stephen blyth’s blog

Bravo for Claire Sawyers and the team behind the DonateNZ website. This site was the winner of the Community or Government website in the 2007 People’s Choice Netguide Web Awards.
DonateNZ was launched in February 2006 to match people with stuff or time to share and schools, childcare centres and not-for-profit organisations who might have a […]

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My mind is a bit foggy after three days in the sheltered conference land of government information system managers, IT policy makers and techies. And no, it’s not due to repeated use of the key ring pictured.
I’m foggy because of the hyping of Web 2.0 and too much riskease. Murky from the vendors touting expensive […]

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A snapshot of how many New Zealanders are using information and communications technology (ICTs), and what for, was released by Statistics New Zealand on 27 April 2007. So far a short “Household Use of Information and Communication Technology” hot off the press report is available.
A full report is due for release later in the year, […]

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Yesterday deja vu struck me as Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ (ECO) hosted a website launch. In the same room as the new SeaNet was unveiled, three years ago ECO launched a similar webite focusing on the resource management act.
The new website has been set up to “help people and communities and environmental […]

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Yeeha!! We celebrated the first anniversary of The Couch today. Rebecca pulled together a celebratory breakfast for staff at the Families Commission. With lots of help we cooked up a big pile of pancakes, with lashings of fresh fruit, maple syrup and bacon. While 30 plus staff ate around an extended table, a birthday cake […]

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I can’t imagine what horse trading took place behind the scenes before the management at the State Services Commission (SSC) agreed to run a wiki for people interested in using the web for public participation.
If you believe the myths, wiki are risky as people can write what they want without regard to truth or honestly, […]

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If you want to look at an example of geninue collaboration you couldn’t find a better example of what’s happening under the working title of the Community Information Management Project (CIMS).
I attended a presentation yesterday where the CIMS project was introduced to a wide cross section of community organsiation reps. At the end of the […]

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I promised to report back if I learnt whether legislation to restrict the free flow of information over the Internet would be introduced in New Zealand (see my earlier post Save the Internet).
So far I’ve got some very definitive (and reassuring) news. According to Andy Williamson, a leading thinker and activist on citizen use of […]

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The Fun family photos promotion the Families Commission ran at the International Cultural Festival in Auckland on 26 February was a real hoot. During the course of the day we took over 250 photos of different familes, friends and other permutations of bodies and faces.
I was part of the team cajoling festival goers, handing out […]

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It’s gratifying when people notice that you’re doing good work. Last week David Hume, a consultant working for the State Services Commission, said The Couch is “a leading example of online participation in New Zealand”.
David is part of a team promoting efforts by government agencies to use the Internet for citizen participation. You can read […]

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