New models for digital government: the role of service brokers in driving innovation

Executive summary Digital Government strategies are being rolled out in many Australian and international jurisdictions, ushering in a fundamentally different approach to the design and delivery of public sector services. Digital Government makes digital services (usually delivered through internet and mobile channels) the default delivery channels for the majority of services, and places them at the centre of innovating, designing and operating government services. Public sector or independent service brokers are increasingly important to delivering and designing these services. Service brokers are organisations or businesses that enable customers to interact with other organisations through easy-to-use and seamless interfaces. In the digital realm, a public sector service brokers example is one that provides a customer-focussed portal, such as the Federal Department of Human Services’ MyGov website. Independent service brokers from the private or community sectors can also provide greater service choice and innovation in how people interact with governments. Models for independent service brokers include Digital Mailboxes and Personal Safeboxes (eg Australia Post); public transport information service brokers (eg TripView, Tripgo and Google Transit), taxation service brokers (eg Xero and MYOB Online), community service brokers (eg HubCare) and access brokers for government services (eg public libraries, online access centres, etc) to assist those unable to access digital services. It is likely that the ambitious goals for large-scale adoption of digital government will only be achieved if governments encourage the involvement of independent service brokers to complement the role of public sector service brokers. However, there is currently little guidance on best practice models for agencies seeking to collaborate with independent service brokers or the other way around. This report addresses this critical knowledge gap by providing a practical guide to the service broker model. It explains the different roles of public sector and independent service brokers and provides case studies of service broker models. This will help to inform digital government strategies and policies to encourage the development of public sector and independent service brokers. It also considers how the emergence of a marketplace of service brokers will raise important issues such as how customer data is managed and protected, identity assured and how research and analysis of the data generated by these digital services can help inform better public policies and service improvement

Fixers and foreign correspondents: news production and autonomy

The television foreign correspondent\u27s licence to roam and generate news is increasingly under threat. This paper concentrates on the micro production processes of today s correspondent as he or she goes about the job of newsgathering \u27on the road\u27, and considers the changing nature of the correspondent\u27s autonomy. It inserts the missing character in foreign newsgathering - the locally hired fixer - and explores how this person affects the correspondent\u27s autonomy. An analysis of interviews with 20 foreign correspondents and five fixers leads to the conclusion that the foreign correspondent is rarely the sole editorial figure on the road but is instead the main actor representing the creative interplay of a succession of fixers or \u27local producers\u27. This deconstruction of the ways in which a correspondent builds an ad-hoc newsgathering team each time he or she lands in d new place allows for a deeper understanding of the modus operandi of reporters.<br /

Unless the Lord Build the House

Unless the Lord Builds the House is a work of creative nonfiction about two years of my life as my chronic Lyme disease altered how I had to live and how I thought about my life . There are three major threads that I explore. The first theme is about losing my old self. There was an old Alicia and a new Alicia, and I explore my frustration at losing the old Alicia. I explore this by talking about building. I see myself as a house under renovation, and I write about my struggle to let go of my past self and everything that came with that to accept the new things being built. The second theme follows me feeling like I\u27m not enough, and being angry at myself for that. My symptoms were very neurological, and I couldn\u27t do much for a long time. Other people had to take care of me, and that made me upset because I felt like people wouldn\u27t love me. The third is what ties everything together, and that is my relationship with God. I love Jesus and see Him as the most important part of my life, so that influences this piece a lot because it alters the way I see the world. This theme focuses on being close to God. There is a story in the Bible in which Moses goes up on a mountain to meet with God, and when he comes down, his face is radiant--shiny--so I use images of gold and radiance to talk about being close to God. This experience of illness changed and deepened my relationship with Jesus, and taught me more about how much He loves me and that I don\u27t have to be perfect--I don\u27t have to be enough --because He already is. I hope that no matter your beliefs, you find encouragement in this story

Journalism 'fixers', hyper-precarity and the violence of the entrepreneurial self

Syed I Ashraf, Sean Phelan, "Journalism ‘fixers’, hyper-precarity and the violence of the entrepreneurial self" First Published in "Journalism" January 24, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211065306,Publishe

A Stitch in Time: Changing Cultural Constructions of Craft and Mending

Over the course of the twentieth century, the availability of cheap, mass-produced fashion has contributed to a decline in everyday domestic mending skills. Indeed, as mass-manufactured goods have become cheaper for the global population it has become normative consumer behaviour to dispose of any item that is less than per-fect, even when the damage is entirely superficial, leading Clark to claim that: ‘mending has died out’ (2008: 435). However, in recent years there has been an apparent revival in domestic mending, aided and evidenced by the emergence of sewing and mending groups in the UK, mainland Europe and North America. This has coincided with a growing interest in more sustainable material goods (McDonough & Braungart 2002; Fletcher 2008), and a small body of academic work around the notion of craftsmanship (e.g. Sennett 2008; Crawford 2009). Of particular interest here is the history of mending of clothing and household goods, as well as recent incarnations of mending as both an individual and group activity. In the past year, researchers from diverse theoretical backgrounds have also highlighted the role of mending in everyday material goods providing further insights into the subject (Laitala & Boks 2012; Middleton 2012; Portwood-Stacer 2012). An examination of mending reveals a complex picture in which gender, class, aesthetics and social motivations interweave with the imperatives of consumer culture. Whilst historically it is generally constructed as a feminine activity, and carried connotations of material deprivation, contemporary mending is often motivated by environmental concerns and a desire to reduce consumption. Ultimately, mending is demonstrated to be an under-researched subject loaded with cultural meaning, and ultimately, is shown to be anything but a trivial activity

The Fixer, September 22, 1970

The Fixer, a student-run underground newspaper published out of Madison College (Harrisonburg, Va.), now James Madison University, from 1969 to 1973. Jay Garland Rainey was the first editor

Development of a stereofluoroscopy system

A technique of 3-D video imaging, was developed for use on manned missions for observation and control of remote manipulators. An improved medical diagnostic fluoroscope with a stereo, real-time output was also developed. An explanation of how this system works, and recommendations for future work in this area are presented