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Books and Publications

Martin writes and speaks extensively on government, service design, digital transformation and policy reform.

Selected publications

2020 Joint author, with Simon Cooper and Tom Burton, of “Government without portfolios will work wonders”, a feature for the Australian Financial Review on the next phase of public sector reform and digital transformation https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/government-without-portfolios-will-work-wonders-20200610-p55146

2019 Are We There Yet? The Digital Transformation of Government and the Public Sector in Australia (with Simon Cooper; Longueville Media, July 2019) https://www.arewethereyetdigital.com/

2019 Design matters: reflections on the growing influence of design thinking and practice in the public service and the implications for future workforce skills, capabilities and culture. A chapter in a new book from the University of Melbourne Reimaging the Future Public Service Workforce  https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-13-1480-3

2018 Lead author for Chapter 5 of the 2018 Annual Report from the Chief Medical Officer of England and Wales, Dame Sally Davies – Health 2040: Better Heath Within Reach – titled How Health Will be Experienced In 2040? assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/767549/Annual_report_of_the_Chief_Medical_Officer_2018_-_health_2040_-_better_health_within_reach.pdf

Responding to the new economy: an exercise in scalable learning (March 2016) Paper to the Western Australian Institute of Public Administration Australia

2017 We Need to Talk about the Web: A New Conversation about Technology and Society, IEEE.org, September 2017  http://technologyandsociety.org/we-need-to-talk-about-the-web/

2015 “Innovation in the Public Sector”, Australian Journal of Public Administration, with Tim Kastelle Vol 74 Issue 1, March 2015 63-72

2014 Changing Shape: Institutions for a Digital Age, with Lindsay Tanner (Longueville Press, February 2014)

2011 The Resilient Society: Innovation, Productivity and the Art and Practice of Connectedness, with Simon Willis and Albert Cho, IBSG, Cisco, August 2011

https://publicpurpose.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/WSU-senior-management-conference-July-2016-002.pdf

Martin also wrote an essay series for The Mandarin on major trends impacting the role and performance of government:

Social media

https://twitter.com/martinsw

https://au.linkedin.com/in/msweeks

https://www.instagram.com/

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We need to talk about the Web

I wrote this paper based on a “reflect and report” role at Brave Conversations, a 2-day Web Science 2017 conference held in Canberra, Australia.

The conference, convened by Intersticia and the Intersticia Foundation, was supported by the Web Science Trust, the Ethics Centre and the Australian Information Industry Association.

The paper is not an official conference summary or report.

Although it integrates the insights and ideas that emerged over the two days, it does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of any of the participants.

Its purpose is to provide a sense of what was discussed and to provide a starting point for further discussion of these ideas in subsequent and continuing “brave conversations” both in Australia and around the world.



Attachments: Web sciences paper MSWv2.0FINALApril2017

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Reflections on digital government

I gave an interview to Intermedium as part of a series of conferences they ran late last year to explore the next phase of digital transformation in government.

Themes were around mutual respect, humility and the need for digital innovators to understand deeply the contours and constraints of the world they seek to unsettle.

It’s a paradox, I guess, that innovators have to invest heavily in getting under the skin, and showing real respect for intrinsic complexity and contention, of the cultures they then seek to change, often dramatically.

I also explored a couple of other ideas, one of which is captured by the challenge for government more and more to “be digital” as opposed to “do digital”, however well.  And the other reflects a view that, in the end, the future of government is government (as opposed to the notion that “the future of government is digital”).

The interview is in two parts and there is a short preview video as well (all available at this link)



URL: http://www.intermedium.com.au/events/martin-stewart-weeks-preview-video

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All about disruption (without mentioning Uber and AirBnB)

These are the slides I used to contribute a session on disruption as part of the 2016 senior management conference with Vice Chancellor Barney Glover and members of the senior management conference at Western Sydney University.

The backdrop took four big themes as the frame – the age of distrust, the end of power, the transition from scaleable efficiency to scaleable learning in the face of the “big shift”, and the inescapable conclusion that, in a world grown too big to know, “the smartest person in the room is the room.”

The slides will give you a sense of the other places I went to prompt a discussion about what, in the face of these trends and forces for change, universities should be doing and what they should become.

Some of the references in the slides:

HireUp – reinventing disability support services; where eHarmony meet PayPal

The Ledger – a thought experiment from the Institute for the Future about what might happen when education meets blockchain

Theory of the Business – Peter Drucker’s 1994 HBR article which is still one of the best expositions I’ve read about the fundamental task of any organisation or institution – to match its capabilities to its mission to its environment.



Attachments: WSU senior management conference July 2016 (002)

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Keep the faith: there’s a real risk this might work (The Mandarin)

A response to Tom Burton in The Mandarin about the progress, or lack of it, in digital disruption in the federal public sector.

“Tom may be right in the end and we will simply have to expect less in the endeavour to change the way we govern. And perhaps there are irreducible complexities and fraught tensions deep at the heart of doing government well that can’t be glibly tossed aside by a mix of naïve, if well-meaning, digital enthusiasm. But it can be done well and it is being done well at an increasingly impressive pace and scale. I have seen leaders and organisations in government who are already on the case. Their work and ambition suggests there’s a real risk it could work.”



Attachments: Mandarin-piece-response-to-Tokm-Burton-MSW-July-2015[1]