AI is not going to destroy humanity

 I've read a few pieces recently, one even quoting an Australian MP, Julian Hill, where claims are made of "catastrophic risks" from AI to humanity.

Some of the claims are that "ChatGPT diminishes the ability for humans to think critically", that "AI will eliminate white collar jobs" or even that "AI will destroy humanity".

Even in a session I ran yesterday for business owners about how to productively use ChatGPT in their business had several folks who evidenced concern and fear about how AI would impact society.

It's time to take a deep breath and reflect.

I recall similar sentiments at the dawn of the internet and even at the invention of the printing press. There were similarly many fearful articles and books published in 1999 ahead of the 'Y2K bug' that predicted planes would fall out of the sky and tax systems crash. Even the response of some commentators to the recent Chinese balloon over the US bears the same hallmarks of fear and doubt.

It's perfectly normal for many folks to feel concerned when something new comes along - one could even say it's biologically driven, designed to protect our nomadic ancestors from unknown threats as they traversed new lands.

Stoking these fears of a new technology heralding an unknown future are the stock-in-trade of sensationalists and attention seekers. Whereas providing calm and reasoned perspectives doesn't attract the same level of engagement.

Yes, new technology often heralds change and uncertainty. There's inevitably a transition period that occurs once a new technology becomes visible to the public and before it becomes an invisible part of the background.

I'd suggest that AI has existed as a future fear for many years for humanity. It is used by popular entertainment creators to denote the 'other' that we fear - a malevolent non-human intelligence that only wishes us harm. 

From Skynet to Ultron to M3gan, AI has been an easy plot device to provide an external threat for human protagonists (and occasionally 'good' AIs like Vision) to overcome. 

With the arrival of ChatGPT, and the wave of media attention to this improvement to OpenAI's GPT-3, AI stopped being a future fiction and become a present fear for many.

Anyone can register to use the preview for free, and marvel at ChatGPT's ability to distill the knowledge of mankind into beautifully written (if often inaccurate) prose.

And yet, and yet...

We are still in the dawn of the AI revolution. Tools like ChatGPT, while having significant utility and range, are still in their infancy and only offer a fraction of the capabilities we'll see in the next several years.

Despite this, my view is that AI is no threat to humanity, other than to our illusions. 

It is an assistive tool, not an invading force. Like other tools it may be put to both positive and negative uses, however it is an extension of humanity's potential, serving our goals and ambitions.

To me AI is a bigger opportunity than even the internet to hold a mirror up to humanity and see ourselves in a new light.

Humanity is enriched by diverse perspectives, but until now these have largely come from other humans. While we've learnt from nature, using evolved designs to inform our own design, we've never co-inhabited the planet with a non-human intelligence equivalent, but different to our own.

AI will draw on all of humanity's knowledge, art and expertise to come to new insights that a human may never consider.

This isn't merely theoretical. It's already been demonstrated by the more primitive AIs we've developed to play games such as Go. When AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, the reigning world Go champion 4-1, it taught human players new ways to look at Go and to play the game. Approaches that no human would have ever considered.

Imagine the possibilities that could be unlocked in business and governance by accessing more diverse non-human perspectives. New pathways for improvement will open, and less effective pathways, the illusions that humans are often drawn to, will be exposed.

I use AI daily for many different tasks. In this week alone I've used it to help write a much praised eulogy of her father for my wife, to roleplay a difficult customer service situation to work through remediation options, to develop business and marketing plans, to write songs, answer questions, tell jokes and produce tender responses.

AI will change society. Some jobs will be modified, some new ones will be created. It will be harder for humans to hide truth behind beliefs and comfortable illusions.

And we will be the better for it.

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If exposure to social media messages can affect human moods & more, what responsibility do digital marketers & organisations hold?

There's a lot of evidence available now that the emotional tone of the messaging that people are exposed to on social media goes on to affect their mood, posting behaviour, and aspects of their health and actions.

A study by Facebook and Cornell University in 2012 (published in 2014) that involved modifying the emotional valance of posts on 689,003 users' Facebook News Feeds, putting aside the ethics of experimenting unknowingly on their users, evidenced a strong link between what people saw in their Feed and the emotional valance of what they posted afterwards.

The study postulated that 'emotional contagion' was very strong in social media channels, with the capability for peoples' moods and behaviours to be significantly altered through exposure to messaging that expressed certain tones or viewpoints.

Other research has validated connections between the emotional tone of the social and digital media we consume and the behaviours we exhibit - which really should not come as a surprise as it is the basis of the advertising, propaganda and marketing industries (using emotional triggers to stimulate behaviour change) and is readily visible in the mood swings evident in forum, Facebook and Twitter conversations over time.

So if we can be fairly confident that emotional tone is 'contagious', and that emotions then influence behaviours, what is the responsibility of communicators and marketers when using digital and social media to engage audiences at scale to 'set' the right tone?

I've long been a proponent of having clear community guidelines for communities that government agencies and companies establish in order to set the appropriate context and tone for conversations up front. Failing to do this can lead to communities rapidly moving beyond the influence of the establishing organisation and having conversational tone going to places that are undesirable or damaging.

However even when posting or promoting material through general digital channels there can be a significant impact on audience mood and behaviour depending on the approach taken by the organisation - even for 'emotionless' statements of fact that could be perceived in negative or positive ways.

Simply stating the facts and taking no responsibility for the audience's emotional reaction is a common, but flawed strategy, when it is used as a way to justify that the organisation is blameless as to how others react (and I have to admit that I've used this to 'excuse' myself in personal conversations as well).

While it isn't always possible to predict how a group, or particularly how an individual, will react to a given message, we can design and test our messaging to bias toward a particular emotional and behavioural response.

This could be seen as manipulative, but arguably is no more manipulative than dropping unpleasant information in a factual manner and then blaming the negative reaction on the 'receivers'. Whenever we communicate we are aim to have an impact, so it only behooves us to strive to minimise any harm that could come from our communications as far as is possible.

So when participating or advertising online, digital marketers need to develop a sound understanding of their audiences and be mindful of the impacts of our communications - much as how newspapers now provide support line contact details at the end of disturbing articles.

When emotional contagion takes hold and amplifies an emotional or behavioural response - whether for good or ill, the impacts can be enormous - and digital marketers and communicators need to own their contribution in these cases.

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Australian Public Servants want the right to comment respectfully on political and policy matters online

I've been monitoring the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) public consultation on the current social media guidelines for Australian public servants (APS).

While they clearly aren't interested in comments from former or potential future public servants, having neglected to publish, or even link to, my comments - which I submitted to the APSC four weeks ago - there's been 109 public comments published from current public servants.

