Blogs are yet to find sig­nif­i­cant trac­tion as an enabler of com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and its con­stituency. It’s a shame really, as blogs offer an amaz­ing oppor­tu­nity to com­mu­ni­cate clearly and to receive feed­back from those using gov­ern­ment services.

Gary Nairn’s recent com­ments at CeBIT give me hope, espe­cially when he specif­i­cally men­tions blogs:

Nairn told the CeBIT con­fer­ence in Syd­ney this morn­ing that blogs could rep­re­sent a “new era” in com­mu­nity inter­ac­tion as the gov­ern­ment devel­ops more online services.

“Blogs could split up con­sul­ta­tion and enable gov­ern­ment and oth­ers to analyse and debate issues in rea­son­able detail,” he said.

“This could then lead to more informed pol­icy and pro­gram development.”

This could not just be the gov­ern­ment talk­ing to its cit­i­zens, but also cit­i­zens talk­ing amongst them­selves about pol­icy issues, accord­ing to Nairn.

“Blog­ging could lead to a new era of com­mu­nity interaction.

“For exam­ple, Aus­tralians in the city might learn more about life in the bush from peo­ple that live there.”

Localised blogs and other online tech­nolo­gies could help bridge the rural-​​city com­mu­ni­ca­tion divide in Aus­tralia, accord­ing to Nairn.

Nairn dis­cussed the blogs in a roundup of the “sig­nif­i­cant progress” of the e-​​government strat­egy, which he launched at the same event 12 months ago.

Min­is­ter Nairn seems to get that it’s about peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ca­tion rather than just another way of slap­ping the com­mu­nity with a pol­icy message.

I hope that the Fed­eral gov­ern­ment give this a real go in the near future. It’s some­thing that I’m more than happy to come and speak about if agen­cies want a heads up on the oppor­tu­ni­ties they could be taking.

In the mean­time, thanks to my friend Luis Suarez of IBM, here’s a shin­ing exam­ple of just what gov­ern­ment blog­ging can be — The Pan­demic Flu Lead­er­ship Blog from the US Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices.

Open dis­cus­sion with the com­mu­nity, posts from sub­ject mat­ter experts (not all of whom are gov­ern­ment offi­cials) and really gen­er­at­ing a com­mu­nity around the sub­ject mat­ter. Yes, it’s admit­tedly exper­i­men­tal and not an ongo­ing site, but it’s a big, high-​​profile and well done start.