Monday, June 20, 2011

Could the fear of adopting social media be due to a fear of death?

Dr Travis Kemp of the Teleran Group presented at the National Stakeholder Engagement and Community Relations Officers' Forum 2011 in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago.

He provided an interesting view on how people identify for or against certain policies and worldviews, how bad humans are at accessing risks, and illustrated how it was possible to for someone to move from a position of 'this is new and different' to 'It will kill me' in less than ten steps.

He discussed how this type of powerful fear can dramatically influence how willing people are to consider new ideas, accept change or adopt new approaches, as well as how it distorts risk management processes, greatly exaggerating the risks of the 'new and different' and underrating the risks of the 'tried and true'.

One of his points was that the resistance to the use of social media may be due to a fear of death.

Here's an example of how a typical thought process for a senior official in a government agency might go...
  1. Social media channels are new and different
  2. I don't understand these channels well enough to understand the risks and pitfalls
  3. As I don't understand the risks and pitfalls, I could make mistakes, or allow mistakes to be made
  4. Mistakes could embarrass or diminish the reputation of the agency or the Minister
  5. If the agency or Minister are negatively impacted by use of social media in my area, I will be held responsible
  6. If I am held responsible for a social media mistake I will lose the respect of my manager and confidence of my agency and Minister
  7. If I lose the respect and confidence of my manager, agency and Minister, I could lose my job
  8. If I lose my job I could lose my house, family and friends
  9. If I am left homeless and friendless, I am likely to die.
  10. Therefore, if I use or allow the use of social media channels I am likely to die.

What do you think - is this a far-fetched or realistic explanation for fear of social media?

And what is really at the root of this fear?


By the way - I also presented at the forum (not on as dramatic a topic) and you can see my presentation on Slideshare here.

Read full post...

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Ignoring social media is a 'strategic error of the most basic nature' - Chief of US Naval Operations Adm

Fierce Government IT reports that Chief of US Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead says Ignoring social media is a 'strategic error of the most basic nature'.

In the US the military has been an active adopter of social media, with online channels seen as a critical theatre of influence. Most members of the US armed forces (with a few necessary exceptions) are encouraged and guided on how to communicate, collaborate and represent their nation and US forces in a effective manner through social media channels.

The article reported that,
"When you empower your workforce to be communicators, you must understand that you won't always agree with what they say or perhaps how they say it. You can certainly set reasonable boundaries--we tell our Sailors not to disclose classified information, and we expect everyone to treat everyone else with dignity and respect. But you can't dictate everything your people say," said Roughead.

The article also touched on the challenges of integrating social media into a hierarchical organisation,
Roughead said leaders must help the workforce navigate the blurring line between professional and personal, set policies that strike a balance between accountability and empowerment, and guard against the temptation of "making it about you," and not the organization.

It will be very interesting to see what the current review of social media use in Australia's armed forces says in comparison - and how they execute.

Read full post...

Delib's downunder digital democracy documentary deliberations definitely defining

Delib's Chris Quigly has released the edited Australian digital democracy mini-documentary that he recorded earlier this year with a number of Government 2.0 leaders (plus myself) across Australia.

The nine minute mini-documentary provides an interesting perspective on Gov 2.0 approaches and trends in Australia. It also provides a defining view from the outside - how people in other countries might view what is happening in Australia.

I have not embedded the video below as it is worth reading Chris' post about the mini-documentary for context.

I cannot wait for the blooper reel! (well OK I can)

Read full post...

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Dutch Civil Servant 2.0 books now available in English

Davied van Berlo's two books "Civil Servant 2.0" and "Civil Servant 2.0 beta" have finally been translated into English and are available online for free.

I've admired and followed the work of Davied, a Dutch Civil Servant, for several years now. Davied has been using the internet for about as long as I have and (at least in my opinion) is one of the leading thinkers regarding Government 2.0 in Europe.

Davied was named Dutch Information Professional of the Year in 2009 and voted second most influential person in local Dutch government in 2010.He participates broadly in global discussions on Government 2.0 through sites such as Govloop and is active on Twitter as @Davied in both Dutch and English. Davied also runs the 6,500 member Civil Servant 2.0 network in The Netherlands and is an active proponent for Pleio, a free open-source system for governments to rapidly roll out Government 2.0 initiatives.

Over 25,000 copies of Davied's two books have been circulated in The Netherlands and Belgium. Now they are in English, I expect to see this increase rapidly.

To paraphrase Davied's blog post Dutch Civil Servant 2.0 books translated in English,

The book "Civil Servant 2.0" (originally released in Dutch in 2008) explains the significance of web 2.0 for government in terms of its internal organisation, its relationship with the public, and the working methods of the civil servant. It also contains a lot of examples from the Netherlands.

"Civil Servant 2.0 beta" (2009), is an extension of Davied's first book, providing a practical interpretation of the concepts expressed in the first book, and contains action points and ideas for government organisations to develop their own strategies for government 2.0.

I regard both books a must-read for Government 2.0 practitioners and would-be practitioners in Australia.

Download Civil Servant 2.0 and Civil Servant 2.0 Beta for free

Read full post...

Friday, June 10, 2011

AGIMO launches Government 2.0 Register for Commonwealth government

I've been a bit behind on blogging in the last two weeks due to my new job, however expect to get back into the flow next week.

In the meantime, this week has seen the important announcement of the Government 2.0 Register from AGIMO, which attempts to collect all of the Australian Government's social media initiatives into a single place.

The Register makes it much easier for agencies to compare and contrast executions, learn by others' innovation and build business cases for their own activities (where decision-makers are unaware of how much is actually going on).

While any list of this type is almost certainly going to miss a few initiatives, AGIMO has done an excellent job of identifying what is going on and is supporting user updating - meaning that agencies can self-report activities (or third parties can report for them).

Given the struggle I've had at time maintaining lists of Australian Gov 2.0 initiatives - as many agencies don't announce their public activities as publicly as they could - I'm very happy to see AGIMO taking on this challenge with their much greater resources and as they're actually paid to know what's going on so they can advise people effectively.

It is vital for Australian Governments to have internal self-knowledge of what their various agencies are doing, and sharing, collaborating and borrowing from the successes of others.

Otherwise we'd constantly be reinventing the wheel and waste public money hand over fist.

I hope we'll see similar initiatives outside of Gov 2.0 as well, enabled by Gov 2.0 platforms. Such as agency recruitment sites, research activities and reports, procurement practices, financial systems, organisational policies (starting with social media policies) and other areas where government agencies can share information in ways which improves collective knowledge and skills, reduces redundant work and saves money.

Who knows - maybe in the future new agencies will simply be able to pick from a 'shopping list' of best practice policies and approaches across government!



I'll keep updating my Twitter list with all the additional accounts AGIMO has identified, and with a bunch of others I've found - when I have spare time to do so.

Read full post...

Bookmark and Share