The Australian War Memorial is connecting and enriching online archives and collections toward building a platform for telling history. Through Drupal 7 and Linked Data, the Memorial intends to develop tools that designers, researchers and historians can use to help find new ways of building historical narratives.During this session we will demonstrate some early prototypes and experiments, key uses of Linked Data, practical publishing tools and discuss how this work is unfolding inside one of Australia’s major collecting institutions.
About Adam Bell
Adam Bell leads the web production team at the Australian War Memorial, where he works with curators and historians to publish the Memorial’s vast archives and collections online. He has a background as an artist, cultural worker, teacher and printmaker and plays in a rock n roll band.Follow Adam on Twitter: @bumphead
About David Peterson
David Peterson has been pushing at the boundaries of Web development since 1995; that combined with a background in wildlife cinematography brings fresh insight into what can be a geeky sort of space. He has built a number of high profile sites for the ABC, Australian science groups and many others.David works as a consultant with PreviousNext and lives way down south in cool Tasmania — regularly breathing on his fingers just to tap away at the keyboard. He is busy building Web apps built with Open Source toolkits utilising Java, PHP, Python, Linked Data and the almighty Drupal. He enjoys exploring deep into the guts of the Semantic Web and Linked Data to discover new connections and visualisations that help empower story tellers.Follow David on Twitter: @davidseth" ["post_title"]=> string(107) "Adam Bell & David Peterson - Bringing History Alive: Telling stories with Linked Data and open source tools" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(535) "
During this session we will demonstrate some early prototypes and experiments, key uses of Linked Data, practical publishing tools and discuss how this work is unfolding inside one of Australia’s major collecting institutions.
The USA and UK governments have made significant progress with linked, open data in recent months. Several fundamental datasets from the Australian Government are on the cusp of being exposed as meaningful, reusable, machine-readable assets, further driving the adoption of linked data within and around government.Making better use of online data offerings using a combination of top-down policy and guidance, together with bottom-up development efforts from agency web teams, would seem to describe a sustainable, organic growth in linked government data.Learn about the path to the first release of data.gov.au; a draft roadmap to future releases; the barriers to linked data and open public sector information (PSI); and the real-world questions this technology aims to solve.
About Gordon Grace
Based in the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), Gordon has been working on whole-of-government websites and Australian Government web policies since early 2006.Gordon likes making attractive, useful things that matter to people. He’s some thing of a ‘plate spinner’, and likes to punish himself by taking on too many projects at once. Gordon can often be found prodding and lifting dirty great big IT systems over usability, accessibility and standards-compliance hurdles, gently preparing them for the hostile, unforgiving and unpredictable web.Gordon lives in Canberra with his wife and two young children, who are rarely hostile, frequently forgiving, and always unpredictable.Follow Gordon on Twitter:@gordongrace
" ["post_title"]=> string(52) "Gordon Grace - More than raw: government data online" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(435) "
Learn about the path to the first release of data.gov.au; a draft roadmap to future releases; the barriers to linked data and open public sector information (PSI); and the real-world questions this technology aims to solve.
Web standards might be second nature to all of us here, but they don't always fly so easily in the enterprise. Obscure browsers and CIOs watching their bottom line can often leave a passionate development team feeling stifled. In this session we'll look at how a number of large scale websites successfully adopted new standards and opened their content to more audiences and devices than ever before. We'll explore techniques for deciding what client technologies to use on your projects, how to drive the adoption of newer techniques and how not to leave your audience behind. We'll even talk about how to make all of this possible with Internet Explorer in the room.
About Tatham Oddie
Tatham Oddie is a technical strategist and roaming consultant. For the third year in a row he is a recipient of the Microsoft-issued "Most Valuable Professional" award, and a regular presenter and participant at conferences and industry groups throughout Australia, New Zealand and North America. His business experience includes the launch of a successful creative agency, a fashion retail and PR business, and is now focussed on the development of Tixi - a niche ticketing agency.Follow Tatham on Twitter:@tathamoddie
" ["post_title"]=> string(52) "Tatham Oddie - Practicing Web Standards in the Large" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(568) "
Web standards might be second nature to all of us here, but they don't always fly so easily in the enterprise. Obscure browsers and CIOs watching their bottom line can often leave a passionate development team feeling stifled. In this session we'll look at how a number of large scale websites successfully adopted new standards and opened their content to more audiences and devices than ever before.
