Posts
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.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Frequently Asked Questions for Gov 2.0: How do we handle negative comments from citizens? | Tweet |
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Launch of the ACT chapter of the Change Management Institute | Tweet |
Every innovation and productivity improvement, machinery of government change and Gov 2.0 initiative embedded in the business-as-usual operations of an agency is a change, therefore I am pleased that Tim Little, after years running a successful Change Management Group in the ACT, has been able to take the major step of founding the ACT Chapter of the Change Management Institute.
I believe that change management, using a structured, considered and tested process for introducing and bedding down change, is a vital component in all organisational change - and this doesn't simply mean a media release or communications strategy.
The launch event for the new ACT chapter is coming up on 26 April at 5:30pm for a 6:00pm start.
It will be held at Airservices Australia in the Kingsford Smith Room at 26 Constitution Avenue Canberra and is being sponsored by SMS Management and Technology and Airservices Australia.
Speakers at the event will include Caroline Perkins, CMI President and developer of the Organisational Change Management Maturity Model, and will speak about this latest research and development.
Local CMI-accredited OCM practitioner and ACT CMI committee member, Rohan Lane will also provide an informal report on ‘the state of the Territory’ talking about his experience of Organisational Change Management in the ACT.
Some of the benefits of joining the Chapter include:
I believe that change management, using a structured, considered and tested process for introducing and bedding down change, is a vital component in all organisational change - and this doesn't simply mean a media release or communications strategy.
The launch event for the new ACT chapter is coming up on 26 April at 5:30pm for a 6:00pm start.
It will be held at Airservices Australia in the Kingsford Smith Room at 26 Constitution Avenue Canberra and is being sponsored by SMS Management and Technology and Airservices Australia.
Speakers at the event will include Caroline Perkins, CMI President and developer of the Organisational Change Management Maturity Model, and will speak about this latest research and development.
Local CMI-accredited OCM practitioner and ACT CMI committee member, Rohan Lane will also provide an informal report on ‘the state of the Territory’ talking about his experience of Organisational Change Management in the ACT.
Some of the benefits of joining the Chapter include:
- Networking with other change practitioners
- Access to latest research, trends, tools and information
- Speakers presenting on a variety of change management topics
- Sharing, connecting and collaborating with others
- Expanding your contacts within the industry
- Professional development through workshops, mentoring and masterminds
- Building your credibility within the industry through being part of a professional body.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
ACBI Broadband Apps Day 2012 in Sydney | Tweet |
I've just been let know that the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation (ACBI) is hosting a Broadband Apps Day at Australian Technology Park in Sydney on Friday 27 April.
As their summary about the event states, Apps - simple, useful applications that run on smart phones and tablets - are becoming increasingly popular, but where are the apps for next generation broadband in Australia?
Australian developers have produced many globally successful apps, such as Fruit Ninja and Flight Control. These have helped create an export market for many smaller companies such as Half Brick, Firemint and Traction Games.
ACBI are holding this seminar to create a bridge between the technology sector, developers and the users of future broadband apps and, through this, help the public gain greater understanding of the potential value of broadband.
What: ACBI Broadband Apps Day
When: 27 April 2012
Where: Australian Technology Park, Sydney.
Cost: Free
Register online at: http://broadbandappsday.eventbrite.com.au
ACBI is a partnership between CSIRO, the NSW Government, NICTA and NBN Co, and you can follow them on Twitter at: @Apps4Broadband
Frequently Asked Questions for Gov 2.0: How do we manage the resourcing requirements of engaging online? | Tweet |
Another question I get asked regularly is "How do we manage the resourcing requirements of engaging online?"
This is an interesting 'length of string' question as the resourcing requirements of social media vary dramatically depending on why and how an organisation chooses to use social media. Generally the more engaging your participation the higher the resourcing needs - although even social media listening can soak up resources rapidly.
I consider social media participation as a 'ladder of effort'.
At the lowest end your participation can be limited to a Twitter account or Facebook page, auto-publishing content from your website or media releases. This requires little or no resourcing and, while not a particularly effective approach, can serve as a platform to build on with more engaging content.
Moving upwards, an engaging Facebook page (or similar social network presence) may require several custom posts per week (or day if you are really, really active) and some moderation, responses and management oversight, possibly 10 hours or 1/4 of a person each week. Twitter, when used well, with around 5-10 tweets per day, may require the same or a little less time.
If you step up to participating in forums and blogs or using social networks as customer service channels the resourcing is likely to increase further. This is, however, where leveraging your existing customer service channels becomes essential. If you trust people to answer phones or emails with citizens on the other end, then you should trust them to respond to citizen enquiries online (otherwise you have an internal issue).
I have not seen many examples of agencies giving their customer service teams access to use social media on behalf of their organisation, and there may be challenges in skilling people to engage correctly in more public forums - however au remain hopeful.
If you decide to actively run collaborative exercises online via social media, or create and run communities using social networks and forums, you are likely to need to dedicate substantial resources. However even this can be managed through sharing the load around and operating in a pragmatic fashion. The ATO, for example, has done a great job with its SME forum over the last few years on a limited budget (and with some external support).
Cleverly managed many social media channels can be run efficiently through good planning and piggybacking. For instance, your website is chock-full of pre=approved content that can be reiterated through social media channels. Also, when seeking approvals for media releases, reports, policies or the like, pre-write one or more tweets, posts and social network updates and send them for approval with the document. That way you don't need to re-engage on the same content, providing context and a new proposal.
Keep in mind that, sometimes, you can 'trade-off' resources, potentially retasking people from activities that you are cutting to replace with social media engagement. Also it may be possible to find people willing to spend a few minutes a day, or hours a week, supporting your social media efforts (even if just for the resume boost)
Important things to keep in mind are:
This is an interesting 'length of string' question as the resourcing requirements of social media vary dramatically depending on why and how an organisation chooses to use social media. Generally the more engaging your participation the higher the resourcing needs - although even social media listening can soak up resources rapidly.
I consider social media participation as a 'ladder of effort'.
