GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

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the Card from the cloud

Building Gov 2.0Councils backing upHealing regional healthcare

How tHe NtBytes proBlem driNkers

parramatta’s wireless stimulus plan

Booting up CHogM • MoBile revolution looMs online

Qld CouNCilsmasH up apps

www.nextdc.com 13NEXTwww.nextdc.com/blog info@nextdc.com

CLOUD ENABLER

CENTRAL LOCATION

CARRIERNEUTRAL

SECURESITE

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ON-SITEASSIST

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MINIMUM N+1 REDUNDANCY

Canberra’s most secure independent data centre opens

Q1 2012NEXTDC’s data centre in Bruce will provide premium

colocation services to both government and enterprise customers.

BRISBANE MELBOURNE SYDNEY PERTH CANBERRA

8cover storythe card from the cloud

Parramatta City Council hopes a near field communications smart card and the cloud

will stimulate the area’s economy

Byteing proBlem drinkersThe Northern Territory’s Department of Justice explains the infrastructure it built to stop problem drinkers buying alcohol

Booting up chogmWe bring back the back story behind what it took to build CHOGM’s IT rig

tWeets in the liBraryNational and State libraries are tackling the challenge of preserving digital artefacts for future, so they can be viewed and re-used

aggregating appsWhen three Queensland councils merged, back office operations were made easier as all previously used the same core applications

INTRODUCTION 2 Editor’s letter

4 News

6 Ovum commentary

FEATURES32 Shrinking to Save The NSW Land and Property Information

Office has brought 70 terabytes of information – and an unruly SharePoint implementation – back under control

36 not a band aid Mobile technology has improved

productivity of wound care experts in regional Victoria

40 better backup Three local councils – Rockingham,

Wentworth and Marrickville – explain the strategies they used to improve their backup regimes

44 eaSy of hearing Don’t shop for telephone headsets

without first reading our guide to the latest features in this product category

48 inSide out Public servant and Gov 2.0 blogger

Craig Thomler shares his experience advocating for greater openness in Australia’s government

features

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2 | GTR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011

EDITOR

Simon Sharwood

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CONTRIBUTORS

Natalie Apostolou, Alex Kidman, Beverley Head, Peter Noonan,

Craig Thomler, Joshua Gliddon

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I feel sorry for you. Everyone agrees that if government can put more services online, it will benefit agencies by streamlining their operations and make citizens and other stakeholders happy by making it easier for them to interface with government.

When I speak to people in government, they always ‘get’ this. Many also tell stories about their online services achieving impressive results — after a lot of hard work. Others tell me they’ve just figured out how create a meaningful online presence for their agency and look forward to the work needed to get them up and running.

So why do I feel sorry for you?Because the time has already arrived to start learning how to do this all

over again for mobile devices. I say this because of a handful of pieces of research I’ve encountered lately. One, from Telsyte, suggests that in the next four years, 10 million more Australians will acquire a smartphone — 18.5 million of us will use smartphones by then. Telsyte also thinks smartphones will become the dominant media consumption device and singled out publishers as an industry most likely to find new ways to reach its audience.

Another piece of research, from Juniper, suggested that consumers are going mad for mobile coupons. These offers are the mutant offspring of group buying, discount vouchers and just-in-time location-based marketing. Juniper reckons the market for this stuff will surge from a little over $US5 billion today to $US43 billion by 2016.

Another mobile trend set to take off is electronic wallets powered by near field communications (NFC) technology, an idea that posits mobile phones replacing cash as consumers swipe their phones past special readers to make transactions.

We’ve learned of one government body that uses this technology already, in the form of Parramatta Council’s Parra Connect project (you can read about on p.8). It’s a fantastic project and the Council is already thinking about how it will evolve when, as expected, NFC becomes a common smartphone feature.

I suspect that in coming years many GTR readers will therefore have to rethink online services. The prevalence of smartphones will make mobile services important. Consumer consumption of coupons may be something government also needs to adapt to. And electronic wallets have all sorts of possibilities.

As use cases for these technologies develop, GTR will be here to cover them. Let’s get moving together.

Simon Sharwood, EditorE: simon.sharwood@commstrat.com.au

new South Wales has found $1 million it is

willing to give mobile application developers

with ideas that can “build the State’s digital

economy and improve the effectiveness of

government services”.

deputy premier and Minister for trade

and investment andrew Stoner used those

words to announce the fund, which is

targeted at consortiums and operates under

the same model as the digital concierge

program that was a source of funds for the

parraconnect project (see page 8).

the new fund fulfils an election promise

to explore mobile apps, and also marks a

new direction for the nSW government which, in the past, had been

ambivalent about allowing third-party developers to access government

data. now, andrew Stoner believes apps that use government data are

welcome, if they “have significant potential for commercial success, job

creation, and exports and bring efficiencies such as “government-to-

public or government-to-business interactions,

reduced costs, faster processing, and more

positive customer engagements”.

