Using forums to engage the community

Dr Crispin Butteriss of Bang the Table gave the presentation below at the IAP2 Conference in Perth October 2009.

It provides an excellent view of how governments can use forums to engage communities, including unveiling what types of feedback you can expect.

Thanks to Matthew Crozier who brought my attention to this over at Ozloop.

Using Forums To Engage Online

View more presentations from Bang the Table.

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Media after empire - what's next for old media?

Mark Scott, the Managing Director of ABC, has written a very interesting piece in Unleashed about the future of 'old media' empires entitled, Media after Empire.

While it's not specifically about Government, I thought it had some very interesting comments about 'empires' which resonate with some of the challenges that the public sector faces in the digital age.

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Short takes for public sector management - Shift happens & Did you know?

If you're having difficulty getting across to your management the magnitude of the impact of the internet and changes in society, try showing them one or more of these videos - each is only around eight minutes long.

They provide a snapshot (in figures) of the changes taking place in the world.

In case you experience resistance, mention that Did you know 3.0 was used by New York State's CIO, Dr Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, in her presentation at the recent CEBIT Gov 2.0 conference.

Did you know 4.0 (2009)


Did you know 3.0 (2008)


Did you know 2.0 (2007)


Shift Happens (Did you know 1.0) (2006)

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Finding Australian government on social media

It can be quite hard at times to find out who in Australian government is doing what using social media.

However due to a new service from the Victorian government it is possible to easily see what Victoria's state and local governments are doing online.

Hosted at Victoria Online, the social media section provides,

a comprehensive list of social media pages for local, state and federal government. This includes RSS feeds, podcasting, photo sharing and various other online communication tools.

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What's the median age of social network users?

Often it's assumed that teenagers are the main users of social networking tools from Facebook to Twitter.

However the research conducted over the last few years indicates that the real situation is a little different.

Based on the most recent Pew Internet research (of US internet users 18+) the median age of popular social networks are as follows,

• Twitter median user age 31yrs (stable from May 2008),
• Facebook median user age 33yrs (up from 26yrs in May 2008),
• MySpace median user age 26yrs (down from 27yrs in May 2008),
• LinkedIn median user age 39yrs (down from 40yrs in May 2008).

Looking at Twitter in focus, Comscore reported that while 12-17yr olds only made up 12% of visitors to Twitter's website in June 2009 this was double the percentage reported at the same time last year, and 18-24yr olds increased to 18% of visitors compared to 11% last year.

Neilsen data from February also suggests that Twitter is most popularity among older demographics, with adults ages 35-49 having the largest representation on Twitter in February 2009, comprising nearly 42% of the site’s audience.

Pew Internet's profile of a (US) Twitterer also provides useful information on who is Twittering - and why.

Age Distribution of Twitter users (Comscore - April 2009)
Source: http://blog.comscore.com/2009/04/twitter_traffic_explodesand_no.html

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