At the lowest end your participation can be limited to a Twitter account or Facebook page, auto-publishing content from your website or media releases. This requires little or no resourcing and, while not a particularly effective approach, can serve as a platform to build on with more engaging content.
Moving upwards, an engaging Facebook page (or similar social network presence) may require several custom posts per week (or day if you are really, really active) and some moderation, responses and management oversight, possibly 10 hours or 1/4 of a person each week. Twitter, when used well, with around 5-10 tweets per day, may require the same or a little less time.
If you step up to participating in forums and blogs or using social networks as customer service channels the resourcing is likely to increase further. This is, however, where leveraging your existing customer service channels becomes essential. If you trust people to answer phones or emails with citizens on the other end, then you should trust them to respond to citizen enquiries online (otherwise you have an internal issue).
I have not seen many examples of agencies giving their customer service teams access to use social media on behalf of their organisation, and there may be challenges in skilling people to engage correctly in more public forums - however au remain hopeful.
If you decide to actively run collaborative exercises online via social media, or create and run communities using social networks and forums, you are likely to need to dedicate substantial resources. However even this can be managed through sharing the load around and operating in a pragmatic fashion. The ATO, for example, has done a great job with its SME forum over the last few years on a limited budget (and with some external support).
Cleverly managed many social media channels can be run efficiently through good planning and piggybacking. For instance, your website is chock-full of pre=approved content that can be reiterated through social media channels. Also, when seeking approvals for media releases, reports, policies or the like, pre-write one or more tweets, posts and social network updates and send them for approval with the document. That way you don't need to re-engage on the same content, providing context and a new proposal.
Keep in mind that, sometimes, you can 'trade-off' resources, potentially retasking people from activities that you are cutting to replace with social media engagement. Also it may be possible to find people willing to spend a few minutes a day, or hours a week, supporting your social media efforts (even if just for the resume boost)
Important things to keep in mind are:
- Live within your means - choose the social media channels and engagement approaches that suit your available resourcing limitations.
- Don't grow unnecessarily - being bigger and better than anyone else is a common desire (as is the desire to be first), however if it doesn't suit your goals then don't extend yourself beyond your resourcing.
- Set limits - make it clear to participants the amount of time you will dedicate to a channel. Some might criticise you, but most will appreciate that some engagement is better than none and that time is money.
- Seek resources beyond the usual suspects - Don't simply seek dollars to get things done, see whether you can discover innovative tactics to unlock resources.
- Invest proportionate to your goals - if you do have significant goals for your social media presence, then ensure that your organisation are prepared to invest appropriately. If your goals are larger than your resourcing, something has to give (and typically individuals burn out before organisations do).
- Develop exit strategies and pull the plug if needed - while it is hard to let channels go, sometimes, if your resources are cut, so must you. It is better to do this in a planned and considered way that preserves reputation and carries forward as much good will as possible.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Frequently Asked Questions about Gov 2.0: How do we convince risk-averse management to say yes to social media initiatives? | Tweet |
This is the second in my series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) posts to address some of the 'persistent' questions related to social media and Government 2.0.
The question I am addressing is "How do we convince risk-averse management to say yes to social media initiatives?"
This is one of the most common questions I am asked, particularly by mid-level managers frustrated by resistance to trying new approaches, even where it is clear that existing practice no longer meets their organisation's needs.
It is also a common reason given to me as to why people leave an agency - normally to go to one more willing to consider the use of modern approaches.
(Notably I have never been asked by managers "how do I convince risk-averse staff to say yes to social media initiatives?" - though I have been asked "how do we equip staff unfamiliar with social media with the skills necessary to engage effectively online?")
This challenge with senior management is, in my opinion, partially generational, partially cultural, partially based on priorities and partially rooted in lack of knowledge.
Senior managers have many priorities to consider and often are focused on "managing inwards" rather than "managing outwards", with their priorities being serving a Minister, managing staff and services delivered by an agency and managing the compliance and governance burdens that fall on public agencies.
Their capacity to focus on newer approaches to community engagement and communication is often restricted due to time, often to their direct experience, or the experience of their peers - who are often struggling with the same issues.
Often social media is something they may associate with their children, grand children or what they read in newspapers (usually the horror stories and failures, or 'cute' human interest pieces). They may focus on the 'social' aspects of 'social media' and have not had the time or experience to fully considered how online tools can be used in professional ways.
Getting senior management buy-in for social media often involves educating them past the myths and misunderstandings - it isn't only about Facebook and Twitter, social media channels can be secured and managed, it doesn't mean 'opening the flood gates' to time wasting by staff, it can provide access to stakeholders and citizens who cannot be easily reached through traditional channels, it doesn't replace traditional media but does amplify reach.
Any education process requires a good run-up, so it is worth beginning early to educate senior management by providing case studies and reports on how online media has been used by other agencies, overseas and in Australia, to achieve organizational goals.
In my time in the public service I used to send out semi-regular emails providing information about online initiatives - including providing positive examples and examples where organisations had been challenged (with tips on how they could have avoided issues via good governance or different approaches).
This approach begins to inform and educate senior management, allowing them time to read and consider what their peers are doing and build a level of comfort with a social media approach.
Next I recommend identifying an initiative which could be enhanced through online engagement - preferably a non-core or low priority initiative where there is less potential for embarrassment and therefore more tolerance for perceived risk (not that social media is necessarily more risky, however it is often perceived that way).
At this stage it is worth writing a short business case with clear governance around how online media (rather than 'Social' media) will be employed, clear approval and management guidance and examples of how other agencies have successfully deployed online channels to meet similar goals. Include links to the government's priorities in relation to innovation, FOI and Gov 2.0 (such as the Open Government Declaration).
This provides a formal proposal for senior management to review. Even if they reject it, you will raise the potential in their minds and highlight that you're not attempting to rush into the area, rather are employing a risk-managed process and have done your research.