Stoner said the program is both an economic

development effort and a way to improve

government operations.

“trialling the solutions with the nSW

government will provide consortiums with a

low-cost and low-risk opportunity to fine-tune

and validate their technologies while providing a

valuable and trusted reference site for promoting

future domestic and international sales,” he said.

“at the same time, the nSW government will

gain early and cost-effective access to innovative

technologies that can improve the public sector by leveraging our ict

industry’s agility, innovation, and entrepreneurship.”

the program commenced in mid-november with an industry briefing.

a networking and pitching event will take place on december 8 and

winning consortiums will be announced in March 2012.

NSW launches $1million mobility fund

Would you like to network with Multinationals and Government?Would you like to gain the skills necessary to succeed in the ICT industry?

If you answered YES to any of these questions then CollabIT is the program that will help you to grow your business.

CollabIT is an engagement and business development initiative that links small and medium sized ACT-based companies with multinational corporations and other stakeholders in the ICT sector.

CollabIT is a joint initiative of the ACT Government and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).

Are you an ICT SME looking to win bigger deals?

To register your interest in becoming a member of the CollabIT Program contact Nicole Campbell, n.campbel@aiia.com.au. Mention this advert when speaking with Nicole and you will be invited to attend one of the 2012 Canberra Managers’ Forum events as a guest of CollabIT.

www.aiia.com.au/group/collabit_act

AGIMO considers Microsoft options the australian government information Management

office (agiMo) is reconsidering the way it acquires

Microsoft products for the federal government,

issuing a tender for ‘provision of Whole of government

Microsoft Large account reseller (Lar) deliverables’.

the tender documents reveal that the federal

government spent over $95 million on Microsoft

products under a Microsoft volume Sourcing

agreement (vSa) agreement in 2010-11. that

procurement was conducted by data #3, agiMo’s

Lar since 2008. data #3 is currently working under a

one-year extension of its agreement with agiMo.

the new tender calls for one or more Lars and

says the winner will operate on a cost-plus-margin

basis, with the cost of products supplied by Microsoft

to the Lar disclosed and the Lar then operating

on an agreed margin. agiMo is not committed to

appointing new Lars — if the tender does not produce

a satisfactory outcome, it will be content to continue

working with data #3.

GTR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011 | 5

iPads take on new roles Queensland’s Logan council has issued ipads to some

of its staff, who use the tablets to complete forms used

for inspections of food premises and nuisance trees.

facing an increased workload since amalgamation, the council has tried other mobile

devices, but had difficulty synchronising data from the field to its back-office applications.

ipads and technology from blink Mobile have made that synchronisation possible, while

the tablets were also easier for staff to carry than other devices the council tried in the

past, with limited success due to their bulk.

council has declared the pilot of the inspection forms on ipads a success, citing

faster data capture, productivity boosts and better customer service among the benefits.

it now plans to adopt the technology, but will also extend the mobile forms so they can be

used on other mobile devices.

Voting by iPad the uS State of oregon has deployed ipads to help some of its citizens vote. the idea

behind ipad voting is to assist citizens with limited mobility or disabilities that prevent them

from writing. a bespoke ipad app lists candidates or can voice their names. voters then tap

the screen to select their candidate. the ipads are connected to a printer, which then prints

a ballot paper recording a user’s vote. citizens then place the vote in a ballot box as normal.

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Offices in California, Florida, Texas, UK and Australia. scan. store. manage. deliver.

Tales of Success. Just one of many stories. Ready to write yours?

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“ Diversifying into records management, I wanted the same software that large record centers use for efficiency and profitability.”John Burrows, President, DeWitt Records Management, Tamuning, Guam

“ What we value most about O’Neil is their research and development (over $1 million a year), along with their continued best-in-class product enhancements.”Richard Steed, Vice President, Pacific Records Management, Sacramento, California

“ 2.5 million boxes. 1,200 retrievals and returns per day. We needed a software system that could handle this workload and still deliver the compliance and accountability that government requires.”Sally IRVINE-SMITH, Manager, Systems Control, Government Records Repository, State Records of NSW, Australia

“ Key is our ability to scan down to the tape level and require an electronic signature – the 100% chain of custody we provide by printing the receipt of items we have picked up, or delivered with a date and time stamp. Our customers always have a record of what happened at each transaction and not just a number total.”Greg LeFrancis, President/General Manager, Southwest Data Protection, Las Vegas, Nevada

“ Known for their limited budgets, it doesn’t mean that government automation product expectations need to be limited as well. There is good quality records management software available. You just need to do your due diligence and work with the right strategic partner.”Scott Reid, Senior Records Manager, City of Winnipeg Archives and Records Control, MB Canada

Offices in California, Florida, Texas, UK and Australia.

