Should councils run their mayor's social accounts or agencies their Minister's?

It is rare but not unheard off for Mayors (or other Councillors) to ask council officials to run their Facebook, Twitter or other social media accounts - or for State or Federal Ministers to ask agencies to run their social accounts for them.

This can raise challenges for council staff and public servants - where may this cross the line from apolitically to political?

From my perspective this is a matter where a council or agency needs to draw a clear line between the position and person of an elected official.

There's no issue with a council running social media accounts for the Office of the Mayor, or for an agency running the social media account for a Prime Minister or Minister where that account is the respective property of the council or government and is used to post factual and non-partisan information.

However if these accounts are to be held in the name of a particular office holder - an individual politician - or are to be used for political or electoral posts,  there's no way a council or agency can run these accounts without damaging its reputation for being apolitical.

In these cases, where a Mayor or Minister asks for social media accounts that they intend to use in a personal and/or political manner, councils and agencies have to be prepared to step up and say no.

I know of a few cases across Australia where this hasn't happened - the area is still too new, and some public officials do not yet fully comprehend the difference between apolitical and political social media accounts.

The media has also been slow to grasp the distinction and hasn't yet called many public organisations to account for inappropriate operation of Councillor or Ministerial social media accounts, although I have begun getting calls from journalists who are interested in learning which are the right questions to ask.

This is another good reason why senior public officials need to be across the risks and opportunities that arise from social media. Knowing when to say no to a Mayor or Minister to protect the reputation and apolitical standing of their council or agency is part of their job.

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Social Media specifications guide

One challenge organisations may face with social media is designing their account pages to reflect their common look.

I've seen many organisations place graphics poorly - stretched logos and unintentionally pixelated images - due to not having the specifications to hand when instructing a graphic designer.

Fortunately someone has come up with the below very useful specifications sheet for major social networks.

While this is a 'point in time' resource, as social networks regularly change their designs, it provides a starting point that should help organisations design their account pages to platform constraints.

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Should public servants be relying on the courts to clarify their right to use social media?

About eighteen months ago the APSC released updated guidance for the use of social media by public servants.

Designed to cover personal and professional use, the guidance was widely criticised at the time by traditional media and former public servants for its imprecise language and broad reach.

I criticised it as well, and it was one of my motivations for leaving the public sector, as it was for several other people I know.

In particular criticisms related to one piece of the guidance that states that when APS employees are making public comment in an unofficial capacity, it is not appropriate for them to make comment that is, or could be perceived to be:

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 APS employee’s capacity to work professionally, efficiently or impartially. Such comment does not have to relate to the employee’s area of work

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, including the APS whistleblowing scheme if appropriate 

The APSC has provided a few (broad) case studies designed to help public servants navigate use of social media, within their definition of appropriate conduct.

However terms such as 'so harsh and extreme' have remained largely undefined and subject to the interpretation of senior public servants - which unfortunately has left them open to accidental and deliberate misuse, potentially for bullying or internal politics.

I've long advocated that for the public service to improve its use of social channels it needs to foster and support staff in using those channels - professionally and personally as well as officially.

If the public sector doesn't firmly embed social media use into the culture of agencies, it will find it increasingly difficult and expensive to match Australian society's preference for communication via social channels and be less effective at carrying out the instructions of the government of the day.

Imprecision is the enemy of adoption. It has remained unclear what is meant by terms such as 'harsh or extreme', 'so strong' and 'seriously disrupt', leading public servants to either avoid participating online, carefully self-censor or to conceal their identities.

Now we're beginning to see some of the fruits of that imprecision, in the case of Michaela Banerji who reportedly used the Twitter identity @LaLegale. Ms Banerji has lost a court case to stay her dismissal from the public service, partially related to comments made by her pseudonymous Twitter account.

I'm not casting judgement on the case decision itself. While Marcus Mannheim's article, Public servant loses fight over Twitter attack on government, focuses on Twitter, there's some indication there were other issues as well. Ms Banerji was directly and publicly criticise the policies of her own department and there's been clear and precise guidance for quite some time that this is highly dangerous territory.

However I wonder how the department identified @LeLegale as Michaela Banerji - there would be serious privacy considerations if the Department were investigating other pseudonymous Twitter or other social media accounts to determine who owns them, regardless of whether they then took any actions as a result.

I am also concerned that this had to go to a court decision (albeit one brought by Ms Banerji). Agencies have had a number of years to write social media policies and educate staff as to their responsibilities and what constitutes appropriate conduct online - however there's not been any research released publicly indicating whether they've done this in an effective way.

I do support the need to put boundaries as to how far public servants can criticise agency operations and government policies related to their work (and only those related to their work - unlike the current guidelines).

However I don't think that public servants should need to ever go to court to clarify their right to privately use social media channels for political comments.

The social media guidelines for public servants need to be clearer, and the policies and training supporting the guidelines need to be implemented consistently and effectively.

Otherwise we all lose.

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Is it easy for non-programmers to reuse government open data?

Opening up data is one thing, but using it in a productive way is another.

Data may be released in formats that are hard to reuse, data may be 'dirty' (with mistakes) or incomplete.

However when organisations release data in machine-readable formats, with a reasonable level of completeness, it can be surprisingly easy for even a novice with no programming experience to reuse it in meaningful ways.

Below are two examples of how I've recently reused very different sets of data, an example of data released directly by a government agency, and an example of how to capture and reuse data that is public but technically not open.

Example 1: Mapping Australian polling places

Earlier today @Maxious tweeted the release of the Australian Electoral Commission's (AEC) expected polling places for the federal election as a CSV file. CSV is a standard format, like a basic spreadsheet, where every value is separated from the next by a comma, making it easy to import into (or export from) Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, Google Spreadsheet or other spreadsheets or databases.

AEC "Expected election day polling places" dataset up in CSV format #gov2au cc @DemSausage #democracysausage http://t.co/N82tC17awF
— Alexander Sadleir (@maxious) August 6, 2013

The polling locations data is valuable, but in the CSV format simply appears as lines and lines of data. I thought it would be interesting and useful to visually map the polling locations on a map of Australia, making it easy for people to find the polling booths nearest to them.

So I downloaded the CSV file from the AEC website (www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/cea-notices/election-pp.htm) and went to Google Drive, which supports a type of spreadsheet called Fusion Tables which can map geographic data.

Fortunately the AEC was smart enough to include latitude and longitude for each polling location. This can be easily mapped by Fusion Tables. The CSV also contained address, postcode and state information, which I could also have used, less accurately, to map the locations.

