Posts
Four years ago Government 2.0 was a barely known concept in Australia and social media was regarded by many in Canberra as a youth fad.
President Obama made social media 'cool' for politicians by using it as a key plank in his run for office. Since his election he has spearheaded a Gov 2.0 agenda of increased transparency and engagement which is in the process of transforming the US government.
In Australia, we saw social media used in a basic manner in the 2007 election, with senior politicians starring in their own Youtube videos, beginning them with "good morning" and MPs were proud of their garish MySpace pages and email lists.
The public service also began using social media more widely around the same time, although a few early adopters were already blogging or using other social networking tools.
Gradually, through 2008 and 2009, more government agencies began adopting new media approaches to communicate with their audiences. In particular state governments such as Victoria's led this charge, engaging their citizens in online consultations and competitions.
Agencies such as Geoscience Australia and the ABS began adopting Creative Commons licensing, making much of their data available for public reuse - free.
The Gov 2.0 Taskforce, launched in July 2009, brought active Federal Ministerial support and increased awareness to the area, culminating in the Taskforce's widely read Final Report which provided a set of recommendations to advance Gov 2.0 adoption, the majority of which have been adopted by government.
This was followed by the APS Reform report, Public Sector Innovation Report and the Freedom of Information Amendment legislation, each playing its part in encouraging government to be more open, engaging and interactive online.
Today there's over 200 Australian Twitter accounts from government agencies, well over 50 blogs and at least 30 Facebook pages, not to mention various forums, competitions, open data feeds and other Gov 2.0 initiatives and activities that are underway.
Much of the Federal activity was actively support by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, who initiated the Gov 2.0 Taskforce and whose portfolio includes AGIMO (the Australian Government Information Management Office). Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was also a supporter and set an example for his Ministers with his blogs and online chats.
We've now seen the first Australian transfer of power in the Gov 2.0 age, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard taking over the reins of the Australian Government and Minister Tanner indicating he will retire at the next election.
The roots of Government 2.0 have been growing in the public service, however experienced talent is still few and far between and budgets are tight - Gov 2.0 still requires nurturing and support to thrive, particularly if the soil became less accommodating.
This raises a serious question for Government 2.0 advocates and practitioners both inside and outside government. With new political leadership, how deep is the commitment to Gov 2.0 approaches to openness and engagement? Who will drive the momentum at a Federal Ministerial level into the future?
This question is compounded by an impending election which may see the present government change its shape a second time, or potentially be replaced by one of another persuasion.
This will make the next year an interesting one for Gov 2.0 in Australia - we may see it thrive or die back.
What do you expect to happen?
Friday, June 25, 2010
With a change of leadership, what's next for Gov 2.0 in Australia? | Tweet |
Friday, June 11, 2010
Reinventing website perfection | Tweet |
Traditionally, in my experience both in the private and public sector, the way to build a 'perfect' website has been considered to be;
invest a large quantity of resources, personnel and time at the start of the development process,
use this investment to build all the functionality that the developers can dream up, write all the content the communicators can think of and test it with audiences,
launch the 'perfect' website and hope it works, and then
replace the website (fixing most of the bits that failed) after 3-5 years by repeating the process again.
Personally I've never liked this approach. It places a lot of reliance on using past knowledge to guess future (organisational and audience) needs, involves investing a lot of resources upfront with limited ability to terminate or redirect projects until after they have failed and it also results in websites that degrade in effectiveness over time which can lead to progressively greater reputation and legal risks.
I'd like to see the process for developing a 'perfect' website reinvented. The new process must involve a low upfront cost, the ability to be flexible and agile to meet changing needs quickly and be capable of making a website more and more effective over time, improving reputation and reducing legal risks.
But how is it possible to achieve all these goals at once?
The answer is actually quite simple and well understood by successful entrepreneurs.
Rather than aiming for a perfect site on release day after an extended development period, the goal is to quickly build and launch a site that meets at least one critical audience need.
Once the site has been launched, ensure there are tools for monitoring how it is used and identifying user needs. Then progressively build extra functionality and write more content, guided primarily by the needs of your audience.
This approach ensures the site has enough value at launch to be successful, albeit in a more limited fashion than a 'kitchen sink' website (with more functionality at launch). It also ensures that the website grows progressively more useful and relevant to the audience you aim to serve.
