Government 2.

0 Taskforce
Online Engagement
Review

December 2009

Darren Sharp,
Dr Mark Elliott and
Matt Cooperrider

collabforge
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement
Review

December 2009

Darren Sharp,
Dr Mark Elliott and
Matt Cooperrider

collabforge
Unless otherwise noted this report is
licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Australia
licence. You are free to copy, communicate
and adapt this work, so long as you attribute
the Collabforge and the authors. For the
full terms see http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc/2.5/au.

The cover image is sigurd lewerentz, florist,

1969 by seier+seier+seier+ available at
http://flickr.com/photos/seier/2348583304.
It is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 licence. For the full terms see
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.
 collabforge

Contents

4 Executive Summary
7 Collabforge approach to
strategic engagement
9 Online engagement review
22 Legacy Issues
26 Pathways for future
development
32 Appendix

Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review 3
 1 Executive summary
1.1 Introduction
The activities of the Government 2.0 Taskforce
represent a significant investment in time,
effort and resources by and in the Australian
community. This has lead to the establishment
of an online community with a collectively
cultivated and unique identity and culture.
This community acted (and continues to
act) in a capacity that can be understood
as a knowledge well or resource, delivering
measurable expertise towards Taskforce
decision-making processes.
The Taskforce has attracted national and
international attention over the course of
its operation. How will this initiative be
remembered? What will be the legacy of the
Taskforce and indeed its community?
This review provides an independent
assessment of Taskforce activities and
community contributions to date. A number of
strategies are proposed that are designed to
capitalise on the unique knowledge, resources
and networks that this online community now
commands.
1.2 Background
This review provides an assessment of the
Government 2.0 Taskforce's online engagement
activities from 22 June to 7 December 2009.
4 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
 Online activities have been measured
against the Taskforce 'Terms of Reference'.
 The use of various online tools and
processes has been assessed in terms
of their respective contribution towards
acknowledged Taskforce objectives.
 Recommendations have been
made regarding how to manage the
conclusion of Taskforce activities. These
include suggested measures required to
protect the extensive investment made
in the online community to date and
how to best progress beyond the formal
conclusion of the Taskforce.
In order to achieve the above, the review has
drawn upon publicly available metrics collected
across a variety of Taskforce engagement
spaces including the Taskforce Blog, IdeaScale,
Mashup contest, as well as the Taskforce
Facebook and Twitter activities. These metrics
and related analysis encompass:
 The quantity and quality of contributions
made by:
 Public participants;
 Taskforce and Secretariat
representatives; and
 Other participants and stakeholders.
 The online community management
activities of Taskforce and Secretariat
representatives responsible for
advocacy and promotion, editorial
shaping, and responding to community
feedback.

Personal interviews with Taskforce and
Secretariat members have provided further
insight into participant experiences. Members
of the International Reference Group as well as
public participants have also provided feedback
via the Taskforce blog.
1.3 Summary:
engagement
spaces
The following comprise key recommendations
for protecting and leveraging the engagement
spaces in the future, post conclusion of
Taskforce activities. Each is termed from
a forward-looking perspective of similar
engagement activities being undertaken in the
future. For a comprehensive list please refer to
the body of this report.
Government 2.0 Taskforce blog

1. Coordinate future online and offline
public consultation activities to ensure
coherence for participants.
2. Explore the use of a wiki to enable
genuine collaboration and 'co-creation'
for initiatives such as development and
consultation of the Issues Paper.
Government 2.0 Taskforce Suggestion Box

1. Develop 'Participation Guidelines' and
'Terms of Use' documents to improve
participants' use of the site and
interaction with one another, and that
can also be used as a framework for
other agencies.
gov2taskforce Twitter

1. Provide Twitter participation guidelines.
2. Use Twitter as a backchannel during
events.
collabforge
Mashup Australia

1. Provide official discussion channels for
participants, such as a mailing list and
chat.
2. Employ Apps for Democracy
"Community Edition" model: solicit
application ideas before the contest,
judge submissions based on
responsiveness to these ideas, and
provide a development path through
which the best entries can be integrated
with government operations.
Government 2.0 Taskforce (Australia)
Facebook Fan Page

1. Customise content for the Facebook
platform with the express purpose of
generating community interaction.
2. Enable posting of user-generated content.
1.4 Summary: legacy
issues
1. Audit the blog, IdeaScale and Mashup sites.
2. Fix broken links; tag all content; develop
a media library, enhance usability and
undertake search engine optimisation
activities for the blog.
3. Promote competition outcomes on blog,
IdeaScale and Mashup Australia sites.
4. Address vote gaming on Mashup
Australia site and engage participants
in discussion of how to revise criteria for
People's Choice Mashup prize.
5. Consider packaging the current Mashup
Australia Wordpress theme as a freely
available template, to facilitate future local
level innovation contests. Supplement
this with a 'how-to' document.
6. Archive and index the Taskforce's online
assets.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 5
 collabforge

1.5 Summary: implementing Government 2.0

within a secure environment

pathways accessible to WoAG staff, as

well as a linked, open access

for future
engagement space aimed at
facilitating greater public online
engagement.
development
The following provides a recommended
pathway for the Taskforce regarding managing
and leveraging the existing online community
during and beyond its conclusion. Also provided
are recommendations to be included in the
Taskforce report detailing opportunities for the
introduction of Government 2.0 into the Whole
of Australian Government

1. Communications & Action Strategy

to manage the community during
decommissioning of the Taskforce.
a. A communications and action
strategy for managing the online
community's relationships and
expectations, in addition to legacy
issues surrounding the state
in which established Taskforce
engagement spaces are left.
2. Establish a Government 2.0 Community
of Practice to maintain community
cohesion during transition from formal
Taskforce activities to Government
adoption of any recommendations.
a. Establish a lightweight online
engagement space, the objective
of which being to leverage the
leadership and reputation of
Taskforce members to informally
maintain community focus during
this transition period.
3. Include in the Taskforce report
recommendations for a Whole of
Australian Government Community of
Practice.
a. A Whole of Australian Government
Community of Practice should
be established, dedicated to

6 Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review
 2 Collabforge approach to
strategic engagement
This section provides an overview of the
approach employed by Collabforge when
undertaking online engagement, thereby
providing context for the proceeding review.
2.1 Strategic design &
engagement
Process first, then Tools.
At Collabforge we use unique proprietary
frameworks to interrogate the various
processes that underly the use of an online tool.
Our primary focus rests always on the type of
process being leveraged by a given tool. For
example, a search tool leverages the process of
coordinating information produced by disparate
individuals, while a wiki leverages co-creation
by a specific group of contributors. We seek to
match the appropriate process to the desired
outcome or output, and then the appropriate
tool to the identified process.
You can build it, but they won’t necessarily
come, and if they do, you may sometimes wish
they hadn't.
Productive online communities rarely (if ever)
arise of their own volition. Simply providing an
online space for users to interact does not by
any measure ensure that people will contribute.
People must feel comfortable in order to
participate, and need to know their involvement
will be valued. Achieving this balance requires
three main elements:
1. Understanding and testing the motives
for participation.
2. Communicating these motives to
prospective user groups by manner of
appropriate 'value propositions'.
3. Achieving effective community management
and moderation.
2.2 Community
life-cycle
management
Requirements for engaging online communities
vary depending upon the stage in the project
life-cycle. Collabforge employs the following
framework to assess the initial requirements
for engagement design and community
management activities.
1. Establishment - The community
constitution (i.e. it's membership) and
aggregate personality of members
is formed. These 'initial conditions'
determine the community's ongoing tone
and approach for months or years to
come.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 7
 collabforge

2. Maintenance - The community settles this process provides a measurable record of

in. A balance is required between
maintaining a consistent direction and
openness towards new members and
ideas. A third consideration involves the
need to remain fresh in order to avoid
stagnation.
3. Decommission / Transition /
Sustainability - Requirements for this
phase will depend upon on whether
the community is to be disbanded,
transitioned to another project, or is
intended to remain as a self-sustaining
entity.
2.3 Monitoring &
evaluation
the project that communicates findings long
after activities have wound down.
2.4 Online community
as investment
Purpose-built web communities are a resource
that require time and energy to grow. They
represent an investment not only into an
organisation’s human resources, but also the
respective community’s digital literacy. As
such, they should be recognised and protected
accordingly.
This has inspired Collabforge to borrow and
adapt a familiar analogy:

1. Reduce the number of disconnected

Ongoing and effective monitoring and communities.
evaluation is critical to the measurable success
of an online community. Monitoring involves 2. Reuse outcomes for other initiatives.
assessing traditional traffic-based metrics, in 3. Recycle community members for other
addition to the quantity and quality of participant projects.
contributions. Matching agreed KPI's against
project objectives is also imperative to this
process.