Libraries contain masses of beautifully structured data collected over many years. But these records may have their flaws and might now want to be used in ways, such as location based services, that weren't imagined 30 years ago. How can we use existing API's and web services to enrich this data to enable it to be used in a variety of ways. This data also needs to be exposed for others to use and build upon. With the recent release of the Government response to the Web 2.0 taskforce, how can institutions comply with these recommendations by providing their data in usable forms for the public. What's involved in building an API into our resources and how can our data be given more meaning through semantic linkages like RDFa?
About Paul Hagon
Paul is the Senior Web Designer at the National Library of Australia and has been working on the web in cultural institutions since 1999. His job entails a mix of design, coding, and accessibility. He is a thinker and "ideas" man. He finds cultural institutions fascinating because of what they bring to society, they are rich resources of information and provide vast potential for exploring hidden treasures. Paul enjoys making these items available and telling their stories in ways that may not be the most obvious. He likes to use technology in a relevant way to enrich the way we can interact with these resources.In 2010 Paul was named a "Mover and Shaker" of the library world by Library Journal.Follow Paul on Twitter:@paulhagon
" ["post_title"]=> string(38) "Paul Hagon - Enriching large data sets" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(897) "
Libraries contain masses of beautifully structured data collected over many years. But these records may have their flaws and might now want to be used in ways, such as location based services, that weren't imagined 30 years ago. How can we use existing API's and web services to enrich this data to enable it to be used in a variety of ways. This data also needs to be exposed for others to use and build upon. With the recent release of the Government response to the Web 2.0 taskforce, how can institutions comply with these recommendations by providing their data in usable forms for the public. What's involved in building an API into our resources and how can our data be given more meaning through semantic linkages like RDFa?
People are redefining the relationship they have with the organisations they interact with, empowered by social technologies. They are seeking:
Human-ness: as organisations have grown in size and become more and more depersonalised, people are wanting more human interactions and personal response
Trust: from greenwashing to the GFC, the market's trust has been eroded — people are looking for organisations to say what they mean and mean what they say
Co-creation: people are taking a more active role in developing the products and services that they use. And if they don't find what they're looking for, they will often create it themselves
Responsibility: people want to engage with organisations that are genuinely addressing the complex issues of sustainability and wellbeing
Building a brand, service or product offering that resonates in this new "economy of meaning" requires a rethinking of an organisation's relationship to the "market" — their customers, stakeholders and the environment.In this presentation Grant Young will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.
About Grant Young
Grant is founder of social innovation consultancy Zumio. In this role he combines his 15+ years' experience in online and social technology with his passion for sustainability to help organisations harness these increasingly prominent market forces.Zumio helps its clients — spanning the commercial, government and non-profit sectors — build platforms for social engagement that simultaneously deliver organisational value while increasing societal wellbeing and sustainability. Zumio has recently undertaken projects for the Cancer Institute NSW, the Inspire Foundation, VicRoads and Saasu.Prior to founding Zumio, Grant produced projects for award-winning sustainable design agency Digital Eskimo and managed online communications and social media strategy for conservation organisation WWF-Australia, including for the inaugural Earth Hour (2007). He has also developed web applications for the business sector in the areas of financial and carbon accounting (Saasu, Climate Friendly).Follow Grant on Twitter:@grantyoung
" ["post_title"]=> string(54) "Grant Young - Creating platforms for social innovation" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(474) "
In this presentation Grant Young will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.
Government has huge amounts of information but how can this be effectively managed and delivered through the web? This session will ‘lift the lid’ on web mapping technology and identify some of the key issues that must be addressed to achieve a successful outcome.
The NSW government SIX Viewer web mapping portal will be used as a case study to demonstrate how terabytes of data can be integrated and delivered via the Internet.
About David Hayward
David is the national lead for spatial (location based) solutions for the consulting group Ajilon Australia. He has over 15 years experience with spatial technology working extensively within Government and the mining industry. Focussed on leveraging the web to support the integration of spatial information within mainstream IT, he has led the development of a number of high profile web mapping sites including the NSW government SIX Viewer web mapping portal.
David believes that the increasing demand and awareness of the benefits of locational information will result in spatial technology becoming ubiquitous within IT.
A presentation given at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Government has huge amounts of information but how can this be effectively managed and delivered through the web? This session will ‘lift the lid’ on web mapping technology and identify some of the key issues that must be addressed to achieve a successful outcome.
The NSW government SIX Viewer web mapping portal will be used as a case study to demonstrate how terabytes of data can be integrated and delivered via the Internet.