While there may be private responses to the consultation, or other public comments as yet unpublished, I've analysed the comments available and the viewpoint points consistently to one conclusion.

Australian Public Servants overwhelmingly want the right to comment respectfully on policy and political matters via the social media channels of their choice.

It's clear from the responses that social media is increasingly seen as a normal way to communicate - like chatting at a barbeque or on the phone - and public servants increasingly feel the medium should be treated in the same way, with an emphasis on the 'social' rather than the 'media'.

Only nine of the publicly published responses supported the current guidelines for public servants, which state (in part) that:

6.2.7 When employees make public comment in an unofficial capacity, it is not appropriate for them to make comment that is, or could be reasonably perceived to be:

1. being made on behalf of their agency or the Government, rather than an expression of a personal view
2. compromising the employee's capacity to fulfil their duties in an unbiased manner—this applies particularly where comment is made about policies and programs of the employee's agency
3. so harsh or extreme in its criticism of the Government, a Member of Parliament from another political party, or their respective policies, that it raises questions about the employee's capacity to work professionally, efficiently or impartially
4. so strong in its criticism of an agency's administration that it could seriously disrupt the workplace—APS employees are encouraged instead to resolve concerns by informal discussion with a manager or by using internal dispute resolution mechanisms
5. a gratuitous personal attack that might reasonably be perceived to be connected with their employment
6. compromising public confidence in the agency or the APS.

 Whereas 90 of the published responses stated that, to quote from one respondent,

It is important to recognise that, as citizens, public servants should have the right to express an opinion on key political issues providing they do this respectfully and that the issues they are commenting on do not not relate directly to their area of employment.

This view was represented many times, using different words and phrasing...

I can see that there is an argument that there should be more caution about what is said about the area in which you work, but why should I be prohibited from making comment publicly about immigration policy or environment policy if I don't even work in that area?

...if I want to make a comment about the work of my department in my position as a customer of that department, or as a taxpayer who has an interest in the direction of government programs generally, I ought to be able to do so.

Remaining a-political should not preclude someone from criticising an individual's performance in government… Questioning obviously wrong policy is not straying from the APS code of conduct.

People should not be persecuted or railroaded for making public comment in their own personal time on any social media platform regardless of what the posting is about or responding to that is not work/employment related.

If the APS are censored from making any criticism of the government of the day and their policies, it's going to be even harder to encourage good people to want to work with us. 

As an employee of the APS I am 100% committed to upholding the Values and Code of Conduct whilst at work, and in situations that are in connection with my employment. As a citizen I have my own set of values and beliefs and shouldn't be forced to remove myself from public debate on social media platforms just because I am a public servant. 

Having the right to vote, by default, forces you to have a political opinion. While public servants retain the right to vote, they should also be able to voice that opinion.

We should have freedom of speech, so long as we speak respectfully about issues

Public servants should be allowed to say anything on social media during their unpaid time.

If it does not relate directly to the programs administrated by their agency, preventing APS employees from engaging in public discourse as private citizens is excessive and oppressive.

No matter how distasteful, racist, sexist, or whatever an opinion is, a person should have the right to express that opinion, provided it is not obviously linked to an organisation.

Public servants should have the same rights as any other Australian to comment on the government of the day and political matters.

Some were even more blunt,

Every vote counts. So EVERY voice should have the ability to be heard… Why is the government so afraid of the people?

It's unfair and oppressive to expect that because someone works in the public service that they can't be affected by political and social issues and therefore have opinions about the issues which may affect them and the people who are important in their lives. 

Why pretend we agree with everything we're told to do? It's like an atheist praying in Church to make their religious parents happy. As long as expression is respectful, it should be permitted.

When a politician says something stupid (which many of them do) I should be allowed to comment that they said something stupid.

While others questioned whether the government's current policy suggested that public servants were not trustworthy or that Australian democracy was broken,

In 10 years of working in Government I have only ever seen fantastic, impartial and evidence based decision making, and this is despite the fact that as humans, Public Servants naturally hold opinions. To imply that they cannot be trusted to comment responsibly on social media is to imply they cannot be trusted anywhere. Why does the medium change things? I.e. if we're questioning the integrity and trustworthiness of the Public Service; why should it be limited to social media? Either we are trustworthy everywhere, or we are not.

In Australia we have a liberal democracy. Public servants are part of that democracy. As such the boundaries on political and social commentary should be set quite generously for all, public servants included. In our history we have fought totalitarian regimes that have sought to inhibit free speech, my father and grandfather both fought for freedom and democracy. I see the curtailing of free speech that all citizens currently have as a huge infringement on hard-fought and won rights.

People who work for the public service have just as much right to question the Government in a democratic society as the next person. If they don't, then how democratic a society is it?

 Any democracy that cannot deal with criticism, regardless of the source, is no longer a democracy.

Only a few believed the current limitations were fair,

To protect public servants from any erosion of trust now or in the future, I believe they should not be posting anything critical.

I have worked for three federal government agencies in my working life and am proud to have done so; I believe in what these agencies stand for and deliver to the Australian community. I am not about to bite the hand that feeds me. If I find a significant shift in agency policy and practice which would be at odds with my own belief system and make being a-political in a professional role impossible I wouldn't hang on for any length of time I would simply leave.

No matter who your employer is, whilst you are in their employ, I believe you should respect that bond and not do or say anything that would damage that company's reputation.

A minority (14) suggested that public servants should conceal their connection to the public service while posting, to prevent an obvious link to their employer, while a few others pointed out that this wasn't really a protection at all.

My suggestion would be that APS employees should not list their Department or Agency as their employer on social media sites. They should not divulge any information that is not already available on public record and should not publically denegrate their employer. Ooutside these restrictions, I should be able to have the same rights as Australians who work in the private sector.

A more effective result could be achieved by instructing PS employees to remove any identification as a PS employee on their personal social media accounts and to not permit comments which identify their opinion as being related to their employment. Without any identification to the person's employment, it's difficult to see how someone can perceive an employee as making comment on behalf of their employer.

On the topic of whether public servants should be able to comment on their department and work, opinions were split. 36 respondents clearly indicated they believed that public servants should not comment on their own work and agency, whereas 14 directly stated that they should and a number of others were ambivalent.

The arguments were fairly clear on both sides.

Those opposed to talking about their work and agency said it could compromise their ability to do their job impartially, and potentially release information that shouldn't be public.

Those that supported talking about their work and agency pointed out that they were the best informed about their areas and could provide critical facts and information into the public domain in ways that could enrich and improve the public conversation. They also noted that at times they were also customers of their own departments, and as such should have the same rights as other customers.