At this stage ensure you are engaging with your peers across the agency, sending them the same enewsletter of online media initiatives and building their confidence in considering social media in their projects. Having many people suggesting an online component to senior management, not just you, will help senior managers understand that this is an area they need to begin considering seriously - it is a real channel for the agency, not simply one person's flight of fantasy.
Following this approach, at some point your agency will start listening and senior managers will begin accepting, then supporting and then suggesting the exploration of social media in various departmental activities. You may even find them beginning to take credit for social media idea - particularly if the Minister's office notices and supports the approach.
If you find the approach above isn't working, another tactic is to learn what the key gatekeeper enjoys - their sports interests or hobbies. Then find one or two good online groups discussing these topics and drop them an email note about them. Once they learn that their favourite topics are being discussed, in a thoughtful and helpful way, some of the barriers may begin coming down.
A final approach, though often less effective (as cost is rarely the reason given for excluding online), is to demonstrate the cost-savings regarding the use of online channels versus flying people around the country for consultations or paying for TV, radio and newspaper spots.
A single 30-second TV spot can pay for an entire social media campaign - which, in conjunction with the other TV ad spots, amplifies the effectiveness of the campaign. Radio and print, while cheaper, are demonstrably far more niche than online and the cost per contact is much higher than the cost of running a Facebook page or Twitter account.
Finally, if you can't change the minds of your senior managers, you can always vote with your feet, leaving for an organisation more willing to consider social media channels in its overall marketing, communication and engagement mix.
There are many agencies in government who are quite assertively and effectively using social media in their engagement efforts - and have experienced little or no downside in their experiences. Equally there's many corporate employers actively engaging via social media, though there's a mix of willingness and readiness to engage here as well.
The question I am addressing is "How do we convince risk-averse management to say yes to social media initiatives?"
This is one of the most common questions I am asked, particularly by mid-level managers frustrated by resistance to trying new approaches, even where it is clear that existing practice no longer meets their organisation's needs.
It is also a common reason given to me as to why people leave an agency - normally to go to one more willing to consider the use of modern approaches.
(Notably I have never been asked by managers "how do I convince risk-averse staff to say yes to social media initiatives?" - though I have been asked "how do we equip staff unfamiliar with social media with the skills necessary to engage effectively online?")
This challenge with senior management is, in my opinion, partially generational, partially cultural, partially based on priorities and partially rooted in lack of knowledge.
Senior managers have many priorities to consider and often are focused on "managing inwards" rather than "managing outwards", with their priorities being serving a Minister, managing staff and services delivered by an agency and managing the compliance and governance burdens that fall on public agencies.
Their capacity to focus on newer approaches to community engagement and communication is often restricted due to time, often to their direct experience, or the experience of their peers - who are often struggling with the same issues.
Often social media is something they may associate with their children, grand children or what they read in newspapers (usually the horror stories and failures, or 'cute' human interest pieces). They may focus on the 'social' aspects of 'social media' and have not had the time or experience to fully considered how online tools can be used in professional ways.
Getting senior management buy-in for social media often involves educating them past the myths and misunderstandings - it isn't only about Facebook and Twitter, social media channels can be secured and managed, it doesn't mean 'opening the flood gates' to time wasting by staff, it can provide access to stakeholders and citizens who cannot be easily reached through traditional channels, it doesn't replace traditional media but does amplify reach.
Any education process requires a good run-up, so it is worth beginning early to educate senior management by providing case studies and reports on how online media has been used by other agencies, overseas and in Australia, to achieve organizational goals.
In my time in the public service I used to send out semi-regular emails providing information about online initiatives - including providing positive examples and examples where organisations had been challenged (with tips on how they could have avoided issues via good governance or different approaches).
This approach begins to inform and educate senior management, allowing them time to read and consider what their peers are doing and build a level of comfort with a social media approach.
Next I recommend identifying an initiative which could be enhanced through online engagement - preferably a non-core or low priority initiative where there is less potential for embarrassment and therefore more tolerance for perceived risk (not that social media is necessarily more risky, however it is often perceived that way).
At this stage it is worth writing a short business case with clear governance around how online media (rather than 'Social' media) will be employed, clear approval and management guidance and examples of how other agencies have successfully deployed online channels to meet similar goals. Include links to the government's priorities in relation to innovation, FOI and Gov 2.0 (such as the Open Government Declaration).
This provides a formal proposal for senior management to review. Even if they reject it, you will raise the potential in their minds and highlight that you're not attempting to rush into the area, rather are employing a risk-managed process and have done your research.
At this stage ensure you are engaging with your peers across the agency, sending them the same enewsletter of online media initiatives and building their confidence in considering social media in their projects. Having many people suggesting an online component to senior management, not just you, will help senior managers understand that this is an area they need to begin considering seriously - it is a real channel for the agency, not simply one person's flight of fantasy.
Following this approach, at some point your agency will start listening and senior managers will begin accepting, then supporting and then suggesting the exploration of social media in various departmental activities. You may even find them beginning to take credit for social media idea - particularly if the Minister's office notices and supports the approach.
If you find the approach above isn't working, another tactic is to learn what the key gatekeeper enjoys - their sports interests or hobbies. Then find one or two good online groups discussing these topics and drop them an email note about them. Once they learn that their favourite topics are being discussed, in a thoughtful and helpful way, some of the barriers may begin coming down.
A final approach, though often less effective (as cost is rarely the reason given for excluding online), is to demonstrate the cost-savings regarding the use of online channels versus flying people around the country for consultations or paying for TV, radio and newspaper spots.
A single 30-second TV spot can pay for an entire social media campaign - which, in conjunction with the other TV ad spots, amplifies the effectiveness of the campaign. Radio and print, while cheaper, are demonstrably far more niche than online and the cost per contact is much higher than the cost of running a Facebook page or Twitter account.
Finally, if you can't change the minds of your senior managers, you can always vote with your feet, leaving for an organisation more willing to consider social media channels in its overall marketing, communication and engagement mix.
