Digital skills now essential across most government communications roles

Back in 2009 I predicted that government communications professionals only had about 10 years to gain social media skills or become unemployable.

At the time I received quite a bit of scoffing and pushback from senior communications professionals in government. They believed that digital wouldn't grow very fast and would remain a minor component in agency communications. I was told that I was "overblowing the value of social to government" and that their non-digital skills would remain valued for decades into the future.

I reiterated my prediction in 2014 - giving government communications professionals only five more years and broadening the prediction to digital communications skills.

This time the pushback was a lot less, though I still received comments from a few communications specialists. They told me that digital would remain a specialist area and that there would continue to be places across government for professional communicators who neither touched nor understood digital channels.

Recently I've been speaking with several recruiters in the government communications space and they're telling me my prediction was wrong - the change has happened faster than I had predicted.

They've told me that senior communications roles that don't require an understanding of digital or how to integrate digital with traditional communications channels in strategic ways, are now rare.

While digital specialists are still often grouped together in a specific 'Online' or 'Digital' team as a vertical area in communications, an understanding of digital is essential across all government communications officers - whether senior or junior.

As such I'm now calling it on this prediction - I was right about digital becoming an essential skill for communicators, but wrong about the timeframe, being too conservative in how long it would take agencies to embed digital at the heart of their communications. Rather than ten years, it took seven.

This clears the field for me to make a few new predictions.

For example, how long until other government professionals need to have strong digital skills to remain employable. For example I give HR officers two years, policy officers five years at most.

I also expect to see the slow death of dedicated Digital or Online Communications teams. These teams were originally created because digital was 'foreign' to most communicators. These teams required specialist skills and knowledge and, when originally created, worked at a different tempo to traditional communications teams.

However as digital skills become both universally held and required, Digital communication teams become unwanted bottlenecks, as they are split serving every other Comms team in an agency.

Also these teams remain unusual in that they are organised around a channel (online or digital) rather than around a functional goal - such as Corporate, Campaign or Internal communications. We saw the death of 'Television' and 'Radio' teams decades ago (yes they really existed). Even 'Print Publications' teams have disappeared in many agencies.

Therefore I expect to see the number of Digital communication teams slowly fall over the next ten years. They will be reabsorbed back into functional communications teams who now all possess the skills and knowledge that formerly was the domain of a few. Some specialist 'digital' roles will remain, but these will be connected to function, not channel - such as Engagement, Production, Analytics and Design.

So what does this mean if you are a digital communications specialist in government?

In my view you will have two choices.

Either become a hyperspecialist in a particular area of digital, such as analytics, engagement or crisis management, where specialist skills and experience will continue to be valued. You may end up becoming a freelancer, consultant or contractor, providing your expertise on-demand to agencies and other organisations where needed, or retain a role at a larger agency with limited opportunities for growth without stepping beyond your specialisation.

Or broaden your skills to become a strategic communications generalist, who can work across all communications mediums with a high degree of expertise and skill. These are the people who will be promoted in agencies and attract the best contracting and consulting rates, but there will be fierce competition as communications professionals from backgrounds other than digital compete for the same roles.

Time will tell if my new predictions are accurate, or if these changes occur faster or slower than I expect. What you can be sure of is that the communications landscape will continue to change.

Building skill in new mediums and platforms will not be wasted effort. Whereas standing still in the face of rapid change is always a risky proposition.

Read full post...

View summary...

The BOM website now includes ads - should other government sites?

Back in July 2008 I wrote a blog post asking whether government websites should feature paid advertising.

No, four and a half years later, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has taken the step of adding paid advertisements to its highly popular website (one of the top 20 sites in Australia) in a trial detailed in this page of their site.

Depending on how the trial goes, advertising may become a permanent feature of the BOM's main site, and it is even conceivable that other government agencies might start considering a similar approach in their high sites.

However is paid advertising appropriate for government websites, and if so, what limits should apply to the type of ads shown?

The BOM has, in my view, taken a sensible and sensitive approach to its advertising trial, forbidding the display of a range of advertising material that might offend community sensibilities (perhaps a list of exclusions that commercial sites should consider as well).

This includes prohibitions on:

• tobacco, gambling, lotteries or advertising promoting the consumption or sale of alcohol, 
• advertising that causes offence or incites hatred of any individual, group or class, 
• advertising directed at children 17 years or younger, 
• advertisements glorifying, or delivering for the purposes of entertainment, scenes or descriptions of non-consensual pain, suffering, death, torture or ill-treatment of humans or animals, 
• advertising relating to bombs, guns, ammunition and other offensive weapons, 
• advertising containing sexually explicit content and/or sexual innuendo and/or advertising containing offensive language, 
• advertising that is misleading or deceptive or be likely to mislead or deceive, 
• advertising that contains a misrepresentation which is likely to cause damage to the business or goodwill of a competitor,
• advertising that is defamatory, and 
• advertising of a political nature.

The BOM has also made it clear that advertisements do not imply endorsement and that they won't place advertisements on warning pages - meaning that people visiting the BOM to learn about weather warnings won't necessarily have to view ads at all.

This approach is one which could be quite readily adopted by other government agencies, whether at federal, state or local levels, and provides a good beginning platform for any agency that is considering including paid advertising in their sites.

However it still leaves the big question - should government feature paid advertising in their websites at all? Certainly agencies don't normally include advertisements in their print publications or physical events.

One key factor will be the community response to ads on the BOM's site - whether the public believe that government agencies should do this and whether it damages their standing or reputation. 

We already have some preliminary anecdotal feedback on this via Crikey, who asked its readers for their views and received a number of responses - all but one negative towards the approach. 

While I can't really share this input (available in Crikey's email newsletter), a couple of views expressed were that public services were already paid for and so should be provided free to citizens, and if agencies were so skint as to need to advertise, the government needed to raise taxes.

Another is whether agencies can make money on advertising. While the BOM is an extremely popular website year round, few other government sites consistently rate in the top 100 websites visited in Australia. 

Certainly the ATO's website has periods of high traffic around tax time, and both the APS jobs and Centrelink site have consistently strong traffic, other sites - even Australia.gov.au - don't attract that much traffic and it may not be commercial for advertisers.