I uploaded the CSV into a newly created Fusion Table, which automatically organised the data into columns and used the Lat/Long coordinates to map the locations - job done! Or so I thought....

When I looked at the map, it only showed NSW polling locations - about 2,400 of them - while the original CSV listed over 8,000.

Clearly something hadn't worked properly, so I tried reloading the data into a new Fusion Table - with the same result - it didn't seem to be a problem with the CSV or the import process.

I went into the CSV using Microsoft Excel and studied at the data. There were many columns of data I didn't need for the map, so I deleted them - reducing the size of the spreadsheet by tens of thousands of cells.

I reimported the CSV into a Fusion Table and it worked! All eight and a half thousand expected polling locations appeared on the map. Clearly there had been too much (extraneous) data for Fusion to manage.

From here finishing the map was easy. It was simply a process of making the data a little more presentable by changing datasheet names and editing what appeared in the  information box that appeared when a polling location was clicked on.

I shared my Fusion Table and published the map so people could view and embed it (see below).

You can view (but not edit) my full Fusion Table at: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1kzLZTqNRkXMu1w4eBdsOLRakx3S8FLHziu6PdbU



So job done - map created with useful information when you click a red dot.

However, these are only expected polling places - the AEC may update this information at any time as they confirm or remove specific polling places.

My map is current at 6 August 2013, however may become out-of-date quite fast. How do I ensure my map updates when the AEC updates their CSV?

The short answer is that I can't - using my Google Fusion Table.

Because the AEC has chosen to release the data in a format easy for them (a CSV, straight from their internal systems), it is less useful for outsiders who wish to keep their maps or mash-ups current.

A programmer would be able to write a script that checked the AEC page each day to see if the CSV had updated, download it into a program that updated a map and published it to the web with the changes - even providing a history of which polling stations were added or removed over time.

However the broader community, including me, don't have the programming skills to do this - and shouldn't need them.

To replicate what the programmer could do in a few lines, any non-programmer, such as me, would have to manually check the page, download the updated CSV (assuming the page provides a clue that it has changed), manually delete all unneeded columns (again) and upload the data into my Fusion Table, simply to keep my map current.

Of course, if the AEC had spent a little more time on their data - releasing it as a datafeed or an API (Application Programming Interface), it would be easy even for non-programmers to reuse the data in a tool like Google Maps for public visualisation - or the AEC could have taken the one additional step necessary to map the information themselves (still providing the raw data), providing a far more useful resource for the community.

This is one of the challenges with open data - releasing it in formats useful for the audience, rather than the agency.

Agencies often choose to release data in what they see as the fastest and easiest solution for them, even though it greatly increases the risk that their data will be reused online in out-of-date or inappropriate ways. Imagine the same issue with a listing of illegal drugs, accident hotspots or holiday dates - anyone who relied on old data, because it didn't automatically update in apps or third-party websites, would potentially be at significant risk.

However with a little more effort and thought, agencies can release their data in ways that biase online reuse towards remaining current and accurate - such as via APIs, which automatically update the information whenever a user accesses a mobile app or website which draws from it. With some data, APIs can potentially save lives - as well as reduce the risks to both agencies and developers.

Example 2: Analysing agency tweets

I'm interested in what government agencies say online and have been tracking the use of Twitter by Australian governments, including local, state and federal agencies, for six years. I track these accounts using my @egovau Twitter account, in two Twitter lists (as the maximum list size is 500 accounts):

• https://twitter.com/eGovAU/australian-gov-tweets, and
• https://twitter.com/eGovAU/australian-gov-tweets2

Now it's great to track these accounts within Twitter, however how can I easily get a sense of which agencies are most active or have the largest following?

Followerwonk.com Twitter report

I use followerwonk.com for this purpose - a tool which can capture a snapshot of the number of followers, tweets and other details of every account at a particular time. In fact it is so good that I actually pay money for it.

These snapshots can be downloaded as CSVs and analysed in spreadsheets - which makes it easy to identify the most and least active government Twitter users (as I've blogged about in an infographic).

However what Followerwonk doesn't do is to capture and archive the actual tweets from the roughly 890 Australian government agencies and councils that use Twitter. If I want to analyse what they actually say in their tweets, rather than simply analyse the number of tweets, I need different tools.

While it is reasonably easy to archive the tweets from an individual Twitter account (you can download your own tweets from Twitter directly), or tweets that use particular terms or hashtags, using a tool like TweetArchivist, which is really useful for tracking conferences, it is harder to capture all the tweets from a large number of Twitter accounts at the same time - even if they are in the same Twitter list.

I've previously captured some Twitter list tweets using paper.li, which turns them into a daily 'newspaper'. In fact I have mapped Australian Federal parliamentarian tweets, by house and party, for those who wish a daily dose of political discussion in a condensed form.

The beauty of this approach is that paper.li updates as I update my @egovaupollies Twitter lists (where I follow Australian federal politicians) - the use of this datafeed ensures the 'newspapers' are always current.

However paper.li only selectively captures and reports tweets and doesn't allow them to be downloaded in a structured way. It doesn't really help me archive my government agency Twitter lists.

I have tried using a number of tools without success, including the fantastic IFTTT (If This, Then That) site, which allows the creation of 'recipes' which perform actions between different online social networks and web 2.0 tools. I have used IFTTT previously to do things such as automate the change of my Facebook profile image when I change my image in Twitter.

However the fantastic Digital Inspirations blog, written by Amit Agarwal, provides useful code 'recipes' that can be adapted to do all kinds of things by non-programmers.

I tried one of Amit's 'recipes' for converting a Twitter list into an RSS feed, however found it didn't work properly as Twitter had changed its own code. I tweeted to Amit (@labnol) and he graciously replied with a link to an updated post, A Simple Way to Create RSS Feeds for Twitter, which did indeed provide a simple way of doing this, with a step-by-step video.

I followed the video and, using the Twitter Widgets page and the Google script that Amit provided, was able to quickly create the RSS feeds I needed for my Twitter lists (one feed per list).

You can view these RSS feeds using the following (unpretty) web addresses:

• https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbw96mWX7ZM-WhnTf3TF6OYL1oOlGi2gJge9HwPDiQDHV1UlPAFd/exec?363212152531738624
• https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbw96mWX7ZM-WhnTf3TF6OYL1oOlGi2gJge9HwPDiQDHV1UlPAFd/exec?363214413819424768

However I had a new issue. Taking the tweets from the RSS feeds and archiving them in a structured way into a spreadsheet or database for later analysis.

I thought it would be relatively easy to find a free online or downloadable RSS reader which could archive all the tweets from these RSS feeds. I was wrong.

