Overview of Web Directions Government 08

Today was Web Directions Government 2008. A great conference evolved out of the success of the Sydney event with a specific focus on web and government for those in government.

Here’s my take on today’s presentations:

1. Breakfast — Jason Ryan

   
   Jason showed us what was going on in the NZ government space with social computing. His message was that we need to plan for social computing because, one day soon, our Ministers will probably be asking us for a please explain. He also reminded us that the job market is so tight at the moment we would be crazy to think that we could just block the tools social computing tools that people use as knowledge workers. What sort of message are we sending new, bright, intelligent people when we say “sorry, but we block gmail and the usual sites that enable you to access your networks that you normally bounce ideas off”?

2. eGovernment services for government and citizens — Jose Manuel Alonso
   

   Jose suggested we remove the ‘e’ from eGovernment and to ensure that web delivery is part of our mainstream services. With some witty extracts from the series Frasier he also reminded us of the importance of context in an online environment.

3. Opening up government data — Jenny Telford

   
   

   Jenny showed us the changes to ABS-mindset from selling Census data to making it freely available. She’s indicated the ABS is moving from products to services so that one day we’ll be able to make mashups of Australian population data. While the ABS fears others may misuse their data, she feels that perhaps they will just have to suck it and see.

4. GovDex — Ralph Douglas
   
   

   Ralph showed us the latest in collaboration tools for government. GovDex is a secure medium, rated to protected-level, that offers GIRA and Confluence. If you’re looking for a hosted collaborative environment then this could be the tool you need to engage using the wiki-way with a closed or open community.

5. Usability - more than skin deep — Lisa Herrod
   
   

   Lisa showed us that there are different roles in usability that are best suited to different members of the development team — tasks for IAs, developers, designers, etc, to ensure the end result is both accessible and usable.

6. Social computing and knowledge management — Me!
   
   
   

   Conference organiser, John Allsop, specifically asked me to present on this subject. So, I gave it my best. After a rather ordinary effort at IA Summit (probably due to catching the flu), it felt good to have my ‘mojo’ back. Even fellow presenter Robert Hoekman made comments afterward reminiscent of Patrick’s review of my presentation at Oz-IA.

7. The essential elements of great web applications — Robert Hoekman Jr
   

   Robert, a design minimalist, reminded us that great design has a lot to do with user-psychology and actual, rather than inferred, behaviour. With simple changes, adopting real-world metaphors, you can make important improvements to your websites — even if its just putting a big ‘join here’ button.

   Less is more was his mantra.

I had a great time. I met some great people. And I will definitely go to it next year.

M