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It looks like in the US state governments are now actively using Twitter as a tool to get messages out into the public eye.
As mentioned by Static{fade} in eGov status updates via Twitter, a number of states are using it to make official announcements, distribute media releases and engage with stakeholders and citizens.
Given that McCain and Obama will tweet it out in Twitter debate (or at least some of their staff did), it's clear that social media is becoming a more and more useful channel for egovernment in the US.
I'll have to begin considering its use for promoting our media releases (as a first step).
Anyone else in Australian government considering Twitter?
Monday, June 23, 2008
eGovernment via Twitter | Tweet |
Making government recruitment effective online | Tweet |
This post in Shifted HR reflects an area I have my eye on - Recruitment in the Australian Public Service
In Allison's words:
HR areas in APS agencies need to stop focusing on the process of recruitment and use technology to do this. They should be focusing their energy in supporting, educating and training line managers on recruitment strategy, attraction and candidate management.
Coming from the private sector I am used to organisations having effective online recruitment systems. These remove unnecessary manual steps in applying for jobs, managing applications, communicating with applicants and filtering job seekers by abilities.
I'd like to upgrade the systems at my agency when we can give it appropriate attention.
What has been your experience in rolling out systems to support the recruitment process at your organisation?
Managing the 'grey hair' drain | Tweet |
A big issue in government, as in the private sector, is the drain of experienced older people as they decide to change lifestyles.
Dow has followed an interesting strategy of developing an alumni social network, which helps keep ex-employees - both retirees and others - linked into the organisation.
This keep their experience on tap and can also serve as a pool of potential recruits back to the organisation.
Given how important the aging of Australia's public service has become on the APS agenda, I'd be interested whether any agencies are considering strategies like this one to help them manage future trainsitions.
Dow's article: "My Dow Network" Provides Dow People with New Way to Connect
Thanks to Web Strategy by Jeremiah for this link in his post, Gen Y Enter Stage Left, Baby Boomers Exit Stage Right.
Note that with new intranet social media tools being developed by Microsoft and LinkedIn, Dow's approach may become very cost-effective in the future, linking into people's existing online social networks.
Do all your egovernment tools meet accessibility standards? | Tweet |
In Australia website usability is important, but accessibility is law.
While most government agencies are extremely diligent about meeting accessibility requirements it is also important to look at the accessibility of any online tools they use that affect their customers or clients.
For example, my agency uses a third-party email marketing system, Vision6 for electronic newsletters to customers and a US-based survey tool, SurveyMonkey for customer and stakeholder surveys.
Vision6 is an Australian company and has met all applicable accessibility requirements for a long time. We also make a point of offering plain text versions of all HTML emails we distribute through this tool to further ensure we're providing an email version that customers can readily access.
SurveyMonkey, being a US system, isn't required by law to meet Australian accessibility standards - although it meets the applicable W3C guidelines on which this was based.
Previously we used this service as no other web survey platform I had identified met the agency's requirements and was fully Australian standards compliant.
However they have just been certified as compliant with the US's Section 508 Accessibility requirements, which, according to SurveyMonkey, makes them the only online survey application that is Section 508 certified, as explained in their website, Your survey designs are now 508 compliant!
This isn't an Australian standard, however it is a very long way towards meeting it.
If you're unsure what the Australian requirements are, AGIMO's Accessibility section provides a concise and clear explanation.
If you're not sure how to test for accessibility, WebAIM has a good list of accessibility testing tools and when/how to use them.
Incidentally, the W3C is getting much closer to the second version of their accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.0) - after 5 years of work.
Webcredibility have a review of the new version in their site at WCAG 2.0: The new W3C accessibility guidelines evaluated.
A different way to look at agency customers | Tweet |
My agency spends a lot of money learning about our customers with the goal of identifying how to provide them with better services.
These research processes quite often lead to huge presentations full of statistics that attempt to explain customer intentions and motivations.
If you have a maths bent, these presentations speak very loudly - however they don't always translate well for others and can be difficult to absorb and interpret.
An approach that I find is very eloquent is to imagine that you have only 100 customers living in a village and look at their conditions, hopes and aspirations in this framework.
This has been used with great effect by Miniature Earth - which takes this concept and applies it to the entire globe.
There's also an application of it to companies, looking at large corporations or agencies from the same perspective of a 100 person village.
Brought to my attention by Steve Collin's Thoughtglue blog, you can view it at: McDaniel Partners: Are You Effectively Managing Your Most Important Asset?.
So using this concept for your customers, what do they look like, and where are they going?
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