This session will look at the government collaborative tool Govdex, how it is currently used by agencies, what it provides, and how you can use it for your projects. GovDex is a resource developed by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to facilitate business process collaboration across policy portfolios and jurisdictions.
GovDex, managed by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in the Department of Finance & Deregulation, promotes effective and efficient information sharing, which is core to achieving collaboration. It provides governance, tools, methods and re-usable technical components that agencies can use to assemble and deploy information services on their different technology platforms. GovDex is a key enabler to a whole of government approach to IT service development and deployment.
About Ralph Douglas
Ralph Douglas manages GovDex on behalf of AGIMO and previously worked as a Policy/Budget Analyst within the Budget Group at the Department of Finance and Deregulation. He has developed website content for several Australian government department websites, and has a background in the IT recruitment sector and Finance/IT publishing industry in Sydney and Canberra.
" ["post_title"]=> string(68) "Ralph Douglas - GovDex: Collaborating online in a secure environment" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(1149) "
A presentation given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
This session will look at the government collaborative tool Govdex, how it is currently used by agencies, what it provides, and how you can use it for your projects. GovDex is a resource developed by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to facilitate business process collaboration across policy portfolios and jurisdictions.
GovDex, managed by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in the Department of Finance & Deregulation, promotes effective and efficient information sharing, which is core to achieving collaboration. It provides governance, tools, methods and re-usable technical components that agencies can use to assemble and deploy information services on their different technology platforms. GovDex is a key enabler to a whole of government approach to IT service development and deployment.
The world is abuzz with social computing: Facebook, My Space, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, blogs, wikis and other spaces powered by Web 2.0 technology. It’s a social revolution, empowering individuals to communicate, share what they know online, and help others locate information that is important to them in both their private and working lives.
Some see all this as a big waste of corporate time, but is it? Is there value in handing over control of collaboration and sharing knowledge to individuals, rather than hoarding it in records systems, knowledge systems, and thousands of network dive folders? Is there a way you can harness this social revolution to help improve our organisation’s knowledge management practices? Is there actually a solid business value proposition for social computing?
Matthew will look at knowledge management in modern organisations, and how you can benefit by learning from the principles of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies. Matthew will introduce two case studies in government that demonstrate successful and not-so-successful ways of employing social computing tools, the factors that contributed to their success, and the pitfalls to watch out for. In particular, he will look at the issues in relation to corporate culture by drawing on recent research in blogs and wikis based on work in organisational psychology by Hofstede.
About Matthew Hodgson
Matthew Hodgson is regional lead for Web and Information Management at SMS Management & Technology in Canberra. He has over 10 years experience in e-business strategy, information architecture, information management and knowledge management, working with the government and commercial sector to deliver innovative solutions to difficult web problems. Matthew has published papers in the areas of social psychology, has lectured at the University of Canberra on social computing, and is passionate about the way in which technology can positively impact on social change through facilitating interpersonal communication and knowledge sharing.
Matthew’s experience is underpinned by a comprehensive applied knowledge of government and international web and information standards, degrees in organisational psychology and knowledge management, and an intimate understanding of Web 2.0, from folksonomies to wikis and blogs. Matthew blogs at Matt's Musings and is a contributing author at The AppGap.
" ["post_title"]=> string(59) "Matthew Hodgson - Social computing for knowledge management" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(1653) "
A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
The world is abuzz with social computing: Facebook, My Space, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, blogs, wikis and other spaces powered by Web 2.0 technology. It’s a social revolution, empowering individuals to communicate, share what they know online, and help others locate information that is important to them in both their private and working lives.
Some see all this as a big waste of corporate time, but is it? Is there value in handing over control of collaboration and sharing knowledge to individuals, rather than hoarding it in records systems, knowledge systems, and thousands of network dive folders? Is there a way you can harness this social revolution to help improve our organisation’s knowledge management practices? Is there actually a solid business value proposition for social computing?
Matthew will look at knowledge management in modern organisations, and how you can benefit by learning from the principles of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies. Matthew will introduce two case studies in government that demonstrate successful and not-so-successful ways of employing social computing tools, the factors that contributed to their success, and the pitfalls to watch out for. In particular, he will look at the issues in relation to corporate culture by drawing on recent research in blogs and wikis based on work in organisational psychology by Hofstede.
It's no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services.
But how to do it well is still something of a black art.
