This is the Word document version of the Digital Strategy I developed for NSW Government in 2012. It should be read in conjunction with the Presentation version of the strategy - http://www.slideshare.net/martinwalsh/a-digital-future-transforming-nsw-government

1. This document is meant to be read in conjunction with this Digital Strategy presentation
version - http://slidesha.re/1xKF9T7
A vision for getting to a new
digital future
Thinking about transforming NSW
Developed by
Martin Walsh
Director, Digital and Corporate Communications
Department of Premier & Cabinet
19 December 2012

2. A Vision for getting to a new digital future
Thinking about transforming NSW
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Forward by Martin Walsh - Director, Digital & Corporate Communications
This proposed Digital@<3 (Digital @ Heart) vision can kick start a new era of putting users' needs at the
heart of government service delivery and engagement.
It can also signal the end of an era, in which government digital services have become synonymous with
enterprise IT, and a particularly corporatist version at that. How we got here, and why we need to
change, are at the heart of the technology thinking behind Digital NSW.
In the mid 1990's, the emergence of the Internet into the mainstream prompted a response from
government. While promising much in the way of democratic renewal, many new technology products
and services looked emergent, insecure and difficult to implement, especially with so few Internet skills
inside the Australian government system. So, too often these new technologies were bundled into the
realm of CIO’s and CTO’s. And over the following decade, after multiple large IT failures and huge
consultancy projects, we are left with digital services that often display the following characteristics:
 They are expensive, relying on licensed software and non-sharable infrastructure.
 The speed of development is glacial, with new features seen as change requests rather than the
natural reaction to user demand. Procurement cycles of five years and more are not uncommon,
leaving our services looking tired very quickly.
 Our services are often proprietary, and hard to integrate, which locks them into ever increasing
maintenance and development cycles. Few have appropriate metrics and feedback loops,
precious few take advantage of cloud based delivery, and in many cases these services are
delivered back to us by a handful of organisations who command huge slice of our $1b supply
chain for IT, a situation some describe as an 'oligopoly’.
 Too much emphasis and focus on technology and little to no understanding of people; their
needs, attitudes and behaviours.
While some of our colleagues in government are just starting to make some strides in addressing the
new opportunities in technology, it must be acknowledged that this has happened over a decade when
precisely the opposite trends have delivered the phenomenal boom in cheap, digital utilities and
services. Cloud based services have driven costs down in a huge way, applications and new consumer
devices provide a steady stream of innovation and feature additions, and there has been a massive shift
in user expectation in digital services, from e-commerce to jobs sites, banking to travel.
Meanwhile user expectations, user behaviour and technology have rapidly evolved and have surpassed,
not just the infrastructure owned and managed by Government but critically the thinking, skills,
knowledge and resources managed by Government.
Upon reviewing the ‘digital’ strategies of state and federal governments across Australia and around the
world we’ve seen a very liberal and in the majority of cases misleading use of the word ‘digital’. It has
been used by ICT, IT, CIO’s, CTO’s and vendors to try and drive new IT initiated projects and investments
in response to the latest challenges and opportunities brought about by newer technologies, outdated
legacy systems and perceived, but not properly understood, changes in user behaviours and
expectations.
Almost all of these government ‘digital’ strategies have been driven by the ICT industry, ICT professionals
and technology / consulting vendors and not by the normal custodians of customers, communications,
sales and product development - marketing.

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For example the Victorian ‘Digital by Design’ document was produced almost entirely by CIO’s,
consultants and ICT vendors. There wasn’t a single CMO, Marketing Executive, Digital Specialist or Digital
Expert in the advisory group. This is almost entirely the opposite of what is happening in the private
sector where some 55% of all technology investments are now influenced or being driven by the CMO
(Chief Marketing Officer). Gartner: “By 2017 the CMO will Spend More on IT Than the CIO”.
These are all huge challenges to the CIO and CTO communities. New Internet and Digital technologies
like SaaS and agile development are being embraced by large corporates to create new platforms for
digital services. Agile working practices and a shared commitment to user needs drive digital take-up.
The UK Government’s lead technical architect James Stewart recently outlined how the UK’s
Government Digital Services (GDS) takes a similar approach, when he described the technology
architecture of gov.uk, which includes technologies like MongoDB, Solr and Django. These should be
household names in government, and that's why GOV.UK is so important, as it marks a shift in thinking in
what constitutes, and forgive the irony, 'government computing.' GOV.UK is a small but meaningful
example of how the game has changed both from a technology perspective but more importantly a
people and skills perspective.
Furthermore, all of GOV.UK’s core code is released openly on the collaboration platform GitHub. This
means that others can make corrections or improvements and we are seeing examples of their code
being reused elsewhere - as far away as Honolulu http://answers.honolulu.gov. A lot of GOV.UK software
is open source so its platform is not subject to licence payments, code delays from vendors or
proprietary lock-in. This means a huge win for the taxpayer and allows rapid change to happen which is
critical given the rate of technological change we experience.
But this open approach extends beyond source code, it's also a core part of how we should do business.
From the outset we must build trust through greater transparency about what we do and when as well
as enhancing engagement and collaboration.
A new Digital @ Heart approach will require the services and intellect of highly-talented digital
specialists; developers, digital product managers, content designers, user experience architects, technical
leads, analysts and customer insight managers to name a few. We will need to combine these new skills
with the commitment and professionalism of existing public servants.
All the above would make us incredibly cheap compared to the billions and billions of dollar, IT contracts
that have preceded us. It also gives us the ability to react quickly to user needs, exploit opportunities, to
rapidly change our platforms and products, and hopefully, to usher in a new era of government services,
digital experiences and community engagement.

