[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]
Do you work with someone in the APS who has done/is doing something clever, new and/or experimental? Have you thought about nominating them for the new IPAA Public Sector Innovation Awards?
If so, there’s only two weeks left to nominate so we recommend you start now. Nominations can be self-nominated or nominated by peers. Any individual, work unit, group or team of a Commonwealth Government entity may nominate an initiative for the Awards.
The nomination doesn’t have to be for the biggest thing or for something that’s been perfected/polished – the Awards are about uncovering, sharing and recognising new innovative initiatives.
As an example I have nominated my colleague Rob Thomas for his work in developing an interactive set of interconnected Instagram accounts to help disseminate the information of the APS Innovation Snapshot in a new and experimental way. It was an exploratory project in many ways – but I think worthwhile because it looked at how to distribute and distil information in a very different way to a traditional report. I have nominated it under the category of ‘engaging with the edge’ because it was trying something quite new.
If you’re not sure whether what you’ve worked on is innovative, why not take a look at one of these videos with senior leaders and others about what public sector innovation means to them. Or ask your colleagues whether they think it is something new and different that might be worth sharing with others. Or feel free to email us to ask about whether something might be innovative or not. Or – in the spirit of innovating – just give it a go!
These Awards are our chance for recognising the efforts of those in the public service who are trying to achieve better outcomes by trying different things. It can be hard to try something new and different – so it’s important to recognise those efforts, and to learn from them. We hope that you take the opportunity to help with that by nominating yourself or someone else for the Awards.
You can find out more about the Awards on the IPAA site.