In this keynote presentation, the lead of the W3C's eGovernment initiative, José Manuel Alonso, looks at the opportunities the web provides governments, the challenges, old and new, the web poses, and the role of the W3C in helping to develop underlying, interoperable technologies with which to build these services.
José's presentation will cover best practices and methodologies for providing eGovernment services, and look at case studies of how governments and communities are connecting via the web around the world.
About José Manuel Alonso
José is the eGovernment Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium. Prior to joining the W3C, he was the Manager for the W3C Spain Office for three years and also served as the Advisory Committee Representative for CTIC (host of the Spain Office).
José has broad experience in project management, software integration, customer relationship, PR and IT consultancy. He received a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Enterprise Application Integration, both from the University of Oviedo, where he also worked at the Research and Innovation departments as a researcher, developer and lecturer. Previously he worked as consultant and even founded his own web company back in 1997.
" ["post_title"]=> string(72) "José Manuel Alonso - Improving Government through better use of the Web" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(1076) "
A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
It's no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services.
But how to do it well is still something of a black art.
In this keynote presentation, the lead of the W3C's eGovernment initiative, José Manuel Alonso, looks at the opportunities the web provides governments, the challenges, old and new, the web poses, and the role of the W3C in helping to develop underlying, interoperable technologies with which to build these services.
José's presentation will cover best practices and methodologies for providing eGovernment services, and look at case studies of how governments and communities are connecting via the web around the world.
Mapping and other mashups have taken the web world by storm - driving innovation in business and government alike. While much of the focus has been on the actual mashup applications, without the data to mashup, we have no mashups. Government, from local to Federal level, collect and manage a significant amount of data, across a very broad range of areas. But giving access to this data to web application developers has technical, policy and legal challenges. In this presentation, Jenny Telford of the ABS looks at these issues from their experience of opening up data from the Australian Census.
About Jenny Telford
Jenny Telford is currently the Director of Census Products and Services at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Jenny has worked in the government sector for over ten years in roles focused on the delivery of data and information through the internet and other channels. The ABS is one of the largest information providers in the country and freely provides data through the website on a range of social, economic and environmental issues.
" ["post_title"]=> string(42) "Jenny Telford - Opening up government data" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(847) "
A presentation given at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Mapping and other mashups have taken the web world by storm - driving innovation in business and government alike. While much of the focus has been on the actual mashup applications, without the data to mashup, we have no mashups. Government, from local to Federal level, collect and manage a significant amount of data, across a very broad range of areas. But giving access to this data to web application developers has technical, policy and legal challenges. In this presentation, Jenny Telford of the ABS looks at these issues from their experience of opening up data from the Australian Census.
Technology changes present complex challenges and rich opportunities for senior public sector managers. Finding the balance between innovation and risk management is not easy in an environment where successful engagement depends upon relinquishing control. Using examples from New Zealand's experience, Jason will share lessons and observations about the inevitable growing pains of public sector agencies as they evolve towards Govt 2.0.
About Jason Ryan
Jason Ryan is the Communications Manager at the State Services Commission, the New Zealand Government's lead advisor on the public management system. He is also a public sector blogger and an advocate for the transformation of public sector communications through the use of social media. Jason wrote the Principles for Public Sector Social Media, a set of guidelines for New Zealand government agencies wanting to use Web 2.0 communication tools to better engage with their publics.
" ["post_title"]=> string(54) "Jason Ryan - Govt 2.0: the public management challenge" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(701) "
A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Technology changes present complex challenges and rich opportunities for senior public sector managers. Finding the balance between innovation and risk management is not easy in an environment where successful engagement depends upon relinquishing control. Using examples from New Zealand's experience, Jason will share lessons and observations about the inevitable growing pains of public sector agencies as they evolve towards Govt 2.0.
A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
We’re sorry, but slides and podcast for this presentation are unfortunately not available.
Session description
While elections can be exciting times, the underlying data - swings, booth counts, and the like is probably only riveting to psephological tragics. Yet the ABC's election web site managed to take this raw data and make it attractive, compelling and interactive.
In this session, the ABC's Andrew Kesper takes us through the election site, looking at the design decisions, and uses of technology like Ajax, Flash, and interactive maps - tools which have wide applicability for government sites looking to present data in more user-friendly and attractive ways.
About Andrew Kesper
Andrew Kesper has been working at the ABC for the past two years. Andrew's first project was the redevelopment of ABC News Online that launched in mid-2007. This was followed back-to-back by the development of the ABC's Federal Election site, Australia Votes 2007, which launched in September 2007.
