Seems I may have passed judgement on our government departments a little hastily in my previous blog entry where I referred to a general risk aversion for using Web2.0 technologies. At the Digital Summit we heard from the Deputy State Services Commissioner ICT, Laurence Millar, who outlined a range of policy guidelines and recommendations that the SSC are developing for government departments that actually promote the use of blogs, wikis and other Web2.0 technologies.

He gave as an example the New Zealand Police who used a wiki recently to engage with the public in consultation about the review of the Police Act. The wiki, begun in September this year received over 8000 contributions in just eight days. It is now closed for entries, but resulting wiki Act, as at 1 October 2007, is accessible online as a document of record.

Mr Millar commented that the experience of the NZ Police has highlighted the value of such initiatives, and reinforced the need for government agencies to become more active in their use of Web2.0 technologies in this way. Further to this, Mr Millar announced that the next version of the Digital Strategy will be launched as a wiki in March 2008!