In this way the site becomes increasingly perfect in a more realistic way - perfect for the audience who use it, rather than 'perfect' for the stakeholders who think they know what different audiences want.
We see this approach taken with all kinds of websites and products - from Apple's iPhones through to online services such as Gmail.
It's time to see more of this approach used with government websites as well.
After all - don't we want to create the 'perfect' website for our audiences' needs?
Monday, May 24, 2010
Infallability, government and Web 2.0 | Tweet |
Many rulers, from the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the Czars of Russia, were seen as almost infallible leaders - divinely selected and empowered to lead their people. To question their wisdom, strength or decisions was often an offence that could be punished by imprisonment or death.
Most modern states are more lenient, however governments still place a high value on being seen to be authoritative, knowledgeable and, on occasion, infallible.
So what is the impact of new media on a government's aura of infallibility?
For a long time traditional media has been keeping governments honest. However it has relied on a relative few number of reporters providing information through an even smaller number of distribution channels. Commercial interests, limited access to information and various other restrictions have, on occasion, left many government decisions and policies with little scrutiny.
Now, with Web 2.0, almost every citizen is also a journalist and publisher. This makes it possible for almost the entire population of a modern state to keep its government under constant 24-hour scrutiny and analysis, covering almost every decision and policy.
How have governments responded to this?
Some have taken a censorship and imprisonment route, attempting to limit debate and scrutiny by imprisoning, or worse, the most vocal citizen critics.
However this isn't a route that many democratic states could (or would) choose.
Instead democratically elected governments can choose to embrace public scrutiny and, rather than attempting to maintain an illusion of infallibility, become learning organisations who acknowledge that they can continually improve their performance.
This is a huge mindset change for those in governments used to the limited scrutiny of traditional media. The change can take some time to embrace.
At the moment while some governments and their agencies have embraced scrutiny as an opportunity to improve their service delivery, policy and operations, others are still conflicted. There are still situations where some individuals in various governments attempt to control and close down public discussions or limit internal transparency through self-censorship and restricted internal communications channels.
These conflicted agencies are, in many cases, doing more harm to themselves than good. When it is publicly visible that the Emperor has no clothes, that a particular topic is of community interest or facts about a situation (potentially including videos, financial analysis and/or expert opinions) are freely distributed online, attempts to limit statements to an agency line can backfire.
In other words, attempts to protect an agency or Minister through controlling information can, instead, create greater risks to them. This activity can damage reputations, expose them as out-of-step or, in extreme cases, result in rolling heads.
Government agencies increasingly need to resist the need to control all flows of information and focus on ensuring that accurate information is available wherever people are having a discussion. They need to ensure that the community has access to the facts - both when government is right and when they are wrong.
This limits the damage of false claims and myths - when government has indeed made the most correct decisions. Equally it limits the damage and distress when government has made mistakes. This approach allows government to retain the respect and trust of the community, particularly when errors are quickly detected and corrected.
Possibly the greatest challenge for public servants related to this shift to open disclosure and less massaging of messages is that it is happening right now.
The Australian Government's Freedom of Information reform law was passed on 13 May this year, Victoria has begun adopting Creative Commons licensing in a proactive disclosure approach for public sector data and NSW's government recently appointed an Information Commissioner and the NSW Premier has directed Ministers and Departments to set "an example of unprecedented openness".
This makes it imperative for agencies to recognise that their environment has changed and adjust their internal processes as quickly as possible.
Monday, April 19, 2010
When public means public - Australian political party members suspended from social networking sites | Tweet |
The last week has seen several incidents where members of Australian political parties has been suspended from social networking sites and outed in the media for making controversial comments.
Most recently Nick Sowden, a Young Queensland Liberal National Party member, referred to US President Obama as a 'monkey' on Twitter. His tweets were widely discussed online and covered in the media, such as in this Brisbane Times news article, Monkey Business can come back to bite.
Mr Sowden has claimed that his tweets were intended to be a parody of far right US views and that his friends understood that he wasn't racist - although other Twitter users may not. Crikey quoted him as saying "There’s no point sitting behind the veil of political correctness."
It appears that Twitter closed his account after receiving more than 150 complaints about his tweets and the latest reports suggest that Mr Sowden may also be expelled from the Young Queensland Liberal National Party party.