Andrew has also developed sites for several ABC current affairs programs including The 7.30 Report, Lateline and Insiders. Pre-ABC, Andrew worked for a web design firm in London, developing web sites for clients such as the British Film Institute and local government organisations. He graduated with a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Queensland in 2003.
" ["post_title"]=> string(64) "Andrew Kesper - ABC's election site: making the most of dry data" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(887) "
A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
While elections can be exciting times, the underlying data - swings, booth counts, and the like is probably only riveting to psephological tragics. Yet the ABC's election web site managed to take this raw data and make it attractive, compelling and interactive.
In this session, the ABC's Andrew Kesper takes us through the election site, looking at the design decisions, and uses of technology like Ajax, Flash, and interactive maps - tools which have wide applicability for government sites looking to present data in more user-friendly and attractive ways.
What does Web 2.0 mean and, specifically, what does it mean for the future of governments? Tara Hunt has been speaking all over the world, talking to government audiences on this subject. She believes that Web 2.0 has very little to do with the technology and everything to do with people. Her talk will cover the main tenets of Web 2.0: openness, collaboration and community and what it means for government.
About Tara Hunt
“Miss Rogue” defines herself as a customer first, marketer second. In 2005, Tara became the marketing director at Riya, where her community marketing theories resulted in huge gains, such as national news mentions before launch and over one million photos uploaded within 24 hours of launch. She doesn’t believe in PR, only in the power of building relationships with a community. She co-founded Citizen Agency in 2006 with the mission of teaching her clients how to work more effectively with the communities they serve. Tara has over seven years experience in non-traditional marketing planning. She maintains a successful blog over at HorsePigCow.
Speaking of community, Tara is a community-based movement evangelist, spending all of her free time on Barcamp, Coworking and Winecamp. She is also a supporter of the Open Source movement, the EFF, Creative Commons and the Intelligrid.
" ["post_title"]=> string(58) "Tara Hunt - Government 2.0: Architecting for collaboration" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(637) "
A presentation given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.
What does Web 2.0 mean and, specifically, what does it mean for the future of governments? Tara Hunt has been speaking all over the world, talking to government audiences on this subject. She believes that Web 2.0 has very little to do with the technology and everything to do with people. Her talk will cover the main tenets of Web 2.0: openness, collaboration and community and what it means for government.
More than ever before there is an enormous amount of publicly held data about our community, our culture, and citizens. How can government respond to the opportunities of Web 2.0? How can government websites and databases become more citizen-centric, and more responsive by leveraging social media?
In 2006 the Powerhouse Musuem, a NSW State Government institiution, opened its core information asset - its collection and research database - to public tagging, and dynamic user-driven recommendations. In the same year the Museum launched a range of public-facing blogs, inviting comment from visitors and audiences. Sebastian Chan will discuss why the museum has made these very successful forays into social media, and how a small in-house web development unit was able to push through and launch a project which is counted among Australia’s top web 2.0 applications. If you work in a large organisation and have dreams of social media, do not miss this session.
Sebastian Chan is currently the Manager of the Web Services Unit at the Powerhouse Museum. Coming from a background in social policy, journalism and media criticism as well as information technology, he has been building and producing websites and interactive media since the mid 1990s. At the Powerhouse he has been responsible for driving a strong user focus in design, usability and content, as well as expanding the scope and reach of the museum’s suite of online projects. In the last financial year his team was responsible for tripling visitation to the Museum’s online resources and a large suite of innovative experimental projects. He is known as a cultural sector specialist in social media and Web 2.0 applications, as well as web analytics.
A regular speaker in Australia who has also delivered workshops and presentations in the USA, Canada and UK, Sebastian’s other interests include electronic music and digital art. He has directed and curated large scale national and international events and festivals, and also produces related media from radio broadcasts to print. At the Powerhouse he runs the internationally popular Fresh + New blog covering issues and new ideas around digital media and museums.
" ["post_title"]=> string(48) "Sebastian Chan - Social media and Government 2.0" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(1211) "
A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.
More than ever before there is an enormous amount of publicly held data about our community, our culture, and citizens. How can government respond to the opportunities of Web 2.0? How can government websites and databases become more citizen-centric, and more responsive by leveraging social media? In 2006 the Powerhouse Musuem, a NSW State Government institiution, opened its core information asset - its collection and research database - to public tagging, and dynamic user-driven recommendations. In the same year the Museum launched a range of public-facing blogs, inviting comment from visitors and audiences. Sebastian Chan will discuss why the museum has made these very successful forays into social media, and how a small in-house web development unit was able to push through and launch a project which is counted among Australia’s top web 2.0 applications. If you work in a large organisation and have dreams of social media, do not miss this session.