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Imagine if it was different! (What’s at stake?)
 Burning platform: we’ve already lost a decade in digital and we’re getting further behind. By
treating eGov, Gov 2.0 and now Digital as a technology issue to be driven and led by IT, ICT, CIO’s
CTO’s and related consultants, we continue to forget that Digital is really about people; their
needs, wants, desires, attitudes, behaviours and expectations, not technology. We need a
completely user centred, agile and truly digital at heart approach which means throwing out
much of the old and bringing in and establishing a new capability. We also need to transform our
economy from being heavily reliant upon natural resources, towards new services and digital
based opportunities. Base industries are disappearing but we are not transposing jobs, skills and
the economy to newer, more sustainable opportunities. Even newer industries are being
pressured by digital disruption; Silicon Valley itself is currently seeing $1 trillion dollars of wealth
being transferred from the old guard of enterprise software incumbents to nimble upstarts and
SaaS providers. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of opportunities for our economy and
opportunities to re-engineer the way we deliver government services and engage with citizens
and business.
 Size of the opportunity: We have an opportunity to dramatically increase the agility and
effectiveness of Government communication, engagement and transparency - and at scale -
across all digital channels by transforming what and how we deliver government internally and
externally. Substantial productivity benefits can be realised through streamlined digital first
experiences, content, communication and collaboration both internally and externally. And of
course there is an opportunity for substantial cost savings through the consolidation of existing
websites, technology and infrastructure – from a conservative, preliminary estimate of $2-5m all
the way up to $100-150m.
 Required cultural and paradigm shift: This is about designing and building true multichannel
digital experiences, dramatically changing the way we write and develop content, services &
transactions, agile development, iterative design and testing and much more. The fundamental
shift is to stop designing things from the inside out and start designing things from the outside in.
We need to embed digital skills into our organisational DNA, developing a culture that puts
people’s needs first so we plan and design our services around what users need to get done, not
around the ways government want them to do it. A paradigm shift needs to take place and we
cannot simply muck around the edges, trying to incrementally evolve and expect things to be
different. It hasn’t worked over the past 10 years and nothing will change without a dramatic
shift. This is not about simply creating less websites and or creating newer basic websites which
anyone can do. Digital has evolved dramatically and almost any company can say they can build
a basic website but that is not what we need to do to succeed. *See the Design Principles. We
have a unique opportunity to be world class and to leap frog what many other governments are
trying to do in this area.
What might a new Vision, Role, would Purpose look like?
Vision: Build a new generation of user centric, digital government services which inspires community
engagement, consultation and collaboration.
Role: Lead the rethinking, redesign and transformation of Government towards simpler, more
efficient and agile digital channels.
Purpose: Enable the NSW Government to communicate more effectively, share and manage information
and knowledge more robustly, develop more efficient working practices, improve and open up
policy making and provide more services to the community digitally to effect substantial cost
savings.