I could not find an RSS reader that was designed to capture, store and archive RSS - only ones designed to format and view them.

So I went back to IFTTT and searched for a recipe that might help.

Here I found the recipe, Backup RSS Feed to Google Spreadsheet by Martin Hawksey.

The recipe was simple. All I had to do was put in my first RSS feed (above) and adjust the name of the spreadsheet in which it would be stored. Then I activated the recipe, which connected to my Google Drive and created an archival spreadsheet that updated every time a government agency or council on the list tweeted.

As I had two lists, I replicated the recipe, using the second RSS feed and a new spreadsheet name. Then I left it to see what happened....

A few hours later, checking back, the spreadsheets were growing, with about a hundred tweets between them.

I am now able to easily analyse this data to build a picture of what government agencies actually talk about, providing insights that otherwise would never be captured (stay tuned!)

In this case study the government data was already public and visible in agency Twitter accounts, however it was not really 'open, - neither easy to capture nor easy to reuse.  No government or local council in Australia I am aware of currently releases its tweets as open data or in any specific format, such as RSS, which could be captured and stored, (even though many use RSS for media releases).

However these tweets are also useful government data. The tweets are able to paint a picture of how government uses social media, what they talk about, how they say it and who they interact with. It has both historic value for the country as well as current value for understanding what different agencies and local governments are focused on today.

Capturing and reusing these government tweets was harder than reusing the data from the AEC. The AEC at least released the poll locations as open data, albeit in an imperfectly reusable form.

However using some ingenuity, but without any coding, it was still possible for a non-programmer to capture all of government's tweets and make them more useful.

Conclusion

There's still a long, long way for agencies to go with open data. Right now the data released around the countries by state and local jurisdictions is often hard to match up, being in different formats, collected in different ways, presented in different ways and often is not directly comparable from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Federally there's not the same issue, however different agencies use different geographic areas, different terminology and different formats, again, for releasing data.

Much data remains unreleased, and even where data is technically public (such as tweets or Facebook updates), archives of this data are not always easily available to the public.

However there are now many tools online which can help make some of this imperfect public data more usable and useful - and you no longer need to be a programmer to do it.

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Will Gov 2.0 initiatives be created by individuals or organisations for profit or illegal goals?

As an advocate for Gov 2.0 and open data I frequently encourage government agencies to work more closely with communities, tapping their expertise and experience to improve the operations of government.

However I'm not blind to the risks of community involvement.

Welcoming the crowd risks welcoming individuals, groups and organisations with agendas which may include commercial, criminal or extreme goals, which may not reflect the community at large.

For example, right now there's a major push on to encourage the 10% of adult Australians who are not yet registered to vote to do so before the upcoming federal election. In particular roughly half a million young Australians are not yet registered to vote.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the government body responsible for managing electoral processes, has a campaign targeting younger voters, sending ambassadors to major music festivals and advertising through appropriate channels to reach this group.

Likewise TripleJ, a publicly funded radio station, is working with the AEC with the RockEnrol campaign to encourage the same goal.

Alongside these government-supported approaches are two independent campaigns, one supporting enrolment directly (Enrol for Gold), the second supporting it indirectly by informing potential new voters (Virgin Voters).

The first is from GetUp, an Australian grass-roots advocacy group. GetUp has created a campaign 'Enrol for Gold' which is giving a total of $40,000 in prize money in a competition for people who enrol to vote after 21 July. It's an interesting approach to encourage enrolment - one that a government could not use, but could be very appealing to elements of the community and support the overall AEC goals to raise the level of enrolment.

This campaign, although independent from the AEC, has clear information in their Terms and Privacy Policy which restrict any reuse of the information collected in the competition for any other purpose.

The second independent enrolment campaign is called Virgin Voters. The campaign is designed around supporting first-time voters to make good decisions with their federal vote.

The Canberra Times has been told that Virgin Voters was created to find and follow eight first-time voters through the federal election campaign to create a program about their experiences.

The site includes information a first-time voter will need to know, such as how Australia's political system works, who gets to vote, how to vote and details on Australia's 35 federal political parties. Very supportively there's information for both eligible young voters and for high school students (and their teachers) who might be following the process, but still ineligible to vote.

The site invites people to participate in television, radio, social media and print as an 'official VirginVoters Voice' through it's voicebox approach, and also encourages first-time voters to sign up to the campaign's Facebook page and Twitter feed.

The site bills itself as the voice of first-time voters and claims to be 'the most innovative social media commentary on any Federal Election'.

Despite the grand promise, the Virgin Voters site (at the time of writing) has little information about who is operating the site, why they are running it, who is funding it or whether the site is for profit.

There's also no privacy policy (at the time of writing). That's right, the site doesn't explain what happens to information submitted by people to VoiceBox, or how it will be used. This is disturbing to any experienced internet user and I hope they fix it soon.

With a little digging, and some twitter enquiries (where I did not get a specific answer) I've discovered Virgin Voters is run by the organisation credited in the site with its design (although there's no link). This is Pineapple Media, a company that specialises in creating programming and promotions for television, radio and print.

The person credited as the contact for Virgin Voters is the principal of PineApple Media, Richard Attieh - although this is currently not explicitly mentioned in the Virgin Voters site.

So is Virgin Voters a genuine Gov 2.0 initiative from a concerned individual and his organisation to support Australian democracy by giving first-time voters a voice in media?

Or is it an attempt to use the federal election and the naiviety of first-time (often 18yr old) voters to make profits for a media company by providing talent for programming?

I think Richard and Virgin Voters mean well, but will leave it up to readers to form their own conclusion.

What I believe this example demonstrates is that while there are many civic minded people and organisations who are using Government 2.0 approaches to help support, influence or improve government transparency in a positive way, there is room for the same or similar approaches to be used for pure commercial goals.

It may even be possible to use the guise of Government 2.0 to seek to achieve extreme or criminal goals.

What will it mean for government in the future if third parties use government data or piggyback on government goals in inappropriate ways?

Will there need to be better citizen education to help the community to make informed choices on who they provide information to, or more policing of online initiatives purporting to support government goals and programs?

Will governments rely on existing laws and frameworks, or need to legislate how and when government programs may be mentioned, leveraged and engaged with?

I think these are questions that most governments have not yet even engaged with.

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Social media impacts on ICT teams - presentation from the Technology in Government conference

Over the last two days I've been down at the Technology in Government conference - an event I thought went very well, with a great group of speakers (including the UK Government's CIO Liam Maxwell).

I gave a presentation this morning, and chaired the afternoon, for the Connected Government stream and have uploaded my presentation for wider access.