“ Diversifying into records management, I wanted the same software that large record centers use for efficiency and profitability. I got that with O’Neil.”

John Burrows, President DeWitt Records Management, Tamuning, Guam

“ What we value most about O’Neil is their research and development (over $1 million a year), along with their best-in-class offerings and continued product enhancements.”

Richard Steed, Vice President Pacific Records Management, Sacramento, California

“ 2.5 million boxes. 1,200 retrievals and returns per day. We needed a software system that could handle this workload and still deliver the compliance and accountability that government requires.”

Sally IRVINE-SMITH, Manager, Systems Control Government Records Repository State Records of NSW, Australia

“ Key is our ability to scan down to the tape level and require an electronic signature – the 100% chain of custody we provide by printing the receipt of items we have picked up, or delivered with a date and time stamp. Our customers always have a record of what happened at each transaction and not just a number total.”

Greg LeFrancis, President/General Manager Southwest Data Protection, Las Vegas, Nevada

Tales of Success.Just some of many stories. Ready to write yours?

T wo of the most enduring symbols of this decade’s consumer technology will be smartphones and the mobile app. Already, mobile apps are being

downloaded in unprecedented numbers and are opening new opportunities for streamlining government services. However, new services also bring new challenges for government planners and policymakers.

Ovum research indicates app downloads in Asia Pacific will have grown by 189 per cent by the end of this year. Mobile apps have quickly evolved from the playthings for early smartphone owners to serious business systems. Already making headline news in banking and retail, mobile apps are now producing similar reports in the government sector.

However, citizens are using their smartphones for a variety of activities, not just mobile apps. These include email, instant messaging (including SMS), social networking and Internet browsing. Indeed, smartphones are beginning to drive a new wave of traffic back to government Websites.

Many traditional websites are ill-prepared for small-screen devices. Indeed, some Website technologies cannot be accessed from mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads. Rather than creating new opportunities for citizen contact, the lack of mobile-friendly Websites could be creating a new class of information-deprived citizens.

Over the coming five years, the smartphone and 3G phone market will overtake low functionality basic phones (see news, p.4). Smartphones are being added to a growing collection of online consumer devices. Armed with a desktop computer, a laptop, a smartphone and possibly a tablet device, Australians are increasingly reaching for the most readily available device to do the work at hand. As a result, government technology planners need to realign their service delivery strategies from device/channel-specific services to a more generic, device-independent strategy. ‘Any, any, any’ is becoming the mantra — anywhere, anytime, and any device.

Faced with a fundamental shift in service delivery expectations, mobile apps can only provide part of the solution. However, early analysis indicates far too much is being expected of the mobile app. Inflated expectations could be creating big maintenance headaches downstream.

Consider the following:• Access and Equity obligations apply equally

to mobile apps. • Ovum analysis indicates there will be

no dominant hardware vendor over the next five years. Indeed, the competition is likely to intensify between Apple and Android, with Blackberry and Microsoft still in contention for important slices of the market. Many private sector companies are choosing to develop apps first for the Apple platform, citing consumer market penetration, and availability of development resources. However, government can hardly choose to bypass a significant section of the community simply because they choose to buy their smartphone from one of the other large hardware suppliers.

• Mobile apps are not just a Website in disguise.

• Any quick look at government and corporate apps in Australia reveals many are designed to provide information that already exists on their Website. In such situations, a mobile friendly website would have done the job much more easily.

• Mobile apps are not just fat clients revisited. • For the last five years, IT strategists have

almost universally moved away from fat client technology, as this approach has proved too expensive to manage, secure and maintain. Thin client technology is on the rise and networked servers are being consolidated into central data centres. In many ways, mobile apps represent a return to fat clients, as data and systems are again being dispersed widely into the community.Notwithstanding the problems, future

mobile apps are likely to be at their most powerful when utilised as part of an overall government service strategy, particularly where they complement and enhance the existing service channels and social networking strategies.

Mobile technology has the potential to fundamentally change the way we think about government services. Future government service delivery strategies are likely to be built around conversations with citizens, rather than discrete unconnected transactions. Big and impersonal government is likely to give way to personalised, real-time interactions. Location-aware services and augmented reality each have the potential to add valuable context to client interactions.