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What do a set of Strategic Principles look like in this new world?
1. We must implement technology for people’s sake, not for technology’s sake. Technology doesn’t
innovate, people do. People must be our focus both externally and internally.
2. Develop solutions and policies that are best for the people, not best for the Government.
3. Provide information that’s easy to discover, access, read and understand, not just easy to upload.
4. Make information, engagement, consultation, services & transactions open to everyone and across
all devices.
5. We cannot manage what we don’t measure.
o We must introduce a culture of being data driven. We cannot improve if we don’t collect,
analyse and respond to the right information and right data at the right time.
6. Trust is the new currency across digital channels and without it we will fail. Through greater
transparency, accessibility, engagement and communication we can build Trust.
7. We must build foundational partnerships both internally and externally to reduce risk and increase
our digital knowledge, skills and capability.
8. To truly embrace digital, we have to significantly shift the way we think and operate internally in
order to effect change externally.
9. Build a shared capability of services, not structures.
o Build a shared capability of digital services and technologies. We need to avoid monolithic
structures and create flexible services which integrate across different applications, channels
and systems and importantly customer scenarios.
10. We need a paradigm shift, not evolution.
o Incremental change has not worked for the past 10 years. We need to dramatically shift the
way we approach and affect a digital transformation across government.
Design Principles for achieving Digital Experiences joined across Government
1. Start with needs - The design process must start with identifying and thinking about real user needs.
We should design around those — not around the way the ‘official process’ is at the moment. We
must understand those needs thoroughly — interrogating data, not just making assumptions — and
we should remember that what users ask for is not always what they need.
2. Do Less - Government should only do what only government can do. If someone else is doing it —
link to it. If we can provide resources (like APIs) that will help other people build things — do that.
We should concentrate on the irreducible core.
3. Design with Data - Normally, we’re not starting from scratch — users are already using our services.
This means we can learn from real world behaviour. We should do this, but we should make sure we
continue this into the build and development process — prototyping and testing with real users on
the live web. We should understand the desire paths of how we are designing with data and use
them in our designs.
4. Build for inclusion - Accessible design is good design. We should build a product that’s as inclusive,
legible and readable as possible. If we have to sacrifice elegance — so be it. We shouldn’t be afraid
of the obvious, shouldn’t try to reinvent web design conventions and should set expectations clearly.
5. Build digital services, not websites - Our service doesn’t begin and end at our website. It might start
with a search engine and end at the post office. We need to design for that, even if we can’t control
it. And we need to recognise that someday, before we know it, it’ll be about different digital services
again.
6. Understand context - We’re not designing for a screen, we’re designing for people. We need to think
hard about the context in which they’re using our services. Are they in a library? Are they on a
phone? Are they only really familiar with Facebook? Have they never used the web before?
7. Be consistent, not uniform - Wherever possible we should use the same language and the same
design patterns — this helps people get familiar with our services. But, when this isn’t possible, we
should make sure our underlying approach is consistent. So our users will have a reasonable chance
of guessing what they’re supposed to do.

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8. Iterate. Then iterate again - The best way to build effective services is to start small and iterate
wildly. Release Minimum Viable Products early, test them with real users, move from Alpha to Beta
to Launch adding features and refinements based on feedback from real users.
9. Do the hard work to make it simple - Making something look simple is easy; making something
simple to use is much harder — especially when the underlying systems are complex — but that’s
what we should be doing.
If you want this, here are Five suggested Core Directions
1. Inspire citizens and business to collaborate and engage more with government to design and deliver
better policies, services and community and economic outcomes for NSW.
2. Simplify engagement between citizens, business & government with easier-to-find, easier-to-access
government information, services, transactions & data.
3. Lead the transformation to a new era of digital public services, consultation and engagement.
4. Enable NSW residents, visitors, businesses and an increasingly mobile workforce to access and
engage with high quality government information, services and data, anytime, anywhere and on any
device.
5. Empower government employees to use world’s best practices to deliver and engage with citizens
and businesses through efficient, effective and scalable digital channels and technologies.

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What might a new Digital Future look like?
Old
Model
New
Model