There are many agencies in government who are quite assertively and effectively using social media in their engagement efforts - and have experienced little or no downside in their experiences. Equally there's many corporate employers actively engaging via social media, though there's a mix of willingness and readiness to engage here as well.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Addressing Frequently Asked Questions on Gov 2.0: Will we receive feedback from a representative sample of the community via online consultation techniques? | Tweet |
I've decided to write a series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) posts to address some of the 'persistent' questions related to social media and Government 2.0 I get asked.
These are questions I have been asked time and time again by various groups around Australia and overseas during presentations and meetings.
The first question I am addressing is "Will we receive feedback from a representative sample of the community via online consultation techniques?"
This question is at the heart of many doubts about online engagement, based on a belief that only certain people use the Internet, or will engage online, therefore it is risky to use the Internet to communicate with or consult communities.
The secondary doubt has to do with the fear that lobbyists or pressure groups will spam an online consultation with hundreds or thousands of near identical responses.
My answer always starts by turning the question around - using your current (offline) communication and consultation techniques, are you sure you are reaching, engaging with, and receiving feedback from, a representative group from your community?
In many cases traditional communication and consultation techniques are not longer effective at reaching a representational group.
Television is time-shifted, podcasts and MPEGs have replaced radio, newspapers are rarely read from cover to cover, many households no longer have landline phones and community meetings at set times and in set locations only attract those with the time and mobility to attend and are a magnet for lobbyist and pressure groups (with limited attendance by workers, young families, the infirm and disabled).
By default, when you engage people, those most likely to respond are the people who are engaged and outspoken - regardless of the channels you use. There is bias in all engagement towards interested, articulate extraverts over uninterested introverts, even if those uninterested introverts are your intended audience.
In short, if your current engagement or consultation techniques are not representative, and you are prepared to invest in them, why hold online to a higher standard before considering it as a viable channel?
Regarding the risk of hijacking and astroturfing of online consultations by lobbyists, pressure groups, businesses or savvy individuals, my response is also to turn the question around - isn't this already an issue offline? How do you know that lobbyists or businesses have not paid people to show up at a community consultation, or apply for focus groups, in order to tilt the outcome their way?
If anything, appropriate online consultation channels can help minimise the influence of lobbyists, both by opening up responding to a much broader range of people and by allowing technical detection of large numbers of similar responses from a single, or a few sources. Holding an online consultation alongside your offline engagement can help uncover a more balanced view from the community and highlight areas that may not be raised in offline consultation means.
This brings me to my main point when answering this question - online doesn't necessarily replace what you are already doing, it supplements and extends your existing channels.
You are better able to reach a representational spread by using more techniques rather than discounting any particular channel because it may not be representative in itself.
Spread is key. Use different techniques and mediums to target different sub-audiences, your outcomes will be far more likely to be representational.
Therefore online is an important set of channels to use. It is lower cost than face-to-face, however offers far greater reach. It delinks consultations and other engagement from geographic and time constraints and allows your audience to digest and reflect in their own time, leading to better outcomes.
For example, rather than showing up at 4:30pm for a 90 minute town hall meeting, and getting at most five minutes to present their view, people are able to read or view the material online at their leisure, come back to the parts they wish to reread and them think about their response. While responding they are able to reference other material, reread their comments and edit or extend them without immediate time limits. They are even able to reflect on the comments of others and build on or extend them to add value to new ideas.
So don't aim to reach a representative sample of your audience through online alone, use it alongside other techniques to form a full picture. Use different channels and techniques to attract different viewpoints and modes of response and bring the different views together to form a representative picture of your audience.
However whatever you do, don't neglect online. If your audience are internet users (as 95% of Australians are) and if they are engaging through social media (as over 60% of Australians are), excluding online will seriously constrict your ability to obtain a representative sample.
These are questions I have been asked time and time again by various groups around Australia and overseas during presentations and meetings.
The first question I am addressing is "Will we receive feedback from a representative sample of the community via online consultation techniques?"
This question is at the heart of many doubts about online engagement, based on a belief that only certain people use the Internet, or will engage online, therefore it is risky to use the Internet to communicate with or consult communities.
The secondary doubt has to do with the fear that lobbyists or pressure groups will spam an online consultation with hundreds or thousands of near identical responses.
My answer always starts by turning the question around - using your current (offline) communication and consultation techniques, are you sure you are reaching, engaging with, and receiving feedback from, a representative group from your community?
In many cases traditional communication and consultation techniques are not longer effective at reaching a representational group.
Television is time-shifted, podcasts and MPEGs have replaced radio, newspapers are rarely read from cover to cover, many households no longer have landline phones and community meetings at set times and in set locations only attract those with the time and mobility to attend and are a magnet for lobbyist and pressure groups (with limited attendance by workers, young families, the infirm and disabled).
By default, when you engage people, those most likely to respond are the people who are engaged and outspoken - regardless of the channels you use. There is bias in all engagement towards interested, articulate extraverts over uninterested introverts, even if those uninterested introverts are your intended audience.
In short, if your current engagement or consultation techniques are not representative, and you are prepared to invest in them, why hold online to a higher standard before considering it as a viable channel?
Regarding the risk of hijacking and astroturfing of online consultations by lobbyists, pressure groups, businesses or savvy individuals, my response is also to turn the question around - isn't this already an issue offline? How do you know that lobbyists or businesses have not paid people to show up at a community consultation, or apply for focus groups, in order to tilt the outcome their way?
If anything, appropriate online consultation channels can help minimise the influence of lobbyists, both by opening up responding to a much broader range of people and by allowing technical detection of large numbers of similar responses from a single, or a few sources. Holding an online consultation alongside your offline engagement can help uncover a more balanced view from the community and highlight areas that may not be raised in offline consultation means.
This brings me to my main point when answering this question - online doesn't necessarily replace what you are already doing, it supplements and extends your existing channels.
You are better able to reach a representational spread by using more techniques rather than discounting any particular channel because it may not be representative in itself.
Spread is key. Use different techniques and mediums to target different sub-audiences, your outcomes will be far more likely to be representational.