Third there's the question of how the revenue is used. If it disappears into general revenue, or results in government reducing the budgets of agencies, forcing them to make up the difference with advertising, I'm less inclined to think advertising is a good idea on government sites. I believe advertising revenue should be retained over and above an agency's budget and should be primarily directed to improve the agency's websites and the services provided through them. In this way there's an incentive for agencies to both support (appropriate) advertising and to continue to improve their websites, delivering improved experiences to citizens (the main goal), and thereby attracting more traffic and increasing advertising revenue.

Finally, while the BOM has done a great job of defining what is not acceptable and has the right to refuse or pulldown any ads which may cause offense, there will always be advertising that sits just inside the acceptability criteria, however may still cause offense or reputation damage. 

There's not really any way to predict this, however carrying objectionable advertising - at least right now - will call greater attention to a government department than it might to, say, a media outlet - who may have greater latitude on what they can allow, or have an interest in not carrying stories about objectionable advertising in other media outlets in case they damage their own interests.

All these factors aside - should government agencies support advertising?

In 2008 my position was to make this an open question to readers - essentially sitting on the fence myself.

From 2008 until now there'd been no research testing the concept of advertising on major government websites in Australia - no evidence to indicate whether the approach would be accepted by Australians, be profitable and manageable within government reputation tolerances.

I have now come off the fence somewhat in favour of advertising on government 

I am very glad the BOM is holding this trial as it will allow government to test the concept and come to a sound, evidence-based conclusion. 

Depending on how this trial goes, I am prepared to come off the fence and say that it is fine to advertise on government sites, provided that advertising is commercially viable, and the funds earnt are used to continue to improve the online services provided by the agency.

What do you think, and would a successful trial affect your view?

Read full post...

View summary...

TubeRank helps reduce the risks in creating viral government content

Viral content - content which gets shared across the internet and media very quickly (like a virus) - is often a controversial area of communication for organisations. While the approach can result in massive attention and awareness it can also lead to massive risks.

What if the content doesn't go viral, wasting your investment? (Like these nine viral failures)
What if it goes viral, but not in the way you'd prefer, damaging your reputation? (such as Witchery's girl with a jacket or Nestle's pedobear)?

Unintentionally viral content can also raise concerns, such as when Minister Shorten supported the Prime Minister, though it can have benefits, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister's 'misogyny speech'.

The concerns and risks around viral content have sometimes nobbled efforts to bring this approach into government campaigns. In fact the entire hit and miss of viral content makes it appear a high risk strategy for most organisations.

That said, agencies are still successfully employing viral techniques - such as the Dumb Ways to Die video from Victoria Metro (which reportedly has reduced 'dumb behaviour' by 20%) and the memes used in their Facebook pages by FaHCSIA and Queensland Police's What tha Friday Photos.

So are many companies and brands - as AdNew's Viral video chart (which is also powered by VAN) demonstrates at www.adnews.com.au/campaigns/viral-video-chart

So what if the risk of viral content going wrong was reduced? Would more agencies consider creating viral content?

I reckon so and that's what a new service from the Viral Ad Network (VAN), a sister company to Delib (for whom I am the Aussie Managing Director) now offers organisation.

The free TubeRank service is an online tool designed to assist organisations identify characteristics and approaches that help them create their own viral successes - reducing the risk of a viral dud.

TubeRank works by allowing creatives to select triggers (goals) and interests (audiences) for a campaign. TubeRank then provides relevant viral video examples, tips and a downloadable PDF tactics report on how to go about approaching the creation of successful viral content.

While TubeRank doesn't guarantee every viral will succeed, it improves the odds and helps reduce the risk of failure.

I've included the TubeRank tutorial video below and you can try out the service at http://tuberank.joinvan.com

Read full post...

View summary...

What the Facebook ruling from the Advertising Standards Board (that comments are ads) means for agencies

There's been a lot of commentary this week in the media around the decision by the Australian Advertising Board (ASB) to rule that the comments of fans published on an brand's Facebook page are actually advertisements and must comply with industry self-regulation and consumer protection laws.

In face the ruling states that Facebook, and other social media tools, are advertising platforms - which may come as a surprise to long-term users of these services.

The ASB ruling is available as a PDF here. It involved Smirnoff Vodka and stated that content (comments and photos specifically) appearing on the company’s brand Facebook page constituted advertising, regardless of whether the company or members of the public posted it.

That's right - the ASB ruling states that all user comments in social media may be advertising.

The basis for this ruling was a recent legal decision:

The view that brands are responsible for consumer created content on their social media  pages has been supported by a recent decision of an Australian Federal Court (Australian  Competition and Consumer Commission v Allergy Pathway Pty Ltd (No 2) [2011] FCA 74)1  that a health company was responsible for Facebook and Twitter comments by fans on its  account in defiance of a court order that the company not make misleading claims about its  allergy treatments  The Federal Court concluded that Allergy Pathway was responsible for third-party comments where it knew of them and made a  decision not to remove them from its Facebook page 

Therefore as Smirnoff had the technical capability to moderate user comments on its Facebook page, it had an obligation to do so. If it did not moderate user comments which made untrue claims about the company or its brands (as well as sexist, racist or otherwise unlawful statements) it was guilty of false advertising.

The apparent consequence of the ruling, for organisations who participate in the ASB's self-regulation scheme, is that they are now required to moderate all comments by individuals on their brand and corporate Facebook pages, other social networks, blogs, wikis, forums and social media channels in which they have the technical ability to do so.

This requirement may even potentially extend to platforms outside their direct control but where they can identify and request untrue (or otherwise uncompliant) comments about their company or brand to be removed - such as on Facebook pages or forums moderated by people outside the organisation (such as members of the public).

Some facts

The Australian Advertising Board is the directing group over the Advertising Standards Bureau body appointed to oversee the self-regulation of advertising in Australia by the members of the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA).

It is a body independent of government and independent of advertisers. It is not underpinned by any government legislation or policy and it is a voluntary organisation which participating associations, corporations, advertising agencies and other bodies agree to abide by.

Decisions by the Board are neither legally binding nor, necessarily, reflective of government policy.

