So what is Government 2.0?

Gov 2.0 is the use of Web 2.0 tools (like wikis, blogs or social networking sites) by government to engage with citizens, develop policy and deliver services.

Photo by ‘opensourceway’ under CC licence

Photo by Joi Ito under CC licence

It’s collaborative and user-generated content. You see it on YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia.

It’s a set of online tools that generate interaction and connectivity between individuals and between governments or corporations.

Most Web 2.0 tools have an ‘open source’ philosophy so people can re-use and share content or code freely and easily.

What is Web 2.0?

Photo by Andreas Praefcke under CC licence

Gov 2.0 is the application of Web 2.0 collaborative and open-source principles and technologies to the practices and processes of government.

Web 2.0 is used to achieve a more open, accountable and responsive government.

Gov 2.0 is greater citizen rights to reuse, republish and repurpose public sector information.

How does Gov 2.0 work?

Photo by ‘mdid’ under CC licence

What’s the difference between Government 1.0 and 2.0?

Government 1.0 Government 2.0

Management Hierarchical

Rigid

Networked

Collaborative

Flexible

Performance One-size-fits-all

Supplier driven

Single channel

Personalised

Choice based

Multi-channel

Service delivery Input oriented

Closed

Outcome driven

Transparent

Decision making Public as spectator Public as participant

Deloitte 2009

Photo by James Cridland under CC licence

Blog: a website with regular ‘posts’ of text, video or pictures, displayed in reverse-chronological order (most recent first). Readers can usually comment on the content of the blog, and often subscribe to blogs via an RSS feed

Crowd-sourcing: taking tasks usually done by a particular group (government, business etc) and outsourcing them to an online community. Web 2.0 tools can be used to harness the efforts and ideas of large masses of potential collaborators.

Data mashup: the combination of data from two or more data sources to provide new context and meaning to the information. E.g. combining crime statistics with maps to show visually the rates of crime across geographical areas.

Facebook: a global social networking website where users create profiles and exchange text, images and links with friends, family and community members. Users can join networks based on location, workplace or educational facility and can join ‘groups’ on particular themes of interest, coordinate events and maintain a profile of themselves.

Flickr: an image and video hosting website and online community. The site allows posting of images and video, as well as user comment on that content. The site is used by many bloggers and Twitter users to store images to embed or link to in their posts.

RSS: a method of publication of frequently updated online content, such as blog entries or news headlines. An RSS feed includes full or summarised text as well as metadata like publishing dates and authors. RSS feeds are read using aggregators, e.g. Google Reader, or RSS readers built into your web browser.

Twitter: a free social networking and micro-communications site for publishing text messages up to 140 characters long. Updates, known as ‘tweets’, are delivered to a user’s ‘followers’ in real time.

Yammer: a simple real-time communication tool for use within organisations, enabling employees to connect and share at work. Only individuals with the same email domain (eg .vic.gov.au) can join a given network.

YouTube: a video sharing website where users can upload, view and comment on videos.

Wiki: a website (or collection of linked websites) that is freely contributed to, altered and edited by a number of users. Wikipedia is an example of a large-scale application of the Wiki principle.

Viral: something is virally spread on the internet, or ‘goes viral’, if it is spread widely across online media sources through posting and reposting by ordinary people, as opposed to a direct and continued effort by the information source. Many private corporations utilise this online form of word-of-mouth to advertise their products through viral marketing.

Glossary

Want more information?

The Victorian Government 2.0 Action Plan

http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/government-2-0/government-2-0-action-plan-victoria.html