...if I want to make a comment about the work of my department in my position as a customer of that department, or as a taxpayer who has an interest in the direction of government programs generally, I ought to be able to do so.

I should be able to comment on policies and topics in the public spotlight that affect me, my family or my field without fear of reprisal from my employer - particularly where the discussion is not at all related to my employer.

It is said that Qantas staff can't publicly criticise their employer, so nor should public servants. But Qantas doesn't confiscate 20% of my income. Qantas doesn't tell me what I can and can't buy, sell, import or smoke. Qantas doesn't tell me who I can and can't marry. Qantas can't send armed men into my house to arrest me. Qantas doesn't decide what my children are taught at school... Public servants have a duty as citizens to participate fully in political debate, including in relation to the programs they administer. 

A few believed the existing policy was clear,

I do believe the social media stance is perfect as it stands.

Yes they are clear. They do not appear to require revising.

But most respondents felt otherwise,

...this area is extremely grey and needs not only definitive clarification, but absolute determination as to what can and can't be said on political issues without fear of reprisals or recriminations.

Overall all respondents agreed on one point - that public servants should be respectful when they engaged.

Hi, I think that we should have the same rights and rules of every Australian Citizen. We should be able to speak our mind, even to the point of a difference of opinion with a Government Minister, providing we do not denegrate our department, our managers or colleagues.

It is now up to the APSC as to what they do with this information and how it affects the next iteration of the APS's social media guidelines.

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Is it time for governments to extend digital security protections to all parliamentary candidates & parties?

Over the last few years we've seen increasing attention on the use of personal technology by politicians.

From our current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who uses Wickr, to Hilary Clinton's use of a personal email server, and even the struggle President Barack Obama faced to use an iPhone, politicians - like the rest of us - are increasingly using a diverse range of technologies to conduct both personal and official business.

Not all of these technologies are officially approved or secured. Many are newer technologies with both known and unknown security concerns.

However politicians, like the rest of us, continue to use them either because we perceived the benefits (convenience, flexibility, speed, utility) far outweigh the risks we accept, or because the risks are not clearly understood by non-technical people.

This becomes a particular issue for politicians, political parties and individual candidates for parliament when state-sponsored agents, organised crime or unscrupulous businesses attempt to access their information.

There's many motivations for 'political hacking' - commercial advantage where particular information or decisions are obtained before the market knows, political advantage, blackmail or an improved capability to 'groom' politicians to a given perspective supportive of a particular desired goal or outlook, or opposing an undesired reform or initiative.

In fact I think it can be said that political power doesn't only originate from the muzzle of guns, but now political power also emerges from the keyboard.

Information is power, and the best source for information about an individual's views and decisions can be their private email and social accounts.

With the revelations of Russian state-sponsored hackers penetrating the Democratic National Convention and Clinton's Presidential campaign data stores, it's clear that state-sponsored and other organised hackers are increasingly seeing unelected potential parliamentarians as targets.

This is a logical development. It's in the interest of foreign nations to understand the views and decision-making approaches of powerful national leaders. Combine this with the likelihood that the security deployed by a political party is far easier to penetrate than the security deployed by a national government, and the fallout if caught is far less and it becomes a no-brainer for nations and large commercial interests to conduct hacking before an election locks away leaders behind tighter firewalls.

So, now we know that there's a reasonable to high risk that electoral candidates and parties will be hacked - particularly if they have a good chance at election - there's a question for governments to consider.

Should governments extend their security expertise and protections to all electoral candidates, placing them behind state-supported firewalls and security provisions, as soon as candidates nominate for electoral roles? And should this protection be extended to all political parties as well?

Given that even medium-sized governments, such as Australia's, secure hundreds of thousands of devices and people through their security regime, extending this to a few hundred more would be a technically manageable exercise.

The approach would help protect more of Australia's governance institutions from foreign and commercial influence, though likely would only be a partial measure as traditional intelligence gathering and governance influencing methods (background research, infiltrators, electoral donations and hosted trips and tours) would still be available to interest groups and countries.

Individual politicians and candidates would still have personal digital accounts vulnerable to hacking, with which they may engage with the public, the media, each other, business partners, friends, family and, occasionally and hopefully discreetly, with potential sexual partners.

So perhaps the step would provide partial protection - avoiding situations like the one the US Democrats have found themselves in, where the long-term ramifications are as yet unclear.

However even government systems are not totally impervious to cyberattacks, and the limitations of working within a government firewalled system might be too invasive or restrictive for some in the political world.

Also in a world where no security is perfect, partial protection can provide an illusion of security where none should be assumed, with the potential that protecting candidate correspondence could lead to more significant information theft or leaks from either hacking or internal disgruntled staff - or the misuse of candidate data by a future unscrupulous government to influence an electoral result.

On balance I think we're going to have to take our changes over whether political parties and individual candidates are hacked by foreign or corporate interests.

No security solution will ever be perfect and so Australia, and other nations, need to focus less on hiding potentially damaging information and focus more on developing transparent and fair agendas, with individual candidates and politicians being as honest and forthright as they claim their opponents should be.

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There's two things organisations need to effectively manage social media crises - great people and great systems

More and more organisations are finding themselves the focus of social media crises.

Whether the crisis originates online, or from another source, it is frequently expressed, shared and amplified via social channels, and can become a matter of national or even international attention very rapidly when handled poorly.

Many organisations still struggle to deal effectively with these crises, however some are getting good at managing these situations.

There's two things these effective organisations have in common, great people and great systems.

Great people speaks for itself. When you have people skilled and experienced in social media engagement and community management they are able to rapidly respond to a crisis as it occurs, providing the right blend of content and empathy to address a fast-changing situation.

However having great people in your team has its limits.

If those responding on behalf of the organisation via social channels are disconnected from the rest of the organisation, don't have clear triage, escalation and management guidance, are restricted from engaging due to legacy policies and attitudes or are simply not available when a social media crisis occurs, an organisation can rapidly lose control of a situation.

That's where systems come in.

There's a range of systems organisations can develop to proactively prepared for crisis and emergency services and, in many cases, they already have systems in place for their physical response to situations, how they engage with journalists and communicate with the public through phone and even email.

By developing appropriate systems for social media crises organisations can take their preparedness to the next level - leading to a situation where they can proactively manage and contain situations as they are discussed online.

Systems for social media crisis communications addresses many of the issues that great staff can face such as disconnects between management, operational and communications teams, difficulty in rapidly identifying the appropriate actions for specific comments and addressing controversial topics while fatigued.

