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An inaugural public sphere event

On Saturday, 19 July 2014, the inaugural GovCamp Australia was held: the first nationally networked GovCamp event.

Nationally networked via video and online tools

Local events in six cities were linked throughout the day via two-way video plenary sessions within the “unconference” style conversation program.

Local issues and priorities

City events were each independently organised by a local voluntary team with conversation sessions focusing on local issues and topics.

Contributing to national Public Sector Innovation Month (July)

Innovation GovCamp was a flagship event as part of July’s national Public Sector Innovation Month organised by the Public Sector Innovation Network (PSIN).

All spheres of government +other sectors

Attendance reflected a wide range of interest and involvement in public purpose issues, including representatives from federal, state/territory and local government as well as public innovators from other fields.

Innovation for Public Purpose

The overall theme was Innovation for Public Purpose, with a focus on innovation that supports resilience and improved public outcomes.

Social knowledge format

An ‘unconference’ format based on social knowledge principles and practices featured open, participatory discussion in short sessions with topics nominated by participants. Conversation segments were framed with brief, scene-setting ‘lightning’ presentations and multi-point video link-ups.

Mobilising a knowledge legacy

Conversations were noted via ‘live’ collaborative note-taking and captured into five thematic streams.

Creating a model for future events

The one-day national event was convened as an introductory ramp-up to enable future GovCamps on diverse themes and across different jurisdictions.

Innovation GovCamp: at a glanceInnovation GovCamp: at a glance

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Melbourne (photo: David Hood)

Perth (photo: spacecubed)

Sydney (photo: Allison Hornery)

Adelaide (photo: Chris Russell)

Brisbane (photo: Matt Murray)

Canberra (photo: Craig Thomler)

6 cities across Australia6 cities across Australia

Innovation GovCamp events were held simultaneously in six locations across Australia.

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Nationally networkedNationally networked

The six locations were linked nationally via video conference three times throughout the day.

These video links provided the opportunity to stream guest talks from:• Dominic Campbell, Founder, FutureGov UK from Innovation GovCamp

Canberra• Bruce Roberts, Acting CEO of LandGate from Innovation GovCamp Perth• Tom Burton, Publisher of The Mandarin from Innovation GovCamp Sydney

The final video link of the day enabled each location to report back on the day’s discussions, and to participate in a national panel discussion featuring:• Carolyn Curtis, CEO of The

Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI)

• Dr Sarah Pearson, Head of ANU Enterprise, ACT Innovation and TACSI Board

• Alex Roberts, the Australian Government’s Innovation Advocate

• Dominic Campbell, Founder of FutureGov

View the panel video

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Innovation GovCamp 2014 was convened as part of the Public Sector Innovation Network’s national Innovation Month.

Innovation Month 2014Innovation Month 2014

Rob Thomas, national coordinator of the PSIN addressed the national video linkup and provided an overview of the Network and the Month.

Alex Roberts, the Australian Government’s Innovation Advocate (pictured right) participated in the closing panel discussion.

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5 innovation themes5 innovation themes

By exploring “public purpose” innovation, the events looked at a wide scope of issues from public sector-specific challenges and cases, to co-created collaborative cross-sectoral approaches through to social innovation that focuses on the end-user with a design-thinking mindset.

For the purposes of focusing discussion, aggregating comment and curating into reportable formats, all topics were loosely framed into five cross-cutting themes.

Collaboration across the siloes of public-purpose sectors as well as between sectors (business, social, government) can provide both challenges and opportunities for innovation

Sectoral collaboration #collab

Beyond social media tools, ‘digital everything’ represents major cultural hurdles if innovation – such as open data & gov 2.0 – is to be responsive, agile and deliverable.

Digital innovation

Leadership at all levels of public service delivery as well as cultural challenges set essential conditions for innovation

Leading for innovation

Designing servicesDesigning future services with an integrated, whole-of-system approach that starts with the end-user is central to public innovation

The ‘new social’ means more than familiar one-way communication and opens new opportunities for co-creation of innovation that matters to users

Engagement & participation

Canberra (photo: Craig Thomler)