Also in the news was Dave Tollner, a Country Liberal Member of the Northern Territory Parliament. Facebook suspended his Facebook Page for two weeks after he wrote that itinerants were "parasites terrorising innocent citizens".
Covered in the NT News article, Dave booted from Facebook, it is as yet unclear if Mr Tollner's account will be reinstated anytime soon.
The NT News reports that Mr Tollner had said that: "Political correctness has never been my strong point."
Both these cases demonstrate the interesting period we're entering in Australian government.
Both politicians and public servants are beginning to use social media both personally and, most recently, professionally - however few of them have significant experience engaging via online media in this way.
The situation lends itself to a variety of risks such as over or under-moderating comments, reacting to statements in social media channels in disproportionate ways, funny or sarcastic side comments that are taken literally and not understood in context and the differences in personal interpretations of 'political correctness'.
It is very easy to consider social network updates as 'throwaway' lines to friends, even when people recognise intellectually that their comments are public statements and may be viewed and assessed widely by the public and media as well as misunderstood and misrepresented.
This type of issue isn't limited to social networks or online media. There's a long history of radio, television and newspapers reporting candid personal statements recorded when the microphone hasn't been switched off. The US Vice-President's comment to the President during the health care bill signing (where he swore) was one of the most widely publicised recent examples.
With social media this issue can become more complex - with social networks people are 'always on', making it harder for them to keep their guard up all the time.
While there are some guidelines being put in place, there's still little training or support to help people new to these channels to understand how to use them appropriately or effectively - like the media training available to help people respond appropriately in front of a camera and reporter.
There's also limited guidance available on which channels and tools to use for particular purposes, or how to keep public and personal life separate (using the various privacy settings available in many social media tools).
I hope that soon we'll see widespread social media training and coaching for people in the public eye to help them understand that on social networks public means public.
Until then I expect to see many more gaffes from all types of public and semi-public figures - politicians, celebrities, business leaders and from public servants - as they come to grips with the ropes of how to effectively and appropriately communicate via social media.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Why does government struggle with innovation? | Tweet |
The Public Sector Innovation Network email list (run by the Department of Innovation - you can subscribe from their website) sends out some very interesting articles about innovation every week.
This week one in particular caught my eye, a piece entitled The Biggest Obstacle to Innovation that looks at inertia and how this may have greater impact in a public sector context than in other situations.
The article's author, Tim Kastelle, argues that government has many disincentives to overcome inertia. With no profit motive, no threat of organisational failure (an agency going 'out of business' - rather than the threat of a front-page news item) and where there is often a deeply entrenched non-innovative culture, there's simply no pressure for government to innovate.
I often wonder how it would be different if departments were established on the basis of profit - with the government paying multiple departments to provide services and the departments competing to offer the same services at the best possible price.
This has some equivalents - governments frequently pay commercial providers to deliver services on their behalf based on value and service levels and in many jurisdictions pays not-for-profits on a similar basis.
Of course it could lead to duplication of effort and greater instability both in employment and departmental survival - but aren't these key factors driving innovation?
A stable, monopolistic environment doesn't tend to lead to innovative behaviour and tends to increase its bias to inertia over time - actively preventing innovation to maintain the status quo. We've seen that again and again both in the commercial and public sectors. Civilisations have failed due to their institutions being unable to respond rapidly to environmental and social change.
Perhaps a hybrid model is feasible - having departments with core responsibilities and then having 'fringe' services bid on competitively by departments for management rights. Whoever gets the rights would be responsible for delivering that service and would be 'paid' for delivery in a way that allows the department to take excess funds and funnel them back into core activities - and appropriate compensation for staff (personal gain - whether monetary or through social credit - is a key factor in innovation).
This hybrid model already exists in Australia in some ways. Often a lead agency is appointed as the manager and budget holder for cross-government initiatives. However there's unlikely to be a competitive bidding process whereby departments compete to demonstrate they can deliver the best value.
If innovation is becoming a core attribute required by government organisations, merely to keep up with the rate of change in society and the development of new ways to deliver services and fulfil public needs, perhaps we need to rewrite some of the rulebook, sacrificing part of our desire for stability in return for greater change.
