Stephen Blyth's Blog

The pressure for social services and community organisations to do more for less is a mantra that’s not restricted to New Zealand. After being in Australia a couple of days this very phrase has cropped up many times. More effective use of ICT is being turned to as a way of helping organisations do the [...]

To abbreviate things a bit, the 2010 New Zealand World Internet Project (WIP) report shows that more New Zealanders are online, for longer and at faster speeds. These trends led the researchers to conclude the ‘digital divide’ is disappearing in New Zealand, with differences in who uses the Internet shrinking by the year. The notion [...]

I’ve just looked at the Digital Strategy website and I’m wondering if I’ve missed something. After all the online and off talk, and policy deliberations over the last 8-10 months, I can’t seem to find the strategy in DS 2.0 released on 28 August 2008. Strategy as in…. an elaborate and systematic plan of action [...]

In answer to all the skeptics, the council of Digital Development New Zealand (DDNZ) have made a bold statement for their search results: “it works”. Well, that’s the title to a Google search result for the DDNZ. I’m not sure if this intentional or a hack from a prankster over at Kiwiblog, where skeptics abound. [...]

At $50 for a hard copy I’ll be reading the results of the the World Internet Project survey of NZ internet use available freely on AUT’s website. At a pre-release briefing for important people, the good people who paid for the survey and other hangers on (including the likes of me), we talked about the [...]

Thanks to Zara, plus a press release from David Cunnliffe, I’ve found out that government today started consulting on the second edition of the Digital Strategy. 55 people on the Digital Future Summit 2.0 facebook group received a short alert from Zara letting us know that we can have our say. Using online tools has [...]

If you look on the right-hand column you’ll see a new logo on my blog. Under the heading of “Share Alike” is a description of the basis I share my work and the conditions I place on others using it. There are a variety of choices for an author to assert their moral rights over [...]

A snapshot of how many New Zealanders are using information and communications technology (ICTs), and what for, was released by Statistics New Zealand on 27 April 2007. So far a short “Household Use of Information and Communication Technology” hot off the press report is available. A full report is due for release later in the [...]

I can’t imagine what horse trading took place behind the scenes before the management at the State Services Commission (SSC) agreed to run a wiki for people interested in using the web for public participation. If you believe the myths, wiki are risky as people can write what they want without regard to truth or [...]

I promised to report back if I learnt whether legislation to restrict the free flow of information over the Internet would be introduced in New Zealand (see my earlier post Save the Internet). So far I’ve got some very definitive (and reassuring) news. According to Andy Williamson, a leading thinker and activist on citizen use [...]