Therefore online is an important set of channels to use. It is lower cost than face-to-face, however offers far greater reach. It delinks consultations and other engagement from geographic and time constraints and allows your audience to digest and reflect in their own time, leading to better outcomes.
For example, rather than showing up at 4:30pm for a 90 minute town hall meeting, and getting at most five minutes to present their view, people are able to read or view the material online at their leisure, come back to the parts they wish to reread and them think about their response. While responding they are able to reference other material, reread their comments and edit or extend them without immediate time limits. They are even able to reflect on the comments of others and build on or extend them to add value to new ideas.
So don't aim to reach a representative sample of your audience through online alone, use it alongside other techniques to form a full picture. Use different channels and techniques to attract different viewpoints and modes of response and bring the different views together to form a representative picture of your audience.
However whatever you do, don't neglect online. If your audience are internet users (as 95% of Australians are) and if they are engaging through social media (as over 60% of Australians are), excluding online will seriously constrict your ability to obtain a representative sample.
Friday, April 13, 2012
My University - a great site (except for mobile users) | Tweet |
I like the MyUniversity website - it's clean, useful and mostly simple.
However, when using it the other day I found one extremely major flaw. It's not mobile friendly.
I recently reported that 47% of internet connections in Australia were now via mobile devices. This was based on an ABS report from the December quarter of 2011.
In other words, if your website isn't usable on a mobile device you are potentially only servicing 53% of the market.
On that basis there's a strong requirement for all organisations, including government agencies, to develop their sites to function effectively on mobile platforms.
My son is at a point where he's beginning to think about life after school and wants to know the options he has available, so I went on an exploratory trip into MyUniversity to see what was available in his areas of interest before taking him through it.
So I first went to the course search tool, to look for appropriate courses and entered in the topic he was interested in (it looks like below).
I got to the provider search tool and tried to use it - clicking on the box only works if, on a mobile device, you click precisely on the small '0 items' text in the middle. However this wasn't the main issue (though te size of the clickable area is a secondary issue, and why are universities called 'items'?)
When I clicked on the text the list of options, as below appeared.
I then selected QLD universities and a tick appeared (as below) - all good so far...
However this is where the trouble started. I selected 'Done' and the selection box disappeared.
The main window, however, still showed '0 items' (as below). But had't I just selected an item? Very confusing for users.
I checked several times by reclicking '0 items' and each time the selection box told me that yes I had chosen QLD universities.
So I decided OK, this is bad, but I will trust the system has remembered my choice despite not providing any cue to tell me this.
So next was the task of transferring my selection to the right-hand box (an entirely meaningless step) before a search could be performed.
I then selected 'QLD universities' AGAIN in this selection window. The second time I had to select it (as below).
Then I clicked 'Done' and found myself back at the initial screen - with '0 items' in both the left-hand and right-hand boxes (as below).
Sigh.
So I then chanced fate and clicked search - and the course selector worked as intended - finding me QLD universities with the selected course.
However let's recap the issues:
All-in-all, a very poor interface for mobile users.
Just in case I was unique in having this issue, I put my iPad in front of five other smart, university-educated adults and two teenagers considering university and asked them to complete a task to find a set of courses for a particular topic across universities in two states.
None of them were able to complete the task in under ten minutes using the MyUniversity interface, and only one (of the adults - the teens lost interest and went to Google) stayed with it and finally managed to get the search results they wanted - after receiving eight error messages (because they hadn't clicked in the right-hand box and selected the universities they wanted a second time).
Usability is important. A multi-million dollar project can fail if there isn't sufficient attention paid to the user interface.
Of course there may be an argument that a particular site has low usage by mobile users and therefore development dollars should be invested elsewhere. This sounds perfectly legitimate.
However this perspective raises some serious questions:
I hope that the agency responsible for My University does consider what it can do to become more mobile friendly. It's not really a hard fit, just change one step in a process and the problem would be resolved.
Then their site would be useful to 100% of Australian internet users, not to only 53% of them.
However, when using it the other day I found one extremely major flaw. It's not mobile friendly.
I recently reported that 47% of internet connections in Australia were now via mobile devices. This was based on an ABS report from the December quarter of 2011.
In other words, if your website isn't usable on a mobile device you are potentially only servicing 53% of the market.
On that basis there's a strong requirement for all organisations, including government agencies, to develop their sites to function effectively on mobile platforms.
My son is at a point where he's beginning to think about life after school and wants to know the options he has available, so I went on an exploratory trip into MyUniversity to see what was available in his areas of interest before taking him through it.
So I first went to the course search tool, to look for appropriate courses and entered in the topic he was interested in (it looks like below).
 |
| Initial course search screen in the MyUniversity website on iPad |
I got to the provider search tool and tried to use it - clicking on the box only works if, on a mobile device, you click precisely on the small '0 items' text in the middle. However this wasn't the main issue (though te size of the clickable area is a secondary issue, and why are universities called 'items'?)
When I clicked on the text the list of options, as below appeared.
 |
| Clicked on '0 items' in left-hand box in the course search screen |
I then selected QLD universities and a tick appeared (as below) - all good so far...
 |
| Clicked on 'QLD universities' in left-hand box |
However this is where the trouble started. I selected 'Done' and the selection box disappeared.
The main window, however, still showed '0 items' (as below). But had't I just selected an item? Very confusing for users.
I checked several times by reclicking '0 items' and each time the selection box told me that yes I had chosen QLD universities.
So I decided OK, this is bad, but I will trust the system has remembered my choice despite not providing any cue to tell me this.
(BTW I had to ignore the text cue under the box 'Hold the CTRL key to select multiple items' as this doesn't apply on mobile devices)
 | |||
| After clicking 'Done', the left box reverts to '0 items' |
So I clicked on the 'Add' button.
And nothing changed....
Both the left-hand and right-hand boxes continued stating '0 items'.
I clicked it several times, just in case I had done it wrong (a usual user reaction when they receive no indication that their action has been received and acted on).
Then I did click on the (too small) '0 items' text in the right-hand box and the following selection box appeared.