Maybe this won't be such a large sacrifice anyway. Government departments often restructure due to internal or external pressures and already need to react to our fast-changing world. Stability is becoming more and more of an illusion and constant change more a reality. The need for public servants to be biased towards action, as Tim discusses, is becoming greater and greater.
Constant change has negatives and can be very uncomfortable for individuals used to stable environments, but if we can harness it to drive innovation in our policy development, service delivery and in how we organise and operate the instrumentality of government it may also uncover some major benefits.
What do you think - should we trade public sector stability for innovation?
Monday, April 05, 2010
Canberra University moving towards Gov 2.0 post-graduate and under-graduate course | Tweet |
We've seen a boom in Gov 2.0 seminars and events over the last year and several prestigious US Universities already offer post-graduate courses on Gov 2.0 topics.
However, to my knowledge, Australia's formal educational institutions have largely been silent on when (if ever) they might begin offering courses that aid public servants, potential public servants and the many companies and professional individuals that are now working with Australian governments any formal qualifications on Gov 2.0 related matters.
I've long been an advocate for having more formal training options such as these available, particularly for more senior public service members, to help them fully consider the strategic consequences and accurately model risks for Gov 2.0 initiatives in light of emerging best practice.
While formal education isn't the only way to learn how to employ Gov 2.0 techniques, having university-scrutinised recognised courses provides a level of implied guarantee of quality of learning, which is useful when suggesting new and innovative approaches to conducting government business.
While it is entirely understandable that universities tend to lag workplace education needs - the drought in Gov 2.0 qualifications might be about to end. The University of Canberra (UC) is beginning to explore the opportunity to provide professional education in this area.
As a Canberra-based university which is already notable for its social media commentators such as Michael de Percy and Julie Posetti, I personally feel that UC is well-placed to lead in this space.
To be fair, the ANU also has at least one high-profile social media lecturer, Tom Worthington, who has also been running some notable courses.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Innovative government use of Twitter highlighted in case study | Tweet |
The GovTwit blog has put me on to the latest case study in Twitter 101 (where they showcase how organisations are using Twitter in innovative ways).
It's on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who are using Twitter to monitor earthquakes as they occur - an early detection system that is proving to be much faster than seismic instruments (at least in populated areas).
The case study, Science for a changing world, reflects some of the discussions I had with Geosciences Australia last year. Geosciences Australia were looking at how they could use social media to detect the human impact of natural disasters and perhaps even identify small earth tremors in populated areas where there are no seismic instruments nearby.
In the USGS's case they are simply listening for mentions of earthquake related words and using them to map the extent of human-felt earth tremors. They also say that,
In sparsely instrumented regions, they can be our first indication that an earthquake may have occurred.
There are many other examples out there of ways that government agencies are using social media in innovative ways to serve the public good.
I just wish I saw more examples of Australian governments putting these uses into practice rather than largely finding them used by overseas jurisdictions.
Many Australians tell me that we are early adopters of technology, highly creative and innovative. Those statements only become true if we prove them every day.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
If you are a communications professional who chooses not to use social media, will you have a job in ten years? | Tweet |
I'm beginning to see more and more organisations and their various advertising and PR agencies look seriously at social media as a core communications channel for their campaigns and other customer, client and citizen engagement activities.
This is beginning to make me wonder how communications professionals who know little or nothing about social media will continue to be able to give good communications advice to their employers into the future.
If you don't use social media, how can you critically assess its comparative worth as a communications tool? How can you help your employer avoid and rebound from embarrassing social media mistakes?
Of course there's an argument that you needn't be hands-on with a medium to know a good strategy from a bad one, however this doesn't stand up. Today's communications professionals have grown up consuming traditional mass media from an early age - radio, television and print. While they mightn't be hands-on as in running a TV channel, radio station or newspaper, they have 20+ years experience, starting from early childhood, of normalising their use of these mediums.
This level of immersion, together with theoretical and practical experience, goes a long way to help long-time communications professionals make good decisions and critically assess communications options.
However if these communications professionals aren't using social media they aren't developing the same level of familiarity with new communications channels.
Where will this leave them in ten years time, when we have university educated communications professionals who have been using social media for up to fifteen years seeking more senior roles?
Some of today's experienced communicators will move far enough up the chain so that they can rely on their subordinates to exercise this judgement. Others will leave communications altogether for other pursuits. However most will potentially find themselves unable to function effectively as communications professionals - and may face more limited career options.