Effective evaluation requires considering

a range of elements beyond quantifying or
qualifying metrics and user engagement.
Evaluation should focus on efficacy of
community management, the relevant life-
cycle phase, quality of overall outcome and
achievement of project objectives. Provision
of periodic and regular evaluation is critical
for ongoing and timely refinement of these
elements (an often overlooked aspect that we
term 'strategy maintenance').

During the final stages of a project, Collabforge

often recommends the development of a post
implementation review (or equivalent) to ensure
that successes and learnings are captured and
evaluated for future endeavours. Secondarily,

8 Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review
 3 Online engagement
review
This section of the report maps the various
online engagement activities of the Taskforce 3.1 Government 2.0
to the relevant 'Terms of Reference'. Online
tools and processes are assessed with respect Taskforce blog
to their contribution towards achieving these
objectives. Description A Wordpress blog was used to
coordinate all public-facing Government 2.0
Each engagement space has been evaluated Taskforce activities.
using the following criteria:
Overall Ranking 
 Contribution quality
URL http://gov2.net.au
 Contribution quantity
The Taskforce blog used a cooperative process
 Community management where individual authors could publish entries
 Output/outcome quality in reverse chronological order and engage
in conversational interaction with readers via
 Meeting 'Terms of Reference' comments.

Blogs are an ideal tool for when an individual or

small group of authors publish text, images and
links on niche topics of interest using an informal
tone that encourages ongoing reader interaction
and issues-based discussion. A limitation with
Legend blogging is the consistent investment required by
the author/s to maintain interest and relevance.
This necessitates editorial shaping to ensure
     = excellent comments remain on topic.

    = very good The Taskforce blog was launched on 22

June 2009. Members of the Taskforce 'hit the
   = good ground running' with a design competition
for the site banner and logo. However this
  = fair competition raised the ire of some members
of the graphic design community (Refer: http://
 = poor gov2.net.au/blog/2009/06/22/our-design-
competition/#comment-143). Yet the decision
to launch a design competition so early in

Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review 9
 collabforge
the piece, demonstrated the Taskforce's
commitment to leveraging the tools and
processes it was set up to explore and trial as
prescribed in its Terms of Reference.
The blog quickly attracted attention and
participation from Web 2.0 practitioners, public
servants and interested citizens as evidenced
by the significant number of comments (82) in
reply to the 'Welcome' post. A steady stream of
comments continued over June (167) and July
(122), peaking in August (280) before decreasing
through October (81) to November (75).
Blog posts relating to the 'issues paper' (36
comments), IdeaScale contests (77 comments)
and the release of public sector data sets (67
comments) attracted the most interest. The
significant public engagement response to
the blog demonstrates the efficacy of posts
outlining opportunities for the public to provide
direct input into Taskforce activities across
various engagement spaces.
The overall quality of the blog posts and
subsequent commentary was of a very high
standard, demonstrating considered analysis
of key challenges to moving the Government
2.0 agenda forward. These observations were
especially apparent with the topics centred
around:
 Social media guidelines for public
servants.
 Opening access to social media for
those behind government firewalls.
 Open content licensing and the release
of public sector information (PSI).
In response to a Taskforce blog post decree that
"Public servants should feel free and encouraged
to engage in robust professional discussion
online", no less than a public servant replied:
Ha – we can’t get to FaceBook,
YouTube, Flickr, or most common
discussion forums where I work.
(http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/10/21/
if-you-could-start-with-a-blank-sheet-of-
paper%e2%80%a6/#comment-2607)
10 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
This comment effectively demonstrates the type
of authentic communication that blogs often
generate.
The submission process for the Taskforce's
formal consultation process is considered to
have been confusing. The Taskforce did not
establish a clear distinction between discrete
submissions by individuals and organisations
(http://gov2.net.au/submissions) and the
comments made by those on Commentpress
(http://gov2.net.au/consultation/2009/07/23/
towards-government-2-0-an-issues-paper-final).
These two forms of engagement differ markedly.
The former involves people working primarily
in isolation to develop a traditional 'submission'
(See: http://gov2.net.au/files/2009/08/Mark-
Scott-Australian-Broadcasting-Corporation-
Submission.pdf), whilst in contrast the feedback
that took place via Commentpress was of a
conversational nature. Confusingly, this element
was also referred to as the 'Consultation Page',
which ultimately failed to make effective use of
Web 2.0 tools and was arguably biased towards
encouraging people toward making a traditional
written submission:
Taskforce Blog 'Issues Paper' Commentpress
page:
Also, please note, our focus in this
Issues Paper is on your making a
written submission.
You can find details about how to
make a submission at Appendix 1.
We also offer the option to make
online submissions through our
Consultation page at http://gov2.net.
au/consultation.
We cannot promise to consider
submissions received after start of
business Monday August 24 2009.
(http://gov2.net.au/consultation/2009
/07/23/towards-government- 2-0-an-
issues-paper-final)

The integration of the online and offline
engagement activities was considered
problematic, as one commenter pointed out:
I am keen to go to the roadshow to
find out more about the taskforce but
am surprised that the submissions
are due in before the Roadshow has
made it all around the country.
(http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/07/23/
official-issues-paper-
released/#comment-647)
A number of Roadshow events were held after
the formal submission process had closed on
24/08 including Brisbane 25/08, Perth 27/08,
Adelaide 01/09, Hobart 22/09 and Townsville
25/09. Furthermore, the audio from the
Roadshow events was also very difficult to find
(http://gov2.net.au/roadshows/#audio). This
could be rectified by introducing a media library.
The use of the Wordpress plugin,
Commentpress, to consult the public's views
on the Issues Paper resulted in participation
being quarantined to the margins of the main
text. Additionally, there were no participation
guidelines explaining how to correctly use the
tool. Commentpress uses a linear cooperative
process which enables only limited social
interaction to occur and is mainly useful in
situations where an author or authors want to
maintain full control of their work.
The Taskforce 'Terms of Reference' identify
the express intention of "encouraging
effective online innovation, consultation
and engagement by government". The use
of a truly collaborative tool such as a wiki
empowers all participants with add, edit and
delete rights to a shared pool of content (See:
http://cpd.org.au/article/collaborating-crowd-
better-policy-development). This would have
been arguably more effective in encouraging
online innovation.
collabforge
As noted during interviews by Collabforge with
Taskforce members:
Commentpress is fairly linear. It's
an online version of a traditional
consultation process rather than a
genuine attempt to co-produce some
shared output. It represents a missed
opportunity.
Community management and moderation of
the blog was handled well by the Taskforce
Chair and other members. Off-topic comments
were deftly channeled to more appropriate
discussion venues (See: http://gov2.net.au/
moderation/#comment-8). The Taskforce
Secretariat also responded quickly to
community feedback by adjusting processes
mid-way through in order to achieve better
participation and transparency outcomes (See:
http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/07/23/official-
issues-paper-released/#comment-592).
However, more attention is required to maintain
and organise the blog's content. For example,
a number of links are out-of-date (e.g. http://
gov2.net.au/submissions/received). Numerous
blog posts were also discovered with no tags
or categories assigned (http://gov2.net.au/
blog/category/uncategorized). Organisation
of contributions is an important role for online
community managers. This is more efficient
where agreed Participation Guidelines have
been developed. For example, tagging was
inconsistent between a number of blog posts
which creates unnecessary maintenance.
This can potentially be avoided if guidelines
establish expected 'norms' around activities
such as tagging.
Cooperatively developed content (i.e. blog
posts drafted by different people) requires
consistent and coordinated editorial oversight.
Whilst this can potentially be distributed
amongst the community of contributors,
Collabforge recommends tasking an individual
with the responsibility of ensuring this takes
place, ideally the same individual tasked with
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 11
 collabforge
the responsibility of coordinating community
management.
Quotes from Taskforce members regarding
the use of the blog:
Public servants should have been
given a mandate as to what they could
or couldn't do on the blog. This would
have opened up the doors for public
sector people to participate. The
blog could have also engaged guest
bloggers a bit more proactively."
and:
The blog has suffered from a failure
by the Taskforce itself to really use
it actively enough. The upside is
that there are a number of threads
which are very lively and extremely
interesting in terms of public debate.
The blog could become a very big
space for shared thinking - it is still
embryonic but it has potential to grow.
There are a number of Taskforce
members that would be happy to
keep it going.
Public comment from Paul Roberts:
The high quality level of interaction
and thought-provoking discussion
on [the] blog site in particular sent
an impressively positive message
to those inside and outside of
government about the potential
power of Gov2.0.
(http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/11/30/
online-engagement-
review/#comment-5324)
Recommendations
1. Coordinate future online and offline
public consultation activities to ensure
coherence for participants.
2. Explore the use of a wiki to enable
genuine collaboration and 'co-creation'
for initiatives such as development and
consultation of the Issues Paper.
12 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
3. Maintain the blogging activities (e.g.
through commenting) for a certain
period to provide opportunity for
conversations 'closure', then redirect
interested parties to a new blog or
alternative engagement space.
4. Provide a media library for access to
audio/visual content (http://gov2.net.au/
roadshows/#audio).
3.2 Taskforce
suggestion box
Description An IdeaScale site was used as
a suggestion box for nominating and ranking
project ideas, structured brainstorming and a
limited range of other Taskforce activities.
Overall Ranking 
URL http://gov2taskforce.ideascale.com
The IdeaScale site, which falls into the class of
idea generation platforms, uses a cooperative
process to provide an aggregated pool of
ranked and reviewed ideas, targeted to a
particular outcome. Idea generation platforms
are ideal for use in contexts where a diversity
of ideas and input is desired in order to achieve
community consensus. The primary limitation
of these platforms is that ideas entered early
have an unfair advantage due to their increased
exposure to votes. Additionally, the more ideas
that are captured, the less likely participants
are to attribute votes on an equitable basis, as
they're often overwhelmed when evaluating
ideas.
The IdeaScale site seeks to take advantage
of new trends in 'crowdsourcing', a distributed
problem-solving method where users self-
organise around topics of interest; submit
solutions; and rank the most popular ideas
through a process known as collaborative
filtering. This innovation process closes the
gap between governments and citizens by
opening boundaries between internal and
external stakeholders, recognising knowledge

