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The eGovernment Resource Centre has posted a link to a new resource listing government Twitter users from the US.
Named GovTwit, it lists over 100 accounts from US government agencies, over 30 US Senator and Rep tweeters and 40 from US states.
There's also a set of international tweeters, including three from Australia (Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, Mosman Council) and our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
It's a useful resource for understanding the breadth of use of the system in the US and potential local applications.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
List of US government Twitter users | Tweet |
How Web 2.0 will transform local councils | Tweet |
Given that a case study on Mosman council is being included in today's Web 2.0 in Government seminar being run by AGIMO, I thought it was worth referring people to this article in Govtech by Bill Shrier, the CTO of Seattle.
The article, per its title, discusses How Web 2.0 will transform local councils.
Rightly or wrongly, Bill draws a strong connection between the core goal of local government and the intent of Web 2.0 technologies,
Government is, by its very nature, all about community. Government is a group of people - citizens or constituents - doing together what they can't do as individuals or otherwise obtain from private business. I believe most of us wouldn't want individuals or private businesses to manage street networks, maintain parks or operate police and fire departments. In the end, government is community.
Therefore, Web 2.0 - community building tools - seems tailor-made for government, at least theoretically.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Global Intranet Trends for 2009 report released | Tweet |
Jane McConnell of NetStrategy jmc has released the Global Intranet Trends for 2009 report.
As one of the participants in the survey, my agency received the report last week. I personally found the report provided an excellent insight into current intranet best practice and the shared challenges of intranet managers around the world.
It's worth taking a look at the free sample pages (available on the NetStrategy website) and I expect that Jane will provide further insights from the report in her various presentations and online articles.
I also encourage organisations to take part in next year's global intranet trends survey. While it is reasonably easy to benchmark websites, intranets are generally hidden within organisations and difficult to view, let alone benchmark.
Monday, December 01, 2008
What governments could learn from Mumbai - citizens now control the flow of information | Tweet |
Like many other Australians I have a direct link to the recent attacks in Mumbai.
One of my family's friends was trapped in the Taj Mahal hotel. She managed to avoid being taken hostage - or worse. Her husband was out of the hotel at the time and found shelter elsewhere.
Fortunately both of them remain safe. My thoughts go out to all who lost their lives, were injured or who lost loved ones in the attacks.
During the siege it was difficult to get accurate and timely information about what was occurring from Australia's traditional mainstream media. This was repeated in many other countries around the world. Events unfolded too fast for television crews or print reporters to get onto the scene or file stories. When they did they were not able to access people at the heart of the crisis, their access was controlled by Indian authorities.
Due to this many people around the world turned to the online channel for information, finding a wealth of eye-witness reports, videos, photos and maps, with many citizens self-organising to support those in Mumbai and the people who care for them.
Commentators have called it the first crisis where the internet completely dominated other media channels.
Where were governments? They were left waiting for official updates, providing limited information in pre-packaged messages via traditional media, while citizens took control online.
If the communications experience of Mumbai can be learnt from, I believe it teaches governments that they must become more nimble and open to use of public online channels, or lose control, influence and relevance.
Mumbai is a wake-up call - in many ways.
People used many online channels to self-organise and share current information and personal accounts as events unfolded. This included sites such as blogs, Youtube, NowPublic, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google Maps, Google docs (a complete list of dead and wounded) and Twitter.
This frequently involved live updates from people in Mumbai directly experiencing the events, or repeating local news reports that did not get picked up outside India.
There was so much information that, on Twitter alone, CNN Online reported that at peak there were an estimated 80 messages (or tweets) sent to Twitter via SMS every five seconds providing eyewitness accounts and updates.
Traditional mainstream media relied heavily on citizen journalism to understand what was occurring, contacting Indian bloggers, using on-the-scene photos from Flickr and amateur video published on the web. Several traditional media players were able to tap directly into citizen journalism, such as the BBC and CNN.
However most mainstream media played catch-up, particularly in Australia where online commentators quite vocally criticised the slow reactions and poor coverage by local outlets.
It appears that even the terrorists involved in the attacks made use of the internet, using Blackberries to monitor world public opinion during the attacks.
With all this online activity, how were most governments communicating to the community?
Via traditional mainstream media outlets.
This highlights to me the disconnect rapidly emerging between how citizens choose to communicate and how comfortable and skilled governments are in using new media channels.
More and more citizens are seeking timely, relevant, plain english and personalised information. Whereas governments remain focused on traditional methods to assure accuracy and message management.
By the time a government assesses events, writes appropriate messages, gets approvals and distributes their views via traditional media channels (hoping they get a 15 second grab), the public has moved on, relying on personal, on-the-spot accounts.
Traditionally this approach has served government well. It maintains their appearance of authority, dignity and accuracy, preventing disturbing rumours or information from spreading in an uncontrolled way.
However the world has changed. Many eyewitnesses can publish their personal accounts directly without going through 'official' channels.
Using traditional approaches governments can appear slow to respond or even painfully out of date, particularly where events progress rapidly.
Similarly in organising a response and support for people, while governments do an invaluable job behind the scenes (organising counseling and transport), publicly the self-organising online citizen groups are more nimble and responsive.
The perceived slow response from governments can reduce the trust and faith of citizens. Over time this leads more people to seek more responsive channels and, though receiving timely eyewitness accounts, reduces citizen satisfaction with the language and messages of government. Governments become less relevant.
