[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]
Are you interested in new and different ideas about how to do things in the public sector? Do you want to hear from others about new ways of thinking, designing, and delivering services? Would you like to connect with others who share your interest in exploring how things could be done differently?
Then you’ll want to get involved in Innovation Month 2013!
Innovation Month, to be held from 20 May to 14 June 2013, builds on the success of Innovation Week 2011 and 2012 in sharing ideas, building networks and bringing people together to talk about, think about and collaborate on improving the public sector. The tag line for Innovation Month 2013 is ‘Inspire, Design, Deliver’.
It will involve a range of events and activities, from cross-agency events to activities arranged by individual teams within agencies. It is about working out how new ideas, tools and applications can help you in getting better results from your work.
Some of the feedback of Innovation Week 2012 was that there was a lot happening in too short a time, and some people felt like they missed out. So this year, the cross-agency planning group decided that it might be better to spread the events and activities out over a longer period of time – so we have Innovation Month instead!
Another piece of feedback was that there was not enough happening outside of Canberra. This year, there will be some events (such as GovHack) that will be happening in multiple cities. As well, we encourage individual areas to think about holding their own events – we have included some suggestions on the Innovation Month landing pageand will add more over time.
Innovation Month is not a centrally organised program, rather it is a collection of events organised by those interested and able. So if you think more should be happening in your region, why not help organise an event or an activity? We’re happy to help connect people in regions who are interested in holding events.
Innovation Month comes with the support from the leadership of the APS. The Innovation Action Plan, which was signed by the Portfolio Secretaries, states “Recognising that long term value is captured through dissemination and diffusion of innovations, the APS and its agencies will institute mechanisms to recognise, celebrate and share innovation efforts. This will be done by … agencies holding innovation themed events to discuss, share and celebrate public sector innovation within their agencies.”
Innovation Month 2013 is an important means of delivering upon that commitment and for agencies to demonstrate their support for the Action Plan and for innovation within the Australian Public Service.
And recognising that innovation is a team effort, we extend the invitation to be involved out to others – whether they be in the public service in a State and Territory, working for local government or even outside of the public sector.
To begin with, here are some ways you might want to get involved:
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- Interested in helping the organising committee coordinate events and activities? Then get in contact with us
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- Talk with your team, your manager or your branch/group/division about the priorities of your organisation, and how Innovation Month might be an opportunity to spur conversation and action about them
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- Pass the word – let others know about Innovation Month and suggest they sign up to the Public Sector Innovation Network to find out more about it.
Or, comment below, with your ideas and suggestions about Innovation Month 2013!