is widely distributed throughout society. These
approaches have significant merit and can
give the community a greater voice in idea
suggestion for policy development, service
provision and structured brainstorming.
The Taskforce launched the IdeaScale site
approximately half way through the project's
life-cycle (4 September 2009) in order to
capture community feedback on first round
projects and as a means through which people
could propose second round projects. It was
also used as a brainstorming tool for the public
to suggest ways for the Taskforce to best meet
its Terms of Reference. From a quantitative
perspective the IdeaScale site performed
moderately well with 202 ideas posted, 302
comments, 2,671 votes and 1,085 users.
Beyond a small group of early adopters, there
remains a general lack of awareness and
understanding of idea generation platforms
by the wider community. An 'about' page or
'Participation Guidelines' section on the landing
page could be used to explain the process
of 'crowdsourcing' and provide links to case
studies of how this type of platform is being
used successfully within similar contexts (e.g.
http://opengov.ideascale.com).
The decision to run the entire IdeaScale site as
a competition with monetary prizes may seem
logical but is not supported by the literature
which suggests that people are motivated to
participate in crowdsourcing projects for a range
of social reasons and non-market rewards,
including social standing, esteem and peer
recognition (Benkler 2006, p. 92-99: http://www.
benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf).
Money can often work as a disincentive and
lead to motivation 'crowding out' by giving
power to experts and thus weakening the
motivation for non-experts to participate (http://
p2pfoundation.net/Crowding_Out). Especially
in idea generation activities where there is a
low barrier to entry for members of the public
to participate, in contrast with mashup contests
which rely on highly developed technical skills.
Developing 'Motives & Incentives for
Participation' with unique 'value propositions'
for user groups before the launch of a new
collabforge
engagement space can alleviate this by
outlining project objectives and the significance
of people's individual involvement. This
approach also assists in considering system
functionality that provides additional motivation
and incentives for engagement (e.g. feedback
points).
The quality of contributions to the site was
relatively high with a number of very sensible
ideas surfacing to the top through participant
voting. The most popular ideas in the
Brainstorming category tended to focus on
creating shared resources through code, data &
template repositories; building 'Gov 2.0' literacy
for public servants through training programs;
and change management initiatives for the
public sector. Although the window for making
entries to the Brainstorming competition (4-20
September) could have been lengthened to
allow for greater participation.
A large proportion of ideas were generated by
a very small group of contributors, with the top
10 collectively generating 75 out of a total 202
ideas presented. This demonstrates a general
power law distribution typical of social media
environments and variously referred to as
the "80/20 rule" or "Pareto principle", where a
majority of the outputs comes from a minority of
the inputs.
One major oversight is the omission of a 'Terms
of Use' page on the actual IdeaScale site itself
that outlines the Creative Commons licensing
conditions referred to on the blog (http://gov2.
net.au/about/competition-terms/#ideascale).
There is also poor integration between the two
sites with only one link back to the blog on the
IdeaScale landing page. However, the blog
itself was used very well to drive engagement
to the IdeaScale site through various posts
encouraging the community to get involved
during key phases of the various competitions.
Whilst the IdeaScale site didn't necessarily
"make government more consultative,
participatory and transparent — to maximise
the extent to which government utilises the
views, knowledge and resources of the general
community", it certainly met an important criteria
of the 'Terms of Reference' with regard to trialling
"initiatives that may achieve or demonstrate
how to accomplish" these objectives.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 13
 collabforge
Quote from a Taskforce member:
The IdeaScale site worked well as a
ranking tool to tell us what's getting
traction with people and what isn't.
It's useful for making distinctions -
you can't be woolly on IdeaScale as
people clearly tell you they prefer
one idea over another. Which begs
the question: "Why do they think
that?" Which forces you to have a
conversation.
Recommendations
1. Develop 'Participation Guidelines' and
'Terms of Use' documents to improve
participants' use of the site and
interaction with one another, and that
can also be used as a framework for
other agencies.
2. Develop 'Motives & Incentives for
Participation' that articulate the 'value
proposition' to internal and external
stakeholders, and that can also be used
as a framework for other agencies.
3. Run the IdeaScale site as an ongoing
Government 2.0 Ideas Generation
Platform without a competition structure
linked to monetary incentives but
instead with targeted categories relevant
to the Government, public service and
community at large.
4. Promote outcomes on landing page.
3.3 gov2taskforce
Twitter account
Description A Twitter account was used to
communicate Government 2.0 Taskforce
activities, events and issues.
Overall Ranking 
URL http://twitter.com/gov2taskforce
14 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
The Twitter account, which falls into the class
of web-based micro-blogging services, draws
upon a process of cooperation and coordination
that enables authors to publish micro-blog
posts of up to 140 characters in length. This
can provide snapshots of opinion, analysis
and news relevant to specific communities of
interest. The value of an individual 'tweet' (the
euphemism for a micro-blog post) is greatly
enhanced by the addition of hashtags (a form
of user-generated metadata prefaced by a '#'
symbol) which essentially tags the tweet to
a social pool of knowledge whose collective
value is greater than the sum of its parts. For
instance, searching Twitter for the hashtag
#gov2au will collectively reveal all tweets that
users have tagged as relevant to this topic.
Twitter is ideal for use in contexts where
information requires amplification to draw
attention, such as the tweeting of news items,
the publication of a new blog post, the results
of a competition or 're-tweeting' (re-publishing
with attribution) another person's message.
Twitter is also a powerful tool for engaging
in conversation with other Tweeters (people
who use Twitter) and as a research method
for uncovering ideas and opinions on specific
topics. Twitter can also provide additional
context to events when used as a 'backchannel'
or form of real-time online conversation that
can be provided alongside live spoken remarks
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backchannel).
A limitation of Twitter (which is also one of its
strengths) is that only fragments of ideas can
be published for any given 'tweet'. This means
abbreviation is common, likewise the use of
web slang, acronyms and emoticons, thereby
requiring a little time to develop confidence in
the medium.
Given that individual identity has become the
locus for one's reputation in online communities,
it is sometimes problematic to use an
organisational account (such as gov2taskforce)
as it erects a degree of opacity between users,
in contrast to personal accounts which foster
trust and authenticity. It should be noted that
individual Twitter streams (the collection of