Where a participating advertiser does not abide by an ASB ruling (which is apparently very rare), the ASB can "liaise with industry and media bodies such as FreeTV, and the Outdoor Media Association which will either negotiate with the advertiser directly for the removal of the advertisement or in specific cases, take action to remove the advertisement."

The ASB may also refer advertisers to an appropriate government body and recommend a course of action.

However the ASB and its secretariat - the Advertising Standards Bureau - has no direct enforcement power, nor any ability to force other parties (such as industry bodies or government agencies) to take action.

Putting the ruling in perspective

This ruling needs to be considered seriously by ASB participants - corporations and advertising agencies in particular.

They need to have a long hard look at whether they can afford to maintain social media channels with the risk that anyone in the community who comments in a channels they can technically control - including, potentially, their competitors - can cause them a world of pain by posting untrue things about them.

I'm not sure if governments participate directly in the self-regulation scheme, however it would be bad form for agencies to ignore direct rulings against their advertising by the ASB.

Is it 'right'?

This is my opinion, but the ASB's position doesn't stand up to scrutiny in a technical, practical or fair sense.

It is based on 20th Century thinking whereby organisations control the channels, and therefore the conversations, with audiences.

In reality this control has slipped almost totally out of the hands of organisations due to the internet and particularly due to social media. Organisations can (and should) control their direct statements, however they can't control the statements of other entities and individuals, beyond having some influence and oversight based on Australia's legal framework around defamation, slander and copyright.

Redefining individual comments as 'advertising' is highly problematic and is a disservice to the already weak freedom of speech provisions in Australia.

If I say on my blog that the Honda Jazz is the best car ever made, it is reasonable to assume that this is my opinion, not an advertisement. If I made the same statement on Honda's company Facebook page this remains my opinion - I am simply directing it at the people who made the car, in tribute to them.

Of course there is an exception if Honda has given me money, privileges, or a Honda Jazz - in which case my comments are advertising and need to be treated as such. (Note that Honda has not given me anything and I've never driven a Honda Jazz, nor wanted to)

Of course this is just about a car - a product. How about if I say on a government Facebook page that, for example, "I think the Fair Work Act is the best workplace relations bill in the world". Would this have to be moderated and removed as, despite it being a potentially heartfelt personal opinion, it is considered advertising (aka - has no facts to back it up)?

Isn't 'opinion' by definition a personal view which may, or may not, be supported by facts?

Apparently not. It's advertising. Hmmm...


Let's take practicality. On a Facebook page with 15,000 fans, 1% being active any week, that's 150 posts to moderate. Assuming it takes 3 minutes on average to assess each, it will take 450 minutes, or 7.5 hours, solid work to moderate all content.

That's possible with a single part-time, trained, moderation officer.

Now let's consider the Tourism Australia Facebook page. It has 3,375,675 fans. If 1% are active in any week, that's over 37,500 posts to moderate. Based on 3 minutes per post, it takes 112,500 minutes, 1,875 hours, or 250 person-days (based on a 7.5 hr work day) to moderate. Each week.

On that basis, Tourism Australia would require at least 50 people (plus extras to cover for leave) to moderate the page to get rid of user 'advertisement' comments which are not evidentially statements of fact, such as these real comments on the page right now:

• "A very blessed country. It has almost all the best things in life. I love Australia"
• "Australia the land of grace and tranquility"
• "Best country in the world"
• "better hurry to this Whitsunday resort before it too is closed like so many of the others"

What have others said?

Generally industry bodies have come out cautiously and indicated that companies need to digest the ruling and consider its implications.

Those experienced in social media have been less cautious and mostly said the idea won't work (though a minority have said it just reinforces what brands already had to do).

Here's a few articles on the topic as a reference:

• Watchdog clamps down on Facebook
• Facebook ruling poses challenges for advertisers
• Rethink forced on the use of Facebook by brands
• Brands forced to get Facebook trolls under control
• Making Social Media accountable
• ASB rules brands are responsible for all fan comments on Facebook
• Facebook page comments must pass advertising laws

Read full post...

View summary...

How Aussies are using social media - latest Sensis report

Thanks to a tip off from John Sheridan at GovCamp yesterday, I'm happy to report that the latest Sensis figures on social media use by Australians are out - and the numbers have continued to increase.

Sensis reports that 62% of online Australians are using social media, with 97% using Facebook - roughly the same numbers they reported last year.

However use of LinkedIn (16%) and Twitter (14%) has surged - with some interesting state-by-state results, particularly in the ACT where we're above average Twitter users (25%) but below average LinkedIn users (8%) - compared, for example to NSW where 19% used Twitter and 26% used LinkedIn.

There was also interesting information on the engagement and expenditure by business on social media channels - with 82% of large businesses having a Facebook page, 71% having a Twitter presence and 30% and 29% respectively using LinkedIn and YouTube (though a disappointingly 13% had a blog) and spending on average 4.5% of their marketing budget (or around $100,000) per year on the area.

If you consider the expenditure of the Commonwealth Government on advertising alone for 2010-11 was $116.9 million dollars (from the Parliamentary Library report, The administration of Commonwealth Government advertising), then the Commonwealth, to reflect the expenditure of large Australian companies, should be spending at least $5.2 million on social media.

59% of large businesses expected to spend more in social marketing over the next twelve months (an average 12% increase in spend), with only 2% planning on cutting their investment. The funds for increasing social marketingwas coming from print (38% - sorry newspapers!), TV advertising (10%), radio advertising (10%) - though 29% indicated nothing would be cut and 24% were unsure where the funds would come from.

Of course, as comms budgets are often reported by program rather than by agency, the amount spent on communication is generally much higher - as would need to be the social media spending to compare.

It was also interesting to see that 53% of Australians accessing social media were doing so on mobile phones - compared to 54% on desktop computers, indicating how quickly Australians are moving to mobile devices for their social interactions - no surprise considering that social is mobile, for all intents and purposes.

It was also good to see that social media engagement and activity was being controlled predominantly by marketing (64%) and communication (17%) areas, rather than IT (5%). Government still has a way to go in this space to find the most effective balance of control and management, reflecting the skills and the security required for effective online engagement.

