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Some departments block them totally, others just monitor usage, is there a case for allowing or even supporting public social network use in government offices?
The other day the Sydney Morning Herald published an article on The pain and potential of Facebook in the office where Nick Abrahams, a Deacons law firm partner provided his personal view on the use of public social networks within a corporate environment together with some statistics from the Deacon Social Networking Survey 2008 on usage in nearly 700 Australian organisations.
Without giving clear conclusions, Nick raised some interesting points around the commercial risks of allowing these networks, including potential over-use, harassment, discrimination and the release of private or corporate in-confidence information.
He also flagged the risks of blocking these networks - such as reduced collaboration, unattractiveness to younger potential employees and being seen as out-of-step with accepted social conventions.
A couple of the findings Nick highlighted were that 20% of organisations blocked access to public social networking sites, only 14% of employees (currently) use social network sites during office hours (including lunch!) and that 76% of employees believed that organisations should allow staff to access these sites in the office.
Demographically only 4% of employees over 35 used social networks at the office, whilst 25% of those 25-34 and 33% of those under 25 years did. Also 46% of respondents who used social networks stated that, given the choice between two job offers that were otherwise roughly equivalent, they'd pick the organisation that did not block Facebook.
There is clear evidence that social networks provide benefits. The experience of many organisations now using internal social networks bears out that they do support collaboration - where they are supported by an appropriate organisational culture.
The efforts by the US intelligence services (an internal facebook equivalent) and the work by software providers such as Microsoft to develop social networks for organisations indicates that in the future more online social networking in organisations is likely to be the norm, rather than less.
However internal social networking is different - easier to manage and control than public social networking. Once it goes public an organisation relies on each and every individual involved to conduct themselves responsibly at all times where their comments are visible.
Is the situation with public social networking any different to where we are with telephones, letters, emails and even online forums (which are not commonly blocked)?
With these mediums we put appropriate policies in place, sometimes train people on acceptable conduct and rely on trusting individuals to do the right thing, to act in their own self-interest (continued employment) and back these up with potential legal options (scaling up from disciplinary action) to ensure usage is appropriately managed.
Should government agencies treat public social networks differently to other mediums, as people are behaving in a less formal manner but may still be indirectly representing the organisation?
Or should they use the same principles of policy, training and actions as for other mediums?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Do public social networks have a place in government offices? | Tweet |
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The success of Future Melbourne - an online wiki-led consultation program | Tweet |
I've been looking at the success of the Future Melbourne program, a wiki and blog based approach to shaping the future urban landscape of Australia's second largest city.
The program allowed citizens to directly collaborate, edit and comment on the plans for the future development of the city. It attracted more than 30,000 visits by nearly 7,000 individuals and over 200 edits to the plans, ranging from spelling and grammatical corrections through to lengthy well-considered contributions (and not one instance of spam, off-topic or offensive content).
Reading through an offline presentation on Future Melbourne, the program involved several stages,
As part of the process appropriate Conditions of Registration, Privacy Policy & Discussion Rules were developed to cover the legal requirements of the program.
Participation Policies & Guidelines and a Netiquette guide were developed to help participants understand the framework for engagement.
The wiki was monitored on a day-by-day basis to ensure appropriate conduct was upheld and changes were tracked via the wiki system.
Some of the learnings of the program included:
I hope other public sector organisations are considering similar routes to engage their customers and community.
How can we effectively share our egovernment successes and failures? | Tweet |
I find egovernment an exciting area to work in.
It offers benefits to citizens and businesses in reducing the time and cost of engaging with government
It offers benefits to taxpayers due to the cost savings achievable within the public sector and the ability to improve transparency in government.
It offers benefits to individuals and communities by providing new and effective ways to collaborate with community and advocacy groups, businesses, agencies from other jurisdictions, the community and individual citizens to deliver improved policy and service outcomes.
I find that many Australian public sector organisations are engaged in exciting experiments with digital web and mobile technologies to improve their engagement and service delivery. There are also many innovative individuals working in different areas to advocate the use of modern tools to improve the solutions to age-old issues.
However finding out about these initiatives and the lessons learnt in each case isn't easy.
There are limited forums for communication between public sector organisations and the means by which we share information is often limited by funding, time and bureaucratic overheads.
In the private sector competitors often keep secrets from each other as a may to build competitive advantage. In the public sector secrets are often necessary for customer privacy or state interest, however they can also reduce our ability to provide community benefit where they cross into restrictions on learning from mistakes or successes.
Lack of information sharing also results in duplication of work, very slow learning from mistakes and redundancy - which costs government and therefore taxpayers and service recipients time and money.
I'm working through approaches to improve communication across egovernment practitioners in Australia, drawing from New Zealand's excellent wikis, the online forums used in the UK and US and the European Union's fantastic community site.
Do others have any ideas they can suggest to me to help us share our information across all levels of Australian government in an appropriate way?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
588 nominations received in the UK e-Government National Awards 2008 | Tweet |
Considering the 30-40 nominations received in Australia's annual egovernment awards, it's staggering to consider than in the UK there were over 588 initiatives to be nominated in 2008.
Judging is underway and finalists in 11 categories will be published on 7 November.
If you're seeking a source of inspiration regarding egovernment initiatives, the e-Government National Awards 2008 finalists will be certainly worth reviewing.
Twitter as an opinion tool - as used to follow the US election | Tweet |
Just as organisations are beginning to listen to the conversations about them on forums, in blogs and in online newspaper comments, Twitter has become a powerful and important mechanism for tracking US public opinion during the US Presidential election.
In a custom-built application, Twitter has used its search and trending tools to build an updating commentary on the election, visible at http://election.twitter.com.
Thinking back to the days of tickertape news releases and stock updates, this is a high-tech equivalent reflecting the views of US Twitter users.
With the integration of a mention weighting system and positive/negative indications,it would be possible for any politician or organisation to get a 24/7 view of their public sentiment.
Any sudden changes in the normal flow of comments could then be mined to detect and pre-emptively prepare for issues before they reach the broader media.
For the sceptics, who do not see Twitter as a valid channel for government communication with the public or media, here's a list of US government 'A-list' Twitterers, including the White House, Senator Obama and a selection of State Governors and large US agencies.
And for those who like poetry and the big picture, 3D Twittervision provides an interesting global insight - particularly during major crises.