In it I discussed the impact of social media on agency ICT teams and some potential approaches they can take to work with business areas to ensure that agency goals are met with a minimum of intra-agency friction.

Overall my message was that social media must be engaged with, not ignored, in government and agency ICT teams have a role to play.

There's several stances ICT teams can take - whether as a leader, supporter or observer of agency social media efforts and, depending on this stance, they could take on a greater or lesser involvement in the various roles required to implement a successful social media approach.

Social media offers benefits for ICT teams, as it does for other areas of agencies - it is simply up to ICT leadership to either step up and work with business areas in a closer ongoing way, or stay out of the way and allow other areas of an agency to move forward.

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IAB Australia releases free guide to Best Practice in Content Moderation for social media

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia has released a free guide to Best Practice in Content Moderation for social media channels, drawing on the experience of organisations like Quiip and Dialogue Consulting.

The guide, while targeted at the private sector, is quite applicable to the public sector. It references many of the same steps I personally recommend to government agencies and councils (have a content moderation policy, publish it, have an internal moderation plan, create a escalation process for difficult comments and crises) and adds some useful tips and recommendations useful for anyone involved in community management.

The IAB's guide is available from their website at: http://iabaustralia.com.au/en/About_IAB/Media_Releases/2013_-_IAB_Australia_releases_Social_Media_Comment_Moderation_Guidelines.aspx

I've also uploaded it to Scribd and embedded it below for easy access - as the document in their site is in a nonstandard ashx format.

Please note the free guide is copyright to the IAB Australia. I'm simply helping build awareness and ensure it is more widely accessible to people.

The guide would have been well suited for release under a Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 AU) instead.

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How to shut down or redirect an official Ministerial or agency social media account

With the change in Australia's Prime Minister last week, the resignation of a large handful of Ministers, and the announcement of new Ministers this week, we've seen some interesting approaches to shutting down Ministerial Twitter accounts.

Senator Jacinta Collins closed her Ministerial account with two very-matter-of-fact tweets, redirecting people to the new Ministers:

This account is now closed. For Education media, follow @MinShortenMedia and @ParlSecThomson.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

This account is now closed. For Employment media, please follow @MinOConnorMedia and @KateEllisMP.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

Senator Conroy, Wayne Swan MP and Peter Garrett MP ended on higher notes, before the new Ministry was announced (therefore not redirecting to new Ministers):

For everyone who's asked 'Why the Dalek?' - farewell from all of us in Team Conroy pic.twitter.com/v05YmLP1We
— Conroy MO (@ConroyMO) June 27, 2013

Thank you Australia for the absolute privilege of being your Treasurer for the past five and a half years
— Wayne Swan (@SwannyQLD) June 26, 2013

Thanks for all the support, no regrets here as I resign as Minister and rejoin my dear family with good things done for our nation. PG
— Peter Garrett AM MP (@PGarrettMP) June 26, 2013

My point in highlighting these tweets is to consider how Ministers and agencies should close down their Twitter or other social media accounts after losing a position (for a Minister) or are 'MOGed' (Machinery of Government) - merged into another agency or disbanded (for an agency or department).

Clearly there's a range of transition or shut down steps that need to be taken in any of these cases and social media can be at the bottom of the list of concerns. However as social channels are increasingly important methods for contacting a Minister or agency, there does need to be some care taken to continue monitoring live accounts and providing appropriate redirection instructions (as Senator Collins has done for her account).

So how should accounts be shutdown or redirected?

Here's some suggested steps:

1. Transfer the account and keep operating it if feasible. Sure a person may have left a position, or an agency's duties may be subsumed into another department, however in many cases the role or responsibility hasn't disappeared entirely.
   
   A social media audience is an asset - companies and agencies pay a great deal of money to access the audiences 'owned' by media outlets and it is not sensible to throw away a Minister or agency's audience just because of a change in personnel.
2. If a position is disappearing or an agency's role is ending, avoid an immediate shutdown or cessation of activity on an account. Yes Ministers can disappear overnight, and agencies can be swallowed up quite quickly, however it takes longer for all members of the community to get the message that a change has occurred.
   
   Abrupt disconnects can also be disrespectful if handled poorly, leaving a community upset and abandoned - just like walking away from a conversation with someone while you or they are in mid-sentence.
   
   Continue monitoring and communicating through the account for at least a few days, and preferably a few weeks to retain the connection with the community and allow a gradual withdrawal and redirection. This will help maintain the relationship during the transition and ensure that the new Minister or agency has a base to build on.
3. Communicate the change actively, not just through tweets and posts, but also in the profile and 'about' information for an account. Tweets and posts appear and disappear in peoples' streams whereas profile information is there continually, ensuring followers and visitors can see the message at anytime.
   
   If continuing to communicate through the account (such as during a handover or to prevent issues around an immediate shutdown), ensure that you periodically communicate the change via tweets and posts as well.
4. Give people somewhere to go. When shutting down an account, provide details of where people should go to continue to follow the topic. For an agency this means directing people to the new agency's social media accounts (if they have them), for a Minister it means (if the same party) directing them to the new Minister's social media accounts, as Senator Collins did in her accounts as illustrated above, or to the department or political party's accounts if the new Minister doesn't have a social presence.
   
   If there's a change in government occurring, it is unlikely that a Minister or their advisors would be very willing to provide the community with a link to their successor however, if the account is personally operated, redirecting to the ex-Minister's personal account or political party's account is an option instead.

In summary, if agencies and Ministers avoid abruptly ending the conversation (abandoning their audience), communicate the change clearly and provide a path for people who wish to continue to follow the topic and have a conversation, changes in social media accounts can be managed quite effectively without losing reputation or respect and avoiding negative consequences or attention.

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Media & PR practitioners no longer control the oxygen valve

A classic ploy by media and PR professionals to kill an unwanted issue has been to 'deny it oxygen' - refusing to comment or engage on the topic publicly, via news media or other channels.

The approach has traditionally worked very effectively for both public sector and commercial communicators. Devoid of any official information, or even denials, many journalists would quickly drop a potential story in favour of topical issues where information was available, in order to meet their tight deadlines.

Only journalists with the time and their editors' permission to conduct an investigation over a significant period of time were able to really pursue matters where organisations denied them oxygen, to uncover inappropriate behaviour, wrong-doing or even simple mistakes.

Communicators in organisations still employ the oxygen deprivation technique - refusing to speak to journalists, issuing bland statements which say nothing newsworthy or simply denying that an incident has taken place.

In some respects the technique has actually become more effective, with a faster news cycle meaning there's fewer and fewer journalists with the time or editorial support to pursue issues down the rabbit hole.

