Beverley Head
Wednesday, 17 November 2010 18:01
IT Policy -
Government Tech Policy
Page 1 of 2
Governments the world over – Australia’s included – are still missing the point about Gov 2.0. IT analyst Gartner says that instead of using social networks and the internet to empower Government workers and citizens, they are using the tools to push political messages and propaganda.
Exactly a year ago Gartner analyst Andrea di Maio gave a cautious thumbs up to Australia’s foray into Gov 2.0 with the establishment of a taskforce led by Dr Nicholas Gruen, going so far as to suggest the nation was leading the world. But today he said that Australia like every other nation seemed to have missed the point.
“The report touched on the right points – but we are still waiting to see where it is turned into reality,” said Mr di Maio.
“Australia is doing no better than anyone else in the world. Governments are missing out. The real power for every employee is to use social media to be better at how they do their job,” he said.
But in an earlier
presentation Gartner analyst Andrew Walls said that more than 50 per cent of Australian enterprises were blocking access to social network, which was a higher percentage than many other nations. So not only are Australian Government employees not encouraged to use social networks to improve outcomes for their clients, in many cases they are actively prevented from doing so.
Mr di Maio said that governments had to get comfortable with the notion that social networks and the internet were tools to allow employees to perform their roles better. As such they should be considered workplace tools just like word processing or email applications.
During a keynote presentation to open its Symposium in Sydney this week Gartner gave the example of a US Government official – the equivalent of a DOCS case worker in Australia – who had used Facebook to become friends with children whose welfare they were monitoring. They had then used Facebook to friend their clients and monitor a child’s posts, and got in touch when the child suddenly stopped posting their usual commentary.