People who relied on traditional media or official reports to stay informed during the Mumbai seige probably find it hard to believe the impact the online channel had on global communications.
Fortunately no-one has to rely on my opinion.
The failure of traditional media has become a topic of much debate, by the media itself, such as in Wall Street Journal's Live Mint and Yahoo News, as well as by well-known bloggers including David Henderson (Emmy award winning former CBS news correspondent) and Laurel Papworth (one of Australia's top experts on social media).
To finish with a quote from Laurel's post (link above),As someone who doesn't have Cable TV I can - hand on heart - swear that I learnt nothing about #Mumbai from Australian MSM [Mainstream Media].
I relied totally on Twitter. Not because I wanted to, but because TV wouldn't interrupt Kerri Anne Kennerly or children's morning TV with real news.
Twitter filtered to me websites, and tidbits I couldn't get elsewhere. ALL news was broken to me by Twitter and the links they sent.
In amongst retweeting MSM were the REAL stories. Someone hearing the bombing while lying bed. Someone else driving past a hotel as it was attacked. A guy worried about his friend. I realised this: who on earth ever said that social commentary is not News? O.o
For me, MSM doesn't make the news, they simply report OUR stories. Just another filter. After people-in-crisis are interviewed on CNN India (I watched online, thanks to link sent by Twitter) they tell a friend, who puts it on Facebook or Twitter or MySpace. More links to real stories.
Australian Media is dead. It failed to meet my needs (I channel hopped from 9:30am until about 4pm hoping for new News) and by the time the 6 O'clock News came on, MSM was simply retweeting what I had already seen and heard through Twitter links.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Small steps into online consultation for government | Tweet |
It can be a challenge for government agencies to get the level of buyin required to build or buy the infrastructure required for online consultation.
Questions get asked at senior levels around security and privacy, the risk of consultations being hijacked, the level of resourcing required, the concern about publicly getting few (relevant)responses or contrarywise the risk of getting to many and the risk of excluding groups who do not have access to the Internet.
Plus there may be resistance from IT, limited understanding of the medium (which gives rise to many of the earlier concerns) and the education curve required to lift senior executives to an appropriate level of understanding to feel comfortable with initiatives.
However there are approaches which take small steps toward online consultation that can aid in building organisation comfort. These are easier bite-size ways for government agencies to begin 'eating the elephant' that is online consultation.
Email feedback
One of the easiest steps is adding an email channel for feedback which allows interested parties to more readily respond with views on a service or program. This is a cheap and easy approach to introduce with limited management overhead as it simply http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmirrors a non-digital mail respond mechanism.
Online surveys
There is also the online survey approach, which asks visitors to a government website or email recipients their views on a given topic. Appropriately targeted and promoted this can provide valuable input,key audience insights and new ideas, aiding in setting the terms of a broader consultation.
These are reasonably easy to set up using commercially available products such as Surveymonkey or Questionpro.
User ratings
Next is the ability to ask audiences to supply their key priorities and then rank them communally, using tools such as Uservoice, which I have implemented on this site to give me guidance on the topics you'd like me to talk about (see the feedback tab at the left of the screen).
These systems can be moderated to manage user comments and can be used to gather a prioritisation of different approaches using a simple voting approach.
Participation in existing online communities
Next it is possible to engage with pre-existing external communities and ask them to ask their audience about your initiatives and programs. This is more confronting for a government agency as the moderation is left in someone else's hands - usually unpaid volunteers. However it can uncover some of the deep seated issues very quickly, allowing an agency to develop the material required to correct mistaken impressions or mitigate external fears.
This can also feed into other public debates, allowing the agency to provide Ministers and other spokespeople with appropriate pointers on how to address various concerns.
A key consideration is that these discussions are very much on the public record and outside the agency's direct control - which can be scary for many senior public servants and officials. However these discussions will happen regardless, therefore, in my view, it is better to turn over the rocks and develop an understanding of the real concerns before they are raised by the media or 'on the record' on the floor.
A key benefit of these discussions is that an agency can issue a 'thank you' at the end of the process, which makes people feel heard. This can also address some of the key issues or misunderstandings, thereby also placing the correct information on the record (provided it is in clear english).
Commercially moderated forums
The next approach is to use a commercially moderated forum, which provides some safety around how the moderation is managed, via an organisation such as Bang The Table.
This is a more controlled environment, but still out in public. Appropriately supported and managed it can provide a venue to elicit strong audience views with less control issues for government.
'Owned' forums
Finally agencies may create their own forums (which could be a blog, online forum, wiki, video feedback or other type of social media tool) to elicit feedback, as has been done with Future Melbourne.
This requires significantly more ongoing resourcing and commitment by an agency, and can also suffer from growth pains as many in the audience have to learn about and then build trust in a 'government mouthpiece'.
If these issues are handled well this can become a sustained community whereby the agency can converse with audiences, not just on spot consultations but over time.
Choosing the options
So clearly there are many different option for government to 'get its feet wet' which can reduce the risk, cost and commitment by agencies while they decide when, and if, online consultation will work for them.
Most important is to start using at least one approach and building some organisational knowledge, confidence, and small wins that aid in the future as departments are pushed to become more active in this space.
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