tweets from one Twitter account) are also
ephemeral and Twitter.com does not generally
archive tweets for longer than a few days.
The Taskforce Twitter account commenced
operation on 24 June 2009 and from its
beginnings adopted the appropriate tone and
style for the medium. It has been used sparingly
over the life of the Taskforce, with only 64
tweets posted from 24 June to 7 December
2009. Tweets showed a tendency to cluster
around a few key themes such as alerts to
new posts appearing on the Taskforce blog,
inviting ideas for guest bloggers, promoting the
mashup contest, Issues Paper & Roadshow
events, re-tweeting other relevant posts, and
engaging in conversational interaction with
other tweeters. This demonstrates a clear
awareness of Twitters' power to draw people
back to a central site like the Taskforce blog, but
much more could have been done to consult
the community's views.
Hashtags are a crucial tool for both filtering
conversations and ensuring tweets are noticed
by target communities. The #gov2au hashtag
was mentioned on Twitter from the Taskforce's
beginnings on 24 June 2009, yet only appears
on the blog in a post by Mia Garlick discussing
the various contests being developed at the
time which is not related in any way to Twitter
(http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/08/13/hack-mash-
and-innovate-contests-coming-soon). Like
many other hashtags, #gov2au appears to have
emerged in an ad-hoc fashion and has since
become identified as the de-facto tag for all
Taskforce-related tweets.
The Taskforce would have benefited from
providing more explanation regarding the
use of Twitter more broadly. The importance
of the #gov2au hashtag as a means to track
the conversation taking place across the
wider 'twittersphere' (or collective Twitter
ecosystem) would have also been useful.
That said, the hashtag was used appropriately
in tweets discussing links to the blog and
competitions etc, but was dropped when used
more informally for communicating with other
tweeters.
collabforge
There was little integration with Twitter on the
main blog site beyond embedding the #gov2au
twitter stream on the homepage. Given
individual Taskforce members prior experience
with using Twitter in their capacity as private
citizens (e.g. @NicholasGruen, @martinsw,
@lisaharvey @miakgarlick, @sebchan,
@bfitzgerald7), it would have perhaps been
wise to reference these respective Twitter
'handles' on the Members page, as a means to
facilitate more direct, informal, and authentic
communication with the public (http://gov2.net.
au/members). The #gov2au hashtag could then
have been used to aggregate Taskforce related
interaction for filtering purposes.
It is important to have a Twitter archive plan in
place before setting sail, as Twitter provides
limited access to its search index. According
to the company's documentation: "[the] limit is
currently around 1.5 weeks but is dynamic and
subject to shrink as the number of tweets per
day continues to grow." (http://apiwiki.twitter.
com/Things-Every-Developer-Should-Know).
Luckily, the entire Taskforce Twitter stream
appears to be available. This is most likely due
to the small number of tweets posted (64).
The Taskforce would have benefited from using
Twitter as a backchannel for the Roadshow
events. This would have demonstrated a
greater commitment to trialling Web 2.0 tools
within new contexts as per the Taskforce 'Terms
of Reference'. Not only would this have been
an exciting experiment in Government 2.0 in
action, more importantly, it would have provided
access and lent a greater voice to people with
a disability, as well as those in regional and
rural areas. This would have led to a richer
diversity of questions, opinion and reflection at
these events, which could only be considered a
positive.
Quote from a Taskforce member:
Twitter's interesting because the
conversation has been happening
all by itself and has been really
valuable. But we haven't taken
as much notice of Twitter as we
should have.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 15
 collabforge
Recommendations
1. Archive all Taskforce-related tweets.
2. Provide Twitter participation guidelines
that can also be used as a framework
for others.
3. Formalise and promote hashtag use.
4. Use Twitter as a backchannel during
future events.
3.4 Mashup Australia
Description An innovation contest with cash
prizes used to inspire citizens to create useful
software applications based on government
data sets.
Overall Ranking 
URL http://mashupaustralia.org
Mashup Australia involved an innovation contest
that offered diverse incentives for participation
to civic-minded local developers. This contest
has the potential to result in useful software
applications, strengthen the Australian civic
technology community, provide opportunities
for positive press coverage, and concretise
the importance of open data for citizens,
elected representatives, and government
officials otherwise unfamiliar with or sceptical
of these concepts. Mashup contests are low-
risk and cost-efficient if conducted according
to existing contest formulas and if there is an
identified base of skilled technologists. Civic
mashup contests are especially strong, as
their scope includes the full range of citizens,
and government data sets are typically diverse
enough to support a range of interests on the
part of participants.
A weakness of mashup contests is that,
during the course of the contest, there is
minimal opportunity for participation on the
16 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
part of non-technical citizens. This is a minor
consideration, as the strengthening of the civic
technology community is an end in itself, and
future iterations of the contest can make simple
changes to provide opportunities for broader
participation.
Mashup Australia attracted a considerable
82 mashups during the submission period
between 7 October and 13 November
2009. Compare this to the first iterations of
Apps for America (46 submissions, national
scope - U.S.A.) and Apps for Democracy (47
submissions, municipal scope - Washington,
D.C.). Apps for Democracy estimated the
monetary value of these 47 applications at
$2,300,000 USD.
Mashup Australia submissions received an
average of 6 comments, mostly in the form of
conversations among application developers
and other participants. Submissions were also
rated by the community from 1 to 5 stars. Each
submission received an average of 117 votes,
and the average rating across submissions was
2.95 stars.
 The votes cast and ratings should
be considered invalid, however, due
to open and acknowledged gaming
and counter-gaming of the ratings by
participants and outside parties using
"voting bots" and other techniques. This
issue is discussed below in more detail.
While submissions ranged in functionality,
elegance and completeness at an individual
level, taken in aggregate they represent a
significant innovation benefit for Australia.
Participants engaged a wide range of datasets,
each application revealing new possibilities
for engagement with the data. Clusters of
submissions appeared around data sets and
themes, such as crime statistics and stimulus
spending, generating high potential for future
combinative innovation in these areas.
The contest derived additional value from
it's Transformation Challenge. Government
datasets are not always ready for use in software

applications, and may require "cleaning up".
Mashup Australia incentivised the use of these
datasets by offering $1,000 Transformation
Challenge bonuses to participants. In total, 13
submissions claimed to use at least one of the
eligible datasets. Inspiring contest participants
to clean up this data through bonus prizes likely
represents significant cost savings over paying
for a professional service provider to undertake
this task.
Software developers are typically self-starters,
and any "cold start problems" (difficulties
initiating participation where participation by
others is a key motivator) for mashup contests
usually results from a lack of information about
contest structure and guidelines. Participants
need to know how they will be judged and by
whom, that the contest will be conducted fairly,
and that contest rules will not be changed later
because the organisers did not adequately think
through the contest process. Mashup Australia
created the conditions for a successful contest
by providing complete information about the
contest rules, guidelines, and mechanics on the
contest website at http://mashupaustralia.org.
In addition, the website included information on
the importance of open access to data.
A key benefit of mashup contests is to build
a culture of collaboration and mutual support
among local developers. This can be achieved
by creating spaces for collaboration, both online
and offline, and structuring contest rewards to
strike the right balance between competition
and collaboration.
The contest website provided adequate space
for collaboration by displaying the submissions
in an easily searchable and navigable manner,
and by providing a comments section for each
submission. Comment threads reveal that
participants supplied each other with useful
feedback (although sometimes phrased in a
negative manner) and reported bugs in each
others' applications.
Contest organisers could have further
encouraged collaboration among participants by
creating an official contest mailing list and chat
channel, and displaying these on the contest
collabforge
website. Not only would this provide further
encouragement for participants to help each
other, but it would also provide a venue in which
they could discuss the nature of the contest itself
and suggest process improvements. This, for
example, may have led to a speedier resolution
of the vote gaming issue. Currently, the vote
gaming discussion is fragmented across the
comment threads of various submissions that
were openly involved or accused of participating
in the gaming.
Five in-person "hack" events took place
throughout the course of the competition. Face-
to-face collaboration is vital to trust-building
within the local developer community, and
speeds knowledge transfer and combinative
innovation. These events also generate
significant opportunities for press coverage, and
for government officials to meet local developers
in their native habitat. By organising one event,
and supporting the self-organisation of four other
events by promoting the events on the contest
website and Taskforce blog, the Taskforce
reaped additional benefits in the form of stronger
community ties and better information about the
local developer communities across the country.
The structure of contest rewards was mostly
appropriate, with some downsides. The main
prizes, ranging from $2,500 to $10,000, were
enough to inspire participation, but not so high as
to encourage highly aggressive competition and
to undermine community building and the spirit
of collaboration. Software developers participate
in mashup contests for diverse reasons, perhaps
the least of which is the chance at a cash prize.
Motivations to participate include reputation-
building, networking, professional development,
the chance to contribute to their community, and
simply "stretching their development muscles".
The higher the monetary prize, the more these
alternative motivations - which are more aligned
with the goals of the Taskforce - are crowded out
(as discussed in the IdeaScale evaluation).
The invitation to winners to present their mashup
to the Taskforce provides a helpful reputational
supplement to the monetary prize. Future contest
iterations might increase alternative motivations
through additional reputational/social capital
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 17
 collabforge
prizes. The NYC BigApps mashup competition
currently underway for example, is awarding a
dinner with Mayor Bloomberg to the grand prize
winner, in addition to the monetary prize (http://
www.nycbigapps.com).
The contest organisers took a risk in attaching
the People's Choice Mashup prize to an online
rating system. Some participants, skilled web
developers, manipulated the voting system
through the use of 'voting bots' that circumvented
the website's protections against multiple votes.
This gaming quickly drowned out any authentic
citizen engagement, making the ratings entirely
invalid. There were, however, positive outcomes.
Initial attempts at gaming were quickly spotted
by participants, who called attention to them
and engaged in protest and counter-gaming.
While some participants took moral stands
on the issue, other participants took a more
philosophical stance.
Once the gaming became obvious, participants
shifted their focus to calling attention to the issue.
Technologists are typically tolerant of 'bugs' and
those who take risks and fail, so long as good
faith efforts are made to repair the situation.
Thus, this gaming can be seen as a form of civic
participation on the part of the participants who
believe in the social goals of the contest and
want to see it and future iterations succeed.
The contest organisers have an opportunity
to make a course correction in the wake of
this gaming. So far, official communication
on the issue has been limited to direct
responses to inquiries through the contact
form and an offhand mention at the bottom
of an 18 November blog post (http://gov2.
net.au/blog/2009/11/18/australia-you-have-
been-mashed). Increased transparency and
engagement on this issue is advised, as
continued quiet could contribute to a growing
resentment and harm future participation.
Future mashup contests should consider
alternative means of engaging the broader
community. A possible example is the Apps
for Democracy "Community Edition" strategy
of sourcing citizen ideas at the beginning of
the contest, and then making responsiveness
of submissions to these ideas a judgement
18 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
criterion (http://www.appsfordemocracy.
org/citizen-engagement-through-apps-for-
democracy-community-edition).
With regards to the Taskforce's 'Terms of
Reference', Mashup Australia made significant
contributions to accessibility of information by
making new datasets publicly available and
improving the quality of datasets through the
Transformation challenge. In turn, it contributed
to a pro-disclosure culture by demonstrating
what open data makes possible, and promoted
inter-agency collaboration by demonstrating
innovative ways in which datasets from
different agencies can be combined. It made
government more participatory and consultative
by inviting direct contributions from citizens to
the improvement of government systems and
processes. Finally, it serves as a trial initiative
that tests key open government concepts and
can be iterated and improved for continued civic
benefits.
Mashup Australia for the most part realised its
potential as an innovation contest, especially as
an investment in the local developer community.
Its perceived benefit remains to be seen, as
it may largely be judged by the public by the
quality of the winning entries. In addition, if
there is no path for converting winning entries
into fully-tested market-ready applications,
some may see the submissions as wasted
effort. In order for it to reach its full potential,
communicating the hidden benefits of the
contest is vital, as well as providing a continued
development path for the best entries.
Quote from a Taskforce member
Mashup Australia was a really good
exercise and a very practical one as
well. It really demonstrated value in
an operational way - we can actually
make some change happen here.
Two things that came out of it: we
could prove that datasets could be
released under a Creative Commons
licence and that if you release people
will do something valuable with them.