However with the change in the composition of the media - from a primarily high-cost professionalised workforce to essentially anyone with internet access and the ability to create a Facebook page, blog or video - media and PR professionals are beginning to realise that they no longer control the oxygen valve.

Today it only takes a single individual with the attitude or time to take on a large organisation and pierce the veil of silence.

We've seen this occur multiple times, overseas and in Australia, the Lewinsky scandal, the Vodafail initiative, the failure of the UK super-injunction system, the exposure of systematic corruption in the Chinese Communist Party by Weibo users (the equivalent of Twitter).

These are simply the tip of a growing iceberg of examples where people, individually or collectively, are able to find their own sources of oxygen independent to the entities they are investigating.

Today media and communications professionals no longer control the oxygen valve. Individuals can share and reflect on information and rumours online through communities, gaining the oxygen and support they need from peers. They can quickly co-ordinate efforts to learn more, interrogate data and quickly and cheaply collate diverse reports into a single picture of wrongdoing.

I don't think this trend is fully understood yet in Australia's public sector. I still talk to communications and media professionals working in Australian government agencies or Ministerial offices who still believe they control the oxygen valve - they can make any story go away by refusing to engage.

Well yes - sometimes they still can do this, where the matter is of low interest or importance. However increasingly they can no longer shut off the oxygen flow.

Media professionals, wherever they work, need to recognise the new reality. A person with an internet connection, social media and search tools, can put together a volunteer coalition of supporters, or piece together a jigsaw of innocuous information into an incriminating picture.

The tools of journalism are no longer simply in the hands of a limited number of professional journalists, who recognise that their long-term interests are sometimes served by co-operating in keeping a story quiet, so that they will continue to get access to key people, information and leaks.

Today citizens are journalists - they are documenting the events in their lives and the lives of people around them. They act in their own short-term interests, rather than in the interests of a publication and while every story and issue won't gain traction, enough will.

Any media, PR or other communications professional who believes that they still have the ability to shut down almost any conversation, turning off the oxygen valve, is both deluding themselves and potentially damaging the organisation they work for.

Instead communicators need to consider new approaches - engaging with social media to manage issues, rather than simply trying to shut them down. They need to build a new balance in communications, learn techniques from customer service professionals to help them address concerns, rather than simply try to bluff their way through a crisis.

Over the next few years it will become obvious which organisations have learnt new ways to engage with a more active communities and customers, and very, very obvious which organisations have not.

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What would a federal Coalition government mean for Government 2.0 in Australia?

A month ago (20 May) I sent an email to Malcolm Turnbull, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband, in my capacity as a Government 2.0 commentator, asking a range of questions about how a Coalition Government, if elected later this year, would approach Government 2.0 and federal agency use of social media in official engagement (the questions from my email are included at the end of this post).

Despite a quick exchange on Twitter several weeks ago, I've received no response to my email, or even an acknowledgement of receipt.

Some might say this isn't really a high profile issue for Australia - it's not like the economy, live exports, asylum seekers, climate change or education in terms of priority for the community.

Of course, the reality is more complex - Gov 2.0 crosses most government policy and focus areas, as a way of enabling better government, improving citizen engagement, improving transparency and accountability.

Therefore, at least in my view, a government's position on Gov 2.0 is fundamental to their approach on most policy areas - whether they engage the community effectively, are transparent, accountable and influential or whether a government is more concerned about control, shutting down sources of information and limiting public engagement.

As we've seen in successive state elections across Australia, a change of government can have a significant impact on the approach and substance of online engagement by agencies, due more to the experience and views of incoming Ministers and their advisers, rather than due to ideological differences around openness and transparency.

Victoria, NSW and Queensland in particular 'held their breath' for some time after a change in political leadership, although several of these states are now forging ahead with new initiatives.

Federally we've seen the Liberal party be cautious in how it approaches social media and online engagement, and the National party is even more so.

While some elected members of both Coalition parties use social media quite well, the actual parties themselves have, on occasion, expressed concern over the risk of prominent party member saying something online that paints a target on themselves - with the Sydney Morning Herald reporting in December 2012 that the Liberal party had slapped 'a social media gag on MPs'.

This was illustrated this week as the President of the Cessnock Hunter Young Liberals branch was suspended over Twitter comments.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this caution, the Financial Review recently reported that the Liberal Party now led Labor on the use of social media, however the real question for me is how will the Coalition's caution or capability in social media translate into their policy position for agencies.

Will the Coalition support and progress - even improve - the current initiatives underway across government, to release more data and encourage appropriate use of social media channels by agencies for communication, consultation and engagement purposes?

Will it embrace and take a global leadership role in Government 2.0, forging its own path, with clear executive support and commitment?

Or will an incoming Coalition Government put on hold or even shut down existing Gov 2.0 initiatives, including sites like data.gov.au, govspace.gov.au and transcribe.naa.gov.au?

Will it instruct agencies to reduce resourcing social media channels such as youtube.com/user/ImmiTV and facebook.com/FamiliesInAustralia, redirecting funds to traditional media?

Will the Coalition withdraw Australia from the Open Government Partnership (which we hadn't joined when I wrote my email below), as Russia recently did?

We simply don't yet know.

My email:

Dear Mr Turnbull,

I am Australia's leading blogger on egovernment and Government 2.0. My blog is syndicated on five continents and I speak frequently about Government 2.0 with Commonwealth agencies and state governments, as well as presenting at conferences here and overseas about the Australian Government's adoption of digital channels.

Given the increasing emphasis on open data, online public engagement and the use of social media by Commonwealth agencies, I would like to understand and report in my blog on the Coalition's Government 2.0 position and policies ahead of the next Federal election.

Please note this is not about IT spending, which often focuses on internal systems, neither is it about websites, which are still largely used in government for outbound communication.

It is about how government brings citizens inside the tent on decision making and improves transparency to deliver better governance, outcomes and efficiencies. 

I've included a number of questions below, and would appreciate any further information you can provide regarding the Coalition's policies in this area.

I understand these areas might not be considered as being within your portfolio and appreciate if you need to consult other Shadow Ministers.

I am also able to speak with you personally if that would be an easier way for you to respond. I am based in Canberra and could meet with you in a future sitting week.

1. What is the Coalition's position on openness and transparency in government?
   
   
2. The Labor Government, under Kevin Rudd, made a Declaration of Open Government (http://agimo.gov.au/2010/07/16/declaration-of-open-government/), via then Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. 
   Does the Coalition, if it wins government, intend to endorse, amend, replace or rescind this Declaration of Open Government?
   
