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The online talkback radio program, The Hobson & Holtz Report, will be spending an hour discussing the topic of my blog post on the relationship between a strong commitment to internal communications and an effective intranet.
The program, presented by Shel Holz in California (US) and Neville Hobson in Berkshire (UK), discusses public relations and technology in a twice-weekly podcast.
The live call-in show discussing the topic of my post is set for Saturday, August 23, at 10 am US Pacific, 1 pm US Eastern, or 6 pm in the UK. - which makes it 3am in eastern Australia.
For those who do not want to get up at this time, it will be stored on their website for later listening, and I'll add a link from my blog.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Live call-in show discussing the strength of the relationship between internal communications commitment and intranet effectiveness | Tweet |
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Using social networks to add value within organisations | Tweet |
I worry sometimes that MySpace and Facebook, despite their phenomenal growth over the last few years, may be actually slowing down the adoption of social networks within organisations.
By presenting social networks as largely involving frivolous, time-wasting tools to promote bands, buy and sell people's photos or exchange virtual gifts, these networks position social networks as playthings for young people rather than serious business tools.
Senior managers are not interested in introducing services which appear to be designed to distract staff from their jobs and add no measurable value.
I believe that social networks, applied correctly, are a powerful stimulus for organisational efficiency, information management, collaboration and innovation.
A few organisations already provide social networks for their staff and have realised real business value, as discussed in a ComputerWorld article I discovered via Victoria's fantastic eGovernment Resource Centre.
The article, Social networking behind the firewall, discusses the benefits being realised by Deloitte Consulting, IBM and Best Buys through their internal social networks.
Deloitte's D Street has supported the organisation in,
- Attracting and retaining talent
- Developing virtual teams (geographical collaboration)
- Building expert networks and communities of practice
- Sharing information horizontally across the organisation
- Build stronger relationships between different teams and individual staff
- Extend internal dialogue and collaboration
- Foster innovative thinking
- Tap into marketing ideas across the organisation
- Refine organisational policies
- Shape strategic thinking
- Close the gap between frontline and corporate staff
Perhaps this is the message intranet managers need to communicate to help senior executives understand the business value of social networks, rather than focusing on the joys of Scrabulous.
California launches a best practice government wiki | Tweet |
As reported in Government Technology, California has launched a best practices wiki for state employees.
It currently covers topics including:
- Healthcare in Prisons
- Customer Service
- Disaster Preparedness
- Education and Training
- Green California
- Human Resources
- Information Technology
There's an interesting write-up regarding the process used to create the wiki as a sample best practice.
I expect to see more of these types of self-regulating professional networks emerge across government over the next few years in support of moves to whole-of-government standards and to improve knowledge capture, transfer and management.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Growth of social media use in US congress - is it sustainable? | Tweet |
Apparently 33 of the US's congressmen are now actively using the Twitter micro-blogging service to give timely updates of what is occurring on the floor of the US Congress.
From the article, Twitter takes flight in Congress, in Federal Computer Week, the service has facilitated real-time discussion with constituents regarding legislation under consideration and appears to be beginning to influence how elected representatives engage with their constituents. From the article,
The article does point out the risk of these technologies being used purely for political messaging, another way to distribute media releases.Ari Herzog, a political blogger who has been following the use of Twitter in Congress as well, said that he sees Twitter as a way for elected officials to show taxpayers and voters what they are doing.
“Whether the future with the Congress will be in YouTube or in Twitter or in some other technology, I think [those type of technologies] are where it’s going to be,” said Herzog.
In my view this is the risk of any communications medium, and the best equivalent is talkback radio - yes it will be used to communicate political messages, but it will also support communication between public office holders, government agencies and citizens.
Benchmarking government websites, intranets and egovernment services | Tweet |
I've found it quite difficult to benchmark my agency's online services against those of other agencies in Australia.
Besides AGIMO's annual report on Australians' use of and Satisfaction with e-Government services and some of their past case studies, there's limited information available across Australian agencies regarding different departments' online experiences.
Over in New Zealand they recently benchmarked local government sites (PDF) and also benchmark government use of ICT and accessibility every few years.
In Europe they benchmark the supply of online public services (PDF) and a document from 2004 provided a very keen insight into why and how to benchmark public services.
In the US there is a quarterly review of government sites for user satisfaction.
So if anyone from another government agency is interested in benchmarking their online services, drop me a line.
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