So my selection DID get transferred.
 | ||||||
| Clicked on '0 item's in the right-hand box of the screen |
 |
| Clicked on 'QLD universities' in the right-hand box |
 |
| 'QLD universities' now appears in the right-hand area |
So I then chanced fate and clicked search - and the course selector worked as intended - finding me QLD universities with the selected course.
However let's recap the issues:
- Selection areas too small
- Lack of visual cues for user actions
- Need to repeat actions which could be performed once to achieve the same objective
- Poor labelling of fields
- Generally clumsy interface poorly designed for mobile use
- No consideration of the differences in how web browsers may treat fields across versions and platforms
- Clearly no cross-platform user testing
All-in-all, a very poor interface for mobile users.
Just in case I was unique in having this issue, I put my iPad in front of five other smart, university-educated adults and two teenagers considering university and asked them to complete a task to find a set of courses for a particular topic across universities in two states.
None of them were able to complete the task in under ten minutes using the MyUniversity interface, and only one (of the adults - the teens lost interest and went to Google) stayed with it and finally managed to get the search results they wanted - after receiving eight error messages (because they hadn't clicked in the right-hand box and selected the universities they wanted a second time).
Usability is important. A multi-million dollar project can fail if there isn't sufficient attention paid to the user interface.
Of course there may be an argument that a particular site has low usage by mobile users and therefore development dollars should be invested elsewhere. This sounds perfectly legitimate.
However this perspective raises some serious questions:
- Are the agency's figures correct? Many mobile browsers report as standard web browsers, so it's not always clear when a web browser is in use on a mobile device.
- Is the mobile usage low because the site's audience don't use mobile devices, or because the site is unusable on mobile platforms? Perhaps the poor mobile design is why mobile users shun it - which then reflects in low mobile statistics and an argument by the organisation to not support mobile, ad infinitum....
- Isn't it irrelevant whether mobile usage is low? Government agencies are required to provide services accessible to all citizens, not just ones who happen to use desktop and laptop computers. Surely it's not that hard or expensive, in most cases, to ensure your interface is usable on mobile devices - millions of other website do it with little or no investment using inbuilt features in modern content management systems. An argument that you use an old CMS is not easily supportable, particularly when new systems cost very little to purchase or implement (depending on the level of customisation).
- Even if it's too expensive or difficult to justify building an interface which is both desktop and mobile compatible in the first place, aren't there accessibility requirements which websites (particularly government sites) must meet? If a website isn't mobile compatible it may also not be accessible on a desktop computer to users with some forms of accessibility needs.
I hope that the agency responsible for My University does consider what it can do to become more mobile friendly. It's not really a hard fit, just change one step in a process and the problem would be resolved.
Then their site would be useful to 100% of Australian internet users, not to only 53% of them.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Governments need to ensure their websites work for modern users | Tweet |
I went to the Australian Business Register site (www.abr.gov.au) this afternoon to set up an ABN (Australian Business Number) for a company.
This is a very common step, taken by hundreds, if not thousands, of Australians every week.
However I immediately hit a speed bump.
The site's online ABN registration process threw up an error message (image below) stating:
Fortunately I had Internet Explorer 9 on my system and gave this a try - no error screen appeared.
Now if you read far enough into the error message it does state that 'If you believe your current browser is suitable to use, please continue.' - however I was in a hurry at the time and, like many users, didn't read the error message all the way through.
Regardless of whether this translates into a user error, I believe that there is an obligation on government agencies to ensure their websites are accessible and usable in modern web browsers without unnecessary and confusing error screens.
Essentially, when I have Firefox 11.0, I don't expect to receive an error stating I need 'Internet Explorer 5.0 and above' or 'Netscape 6.0 and above' - as my web browser is "above" both and, in fact neither of those web browsers have been current for more than 10 years!
For such an important and common business process as registering an ABN the responsible agency needs to take a little more care in its online delivery of services.
Otherwise their online services will damage trust and respect in the government's ability to deliver and cause customers to migrate to what are slower and (for agencies) higher cost channels.
I'll bring this issue to the attention of the responsible agency, the Australian Tax Office, and check back in six months to see if anything has changed.
For all other government agencies out there, please check that your public online systems aren't needlessly damaging your credibility in this way. Please make sure your websites work for modern users!
This is a very common step, taken by hundreds, if not thousands, of Australians every week.
However I immediately hit a speed bump.
The site's online ABN registration process threw up an error message (image below) stating:
Browser not supported
The Australian Business Register currently supports the following browsers:This was confusing and offputting as I was using Firefox 11.0 - one of the most modern web browsers available.
You should update your browser version before you continue using the Australian Business Register. If you believe your current browser is suitable to use, please continue.
- Internet Explorer 5.0 and above
- Netscape 6.0 and above
Refer to Technical Information for details on how to configure for your browser for the Australian Business Register.
Fortunately I had Internet Explorer 9 on my system and gave this a try - no error screen appeared.
Now if you read far enough into the error message it does state that 'If you believe your current browser is suitable to use, please continue.' - however I was in a hurry at the time and, like many users, didn't read the error message all the way through.
 |
| The error message visible at the Australian Business Register site, together with the 'About' information window for the web browser in use |
Regardless of whether this translates into a user error, I believe that there is an obligation on government agencies to ensure their websites are accessible and usable in modern web browsers without unnecessary and confusing error screens.
Essentially, when I have Firefox 11.0, I don't expect to receive an error stating I need 'Internet Explorer 5.0 and above' or 'Netscape 6.0 and above' - as my web browser is "above" both and, in fact neither of those web browsers have been current for more than 10 years!
For such an important and common business process as registering an ABN the responsible agency needs to take a little more care in its online delivery of services.
Otherwise their online services will damage trust and respect in the government's ability to deliver and cause customers to migrate to what are slower and (for agencies) higher cost channels.
I'll bring this issue to the attention of the responsible agency, the Australian Tax Office, and check back in six months to see if anything has changed.
For all other government agencies out there, please check that your public online systems aren't needlessly damaging your credibility in this way. Please make sure your websites work for modern users!
