The US air force embraces new media

The US Air Force is one of the most proactive users of new media amongst government organisations globally, seeing the internet as another channel for engaging potential recruits, the public and for conducting military operations.

The approach being taken by the US Air Force, and increasingly by other US government agencies, is that all of their staff are public relations spokespeople and if properly equipped will support their agencies in engaging the public online.

The US Air Force regard this spokesperson role as so important to their future operations that they've produced a video and book emphasising to their staff how critical is it for airmen to participate online in blogs and forums, and setting out the guidelines for how they may do so in an appropriate manner.

This approach to engagement is discussed in a post in the Local Government Engagement Online Research Blog entitled Great Video & eBook of the U.S. Air Force using New/Social Media, which considers the Air Force's initiatives as,

truly an inspiring example of how we could use new/social media when we start using these tools with our head and heart rather than using policies or rules and regulations as our starting point. For me, new/social media can only be successful when it has or creates and invigorates meaning in our lives and to the lives of people who use them. And most important of all, the value of social media lies in the people, not the technology. Then the connections made and communities created will then generate greater services and value than we could ever think of.

The video below was originally developed for Air Force personnel to encourage them to use new media to 'win the information war' by providing positive messages about the Air Force to counter negative messages distributed online by enemies of the United States.



And the ebook developed by the US Air Force is available online as New Media and the Air Force (PDF).

Given the political sensitivity and national security implications of defense forces, if the US Air Force's acting director of public affairs, Colonel Michael G. Caldwell (also a blogger at From an Air Force Colonel), is prepared to state publicly that "We want 330,000 people to be in Public Affairs," (reported in the WebInkNow post The U.S. Air Force and social media: A discussion with Colonel Michael Caldwell), what is stopping any government agency with less political or secrecy sensitivities from engaging at least as actively as the US Air Force?

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See you at the Managing Your Online Content conference in Sydney this week

I'll be speaking at the Managing Your Online Content conference from Ark group in Sydney this Wednesday on the topic of Aligning your web content strategy with organisational objectives.

I'll be making an effort to log the conference online, either via Twitter (#MYOCG09) or via a liveblog on this blog, if I have access to wi-fi at the venue.

If you're attending, come and say hello to me at some point.

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How much time should it take government agencies to participate in online social media?

While the timeframes for developing and distributing publications, media releases, and even website news items is extremely well understood by government departments, often there is a much lower understanding of the level of effort (in time) required to engage communities online via different channels.

Fortunately there are now several guides available to provide insight into the timeframes required and therefore the resourcing a government department may have to allocate to do justice to online participation.

The chart below is from the Museum 2.0 blog post, How Much Time Does Web 2.0 Take?

It demonstrates how much effort out a a week different types of engagement legitimately take - from a Twitter stream (under an hour per week) up to a running a community (over 10 hours per week). Of course if you are doing multiple activities along the line there are some efficiencies - by automatically posting new blog notices to Twitter and a community and by reflecting themes and materials across channels.

Another chart is from Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits can use Social Media, in the post How Much Time Does It Take To Do Social Media?. This discusses online participation by level - from listening (5 hrs/week) through participating (8 hrs/week) up to community building and social networking (20 hrs/week).


My own experience is that I spend around 4-5 hours per week maintaining a (mostly) daily blog - of course as it's my personal blog I do not have to go through multiple approval levels and the level of comments is reasonably low which reduces the amount of screening time (though I'd appreciate more comments).

If your agency is participating online, what has been your experience of managing these channels?

And do you feel that your time is well spent?

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Digital etiquette - are government agencies adequately prepared to engage appropriately online?

Etiquette is important in every form of social engagement. When Australians meet others for the first time we exchange names, shake hands and make light conversation before getting down to the main topic of conversation.

Other cultures have different social etiquette. Many hug or kiss cheeks on first meeting, exchange business cards (sometimes with two hands), meet over a meal or at drinks and talk about families and personal interests, even exchanging small gifts, before discussing business.

Likewise for any individual or organisation engaging online it is important to understand the appropriate digital etiquette or netiquette for the online world - and for the specific medium in use.

I've learnt netiquette over the last 15 years by participating and running forums, blogs, twitter streams, newsgroups, email newsletters, IRC and social networks. However many other public servants, while they may have browsed the internet for years, may not have the same experience with human interactions online.