Social media success is still largely being measured by likes/followers/subscribers (67% of large businesses), while positive social media conversation (17%), usage (11%)  and brand sentiment (7%) remain quite low. Only 39% of large businesses reported measuring return on investment for social media and only 28% of large businesses were using third party statistics providers with another 11% using in-house statistics, indicating there's still a great deal of ad-hoc or non measurement going on.

You can see the full report and statistics from the Sensis media release The Yellow Social Media Report 2012, and I have attached the infographic to the right (or view the larger version).

Read full post...

View summary...

Global Data Science Hackthon - Canberra Event - 28 April 2012

I have just been alerted of the event below, well worth attending for any public service and data types. And there are prizes!

Are You a Smart Data Scientist? Participate in this Hackful Event. 24 Hours of Non-Stop, Fun Data Science Competition.

The aim of the hackathon is to promote Data Science and show the world what is possible today combining Data Science with Open Source, Hadoop, Machine Learning, and Data Mining tools.

In addition, the event’s aim is also to promote the sense of community, team work, and free spirit competition for the sake of Data Science.

Who: Hackers, computer scientists, programmers, mathematicians, statisticians, econometricians, data miners, YOU!

What: Use your smarts to compete against teams from around the world and win the title of "Global Data Science Hackathon Winner 2012" as well as some great prizes!

When: The venue opens from 8.30 pm on Saturday 28 April, and the competition kicks off at 10pm Canberra time on Saturday 28 April. You then have 24 hours to hack the data and win! Throughout the competition, there will be a live leaderboard (the competition is hosted by kaggle.com)

Where: Register for the Canberra event http://meetup.com/DSCanberra/events/57837482/ (nb registration is required but free!)

Why: For fun - a chance to test your skills against the best and participate in a global event.

How: Register on the address above and get your laptop ready for some serious data science hacking!

We will provide the venue and internet access. You bring a laptop and your data science hacking smarts! During the competition, we will be running venue based mini-events, talks and competitions. And we will have a video-hookup with other venues around the world.

Read full post...

View summary...

The elephant in the room

In case you've not read it yet, Steve Davies wrote an interesting piece on the government's grapple to adapt to and adopt Gov 2.0 thinking and practice. Published in the Canberra Times and Brisbane Times, the piece highlights that the elephant in the room is the culture of the APS, which is not always supportive of new ways of thinking and doing. It is worth a read. The article is titled The paranoia that will shut government.

Read full post...

View summary...

We need to stop talking about social media disasters and talk about management failures

I am beginning to get a little tired of all the headlines in the media about 'social media disasters'.

A social media disaster is when Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Blogger or another social media service goes offline for an extended period of time, has user account information stolen or loses data.

These are all situations where millions of people are inconvenienced or worse due to a social media platform not 'just working' as we expect it to.

However what the media generally talks about when referring to a 'social media disaster' is when an organisation or individual behaves unwisely or inappropriately and is caught out by its customers.

Whether it is Vodafone, 2DayFM (Kyle Sandilands), Qantas, Woolworths, Westpac or the latest 'victim' Curtin University, the 'social media disasters' these organisations have all faced are management and communication issues.

Their issues are due to decisions or choices the organisations have made which have been communicated poorly and viewed unfavorably by customers and the public.

Certainly people are now using social media to express their outrage and concern, however this is because social media allows the public the ability to express their views in ways not previously possible.

Social media services do support light-speed dissemination, which can amplify issues. In particular social media has proven an excellent tool for connecting people together - including those with concerns that otherwise organisations could dismiss as 'isolated incidents'.

However social media is rarely creating legitimate concerns. Qantas grounding its fleet, Westpac sacking staff and raising interest rates, Vodafone having network issues, Kyle Sandilands abusing people on air and Curtin University giving an honourary degree to a hated figure all occurred regardless of the existence, or not, of social media.

If organisations wish to succeed in a world where the public has a louder voice than ever before they need to stop blaming Facebook and Twitter for their troubles and look at their own management and communication strategies.

They need to stop considering social media and their customers as 'the enemy' and instead treat them with respect. Listening to what they want and executing accordingly - or developing effective communication strategies to explain why they didn't execute in the way people wanted.

Organisations need to stop fearing the tools and embrace them. Join conversations, acknowledge their faults and move discussions into constructive areas - engage, engage, engage in multi-way dialogues.

So let's all stop talking about social media disasters and focus on the reasons organisations get into trouble (online or offline). Let's have a long hard look at who is making management decisions and the process used to inform them. Let's carefully consider how organisations communicate and the strategies and tactics that underpin them.

Focus on what is controllable and practical - an organisation's management and communications strategies - not the response of the public online AFTER the organisation has already made a decision.

Read full post...

View summary...

Reflection on Mia's Facebook presentation from Day 1 of Social Media in Government

I'm only here for a few presentations today at Informa's Social Media in Government conference, so are blogging rather than liveblogging the presentations.

First up this morning is Mia Garlick, now at Facebook and previously with experience in Commonwealth Government and with Google.

She's talking about using Facebook in government.

Mia has started by talking about how Facebook is a social graph for for connections between people & between people & organisations.

She says that researchers recently tested the six-degrees of separation

Mia says there are 800 million users globally of Facebook - counting users as those who check into Facebook at least once per month. Over 10 million Australians are in that group and over 50% of these users (globally and in Australia) access Facebook daily.

Mia says that Facebook has several valuable uses for government including for identity, engagement and advertising.

Identity refers to representing agencies online. Mia says the best approach is to create a page. She says that the page mechanism includes an option for government organisations via the Corporate and Organisation option.

Mia says it is important to understand the difference between a profile and a page - profiles are for persons, pages are for organisations. Profiles are multidimensional, when people friend each others' profiles they see each other's information.

Pages are unidimensional, when people fan a page the page owners don't get to see the fan's details.

Mia says it is important to curate pages. She says that Page administrators cannot turn off comments as Facebook is about engaging in social behaviours, not avoiding them. However people can create blacklists of words and profanity filters to manage comments and develop a policy and terms of use for the page. Mia says that administrators can also mark comments as spam or abusive.

She also says it is important to get senior executives across what is acceptable commenting. She says she has had senior government officials contact her asking for pages to be taken down as someone commented that "the government was stupid". She essentially said - let it go, people say this kind of stuff from time to time, does it really hurt you or reflect on them?