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• How do we teach innovation?• How do we create an innovative

environment?• How do we recognise/measure joy within

service delivery reform?• Engaging with remote communities using

digital• Innovation in digital comms – influences and

tools• How people got here today• What’s the strategy and direction in

government services?• How can we use cross-sectoral collaboration

to address systemic issues?• Facilitating co-design• How do we ‘unlock’ organisational hierarchy

to encourage innovation?• Prioritising innovation vs everyday business• How do you embed a culture of innovation?• Resourcing innovation in government• Using data in/from government• Gamification in government• Working collaboratively on wicked problems• Testing innovation through the Lab• How do use citizen-centred design to create

better public servicers• Taking a living systems approach to engage,

innovate and make change• Managing ideas – how do lead the shift

towards engagement and participation• Digital engagement: great ideas from

everywhere• How to change attitudes to risk in government

re innovation• Innovation versus improvement

• Skilling up public servants for digital government

• Bridging the gap – getting tech and non-tech people talking

• 20% time in government – time to spend on own projects and for innovation

• What’s next for WA public sector innovation?• Developing an innovation culture• Collaboration and how will it work for WA

public sector• What KPIs should we use to measure

effectiveness of our collaborations• Engaging the public in innovation• Measuring social outcomes and impact• Supporting innovation through design• Participatory budgeting• Engagement or disruption or both• Breaking the ice• Map-based engagement “how to”• Organisational models that drive engagement

at all levels• Different engagement models between

government and citizens• Open government tin NSW• Leadership in innovation• An accelerator for government innovation

backed by private and public funds• Citizen champions with teeth• The lean start-up process of innovation in

government• The role of social software inside government

and NGOs

Canberra (photo: David Pecotic)

5 innovation themes: a sample of the agenda boards 5 innovation themes: a sample of the agenda boards

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Twitter

The Innovation GovCamp 2014 #gcauhashtag trended nationally as well as in each capital city (except Hobart).

Twitter was actively used in each of the participating cities, with Canberra generating the most tweets, followed by Melbourne and Adelaide. Overall, the event generated more than 2.5m Twitter impressions

The team at Trendsmap also created a timelapse visualisation of the theme tags being used in twitter conversations in each of the participating cities during the day.

Capturing the conversationsCapturing the conversations

View the timelapse

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Hackpad

A collection of 30 collaborative notepads was established -one per theme per city. Around 70 registered contributors made joined the Hackpads, including creating new pads to use as open note-taking tools for their own observations.

Capturing the conversationsCapturing the conversations

Graphic recording

Gavin Blake from FeverPicture joined the Canberra venue for the day, and created a suite of visualisations of a range of the national and Canberra-based conversations.

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The conversation: TwitterThe conversation: Twitter

Tweets from Innovation GovCamp reflected a diversity of perspectives and interests across the 6 cities.

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A high level analysis of the theme-tagged tweets from show that #design was the most popular theme, and that each theme had key words in common, as well as unique associated words.

The conversation: TwitterThe conversation: Twitter

The most common words used on Twitter during Innovation GovCamp were:

• Innovation• Change• Government• Service• Talking• Cities• Services• Ideas

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Conversation notes from all cities across the 5 themes was synthesised throughout the day, and presented to the closing session for discussion by the National Panel. The following points highlight the key and consistent issues, observations and suggestions arising from the day’s conversations:

#collab• Overcoming competition v collaboration mindsets and organisational cultures• Having to collaborate with other sectors feels “traitorous, like working with the

enemy”• Starting to be the beginnings of permission from leadership to collaborate• Collaboration means new kinds of procurement• Be clear about the outcomes you are seeking from collaboration• Looks for a range of collaboratees and collaborators• Potential role in collaboration of 'brokers' – the “gnats between the elephants”

#design• “The decision not to design is still a design decision”• There remains a disconnect between policymakers and the application of a

policy or service on the ground• It’s important to find the right people with the right mix of skills to be involved• How do we better capture user experience: “people know what they don't

want but not what they do want”• How do we know when design is working - what are the metrics?

#digital• Government should look to others, including media sites in particular, to see

who is doing leading edge digital media• We need less distraction around the tools, and more focus and discipline about

what we're trying to do

#leading• Where are the senior executive leaders in these GovCamp rooms, being part of

these discussions?• Leaders are at all levels – innovation leaders don’t have to be institutional

leaders• Everyday leadership is something to strive for• US Presidential Innovation Fellows program could be a useful initiative for

Australia to emulate• We're good at ideas but not in taking the idea to whatever's next

#engage• Engagement requires trust and common understanding• Opportunities for open and honest communication• How do you deal with the “noise versus signal” when it comes to engagement

(ie, how do you deal with the “squeaky wheels”)• “Don't just solve the problem, explain why it matters and how to empower

people to do something about it”

The conversation: HackpadThe conversation: HackpadReview the Hackpads

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The conversation: Graphic recordingThe conversation: Graphic recording

Here is a sample of the graphic visualisations of Innovation GovCamp talks and sessions, created by Fever Picture’s Gavin Blake.

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The main issues arising from the day’s conversations around the country were discussed by a national panel at the closing national linkup. Following is a summary of the panel’s comments (with thanks to Sarah Groube for the master notes):

Not just solving the problem, explaining it...• We need to understand the problem first. Take a step back to understand

what the real problems are; a lot of it is about communicating with people who live the problem and work on the problem;

• Understand that you're solving the right problem: are we asking the right questions? It's a challenging thing to do, but understanding the problem from a citizen's perspective is the key to designing a sustainable solution; you need to keep going back and back and back again to people in their own context to design the solution

Trust and common understanding in collaboration within and across sectors -bringing different views to the table.