However, such a transition will be very difficult to deliver if we continue to think about mobile computing as a disconnected set of discrete technologies.

Mobilityor maintenance mess?

By KEvIN NOONAN, OvUM

“In many ways, mobile apps represent a return to fat clients.”

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8 | GTR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011

Cloud

parramatta City Council will use the cloud, the web, a near field communications-equipped smart card and innovative partnerships with vendors to create digital infrastructure aimed at boosting economic growth.

story by simon sharwood

the Card from the cloud

the NFC wavenear field communications (nfc) hit australia in 2010 with the advent of the paypass and payWave systems offered by Mastercard and visa, respectively. both see credit cards equipped with nfc chips that when swiped near, or tapped onto readers, quickly initiate a transaction. under some circumstances, cardholders need not enter a pin or sign to complete a transaction, with that time-saving convenience a plus for retailers and consumers alike. credit card companies like it, too – they imagine consumers will use credit more often if it is easier to do so.

google is another adopter of nfc, through its google Wallet program that sees an nfc chip built into certain mobile phones. the company has already created an android app to handle transaction processing. visa and Mastercard have both allied with google. nfc is also rumoured to be an inclusion in future iphones, while nokia is also keen on the concept.

the shared vision of all participants is for mobile phones to replace wallets as the item consumers use to pay for purchases. cash, they argue, is inconvenient, and we all carry mobiles, so why wouldn’t we replace the casino’s worth of credit and debit cards many of us use with the phone we schlep around anyway?

that vision received strong local endorsement when, in october 2012, the commonwealth bank announced a mobile app called ’kaching‘ which will allow peer-to-peer payments initiated by mobile apps. kaching will eventually link to nfc-equipped handsets.

andrew Lindberg, the bank’s executive general Manager cards, payments and retail Strategy, made the case for the app, and for phone-driven commerce, by saying at kaching’s launch that “Mobile and online social payment is the next step in transaction technology. already, more than half our 10 million customers own a smartphone, and australians are 65 per cent more likely than the british to bank on their phones.”

“the recent explosion in uptake of digital and smartphone technology has revolutionised how we all transact, interact and communicate with each other, and this new application will make the dream of mobile payments a reality,” continued Mr Lindberg.

“why wouldn’t we replace the casino’s worth of credit and debit cards many of us use with the phone we schlep around anyway?”

GTR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011 | 9

Parramatta City Council will launch a major digital infrastructure initiative that it hopes will stimulate the local economy and attract new businesses and

residents to the local government area. Dubbed ParraConnect, the project will use near field communications (NFC)-enabled smart cards and cloud computing to bring a range of new services to residents and local businesses.

The origin of the ParraConnect project is the NSW Government’s Collaborative Solutions program, which aims to help build the State’s digital economy and issues grants to programs that meet that objective.

Parramatta City Council’s proposal to the Collaborative Solutions program envisioned a NFC-enabled smart card being issued to residents and frequent visitors to Parramatta’s central business district (CBD), which is Sydney’s second-largest business hub and the sixth-largest such precinct in Australia.

The project targets the CBD for two reasons, one of which is to re-invigorate it as a home for business. The other is to assist retailers who struggle to compete with the local Westfield – it dominates the CBD and has become its cultural epicentre, thanks to its free parking, and recent railway redevelopments have made it the first exit available to visitors as they leave Parramatta’s train station.

Westfield’s dominance of downtown means a walk through Parramatta offers contrasting experiences. When GTR visited the city on a weekday morning to conduct interviews for this story, Westfield – replete with franchised stores using sophisticated merchandising – was buzzing. On the streets, however, homelier retailers appeared to be operator-owned and had rather less foot traffic.

The ParraConnect vision is for Council to step in with services for retailers that make shopping beyond Westfield an equally compelling experience. The smart card is at the heart of that vision, as it will offer shoppers the chance to store value on its 80KB of memory by using their credit cards to top up their balance. Shoppers will simply swipe their cards past NFC readers to make small, cashless purchases. The system will also involve a tablet device, which will display the details of each transaction.

To sweeten the deal for retailers, Council will link the NFC readers to retail management applications hosted in the cloud and provided at low or no cost. “Small business owners work all day and then go home to do the books,” says Frank Dorrian, Managing Director of SGS Technologies, a software development company working on the project. “This will now give them an online model which allows them to run inventory and do things that only high-end shops can do and afford today.”