   
3. In the latest Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Government Data Census, the Australian Government is ranked 4th behind the UK, US and Norway (http://census.okfn.org/country/). 
   Does the Coalition intend to take steps to improve the Australian Government's ranking in the Data Census should it be elected?
   
   
4. The current Labor Government has not yet made a firm commitment to join the Open Government Partnership (www.opengovpartnership.org/), despite being invited to join in 2011 as a founding member. 58 countries are now members, with Australia increasingly conspicuous by its absence (http://www.itnews.com.au/News/295243,australia-reserves-open-government-decision.aspx). 
   What is the Coalition's position regarding Australian membership of the Open Government Partnership and will the Coalition take immediate steps should it be elected to government?
   
   
5. In 2009 the Labor government released a beta open data site, which has subsequently been replaced with a more advanced site (http://data.gov.au/). The site has a very limited subset of data, frequently in non-reusable formats, and there is no clear mandate from the Prime Minister on government release of data, as there is in the UK, US, New Zealand, Singapore, in Queensland and NSW,  amongst over 50 other federal and state jurisdictions. 
   Would a Coalition government mandate that Commonwealth agencies release the majority of their data (where personal privacy, commercial confidence and national security are not a consideration) in machine-readable formats, as Premier Campbell Newman mandated last year in Queensland and President Obama recently mandated in the US?
   
   
6. The current Labor Government has been criticised for not mandating Government 2.0 at a Prime Ministerial level or appointing a Minister to be responsible for overseeing the Australian Public Service to improve their openness and transparency and adopt Government 2.0 tools. Whereas the Queensland Premier Campbell Newman directly spoke on the matter and appointed Ray Stevens to the position of Assistant Minister for eGovernment to oversee the Queensland Government's move towards open data. 
   Would a Coalition Government appoint a Minister, Assistant Minister or Parliamentary Secretary for eGovernment or Government 2.0 to lead this area across government?
   
   
7. The Australian Public Service is increasingly adopting social media as a business as usual channel for monitoring, communicating with and engaging companies, stakeholder groups and the community, however in the last APS report only 36% of APS had access to social media, there was no requirement for agencies to have social media policies or strategies and there were no formal training programs in place to ensure that the Australian Public Service had the skills to effectively engage via social media.
   While I have seen excellent social media engagement by the APS, I have also seen very poor engagement - most often from agencies which ban social media access to staff.
   Would a Coalition Government take any steps to ensure that the APS was adequately trained and equipped to take best advantage of social media?

(Note - I worked in roles leading online/social media initiatives within the APS from 2006 to 2012, and currently advise and train agencies in effective social media use)

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Government 2.0 is dead, long live Government

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Victorian Government's Communicators' Group, discussing how effective government had been at meeting the challenge of rapid change throughout the last thirty years.

As part of my presentation I revisited the area of government 2.0 - giving my view that there's no longer such a thing - it's now simply government.

Social media is now mainstream in the community and the majority of Australian federal, state and territory departments officially use social media channels as part of their business as usual engagement with citizens, stakeholders and/or staff.

We sometimes overlook how massive a change this is - the first mention of Government 2.0 in Australia that I've been able to identify was only in September 2007, and the first Twitter account was established in November 2007.

In the last five and a half years, social media has become an extremely powerful tool for governments to engage communities, source knowledge and provide support.

This is only likely to grow into the future as we all become better at using digital channels, as more services go online. Mobile has also reached a tipping point in Australia, 50% of active internet connections, and is growing fast, meaning that digital channels will undergo even more changes towards a digital first approach.

I also highlighted four examples of what I consider current best practice in public sector digital engagement, looking at the areas of citizen-led engagement, crowdsourcing, budget savings and policy codesign.

These are only opinions and at a given point in time - there's more to come as the public sector further grows its digital capabilities and expertise.



However while Gov 2.0 might have largely merged into standard public sector practices, there's still a shortage of experienced digital engagement professionals in the sector and enormous need for ongoing education, training and support.

Ultimately I expect to see digital competency as a horizontal skill, required by the majority of public servants to support their ability to effectively recommend and implement appropriate engagement and service channels to meet public needs. However there's still a long road to travel and much that agencies will need to learn and consider along the way.

I'm going to continue using the term 'Government 2.0' for some time as, despite my view, it still has some value in defining a specific set of approaches and channels for public sector engagement, and providing a focal point for discussions regarding the ongoing change governments face online.

However I believe that Government 2.0 is realistically now simply Government - with the new approaches and channels it involved now officially part and parcel of 21st century governance.

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Register for the May Gov 2.0 event in Canberra

I've realised I'd not yet blogged about this month's Gov 2.0 event in Canberra, which is being run by the Department of Finance and combines the Gov 2.0 crowd with the Australian Government's  Cross Agency Social Media Forum.

The event - which is coming up next Thursday, 23 May at DEEWR's auditorium on Marcus Clarke street, features four speakers on social media in the public service:

• Tom Burton from the ACMA to discuss his work and strategy;
• Evan Hill from PM&C to present about the APS Policy Visualisation Network;
• Felicity Lawrence from ACT Government to present about her PhD research project on social media in the public service across Australia; and 
• Pia Waugh from the Department of Finance to briefly present about the APS online engagement courses Finance are running. Please see below for more information.

For more information and to register visit the EventBrite page at: http://casmmay2013.eventbrite.com/

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How open should open data be? Transport for NSW at the centre of a data controversy

Some will remember the knots that RailCorp tied itself into in 2009 when attempting to sue three developers for packaging Sydney rail timetables into mobile apps.

How things have changed. Recently the NSW government applauded one of those developers for his mobile app, which has reportedly been downloaded a million times.

However the agency which absorbed RailCorp, Transport for NSW, has now been thrust into the centre of another data controversy, with Fairfax's Ben Grubb reporting a row over how real-time transport data has been released.

The gist of the row is simple. Transport for NSW had worked with PWC to hold the ‘App Hot House’ competition  with a limited number of developers to see what they could do with its real-time data.

The outcome was several good apps, which are now available for the public and have been mentioned (some would say promoted) via various Transport for NSW websites, including 131500.com.au.

However the real-time data used in these apps has, thus far, only been made freely available to the developers who won the App Hot House competition. These developers are now selling their apps via mobile stores, presumably at a profit.

In this situation I can see both sides.

Transport for NSW is conservative, risk-averse and feeling its way in the open data space. The organisation has come a very long way in the last three years and is still addressing the culture change and understanding the impacts and potential risks of providing free data to developers to make apps that people rely on.