Systems also help proactively address any legacy policy or legal issues in how and what can be communicated, by challenging organisations to actively reconsider and adjust their approach before crises occur, rather than attempting to change policies during an actual crisis.

Other benefits include mitigating some risks organisations face when less trained or experienced staff engage in crisis communications on social media channels, where a slight misstep - even by great staff - in how or when something is said or responded to can quickly escalate into a secondary crisis that requires additional management.

Having systems in place also makes it possible to test and benchmark an organisation's capability to address a social media crisis. Organisations can simulate a crisis and test how well the systems work and adjust them as needed before they get blooded in a real incident.

Given a choice between great people and great systems for social media crisis management, I'd pick systems every time.

Systems allow less-experienced staff to respond almost as effectively as great staff and provides a standard, repeatable environment for managing successive crisis situations.

While great staff are valuable and can be very effective in managing an organisations reputation and a situation on social media, they are in short supply - harder to find and retain. Staff are also not available 24/7 and are subject to stress, fatigue and emotions which can affect the ongoing quality of a crisis response online.

So even if you're fortunate enough to have great people in your social media crisis response team, don't neglect your systems. They provide consistency for your organisation and support your team, helping them remain great for as long as a crisis persists.

If you want help designing or testing your social media crisis systems, please get in touch, I've been helping organisations manage online and social media crises since 1998 and have a range of strategies, tactics and tools available.

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Presentation on digital citizenship, user experience & the emerging role of libraries

The other week I was in Wellington, New Zealand for the international Linked up, Loud and Literate: Libraries enabling digital citizenship conference.

Below is my presentation from the day, including the story of a recent customer experience with an Australian government agency.

For other presentations from the day visit nsla.org.au/digital-citizenship-2015.

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Come along to IAP2's November Canberra session on 'Introducing collaboration into the process of planning online participation'

I will be presenting at November's IAP2 session in Canberra from 6-8pm on 'Introducing collaboration into the process of planning online participation'.

The session will look at how to get internal stakeholders onboard and on the same page for an online participation process, particularly when they have disparate experience and understanding of digital approaches.

Using real world examples, and an interactive session involving Social Media Planner, attendees will get to work through the process of aligning stakeholder expectations and needs while building their understanding and support for an online engagement approach.

Presenter: Craig Thomler, Director, Social Media Planner

Time: Tues 10 November 2015, 6 for 6.15 pm (finishing about 8 pm)

Venue (TBC): Canberra Innovation Network, Level 5, 5 Moore St Civic

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What defines you on social media?

While travelling to and from the GovHack international awards red carpet event (which was great BTW), I've been reading 'So you've been publicly shamed', the latest book by Jon Ronson (the author of The men who stare at goats), and was reflecting on some of the experiences he talks about.

A common theme throughout the book is how easy it can be for a single comment or photo to define a person on social media and become their personal brand - whether they wish it to or not.

In many instances the defining tweet or image is created in a moment of passion, humour or poor judgement - a moment of weakness or lack of clarity where a poorly worded joke or action becomes misinterpreted and spreads widely across the Internet.

Avoiding online media is no defense against the potential for an individual to be incorrectly defined. Ronson gives an example of an individual whose moment of infamy has affected, to varying extents, over 60 people who share the same name.

Even for individuals who choose not to have their own social accounts, it can only require someone to quote their comment (accurately or not) or sharing an image or video of their actions online to create a storm of concern.

So if an absence from social media is ineffective and all of us who are online are prone to moments where our judgement and anticipation is not perfect, what is the appropriate way to minimise the risk of mislabeling or public shaming?

One of the approaches explored by Ronson involved ensuring that an individual is honestly represented online, not by a single misinterpreted comment, but by the sum of their actions, views and experience.

When there's only a few search results for an individual's name they can easily be defined in Google, and hence online, as being a single thing - be it accurate or not. Even worse, if someone is effectively invisible online they may find themselves defined by someone else who shares their name.

When an individual has a history on the Internet, with an honest record of their thoughts and actions and are continuing to update this through posts, tweets, articles and images, they are far less likely to find themselves defined (or misdefined) by a single perceived mistake.

While a sarcastic comment or badly timed photo may still reach further than normal engagement would, it is far harder for strangers to define an individual as just one thing online.

In my view this principle applies as strongly for organisations as it does for individuals. 

We've seen many social media disasters over the years spurred by a poorly timed or worded comment. Where the organisation or individual 'shuts down' ('removing the oxygen' in PR speak) or changes their behaviour ('damage control') it grant the mistake greater credibility and can lead to far greater attention and negative.

Acknowledging the mistake, taking appropriate remedial steps immediately (such as an apology or correction), and then moving forward with normal engagement levels is often the most effective approach to address a single instance of error or community concern.

Also critical is having a rich and deep history of engagement, a 'resume' demonstrating how that organisation has engaged effectively over a significant period of time. This makes it very difficult for detractors to position an organisation as one (negative) thing, or for individuals stumbling on the error to accidentally assume that it represents the true values and approach of the organisation.

On that basis I believe that the best thing that both individuals and organisations can do to mitigate the risk of misunderstandings and public shaming online is to clearly define themselves, and keep defining themselves through ongoing effective online engagement.

Being absent, silent or putting up the barricades when an error is made creates space for others to define you, in ways that are likely inaccurate and almost always do not represent your own values and actions.

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The evolving role of social medial within government and the community

I had a great chat on Monday with one of the best online comms people in federal government, which touched on how the role of social media has evolved within agencies and how this matched the overall evolution and maturing of social use by the community in general.

I've thought through this and roughly mapped out the phases I've seen for social over the years - note this is a rough draft and others will have very different views of the progression.

Birth - 'I'm here look at me'
At its birth most people and organisations weren't quite sure what social media was for, with many starting out using social to talk about themselves and what they were doing.

Organisations often began engaging with 'look I'm here' messages - staking their claim to coolness through merely having a presence on a social channel, many without a firm strategy detailing why they were on social or how they'd use these platforms to engage with citizens, customers, stakeholders and staff.

This phase was typified by posts detailing that people were getting up, going to bed, having lunch or, from organisations, that their CEO was at such-and-such a place with such-and-such a celebrity.

Childhood - 'I'm learning about...'
As social grew in reach and users in sophistication, people began talking about topics of common interest, sharing news and information in topically based groups. The arrival of hashtags on Twitter to differentiate conversations is an example of one of the key stages on this journey as social media became less about being present and more about sharing meaningful data with relevant people and organisations.

Critical in this stage was the evolution beyond self-interest into sharing, with the reputation of social media users starting to reflect their willingness to share information rather than how they shared their own lives and activities.