Excerpts from comment thread re 'vote
gaming'
Adam Kennedy says: November 13,
2009 at 11:12 pm Attention:
This is an announcement from
the geo2gov team. We have been
observing with great dissapointment
the rampant vote-stacking and
vote-poisoning occuring with the
MashupAustralia competition
website.
At this point, the voting system has
been abused so heavily in pursuit of
a $2,000 prize that we believe it no
longer holds any relevance.
To ensure that these activities do not
result in any offender taking the prize,
we intend to manipulate the voting
system so obviously that it will be
clear to all and sundry that the voting
is of no use.
We hereby declare ourselves
ineligable for the People’s Choice
prize. If awarded this prize, we will
refuse it.
Our intent it to place ourself at the top
of the voting ranks, thereby denying
first place to any and all who thing
they can vote-manipulate their way
into victory.
This is a community of IT professionals
and democracy nuts. You should
know better than to do this kind of
thing. Shame.
(http://mashupaustralia.org/
mashups/geo2gov)
Recommendations
1. Provide official discussion channels for
participants, such as a mailing list and chat.
2. Address vote gaming head on, and
engage participants in discussion of how
to revise criteria for the People's Choice
Mashup prize.
collabforge
3. Communicate the importance of a
healthy community of civic-minded local
developers.
4. Consider packaging the current
Wordpress theme as a freely available
template, to facilitate future local level
innovation contests. Supplement this
with a 'how-to' document.
5. Encourage other tiers of government to
run competitions using local datasets.
6. Employ Apps for Democracy
"Community Edition" model: solicit
application ideas before the contest,
judge submissions based on
responsiveness to these ideas, and
provide a development path through
which the best entries can be integrated
with government operations.
3.5 Facebook fan
page
Description A social network profile on
Facebook.com was used to deliver information
about Taskforce activities to Facebook users
and offer opportunities for engagement by
commenting on and sharing this information.
Overall Ranking 
URL http://www.facebook.com/
Gov2TaskforceAustralia?ref=ts
A Facebook fan page functions much a like a
traditional website or blog, but benefits from
integration into the Facebook social network.
When users interact with the fan page this
activity then appears in the respective users'
"news feed" for others to read, thereby tapping
into the platform's inherent 'viral' capacity.
Thus, users who were not otherwise engaged
with Taskforce activities are introduced through
trusted friends, and they in turn can become
fans themselves. A weakness of this tool is
that user-generated content is contained within
the Facebook 'walled garden', potentially
fragmenting the community.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 19
 collabforge
While the Taskforce 'Terms of Reference' do not
explicitly state the need to build a community
of lead users (tech-savvy influencers), these
people are vital to the success of current and
future Government 2.0 initiatives. With more
than 8 million Australians already on Facebook
(From a Nielsen Online report cited in http://
www.asiadigitalmap.com/2009/11/australia-
facebook-statistics) a fan page represents
a significant opportunity to grow a base
community of users by providing the first rung in
the "ladder of engagement".
The initial commitment to joining a Facebook
fan page is very low, requiring just a single click
to connect and from therein demands very little
additional attention, as the page merely adds
new items to a user's news feed. From there,
users can comment on and 'like' fan page
content, or post their own content to the page,
spurring online conversations where users learn
about new possibilities and overcome their initial
fears and scepticism of participatory government
initiatives. The low initial barrier to entry enables
fan page membership to grow rapidly. Facebook
empowers fan page members with the tools to
progressively climb from the lowest rungs of
"inactive" and "spectator", to the upper rungs of
"critic" and "creator" (http://blogs.forrester.com/
groundswell/2007/04/forresters_new_.html).
The Taskforce, which targeted those working in
government and the relatively small segment
of the population already engaged in the
Government 2.0 movement, did not take full
advantage of the opportunity provided by
the fan page. Of the 80 odd items published
between 5 July and 5 December 2009, the
fan page merely re-posted content from the
Taskforce blog and announced Taskforce
events. Users were encouraged to make
themselves heard on the blog website rather
than the fan page, and the ability of users to
post their own content was turned off entirely.
None of the fan page content was customised
for Facebook, where users expect direct
engagement, a human voice, as well as simple
interaction opportunities. As a result, the 80
fan page items garnered a mere 20 user
interactions, thereby limiting the degree to
20 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
which fan page content spread throughout the
broader Facebook network. This in turn resulted
in extremely low page membership with only
114 fans as of 4 December 2009.
Because of the relatively small number
of fans and the fact that Facebook does
not allow adjusting a fan page's "vanity
URL" (currently http://www.facebook.com/
Gov2TaskforceAustralia), future attempts to
re-badge and reboot this engagement space
should not hesitate to start over afresh. Ideally,
a new page should focus on introducing users
to low-commitment engagement opportunities
in the Government 2.0 space, and reserve
high-level strategic thinking for official blogs
and other engagement spaces. Such a page
would serve as an aggregator for new initiatives
and opportunities sourced from the Australian
Government 2.0 ecology. If posted content is
chosen for its capacity to inspire engagement,
then this will more effectively spread throughout
the Facebook ecosystem, tapping into viral
mechanisms and helping amass a much wider
base of participants for current and future
Government 2.0 initiatives. A small commitment
of time and resources towards generating fan
page engagement can yield impressive results.
Quote from a Taskforce member:
I didn't engage with Facebook -
I didn't participate.
Craig Thomler commenting on the blog in
response to the announcement of Collabforge's
review:
There was a Taskforce Facebook
channel? I wasn’t aware.
(http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/
11/30/online-engagement-
review/#comment-5414)
Recommendations
1. Customise content for the Facebook
platform with the express purpose of
generating community interaction.
2. Focus on low-commitment
engagement opportunities for users
new to Government 2.0 concepts and
possibilities.
 collabforge

3. Enable posting of user-generated

content.
4. Obtaining a new vanity URL may be a
sufficient reason to start a new page
rather than reuse the original page for
new initiatives.
5. Many Government 2.0 initiatives are
produced by volunteers. It may be
possible to inspire and collaborate with
volunteers to administer and promote
this page.

Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review 21
 4 Legacy issues
This section outlines opportunities for managing
the conclusion of the Taskforce's online
activities, as well as recommendations designed
to protect and leverage the investment made
into the online community.
4.1 Conclusion of
taskforce online
activities
At the stroke of midnight 1 January 2010,
the Government 2.0 Taskforce will cease
to operate and could go the way of former
inquiries and merely publish its findings,
provide ongoing access to submissions
received from the public and maintain a
limited, static online presence.
Yet for many reasons, this Taskforce is
fundamentally different to its predecessors
through its pioneering use of online engagement
platforms, approaches to public consultation,
and an unprecedented willingness to participate
in frank and open communication with the
community. These achievements deserve
recognition for setting the Australian Government
on a path towards greater transparency,
participation and collaboration with anyone
willing to play an active role in public life.
The innovative nature of the Taskforce's online
activities will no doubt cast a long shadow for
22 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
years to come. All the more so because of the
way these interactions occurred, that is, via the
Web; the most public and persistent forum to be
devised in human history.
This inquiry is also unique for having
engendered, intentionally or otherwise, a small
but committed online community comprised of
public servants, web consultants and interested
members of the public. Elements of this
community existed prior to the formation of the
Taskforce, albeit on disparate discussion lists,
social networks and other forums. Through its
high-profile mandate, solid mix of monetary
and reputational incentives, not to mention
the no-nonsense approach to community
management, the Taskforce has managed to
draw these fragmented communities into its
orbit to not only develop innovative Government
2.0 solutions but to engage in public
conversation on the nature of governance in
the 21st century. This is to be commended and
celebrated.
Having invested the time and effort to generate
this 'network value' (i.e. public goods, social
connections & knowledge resources),
it would be wasteful to 'pull the plug' on
this online community after considerable
goodwill, trust and shared ownership has
been established. The Taskforce will continue
to attract interest locally and internationally
for enhancing the Australian Government's
reputation for innovation, public consultation
and technological leadership, well beyond
the conclusion of its formal activities. Curious
governments and members of the public
from Australia and overseas will continue to

discover the blog, IdeaScale site and Mashup
competition and will seek to provide their own
input in the months and years to come. How will
the Taskforce's legacy be judged in the eyes of
the world?
Looking further afield certainly provides
instructive precedents for what not to do.The
Power of Information Taskforce (UK) provided
inspiration for the Government 2.0 Taskforce
through its use of a blog and other Web 2.0
tools (http://powerofinformation.wordpress.
com) in December 2009, one finds a final
post dated 1 May 2009 with no indication of
the conclusion of Taskforce activities, or the
result of its review. Walking away from a web-
based community is no longer an acceptable
option given the disorientation this generates.
It is the equivalent of moving house and not
providing any forwarding address, leaving the
grass to grow and junk mail to pile up. People
expect to be able to engage with governments
in one form or another, even once formal
activities of an inquiry have ceased, especially
when the inquiry in question includes 'Terms
of Reference' that place such importance on
matters of online engagement.
Whilst reflecting on the unique opportunity this
all presents, one Taskforce member notes:
The work of the Taskforce raised the
level of interest and expectation out
there in the community. We don't want
that momentum to dissipate, and we
don't want the work to vanish off the
face of the Earth. Public visibility and
a discussion base for the community
to talk amongst itself would be the
minimum people expect in a Web
2.0 world. If we don't follow through,
people could become cynical and
disillusioned, and not take the
government seriously.
The Gov 2.0 agenda will have visibility
and a life beyond the lifespan of the
Taskforce itself. Therefore we need an
appropriate response for the subject
matter to make sure things don't
collabforge
disappear from view while everyone
waits to see what the Government's
response is. We need something
to keep things moving along in the
interim. This represents a new kind of
dilemma that governments are faced
with and there will be an expectation
to do this for future Taskforces - to set
a new template.
The first response to protect the legacy of the
Taskforce must be to strengthen the foundation
already developed by undertaking an audit of
the blog, IdeaScale and Mashup Australia sites.
Many of the tasks required (outlined in detail
below) can be crowdsourced to the community,
especially bug reporting, identifying dead links
and tagging of blog posts.
In parallel with the audit activities, the various
assets of the Taskforce blog, IdeaScale,
Mashup contest, as well as Twitter and
Facebook groups must be archived and
indexed for future reference purposes. This
is a complex task given the dynamic nature
of much of the content in question, and that
many of the outputs (blog posts, tweets etc)
are actually encoded forms of human-to-human
communication which tend to be generative,
self-organising and non-linear in nature.
As Taskforce member Adrian Cunningham
observed in a Taskforce blog post:
How to capture and preserve
dynamic web-based resources as
records has been a challenge that
has occupied the minds of records
professionals for a number of years
now – and the spread of blogs and
wikis has not made this challenge
any easier to resolve. Success
will require collaboration between
creating/hosting organisations and
archival institutions. Mere web
harvesting, while it has a role to play,
is no real solution. Indeed treating
such resources as static information
objects to be preserved is probably
the wrong paradigm altogether.
A better approach is to abandon
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 23
 collabforge
object-oriented thinking and instead
adopt event-oriented thinking. Users
experience the Web (indeed also any
digital platform) as a series of event-
based interactions or performances.
Identifying the important events for
which evidence needs to be captured
and retained is the key here.
(http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/09/ 14/
capturing-and-preserving-authentic-
and-accessible-evidence-of-
government-2-0-part-two)
This will obviously require cooperation between
various government agencies including
the National Archives, the National Library
of Australia through its Pandora project,
and the proposed Office of the Information
Commissioner.
4.2 Recommendations 4.3 Community
life-cycle
1. Audit the blog:
a. Test and fix all broken links.
management
b. Tag all uncategorised blog posts revisited
and refine tagging where required
for consistency and clarity.
c. Develop a media library to store all
audio/visual content (http://gov2.
net.au/roadshows/#audio) and
promote this library on the home
page and in the site's navigation.
d. Enhance the usability where
possible of the blog whilst keeping
its informal style in check.
e. Employ search engine optimisation
(SEO) and improve the indexing
of the blog to aid search engine
discovery.
2. Audit the IdeaScale site:
a. Test and fix all broken links.
b. Promote competition outcomes on
the landing page.
24 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
3. Audit the Mashup Australia site:
a. Address vote gaming head on and
engage participants in discussion
of how to revise criteria for the
People's Choice Mashup prize.
b. Consider packaging the current
Wordpress theme as a freely
available template, to facilitate
future local level innovation
contests. Supplement this with a
'how-to' document.
c. Test and fix all broken links.
d. Promote competition outcomes on
the landing page.
4. Archive and index the Taskforce's online
assets.
As the Taskforce nears its completion, in
the experience of Collabforge the primary
consideration will be how the online community
is handled during this final phase. As implied
above, it is all too easy to consider the Taskforce
engagement spaces in terms of just information
residing on web servers. While this is true, when
it comes to online community engagement,
it is imperative to remember this information
represents time and energy invested by who
are essentially unpaid passionate members
of the public. This equates to an investment
made not only in the ideas developed, but in the
relationships that have formed.
Since the mode of engagement was social
media, there is a need for the Taskforce to
directly and authentically acknowledge the
participants. These and others should be
 collabforge

provided with opportunities to stay abreast implementing Government 2.0, within a

of future plans. No one enjoys investing their
time and energy into a relationship, only to be
dismissed without notice once their utility has
been exhausted. The abrupt cessation of online
activities could leave participants feeling used
and generate negative sentiment towards the
Taskforce and its outcomes in the future.
secure intranet environment accessible
to Whole of Australian Government
staff, as well as a linked, open access
engagement space aimed at facilitating
greater online engagement between
elected representatives, public servants,
citizens and other stakeholders.

With the need to strategically manage the final

life-cycle of the community (i.e. communicating
the Taskforce's future intentions to the
community), the available options are:

1. Decommissioning - closure of the

project, with no future community
engagement planned.
2. Transition - migrating the community
to another initiative, approach,
engagement space, etc.
3. Sustainability - redesigning the
community towards one that is active,
supported and resourced in an ongoing
fashion.

