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I've been reviewing a very interesting presentation from Paul Ramsay, one of my blog's Canadian readers.
Titled RoboCop, Public Service in the Internet Age, it asks whether government is simply on the internet, or is part of the internet.
It frames this question based on whether government is simply using the intranet to replicate the services it provides via other channels, or using the new medium to go further.
This is a topic I resonate with. For many years I've been telling people that what we see on the internet today is similar to what we first saw in films - stage shows re-enacted on a flat screen.
It took many years for movie makers to learn how to use the medium to go beyond what was possible on a stage, and the types of movies we see today bear little resemblance to our first stumbling efforts in the medium.
The internet is the same. It's not just digital paper, online radio or short videos - it's a mass medium that takes all these elements, twists them 180 degrees and adds on seamless global surfing, collaboration, citizen empowerment and much more.
From what we've managed to do so far at my agency we're simply on the internet - providing electronic versions of print concepts - 'fact sheets', 'newsletters', 'forms', 'media releases' and 'data tables'.
I am hopeful and working hard to ensure that in the next few years we'll break through the perceptual barriers to build understanding across the department of what is really possible with the online channel and how we can support our customers and staff in entirely new ways.
New medium = new rules
New medium = new opportunities
New medium = new challenges
How do you see the internet changing your organisation?
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Is government on the internet or part of the internet? | Tweet |
Friday, July 04, 2008
How authentic are government communicators? | Tweet |
Are government communicators - and their agencies - perceived as authentic?
If you believe the Authentic Enterprise report from the Arthur W. Page society, this is one of the most critical questions for government in the digital age.
The report looks at three converging trends for corporate and government communications in the 21st society,
- The digital network economy
"...providing interlinked, low cost (even free) and easy-to-use ways to communicate, to publish and to broadcast, to work and to organize people with common interests. This is driving a shift in the way people interact with each other and with companies and institutions. It changes how dialogue occurs, how perceptions are shaped and how relationships are forged." - The reality of a global economy
"Free trade agreements, the Internet and the emergence of highly skilled populations in developing regions have created a “flat world.” This is reshaping the footprint – and even the idea – of the corporation. It’s shifting from a hierarchical, monolithic, multinational model to one that is horizontal, networked and globally integrated." - The appearance and empowerment of myriad new stakeholders:
"...there is now a diverse array of communities, interests, nongovernmental organizations and individuals. Many of these new players represent important interests, while others are not legitimate stakeholders, but rather simply adversarial or malicious.
Regardless of motive, all are far more able to collaborate among themselves around shared interests and to reach large audiences.
As it states in the report,
"The quality of the company’s products and services (or lack thereof) is apparent to all customers and potential customers. Its treatment of employees and retirees is visible across the corporation and to potential employees and public interest groups. Its citizenship, environmental behavior, corporate governance standards, executive compensation practices and public policy recommendations are transparent to all."The upshot is that public and private organisations that wish to continue to thrive need to rethink their approach in a holistic way, not simply shifting their externally communications messages, but making authentic and lasting changes in how they conduct business, deliver customer service, treat staff and address environmental and governance issues.
What does this specifically mean for government communicators?
I've already begun exploring this topic in previous posts - we're already seeing greater online scrutiny and more information available on government agencies in channels that agencies have limited influence or control over.
Over time it will become increasingly important for departments or senior public officials to walk their talk every time, as any differences between message and reality will become more obvious and widely known, potentially creating embarrassment and more for governments or the individuals involved.
Where message and action are not consistent PR issues will arise faster, from unexpected angles and potentially do lasting damage to the credibility of government agencies and the government of the day.
That's not an epitaph any government communicator should like to have.
So what can government agencies do?
There's an opportunity right now for government agencies to join the online conversations, establish credibility (being government isn't automatic credibility anymore) and become an opinion leader, rather than an opinion victim.
While government communicators cannot control these discussions, we can at least ensure we're in the loop, able to explain misunderstandings before they spiral out of control and correct agency mistakes before they become damaging.
This does mean making hard decisions - comment approvals cannot take weeks, the audience's language must be used rather than jargon and bureaucratise, honesty and authenticity are paramount, to the extent of admitting (and rectifying) mistakes and, as the biggest kid on the block, government agencies have to play very gently or be perceived as bullies.
The alternative is for government communicators to fall back on the old approach - make no comment, only engage via 'official' channels and hope the storms that arise will blow over.
There are examples already of how poorly this has worked for organisations elsewhere in the world.
How to take action
- Search for mentions of your agency on the internet and discover some of the centres of discussion and debate. Gauge their tone and approach and whether they would welcome official representation, familiarise yourself with the appropriate way to write for the audience.
- Prepare internal policies on online engagement - how should your organisation react to or address negative blog or forum posts?
- Prepare an engagement strategy that provides the flexibility to communicate the facts, with as little spin as possible, then get it approved and get involved in the discussion.
eGov review: Vic Graduated Licensing System | Tweet |
The Victorian government has impressed me for several years for their commitment to the effective use of the online channel in government initiatives.
Their Graduated Licensing System (GLS) for young drivers has been extremely well-supported online, with one of the most creative approaches to the channel I've seen in government.
I don't know the budget for the development, however they have made good use of cheap open-source applications, using the Joomla content management system (one I use personally) for the website and using Youtube for storage and distribution of the campaign video.