If you're a communications professional aged 40-50 and expect to be working when you're 50-60, it is probably worth considering whether you should step out of your media comfort zone and start building expertise in social media - by getting hands on.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Microsoft 'strongly recommends' customers upgrade web browsers from IE6 to IE8 to solve security issues | Tweet |
In their strongest advisement yet, Microsoft Australia has issued a "strong recommendation" through its Government Affairs Blog that customers upgrade from the nine-year old Internet Explorer 6 web browser to Internet Explorer 8.
This is because the security flaws now being discovered in Internet Explorer 6 are such that they leave organisations more vulnerable to successful co-ordinated hacking attacks - the potential theft of confidential or sensitive information and intellectual property.
The risk isn't from a 17-year old hacker in their bedroom, but from crime syndicates, corporate interests and, potentially, other governments.
Google and at least 33 other companies have experienced co-ordinated attacks, originating from China, in the last week. Google believes these attacks were launched, or at least endorsed by, the Chinese government - although they cannot prove it beyond doubt. However the concern is great enough that the US President has asked the Chinese government to comment on the attacks and Google is considering leaving China.
These attacks exploited a security flaw present in Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8. Microsoft reported that attacks only seem to be effective against IE6. Information out of Google agree with this, as do comments by other security specialists.
This security flaw has no fix at this time and it is unclear when a fix will be available.
Defence Minister John Faulkner was recently quoted in the media (including this Brisbane Times article) as saying that cyber attacks were a worsening global problem. "Cyber intrusions on government, critical infrastructure and other information networks are a real threat to Australia's national security and national interests."
Both French and German governments have advised their citizens to stop using Internet Explorer 6.
In Australia some government agencies are still using Internet Explorer 6 as their standard web browser.
So why do government agencies (and some large commercial organisations) still use a nine-year old web browser with dubious security, that isn't compliant with modern web standards and is soon to no longer be supported by major websites (including YouTube and Gmail owned by Google and Facebook)?
I can't speak for any agencies, however while most modern web browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5, Opera 10 and Chrome are free to users, there are often switching costs for organisations to change even free software on a large scale.
They may have designed internal software around a particular web browser or have costs associated with rolling out new software across thousands of computers.
Switching from IE6 in particular can be quite involved as it has a number of features (developed in ActiveX) that may be exploited by organisations in websites and other software. South Korea in particular built around Internet Explorer 6 and has had difficulties in migrating to modern browsers or operating systems.
There is also the need to test how modern browsers work on a network and ensure that their security models are understood so new vulnerabilities do not arise. This costs time and money - at a time when Australian government departments are expected to save money in IT as a result of the Gershon Report. It's another choice they have to make on where to allocate their limited funds.
Plus as many government agencies block sites like YouTube, Gmail and Facebook, citing concerns over staff wasting time (as previously was the concern over access to personal telephone calls), improving agency capability to engage in social media may not create any urgency to upgrade.
However, given the clear and present dangers linked specifically to Internet Explorer 6 I'm hopeful that 2010 will be the year where many Australian organisations still using this old, less accessible and insecure technology decide to implement modern web browsers.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Who are the 'media' anyway? The new reality of media engagement | Tweet |
One of the long established principles in government and big business is that only designated staff are allowed to represent their organisations when speaking to the media.
This is an extremely well-intentioned principle, designed to protect both the organisation and individual staff. The media is frequently more interested in sensation than truth and can twist innocent statements into major incidents. Even when truth and accuracy are the goal, some things may need to be kept secret (at least for awhile) for good reasons - to protect intellectual property, safeguard individual privacy, avoid giving the competition an advantage or to keep complex fast-changing situations from being presented in static and simplistic (or inaccurate) ways.
Professional journalists are, in some ways, trained interrogators (and sometimes executioners). It can take an experienced, well-trained and well-briefed organisational representative to navigate a conversation that will later be reported, dissected and analysed for flaws and inconsistencies.
This limited media engagement approach relies on a single very important factor - that the 'media' is a clearly identifiable group.
In the past it was easy to identify the media. They were the people who owned the media distribution channels - radio stations, television channels and newspapers and magazines.
Commonly journalists identified themselves based on the media outlet they were from - except when going undercover - and a good organisational media representative could relatively easily identify and, over time, build productive relationships with the leading journalists covering their topical material.