Due to the nature of Facebook, people don't often see your page - they see snippets of content in their newsfeed. Mia says it is important to ensure these snippets are interesting and engaging to make a Facebook page effective.

Mia says that the number three thing talked about in Australia on Facebook for 2011 was "Census" and number six was Victorian floods" (in their "memeology" list) - showing that government cannot ignore the channel as people are using it to discuss topics and issues that government is deeply invovled with.

She's now talking about South Australia's Strategic Plan and how they used Facebook to support engagement and feedback.

She says that while in government we are used to writing a large report and releasing it in a consultation with a list of questions, many people don't engage well or respond in this approach as it is overwhelming and they have limited time. The South Australian government broke the Strategic Plan into bitesize chunks they wanted feedback on and released them individually for people to respond to. Mia says this was very effective for South Australia, with over 1,300 comments received for one particular chunk and over 500,000 citizens reached via Facebook, with 10,000 participating.

Mia says that the South Australian government recognised that they engaged a new group through Facebook that they could not reach through traditional engagement mechanisms.

She's also given an example of Facebook advertising in Canada and how it can target specific demographics or geographic locations quite effectively.

Finally, Mia is highlighting the Facebook 'Coming together' page on peace which provides a view of how people are connecting and engaging across wars.

Mia also says that around 80% of Facebook users are using privacy setting in Facebook, which helps to create a separate between work and personal identities.

Read full post...

View summary...

Only professional scientists can do science, only professional journalists can do journalism, only professional policy makers can create good policy - not anymore

I attended the Australian Science Communicator's new media forum last night, participating on the panel as a Gov 2.0 Advocate, along with a distinguished group of science communicators and academics.

One view expressed on the panel was that while scientists should communicate basic science to the public, the uninformed masses should not be involved in reviewing or doing science.

This reflects views heard in other professions over the last ten years - that bloggers should not do journalism or critique journalists and that the public should be kept at arms length in government policy development as they don't know enough to provide a valid contribution (explaining why some resist the use of consultations and policy co-design is rarely used across Australian governments).

This viewpoint by intelligent and highly skilled professionals is not, in my view, surprising. Anyone who has dedicated years of their life, slogging through universities degrees, post-graduate studies and climbing the job ladder knows they have earnt the right to do what they do. Anyone who hasn't put in those hard yards is often viewed with suspicion, even disdain.

This is partly a recognition that there's 'secret knowledge' and expertise required to undertake some of this work, however it can also be partially ego-driven - experts often define themselves by their expertise as it feeds their sense of value.

The changes in the last ten years have permitted many who don't have formal learning or specific career experience to learn about and contribute in fields such as science, journalism and policy creation. This can threaten some experts (who are often quite public about the divide between professional and citizen activities)

However for many others it presents opportunities to broaden their reach, tap into wider collective expertise and to build knowledge and understanding. This in turn can lead to greater influence and better outcomes - even greater funding or profits or positive social change. Greater understanding can also reduce the fear of 'otherness' and concerns and suspicions around elitism - which have dogged certain groups, such as scientists, in recent years.

Even more than this, people who are not acknowledged as experts often can provide a different view of challenges and different approaches to solving problems that sometimes experts, who can become locked into a particular professional worldview, or lack relevant broader experience, cannot see. This can lead to breakthroughs or new realizations.

Regardless of whether individuals support or oppose this trend of 'encroachment' of 'amateurs' into formerly elite fields, the trend is real - isn't it better to harness it rather than resist it?

After all history has demonstrated the fate of organisations and individuals who resisted social trends. They generally are not with us anymore, or exist in much diminished and niche forms.

Read full post...

View summary...

This week's social media score - Public: 3 Organisations: 0

This has been an insightful week for organisations using, or considering using, social media with three successive events demonstrating how far power has shifted to the public and illustrating how Australians companies are struggling to engage effectively online.

First up was Qantas with its poorly timed "Qantas luxury" promotion. Qantas launched the Twitter competition by inviting the public to tweet their idea of travel luxury using the hashtag #qantasluxury.

However Qantas appears to not have recognized that the tens of thousands of negative comments levied against the organisation since their shutdown represented a deep seated frustration and disillusionment with the company. Even though Qantas had hired four additional staff focused on monitoring social media the week before.

Within minutes of Qantas's tweet announcing the competition the public hijacked the hashtag and turned it against the company, using it to vent their concerns and frustrations at the airline.

This was picked up by traditional media and covered widely, turning a small ($1,500 in prizes) competition into what was called a national PR disaster for Qantas.

Next was Nissan, whose online competition, managed through their Facebook page, went pear-shaped when the winner of the competition turned out to be good friends with one of Nissan's staff running their social media presence.

While the competition was totally above board, with the winner selected objectively by finding the most car graphics on websites, unfortunately the winner's friendship with the Nissan staff member made it appear otherwise.

Nissan themselves were very upfront about it - indicating that while they congratulated the winner they'd have preferred if he hadn't won, but he'd done so fair and square without breaching any competition terms.

In this situation Nissan's approach did a lot to mute the concern, however it demonstrated the issue of friendship networks. If you're a staff member operating social media channels for an organisation it is highly likely you have many friends online. So what do you tell when a new company competition launches? You let your friends know online so they can spread the word and increase the competition's reach. Entirely above board, however risking a backfire if your friends can gain advantage by being first into a competition.

Third, and most significant, has been the social media backlash against the Kyle and Jackie O show following the comments of Kyle Sandilands regarding the deputy editor of news.com.au after her article about the reaction to Kyle and Jackie's TV special (which rated extremely poorly).

The backlash, much of it under the hashtag #vilekyle, has led to around a dozen companies deciding to withdraw their advertising from 2DayFM and sponsorship from the Kyle and Jackie O show - even the Federal government has now withdrawn all advertising from any show hosted by Kyle Sandilands.

Over 15,000 people have signed an online petition calling for advertisers to drop support for Sandilands and a number of people (myself included) have called for Southern Cross Austereo to let Sandilands go. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, however the loss of significant sponsors and advertisers will place significant pressure on the company to reconsider Sandiland's contract and on air presence.

