Sliced Bread

ZDNet reports Oracle says at least one Federal government minister gets it, web2.0 that is.

Lindsay Tanner yesterday admitted that government agencies lagged the rest of the world when it came to the use of information technology. He also flagged the government’s intention to trial web 2.0 technologies next year (my edit ahem? THAT’S 2009 and it’s only a trial?) — such as allowing staff to post blogs — to adapt policy-making to today’s technologies.

The Australian Government could and should be leading the way in adapting our old processes of consultation, engagement, policymaking and regulation to the connected world. Yet we lag behind other nations in both the scale and pace of reform,” he said.

Is stating the bleeding obvious reassuring or alarming? At least one government minister is publically talking about catching up. Wow.

Maybe, just maybe, if governments on all levels “got it”, like Lindsay is suggesting, then we would see government bureaucracies adopt 21st century read write (web2.0) designs and layouts.

The NSW DET portal is last century in both design and function. It is hard to navigate, search and access, let alone the NSW government recognising that all staff need access to fully networked laptops first. Selective IRM is vital, but to adopt a blanket policy on portals, especially DET’s where participants want to collaborate across systems, is learning folly.

Queensland, Victoria and WA DET, although not yet fully read/write, all have far more user friendly interfaces that at least look 21st century and are far easier to find eresources, share information and navigate.

I’m glad our regional Learning Systems recently launched a user friendly read/write page. Alas, I can’t share with all learners because its locked behind DET NSW’s walled garden, but that’s another pet peeve about sharing openly.

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