However with the introduction of the internet this changed. We now have a virtually free global distribution network topped by ubiquitious access to publishing devices - including video and photos (via mobile phones) - and usage rates in excess of 90% of western populations.
Every internet user is able to break news to every other internet user - via blogs, citizen news sites, social networks, chatrooms, forums, newsgroups, microblogs and other online media channels.
This news can then be picked up and redistributed by other internet users and may also be picked up by 'traditional media' - those radio stations, television channels, newspapers and magazines (who are thirsty for cheap content).
This makes the question 'who are the 'media' a moot point. The 'media' is now 'the public' - no longer a small group of large conglomerates controlling information distribution channels but every single person with access to a mobile phone and internet connection.
This poses a challenge for government and private sector organisations who traditionally limit media engagement by staff. All of their customers and stakeholders are able to produce, publish and distribute media news. So can their employees.
So if the rules of the past no longer apply, what can organisations do?
The first choice is to ignore the changes in the environment and try to enforce the rules that worked in the past.
This approach is enormously risky as it can lead to many gray areas and blind spots - plenty of room for inappropriate and inconsistent enforcement. Individual managers (or in the government, agencies) could interpret the scope of the 'media' differently - creating discrimination and a rising tide of dissatisfaction and legal controversy.
The second choice is to educate all of an organisation's staff on how to engage appropriately in public arenas.
This is a signficant, but not impossible, undertaking. In fact Telstra is in the process of doing this right now (regarding social media engagement), as are the US Defense forces and some government agencies and large companies around the world. This approach recognises that the media environment has changed and organisations must change with it.
The third choice is to - well I can't think of a third choice. Organisations can either recognise the realities of the world and accommodate change, or they can attempt to hold back or even reverse them.
The next few years will tell us which approach organisations have chosen - and how well they have worked out.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Learning from the online missteps of the private sector | Tweet |
Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang recently wrote about some of the latest social media 'reversals' experienced by companies, and has previously published a chronology of,
companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn’t understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant.There's no public sector organisations listed - however it's not much of a stretch to believe that many government departments are vulnerable to public damage in similar ways.
Note that in most cases the damage is caused by a lack of effective engagement, not from engaging - which some could conclude leads to a situation where not engaging online is significantly more risky than engaging.
A comment on Jeremiah's blog by Kersten Kloss sums it up for me (just replace 'company' with 'department':
Companies can no longer afford to avoid the social web as a communications medium. They need to become involved in it, to engage in the online world and mingle with their clients and peers. If you truly believe you are the best at what you do then you have nothing to fear by opening up to the social web. Allow yourself to be more transparent. Lead the rest by sharing yourself and offering assistance to others, even if that free assistance gives away some of your proprietary secrets.I often wonder how often non-engagement risk is considered in government programs alongside engagement risks.
If you can’t then you need to look deep inside your organization and fix a far more challenging issue, your stagnancy as an organization.
Or how often a clever, inventive and funny response is considered as a way to soften and mitigate an already existing situation. For example, EA's reply to the 'Jesus shot' bug reported and widely discussed online in a Tiger Wood's golf game - in the video below.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Creating a social media policy for your department - here's over 100 examples to draw on | Tweet |
Social Media Governance recently released a list of 106 social media policies that can be drawn on, including nearly thirty from government (including the APSC's Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation).
A lot of Australians now use social media - including staff in your Department, your customers and clients and many of your stakeholders.
The latest statistics, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, suggest that there are 8 million Australians using Facebook and over 1.5 million using Twitter.
A report from Neilsen also indicated that social networking in Australia has doubled in usage over the last year, with Australians having spent 1.6 million hours on these services in June 2009 (from 800,000 in June 2008). Taking June as an average, this means Australians are likely to spend almost 20 million hours using social networks in 2009.
I believe it is important that Government Departments place social media policies in place to make acceptable usage clear to staff.
It's no longer practical or reasonable for Departments to simply ban access to these services - as it's no longer practical or reasonable to ban phone calls.
Is your policy in place yet?
How would management of your website change if anyone could comment on or redesign it outside your control? | Tweet |
How would it change the management of your website if anyone could make an unmoderated public comment about any page at any time - totally outside your control?