All three examples above this week demonstrate different risks in social media.

Qantas failed to monitor and accurately assess the public view, selecting the wrong social media approach to attempt to rebuild its brand. Nissan made an easy misstep, selecting a competition mechanism that raised the risk of someone close to a staff member winning a prize, however by handling the situation in a proactive and robust way minimized the damage and emerged largely unscathed despite initial public concerns.

The Sandilands incident (which remains ongoing) demonstrates how public outrage can translate into the need for rapid organisational action, both through advertiser withdrawal and the attempts by Sandilands and Austereo to apologies for his behaviour (albeit fairly weak apologies that have not satisfied many online). In this case even though Sandiland's comments were made on radio, not on social media, the backlash occurred online and neither Kyle nor Jackie O, nor their employer Southern Cross Austereo, were prepared to engage with the public online response, whereas many of the sponsors and advertisers did, helping to minimize damage to their own brands.

None of these events impacted the government or public service - and in fact there's never been a significant social media disaster due to online engagement by public servants or agencies in Australia (I don't include media attacks on public servants such as by News Ltd on Greg Jericho) - however they all have lessons for government agencies to learn.

It is important to recognize that being absent or unresponsive online and in social media is no protection against public outrage (as the Sandilands incident shows), and failing to monitor online sentiment is a recipe for PR disaster (as Qantas demonstrated). However if organisations act with good faith, communicate and engage actively (as Nissan and several advertisers from the Sandilands issue did), they can minimize the impact of social media gaffes and build strong online relationships with their customers.

Read full post...

View summary...

In traditional organisations, innovation often appears to happens at the wrong end of a gun

When I think back over the most well known innovation successes over the last few years, and I am not specifically referring to the public sector, an aspect that springs out at me is how often these innovations occurred during a major crisis or due to a funding crunch.

In other words, these innovations frequently happened when organisations were placed at the wrong end of a gun.

It appears to me that often these innovations only occurred, or were allowed to see the light of day, because the pressure put on organisations by environmental or internal changes altered the perceived risk of innovating to be less than the perceived risk of not innovating - "the ship is sinking anyway, so we might as well try something different.

This raises several major concerns for me. Firstly that some organisations are incredibly resistant to innovation and can place themselves, or their management, into unviable situations by not beginning to innovate soon enough.

Secondly if the leadership of an organisation can see this conservative at work but wish to see innovation occur they may draw the conclusion that they need to place the organisation in significant distress - cutting budgets or hoping for (stimulating?) an external crisis that threatens its future viability.

This places enormous stress on individuals, with all kinds of negative consequences.

Isn't it better for organisations to proactively institutionalize innovation and change processes? Become capable and willing to change before a crisis occurs? To make innovation a key strategy for organisational adaptation rather than a last resort when system failures are already well underway?

This would involve changing the view of innovation to be an activity that is rewarded as a behaviour and activity, rather than being one that is punished, except at the organisation's "death's door".

A few organisations have successfully integrated innovation into their DNA as a core driver of their success. I hope more do so in the future and, at a larger scale, more societies as well.

Read full post...

View summary...

Treating bloggers right

Many organisations still haven't cottoned on to the influence of a number of blogs or how to appropriately approach and engage with them - including PR and advertising agencies who should know better.

I was reading an excellent example of this the other week, from The Bloggess, where a PR agency not only approached with an inappropriately targeted form letter, which indicated the agency hadn't even read her blog, but responded to her (relatively) polite reply with an annoyed response.

The situation really escalated, however, when a VP in the PR agency, in an internal email, called her a "F**king bitch" (without the asterisks). This email was accidentally (by the VP) also CCed to The Bloggess.

The Bloggess took a deep breath, and responded politely, however then received a torrent of abuse from the PR agency.

At this point she published the entire exchange on her blog - in a post that has already received 1,240 comments, has been shared on Facebook 8,397 times and via Twitter 5,328 times.

Her comments have also been shared widely and her post read by many of her 164,000 Twitter followers.

The Bloggess's post is a good read - particularly for government agencies and their PR representatives - on how to behave appropriately when engaging bloggers, and the potential fallout when they don't.

I'm also keeping a link handy to 'Here's a picture of Wil Wheaton collating papers' for those PR and advertising agencies who send me form emails asking me to post about their product or brand promotions on my blog (and yes there's been a few in the last six months - all Australian agencies).

Read full post...

View summary...

The world needs new forms of journalism and news distribution

While this post is a little outside the usual topics I cover in this blog, I thought it touched on enough to publish it. Also it is so long that The Drum may not publish it as a comment on their article Murdoch kills paper, bodycount continues - and note that if it is published, I am not the only one that uses that particular username either. Other comments at The Drum or other news sources under the same username may not reflect my views and comments.

As I am a former paid journalist and author and a card carrying member of the Media and Arts Alliance (my card says 'journalist' as their membership system doesn't yet support the term 'blogger') I reckon that I have as much right to comment on this topic as anyone else.

I have also made a few edits that I could not do in the system for The Drum, so it is not quite the same as my article comment. Call it journalistic license.

The world needs new forms of journalism and news distribution.

Past models, such as small independent papers in each geographic region and, more recently, large international centralized machines with a focus on revenue not facts, do not work in an age where every individual can report and distribute to a global audience.

What must be preserved is the goal of journalism, to inform and enlighten people about the important events shaping their futures. Not the formats - news 'papers', 'radio' 'stations' or 'television' 'channels' or the funding system - advertising.

Where advertising is focused on influencing people through half-truths, opinion and spin, bright colours and sounds, sitting it alongside responsible, factually-based reporting of news is particularly dangerous. In my view the dominance of advertising and the gradual degradation of factual 'news' into 'infotainment' has a lot to do with the difficulties of placing facts and spin side by side on a daily basis.

News collectors and distributors in the future need to have a commitment to truth.

They need to be able to get their content to a global audience. Use relevant channels.

Licenses for spectrum or for citywide news distribution are dead. Cross-media laws are dead. I watch more television on newspaper sites than on television channels.

Governments have (and continue to) push media laws and licensing schemes which attempt to avoid anyone gaining too much power across mediums. This brings them enormous revenue and gives them implicit control over who may criticize them (too negative and we revoke your 'license', then the facts you distribute are suddenly illegally distributed and you can be prosecuted for distributing them).

