Is your agency monitoring or pre-empting online impersonators?

With the vast array of online social media tools now out there, it's inevitable that a few individuals will use them in a malicious way to discredit organisations.

Where organisations are not keeping an eye on these online channels, there is the possibility that the impact of comments - made in public to large groups of participants - could be substantial.

A current case in point is the fake Exxon Mobil tweeter. Someone, purporting to be a representative of Exxon, has been using Twitter, a very popular micro-blogging application, to make comments about the organisation's activities.

In this case, however, the comments are positive - although not representative.

As reported in The Houston Chronicle, Exxon Mobil says it's not behind its' Twitter account,

To many, Exxon Mobil is the picture of control, a disciplined corporation that stays on message in a simple, staid manner through oil booms and busts.

That's why a new participant on the social networking site Twitter.com earlier this week was a bit of a surprise.

According to the online bio, "Janet" at ExxonMobilCorp in Irving was "Taking on the world's toughest energy challenges."

In the brief, 140-character snippets Twitter allows, she points out the oil giant's philanthropic efforts, answers questions about the company's policies and even laments a shortage of caramel apple sugar babies at one Exxon retail outlet.

This foray into the new media frontier for one of corporate America's blue chip companies might seem ground-breaking if it wasn't for one thing:

"That's not us," said Alan Jeffers, spokesman for Exxon Mobil.

"Janet" isn't part of Exxon's public relations machinery — the company said it has no idea who she is and wasn't aware of her until the Chronicle called to ask.

In this case Exxon was unaware until the media contacted the company and presumably was not monitoring online social media to see what was being said about, or purportedly on behalf of the organisation.

I expect they will be reviewing this position for the future.

Note that I am not advocating that organisations take a censorship approach. It is impossible to prevent people from talking about organisations, whether in the pub, in the home or online.

However it is possible to become part of this conversation - and ensure that the messages being conveyed appropriately reflect the actual views of the organisation.

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The survey for people who make websites

A List Apart is conducting a survey on the work situations of those working in the web space - from developers and web designers, through to content managers and online publishers.

Last year the survey (held for the first time) had 33,000 respondents, roughly 1,700 from Australia. This year is expected to be much bigger.

This survey is particularly interesting as the raw (anonymous) data is released - allowing anyone interested in a particular segment to analyse this data in the way they choose.

This allows for significant insights into particular segments of the market which can be used for web team management and recruiting purposes.

I'd recommend that anyone in the online space in the public sector consider both completing in the survey this year and reviewing the result from last year.

This year's survey is open at http://alistapart.com/articles/survey2008

Last year's results are at: http://alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults

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UK announces new grants for egovernment projects stimulating involvement in democracy

The UK government has announced a £150,000 government scheme to encourage online democracy aimed at charities, community groups and non-government organisations.

Named the Innovation Fund, grants will be made to support projects developing new ways to encourage public participation in the UK's democratic processes and influence government policy.

This is the third year the program has been run, with 8 projects funded in each of the proceeding years.

Most interesting for those not in the UK, ideas are floated publicly in the Fund's website, making them visible to governments in other jurisdictions to study.

More information, and the latest ideas submitted, are available at www.buildingdemocracy.co.uk.

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Collaborating with citizens to add value to government data

Over the last six months a collection of libraries and museums from around the world, including the Library of Congress in the US, the Toulouse Library in France and Australia's PowerHouse Museum, have been placing copyright free images from their photo collections online in Flickr, allowing the online community to add information and commentary.

As discussed in the article Flickr, Library of Congress find something in 'Common', in USA Today, the approach has seen over 500 photos have new information added to them, from identifying individuals, locations and providing context for the images.

This approach of tapping into an existing online community of enthusiasts (Flickr is the world's largest community of photographers), providing them with public data and seeing what value the community can add (free of charge) is applicable across many different areas of government.

This isn't a unique instance of this approach. Other, and quite different examples of government-community online collaboration include;

• the SETI@Home program, which uses unused processing power on millions of home users' PCs to analyse astronomical data in the search for intelligent life,
  
• the Police Wiki Act, which was passed as an Act of Parliament last year as the first piece of New Zealand legislation to be written, analysed, discussed and finalised online involving hundreds (if not thousands) of community contributors, and
  
• the UK government's mash-up competition, where the UK is looking for community innovation in creating useful online applications involving government data released especially for this purpose.

The final example is particularly interesting as the UK government has phrased the competition as 'show us a better way', acknowledging that citizens are able to come up with better ideas than the government.

There's many other forms this type of collaboration could take. All it requires is some goverment data and the will to work with communities.

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AGIMO releases consultation blog report

Earlier this month AGIMO released a report regarding consultation with government online.

This concludes a yearlong consultation program during which AGIMO has consulted a range of stakeholders to assist development in the online consultation space.

It's taken me a little while to get to it, but the report has been very useful in directing my thinking regarding how my agency can more deeply engage customers and stakeholders in meaningful dialogue.

The report indicated that people did feel it would be of value to have an online consultation space for government, In fact 96.9 percent of those responding to the online survey were in favour.

This space would potentially involve blogs, discussion forums and details of public consultations, similar to that already in place for QLD's Get involved consultation website.

The report also suggested that there needed to be steps taken to encourage participation as people not already engaged in online or political discussions may not participate in such a site.


I found the section detailing techniques to make people more interested in participating particularly useful and relevant to any such website, and will be applying them as my agency moves towards greater online consultation - both with staff and with stakeholders and customers.

The points raised included that people would be more likely to participate if;

• the discussion topic were relevant to their personal circumstances;
• they had the opportunity to nominate the topics for discussion;
• discussion forums included the participation of Government officials;
• a range of registration options were available;
• the site was well designed, easy to find and use;
• participants were free to express their opinion without censorship; and
• it were unbiased in its operation.

Of all of these points, the one that came through most clearly to me from the report was the need to establish credibility - that any online consultation was being taken seriously by the Minister and senior public servants involved.

As it stated in the report:

It was seen by many respondents, especially those participating via the online survey, that Government officials and Ministers would be able to prove their interest in, and commitment to, the various topics under discussion by participating. Many noted the need for political impartiality. The success of any public online forum was seen to depend on the willingness of those in power to participate in the debate and respond to the issues presented.

While many respondents expressed their cynicism about Government actually participating in the discussion, some respondents were optimistic and believed that Government officials would take the website and its discussion forums seriously.

In other words, participation proves commitment to process.

I am looking forward to further guidance from AGIMO as to how they intend to move forward to develop such a consultation site.

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