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Jun 25
2009
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Taskforce Banner Design CompetitionPosted by Lisa Harvey in gov2au |
Its been 3 days since the announcement of the Government 2.0 Taskforce and it seems to have created quite a fuss. Good fuss with lots of discussion and ideas already.
One bit of fuss that was less expected is around the design competition. It seems that we have offended a whole lot of designers. Perhaps we could have predicted the ensuing discussion and more and more , and maybe we would have run the competition anyway.
The motives behind the competition are in the spirit of Web 2.0 - collaboration and participation. Offence to designers was never intended - in fact, we respect the value of designer's work enough to know that a banner will have an important impact on our community engagement and we want to get a great one.
Work on spec, when you work for a living is a serious issue. As a professional who charges a fee for service I know the risks of it. But it is part of the business landscape.
With my Energetica hat on I can tell you that my team and I spend a lot of time with clients, preparing proposals and tenders, all of which contain our ideas, our expertise and a lot of other stuff that should be paid for. We win some, we lose some. It's business.
Our strategy is - we do the ones we think we have a good chance at, and we do a great job of them. We still lose some, but it's business. "No work on spec" is also a workable strategy - but it won't work for us.
FWIW As I noted in my comment on the blog: The design for Parliament House was chosen from a competition. So was the Sydney Opera House. Two things that have made a great contribution to public life.
With my Government 2.0 Taskforce hat on, my response is please participate, not so that we get something for free, but so that you can contribute to an important process of democracy. If everyone who will contribute to the taskforce over the next 6 months demands fees for their services there would be no task force members, no new ideas, no participation and no change.
My previous post explains why I am giving my time and expertise for no financial return. It is my contribution to a better government.
(BTW - some ppl have reported problems with comments on this site. Please report them as we are not able to reproduce any faults)