Teenager - 'What's up?'
As social took hold in the mainstream, we saw a great deal of confusion - with new and advanced users beginning to collide in terms of the maturity of their use.

One particular trend was for tighter peer groups to form, with more experienced users 'circling the wagons' around their information sharing conversations as new people streamed in screaming 'look at me'.

This phase saw the creation of many expert groups who either excluded or husbanded in new users into their cliche in managed ways.

We also saw the type of information shared on shift to become more personal, with disasters fostering the use of social media for social outcomes - saving lives, directing resources, helping people cope with adverse circumstances as empathy took hold.

Organisations began using social media not just for impersonal information broadcasts but for personalised customer service and for engaging and supporting people in crisis scenarios.

More resources began being directed to social, with organisations encouraged to develop their own voices and live their values, rather than simply share information.

Young adulthood - 'Experimentation'
We're now entering the young adulthood of social media, with a majority of the population both using social and many doing so in innovative and useful ways.

The tools have been around long enough that people are beginning to explore what is possible in more systemic and mature ways.

Organisations now using social in diverse ways - still for information sharing, customer service and crisis management - but also for detecting the 'pulse' of the community, for engaging in the development of products and policies, and for building relationships with non-humans, from NASA spacecraft to coffee machines, in a social aspect to the internet of things.

We're seeing stories told via social channels and new forms of art evolving to encapsulate the global conversation that's now occurring between over a billion people day and night.


What do we have to look forward to?

Hopefully we'll see a long mature adulthood for social media, where individuals and organisations integrate social media fully within their lives, using social channels as we already use telephones as a natural part of the communication fabric of our lives, relationships and interactions.

For organisations and individuals still new to social media, it's worth trying to move quickly through your 'birth' and 'childhood', into the phases where social has the most impact and value.

While you may not be prepared, as yet, to experiment with innovative ways of using social, at least integrate it into your customer service and community engagement frameworks, even moreso than your outbound communications.

Try to develop a single voice for your social presence as an organisation - not an impersonal institution, emotionless and uncaring, nor necessary a 'human' voice representing a single person perspective, but a 'humanised' voice that represents your vision and goals with the passion and energy your staff bring to meeting them.

Social is now the main channel by which many people communicate with each other and with organisations, how they find out and share information and where they give and receive support. As an organisation you need to be prepared to be engaged and engaging, to be valuable in order to receive value from social channels. To grow up quickly and make mature use of social media.

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It's a good time to rethink the approach to Australia's Census

The first censuses reportedly took place around 5,000 years ago in Egypt, and the approach is mentioned in Exodus, one of the books of the Bible, commissioned by God in order to levy a per capita tax to upkeep the Israelite Tabernacle.

The ancient Greeks, Chinese and Indians all conducted censuses before 1 AD, and censuses were vital for the Romans to levy the taxes that maintained their empire.

More recently, the Domesday book was commissioned by William the Conquerer, also known as William I of England, to properly tax the land he had conquered from the Saxons.

Independently the Inca Empire in South America, who had no written language, conducted censuses in the 15th century using base-ten notation knots in llama hair string.

In modern times over a hundred nations have conducted censuses on a regular or semi-regular basis, with nations like the US and UK conducting them every year and Australia every five.

A census collector from Egypt in 3000BC would probably have found it easy to comprehend the censuses Australia conducted in the 1990s.

While there's more questions today, the method of collecting census information had changed very little until recently.

Up until the introduction of electronic censuses this century, nations sent thousands of census collectors out and distributed millions of census forms for completion.  The collected data was then returned to central points for collation and analysis.

Now the ABS has prepared a paper to government suggesting that they may have better techniques for estimating population statistics rather than conducting an expensive national Census every five years.

This suggestion has caused media controversy, a public backlash and even a campaign to 'save our census'. Australians feel a sense of ownership over the Census, particularly after the fantastic work done by the ABS last census to engage people via social media and interactive tools.

However I think it's a good and appropriate conversation to have right now. We've advanced enormously technologically and scientifically in the last ten years, not to mention the last 5,000.

In fact, if you really think about it, conducting the census in a way that would be familiar to the Romans or William the Conquerer really doesn't make sense for the 21st Century.

With the data collection techniques available now, and the expertise we have in data analytics and prediction, surely we can find more cost-effective and less invasive ways of taking stock of our population than having every household fill in a form on one night.

So while I appreciate the concerns people have about change, and the nostalgia for our census-takers, I applaud the ABS and government for at least considering new approaches to the census.

If we truly want to digitally transform our government and society, we need to challenge practices that have become the norm.

This means not simply updating them (such as making a paper form electronic), but completely rethinking them beginning with our goals, applying the most appropriate approaches to data collection and analysis, and rethinking how we share and use the data for the benefit of society.

This needs to be done with an eye to improving outcomes, avoiding outcomes such as in Canada where it was about money, not quality. It also needs to be done with an effective change management campaign, involving the public in the debate.

Ignoring these two areas risks a messy and difficult process of reconsidering the Census, likely with poor outcomes both for the current government and for Australia.

However a well-thought-out public engagement campaign, combined with clearly superior techniques of collecting and analysing data could be a win for both.


I look forward to the day when children learn about the census in their history books, a system that was great for 5,000 years but was superseded by more effective techniques as humans advanced.

And I look forward to seeing more sacred cows in government and business challenged wisely and effectively with appropriate public engagement.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are more likely to use Facebook than the general Australian population

I've witnessed indigenous communications teams in government agencies dismiss the use of social media in indigenous engagement out of a belief that indigenous Australians prefer face-to-face communication and that those in remote communities had significant access issues to the Internet.

While these two views may be true, it's good to see some actual research on the topic by the McNair Ingenuity Research Institute.

As reported by SBS and in BandT, the Institute surveyed four-hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders nationally on their media habits.

The results found that Facebook use by this group was twenty per cent higher than the national population average.

Lead Survey Researcher Matt Balogh said that typically across Australia 42 per cent of the adult population had a Facebook account, whereas 68 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living in metropolitan areas of the capital cities used Facebook.

In regional towns, 61 per cent of Indigenous Australians used Facebook and in remote communities it fell to 44 per cent - still above the national population average.

Due to poor access to desktop computers and broadband, the research found that most remote users relied on mobile devices for Facebook access. As a result, Balogh said to BandT, “Indigenous Australians living in remote areas are having a completely different experience of social networks and the Internet than mainstream Australia”.

So if you're engaging with Indigenous Australian audiences, don't dismiss social media.

The research is ongoing, so expect more insights in coming years.