10 | GTR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011

Council will also consider attaching a loyalty scheme to the card, again hosting it in the cloud and again doing so in order to give local retailers a facility to equal or better larger retailers.Paying at Council’s four parking stations is another application for the card, and it is hoped that in future, merchants can pay for customers’ parking. “Retailer could promote high-margin products by offering to pay for parking,” Dorrian says.

The ParraConnect scheme imagines the tablet devices could also display digital signage. Retailers may choose to create their own ads, or Council imagines large food manufacturers could take advantage of the tablets’ presence to send retailers images as part of their marketing campaigns.

A Website will list participating retailers to promote their offerings and new activities to cardholders. Another lure for consumers will be a cloud application that collects electronic receipts of their spending in participating stores and presents them in a format that makes collating expenses claims simple.

GTR understands that another idea discussed during the project’s planning phase involved distribution of vouchers for special offers from the Website. Council also contemplated, but appears to have ruled out, analysis of anonymised records of data collected by ParraConnect cards as a town planning tool.

Partnership modelParraConnect has come about through a new engagement model which saw Council eschew its usual approach of turning to its preferred suppliers panel. It instead issued an expression of interest to vendors who felt they could meet its goals to create digital infrastructure and the objectives of the NSW Collaborative Solutions program.

One vendor, ST Microelectronics, submitted a concept that included many of the plans for retailers detailed above. ST Microelectronics detailed the other vendors involved and the resulting consortium formed a part of Parramatta City Council’s Collaborative Solutions program submission.

The success of that submission brought a new employee to the project, with her participation supported by ST Microelectronics.

IBM is also involved, and in October 2011 helped Council by hosting a forum at which 100 business people discussed the Smart Cities concept as it could apply to the ParraConnect project.

Consultation with multiple stakeholders was conducted in order to make it plain that the Council is facilitating, rather than driving, ParraConnect.

other applications for parraConnectthe parraconnect project will create the infrastructure to streamline council’s own operations by making the card the only token staff need to access several of the buildings in which they work. the parraconnect team has taken that idea a step further and is considering delivery of building security as a service. the idea is to tell businesses in the area – or those considering it as a home – that adopting the parra conect card will mean a chance to adopt electronic building access technology. by doing so, council speculates it can create another small advantage that will help bring businesses to the area.

another idea for the parraconnect card could unlock the areas’s history.

parramatta was, for a time, considered a candidate as the capital of new South Wales. Sydney cove, the first british settlement, was a sprawling, brawling and somewhat disorderly port, considered by some as unsuitable as the seat of government. parramatta, by contrast, was a quieter and more orderly farming community.

parramatta had the necessary infrastructure – by 1799 it hosted a grand government house, one of two used by early governors of the colony as they shuttled between Sydney and the inland settlement. by 1818, the city had gained Lancer barracks, a significant military installation still in use today. grand homes like brislington house appeared from 1821.GTR understands that council staff have

considered that the parraconnect card could be used to initiate displays of information about these historical landmarks. the council is already conducting a ‘wayfinding project’ to digitise historical material and place it online and staff have imagined installing readers and displays at landmarks to inform the public about the history of the area. visitors would swipe their cards to start an interactive presentation, an idea considered as an educational tool for students and a potential tourist attraction.

“the Council is already conducting a ‘wayfinding project’ to digitise historical material and place it online”

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We will provide small business with an online model which allows them to run inventory and do things that only high-end shops can do and afford today.”

Library firstAt the time of writing, in early November 2011, Parramatta City Council was around three weeks away from a formal launch. Ten thousand cards had been prepared and 3,500 users – heavy users of self-checkout services at Parramatta’s libraries – had been identified as the first recipients of cards, thanks to their existing behaviour making them more likely to adopt the new facility.

Encouragement for others to take up the card will follow and Council has already commenced discussions with local organisations, such as licensed clubs, which already issue membership cards and could benefit from the more sophisticated hardware on offer and the back-end services ParraConnect will offer.

Over time, Council expects that the increasing prevalence of NFC technology and e-wallets (see ‘The NFC Wave, page 9) in mobile phones will spur the adoption of ParraConnect and also see the concept migrate away from reliance on a physical card.

For the short term, however, Council hopes it can make the card a must-have for local residents and will educate residents that a single ParraConnect card can replace many loyalty cards. We want it to be the one card people feel they must have, a Council official told GTR.

Editor’s note: as GTR went into production, Parramatta City Council asked us not to include quotes from the staff we interviewed. GTR has complied with that request in order to ensure that the relevant staff do not fall foul of the Council’s policy that only certain personnel may speak to the press. Parramatta Council also requested that we remove some material said to be incorrect. Some of the requests Council made described material offered as opinion or conjecture. Where possible we have retained that material.