How would your Minister and senior management respond if people could freely critique your content, pointing out any errors or misleading statements or airing their complaints (and compliments) publicly?
Or what if someone could redesign your website from the outside to make it better suit their needs, or to make a personal or political point - and then share this design with others?
This isn't just idle speculation - it's happening today.
Google recently launched its Sidewiki service which allows anyone at any time to make any comment on any website - visible to anyone else using Sidewiki.
This means that the public can hold a discussion on any page in any Australian government website completely outside your control.
Does that sound scary? It should if you're not aware of or able to participate in these conversations as needed.
Below is an example of Sidewiki in action - viewing comments in blogs related to the Whitehouse website.
At the same time, tools now exist that allow outsiders to redesign your website from the outside. For example the free Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox allows people to rearrange your content, or even translate the words into a different style (one recent popular script translates websites into 'pirate' speak) that becomes visible in their web browser. They can then share these rewrite scripts with others using the same tool.
Greasemonkey isn't the only tool that does this - and people are already writing scripts, such as this one to reconfigure parts of the National Archives website to display Australian government sites in a different manner.
This approach has been used to 'fix' the design of some websites which the community found hard to use - in several cases the website owner has even voluntarily made website changes based on these community suggestions.
It can also be used as a protest, adding, modifying or remove content from a website (as viewed in a user's web browser).
There's also organisations which externally redesign websites. In the US the Sunlight Foundation periodically redesigns a US Federal Government website to demonstrate how it could be done to work better. It would be simple for someone to do the same here in Australia.
In other words, while internally we control how we design and develop our websites - just as we carefully craft our media releases to say things the way we want - we can not control what people do with them once they leave our 'controlled' space.
Just as the media can pick and choose what material to use from our media release, the public has the ability to pick and choose what material they see in our website - and can comment on it outside our control.
People responsible for planning, developing and operating government websites need to be thinking about how these types of tools impact on how your official website is viewed externally.
So over to you for comments,
- What will you do if an organised group redesigns your website from the outside (either in a friendly or a malicious way)?
- How will you respond to comments that are visibly attached to your website?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Does your department have social media guidelines in place? | Tweet |
Various research reports have indicated that at least 50% of Australian internet users participate in social networks.
Forrester's Groundswell profiling tool suggests that 23% of Australians aged 18+ actively create content online; 31% are 'critics', providing comments and feedback online; and 50% are 'joiners' of social networks, forums and online groups.
So should we expect Australia's public servants - most of whom are internet users - to be any different?
It seems reasonable to me to assume that more than half of public servants are actively participating online - discussing topics of interest to them, leaving comments on forums, social networks and news sites and building their social profile.
We're also seeing more government departments officially employing social media to engage their customers, having staff who are responsible for creating and maintaining Facebook pages, blogs and other online presences on behalf of the department.
However how many government departments and agencies have formally endorsed and communicated the APSC's Interim protocols on online media use to their staff, or developed their own guidelines regarding social media?
What is the legal position of a department if it finds staff using social media in their own time in a way senior management disagree with but where there are no formal guidelines in place?
What is a department's effective position in situations where it is launching social media initiatives while simultaneously blocking staff from viewing these initiatives using departmental equipment? We don't block staff from viewing our radio, print or TV campaigns.
These are thorny issues for departments - particularly for those that are having to confront these issues on the back foot, rather than proactively assessing their situation and putting guidelines in place.
They will become even thornier if left unresolved - potentially leading to management/staff disputes, legal risks, media risks and political risks for Ministers.
So has your department taken steps to devise, endorse and communicate official guidelines on social media use? Or has it accepted the risks it is taking on by not taking these steps?
Thursday, August 27, 2009
28 reasons why organisations avoid social media - (try it as bingo) | Tweet |
Jeff Bullas has written a fantastic post, 28 Reasons Why The CEO Is Afraid Of Social Media, which lists many of the reasons given by organisations when resisting getting involved with online social media.
While he's followed up with another great post addressing many of these concerns, 9 Ways To Convince The CEO To Use Social Media and Enter The 21st Century, I thought his first post was so good that it deserved to be turned into a Social Media Bingo game.
Below you'll find Jeff's 28 reasons arranged on a single page, ready to be downloaded and used as Social Media Bingo.
If your organisation is still avoiding engagement with social media, see how many of Jeff's reasons apply - and let me know how many you managed to cross off!
