British troops encouraged to use social media

As reported in Mashable, British Troops Told to Tweet and Blog,

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has told troops they’re free to use social media tools and should apply “common sense” when deciding what to share online.

What’s more, the MOD has said it will sponsor soldiers who want to use blogs and Twitter to share stories of military life with the outside world.

To support this effort the Ministry of Defense has released new Online engagement guidelines as to what is expected of troops.

As the UK Defense News site states in the article, Forces encouraged to blog, tweet and engage online,

Social media - such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube - are an increasingly important way for Forces and MOD personnel to do business, engage with the public and keep in touch with family and friends.

Based on the online engagement guidelines,

Armed Forces and MOD staff can talk about their work online without prior authorisation from their chain of command, as long as they stay within the advice.

This stance reflects efforts underway in the US to support online engagement by US Defense forces, which have recently undergone pressure with the US Marines shutting down Marine's social media access while a security review takes place.

Increasingly in the US online engagement is being seen as another front for military activities to counter how "just one man in a cave that's hooked up to the Internet has been able to out-communicate the greatest communications society in the history of the world -- the United States," (US Army Secretary Pete Geren).

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OpenAustralia barred from republishing QLD's Hansard

It appears that the the Clerk of Queensland’s Parliament has barred OpenAustralia from republishing the state's Hansard on a series of grounds, in a blow to OpenAustralia's goal of making all of Australia's parliamentary Hansard records available online in a searchable format.

OpenAustralia has blogged about the matter, in the post, Queensland bars OpenAustralia from republishing its Hansard, republishing the email from the Clerk of the Parliament in full.

This is a good example of some of the challenges to government transparency and openness. There can be control issues arising from laws and policies which limit government openness which will need to be reconsidered at parliamentary levels.

There can also be education, responsibility, accountability, process and risk considerations around online openness. Who can approve the release of information, what are the foreseeable risks in doing so and how can they be mitigated?

Without a thorough understanding of the online medium, clear responsibilities and effective processes it can be hard in some instances to identify who has the right to approve government information being released.

OpenAustralia is speaking to other state jurisdictions about Hansard records (and has been for a number of months). It will be interesting to see whether the decision taken by the Clerk of the Parliament in QLD will become a precedent or an anomaly.

By the way, this is how Queensland's Hansard website looks.

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Seeking innovative Gov 2.0 ideas? Here's some places to look

Government 2.0 is slowly coming of age, which means there are now many examples of innovative and successful sites and applications emerging around the world.

However it can be hard to find them.

Here are some places I look,

White House open innovations showcase
The US White House lists a number of clever, and very different, websites which demonstrate many different aspects of Government 2.0 thinking. As they are designed to stimulate government thinking and provide successful examples of working initiatives it's a great source of inspiration for public servants.

eGovernment Awards (by country)
There are a number of different eGovernment Awards around the world which generally include some of the most impressive examples of Government 2.0 activity. An obvious place to start is Australia's own e-Awards run by AGIMO. There are similar awards run in other countries such as the UK's e-Government National Awards, the European eGovernment Awards and the Electronic Government (EXCELGov) Awards for the Americas.

Twitter
If you want to innovative Government 2.0 ideas there's no better place to ask for help than some of the government-focused people on Twitter. One of them, somewhere in the world, is likely to have come across an idea and shared it via tweets. Often you can identify a number of innovative ideas simply by looking at the right twitter stream. This can be done without even registering for Twitter simply by searching Twitter for 'government 2.0', 'government innovation' or similar terms. Alternatively you can create an account and locate a group of government people to follow - possible via a service like WeFollow.

Google Alerts
Google Alerts provide regular updates when topics you select are discussed online. Setting up searches for terms such as 'government 2.0' or 'gov 2.0' (two of my alerts) are able to provide a daily or weekly dose of relevant results, including some of the most innovative government activity.

Where else do you look online to find innovative government 2.0 initiatives?

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Have you voted for your priorities for Government 2.0?

The recent Public Sphere: Government 2.0: Policy & Practice, run by Senator Kate Lundy's office captured a number of views on government 2.0 in Australia.

These views are now in the process of being prioritised based on public feedback.

The prioritised views will be submitted to the Government 2.0 Taskforce to use in their work preparing a paper on how to progress Government 2.0 in Australia.

If you've not yet visited the Australia 2 website to define and comment on your top Government 2.0 priorities you've only a few weeks left to register your views.

Visit the Public Sphere priorities at Australia 2.

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Do you monitor social media conversations about your department?

As a marketer I find the internet a dream channel for monitoring customer sentiment and concerns.

Social media and search engines can be easily and cheaply tracked to provide fast feedback on various initiatives. This helps organisations shape their campaigns and responses to external events.

I'd recommend that this is equally of enormous value to government, where perception and citizen sentiment can strongly influence political views and processes.

If your department isn't keeping an eye on what people are saying about you and your key topic areas (and Minister) online, then you may be missing an enormous opportunity to get early warnings on potential growing issues, to adjust campaigns and programs to take advantage of trends or to tap into popular sentiment to shape new ideas.

One example of effective use of social media monitoring is from the US Army, who closely monitor blogs and social networking sites to track the public response to various events.

The article, Air Force checked blogs, Twitter to gauge New Yorkers' anger about flyover, from NextGov, discusses how the US Army used online monitoring to track and respond to the public anger resulting from their fly-over of New York in April.

Within an hour of the flyover the Army knew it had the makings of a public relations disaster on its hands and was able to begin putting in place a response.

The Army has also used the learnings from this experience to educate further activities and use online media to ensure that citizens are receiving the facts about events.

This type of approach has many applications across government, from emergency management through to reviewing the response and level of accurate coverage of ministerial announcements.

So if you're not yet using the online channel to track citizen sentiment you may be doing your department and Minister a disservice.

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