This was one of our most loved sessions last year, so much so that we decided to do it again this year, with some new faces, some new experiences. With speakers from both government/education as well as the private sector, get advice from those who've already been there on dealing with recalcitrant management, teams members and agencies, building by stealth and making incremental change.
About Cheryl Lead and Ben Buchanan
Cheryl Lead
Cheryl Lead is the Online Manager at Virgin Money and was responsible for driving the design and development of the redesigned Virgin Credit Card site and the recently launched Virgin Home Loan website. She is a strong champion of accessibility, usability and web standards. Her key drivers were to ensure that they are optimally accessible to the largest client base, and clearly and simply designed to encourage people to navigate through complex product documentation to gather information and apply online, as well as reflecting the Virgin brand values and sense of fun.
Ben Buchanan
Ben Buchanan started creating web pages ten years ago while completing a degree in everything but I.T. He started working as a web developer in 1999 and was the Web Standards Developer at Griffith University for six years (2000-2006). He worked with a wide range of clients within the University and was involved with the development of three generations of the Griffith website.
Ben Buchanan is known as a passionate web standards and accessibility advocate through his work, public speaking and writing at the 200ok weblog. He now works as a Frontend Developer for News Interactive.
" ["post_title"]=> string(72) "Cheryl Lead and Ben Buchanan - Moving your organisation to web standards" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(785) "
A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 29 2006.
This was one of our most loved sessions last year, so much so that we decided to do it again this year, with some new faces, some new experiences. With speakers from both government/education as well as the private sector, get advice from those who've already been there on dealing with recalcitrant management, teams members and agencies, building by stealth and making incremental change.
The Australian War Memorial is connecting and enriching online archives and collections toward building a platform for telling history. Through Drupal 7 and Linked Data, the Memorial intends to develop tools that designers, researchers and historians can use to help find new ways of building historical narratives.During this session we will demonstrate some early prototypes and experiments, key uses of Linked Data, practical publishing tools and discuss how this work is unfolding inside one of Australia’s major collecting institutions.
About Adam Bell
Adam Bell leads the web production team at the Australian War Memorial, where he works with curators and historians to publish the Memorial’s vast archives and collections online. He has a background as an artist, cultural worker, teacher and printmaker and plays in a rock n roll band.Follow Adam on Twitter: @bumphead
About David Peterson
David Peterson has been pushing at the boundaries of Web development since 1995; that combined with a background in wildlife cinematography brings fresh insight into what can be a geeky sort of space. He has built a number of high profile sites for the ABC, Australian science groups and many others.David works as a consultant with PreviousNext and lives way down south in cool Tasmania — regularly breathing on his fingers just to tap away at the keyboard. He is busy building Web apps built with Open Source toolkits utilising Java, PHP, Python, Linked Data and the almighty Drupal. He enjoys exploring deep into the guts of the Semantic Web and Linked Data to discover new connections and visualisations that help empower story tellers.Follow David on Twitter: @davidseth" ["post_title"]=> string(107) "Adam Bell & David Peterson - Bringing History Alive: Telling stories with Linked Data and open source tools" ["post_category"]=> string(1) "0" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(535) "
During this session we will demonstrate some early prototypes and experiments, key uses of Linked Data, practical publishing tools and discuss how this work is unfolding inside one of Australia’s major collecting institutions.
During this session we will demonstrate some early prototypes and experiments, key uses of Linked Data, practical publishing tools and discuss how this work is unfolding inside one of Australia’s major collecting institutions.
Learn about the path to the first release of data.gov.au; a draft roadmap to future releases; the barriers to linked data and open public sector information (PSI); and the real-world questions this technology aims to solve.
Web standards might be second nature to all of us here, but they don’t always fly so easily in the enterprise. Obscure browsers and CIOs watching their bottom line can often leave a passionate development team feeling stifled. In this session we’ll look at how a number of large scale websites successfully adopted new standards and opened their content to more audiences and devices than ever before.
Libraries contain masses of beautifully structured data collected over many years. But these records may have their flaws and might now want to be used in ways, such as location based services, that weren’t imagined 30 years ago. How can we use existing API’s and web services to enrich this data to enable it to be used in a variety of ways. This data also needs to be exposed for others to use and build upon. With the recent release of the Government response to the Web 2.0 taskforce, how can institutions comply with these recommendations by providing their data in usable forms for the public. What’s involved in building an API into our resources and how can our data be given more meaning through semantic linkages like RDFa?