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What happened at the National Library's Digiculture event: Social Media and the Public Sector

On Tuesday 16 September I participated in the panel for the National Library's Digiculture event: Social Media and the Public Sector, along with Facebook's Mia Garlick and the Department of Finance's John Sheridan.

It was well attended and well-discussed on Twitter (under #digiculture), with the biggest laughs of the afternoon coming from the surprising (blooper) revelation that John's army career had lasted 22,000 years.

Speakers preparing to talk at #digiculture @nlagovau pic.twitter.com/iqZrZh4D55
— Caroline Faucher (@WriteCaroWrite) September 16, 2014

He certainly looks good for his age.

One attendee, Kenji Walker, used his sketching skills to create a visual record of the panel, which I've embedded below - thanks for this Kenji!

@nlagovau #digiculture talk: Social Media & the Public Sector sketchnote with @miakgarlick @AusGovCTO @craigthomler pic.twitter.com/EOXe9e5KqO
— Kenji Walter (@KenjiWalter) September 16, 2014

Finally The Mandarin published an article on the event, Social media in public sector: beat the journos, don’t say anything stupid 

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92% of Australia's federal politicians now use Facebook and/or Twitter

I've been tracking the number of Australian Federal politicians using Australia's leading social channels for two years now, seeing the number using at least one of Facebook and Twitter grow from 79% in April 2012 to 90% in November 2013 to a current level of 92%.

What's even more interesting is in the details, which you'll find in my thoughts below.

 To access the raw data and statistics, go to my latest Google Doc at: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap1exl80wB8OdFhaQ1gzdzg3d1VWcFJpSl91bkQwbWc&usp=sharing

While the overall use of social media is at 92.48%, or 209 out of 226 federal politicians (150 Members of the House of Representatives and 76 Senators), the situation is very different between the houses.

The House of Representatives has a far greater level of social media use at 95.33% compared to the Senate at 86.84%. The gap has remained consistent with my last review in November 2013, where it was 92.67% compared to 85.14%. Senators, on average, are slightly older than Representatives (51.55yrs versus 50.19yrs), which is likely a factor, as is the consideration that Senators don't campaign in the same way as Representatives due to the difference in how they are elected and who they represent (states/territories, not electorates).

I still believe that Senators are missing a trick here - due to their different responsibilities in most cases they represent much larger electorates and thus social media can be of value for listening to and engaging with people they can't as easily drive out to see face-to-face.

This rationale also carries over to Representatives with geographically large electorates, such as in the NT, WA, SA and Qld.

I am particularly glad to see that the Nationals, who focus on rural and regional seats and were previously the party whose elected politicians were least likely to engage online, has picked up their act in this area, and 19 of their 20 elected members now uses social media, a greater proportion that either Labor or Liberals (and I count Qld LNP Nationals as Nationals federally).

Social media remains very important for smaller parties to get their message out, with the Greens maintaining their 100% use of social media and every other minor party (KAP, PUP, DLP, Family First) and independent politician using social to some extent.

I see the same trends we've seen in previous years from politicians, and the population in general, still hold true.

Similar to my past reviews, female politicians are more likely to use social channels than male politicians, though by a smaller margin (4% rather than 7%) than previously.


Equally, the older a politician is, the less likely they are to engage on social media, with a clear divide by decade.


This reflects the same phenomenon as we see in the community - with politicians aged 60+ far less likely to use online channels for engagement, and those aged under 45 likely to use it as one of their primary ways to communicate and collect information.

This tends to suggest that the maturity of political decisionmaking regarding the internet is likely to continue to improve as older politicians retire and younger digital natives take their place.

For your reviewing pleasure, below is an infographic with some of the key statistics, please have a play with the interactive elements - they provide an interesting view of how actively different groups of politicians engage via Twitter and Facebook.

Australian Federal politicians - Twitter and facebook use - AUG 14 | Create Infographics

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Young people in Australia are highly engaged in politics - but engagement has moved online. Have governments?

A few years ago I heard it said by political advisors that one hand-written letter to a Minister counts for more than 100 emails on the same topic.

The perception was that if someone sat down and wrote their thoughts in long-hand it showed more interest and commitment than if they typed and posted them online in a blog, social network or website.

I believe this has changed slightly, with emails now accorded almost equal status with postal mail (largely by treating them in the same manner as postal mail, which isn't always appropriate).

However the value placed on blog posts or social media commentary by both politicians and departments still remains far lower than the value that individuals using these channels place on their communication via these channels.

This discrepancy becomes particularly concerning when looking at the level of political activity amongst younger and older people in Australia.

Based on the 'traditional' forms of political engagement - joining political parties, participating in street protests, writing letters and otherwise using physical means to communicate political views - young people are generally considered unengaged, even disconnected, from politics.

This appeared to be supported by a recent study by the University of Canberra commissioned by the Museum of Australian Democracy. (reported on by the ABC and Hijacked)

This study found that, based on these traditional forms of engagement, young people were far less engaged than older people. In fact people aged under 35 were only about half as engaged as those over 70 years old, and were the least engaged of any age group.

Source: ABC Lateline

However, the study went much further, looking at modern forms of political engagement - blogging, tweeting, memes, apps and other digital techniques - as well.

When combining traditional and modern forms of engagement the situation was very, very different.

Suddenly young people were just as engaged as the oldest Australians and more engaged than many of the age groups inbetween.

On this basis, including both marching in the streets and creating online petitions, young people are quite engaged in politics in Australia, with a large amount of their engagement occurring online rather than offline.

This can be hard for older Australians to grasp - they often don't understand the internet as younger people do, having been brought up on newspapers, radio and television.

Not coincidentally, a disproportionate number of our politicians, top bureaucrats, corporate leadership and leading journalists fall into these older groups - therefore they are often not equipped to even see, let alone understand, the ways in which younger people are engaging politically.

This divide isn't necessarily a problem, but it could become one. When insisting that young people follow the same political approaches as their elders, older people are devaluing newer forms of political expression and underestimating its reach and force.

Where politicians, departmental Secretaries and CEOs gauge the public's mood by signals such as how many people show up to protest, they may overlook the new signals, when hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people organise and protest online, until it is too late for them to change course.

There have already been examples of how politicians, media and CEOs have misread the public mood as they still rely on traditional, rather than modern political signals.

Until our 'elders' begin to recognise that times have changed and continue to change, they will continue to be blindsided as innovation continues in political protests.

For example, there was the creation of the Stop Tony Meow plug-in for Chrome, which replaces images of Tony Abbott in the web browser with pictures of kittens. The plug-in has been downloaded over 11,000 times and attracted significant media coverage as an anti-Coalition political statement.