• The more we draw out of different people and give a face and emotional response to the real issues, the more we can break down the agendas

• You don't get a reward for making someone's day easier or job easier that day... you are rewarded for ticking the boxes from your job description. Success criteria needs to be aligned to broader achievements

• Different visions are siloed. You need to collaborate on a vision before you collaborate on a solution.

Closing panel discussionClosing panel discussion

Closing panel from Canberra (photo: Oakley Kwon)

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Leadership - how do we encourage courage?• Get GovCamp into government!• This agenda has been focused mainly on the tangibles, not the big policy

people and we recognise those people need different things. Sometimes 'innovation' can be seen as a little bit faddish, which is dangerous

• TACSI uses different methods to connect senior leaders with others, and storytelling works well. For example, with FamilyByFamily - by exposing quite senior leaders being immersed in implementation and methods and process have now become champions in the work. Connecting top to bottom is key

• How do you get people to change? You have to provide them with the reason for change. You need to start change with impact (not promise impact). Try something, make an impact, then use that to show people how it worked. Also, lead with the success that the individual will experience

• Allow people to be involved in the developing the change - practice, policy and systems

• Lots of senior executives are committed to this innovation agenda. Leaders are quite diverse - we need to start with those who are interested and have a passion and go from there.

Digital - how do we get people on board with understanding it's an enabler, rather than the driver of the change?

• Design has to be about need. Everyone here 'understands' digital - everyone wants an app or a website, but wrangling people back to talking about need is difficult. "Ok, I understand what the need is... we need a website!"

• I think we lean too heavily on digital. We do have apps to deliver the solution we need but it's not the starting point. We see it as an enabler

• We also need to reflect on the fact that digital is changing the way we do things... So we need to consider the role of digital in our policies.

If design is about getting the right people with the right skills, how do we find them?

Closing panel discussionClosing panel discussion

Melbourne (photo: David Hood)

• One good example from the UK is the Industry Innovation Network to build culture, connectivity, capacity

• The All Staff Email is the most heavily guarded thing... even harder than server security... there are plenty of skills in your organisation. Use natural systems to find out who the experts are in your organisations

• It’s not for everyone and diversity is really important. Robust and interesting conversations provide a real richness to the conversation and gets us to the place that provides good solutions. Look at 'values' when recruiting, and think/look outside the square

• The right people will change over time. Expose different people to these ideas -early and often.

View the panel video

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For a snapshot of different ways that the event was reported by participants after the event:

Participant reportingParticipant reporting

Innovation GovCamp Storifyfrom Hannah Mattner

Innovation GovCamp Narrative Clipand blog post from Craig Thomler

Play time is overblog post from Dom Campbell

Evolution or Revolution?blog post from Alex Roberts

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We aim to use ’social knowledge’ events and initiatives to help bridge the strategic centres of public sphere innovation with the innovative fringe – across federal government, the states and territories as well as local government and civil society.

The inaugural advisory circle includes:

• Chair: Deirdre O’Donnell (VIC) -organisation facilitation / former NSW Information Commissioner

• Baden Appleyard (QLD) –National Program Director, AusGoal

• John Carnegie (NSW) – national CEO, Institute for Public Administration Australia (IPAA)

• Prof Robert Fitzgerald (ACT) –University of Canberra, INSPIRE

• Lea Giles-Peters (NT) -Anindilyakwa Land Council (former Qld Govt State Librarian)

• Prof Byron Keating (ACT) – UC / Director, Service Innovation Lab

• Dr Sarah Pearson (ACT) –CBR Innovation Network / Board member, TACSI

• Dr David Pecotic (ACT) -Department of Communications / Board, Open Knowledge Foundation Australia

• Martin Stewart-Weeks (NSW) -public sector policy advisor / Board member, TACSI

• Brad Wynter (VIC) – City of Whittlesea, Org Improvement

• Russell Yardley (VIC) - Board NICTA / Board AIIA /Chair iAwards/ + other board roles

Based at the University of Canberra INSPIRE Centre.National convenors: Allison Hornery and John WellsEmail: hub@govcampau.org

Canberra:Clare Conroy & team

Adelaide:Chris Russell & team

Brisbane:Matt Murray & team

Melbourne:Manisa Lornie & team

Perth:Van Dutton & team

Sydney:Ian Palmer & team

Public sector innovation partnerPublic sector innovation partner

Supporting partnersSupporting partners

Innovation GovCamp convenors

Innovation GovCamp 2014 hub

National Advisory CircleNational Advisory Circle

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