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Over the last year I've observed a couple of good and bad trends in governments around Australia.
The first - the good trend - is towards the recognition that social media is a valid and significant channel for government communication and engagement. This has led to the creation of a new type of role, the 'social media advisor', separate to online communications functions (which primarily concern themselves with traditional website production and content management).
The creation of these social media roles recognises there is a difference in the skillsets needed to manage one or more static and internally owned websites, compared with curating and co-ordinating a range of fast-changing external and internal engagement channels.
However alongside this needed job specialisation is another disturbing trend which causes me significant concern.
A number of those being employed in these new social media advisor roles don't have the mix of skills required to hit the ground running. I've heard of people with little or no experience with professional use of social media being employed as social media advisors simply on the basis of their personal use of these channel and therefore presumed competence.
I don't blame the people who take on these jobs and then work hard to learn the skills they need, it is a great opportunity working in a leading edge field. However the approach raises issues for me as to whether those hiring social media advisors are as yet clear on the skills needed to perform the role - or are clear on what their organisations need to fulfil these roles most effectively.
While agencies are generally sincerely committed to the integration of social media into their engagement mix, there are few employment consultants who can help them quantify their needs, identify suitable candidates and assist them in hiring the most effective people for these jobs.
My concern is that agencies, despite the best of intentions, may end up taking more significant risks, may lose internal momentum or even face social media stumbles - as has been the case in the private sector when social media roles first began to appear.
So how do we as public servants help address potential skills gaps and the resulting risks?
I would recommend that agencies talk to each other, share their goals and discuss the skillsets they need for these roles, they should bring in appropriate interviewers to help screen applicants and begin developing a career path for social media practitioners - with roles for rookies and experienced people.
They should also directly and indirectly lobby employment agencies to upskill to understand their social media needs and build their ability to identify appropriately skilled people for social media roles.
Most of all, they should get their new social media staff across all the great work done in other agencies and in the private sector, across all the governance and advice now available and encourage them to network with their peers across government (including attending the various community events such as Gov 2.0 lunches and BarCamps).
Hopefully what I am seeing is simply part of the growth pains for social media as agencies integrate it into their DNA.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Pfft - who needs to understand social media to be a social media advisor | Tweet |
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Don't forget to register for the Gov 2.0 lunch in Canberra on Friday | Tweet |
The event will feature a presentation from Dominic Campbell, a leading UK digital government specialist and social innovator with a background in government policy, communications and technology-led change.
Learn more and register here.
Should Australia's political parties have open government and Gov 2.0 policies? (NZ Labour does) | Tweet |
The policy focuses on transparency of political offices as the core principle, but also commits the party to producing a comprehensive "Open Government Charter‟, based on a set of principles developed by NZ Labour MPs in consultation with members of the public.
- Online engagement by public servants should be enabled and encouraged. Robust professional engagement with the public benefits government agencies, public servants’ own professional development, and the New Zealand public.
- Public servants should be able to use social media in their professional role, and the government should provide protection and guidance/advice around how to do so effectively.
- Explore ways to expand the use that government makes of the Internet in engaging the public to feed into policy discussion and government direction.
- Develop a trial of online voting in local government and general elections.
- Publish the Hansard in a standard, open, parsable, format, so that it can easily be re-used and republished by anybody for any purpose
Monday, November 21, 2011
Brisbane City Council launches open data datastore | Tweet |
While not the first council in Australia to do this (with Mosman City Council leading the pack), Brisbane is the first large metropolitan council in Australia to do so to my knowledge, joining a range of cities across North America and Europe.
Brisbane has launched the datastore with the Hack:Brisbane competition and is hosting an upcoming Hackfest next Saturday to stimulate usage of their information.
Hopefully other major cities across Australia will look at what Brisbane is doing and consider its value in their own jurisdictions.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Cannot defame with a hyperlink - Canadian Supreme Court ruling | Tweet |
In the spirit of actually being in Canada, I learnt last Thursday that in a groundbreaking case the Canadian Supreme Court has supported two lower courts in ruling unanimously that hyperlinking to defamatory information is not the same as defaming someone, unless the information is replicated in the link or on the hyperlinker's site or page.
Learn more about the ruling (in a case originally brought in a British Columbia court by a Vancouver business person and political volunteer against a local website) in this BBC article, Canada Supreme Court: hyperlinks cannot libel. Yes there is a certain irony about reporting in Vancouver on a Vancouver case by referring to a British website - however I read the original story in a local (paper) newspaper.
This ruling may have flow-on influence to Australian courts, who do take some note of rulings in other Westminster jurisdictions, particularly in Common Law areas where precedents are important in clarifying grey areas in law.
The Canadian ruling, where the Court considered hyperlinks as "content neutral" (as hyperlinkers have no control over the content they link to), may even extend further to cases where links point to prohibited, but not necessarily illegal content, such as some Refused Classification (RC) content under Australia's classification for content deemed offensive but not necessarily illegal under Australian law.
Currently it is an offense to link to RC-rated content, or even to know what is rated RC - which poses a challenge for all individuals and organisations who may not realize that content they are linking to is prohibited in Australia. There has been at least one case where an Australian government agency has inadvertently linked to RC content (in a published user submission to a consultation) - which was certainly not the agency's fault.
Also as the destination content of links can change rapidly, or even appear different to users from different IP addresses, there is an ongoing risk under current Australian regulation that individuals or organisations might in good faith link to valuable relevant content which is later changed. I have seen this happen myself in a book on kids' websites with links where after publication several kids' sites were sold to adult content organisations who changed the content significantly. This could affect both defamation and RC related situations.
While I am drawing a bit of a long bow from a Canadian Supreme Court ruling to other manifestations of hyperlink-related law in Australia, it is an area that requires ongoing careful consideration and adaptation to reflect what is sound and practicable, not simply what may be popular or reflect an ideal state without recourse to technical facts.
