After introducing the concept of m-Government in the first article of the series, Andrea Volpini of Interact SpA now digs deeper in the world of m-Government, looking at how overall trends in internet and mobile development will affect the Public Administration in the future.
In the final post that will be published next week we will then look at some live examples of usage of mobile technology in the Italian Public Administration
In this day and age that just about everyone is equipped with a mobile device, governments are now able to exploit the huge potential of a technology-oriented means of communication reaching a wide-spread penetration.
The last Censis survey on Media and Communication in Italy reported that 85% of the Italian Population are regular mobile users. According to Nielsen, in Q3 2008 the percentage of Mobile Internet penetration here had reached 14%, with an overall 28% increase over Q1 2008 (source: Mobile Media Europe: State of the EU5 Union, March 2009).
The Mobile Internet world is growing fast and using new generation cell phones such as iPhones and smartphones facilitates accessing applications and contents on mobile up to four times more than on less advanced terminals. Smartphone penetration in Italy was up to 28% in Q1 2009 (source: Nielsen Mobile Insights, Europe, Q1 2009).
As mobiles may be used all over new levels of perception are created. At the same time, the technological means to meet communication needs are provided. The man in the street needs to know what regulations are applicable at a given moment, what time the next bus is leaving, where to access Health Care services: the wheres, whats and, why not, how to make life easier and be in a position to access all the information they need concerning Local and Central administrations and feedback their ideas. All this summed up in two words: a Public Service.
Mobile communication gives Public Administrations an ideal tool to re-launch and empower their mission:
- Enabling a more transparent and engaging communication
- Helping create new services and increase the efficiency of those existing
- Broadening their reach in terms of user bases
- Cutting service deployment costs
What are tomorrow expectations in this field?
Success of mobile services will be driven by a series of factors that indicate an ideal path for the development of PA Mobile Services.
Lower access costs, paired with light interface design to optimize rendering speed, are the key factors to boost mobile navigation and favour widespread use of mobile networks to facilitate transactions and activities. The importance of connectivity costs is underlined by the recent findings on mobile phone usage reported in the Censis survey that shows how people reacted, during a year of economical downturn such as 2009. They started to use their cell phones for basic functionalities, such as voice and SMS, and at the same time cutting down on more sophisticated, expensive uses for example access to high-priced Internet traffic and mobile videos. Mobile services thus call for a joint action on behalf of network operators and authorities to offer more convenient rates and more flexible pricing models.
Context-aware services, such as geo-referenced services and mobility on-demand, will have a major role because of their ability to target users on the move. Pioneering initiatives such as the MIT Smart Cities and the ITS community show that mobiles can play a significant part in re-shaping intelligent and sustainable transport systems and services all over the world.
Seamless integration with other communication channels will also become a strong requirement as mobile web users often have a characteristic multi-channel usage profile.
Social networking is driving mobile Internet growth – 80% of the mobile internet users in Italy access social media consequently a stronger connection between social media and mobile government sites is also expected to come about.
These guidelines are reflected in our analysis of the present Italian Mobile Government scenario where ease of use, accessibility, context-wise content architecture and cross-media convergence are stressed as they are the best practices for Public Administration mobile sites.
Our analysis shows how promotion on offline channels combined with well-conceived social media campaigns represent a major means for attracting public attention and offer the advantage of useful feedbacks from citizens.
Other articles in this series:
- 1. Mobile government: the forefront of Public Services
- 3. The Italian case: best practices and missing steps to untap the potential of Mobile Government
About InnGov and Interact SpA
Inn-Gov is a research project focusing on M-Government started in 2008 by interact SpA and the Department of Information Engineering and Applied Maths at the University of Salerno (DIIMA). The target of Inn-Gov is to supply the guidelines for creating mobile services and develop a prototype of mobile application for a Central Administration.
Since 2002 R&D on Mobile Services is an integral part of Interact SpA’s own mission. we have developed solutions and followed R&D projects for users on the move together with major technological partners (Ericsson, Nokia and RealNetworks), institutions and Italian Universities (University of Rome La Sapienza, University of Salerno). Our R&D projects are centered on Mobile Internet and Web 3.0, with the aim of helping administrations create and implement new communication models based on technology. More information on http://www.interact.it
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