take all your feedback very seriously and incorporate it where I can.

But I can't do it alone!

There are many aspects of the planning that you can get involved in, but the most important one is telling us what topics you'd like covered, and by who!

Web Accessibility has long been an issue in Local Government. Having moved beyond bricks and mortar accessibility; access ramps and the like, Local Government seems to have gotten stuck when it comes to web accessibility.

Lack of skill, lack of knowledge and fear of associated costs have often prevented accessibility initiatives from getting off the ground.

But things have to change.

The Australian Government Information Management Office, guided by the Online Communications Council have mandated that all government agencies in Australia must transition to the now adopted standard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2 (WCAG 2.0)

Via the Online Communications Council, where Local Government is represented by the  Australian Local Government Association, this Transition Strategy applies to us.

Hopefully, for many of you, this Transition, which has been bubbling away for quite sometime, is already on your radar, but for many of you, this adherence to the standard will be a new direction.

For Local-e, we are already building these standards into our new Joomla based CMS as far as practicable.

Post conference come down? Absolutely!

But there's still much work to be done and much going on out there in the world of the web.

New Gov2 Online Forum

As part of the Gov 2 Taskforce and the adoption of it's recommendations by the previous Federal Government, steps have been taken to make real some of those recommendations. One of these inititatives is a private space for public servants of all levels of government to come together and share their experiences. This new Gov 2.0 Govdex Community is being hosted by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO). This new Online Forum is intended to create a community of practice, much like what we're trying to do here.

To quote from the government response (http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/govresponse20report/index.html#re...):

It is intended that this [community of practice] will be led by Finance, leveraging existing centralised technology capabilities (govdex.gov.au) hosted by Finance. This is a practical measure that will promote uptake of best practice, and learning from errors that are made.

To get involved and register for the forum, please email gov2 at finance dot gov dot au