Collabforge's advice (outlined below) is to

combine all three options so as to:

1. Notify the community of the Taskforce's

formal decommission via prominent
updates on each engagement space.
2. Provide for an informal transition
period where Taskforce members
can opt into ongoing discussions via
a new engagement space as well as
other pre-established communities
(e.g. Gov 2.0 Australia Community
(http://gov20australia.ning.com),
Gov2.0Australia Google Group
(http://groups.google.com.au/group/
gov20canberra), OzLoop (http://
apsozloop.ning.com), GovLoop (http://
www.govloop.com) VPSCIN (http://www.
vpscin.org), etc), in order to continue the
dialogue and momentum.
3. Make recommendations in the Taskforce
report for the establishment of a
sustainable community dedicated to

Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review 25
 5 Pathways for future
development
The Government 2.0 agenda has only just
begun to gain momentum, both in Australia and
internationally. The work of the Taskforce has
measurably enhanced Australia's reputation for
innovation by making public sector information
(PSI) more widely available and by encouraging
greater online engagement.
The Australian Government is now uniquely
placed to leverage the success of the
Taskforce's initiatives in order to drive a range
of productivity improvements and efficiency
gains within the public sector. The use of Web
2.0 tools for inter-agency knowledge-sharing,
web-based collaboration, comprehensive
information filtering and idea generation are
now well within the Government's grasp.
Networking tools enable self-organisation,
which as a by-product can lead to reduced
management and coordination costs. They also
provide tremendous opportunities for public
engagement activities in areas such as wide-
ranging as policy development (http://cpd.org.
au/article/collaborating-crowd-better-policy-
development), service delivery, planning (See:
http://www.futuremelbourne.com.au), data
recombination (i.e. mashups) and other forms of
citizen innovation (See: http://www.slideshare.
net/dasharp/web2-gov-sharp-collabforge).
It is important to situate these developments
within the broader context of public sector
reform, and to reference the work of other
Government inquiries, in particular the
'Advancing Public Sector Innovation' project
26 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
led by the Department of Innovation, Industry,
Science and Research (DIISR).
This project is "developing recommendations
and a strategy for how the public sector
can foster an innovation culture that tackles
barriers to innovation and shares and rewards
innovative practices." (See: http://www.
innovation.gov.au/Section/Innovation/Pages/
AdvancingPublicSectorInnovation.aspx) The
Public Sector Innovation project is exploring
many similar themes to the Government
2.0 Taskforce, including the use of new
collaborative technologies, mechanisms that
encourage innovation from the 'bottom up',
and ways in which to draw upon the external
expertise of citizens and other stakeholders.
Another crucial development to consider is
the recent publication of new Australian Public
Sector Commission (APSC) protocols for online
media participation which for the first time
grant public servants the right to "engage in
robust policy conversations". The publication
recommends that "equally, as citizens, APS
employees should also embrace the opportunity
to add to the mix of opinions contributing to
sound, sustainable policies and service delivery
approaches" (See: http://www.apsc.gov.au/
circulars/circular096.htm). This constitutes a
significant step towards greater involvement by
APS staff within online community engagement
activities.
Interviews with Taskforce members during the
development of this review echoed the need
and interest for greater participation in online
initiatives by APS and public sector staff.

“It has to stop being about the
Taskforce and start being about
public sector reform issues
and morph very quickly into
an attractive space about the
substantive issues - not about
the Taskforce blog. The best
legacy for the Taskforce is for
the Taskforce to be forgotten as
quickly as possible. There's an
appetite for a really good online
forum for these issues (lists &
hackfests etc are great) but a
broader forum is required.
This could become Australia's
premier Government 2.0 public
sector reform community. What
would its outputs be? Firstly the
conversation itself. It would also
provide a support & solidarity
function (primarily within the
public sector); and finally it
would generate propositions for
innovation and be an incubator, a
place where people can tinker. It
should be open by default, private
by exception.
There are numerous pathways for development
available. These involve a range of tools and
processes that have already proven successful
during the Taskforce's current life-cycle. The
fact these tools are essentially a byproduct
of the acceleration of technology and social
engagement which are both still within their
infancy, illustrates the need to chart a clear
course for the future when the Taskforce
delivers its final recommendations. While this
course only provides a starting point for a
journey that will require ongoing refinement, it
is imperative that it begin decisively and with
a clearly articulated vision, if Australia is to
provide and maintain the current leadership role
which it has admirably so far carved for itself.
The concluding elements of this review present
a recommended pathway for the Taskforce
to manage the decommission of its formal
activities and the associated management of
the established online community. An approach
is also offered with respect to the transitional
period between the delivery of the Taskforce's
recommendations and potential adoption of
these by the Government.
collabforge
Summary of Recommendations
1. Decommission Phase -
Communications & Action Strategy
A communications and action strategy
for managing online community
relationships and expectations, in
addition to legacy issues surrounding
the state in which established Taskforce
engagement spaces are left in.
2. Transition Phase - Government 2.0
Community of Practice
Establishment of Government 2.0
Community of Practice - a lightweight
online engagement space, the
objective of which being to leverage the
leadership and reputation of Taskforce
members to informally maintain
community cohesion and focus.
3. Sustainability Phase - Whole of
Australian Government Community
of Practice
Recommendations in the Taskforce
report for Whole of Australian
Government (WoAG) Community of
Practice dedicated to implementing
Government 2.0 within a secure
environment accessible to WoAG
staff, as well as a linked, open access
engagement space aimed at facilitating
greater public online engagement.
5.1 Decommission
Objectives
 Maintain and build goodwill with the
online community.
 Manage potential legacy issues with the
state of online engagement spaces.
 Provide future visitors to Taskforce
online engagement spaces with clear
information regarding the project,
its conclusions, and any future
opportunities for engagement.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 27
 collabforge
Recommendations
Develop a Communications and Action
Strategy for Taskforce closure that addresses
communications and legacy issues.
Actions
1. Communications Strategy - Specific
content/wording to be posted in a
prominent location on all Taskforce
engagement spaces.
a. For each engagement space,
identify a suitable location for
posting notice of the Taskforce's
conclusion e.g. landing pages
and embeds within site templates
where possible, to ensure each
page is covered.
b. Wording and associated content
for this notification should be
consistent across all engagement
spaces.
c. In addition to notification of
Taskforce conclusion, this content
should address the following:
i. Thank the community for
their participation.
ii. Demonstrate respect for the
relationships formed.
iii. Acknowledge the value of the
community's input.
iv. Dates for the expected
delivery of the Taskforce
report - and in this case,
dates should be replaced
with links to the report once
it's released.
v. Details and links to other
channels for further
participation where possible
(e.g. transition activities as
listed below).
vi. Promote the use of the
#gov2au hashtag for Twitter
users.
28 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
2. Legacy Issues - Undertake tasks
recommended in Section 4 to ensure
quality of content on the engagement
spaces for archival and future reference
by the wider community.
5.2 Transition
Objectives
 Demonstrate to the community a
continued commitment to the exploration
of opportunities and approaches to
Government 2.0 on the part of Taskforce
members.
 Leverage the Taskforce and the
reputation of its members in order to
maintain community cohesion and
momentum.
 Provide leadership in connecting with
and stimulating the various Government
2.0 online communities to continue
building capacity and knowledge of
these groups.
 Act as a focal point and hub for all
Government 2.0 related activities in
Australia.
Recommendations
In Collabforge's assessment, we believe there
is an excellent opportunity to transition the
Taskforce's online community. During interviews
for this review, Taskforce members indicated
strong support for pursuing such an option,
including:
There will be a backlash if
we don't find a way to keep
the process started by the
Taskforce alive. The Taskforce
has generated expectations -
although it's true there's a small
community directly engaged,
there's a much larger community
that would be disappointed to