Governments need to change this position. Separate the functions of the infrastructure (bandwidth and broadband) and the news gatherers and distributors (journalists).

The public merely needs to do what it is already doing - voting with its feet.

Regardless of the efforts of media moguls to increase their global reach and build news empires to control the messages people receive, or the efforts of government to manage and message messages to reflect what they wish believed, people now have the means to bypass the massive journo-political machine and source their news from anywhere at any time via the web.

The reality is that media organisations, as they exist today, are zombies - dead but still walking from their momentum, in search of new brains.

Governments, particularly repressive ones, are resorting to more and more drastic means to control their populations' access to the true free media - the Internet. Today they shut down services or cut the Internet to prevent the truth from spreading. Tomorrow they might ban universal literacy to limit the number of people who can read or think. They will also fail to contain journalistic freedom - which involves the freedom for any individual at any time anywhere in the world to report and analyze the events and happening of today and distribute it to anyone else in the world.

Journalism has ceased to exist as a profession of the type typified by lawyers, doctors and engineers. Today 'professional journalism' is literally defined by whether you are paid to write news for distribution to others. It does not represent a critical set of skills, a body of study or work or even a quality level that is met and must be maintained. in fact more degree-qualified journalists work on what journalists often consider 'the dark side' - corporate or public communications, spinning messages to journalists rather than reporting news.

All the claims of journalists that they perform an important function of interpreting current events for the common person is simply a way of saying 'we are smarter and more articulate than you - you cannot understand your world without our intervention'. That kind of arrogance in an age of almost universal literacy and high school education, simply because paid journalists have more time to read and write news, is both ludicrous and affronting to 'common people'.

Journalists need a better way of defining their profession if it is to remain one (potentially based on the quality of their writing and thinking and their independence from commercial concerns).

Media is an amazing mess at the moment, and has an enormous transformation ahead. The question is whether governments, media organisations and journalists will write and carry out this transformation, or it will occur regardless, dragging them reluctantly into a new world that none of them would choose.

Read full post...

View summary...

Why don't advertising budgets match audience behaviour?

For a very, very long time (more than ten years) I've been asking marketers and communicators in commercial and public sectors why they invest so heavily in producing and showing advertisements for channels which fewer and fewer people are watching and invest so little in the newer channels emerging.

In most advertising budgets there's still a massive amount for free-to-air television, moderate for radio and newspapers, a comparative small amount for online, cable or mobile advertising and virtually nothing for social media engagement.

Of course there's price differences - the cost of producing and screening a single television advertisement is far greater than that to produce and screen a web video for a month.

There's also a difference in how advertisements are developed. Television and radio are one-way mediums, with the focus on gaining attention and communicating a simple message in 1 minute or less - whereas cable advertising can be more interactive and online even more so (except for display advertising online, which doesn't have a good record of success in Australia).

The last few years of research on Australians have demonstrated that the internet is our number one medium, particularly for under 35s, however advertisers are still focusing their efforts on television - perhaps because that's what the older decision-makers watch.

This discrepancy has been brought home to me again by the Mumbrella piece, Natalie Tran: Bigger than free TV, on Natalie Tran, a 24 year old student on YouTube who, in the second week of March, received 876,106 views.

As Mumbrella pointed out,

If she’d been on free TV, she’d have been the 42nd biggest show of that week, based on OzTam’s data.

She had more viewers than Nine’s Customs (876,000), Sunday’s edition of ABC News (872,000), RPA (868,000), The Mentalist (863,000), RBT (856,000). And indeed Top Gear (818,000).

A couple more interesting figures comparing Top Gear's channel on YouTube with Natalie's Community Channel:

Top Gear’s YouTube channel uploads have delivered 193m views. Natalie Tran’s Community Channel channel 357m.

To Gear’s direct channel views – 15m; Community Channel, 47m.

Top Gear’s channel’s most viewed clip – 5.9m; Community Channel’s 34m. And no, I haven’t got the decimal point in the wrong place.

Surely it is time to begin shifting the budget a little further, and trialing out more interactive initiatives than Simply. More. Display. Advertising.

Read full post...

View summary...

Online video ads more effective than TV ads

This week a colleague made me aware of a study conducted by Nielsen in April which found that online video ads were significantly more effective than TV ads amongst US viewers.

Reported at ClickZ (but for some reason not widely reported by traditional media), the article states that,

The research company conducted over 14,000 surveys evaluating 238 brands, 412 products, and 951 ad executions, and collected data on general recall, brand recall, message recall, and likeability. The results suggest that for each metric, consumers reacted better to ads delivered via online video than they did through traditional TV.

Nielsen says the increased impact could be attributed to the nature of the viewing experiences offered between the two platforms, with online video viewers often more "engaged and attentive" to the content they are consuming.

This wasn't a small impact either - online ads were on average more than 30% more effective per the chart below.

To learn more about how people are watching video, I recommend reading Nielsen's report, How People Watch: A Global Nielsen Consumer Report.

Read full post...

View summary...

The art of leveraging small announcements to drive Government social media engagement

Governments love big announcements. Billions of dollars in spending, bold new projects and initiatives, launches and major events.

These types of announcements are believed to be the best way to cut through the media storm, attract journalist interest and public attention.

These big announcements appear to work well for traditional media channels, that are always chasing the next big story. However the approach does not work as well in social media channels.

The first difference to consider is that when launching a new initiative a government department can reach out to existing traditional media channels with existing audiences. However in many cases a government department may not yet have aggregated their audience online, making it much less effective.

The big launch tweeted to a dozen followers, or posted on a Facebook page that has only been liked by the families and friends of departmental staff, won't create the type of stir intended and may even send an incorrect signal that it isn't worth engaging via social media channels.

Secondly big announcements tend to require much preparation, approval and timing. This makes them annoyingly difficult to release online at precisely the same time as a Minister steps up to a podium to deliver his speech. Even if you release the online announcement at precisely the right moment, it may take minutes, hours or even days (for web domains or searchable information) to become available to the audience.

