Global Data Science Hackthon - Canberra Event - 28 April 2012

I have just been alerted of the event below, well worth attending for any public service and data types. And there are prizes!

Are You a Smart Data Scientist? Participate in this Hackful Event. 24 Hours of Non-Stop, Fun Data Science Competition.

The aim of the hackathon is to promote Data Science and show the world what is possible today combining Data Science with Open Source, Hadoop, Machine Learning, and Data Mining tools.

In addition, the event’s aim is also to promote the sense of community, team work, and free spirit competition for the sake of Data Science.

Who: Hackers, computer scientists, programmers, mathematicians, statisticians, econometricians, data miners, YOU!

What: Use your smarts to compete against teams from around the world and win the title of "Global Data Science Hackathon Winner 2012" as well as some great prizes!

When: The venue opens from 8.30 pm on Saturday 28 April, and the competition kicks off at 10pm Canberra time on Saturday 28 April. You then have 24 hours to hack the data and win! Throughout the competition, there will be a live leaderboard (the competition is hosted by kaggle.com)

Where: Register for the Canberra event http://meetup.com/DSCanberra/events/57837482/ (nb registration is required but free!)

Why: For fun - a chance to test your skills against the best and participate in a global event.

How: Register on the address above and get your laptop ready for some serious data science hacking!

We will provide the venue and internet access. You bring a laptop and your data science hacking smarts! During the competition, we will be running venue based mini-events, talks and competitions. And we will have a video-hookup with other venues around the world.

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What are Australian Government agencies using social media to achieve?

I'm still collecting responses to my FOI request, however felt it worth providing some interim data on what Australian Government agencies are telling me that they are using social media to achieve.

Of the 166 FOI requests I sent out, I have, so far, received 59 legitimate responses in survey format (35%), another 10-20 in other formats (not analysed below) and 6 refusals to respond.

(I also received a survey response from the 'Dept of Silly Walks and Frilly Pants' that I've disregarded in this analysis. However I am pleased that FOI officers have healthy senses of humour!)

Of the 59 legitimate responses, 43 agencies indicated in Question 8 of my survey that they used social media channels for some purpose.

That is, 73% of Australian Government agencies in my sample are using social media.

This demonstrates how far the public service has come in embedding social media into their activities. However what do they say they are using social media to achieve?

Question 8 of my survey asked agencies:

Has your agency used social media services in the following activities?
(Please indicate all that apply and name each of the specific social media services used, ie: agency operated blogs or forums, third party blogs or forums, social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, social sharing sites such as YouTube, SlideShare or Flickr, etc)

The responses (so far) are as follows, listed from most to least popular uses of social media:

Answer choice	Responses	Share
For stakeholder engagement or collaboration	32	54.24%
Operating an information campaign	25	42.37%
Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints	25	42.37%
For engaging with journalists and media outlets	24	40.68%
For engagement or collaboration with other government agencies	24	40.68%
Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and activities	17	28.81%
For a public consultation process	16	27.12%
For a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation process	13	22.03%
Other type of activity	11	18.64%
For policy or services co-design	7	11.86%

The 'Other' category was broken into the following 11 responses:

• cartoon competition - Flickr
• day to day information for subscribers and stakeholders
• Youtube
• No, but use of social media to advertise Gov Jobs is being assessed.
• YouTube
• LinkedIn (recruitment activity)
• Internal communication
• Yes
• Crowdsourcing
• Yes. Facebook (Promote Aboriginal Studies [ED: followed by two unreadable words])
• Facebook, Twitter

So, what are my conclusions from this data?

Firstly, there is a high use of social media for official purposes throughout the Australian Government. Almost three-quarters of agencies (73%) reported using at least one (and more commonly two or more) social media tools.

The most popular use for these tools is for stakeholder engagement or collaboration (53.24%) - well ahead of operating an information campaign (42.37%), indicating that social media use is expanding beyond Communication teams into broader agency use for two-way dialogues.

Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints was also quite high (42.37%), indicating that many agencies are serious about the use of social media channels for engaging.

Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and activities was lower than I would have expected (28.81%). This is potentially the most cost-effective use for social media as it doesn't require engagement by an agency and can often be accomplished with free tools and limited time. I hope more agencies take this up in the future as it can provide deeper insights into their stakeholders and clients and help head-off issues.

Consultation was also lower than I had expected, with only a quarter of agencies respectively using social media for a public consultation process (27.12%) or for a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation process (22.03%). This is an area with significant potential to add value to policy deliberations and to provide a cost-effective extension or replacement of physical consultation events (particularly when budgets are tight). I hope more agencies take this up in the future as well.

The lowest rating answer was for policy or services co-design (11.86%), an emerging area which has a potentially bright future ahead of it. I can understand this being low as it is a new area for many agencies, but hope it grows as they realise the efficiencies of online co-design processes (alongside offline processes).

Finally, the other type of activity answer provided some interesting food for future thought. The answers provided by agencies, excluding the naming of specific social media tools and general use, fell into several significant categories; recruitment, internal communication and crowdsourcing.

These are all emerging areas where social media can make a significant difference and I hope we see a lot more of them in the future.

There is more analysis I will do down the track - which social media tools are most often used for each type of activity, what are the average number (and types) of tools used by agencies), however I'll wait for all responses to be received before putting this time in.

All in all the interim responses are very positive (at least from my position as a Gov 2.0 Advocate), with Australian Government agencies making strong use of social media across many different types of activities.

There's many who are testing, piloting and practicing different approaches to social media use, which will provide an ever-growing source of useful social media examples, case studies and expertise for all agencies to draw on and thereby build their capabilities and effectiveness online.

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Victorian government launches consultation blog for a new Vic.gov.au site

The Victorian government has launched a blog asking users for their ideas on how to improve the vic.gov.au website as it goes through a redevelopment.

The /blog states that the aim of the redevelopment is to provide:

• an appealing new branding and identity for the www.vic.gov.au website 
•  a new and usable look and feel 
• a more modern and relevant site to visitors 
• an easier way to find information (improved search and a clear starting point and navigation options) 
• more dynamic content 

So far the blog has attracted 14 comments on its (so far) three posts - with several being comments from the blog team responding to user feedback.

Alongside the blog it is also possible to rate vic.gov.au at the Victoria Online Customer Satisfaction survey.

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If Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus and MySpace were Aussie states

Many of you are probably aware that Facebook's active membership is larger than the population of the world's third largest country, however the numbers are getting too big to relate to Australia.

So I've taken the idea and compiled a view of Australia by state, including the main social networks used by Aussies as if they were states.




Notes

• Growth rates are based on 9 months, with state population for March 2012 extrapolated by applying 75% of the growth for the 2010/11 year from the ABS. The growth rates for social networks were calculated backwards based on having statistics on subscribers for both March 2012 and June 2011.
• Google Plus wasn't on the scene until August with 365,000 users - since then it has grown at a rate of approximately 337% per year, making it by far the fastest growing social network.
• Some social networks have decreased in numbers. Two data points are not enough to establish a trend and Twitter tends to fluctuate up and down on a monthly basis and it is difficult to define a clear direction for the service. MySpace's trend has generally been down for several years (refer to this Infograph and data for 2011 from Social Media News).

Sources:

• Australian population: Census projection - extrapolated to March 2012 from the Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Social media statistics: Social Media Statistics Australia – March 2012 from Social Media News

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Frequently Asked Questions for Gov 2.0: How do we handle negative comments from citizens?

One of the biggest concerns agencies have when considering social media engagement is how they handle negative comments from participants - ranging from abuse and bullying through to criticism of agencies and party politicking.

Of course these kinds of conversations may already be going on about an organisation online - through forums, blogs, social networks and custom sites. Agencies can do little, if anything, about these except in the worst cases where defamation, impersonation, copyright breaches or other illegal activities have taken place.

Most government organisations I know are either aware and monitor these sites (as a useful source of intelligence on potential emerging media issues) or are either unaware or simply don't care much about them.