In this presentation Grant Young will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.
A presentation given at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Government has huge amounts of information but how can this be effectively managed and delivered through the web? This session will ‘lift the lid’ on web mapping technology and identify some of the key issues that must be addressed to achieve a successful outcome.
The NSW government SIX Viewer web mapping portal will be used as a case study to demonstrate how terabytes of data can be integrated and delivered via the Internet.
A presentation given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
This session will look at the government collaborative tool Govdex, how it is currently used by agencies, what it provides, and how you can use it for your projects. GovDex is a resource developed by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to facilitate business process collaboration across policy portfolios and jurisdictions.
GovDex, managed by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in the Department of Finance & Deregulation, promotes effective and efficient information sharing, which is core to achieving collaboration. It provides governance, tools, methods and re-usable technical components that agencies can use to assemble and deploy information services on their different technology platforms. GovDex is a key enabler to a whole of government approach to IT service development and deployment.
A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
The world is abuzz with social computing: Facebook, My Space, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, blogs, wikis and other spaces powered by Web 2.0 technology. It’s a social revolution, empowering individuals to communicate, share what they know online, and help others locate information that is important to them in both their private and working lives.
Some see all this as a big waste of corporate time, but is it? Is there value in handing over control of collaboration and sharing knowledge to individuals, rather than hoarding it in records systems, knowledge systems, and thousands of network dive folders? Is there a way you can harness this social revolution to help improve our organisation’s knowledge management practices? Is there actually a solid business value proposition for social computing?
Matthew will look at knowledge management in modern organisations, and how you can benefit by learning from the principles of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies. Matthew will introduce two case studies in government that demonstrate successful and not-so-successful ways of employing social computing tools, the factors that contributed to their success, and the pitfalls to watch out for. In particular, he will look at the issues in relation to corporate culture by drawing on recent research in blogs and wikis based on work in organisational psychology by Hofstede.
A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
It’s no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services.
But how to do it well is still something of a black art.
In this keynote presentation, the lead of the W3C’s eGovernment initiative, José Manuel Alonso, looks at the opportunities the web provides governments, the challenges, old and new, the web poses, and the role of the W3C in helping to develop underlying, interoperable technologies with which to build these services.
José’s presentation will cover best practices and methodologies for providing eGovernment services, and look at case studies of how governments and communities are connecting via the web around the world.
A presentation given at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Mapping and other mashups have taken the web world by storm — driving innovation in business and government alike. While much of the focus has been on the actual mashup applications, without the data to mashup, we have no mashups. Government, from local to Federal level, collect and manage a significant amount of data, across a very broad range of areas. But giving access to this data to web application developers has technical, policy and legal challenges. In this presentation, Jenny Telford of the ABS looks at these issues from their experience of opening up data from the Australian Census.
A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
Technology changes present complex challenges and rich opportunities for senior public sector managers. Finding the balance between innovation and risk management is not easy in an environment where successful engagement depends upon relinquishing control. Using examples from New Zealand’s experience, Jason will share lessons and observations about the inevitable growing pains of public sector agencies as they evolve towards Govt 2.0.
A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.
While elections can be exciting times, the underlying data — swings, booth counts, and the like is probably only riveting to psephological tragics. Yet the ABC’s election web site managed to take this raw data and make it attractive, compelling and interactive.
In this session, the ABC’s Andrew Kesper takes us through the election site, looking at the design decisions, and uses of technology like Ajax, Flash, and interactive maps — tools which have wide applicability for government sites looking to present data in more user-friendly and attractive ways.
A presentation given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.
What does Web 2.0 mean and, specifically, what does it mean for the future of governments? Tara Hunt has been speaking all over the world, talking to government audiences on this subject. She believes that Web 2.0 has very little to do with the technology and everything to do with people. Her talk will cover the main tenets of Web 2.0: openness, collaboration and community and what it means for government.
A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.
More than ever before there is an enormous amount of publicly held data about our community, our culture, and citizens. How can government respond to the opportunities of Web 2.0? How can government websites and databases become more citizen-centric, and more responsive by leveraging social media? In 2006 the Powerhouse Musuem, a NSW State Government institiution, opened its core information asset — its collection and research database — to public tagging, and dynamic user-driven recommendations. In the same year the Museum launched a range of public-facing blogs, inviting comment from visitors and audiences. Sebastian Chan will discuss why the museum has made these very successful forays into social media, and how a small in-house web development unit was able to push through and launch a project which is counted among Australia’s top web 2.0 applications. If you work in a large organisation and have dreams of social media, do not miss this session.