By selectively releasing real-time data the organisation can maintain a sense of control and address its accountability requirements while studying how it can best make the data more broadly available.

Meanwhile some in Australia's developer community are frustrated that they didn't get picked as part of the closed group granted access to the data. This group has had no opportunity to innovate on or profit from the information, which a select group of 'insiders' was able to be first to market with their real-time timetable apps.

This could be a permanent commercial disadvantage for the bulk of the developer community. The App Hot House winners have time to build experience working with the data and, as we hear regularly in the corporate and start-up space, first-mover advantage is regularly the difference between success and failure.

So did Transport for NSW do the right thing? Or do developers have a point about the agency restraining trade through selective data release?

In my view there's truth on both sides. Transport for NSW has a legitimate reason to be careful as the custodian of this data - which is both valuable and sensitive to small errors. However developers do have a point that they are missing out - and so might be the public and government (on innovation and competition).

In balance, however, I favour Transport for NSW's perspective. Open data is still very new and an 'undiscovered country' for many government agencies, as well as for the public. 

While it would be fantastic to see the organisation fling open the doors and allow all developers access to real-time data, there are legitimate concerns around data provision and security which make it prudent for Transport for NSW to take a slower and more measured approach to data release.

While app developers may be disadvantaged by late access, the risks for the public if Transport for NSW's systems collapse under the demand for real-time data are much greater. 

Equally, by first working with a small set of developers, Transport for NSW can minimise the risk of events like the NextBus failure in Washington, where the app developer was at fault of their app failing to work correctly, however the Metro system still received an, undeserved, share of the blame.

There were, however, some transparency steps that Transport for NSW could have taken (and I would have recommended if involved) to mitigate the kind of controversy in which they now find themselves.

Firstly the agency could have been extremely public about why it was working with a small number of developers at first and what its longer term plans or hopes were for the data. While some would have still complained, there wouldn't have been a 'data void' to be filled with rumours and speculation. 

The media, and most developers, would have accepted that Transport for NSW, in its custodial role, has a right to pilot the release of real-time data to better understand how to prepare its systems and processes for a broader release in future.

This is an unfortunate and unnecessary controversy. It could have been avoided with some savvy social media and communication planning and turned (as it should rightly be) into a triumph of government organisational culture change and openness. 

Few other government agencies have made the big change that Transport for NSW has made in such a short time.

I hope this huge achievement will not be overlooked and that other agencies don't draw an incorrect conclusion that it is better to bottle up data than to face the media approbation for selective, targeted, pilot open data releases.

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Entries now open for 2013 Intranet Innovation Awards

The 6th annual global Intranet Innovation Awards is now open for entries, with submissions closing on Friday 31 May 2013.

It is hard to compare best practice in intranet design and features, which makes the Intranet Innovation Awards, run by Step Two Designs, an important way for government agencies to gain an insight into the fantastic innovative ideas that are being implemented in intranets around the world.

Last year the 5th annual Awards attracted 80 entries, making it the largest award process of its type in the world. This year promises to be even bigger.

So if you've added an innovative or unique feature to your intranet please enter these awards to share your work globally and allow other organisations to learn from your achievements.

For more information, and to enter, visit the Step Two blog at: www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/2013-intranet-innovation-awards-now-open-for-entries/


You can view last year's winners and buy a copy of the case studies at www.steptwo.com.au/products/iia-report

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Resourcing and Valuing Social Media, eGovernment Summit and open government

This week I've been in Melbourne for two conferences, the LGPro's Resourcing and Valuing Social Media, and the eGovernment Summit (part of the eCommerce Expo).

Below I've included the Storify records for both conferences as well as my presentation at the eGovernment Summit, on the progress of open government in Australia.

Storify for LG Pro's Resourcing and Valuing Social Media event: http://storify.com/craigthomler/lgpro-resourcing-and-valuing-social-media-event-20

Storify for eGovernment Summit: http://storify.com/mslaurenlou/egovernment-summit-ecom13

Presentation from eGovernment Summit

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VicHealth Seed Challenge and the history and potential for government challenges

VicHealth has just announced the start of the VicHealth Seed Challenge, where the agency is asking people from across the nutrition sector, fruit and vegetable industries, researchers, social innovators/entrepreneurs and the digital world to collaborate and seek solutions to the wicked problem:

"How do we improve fruit and vegetable supply and access, as well as develop and promote a culture of healthy eating in Victoria?"

The challenge takes the format of a competition, where VicHealth, with support from The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, will initially select and fund the most promising ideas with a one-off investment to further refine and develop a business case.

From here, the two most promising ideas that demonstrate a fresh way of thinking will be selected to receive ongoing mentoring, coaching, business development and financial support of up to $100,000.

For more information about the VicHealth Seed Challenge, and upcoming information sessions on 1 May, visit its website: http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/seedchallenge

This type of challenge isn't new or unique in government - although it certainly qualifies as innovative in the way it involves the community in the process of addressing difficult, or wicked, problems and in how digital channels are being integrated into the challenge process.

In fact the first significant government challenge I am aware of began nearly 300 years ago in 1714, with the offer of the Longitude Prize by the British parliament.

This challenge offered a significant cash prize for the inventor who could come up with an accurate way to measure longitude at sea.

This had become a vital technology for an island nation reliant on its navy for protection and its merchant fleet to allow economic growth and to feed a fast growing population. At the time existing technology was not able to retain its accuracy with the rolling movement of ships.

The prizes ranged from £10,000 to £20,000 depending on accuracy - equivalent to several million dollars today.

The Longitude Prize created a whirlwind of innovation across the nation, with many people working to win the prize and the glory - however with the slow speed of technological advancement, the prize was not awarded until 1761 - 47 years later.

The winner of the prize, Yorkshire carpenter John Harrison, submitted his first project in 1730 and a second in 1735, however when trialled in 1741 neither model was able to compensate for centrifugal force, although they did compensate for gravity and ship motion.

His third attempt in 1759 introduced several major innovations such as caged ball bearings (still used today), however still proved inaccurate, but his fourth attempt in 1761, which resembled a pocketwatch, was successful and was awarded the £20,000 top prize.

In the three hundred years since the Longitude Prize, many governments have used challenges and prizes to encourage public participation in the progress of science, the development of physical structures and the solution of difficult social and economic problems.

Notable examples in Australia include the 1912 competition to design an 'Ideal City' as the capital of the country, leading to the selection of Walter Burleigh-Griffin's design for Canberra and the 1956 competition for the construction of a national opera house at Bennelong Point in Sydney, which led to the construction of the Sydney Opera House.

