Prime Minister John Key is citing Air New Zealand check-in times as a model for the public service to follow as the Government pursues smart phone and other technological advances to replace over the counter contact.

But he conceded that it would require a huge investment by the Government. He confirmed previous reports that an IRD upgrade alone was expected to cost $1 billion plus.

"I think we've got a very good public service but we can't stand in the way of technology...and nor can we stand in the way of some of the advantages of having shared services," Key said.

"I have it in some of my ministries I'm looking after and I'm convinced I can deliver for less money, better results."

Interesting that the NZ government is looking at examples of technology-enabled service innovation in the private sector. But I'd be a little nervous of government adopting Web-era service models without the appropriate Web-development mindset. Even getting a standard Website up and running can be a challenge for government.

The UK government is a better example of this, with their alpha and beta whole-of-government Website pilots - but those aren't particularly cheap, but should eventually prove a better return on investment for tax payers. 

The Box, a shared-car concept for inner-cities, was the inspiration for my latest post over on the Headshift | Dachis Group Asia Pacific blog.

There are some great related posts on the Shareable blog too. Also check out the Brook & Bone site (the designers behind this concept car) - look under projects.

Finally, a good use for QR codes. :-)

Also an interesting experiment in providing a different method for people to navigate and interact with an information space.

Hat tip to my colleagues at Headshift | Dachis Group.

Created with local and regional governments in mind, although I'm sure it has broader application, this toolkit is the outcome of a partnership between two European design firms and Design Flanders.

You need to buy the toolkit, but they have made some posters and templates available for download.

Hat tip to the Putting People First blog.

This video is a promo for a new'ish book, This is Service Design Thinking, but it provides a nice short explanation of what service design is about. Hat tip to Anel Palafox.

I was really disappointed that I missed the public forum with Ezio Manzini, held in Sydney last week. However, I did manage to find this recorded excerpt from a presentation he made in 2008 where he talks about service design and social innovation.

User participation is now an established feature of the economy, spreading from product development and software to a much broader base of activities, such as marketing and manufacturing, and sectors, including social media, automotives and cosmetics, among others. Early analyses of user participation pointed to the importance of building large communities, creating effective incentives for participation and implementing more flexible forms of organization. Looking back a few years later, the good news is that active participation continues to spread. The bad news is that harnessing participation is more difficult than we thought. Stimulating a continuous flow of high-quality contributions should be the focus of companies that want to take advantage of user participation.

Well, actually, if you've been hanging around knowledge management and collaboration for a while you wouldn't expect it to be easy :-)

I still think Clay Shirky sums this up best - you need:

"a successful fusion of a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users"

OPEN source software offers one cure for clinical system implementation woes, as authorities struggle to find solutions that meet all medical requirements, a leading health informatics researcher says.

...

Rather than the all-in, big-bang approach of a full CIS (clinical information system) implementation, an open, standards-based approach would allow a more incremental, lower risk approach, with organic expansion based on lessons learnt.

I think the mixing of terminology around open source software and open standards is a little confusing in the piece. However, what is clear is that complex environments, like we find in health care, need new approaches to information technology to avoid the mistakes of the past. This includes open source software, open standards, etc but also new approaches to procurement, support, solution design and project management. Just focusing on open source software itself is missing the bigger picture of the challenge. And what about the hardware too?

This is just one from a set of great sketchnotes by Matt Balara from Web Directions South this year that covers Suze Ingram's presentation. Anyway, its great to see other people talking about Service Design here in Australia. This is something I mentioned back at NSW Public Sphere.

These are my slides from NSW Public Sphere yesterday. Shortly after my presentation, the NSW Premier announced the apps4nsw competition and data.nsw.gov.au, which is exactly the kind of initiative I was advocating in my presentation.

Also, if you're interested in exploring this concept of public service co-design (or simply service design) that I mentioned, there are some links referenced at the end of this recent Headshift paper for the Centre for Policy Development.