Australian Community Wiki Network
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One of the main objectives of this site is to try and find ways to help Councils help themselves by making it easy for them to collaborate & share information with each other. Another opportunity for collaboration is between Councils and their communities. The Australian Community Wiki Network has been set up with this in mind. It will be a place for community, sporting & other groups to tell their communities where they are and what they do, and to share information with other similar groups around Australia. It is a work-in-progress at this point in time, with only a dozen or so wikis created so far, but hopefully with time it will become a good resource for Australian communities, and possibly a neutral place where councils can interact and consult with their ratepayers. For now if you belong to a community or sporting club of some description, why not give it a visit, and give your group a free plug?
Unit Rates
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Determining accurate or even realistic unit rates seems to be a big issue for local government. I know for a fact it's an issue for both Bundaberg Regional Council, and for some of our neighbours, and I have seen a number of discussion about it on various other forums. I know it is true that the cost of an activity will vary considerably from location to location, but all-the-same I think an open database of typical unit rates for those works regularly undertaken by Councils would be a very useful resource for many Councils.
I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I think I have come up with a good way of getting the project happening.
If you are interested, please check out the Unit Rate page, for more information.
October 2009 Update
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15 new members joined the site in October, bringing the total to 165.
The site now contains 2050 pages of information, and as of 31 October, 6,604 different people have visited the site on a total of 11,900 occasions and viewed 81,742 pages.
The average number of people visiting the site each weeks seems to be trending in the right direction, but it is still pretty up and down from week to week.
The Forum
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The Forum has been pretty active over the last few weeks or so - in comparison to its usual slumber at least. It is very gratifying to see it being used, and I hope more users take advantage of it in the future. If you are a bit hesitant to contribute to pages, but would like to be part of the site, leaving a comment on the forum is probably the easiest way to start.
I just started an Introduce Yourself Thread, which would be an ideal place to start if you are thinking of taking the plunge!!
Front Page Makeover
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The front page of the site has been changed a bit to make it look a bit more colourful & interesting. If you have any suggestions about how to improve it further, please let us know by commenting on this post.
User Map
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I thought a map showing where the contributors to this site come from might be of interest, I haven't quite finished plotting everyone's location just yet, but it is starting to take shape.
Click here for a larger version of the map.
Open Collaborative Design
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I have just created a new page about Open Collaborative Design, which is a concept I believe could radically change the way Local Government functions, and make it incredibly more efficient.
Please read the AdCiv.org AdCiv.org article referenced at the bottom of the page. It eloquently sums up a lot of the things that made me want to create this site.
Happy Birthday LGAM
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The site is exactly one year old today.
In the last year:
6,022 people from 97 Countries have visited the site on 10,840 occasions and viewed a total of 76,066 pages.
Most visitors are from Australia, but there have been a sprinkling of visits from far and wide.
If you want to know more, please check out the Who visits this site page.
September Update
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It is the end of September and the site's first birthday is only 13 days away (13 October).
There are now over 1950 pages on the site, and the 150th member signed up a couple of days ago.
Last week saw the greatest number of people visit the site (696) since I started using Google Analytics in November last year. Hopefully the number of people using the site will continue to grow in the next 12 months.
September innovations include;
- a Tutorial on how to get the most out of the site.
- Bundypedia a separate site created to show how Wikidot can be used to set up an Council Extranet or Community website.
Tutorial Page
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I've been thinking about ways of making it easier for people to make contributions to the site. I imagine there are a few people who would like to contribute, but aren't too sure where to start, so I thought a Tutorial page might be a good idea. It is still in its infancy, but the page is here if you would like to have a look. Any suggestions about what to include in the tutorial would be greatly appreciated.
Problems
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A big SORRY to everyone who tried to access the site yesterday, and got an eror message instead of the page they were looking for. The wikidot servers were playing uo all day and down completely for a few hours over night. I'd like to assure you all that the problems are a rarity and the site is up and running perfectly well more than 99% of the time.
Click here for more information about the problems.
Milestones
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A couple of minor milestones today.
1. The site is now exactly 10 months old
2. At the time of writing it contained exactly 1800 pages.
New Header
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A change is good as a holiday, so I thought a change in the site header might be in order.
It is a little bit narrower which means a little bit more information on your screen, which is a bit of a bonus when you are looking at a long page.
We are not alone.
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Whilst there are quite a few Public Sector Knowledge Sharing Initiatives already in existence, until recently the Local Government & Municipal Knowledge Base, was the only one that was;
- Local Government focused
- Open
- Trying to build an encyclopedic knowledge base for Local Government
BUT, as of yesterday, we are not alone.
Munigov an online community for US Local Government employees has just set up a wiki aimed at "allowing local governments to pool their knowledge in an effort to collaborate and share ideas, practices, policies, standards, and experiences". Those stated aims are very similar to ours.
I am hopeful that the Munigov Local Government Wiki will become a very good resource for local governments in the USA and around the world. I'll be supporting it as much as I can and I am hopeful that both sites will be able to learn from each other and prosper into the future.
Nine Month Aniversary
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It has now been nine months since the Local Government & Municipal Knowledge Base was set up.
There are now 1600 pages of information and 131 site members.
$25 million Local Government Reform Fund
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At the June 2009 Plenary Meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government a $25 million Local Government Reform Fund was announced.
The media release states that:
Over two years, the $25 million Local Government Reform Fund will:
* Assist councils implement new asset management and planning consistent with a national framework;
* Fund the collection and analysis of robust data about councils’ infrastructure assets; and
* Support collaboration between councils on a regional basis for service delivery and planning.
Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government
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The Australian Federal Government has announced $8 million in funding for the new Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government. With a bit of luck the consortium behind the centre will be in favour of free & open knowledge sharing between Councils.
Adaptation to Climate Change
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As a freelance consultant I have assembled a considerable body of literature sources and have authored some papers which may be of interest to members of this wiki. For example one of the best studies I have seen with respect to the use of alternative fuels is the LG Report on Biodiesel. A link [http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=229] that I have found usefull will unfortunately be closed next week so I have uploaded the .pdf report. If anyone has a special interest in alternative fuels, slow pyrolysis and soil carbon, please let me know and I will endeavour to provide papers and links. I have also posted some NT specific material at www.geocities.com/cspnt01 .
Government 2.0 Taskforce
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The Australian Federal Government has just announced the formation of a new body called the "Government 2.0 Taskforce".
One of the objectives of the Taskforce is to "promote collaboration across agencies with respect to online and information initiatives — to ensure that efficiencies, innovations, knowledge and enthusiasm are shared on a platform of open standards."
It will be interesting to see if the taskforce has an interest in projects like this one that promote cooperation between Councils.
Page Count hits 1500
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The site now contains over 1500 pages of information. Not bad considering it is still only 8 months old.
The number of new members joining the site has dropped off a bit in the last few months, but the current tally is up to 127 never-the-less.
The lasted major addition to the site is the Waste Management section. Only a few Waste Management pages so far. but stay tuned for more.