Online Community Management survey launches for Australia and New Zealand | Tweet |
The survey aims to help local organisations and individuals better understand the skills required to work in these professions, help uncover role challenges, training and support needs and the actual work and salaries that online community management and social media management professionals can expect.
The results of the survey will be presented at Swarm later this year and then released online as a free report.
The survey was inspired by The Community Roundtable's 2012 State of Community Management report, which drew from a largely US audience and asked a limited set of questions.
Tha Australian and New Zealand Community Management survey will be open for responses until 19 May.
For more information visit Quiip's site at http://quiip.com.au/online-community-management-2012-survey.
To complete the survey go to www.citizenspace.com/app/delib-au/cmsurvey or click on the button above.
Note: I'm involved in the design and management and will be involved in the analysis and reporting for this survey. The goal is to provide information that organisations can use to design community management and social media management roles and to help identify the training and support individuals working in these professions require to be most effective.
Monday, April 02, 2012
Remove PDFs from your site to save money and increase traffic by 160x - the experience of the Vic Department of Primary Industries | Tweet |
While there may now be accessibility techniques for PDFs, this doesn't mean that the format is necessarily the most appropriate for displaying information on the web and attracting usage, as the Victorian Department of Primary Industries discovered when they removed all PDFs from their website and converted them to web pages.
As reported in thw case study, Unlock valuable content trapped in PDFs from BriarBird (as brought to my attention by Gian Wild's blog), the Department of Primary Industries Systems and Technical Manager Mark Bryant found that,
Mark also said in the case study that,
While PDFs often suit content creators (who are used to MS Word), they are rarely the best format for online content recipients - your audience.
If your organisation is focused on having the customer at the centre it is worth reviewing your content creation and distribution approach to ensure it aligns with customer needs.
For example, where a printable version is required, it is possible to achieve this with a print template for web pages using style sheets (CSS) rather than with a PDF. In effect when people click 'print' the web page is automatically reformated for A4 printing. This makes updating much faster and easier as you only have to maintain one version of the content.
So why not save PDFs for when they are most needed and wanted and ensure that the majority of your content is 'native' using web pages. Your audiences will love you for it.
As reported in thw case study, Unlock valuable content trapped in PDFs from BriarBird (as brought to my attention by Gian Wild's blog), the Department of Primary Industries Systems and Technical Manager Mark Bryant found that,
“As we converted more and more PDFs to HTML/web format, the stats just kept going up and up until we reached around 1.6 million extra page views per year – it was fantastic.”
Mark also said in the case study that,
“Our users were telling us they wanted to do things in a different way, and when we converted a few PDFs to web pages we found the web pages outperformed PDF by as much as 160 to one.Over the last ten years I've also consistently noticed a ratio of 100:1 or more for views to webpages vs PDFs in the websites I've managed.
“Initially we tried to create a web page to match each PDF, but in the end we introduced a blanket rule – no PDFs as it was far too difficult to manage both formats,” Mark said.
“There was some resistance, but the business case is pretty simple when you can show that a web page is being read around 160 times more often than a PDF.
“If you are spending money preparing content for the web, then that money is essentially being wasted if that content is locked up in a format people are unwilling to use.”
While PDFs often suit content creators (who are used to MS Word), they are rarely the best format for online content recipients - your audience.
If your organisation is focused on having the customer at the centre it is worth reviewing your content creation and distribution approach to ensure it aligns with customer needs.
For example, where a printable version is required, it is possible to achieve this with a print template for web pages using style sheets (CSS) rather than with a PDF. In effect when people click 'print' the web page is automatically reformated for A4 printing. This makes updating much faster and easier as you only have to maintain one version of the content.
So why not save PDFs for when they are most needed and wanted and ensure that the majority of your content is 'native' using web pages. Your audiences will love you for it.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Australian government agencies achieving the highest click-throughs of all sectors for email marketing campaigns | Tweet |
I've been browsing the latest Email Market Matrics Australia report from Vision6 and it definitely has good news for government agencies.
This series of reports has been running since the second half of 2006 and has, for me, provided a very useful insight into the effectiveness of email marketing in Australia over the last five years.
The reports are based on data from Vision6, so there's a slight bias based on being a single vendor (competitors such as CampaignMonitor don't yet release similar reports, or combine their information into a single industry report). However it is based on 259 million messages distributed via 112,000 separate campaigns by predominantly Australian companies (and they exclude all emails sent by stand alone resellers and corporate networks) - so it is a large sample for reporting purposes.
Vision6's software (similar to its competitors) tracks email campaigns by sends, bounces, email opens and click throughs (to links in email messages).
This provides very useful ROI data for agencies. I have always tried to encourage agencies to use these types of tools to manage their email newsletters so they can properly report on them and detect user sentiment and trends (this also takes the load off the, often overburdened, email systems used by government agencies).
The cost of these products is quite low considering their capabilities - particularly when looking at A/B testing to identify the most effective newsletter format and content (by sending differently formated emails to several small subsets of your email list, comparing open rate/click throughs and then distributing the most effective email format to the full list).
I'm not aware of any agencies who do currently use A/B testing for either email or websites, though this is widely used by business to maximise ROI - however I live in hope.
Back to the Vision6 survey and its results - the latest July-December 2011 survey reports that government agencies and defense have retained their position as achieving the highest open rate of any industry sector in Australia, with 31.66% of emails opened by recipients (an increase of 0.97% from last survey).
This means that if, as a government agency, you send out an email to a 10,000 person list, on average 3,166 of them will be opened. The others will end up deleted, ignored, blocked or bounced (where email addresses are full or closed).
While this doesn't sound great, it's actually a much higher exposure level than achieved through other mediums. It's also a much better rate than for many other industries, such as construction (20.99% open rate) or sales and marketing (14.79% open rate).
It is also important to consider that smaller lists tend to achieve higher open rates - perhaps due to the additional effort in managing the integrity of larger lists.
By send volume, on average across all industries, lists with under 500 subscribers achieve a 33.17% open rate, dropping to 19.76% for lists with more than 10,000 subscribers.