The video created for the GLS was the highlight for me - it is quite watchable, full of humour and very unlike a traditional government advertisement. In fact I first discovered this site through people recommending the video on blogs.
The website is well designed to appeal to the main target market - young drivers - using strong imagery and fewer words that your average government website. The navigation is clear and the text effectively customised for the different audiences, but consistently retaining the same voice and with minimal jargon.
The site is designed to function effectively across Firefox and Internet Explorer and has well formed code and metadata, so realistically a few tweaks would make this complete.
Interestingly enough, the site's government branding is placed at the bottom of the page. Given the audience this may help make the site feel more friendly and less formal.
I found many parts of the website a little disappointing. The body text in the site is quite small and there is no control built into the site to allow adjustments to text size. While this is acceptable for the main audience, one of the secondary audiences - the parents of young drivers - could have difficulty reading the small text, particularly as it is white on black.
There is a search function, which is a positive, particularly as there is no site map. However it is unusually placed in the middle-right side of the site, detached from the top menu and most frequent placement for this type of function.
The search results did not appear to be optimised well either. A search on 'GLS', the initials of the system, presented as the top result the new radio campaign. A page actually explaining the GLS did not appear at all in the first (of 5) pages of results.
The FAQ section could also do with some refinement. Firstly it presents results in question then answer format, but without a list of questions at the top. This means that someone seeking an answer has to read down the page in the hoping of finding it. This is made even harder as the questions are in gray text, on the site's black background, making them easy to miss as they are less visible than the rest of the text.
So in conclusion, it's a good campaign, with an excellent video for the medium and backed by a decent website.
With some refinements to the text sizing (such as a control to change name), search placement and results weighting and to the presentation of the FAQs, it could be a great site.
The government that sets data standards controls the world | Tweet |
I was reading through the comments on my post on Make government data freely available, and found Gav's (RedIguana) comments particularly thought provoking.
...Government also must create national standards for data, for example in terms of controlled vocabularies, etc, to ensure that data can in fact be aggregated nationally. It is no good if each council classifies roads differently, to actually produce a national aggregated dataset of roads with wildly differing definitions.This comment, explored in more depth in Gav's blog, raises an important consideration for government as a whole.
Who in government is responsible for defining consistently usable data standards?
I don't think this is clear at the moment.
I'm not only talking about big picture data standards - such as national inflation, unemployment and population distribution (for which the ABS does an excellent job).
I'm talking about data standards all the way down through state to local levels, such as Gav's example of road hierarchy classification and areas such as geological data.
Currently it seems that every Federal department, every state and even every local council is collecting information on their local environment and areas of responsibility.
However there is no mechanism for combining and making sense of all this data within a single interface.
Looking into the near future I believe that nations that organise their data at all levels to agreed standards, those I call the Data-Haves, will have a significant competitive advantage against those that keep data siloed and on inconsistent baselines, those I call the Data-Have-Nots.
In the Data-Have nations data at all levels can be shared freely online, making it possible to build information maps, cross-reference trends and discover connections and causal events that would otherwise remain concealed.
These informational benefits will allow Data-Have scientists, business people and governments to test and prove new governance, management and scientific theories - leading to discoveries that improve the welfare of their people and their long-term economic success.
Meanwhile the Data-Have-Not nations, who are not sharing data openly, will be rapidly left behind, socially, economically and politically.
This isn't a new scenario - there's a strong case that the Soviet Union, with its rigid and siloed political and economic systems, was unable to survive in the global marketplace because it could not effectively share information between internal groups. It therefore fell further and further behind in an information sharing world.
This leaves me with one question.
How do we help ensure that Australia becomes a Data-Have nation rather than a Data-Have-Not?
Any suggestions?
Thursday, July 03, 2008
How would you start out sourcing social networking tools? | Tweet |
I've been looking around at some of the interesting social networking tools that are coming onto the market, such as Webjam, for some that could be rapidly implemented within our firewall.
I apply some fairly rigorous criteria. Any system must:
- Meet W3C, Federal, Department and Agency web standards
- Support at least AA accessibility (and preferably AAA)
- Meet our ICT requirements for interoperability, stability, bandwidth use and technology platform
- Integrate with our identification system
- Be server lite
- Track usage by user
- Support both individual and team blogs
- Allow us to centrally control who can set up a blog
- Be template based
- Support WYSYWG editing
- Integrate with an image management tool
- Support comment moderation (on or off)
- Incorporate email as well as RSS/ATOM notifications
- Allow us to centrally control who can set up a wiki
- Be template based
- Support WYSYWG editing
- Integrate an image management tool
- Incorporate email as well as RSS/ATOM notifications
- Support multiple admin and moderation levels (discussion/forum/global)
- Allow us to centrally control who can set up a forum or discussion group
- Be template based
- Support WYSYWG editing
- Incorporate email as well as RSS/ATOM notifications
- Support both threaded and unthreaded discussions
There's some other criteria as well, but I don't have them immediately in front of me.
Fortunately I've found Jeremiah Owyang's post on a List of “White Label” or “Private Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms
The good news - it lists around 80 'white-label' social networking products available in the market.
The bad news - it's now 12 months old. More than half of the products on the list are likely to have disappeared or changed names, and there's likely to be double that number of new players (again like Webjam).
So I'm now thinking about my best course in finding a product that is stable, reliable, and will be in the market for at least a few years - at a low price point with great functionality.
Any pointers?