Thirdly, big announcements are usually rare and there's large gaps between them. While in traditional media the news will be filled up by all kinds of other announcements and events, on a department's social media channels there is no other news to release, leaving them looking sporadic and disinclining audiences to follow them closely.


What I advocate governments departments do is to by all means make the big announcements, particularly via traditional media to create interest and drive people to an online channel, but also use social media channels to make series of regular small announcements through the life of a campaign or program to sustain and grow online interest.

Laurel Papworth demonstrated how this can work in her recent blog post, #1: Mistakes Companies Make on Twitter TIMELINES VELOCITY, where she illustrated the difference between social media and traditional media in several charts, which I have embedded.

If you're managing an information campaign then you have a range of information available and approved for release. Whether you're releasing videos, publications, factsheets and FAQs or rolling out and completing many small projects within a bigger one, break up your information into 'bite sized' (usually single themed) chunks and distribute them, a few at a time, through your social media channels.

Some people say they have nothing to say, or get concerned that their information may be 'old' because it is already in their website. However it is important to realise that while they might be very familiar with their web content as they visit and think about the website all the time, their audience does not. Every useful, practical, challenging and interesting snippet of information can form the basis for a tweet, a blog post or a Facebook announcement. In some mediums each snippet of information can be published several times through a month - such as on Twitter, where people are not watching your every tweet.

By feeding your social media channel with these small and regular snippets of information (but not too often - no more than a few tweets or one or two posts or Facebook announcements each day) you give your audience a reason to sign-up, to revisit, to share your messages with their friends and to engage with you.

These small announcements can lead into important conversations, giving you even more opportunities to engage in meaningful dialogue and to listen to the views of your audience as they reflect on the information you have provided.

Even more important, when you do have a big announcement, you'll have a pre-prepared, engaged and interested social media audience ready to listen, reflect, share and engage, improving your reach and cut-through and demonstrating how effective social media can be to reach audiences directly without relying on journalists to cover your big announcement.

Read full post...

View summary...

UK Labour and Liberal Democrat parties crowdsourcing election advertising

Now that the UK general election has been called, it will be interesting to see the role social media will play in a Westminster election, compared to the US's last Presidential election.

One of the first examples of how this election will use social media has been demonstrated by the UK's ruling Labour party, who held a three-day web competition inviting supporters to submit advertising ideas for an election poster.

They received over 1,000 ideas in three days - in itself a great awareness building exercise.

The Liberal-Democrats are also crowd sourcing election advertising as well at Art Creative, although this competition is still in progress.

Back on Labour's competition, as reported in Campaign's article, Labour picks winner of crowd sourcing competition as Tories launch counter campaign,

The winner, 24-year old Jacob Quagliozzi from St Albans, devised a poster depicting David Cameron as the 'Ashes to Ashes' character DCI Gene Hunt, along with the headline 'Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s'.

Saatchi and Saatchi helped on the program and in a quote reproduced in Blur's post, How Can British Politics Adapt To The Crowdsourcing Model?, said that,

"We are learning that the way to do communications is not to tell people what you want them to hear but to let people play," says Richard Huntington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi. "This is the sort of thing that all marketers ought to be exploring right now."

Another key quote from the Blur post sums up my thinking on government online engagement both for political and departmental purposes,

For Crowdsourcing to have a genuine effect on the British political system, the parties must not jettison their crowds until the next election campaign comes along. Crowds take time to develop and to see Obamaesque effects, they must be interactive and innovatively maintained during a Parliament term.

Engagement needs to be ongoing to build an audience and drive effective outcomes rather than 'turned on and off' like a tap as our campaigns are today. The turn on/turn off approach means that governments pay more to build an audience and don't leverage ongoing community interest in topics (such as defense, health, education and immigration) at a low ongoing cost in order to reduce high communications costs during major campaigns.

Below is the video produced in support of the winning UK Labour competition entry:

Read full post...

View summary...

The future of publishing - perhaps

This video reflects some of the sentiments I hear from time to time about young people - and provides an alternate view.

Thanks to Crikey for making me aware of it:

Read full post...

View summary...

Judging the quality of a Gov 2.0 / social media event

In the last week four separate Gov 2.0/social media conferences have crossed my desk. All claimed to provide a line-up of star speakers with important insights into these topics.

Clearly all events vary in quality, but when looking at relatively new areas, like social media and Government 2.0 how do you select those that will give you value for money. Teach you useful material and provide practical examples?

Here's how I judge them....

First I look at the topic covered throughout the event.

If there is emphasis on areas like 'Email marketing', 'Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)' or similar non-social media/Gov 2.0 topics it is likely that the organisers don't understand these topics or are pushing a different agenda.

Next I check the social media support

If the brochure doesn't specify whether there will be wi-fi available, if there's a Twitter tag, liveblog or a social media group for participants to discuss topics before, during and after the event, check with the organisers. If they don't understand what you mean, they probably don't have the knowledge to consistently select good speakers.

Finally I look at the speaker list.

I look for speakers who either practice Gov 2.0/social media in their day-to-day role, or who are active participants in social media - with their own blog, twitter account, profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn or other services or participate in forums. I also check for indicators that they regularly use these channels in effective ways, via looking at the frequency they publish, how long they've been publishing for and how interesting their comments are.

If a Google search doesn't turn up their name with a link to any social media site it is quite possible they don't 'do' social media - they simply talk about it. You wouldn't take your car to a mechanic with clean nails, don't expect to learn much about Gov 2.0 or social media from someone who doesn't practice what they preach.

I also look for speakers from social media companies themselves - but carefully. It pays to check that they are going to give practical examples and suggestions rather than simply advertise their service. This can be hard to judge from briefs in event brochures.

I am very cautious about speakers from management consultants, web developers and advertising agencies. All of these organisations have begun to step into social media and Gov 2.0 spaces, however from the evidence I've seen to-date, most approach it from the perspective of their other work ('creative messages', 'quality control processes' or 'building cool tools'). In my experience not that many of them really know what they are doing in social media and very few understand Gov 2.0 (though some are very very good).

So when you receive your next invite to a Gov 2.0 or social media event, take a good long look at whether the event organisers and the speakers walk the talk.

If they do you'll probably learn something valuable during the event - and you might even see me in the room :)

Read full post...

View summary...