There's also been the recent Dolebludger app available for Android mobile devices, which allows someone to send job application emails in a matter of seconds to 40 Coalition MPs, meeting the proposed monthly job application requirement. This was designed specifically as a political protest against a policy seen by the creator (and many public commentators) as absurd.

On top of this we have the endless string of memes created using free online tools which take photos of politicians and adds text to make a political point. These are then shared widely on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other platforms.

And, more disturbingly, we've recently seen hackers take down a stock exchange and call on the nation's president to take action on a given matter under threat of having confidential financial data released publicly. Where did this last form of political protest occur? In Syria - a country not known as a bastion of democracy.

Similarly striking into illegal behaviour, we've recently seen the use of a phony bomb threat tweet to disrupt the flight of a Sony Executive as part of a protest against Sony's corporate behaviour.

Online political expression is evolving quickly, with new approaches emerging frequently and proliferating widely, if they work, or dying away when they don't.

The old view that people would get out on the street and protest if they were really unhappy is no longer supported by the evidence - and the notion that online activism is simply 'slacktivism' and doesn't represent significant numbers or strong views is equally no longer supportable.

Governments - both politically and administratively - need to build their understanding of modern approaches to political engagement and learn how to use and defuse them (as appropriate) to serve their own ends.

Otherwise there are real and growing risks that a government or public agency will be severely damaged or brought down through online political avenues - channels that they weren't effectively monitoring, didn't hold in high regard and catastrophically undervalued.

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Don't help your official agency and Ministerial photos become parody memes through poor selection and timing

A challenge today for politicians and public servants is how easy it is for a photo or frame from a video to be reused out-of-context to parody, well, literally anything.

We've seen the increasing use of 'photoshopped' images on social media to support all kinds of political and social positions, ranging from the clever and amusing to the downright disturbing.

Two of the most notable examples - which have become memes in their own right - include the 'floating Chinese officials' from 2011, the result of the accidental upload of a poorly photoshopped image of three council officials (below).

The image appeared to show the officials (including the County mayor and vice-mayor) floating above the road and was immediately parodied by internet users, who placed the officials in a range of amusing and inappropriate locations, such as below.

The second example of a government photo-turned-meme was the phone call from David Cameron to President Obama in March this year, where the UK Prime Minister tweeted a serious photo of him listening to a landline phone, claiming he was on the phone to President Obama of the USA to discuss the Ukrainian situation (below).

I've been speaking to @BarackObama about the situation in Ukraine. We are united in condemnation of Russia's actions. pic.twitter.com/7Rk2k8iOIK
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) March 5, 2014

This was parodied by a range of people, who started by posting tweets of them speaking on the phone, and then on a variety of other items. It even attracted celebrity attention from people like Sir Patrick Stewart (as below), and in the end David Cameron played along and tweeted a photo of him meeting an ex-US President in person.

.@robdelaney @David_Cameron @BarackObama I'm now patched in as well. Sorry for the delay. pic.twitter.com/elLQcKcV3w
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) March 5, 2014

This second 'on the phone' meme was replicated a month after the Cameron call in Australia when the Prime Minister tweeted a serious photo of himself on the phone addressing the MH17 crisis. This was predictably mocked by many people online in the same vein.

Now while it isn't possible to prevent the 'photoshopping' of images and their reuse in parody form, it is possible for agencies and politicians to consider what images they wish to 'put out there' to reduce the prospect of having their message overshadowed by a clever, funny or touching parody.

This means avoiding deliberately publishing images which are obvious fodder for parody - anything related to being 'on the phone', 'inspecting developments' or easily misinterpreted facial expressions.

It is also important to avoid 'follow the leader' shots - where an Australian official is photographed in a similar pose, or doing a similar thing, to an overseas official who was recently parodied for the same pose (such as the Cameron - Abbott situation).

I saw one of these images yesterday from an Australian politician and decided to see how easy it would be to modify it for use in parody.

Using my trusty copy of Seashore - a free graphics editing tool with many of the same features of Photoshop, I was able to cut out the relevant parts of the original image within about 15 minutes.

It then took a simple Google image search to locate some freely available images and a matter of second to import and place the politicians within the scenes.

Below I've included a copy of the original image (in its original tweet), as well as several of the 'photoshopped' parody images.

Consider this what is possible by a relatively inexperienced user of a free graphic design program in under an hour - then consider what someone with more experience and more intent could do with images that make parody easy.

The original Tweet (with a 'watching infrastructure' image - a type very likely to be parodied):

Watching the NBN rollout with @peterdutton_mp at Murrumba Downs in Peter's electorate of Dickson. pic.twitter.com/IEbDp1TcZ1
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) August 11, 2014

My (very quickly) 'photoshopped' images - starting with my favourite:

Now think about how you want your Minister and staff portrayed, and how you can minimise the likelihood of your official images being reused for parody purposes.

While you can't prevent this from happening, prudent image selection and advice can, at least, minimise the potential and help you retain control of your message.

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Mirror, mirror - can modern societies survive looking into the internet and seeing their own reflections?

One of the most major challenges for governments and societies around the world today is the rapidly declining trust in politicians, institutions and governance systems.

I'm willing to make the claim that politicians today are no more corrupt, self-serving or beholden to special interests than politicians were fifty, a hundred or even a thousand years ago.

Regardless of the political system in place, it takes hard work, compromise, negotiation and a willingness to be pragmatic and flexible in one's values and ethics to achieve high office. Even the cleanest and most ethical politicians have to deal with people with different standards, and must find ways to accommodate diverse views in order to achieve great ends.

I'm also willing to say that it isn't the economic situation. The world has faced huge financial strains in the past, and while governments may rise and fall (as Greece's has done), or constitutions may be redrawn (as in Iceland) the underlying governance systems have rarely changed as a result.

No country changed from a democracy to something else as a result of the GFC, and none changed from 'something else' to a democracy as a result of it either.

Maybe its our institutions - are government agencies, courts, armies and police failing in their jobs?

Well no, to a large degree public services around the world remain highly capable of delivering the services they are required to deliver. Of course there's always room for improvement, and successive governments have changed the configuration and goals of public services - but the core capability remains largely intact, at least to-date.

So what do I believe is causing the rapid decline in trust, potentially the greatest threat facing governments today?

It's the rise of the internet and supporting technologies.

The internet - particularly social media - has become a mirror that society cannot escape.

Every action and decision taken by elected politicians is now almost instantly communicated, critiqued and analysed by thousands or millions of people - many looking for the slightest sign of deviation from a past statement, position or decision.

