It was always going to be a tough assignment and a large part of me is disappointed that the job is only half-done. As of today, we have received over 1,250 views of the 13 policies outlined on the Naked Chief blog in the last few weeks.

The areas of biggest interest were certainly ICT Strategy support for small business, Assigning an economic value to a digitally connected life, and Introducing LAMP into the secondary education curriculum. So for any budding policy writers out there consider that some free research.

But apart from the odd comment and a lot of retweets, the experiment has shown that meaningful ICT policy is either 1) hard to articulate, 2) of little interest to the industry, or 3) much simpler than we have tried to paint it to be. For that reason we have decided to park the 30 Blogs in 30 Days campaign.

The Naked Chief wishes to thank Sam Higgins for this policy contribution. 

At some point or another everyone has been asked to provide a reference. Whether it is for a close personal friend, professional colleague or supplier there is value in the support of one person's reputation or organisation's brand for another.

When it comes to ICT, national competition does not even stop at the company level. In many cases state-based parochialism hinders Australia's national interests. The cases in point are numerous from train guages to the Murray Darling river system, and more recenlty the squabbling over which piece of the NBN will go to which state jurisdiction. 

Let's consider this in the context of national licencing. Queensland will be the first state to implement a smartcard-based driver's licence. Yet as certain as the other states are to follow, it is highly unlikely that other states will implement the same solution. They will be subtley different but fundamentally the same. Therefore, a national licencing bureau would seem like an intelligent national ICT undertaking. But rather than implement a single version, each state will be allowed to pursue thier own solution so long as they remain "interoperable". It is the modern version of the rail guage problem that took over a century to rectify.

The arguments for producing national licences in one place, like passports and consistent rail gauges, is that it derives millions of dollars in savings.  This is something that cannot be ignored in the current economic climate. At a federal level, the states already convene through Austroads who have successfully defined the necessary interoperability standards as evidenced by establishment of the Smartcard Licence Interoperability Protocal (SLIP) workgroup. The trigger required to move beyond interoperability for national licencing can be largely attributed to the technical requirements for identity based smartcards being internationally standardised (i.e. ISO). And as it happens this has also been achieved through the work here in Queensland. Why then do we continue to allow states to "go it alone", tossing aside the economic benefits afforded all states and territories to leverage existing platforms and bureaus for lower cost entry into the more robust national solution?

Today's policy asks whether a constitutional change to recognise and define multi-jurisdictional projects that represent the national ICT interest is achievable. So let me start this conversation by saying that the fear of God does not exist in modern commerce and for that reason the ICT industry is often treated with a mix of both awe and contempt. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the classic case study in ethical dilema that drives a lot of what goes on in our industry today.

Speaking at an AIIA lunch last week was John Higgins, Director General of Intellect, the UK's equivalent of AIIA. He was recounting certain conversations with Sir Peter Gershon and in particular Sir Peter's comments about the differences between the ICT industry and the Engineering industry. Gershon commented that if he went to the Engineering industry with a desire and concept to build a bridge across the Thames he might possibly be told that it could not be built, and the reasons why; regardless of which engineering firm he called upon.

Equitable industry-based funding in government budgets has always been a contentious issue. Close to the top of the industry winners are always mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. And much of the budget funding that goes to support these industries is significant investments in ports, rail and harbour-facilities to enable the import and export of primary and secondary industry ouputs. These facilities are infrastructure beacons that can be irrevocably linked to their industry. They provide an unmistakeable sense of importance, significance and tactile and tangible measurements: job creation, physical exports, investment attraction, and international gateways.