A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 29 2006.
This was one of our most loved sessions last year, so much so that we decided to do it again this year, with some new faces, some new experiences. With speakers from both government/education as well as the private sector, get advice from those who’ve already been there on dealing with recalcitrant management, teams members and agencies, building by stealth and making incremental change.
During this session we will demonstrate some early prototypes and experiments, key uses of Linked Data, practical publishing tools and discuss how this work is unfolding inside one of Australia’s major collecting institutions.
Learn about the path to the first release of data.gov.au; a draft roadmap to future releases; the barriers to linked data and open public sector information (PSI); and the real-world questions this technology aims to solve.
Web standards might be second nature to all of us here, but they don’t always fly so easily in the enterprise. Obscure browsers and CIOs watching their bottom line can often leave a passionate development team feeling stifled. In this session we’ll look at how a number of large scale websites successfully adopted new standards and opened their content to more audiences and devices than ever before.
Libraries contain masses of beautifully structured data collected over many years. But these records may have their flaws and might now want to be used in ways, such as location based services, that weren’t imagined 30 years ago. How can we use existing API’s and web services to enrich this data to enable it to be used in a variety of ways. This data also needs to be exposed for others to use and build upon. With the recent release of the Government response to the Web 2.0 taskforce, how can institutions comply with these recommendations by providing their data in usable forms for the public. What’s involved in building an API into our resources and how can our data be given more meaning through semantic linkages like RDFa?
In this presentation Grant Young will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.
Government has huge amounts of information but how can this be effectively managed and delivered through the web? This session will ‘lift the lid’ on web mapping technology and identify some of the key issues that must be addressed to achieve a successful outcome.
This session will look at the government collaborative tool Govdex, how it is currently used by agencies, what it provides, and how you can use it for your projects. GovDex is a resource developed by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to facilitate business process collaboration across policy portfolios and jurisdictions.
The world is abuzz with social computing: Facebook, My Space, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, blogs, wikis and other spaces powered by Web 2.0 technology. It’s a social revolution, empowering individuals to communicate, share what they know online, and help others locate information that is important to them in both their private and working lives.
It’s no secret that just as the web has revolutionised business, the media, and many other parts of our lives, it is also revolutionising how governments and citizens interact, and how government provide services.
Mapping and other mashups have taken the web world by storm — driving innovation in business and government alike. While much of the focus has been on the actual mashup applications, without the data to mashup, we have no mashups. Government, from local to Federal level, collect and manage a significant amount of data, across a very broad range of areas. But giving access to this data to web application developers has technical, policy and legal challenges. In this presentation, Jenny Telford of the ABS looks at these issues from their experience of opening up data from the Australian Census.
Technology changes present complex challenges and rich opportunities for senior public sector managers. Finding the balance between innovation and risk management is not easy in an environment where successful engagement depends upon relinquishing control. Using examples from New Zealand’s experience, Jason will share lessons and observations about the inevitable growing pains of public sector agencies as they evolve towards Govt 2.0.
While elections can be exciting times, the underlying data — swings, booth counts, and the like is probably only riveting to psephological tragics. Yet the ABC’s election web site managed to take this raw data and make it attractive, compelling and interactive.
More than ever before there is an enormous amount of publicly held data about our community, our culture, and citizens. How can government respond to the opportunities of Web 2.0? How can government websites and databases become more citizen-centric, and more responsive by leveraging social media? In 2006 the Powerhouse Musuem, a NSW State Government institiution, opened its core information asset — its collection and research database — to public tagging, and dynamic user-driven recommendations. In the same year the Museum launched a range of public-facing blogs, inviting comment from visitors and audiences. Sebastian Chan will discuss why the museum has made these very successful forays into social media, and how a small in-house web development unit was able to push through and launch a project which is counted among Australia’s top web 2.0 applications. If you work in a large organisation and have dreams of social media, do not miss this session.
This was one of our most loved sessions last year, so much so that we decided to do it again this year, with some new faces, some new experiences. With speakers from both government/education as well as the private sector, get advice from those who’ve already been there on dealing with recalcitrant management, teams members and agencies, building by stealth and making incremental change.
