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One of the promises Barack Obama made in the US was to release his weekly address to the nation via Youtube.
This signaled how serious he was about transparent and open government, and flagged the incoming US government recognition of the power of Youtube's large and growing audience - which publishes almost 10,000 hours of content per day (per Michael Welsch's Anthropological Introduction to Youtube).
Obama's first weekly address is now available online and demonstrates how polished his staff have become in the use of Youtube.
I hope we'll see a similar use in Australia of the KevinPM website, even going further to have the Prime Minister respond in a public questiontime to video questions posed by citizens - just as John Howard used his weekly radio talkback - but accessible to a broader audience.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
US President releases first weekly youtube address | Tweet |
Friday, November 14, 2008
Governments leading and fostering change | Tweet |
President-elect Barack Obama built his campaign on change, and is demonstrating an ongoing commitment to this approach via the site Change.gov.
It's a great living case study on how a government can engage its citizens online in a constructive way.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The rise of the video republic | Tweet |
Paul Johnston, posting at TheConnectedRepublic, has brought to my attention the following video and report on the rise of the video republic.
This looks at how people - particularly young people - are using online video to express their views, share opinions and shape the world views of their generation.
It's a fascinating watch and read and raises the question, how should government be involved in this discussion?
Regardless of what public sector and political leaders decide, this communications channel is growing in strength and will have significant implications on how countries are governed and managed into the future.
Internet a more important information medium than TV, radio or print | Tweet |
The World Internet project recently released its Australian report (PDF), providing a mid-2007 view on how Australians access and use the internet.
The report indicates that, at August 2007, 72 percent of Australians used the internet (increasing to 86% when considering those in full employment), and highlights known divides in usage based on income and residential location, it also provides an interesting view on which media are most important to Australians.
The study found that 68.5 percent of users regarded the internet as an 'important' or 'very important' source of information.
In comparison only 32.6 percent gave the same indication for television, 46.6 percent for newspapers and 45.9 percent for radio.
From the report,
The difference is even more marked when we look just at the ‘very important’ rating. The proportion of users rating the internet as ‘very important’ (36.6%) is more than double that for radio (14.5%), newspapers (13.8%) and more than four times the figure for television (8.5%).
41.3 percent of users thought that most information provided by newspapers was accurate, compared to 38.6 percent for online information and only 29.5 percent for television.
The report also provides some interesting patterns as to how people use the internet to source information - with it being a key channel when stories where breaking, raising the need for organisations to ensure that their websites are updated quickly and regularly during news events.
Finally the report indicated that over 30 percent of internet users believe that the internet can give citizens more say about what government does - however largely citizens were skeptical that public officials cared about what people said online, which showed some disillusionment at how effectively government has used the internet to consult citizens thus far.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Prime Minister joins Twitter | Tweet |
For the unfamiliar, Twitter is a free 'micro-blogging' service which allows users to exchange short updates (up to 140 characters long), termed 'Tweets' in a way similar to SMS.
Unlike SMS, these updates are generally public (although private messages are possible). They are delivered via the internet to either the Twitter website or a separate client to a user's PC or mobile device. Any Twitter user simply clicks a 'follow' button to receive another user's public messages in their Twitter feed (becoming a 'follower').
Twitter has become an interesting social phenomenon, While many messages are simply status updates as to what person is doing at the time or a means of sharing interesting websites or online videos, others are used for exchanging information or as important alerts. One method growing in popularity is to use Twitter as a backchannel at events, to discuss the presentation and presenters. Other uses include distributing breaking news or emergency notices, providing customer support on products or even advertising jobs.
Considering how effectively SMS has been used in countries like The Phillipines to support the organisation of political rallies, it's no surprise that Twitter, with greater flexibility, has begun having an even greater influence.
Brack Obama used his Twitter channel to communicate his messages, attracting over 110,000 followers (John McCain only attracted 4,500 followers) according to Ariwriter.
Here's a video explaining more of the basics of Twitter.
If the PM is Twittering, should government agencies?
I'd advise extreme caution when considering Twittering officially in government. It is a narrow but deep channel which requires a serious commitment to be valuable.
As the tweets of users are not heard except by registered followers, if a particular user is silent for long periods, or blasts their followers with advertising, their followers will lose interest. Equally if treated as a monologue rather than as a social medium it's unlikely to be highly successful - although some news services (such as BBC World Service, CNN and News Corporation) as well as US Governors (who tweet their movements) have demonstrated that it can be effective for one-way information delivery.
Tweets remain 'on the record' - archived and findable online indefinitely, meaning that bloopers can be located by anyone looking up the person's Twitter account.
Public people and organisations should also be prepared to be watched and commented on, very often and very quickly, such as via blogs. The PM's Twitter presence has already been commented on in multiple places such as blogs, Welcome to Twitter, Prime Minister as well as traditional news media such as News Corporation and ZDNet.
Even name selection can be tricky - for example @10downingstreet is a spoof channel rather than the official Twitter account for 10 Downing Street.
Ultimately authenticity and listening and responding to other users is critical for most successful use of Twitter, which can be difficult for organisations with slow and complex approval processes for any public comments.
Some political Twitterers
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - @KevinRuddPM
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull - @TurnbullMalcolm
President-elect Barack Obama - @BarackObama
US Senator John Culberson - @JohnCulberson
UK Prime Minister's Office - @Downingstreet
Canadian party leaders:
Stephen Harper - @pmharper
Stéphane Dion - @LiberalTour
Jack Layton - @JackLayton
And I tweet as well - @CraigThomler
