2. Building the Strategy
2.1 The Framework for Action
Information
Creating and managing information is at the heart of human activity.
Information is the medium in which we define who we are, communicate with each other and learn about the past and the world in which we live, and how we create value and participate in local, national and global dialogue and markets.
Therefore, we should focus our attention on information-rich activities, those in which we create, collect, manage, process, store, move or access information via a networked environment.
New Thinking
Technology tends to develop ahead of society's accepted way of doing things. The old practices will not necessarily work in an environment where ICT is all-pervasive. New technologies enable us to adopt a wholly new approach. Advances in technology require the development of new practices and procedures to ensure that we obtain the full benefits and minimise the risks. To do this requires new thinking.
The effective use of ICT is dependent on the extent to which decision-makers, business leaders and managers, community leaders and individuals understand the environment in which they operate and how their activities create value for their customers, clients, stakeholders or for themselves. If these things are well understood, there will be clarity about how ICT can enable new approaches and create added value.
In the future, such new practices and procedures will be part of the usual way of doing things. The current period of transition, however, demands that we - the government, businesses and individuals - make a concerted effort to develop the necessary practices and procedures (including any formal rules and regulations) and ensure they are adopted.
The Purpose of a Strategy
A strategy describes our vision for the future. It defines the future state we wish to attain and provides the government with a framework for the key actions required to capture the economic, social and cultural gains possible from ICT. By working from the future we seek to create, we can identify optimal pathways and align our resources to implement key actions and attain the vision of this Digital Strategy.
Working Together
Making effective use of ICT will not occur by central government action alone. For the benefits of ICT to be realised throughout our society, everyone must play their part: communities, businesses, local government, community and voluntary groups, philanthropic agencies and individuals must all assist in the process of change.
Local government is intimately involved in the welfare of local communities. Communities and businesses know their own needs best and can be innovative in meeting them. Central government can offer them a menu of tools, but the biggest gains are achieved when communities and businesses use those tools to take their own actions and promote change from the bottom up. This draft Digital Strategy has been prepared in the expectation that sectors outside government will wish to engage actively with it.
Flexibility
In such a rapidly changing environment, a strategy such as this cannot adopt a deterministic view of a single path to the future, since it is impossible to foresee the right way to go.
It follows that government agencies must be unified behind the broad principles and direction of the Strategy, but able to retain the flexibility to alter their delivery mechanisms to meet challenges as they arise. For this reason, the Strategy will need to be reviewed at regular intervals. Communities, businesses and individuals must all be free to adapt as quickly as needs dictate.
2.2 The Role of the Government
There are three high-level roles for the government:
- leadership: The government will lead by example, by building a common vision and adopting best practice in the application of ICT to its own processes, organisational forms and delivery of services;
- taking the actions necessary to realise the benefits: The government will ensure that the necessary changes to legislation and government processes and services are made, and will work to create an environment that supports and drives the complementary innovations required in society's practices and procedures, in organisations and management; by supporting the development of New Zealanders' digital and information literacy skills; and by supporting access to and creation of digital content; and
- mitigating the risks: The government will ensure that the risks of technological change, such as e-crime and nuisance behaviour, or economic and social disadvantage, are mitigated.
The government need not take on new roles, but rather should modify its current roles as technological change requires, and consider how ICT can make possible new ways to achieve its desired outcomes. As ICT is a set of information tools, and information is at the core of all government activities, ICT must be considered whenever policy is developed.
2.3 The WSIS Principles
The Digital Strategy has drawn upon a useful frame of reference: the Declaration of Principles adopted by the international community at the 2003 WSIS, in which New Zealand participated.
The WSIS Declaration defined a number of key principles for realising the ideal of an Information Society. The principles have been adapted to suit New Zealand's particular needs and have informed the development of the focus areas in the Digital Strategy. They will continue to guide the government's actions to implement the Strategy.
2.4 The Focus Areas
The focus areas have been derived from the Digital Strategy principles outlined above. The principles highlight the conditions necessary for New Zealand to become a world leader at using information and technology, and prescribe the ways we will work together to achieve the goal.
There are two dimensions to the Strategy: creating the conditions and realising the benefits.
Creating the Conditions
In order to reap the social, economic and cultural benefits of ICT, we must focus on three interrelated action areas:
- content: That is, information made available via digital networks. "Information" is a broad concept that encompasses national heritage collections, government information, Māori language resources, research databases, traditional cultural products such as literature and history, and new cultural products from the creative industries. The term also includes the information generated by businesses and community organisations;
- confidence: That is, developing the necessary skills at all ages, in all parts of society, to use and participate in ICT effectively. Such skills include functional and digital literacy and the ability to participate in an interactive electronic environment. Confidence also encompasses the dimension of trust in the use of ICT;
- connection: That is, affordable access to ICT infrastructure such as telecommunications networks, computers, mobile phones and other devices.
These three dimensions are mutually reinforcing. Content provides the reason, confidence provides the skills and trust, and being connected provides the means.
The government plays a key role in creating the necessary conditions by developing policies to:
- unlock the social and economic value of content by progressively providing digital access to existing content in public institutions, and encouraging the production of new digital content;
- promote confidence and capability in the effective use of ICT by individuals, communities and business, through its leadership, by raising ICT awareness, providing training, and by addressing safety, security and privacy issues; and
- improve connection, by ensuring the availability of affordable ICT infrastructure for all.
Realising the Benefits
Different groups in society have very different requirements for content, confidence and being connected.
The government plays a role in realising the benefits for different user groups by developing policies that will:
- facilitate the effective use of ICT to unlock the social and economic potential of all citizens and communities, including geographic communities and communities of interest, identity or circumstance;6
- promote innovation in New Zealand firms and industry sectors and in other kinds of organisations to create value from information in a networked environment; and
- transform government by seizing the opportunities provided by technological change.
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