GovCamp Australia is an open, participatory knowledge program to inspire and shape new opportunities around innovation for public purpose. It is an opportunity for a mix of people – from inside and outside government, from the worlds of technology and policy, of community and universities – to talk about new ways of sharing ideas for public-purpose innovation in ways that support real-world momentum. This snapshot report summarises the conversation from the nationally-networked GovCamp Australia event in six cities in July 2014.

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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 services
Designing 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 boards5 innovation themes: a sample of the agenda boards

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Twitter
The Innovation GovCamp 2014 #gcau
hashtag 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: Hackpad
Review 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 Storify
from Hannah Mattner
Innovation GovCamp Narrative Clip
and blog post from Craig Thomler
Play time is over
blog 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 Wells
Email: 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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