Jumping forward a few years, we've seen the arrival of the internet vastly increase the potential reach and flexibility of challenges for government, while significantly reducing the timeframes required to enter or the cost of running these challenges.

In the US the Federal Government has had a central online challenge platform in place for several years (challenge.gov), which has seen dozens of agencies hold close to 200 competitions.

In Australia the process has been far more piecemeal and conservative, with straight competitions (such as the photo competition I ran at the Department of Regional Australia, attracting well over 2,000 entries) being the norm - designed to engage citizens, rather than to source ideas or solutions from them.

We have seen some challenges recently tied to the open data movement - beginning with a broad MashUpAustralia challenge held by the Gov 2.0 taskforce in 2009 and more directed and specific open data challenges held most recently by the NSW government in the transport and health areas.

While digital is now the preferred channel for holding these challenges, due to the speed of engagement and low cost, it is a mistake to solely link challenges to open data, or to focus them purely on programming skills.

As the US has demonstrated via Challenge.gov, there are a vast array of issues where government-run challenges can add value in finding solutions, improving communication or developing new or better services - open data challenges have their place, but are only one subset of what is possible.

The VicHealth Seed Challenge is an example of one of the possibilities for government challenges in the digital age - where the challenge isn't about data, but about solving a known wicked problem, using all the tools available today - digital and otherwise.

I hope other governments pay attention to this great work by VicHealth and consider the history and potential of challenges beyond the small open data subset.

Government challenges can be a cost-effective way to solve wicked social, transport, economic and health problems - every agency and council should consider them, where relevant, within policy and service deliberations.

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Presentations from Social Media conference and #socadl

Earlier this week I gave presentations at Canberra and Adelaide social media conferences from Akolade and at #Socadl - the regular meetup for South Australian social media enthusiasts.

I've included my two presentations below, and they're also available in my Slideshare page.

Privacy and social media for Australian governments from Craig Thomler

Government 2.0 - #socadl from Craig Thomler

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Web and social media reporting can help Communication get a seat at the decision-makers' table

Yesterday morning I attended the first OPC IT WebEx event for the year, where we heard from three great speakers on intranet development, accessibility and the changing face of the media in Australia.

One particular statement that stuck in my mind was from David Pembroke, CEO of Content Group, who said that it was important for communications people to bring numbers to the table to gain a seat alongside other decision-makers, such as CFOs and CIOs who already have numbers in hand to support their positions.

While most agencies now track the traffic to their website and report raw numbers of followers, comments and mentions on their social channels, I believe there's still a way to go before these numbers are provided in the right way to the right people at the right time to help Communications areas - and particularly Online Communications - have the impact and the influence it deserves.

This has been brought home to me by Slideshare, which recently began sending me reports on the number of views and interactions on the various presentations I've uploaded to the service over the years.

Simply being able to see these basic stats has made me take more notice of the material I'm putting on Slideshare and whether or not it has a wider audience that I should consider when developing my slides.

I'm even considering paying money for an account to get more detailed statistics that will help me finetune material to better match what audiences want.

When working in Government I did place a considerable amount of effort into providing web statistics back to the areas responsible for specific content. I believe this type of reporting is critical to help policy and program areas receive regular and actionable feedback on what they are putting online to help inform their customers, clients, stakeholders and other audiences.

In fact, without web reporting many of these areas only receive ad hoc and irregular feedback on the content they are producing - an annual survey, or some Ministerial Correspondence. This makes it harder for them to understand whether their content is targeted correctly and also means they place much lower emphasis on what they are communicating online - what isn't measured isn't managed or valued.

Now with social media in the picture, web reporting needs to jump to a higher level of competency. While agencies might have made some steps to ensure that various areas of their business are receiving reports on the content they are providing through websites, the new frontier is to provide them with actionable information on what people are saying about their programs and policies across the broader web.

This helps areas within agencies not only assess how people are responding to the information they do provide online, but also gives them some understanding of what questions and issues are being discussed due to the lack of content.

In other words, web reporting helps tell agencies the quality and effectiveness of their own website content. Social media reporting helps tell agencies about the community's content needs beyond existing content.

The benefits to agencies of this social media monitoring are immense, not only can we capture known unknowns, but also the unknown unknowns - intelligence that could shape the entire way a program or campaign is designed and communicated.

It is also very important to differentiate social media monitoring from media monitoring - something that is getting harder to do as media monitoring companies move to bundle social within their media offerings.

Media monitoring tracks what commentators say about an agency and its activities when posturing to a broad audience.

Social media monitoring tracks what your customers and stakeholders are saying about an agency and its activities to each other.

In other words social media monitoring can provides a granular and specific view on what your actual customers think and understand about specific programs and how they interact with them in the real world, while media monitoring only provides a shallow reputational view on what people are saying for an audience - which may simply be an act.

So while there is a clear incentive for Online and Communication teams to roll social media monitoring in as an extension to (traditional) media monitoring, it can be dangerous to consider the intelligence received through both avenues in the same light.

As agencies get better at both web reporting and social media monitoring, and develop standardised ways to communicate actionable insights to the right people, at the right time, we're likely to see more ability for the groups providing these insights to have meaningful influence on agency decisions. This is right and proper - better information leads to better decisions and outcomes.

However it is up to Communication and Online teams and their leadership to recognise how web and social monitoring can advance their ability to positively influence decisions and take the lead on providing insights, otherwise they will find themselves on the margins as more traditional numbers-orientated disciplines take over the responsibility for these activities.

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Addressing the 'squeaky wheels'

A report from the South Australian Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) has been brought to my attention as providing brief but useful information about how to address 'squeaky wheels' who may contact councils and agencies via various channels, including via social media.

The report, which uses the IAP2 model for engagement, is available at the following link: http://www.lgmasa.org.au/Resources/Documents/ELP_Squeaky_Wheel_Report_Final1.pdf

While the contents of the report may be useful to others seeking to manage social media engagement, the fact that the ELP program publishes its reports online each year is also a great achievement - allowing knowledge and experience to be shared more broadly than simply amongst the participants.

The ELP is run by the LGMA (SA) in partnership with the Executive Education Unit at the University of Adelaide as a 10 month experiential learning program, including a group project, and is definitely worth checking out if you're a local government employee based in SA.

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How government in Australia is (and can) use social media

This is a presentation I gave on Monday to NSW Health, including a review of Australian social media adoption, how agencies have been using social media, risks to watch out for and some examples of good public sector social media execution.

I'm happy to come chat to any government agency or council on these topics if it adds value to what you're trying to do.

Social media in government - presentation to NSW Health from Craig Thomler

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