Social Media Bingo
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Do we risk too much by risking too little? | Tweet |
Government by nature is risk-averse.
There's very good reasons for this, as many decisions made by the government are life-influencing for large numbers of citizens.
For example, a simple policy change can have widespread, even catastrophic effects on certain groups in the community. Equally, bold sweeping changes can have significant political impacts, not always to the benefit of the party in power.
Therefore it is generally safer (and often required) for government organisations to be cautious in decision-making - spending the time necessary to ensure that as many voices and views are heard and making the minimum possible changes necessary to improve the system without damaging peoples' lives.
However risk-aversion can have its downsides,
- change is generally slow to occur,
- new ideas take a long time to be adopted,
- decisions are sometimes considered in relation to risks alone - ignoring the benefits,
- organisational structures grow rigid and hierachical - attracting people who seek to strengthen the risk-averse culture and are more resistent to change,
- mistakes become seen as failures rather than learning opportunities,
- managing costs is progressively more difficult (as savings come from reducing functions rather than employing innovative solutions),
- the organisation can progressively become out-of-tune with it's customers and community - making it less effective at meeting its purpose.
Similar to the biological world, highly risk-averse organisations usually do better in stable and predictable environments which change slowly or not at all. Whereas more risk-tolerant organisations usually do better in fast changing and variable environments.
But here's the rub. Business environments are not uniformly stable or variable.
At any point in time some elements of an environment are likely to be quite stable - for example the laws and protocols defining an organisation's existence.
At the same time some aspects can be changing quite rapidly - such as the news of the day and the situations of customers and communities.
Other aspects may fall between the extremes, staff levels and skills and supplier prices.
One of the fast-changing areas is, naturally, online - which has evolved from basic text only bulletin boards twenty years ago (before the net) into real-time audio-video data exchanges today.
Where an organisation is risk-averse it is likely to be slower to enter the online arena, or make use of the tools and techniques available. This leaves the organisation behind the current trends in the community, potentially leaving many citizens frustrated and annoyed (as they cannot simply go online to do what they want to do).
Even worse this risk-aversion can lead to an organisation struggling to keep up, not having the inhouse expertise to fully understand and realise the benefits of emerging solutions that could save it significant costs or improve service delivery, or leaving the organisation potentially facing much larger 'catch-up costs' in the future.
In other words, by applying a risk-averse risk management approach to highly variable situations, an attempt at risk management can achieve the reverse - increasing the risk for the organisation.
So how does an organisation address this?
In my view it means we need to consider the rate of environment change in our risk management strategies - applying the appropriate approach for the environmental element.
Therefore while many areas within an organisation can make do with a risk-averse management approach, there must be sufficient flexibility within the system (or a different system entirely) for fast-changing and variable areas, which need a more risk-tolerant approach.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Shifting from Gov 1.0 to Gov 2.0 | Tweet |
Sometimes it is difficult for those of us who are new to the public sector to really appreciate the scope of the changes required to transition government institutions and cultures from a 1.0 to 2.0 mentality.
It's not simply a process of mandating a directional change from political levels (though this is an important and needed step) and educating public servants and elected officials to the benefits, and risks, of Government 2.0. There is also a process of change required across well-established practice and culture, processes, policy and legislation, not to mention transforming the systems and mechanics of government to suit the new global age.
All of this must be done without damaging the ongoing business of government - the provision of services, maintenance of infrastructure and management of all the behind-the-scenes activities that government is responsible for.
The Washington Monthly has published an excellent article on this topic, looking at the challenges faced in the US during this transition, which is being driven very strongly from the top.
The Geekdom of Crowds looks at how some of the mechanisms of Government 1.0 are pushing back on Government 2.0, reducing the effectiveness of government transparency and data sharing and the impact of citizens who are often far more able to open up government from the outside than are those within the political and bureaucratic machinery.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Judging the personal risk to privacy when participating in social networking | Tweet |
A group of students from Penn State University have developed a methodology for assessing the personal risk to privacy when participating in online social media.
It's an interesting attempt to quantify objectively the risks for individuals and could be a useful starting point for government departments to help their staff understand the impacts of their choices.
You'll find the system, termed SNAPR (Social Networking Action & Privacy Risk Methodology) online here.