As government moves to use the internet for more conversations it worries me that one of the risks that may not be well understood or managed is the experience and capability of the public servants assigned to moderate or participate online to employ appropriate etiquette for the situation. They simply, through no fault of their own, may not have the level of understanding of netiquette they need to avoid an online misstep.

This was summed up for me in an article published by a group of teenagers as part of the Digiteens 2008 project on Digital Etiquette, expressing how they saw adults engaging with others online,

Let's face it. Most adults do not know how to use the internet correctly. Most of the adults that I observed do not know how to navigate through the internet without running into some sort of problem. In my opinion, adults that do not know how to use the internet are just as bad as children that do not know how to use the internet. Most of the time, when children and teenagers do not know how to use the internet, they tend to participate in very bad behavior on the internet. They post bad pictures, start gossip about other people, or get involved with relationships. I have noticed that some adults think that just because they are older, they are immune to that same bad behavior on the internet. The truth is they act just as bad. Whether adults realize it or not, they are just as bad as kids on the computer. The phrase, "You are acting like a two-year old" comes into play here. To all adults, lead by example. Help your kids know how to act on the internet by knowing how to act on the internet yourself.

So how can agencies minimise the risk of a netiquette gaff damaging their online reputation or creating an unwanted incident?

Firstly agencies can look for courses teaching netiquette for their key staff. However these are currently few and far between. In fact the topic may be a lucrative training market in coming years, similar to the importance placed on media training or teaching people how to write briefs and media releases.

Next there are books and websites on the topic of netiquette. However they may provide contradictory information or only cover one medium or country. Likewise it can be hard to establish which are authoritative or simply opinion.

Employing intermediaries to engage on government's behalf is also a possibility, though not always a good one. While an external organisation can provide effective moderation of a forum, it can harder for them to speak with your voice authentically. One of the key rules for blogging is to 'be real', so outsourcing your blog to an agency is itself poor digital etiquette and runs the risk of leading to a backlash.

Learning by doing is always an option. There are plenty of online conversations going on that can be watched and participated in to learn the ropes. After all this is how many of us learn - through trial and error - to get on with our classmates at school and workmates in the office.

Agencies can also attempt to hire experts as staff - although there are few in this space, particularly in Australia.

Finally agencies can draw from their internal expertise. Most agencies will have at least a couple of staff who are experienced bloggers, forum participants or moderators. These individuals can be advisors or play an active role in supporting the agency's engagement online.

So is your agency 'netiquette-ready' to engage actively online?

If not, what strategies are you employing to become netiquette-ready?

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Why Government should engage their community online

Crispin has published a post, Why (Government) Organisations Should be Engaging their Community Online, over at his Online Community Engagement blog providing eleven reasons why government should be engaging its community online.

This is a nice piece and I thought I might add a few more that spring to my mind.

Global reach
There are many Australians overseas at any point in time who cannot easily take part in a locally held event. Online provides a cost-effective way to allow these people to have their say.

Private yet controllable
The internet both allows people to protect their privacy and allows governments, via moderation principles, to manage the tone of a discussion and maintain order. For governments who require a certain level of decorum but equally are required to protect the privacy of citizens, internet engagement tools provide a nice balance, when properly implemented.

Supports diversity
When properly designed and managed, the internet can supports engagement with hundreds of thousands of Australians with physical or mental disabilities who may not be able to hear, see or attend other types of engagements. While we can rely on able-bodied representatives, sometimes government is better served by engaging directly with the people impacted by policies.

Speed to market
Online engagement can be set up extremely quickly, drawing on pre-existing online tools. This makes it a very rapid way to get feedback and start conversations during fast-changing situations.

Early warning and resolution
Online communities can provide early warning of building media events. Often the original issue can be identified and addressed before it becomes a more significant - and often over-exaggerated or misreported - story in the mass media.

Keeping it real
Many government departments operate as faceless bureaucracies, where people often feel alienated, disenfranchised or disengaged due to the lack of a human face. Online engagement allows a government department to provide its customers and clients with a face and demonstrate that staff are human beings who care about their customers and work. This genuineness is critical for building human relationships and provides a basis for productive working arrangements.

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