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Thinking about transforming NSW
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How would we get there?
1. Inspire
1. Use digital tools and techniques to engage with and facilitate consultation with the community
and businesses.
2. Raise awareness of digital services so that more people know about and are inspired to use
them.
3. Develop an X-Prize style program to inspire industry, citizens, education and research
organisations to design and develop better services and outcomes for NSW, using Government
Open Data where relevant, and lead the re-education and up-skilling of the workforce to a new
digital & services led economy.
2. Simplify
4. Consolidate and transform the conflagration of 800+ disparate, disconnected and poorly
designed user experience websites into three primary Government digital engagement
experiences.
a. Project Macquarie
b. Service NSW
c. Corporate website for major agencies
5. Consolidate the conflagration of 1,000+ Government URL’s into one single government URL;
www.nsw.gov.au
6. Service NSW in partnership with DPC and DFS will lead the redesign of all government services
and transactions to be digital by default by 2015.
3. Lead
7. Create a new Centralised Digital Services Team (CDST) with full responsibility for the overall user
experience across all government digital channels and real estate.
8. CDST & DFS will lead in the definition and delivery of a new suite of common technology
platforms which will underpin the new generation of digital services.
9. CDST will lead in the removal of legislative and or policy barriers which unnecessarily prevent the
development of streamlined and convenient digital services.
10. CDST will define, develop and lead the implementation, collection, storage, sharing and
presentation of a consistent set of management and performance information for digital
experiences, engagement, services and transactions.
11. CDST will lead and support the education, transformation and improvement of digital skills and
capability across government.
12. CDST will assist major agencies in identifying and or recruiting an active Digital Leader within
their organisation.
13. CDST will lead the development of new digital skills, experience, capability and feature
requirements for the selection of appropriate vendors for a new approved digital services panel.
14. CDST in partnership with the private sector and education institutions will lead the development
of new courses and curriculums across digital, marketing and ICT to create a 21st
Century skillset
within NSW.
4. Enable
15. Ensure digital experiences are no longer website and PC specific. All information, engagement,
services and transactions should be available and accessible across any device; smartphone, PC,
tablet and smart TV at any time. We should focus on standards like HTML5, CSS3 and XML etc.
We should not be building native mobile apps unless it is a hero app to showcase to the private
sector, a specific area/issue in need.

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16. Where relevant, enable government information, services and transactions in multiple languages
across digital channels.
17. Ensure that government agencies make available key information through standard data sets
and API’s.
5. Empower
18. CDST will develop and deploy a new, shared, digital marketing platform which will enable
government employees to create, publish, communicate, collaborate and engage both internally
and externally in an efficient and timely manner and when required to do so at scale.
19. CDST will build Digital Centres of Excellence accessible by all government employees which will
provide on demand learning, playbooks, guides, policies, cheat sheets, FAQ’s and social
collaboration relating to digital communication, engagement, marketing and technology.
A shared digital platform and capability

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A new centralised Digital Services Team comprising specialist teams;
Cost Savings Estimates
 Preliminary and conservative cost savings estimates - $2-5m
 If we embrace and realise these directions and principles, cost savings could be 10-15% of the
annual $1B NSW ICT budget – approximately $100-150m.
CentralisedDigitalServicesTeam

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What might it look like for citizens and business?
 The proposed three primary digital experiences between government and the community;
Project Macquarie – The Government
• Premier
• The Cabinet
• Government
• Policy (High level)
• Strategic Initiatives
• Consultation
And Related:
• News, Announcements, Speeches
• Communications
• Information
• Content
• Engagement
• Contact Us
• Social Outposts
Three digital experiences…

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Service NSW
• Services
• Transactions
Services & Transactions related:
• Information
• Content
• Engagement
• Support
• Service & Support Social Outposts
Inside Government – Corporate Agency Websites
• About Us / What we do
• Minister/s and Management
• News, Announcements & Speeches
• Policies
• Publications
• Consultations
• Minister
• Contact Us
Key Dependencies
 Privacy Legislation / Policy
 Agency Policies
 Legislation
 Skilled and Experienced Resources / Vendors
 Budget
Potential Next Steps
A. Required enabling actions:
1. Audit existing digital systems, infrastructure and associated costs. For example; website content
management systems, hosting, technology agreements, services & support agreements etc.
2. Continue to develop and flesh out the full NSW Digital Strategy including resource requirements,
budgets, priorities and timelines.
a. Internal version
b. Public version
3. Develop Personas and User Centric Research for DPC and Service NSW to help drive strategy, design,
channel scenarios, UX, information architecture and content.
4. Deliver Project Macquarie to demonstrate best practices across; user centric design, cross device
compatibility and accessibility, digital communications and engagement, measurement and analytics.
5. Deliver the Digital Marketing Platform prototypes for Project Macquarie and Service NSW. For
example; CRM, Measurement / Business Intelligence / Content Management System, Email
Marketing, Search, Video, Social Media, Mapping etc.
B. From concept to decision
1. If you’re excited by this future, what do you recommend to help us get there?

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Appendix A
Notes:
The title “@” and “<3” reflects the way our citizens think and communicate today. Our landscape has
changed dramatically and is continuing to change.
The “@” symbol is about our changed digital communications.
The “<3” heart symbol tells us this is more than just about technology – it is about the importance,
passion and emotion attached to our modern digital lives. It talks to putting the consumer at the centre
of our thinking. The heart also talks to cultural change needed within government; digital needs to be at
the heart of everything we do.
If digital is at the heart of everything we do, and our people and staff believe this to be true we have the
chance to create paradigm change and build a better future for NSW.