Websites have sprung up to collate and consider every public political statement - and some of their private ones too. Tools such as Polliwoops ensure that even comments that politicians later delete remain accessible - Google's cache is another way to find deleted media statements made in a politician's early career, and even government-funded platforms such as PANDORA are repositories of deleted Prime Ministerial speeches (removed so as not to 'confuse' voters).

Old-school politicians, who chameleon-like reflect the views of the physical audience in front of them, are potentially finding instant mass communication the greatest challenge. Gone are the days where a politicians could travel from event to event, each time subtly adjusting their message to appeal to the audience at hand.

Now every inconsistency, weasel word, off-the-cuff remark and error of judgement by elected politicians (as well as many unelected ones and public figures) is captured, shared and discussed online.

And that's just the facts - the internet is also full of commentary, predictions, suppositions and lies about political leaders, some benign, some actively trying to understand or help and some trying to bring them down.

The problem isn't that our politicians are flawed, our economies failing and our institutions corrupt - many countries have been there before and survived, even thrived.

The problem is that society is now seeing both truth and fiction in greater quantity and detail than ever before - the mirror of the internet is always on, and no society can choose to look away from it.

It is easier to believe politicians when all we see are the good things they do. It is easier to believe in a system of government when we don't think about the deals done to support it.

However people today now expect some form of purity from their political leaders that has never been achieved in history - they want leaders better than they are, without flaws, with no need to compromise and who appear mystically in a leadership role without years of learning their craft and making mistakes on the way.

How would the political leaders of the past have been effective in today's mirror society?

Would any of them successfully been able to face the mirror without flinching?

Can any aspiring political leaders now make it into parliament without casting a mixed reflection?

Even a political leader who is pure and uncompromised in every way will find that hostile elements - rivals, other parties, lobby groups, disruptive citizens - attempt to distort their reflection into a funhouse caricature that the public reject.

I wonder whether our system of government can survive the relentless focus of this mirror. Whether we'll attract competent politicians, see ongoing mass civil disobedience or simply lose all trust and faith in the people who put themselves forward to be elected and the system they are elected into.

Will we learn to accept that all political systems, their institutions, leaders and decisions, are flawed under sufficient scrutiny. That everyone has something they're not proud of, or can be distorted into inappropriateness, in their past, and accept that our leaders and system are what they are - faults and all?

Will we demand systemic change - that our electoral systems are reformed and the people inhabiting the current system be removed, possibly even tried?

Or will we simply opt-out. Treat politics and our governments as an annoyance that we evade wherever possible and only engage when we have to - leaving us at the mercy of politicians who choose to use their powers for actions not in the interest of the public?

I really don't know which course will be taken in many countries around the world, but I do expect to see many more governments fall over the next twenty years, hollowed out through loss of talent and put into the hands of petty tyrants, or collapsing under their own weight.

However what I hope to see are governments and societies finding ways to truly look at themselves in the mirror. To rationalise that while they can no longer persist with the myth that they are the 'finest of them all' they're actually not that bad looking - despite the wrinkles and scars.

I also hope to see governments recognise that they need to experiment more at the core, not simply around the edges - reverse trends towards political functionaries being the majority of elected members and institute practices which turn parliaments back into the servants of their societies, rather than their masters.

This will take real political courage and will to change.

Ironically political courage may be one thing that increases as the as the mirror's reflections become more and more defined.

Soon anyone seeking to enter politics will need to have courage simply to put themselves forward for election, because if there is a single blemish on their reflection they will be hounded relentlessly.

Standing up to that scrutiny, displeasure, disappointment and abuse in order to make a difference through public office will take enormous public courage.

Ultimately, however, societies will need to find a new accommodations. We will need to accept that there's as many pure politicians as there are unicorns, and when we look into the mirror of the internet the reflection we see isn't solely that of the politicians we elect, it is a reflection of our entire society and the choices we have made to create it.

If we want to feel something other than disappointment or horror when we look at our reflection, our society's reflection, in the internet, then we will have to consciously, personally and collectively, make the decisions that will allow us to gaze on it with pride.

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The latest video communicating social media policy to public servants - Social Media Man

The Queensland Government recently introduced a new approach to communicate departmental social media policy to staff, a light and humorous video featuring 'Social Media Man'.

It's the latest in a line of video-based tools used to communicate social media policy to public servants in Australia, following some great work from Victoria.

The first, in March 2011, was the Victorian Department of Justice's Social Media Policy.

This video (embedded below) took a solid and dependable approach, providing a top-level view of the Department's (then new) Social Media Policy.

This video became the 'go-to' standard for government agencies across the country and was seen globally as an effective example of how agencies could leverage social channels and particularly video to better communicate with their own staff.

The video has been adapted and reused by a number of agencies and councils around the country, including the federal Department of Human Services.

(My company, Delib Australia, has the code for the video and has repurposed and redeveloped it for councils. We'd be happy to do this for you too.)

After several years of hiatus, the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) took the bar higher earlier this year with the release in April of their Social Media Policy video.



Using a cartoon-drawing style, this video supported the release of the DPC's social media policy, which is also available on their website at dpc.vic.gov.au/index.php/resources/communication/social-media

The latest entrant in the mix, hot on the heels of Victoria's DPC, is the Queensland Government's 'Social Media Man'.

A mild-manner public servant otherwise known as 'Garry', Social Media Man gives staff at DNRM, DTESB, DAFF & DEWS an overview of their obligations under their social media policy.

The video is available at Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=HaYlcZur5_E&feature=player_embedded

Note this may not be publicly visible for long, given that Queensland government has chosen to prevent embedding or sharing by other sites (as evidenced by broken links from Business Insider and Mumbrella).

This is a real shame as it is, in my view, a great approach - balancing humour with a clear message.

UPDATE 1 Sept 2014: the video is now embeddable, so you can view it below.



It is my view that public sector social media policies should be public. This helps send a clear message to the community that they can trust the public service to act appropriately and not politically on social channels, building trust and respect.

There's also the consideration that governments, such as Queensland, have adopted Creative Commons as a standard licensing approach - so appropriate sharing of this type of material should not be prevented.

In lieu of being able to embed the video, here's stills of Social Media Man in action.

It will be interesting to see which governments in Australia can take this further - potentially even stepping beyond the use of videos to promote social media policy to promote other OH&S and security policies within agencies. There's a lot of scope for video that's not yet been realised.

Finally I think it is worth noting that the Queensland public service, per this video, is told to not criticise their own policy areas or department, but can engage more broadly in political expression regarding other government policies - that's currently denied Australian Public Servants by the Australian Public Service Commission's guidelines on social media use.

In my view Queensland has got their social media guidance right.

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