However once a site or social tools are potentially owned, associated with or identified as representing an agency, the fear of negativity grows enormously. This takes a wide range of forms... fears that providing or 'endorsing' a medium that might see negative feedback could lead to political repercussions for a Minister or for the agency (if the Minister's office reacts to a comment), that the negativity might lead to extra unbudgeted work for an agency (ministerials, moderation and police reports), that negativity could overwhelm any productive discussion, or simply that negative commenters are clearly not representative of an agency's stakeholders and audience (everyone likes to think of themselves and their employer in a positive way).

What I tell agencies is that you will probably experience negative comments at some point - whether or not you own or manage your own social media channels.

However your capability to manage, mitigate and control negativity is much less if you do not have a social media presence and cannot effectively set context or interact in the discussion.

In effect, when people talk behind your back (on social media when you have no social media presence) you have limited avenues to mitigate any risks from this negativity.

However when you are openly in the discussion it is much easier to have a sensible discussion and, even when you disagree with someone, the surrounding audience will be able to judge how sensible you have been and will walk away with a more balanced view.

Sometimes, through active engagement, it is possible to turn around the views of a negative person - often they simply want to be listened to, have been given misinformation, were unaware of their rights or the full situation, or can be helped.

Of course there are people who simply want to be negative - who are so hurt or strong in their views you cannot solve their issues - however you demonstrate your good will by how you interact, giving them the options rather than the silent treatment.

When an agency manages the engagement channel it has some control over the context and 'rules of engagement' through that channel - capabilities an agency sacrifices by allowing commenters to go into uncontrolled Internet spaces.

Setting context is an extremely powerful way to manage any online or offline interaction, through defining the topic, how you will engage and how you expect others to engage. This includes your moderation policy, community guidance and the tone and approach taken by your representatives in the discussion.

If you fail to set the context well you will experience issues as the community 'finds its own level'. However when it is set well and adhered to and managed by your agency you have a level of control and your community will back you, often stepping in to chastise a random negative person and either integrate them into the community or isolate them from the discussion.

Remember, when an agency is having a discussion, via social media or any channels, the agency representatives are not the only participants with something to gain from the exchange. Many people in the community see this engagement as an opportunity for them to have a productive discussion resulting in better outcomes for their community, family or themselves. Respect these people who have the same goal as the agency and Minister, the best possible outcome - even when you must negotiate over what 'best outcome' means, based on funds, competing interests and practicalities.

If you are attracting negative comments to your social media channels on an ongoing basis, there are some tactics you can use to manage their impact. Firstly consider diverting them into a specific area for complaints, or to a different channel. This can be a particularly useful approach for dealing with 'elephants' in the room, diverting the comments and allowing other discussions to proceed without interruption.

Another approach is channel switching - contact persistently negative participants and offer to engage with them about their issues through another channel, particularly your standard complaints or customer service channels.

Keep in mind that negativity is a reflection, or a symptom, of someone that is wrong. You should also consider whether your agency does need to modify activities (within practical limits) to address the root cause of some complaints.

Finally, I always warn agencies that when opening up a social media channel - or any new way for citizens or stakeholders to provide comment to an agency - that they are likely to experience an initial wave of negativity as people get out any issues or frustrations they have stored up over years of engaging with your agency or coping with a policy situation.

My recommendation is to prepare for and ride this wave - it will subside with time. Knowing that it may occur, your agency should do some pre planning, identifying potential issues (based on your other channels and online comments) and having appropriate responses prepared, as well as an approach to rapidly respond to unexpected negativity.

This should become part of your longer-term social media plan and overall risk management strategy.

The worst thing you can do when experiencing negative feedback is to ignore it. This can lead to 'volume' increases in comments, which can easily escalate into a bigger issue. Acknowledge and recognise the views, then move on to resolve it, redirect it or otherwise respond to it - either individually or via a standard response to a group of similar concerns (acknowledging who you are responding to as a group if possible).

So in brief, expect some negativity and have plans in place to handle it rapidly, set your context well and support and empower your moderators to moderate and engage.

Avoid delaying/stalling tactics and treat online discourse as more like a telephone than a letter. You will find this will lead to better discussions and outcomes, with less pain and resourcing.

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