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38 and counting…

Several of my followers have been asking how many ‘government’ accounts are there in the Twittersphere. I have collated 38 across local & state. And here they are, in no particular order:

Also Craig Thomler, via his blog has posted a crowd sourced list of Australian Government accounts, which is worth a read too.

Adelaide, where to now? Infinity and beyond!

More often than not I walk around Adelaide, like most office workers do in their lunch breaks. Walk down Franklin or Waymouth Streets and there is construction. Ah, yes there is the New RAH site along North Terrace. Signs along King William Street advertising that a new apartment building “coming soon”. And now most of the old Harris Scarfe site has been razed (to make way for a new era) it seems Adelaide is starting to bounce back. But the another edition of the “Adelaide” foot bridge saga continued with @AdelaideNow running this piece: September decision for $40m Oval footbridge site. How about build a bridge and get over it!

The City of Adelaide, has the youngest Mayor in 160 years, in Stephen Yarwood. It seems his tech savvyness and enthusiasm has provided the perfect opportunity to increase the level of engagement with city dwellers, workers and visitors has increased. With platforms & apps like Already Home and Picture Adelaide. To add to the mix, there is also 5000+, and the Integrated Design Commission SA website.

Regular AFL games at Adelaide Oval, possibility of NRL returning. International football (I mean the Socceroos) being played regularly are huge steps in Adelaide’s evolution. But, I think Adelaide’s conservative roots need to be dug up and replanted in greener pastures. Return the current RAH site back to the Botanic Gardens, Victoria Sq needs to be better than Federation Sq and open only to foot traffic. Also, something like Canberra’s Questacon, in the heart of Adelaide. Since the old Science & Technology Centre was moved (closed at Wayville), would provide an additional resource to an educational hub.

In short, my vision – family friendly open-spaces, vibrant & safe precincts, improved trading hours, restoring history but forging ahead with innovation, construction and vision; but most of all take advantage of these opportunities and move into a new era. I love my city!

Palm House, Adelaide Botanic Gardens

Palm House, Adelaide Botanic Gardens

My E7 Experience

Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Fuel Communications (Lisa, in particular) for the opportunity to evaluate the Nokia E7. Secondly, to apologise for the time it has taken me to write this review; sometimes ‘life’ just gets in the way of things.

I have been a Nokia user for over 10 years and the user experience has been better each time. The E7 has incorporated the functionality of most of the big players in the mobile phone industry; and in my opinion is on par with them.

The Nokia E7 has a flip-out/slide QWERTY keyboard, which took a while to get used to. However, I prefer this to the touch screen keywords. Double-tapping the screen to type become very tedious.

Syncing, both work & personal emails is a ‘nice-to-have’ feature; also built-in VPN access allows secure connection to business resources, but wasn’t able to test this to its full potential.

The social communication – integrating Facebook & Twitter; into a built-in app allows streaming of live updates to the home screen, as well as seamless updating across social networks at the same time.

Nokia Apps from Ovi Store, was next on my list to visit. This can be installed as an app in its own right or browse, via the web. And yes, there is a Foursquare app. Much to my friends shock, as my check-ins caused an ‘intervention‘.

The camera (8 MP) & video resolution is very good. But never really got an opportunity to use the video editing features of the phone. Watch and upload videos straight to YouTube which is always fun.

This is a business tool, not just a phone (like most of them on the market). View and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents using the Quickoffice application.

However, the only criticism is the battery life, this needs improving. On some occasions just using messaging, without an internet or app connections the battery would only last several hours.

My overall experience of using the Nokia E7 has been a very good one….. by the way when did you want it back…..

Nokia E7

Nokia E7

Government interaction, engagement & the citizen’s voice

I originally wrote this post for Social [Media] Butterflies. However, I have added some extra content to add my own post.

Governments play a great role in shaping a nation, Australia is no different. Some countries have had no choice in who governs them; but we live in the ‘lucky country’!

Lucky in the sense that we have a new-breed of politicians & senior public servants (for example @KateLundy; below is her interview at the Gov2 conference in the US) who are savvy enough to understand the importance of 2-way conversation between them & the citizen; and using social media to assist in this process is a huge advantage.

Enter Government 2.0 or Gov2.0; in Australia this is #gov2au. But what is this thing Gov2.0? Here is a short explanation:

e-Government is creating a comfortable, transparent, and cheap interaction between government and citizens (G2C), government and business enterprises (G2B) and relationship between governments (G2G). Source: Wikipedia

Comfortable, transparent and cheap interaction! Hard to believe that any transaction with a Government department can be anyone of those things; here is my take. A level of comfort from the point of view that I can access a service online, 24/7; be comfortable that my details are kept secure.

Transparent in the sense that know where tax payer’s money is being spent. A great example of tracking Government expenditure in an open and transparent way is the US Gov’s Recovery initative – http://www.recovery.gov; via a mash-up of Government data overlaid with a map of the US; customers can see how money is being spent in infrastructure, social housing, health, etc.

Cheap! Some might say “Nothing a Government department is cheap!” But the increased use of social media or Web2 apps is an affordable way of engaging with the citizen. However, choosing the right media is the hardest part. It is all dependent on the outcome that is sort. Blogs are a great way of canvassing for comment. Whereas, something like IdeaScale can crowd source the likely success of a project or programme before any money is spent. Going one step further is having a Facebook page, Twitter account or a LinkedIn profile; it depends on the target audience and the desired outcome.

Government approach and adoption of social media, is slowly evolving; some quicker than others. Canberra, NSW and Victoria have made inroads into the Gov2 sphere; and SA is catching up.

Barak Obama stated in a memo that: Government should be participatory; transparent; collaborative; social media is the platform to achieve this. Tim O’Reilly has suggested Government as a Platform (Tim O’Reilly’s address from the Gov2 conference, is below); which is the next step of Obama’s vision; in my humble opinion.

Engaging voters

The Guardian reported that the #UKelection was to  be campaigned, via social media:

“From Twitter and Facebook to viral ads and crowdsourcing, technology appears to offer parties powerful new ways to engage voters” Guardian.

Prior to the #UKelection this blog was a great source of down-to-earth engagement between the House of Lords and the citizens of the UK.

The “Land Down Under” will be venturing into election mode. How will social media influence the outcome? Mash-ups like: #ozelection: a nation tweeting to itself; will provide an insight into what the Australian votes are thinking.

Another great use of Web 2 is tweetMP, which encourages voters to lobby Members of Parliament to engage with voters, via Twitter.

In closing, a good friend of mine; @Prakky blogged about the recent South Australia election, and how they engaged (tweeted) leading up and on polling day. A great read.

Cult of personality

Cult of personality, not to be confused with Living Colour’s 1988 song of the same name.

“A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise”. Wikipedia

Cult of personality is often associated with dictators or totalitarian regimes. For example Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Nicolae Ceausescu, Saparmurat Niyazov, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung, Sukarno, and Kim Jong-Il.

My question: Is Social Media the new cult of personality? Specifically Twitter.

Follow, and be followed. The mass appeal of Twitter has become a cult of personalities, we follow others because they have a status in our collective community – @dalailama, @barakobama, @aplusk. Or simply they have connection with us or just want to be connected.

Politicians have embraced this medium to increase popularity, as a quasi form of engagement with the voters. How will the “cult” provoke thought in the upcoming Australian election? Only time will tell.