Our future on the web

I was asked at a conference recently “is print dead?”. My answer was no, not yet.

Ten years ago when I was working in the printing industry there was concern that print wouldn’t be around in five years time, that everything would be on the web.

Print isn’t dead, and until it’s replaced by something tactile to fill our desire for “leisure reading”, or we have the internet literally everywhere, then it probably won’t die. For now it continues to be a format that compliments our efforts online. And in a country where it’s going to take eight years to build a national broadband network it will continue to be not just complimentary but a primary communication medium.

Local Governments would be unwise though if they continued to rely on print and didn’t ready themselves for the future web. Already it’s no longer something we visit only from our desktop computer. Web enabled, location aware devices bring new power to the linked web of data. Releasing public data in ways that can be used by these devices will change our web presence from sites to services, to community spaces and networks, and feeds of information. It’s an exciting time to work in government on the web.

Growing the Local Government community

To help council and public sector web workers face the challenges ahead, we aim to develop better networking and knowledge management tools in the future. We will give you the opportunity to contribute and share your stories online and in print with this magazine. We’ll be introducing wikis to allow us to build up a knowledge center of information that we hope you will contribute to. We will continue to extend and improve our subscription methods, as well as participating in conversations in social and professional networking sites.

To support our online and print presence we hope to have more face to face meetups, through this and/or other networks. The We Believe In Community conference will continue to be an important annual gathering of public sector web workers from New South Wales, and (we hope) with our growing connections from around Australia.

Working in the public sector gives you the opportunity to make a difference in your community. Your organisation’s website already is, or soon will be, your  primary communication tool. You have an opportunity to make a difference to the experience people have when they interact with the public sector online, and that can be beyond your traditional website. You can be part of building a better web, and in the process you have the opportunity through this network to share the hard lessons you learn.

Next time you pick up, download, or scroll through this magazine, I hope you find yourself in it…

Name: Diana

Web Site: http://lgwebnetwork.org

Bio: Diana Mounter was previously the Design and Development Coordinator for the Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW (LGSA). She is now a Producer/Experience Architect for Digital Eskimo. Diana started her professional life working in a graphic design studio in the UK in 1997, from there she moved into the world of the web, primarily working in government and the public sector. Diana introduced the LGSA to social networking tools such as Twitter and Flickr, and implemented the LGSA’s first corporate blogs and wikis. Working in government inspired her to setup the Local Government Web Network with Reem, and run and produce this magazine.