see this disappear, including
public servants too. There are
political issues at stake for the
Government here because if the
platforms created disappear it
will look like we're running a 1.0
enquiry.
Not only will you have missed
the reputational benefit but you
will fracture the conversation and
drive it underground. You also
fail to take that conversation and
attach it to a larger reform process.
There's a bunch of senior public
servants that need to see this
conversation keep going to take
it seriously, otherwise it will fail to
connect to the institutional change
processes in government.
and:
It would be very good to
continue to have an outlet like
the blog to keep that community
building happening. Although
the Taskforce comes to an end,
the Government 2.0 agenda will
persist.
There have also been numerous comments
provided by public participants interested in
continuing the dialogue, such as this from,
Stephen Collins:
Perhaps [the Taskforce] could
support these efforts and the
work [they're] up to on the blog
and behind the scenes with some
form of online community we
could all contribute to over time?
That way the input is sustainable
and recorded for posterity.
(See: http://gov2.net.au/
roadshows/#comment-600).
Note that the transition phase will require timely
followthrough, otherwise in the eyes of the
community, the credibility of the Taskforce will
be at risk.
collabforge
Actions
1. Engagement Strategy - Develop
a strategy outlining how Taskforce
members can informally participate in
transitional community engagement
activities.
a. Specify an initial time period e.g.
6-12 months.
b. Develop a strategy for promoting
all significant Government 2.0
engagement spaces by listing and
linking to them on the Government
2.0 Community of Practice
engagement space.
c. Specify activities such as blogging,
tweeting, and discussion within
other community spaces, as well
as re-blogging and re-tweeting
their activities.
d. Promote future hackfest sessions
and 'unconferences' - a series
of self-organised events which
combine hack sessions with
workshops and presentations that
are accessible for non-technical
participants.
1. Engagement Space - Establish a
transitional Government 2.0 Community
of Practice engagement space.
a. Develop/establish an engagement
space with capacity for blogging,
discussion forums, collaborative
editing (i.e. wiki) and the creation
of groups.
i. Collabforge recommends the
open source Drupal content
management system (CMS)
due to its inherent capacity to
support broad spectrum Web
2.0 engagement. The use of
Drupal is also fast becoming
best practice for community
engagement, with adoption
by PM.gov.au, Whitehouse.
gov, Data.gov, etc.
Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review 29
 collabforge
5.3 Sustainability
Objectives
1. Increase access to public sector
information (PSI) and facilitate
greater online engagement with and
by government, while providing a
permanent home for the Government
2.0 Community of Practice.
2. Enable communication, collaboration,
sharing and innovation between elected
representatives, public servants, citizens
and other stakeholders on relevant
topics.
3. Enable broad collaborative development
of ideas, policies, standards, data
and guidelines to pursue best
practice approaches to all aspects of
governance. Improve approaches to
online engagement (both inside and
outside of government), and service
delivery innovation by public servants,
citizens and other stakeholders.
Recommendations
The Taskforce include recommendations for
the establishment of a Whole of Australian
Government (WoAG) Community of Practice
(CoP) in its final report. The purpose of this
CoP would be to provide open access to public
sector information (PSI) and to facilitate greater
online engagement with the Australian public
across all levels of government.
This CoP would facilitate the critical transition
from a forum about Government 2.0 to a living
embodiment of Government 2.0, enabling new
modes of public sector and civic engagement.
The platform that supports the CoP should
have the capacity for a separate private
Community of Practice for Australian Public
Service personnel. This generates capacity for
discussions on confidential matters of state,
as well as deeper networking and career
30 Government 2.0 Taskforce
Online Engagement Review
development opportunities for APS staff.
A single sign-on process could be used in
combination with fine grain permission controls
to allow participants to enter private groups
located behind government firewalls.
The Victorian Government has already
embarked on a similar internal facing initiative
termed the 'VPS Hub’ that emerged from the
work of the Victorian Innovation Action Plan.
Disclosure: This hub including the technology
platform and Engagement Strategy was
developed by Collabforge and involved the
wholesale redevelopment of the Whole of
Victorian Government (WoVG) Intranet. This
ground-breaking Gov 2.0 initiative will for the
first time provide Victorian Public Service staff
with access to a full suite of social networking
tools including blogging, wikis, forums, an
innovation toolbox and ideas generation
platform (See: http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au/
CA256D800027B102/Lookup/VPSInnovation
ActionPlanPDF/$file/VPS%20innovation%20
action%20plan%205%20Oct%202009.PDF).
There is a clear culture of collaboration
emerging in government circles linked to a
public sector reform agenda. The Australian
Government has a unique, although limited
opportunity to maintain leadership on this issue
at both a national and international level.
Actions
1. Recommendations within the Taskforce
report should articulate the logic behind
a Whole of Australian Government
Community of Practice. These
recommendations should provide clear
details outlining:
a. Purpose and objectives.
b. Key groups to be engaged.
c. Establishment of appropriate
project ownership and process.
d. General functionality of the Web
platform to host the community,
including:
 collabforge

i. A social networking platform

with comprehensive profiles,
permission controls, friending
capability and private
messaging.
ii. A blog service with tagging
and RSS feeds.
iii. A wiki service with
WYSIWYG editor for
collaborative content
production.
iv. An idea generation platform
and open innovation
marketplace.
v. A mashup competition space
for Gov 2.0 apps.
vi. A searchable library to share
documents and audio/visual
media.
vii. A searchable database of
members, practitioners and
stakeholders.
viii. A forum for member-based
discussions.
ix. A chat service for one-to-
one and many-to-many
communication in real-time.
x. An embedded live video
streaming client for broadcast
of regular seminars with
capacity for group chat.
xi. A groups feature to
facilitate joint projects and
communication between
members with shared
interests.
xii. Integration with existing
platforms such as GovDex.

Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review 31
 6
collabforge

Appendix

About the authors

Darren Sharp, Senior Consultant

Darren Sharp is a senior consultant with Collabforge. Darren provides engagement strategy,
project management, research and consulting services in social media, Web 2.0, online
community dynamics and citizen innovation.

Darren was principal researcher on a project commissioned by Multimedia Victoria in 2004 which
examined future trends in community uptake of the Internet. He also co-authored the Smart
Internet 2010 report on the future of the Internet, and User-led Innovation which presents a
roadmap for organisations to leverage the participation of their audiences, customers and citizens
in the interest of co-creating new services.

Darren project managed the 'VPS Hub' for Collabforge, a project to re-develop the Whole of
Victorian Government intranet using an open source platform to deploy wikis, blogs and rich
media to allow users to generate and discuss ideas. The Hub will provide an online space for
collaboration across the VPS and act as a repository for innovation tools and resources.

Darren has been invited to speak at a range of national and international conferences including
the National Library of Australia's Innovative Ideas Forum in Canberra and the 3rd International
Living Knowledge conference in Paris (École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris). He was
an associate editor of the website Australian Policy Online, produced multimedia for SBS New
Media and Eclipse Group and has been interviewed by The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The
Courier Mail and ABC Radio National providing expert commentary on the ongoing transformation
of business, government and society via the Web.

Darren.Sharp@Collabforge.com
http://twitter.com/dasharp

32 Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review
 collabforge

Dr Mark Elliott, Director & Founder

Dr Mark Elliott is Director and founder of Collabforge. As chief consultant for Collabforge, Mark has
successfully designed and managed a range of high profile projects working closely with clients in
a highly versatile and collaborative capacity.

In late 2007 through mid 2008, Mark led Collabforge’s reengineering of the City of Melbourne’s
ten-year planning process, in order to enable a collaborative outcome across its large and diverse
stakeholder groups. This reengineering also provided for the successful integration of a wiki-based
collaborative environment, for both internal collaboration and external public consultation. The
result was an award-winning, world’s first city plan to be developed in a wiki - FutureMelbourne.
com.au. Since then, Mark has overseen projects delivered to the Australian state, local and federal
governments as well as multinational corporations.

Prior to founding Collabforge, Mark completed a PhD investigating the underlying dynamics and
mechanisms that drive and enable online mass collaboration. Mark's PhD was examined by
Internet luminary and inventor of the term "virtual communities", Howard Rheingold. Mark has
published and delivered keynote presentations on his work at Princeton University, the Lowy
Institute for International Policy and was a pannelist for the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum's
Imagining White House 2.0 — Making Open Collaboration Platforms Work.

Mark.Elliott@Collabforge.com
http://twitter.com/MarkElliott

Matt Cooperrider, General Manager U.S.

Matt Cooperrider is General Manager of Collabforge's U.S. operations. Before joining
Collabforge, Matt helped organize a series of collaborative projects in New York City related to
information technology, open government, and social change.

In 2008, Matt acted as coordinator for OneWebDay 2008 and the Twitter Vote Report citizen
reporting initiative around the 2008 presidential elections. In 2009, he founded and organized the
Open Gov NYC meetup group and spearheaded the Participation Camp unconference on citizen
participation in government.

Matt is currently completing a Master's Degree in Technologies of Cooperation at New York

University.

Matt.Cooperrider@Collabforge.com
http://twitter.com/Mattcoop

Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review 33
 collabforge

Collabforge Company Profile

Collabforge provides world-leading Web strategy and IT development for collaborative
engagement outcomes. We service a range of public and private sector clients and offer
expertise in Gov 2.0 strategies and systems that leverage citizen participation for a
wide range of public engagement and communications objectives. Collabforge has gained
significant experience in developing and administering a number of mission critical, high-profile
Web 2.0 initiatives for local, State and Federal government and private sector clients.

Our team of social scientists, strategists, collaboration experts, designers and technical
developers focus on developing infrastructure and cultivating associated online
communities utilising sophisticated methods for fostering participation and knowledge
production. In particular, Collabforge understands how to address the risks,
considerations and concerns of high profile government agencies where moderation and
strategic community engagement regarding sensitive issues is an imperative.

Collabforge can assist your organisation achieve its collaboration objectives through the
following services:

Web strategy
We provide the rationale and instructions for how to leverage decentralised
community engagement and organisational activities using a variety of Web 2.0 tools
and processes.

IT development
We provide off-the-shelf and custom-built Web-based infrastructures and platforms
(blogs, wikis, social networking sites, chat services, forums, widgets etc.) for strategic
collaborative engagement aimed at a wide variety of potential stakeholder groups.

Training & communication services

We provide a range of training options including one-on-one and group sessions, application and
social media training and workshop facilitation. We conduct stakeholder briefings and can assist
with marketing/communication campaigns for target user outreach.

At the centre of Collabforge's approach and focus are our client relationships. While we
have a variety of existing solutions to offer, we work closely with our clients and
approach each project individually in order to deliver strongly on their outcomes. And in
doing so, we make it our business to lead the world in online community engagement.

We do this by setting a very simple benchmark for quality: exceed expectations.

http://www.collabforge.com

34 Government 2.0 Taskforce

Online Engagement Review
collabforge
collaboration :: cooperation :: coordination

info@collabforge.com
http://www.collabforge.com
+61(0) 421 978 501