Government also topped the unique clickthrough rates for all sectors, with 8.42% of subscribers clicking through from the email to further information on a website. This compares to the bottom-place IT and Telecommunications sector, which only received a unique clickthrough rate of 2.25%.
The average clickthrough rate for all sectors was 4.22%, although this also declined by list size (from 7.31% for up to 499 subscribers down to 4.07% for lists of 10,000 or more.
Government also did well on bounce rates, with only 4.43% of emails not getting through. Whilest not the lowest rate, which is held by the Call Centre/Customer service sector with 3.29%, government was third highest and much, much better than the 15.27% bounce rate suffered by the Science and Technology sector, or 10.47% by the Manufacturing/Operations sector.
The average bounce rate was 5.45% and, interestingly bounce rates didn't consistently increase with larger lists.
Vision6's report indicated that lists with under 500 subscribers received, on average, a bounce rate of 5.28%. However lists with more than 10,000 subscribers received a marginally lower 5.26%. There was a bump in the middle however, with lists of 5,000-9,999 receiving 6.07% bounces and lists with 500-999 and 1,000-4,999 reaching 5.90% and 5.70% respectively.
The time taken to open email addresses appears to be falling, with 29.46% opened in the first 24 hours and 90.72% in the first 72 hours. Vision 6 reports that this last figure has increased consistently onver the last five years.
So, finally, what about the email clients used by people? This is important as emails can be distorted, or even unreadable, if the email client doesn't correctly display it.
While the majority of government agencies use Outlook or Lotus Notes email, this isn't the case in the broader world.
When looking at the email clients used by people opening received emails (an average of 21.83% of emails sent), Outlook accounted for 43.54% of clients (22.24%, 14.90% and 6.40% for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 respectively).
Hotmail accounted for another 16.21% and iPhone Mail accounted for 15.14% of email clients (and iPad Mail for another 3.7%) - demonstrating how strong mobile email has become - followed by Apple Mail at 11.98%.
'Other' received 20.11% - which included a range of services such as Gmail, Lotus Notes and others. I would like to see Vision6 really break this out further - however individual agencies can do this if using this type of email management platform.
There's clearly a strong need for organisations to understand how their subscribers receive and view emails as there can need to be important design differences depending on the client - even between different versions of the same product (such as for Outlook).
In conclusion, government in Australia already appears to be using email marketing well - at least when they are using email management systems such as Vision6, it's harder to judge email lists that don't use a management and reporting tool.
However there always remains room to learn from the figures and further improve the design and cut-through of email newsletters - particularly as mobile email continues to strengthen.
Email is still a very strong channel for reaching people with information, particularly in older demographics where social media engagement is less, and should be a core plank of any government communication strategy.
Remember that an email list is an organisational asset. People who have agreed to receive information from you are far more likely to engage and influence others. Don't squander and destroy this asset through poorly considered email strategies, which may include too frequent, too irregular or too 'boring' email updates.
Use approaches like A/B testing to determine what layout and headlines get the most cut-through, improving your ROI, and keep an eye on what people click on to see what types of information or stories hit the mark.
Email marketing is a science, there's plenty of evidence available on what works and cost-effective quantitative measurement tools for tracking and tweaking your own email newsletters.
Don't waste the opportunity by ignoring the evidence, or destroy the ROI by not measuring, reporting and adjusting.
This series of reports has been running since the second half of 2006 and has, for me, provided a very useful insight into the effectiveness of email marketing in Australia over the last five years.
The reports are based on data from Vision6, so there's a slight bias based on being a single vendor (competitors such as CampaignMonitor don't yet release similar reports, or combine their information into a single industry report). However it is based on 259 million messages distributed via 112,000 separate campaigns by predominantly Australian companies (and they exclude all emails sent by stand alone resellers and corporate networks) - so it is a large sample for reporting purposes.
Vision6's software (similar to its competitors) tracks email campaigns by sends, bounces, email opens and click throughs (to links in email messages).
This provides very useful ROI data for agencies. I have always tried to encourage agencies to use these types of tools to manage their email newsletters so they can properly report on them and detect user sentiment and trends (this also takes the load off the, often overburdened, email systems used by government agencies).
The cost of these products is quite low considering their capabilities - particularly when looking at A/B testing to identify the most effective newsletter format and content (by sending differently formated emails to several small subsets of your email list, comparing open rate/click throughs and then distributing the most effective email format to the full list).
I'm not aware of any agencies who do currently use A/B testing for either email or websites, though this is widely used by business to maximise ROI - however I live in hope.
Back to the Vision6 survey and its results - the latest July-December 2011 survey reports that government agencies and defense have retained their position as achieving the highest open rate of any industry sector in Australia, with 31.66% of emails opened by recipients (an increase of 0.97% from last survey).
This means that if, as a government agency, you send out an email to a 10,000 person list, on average 3,166 of them will be opened. The others will end up deleted, ignored, blocked or bounced (where email addresses are full or closed).
While this doesn't sound great, it's actually a much higher exposure level than achieved through other mediums. It's also a much better rate than for many other industries, such as construction (20.99% open rate) or sales and marketing (14.79% open rate).
It is also important to consider that smaller lists tend to achieve higher open rates - perhaps due to the additional effort in managing the integrity of larger lists.
By send volume, on average across all industries, lists with under 500 subscribers achieve a 33.17% open rate, dropping to 19.76% for lists with more than 10,000 subscribers.
Government also topped the unique clickthrough rates for all sectors, with 8.42% of subscribers clicking through from the email to further information on a website. This compares to the bottom-place IT and Telecommunications sector, which only received a unique clickthrough rate of 2.25%.
The average clickthrough rate for all sectors was 4.22%, although this also declined by list size (from 7.31% for up to 499 subscribers down to 4.07% for lists of 10,000 or more.
Government also did well on bounce rates, with only 4.43% of emails not getting through. Whilest not the lowest rate, which is held by the Call Centre/Customer service sector with 3.29%, government was third highest and much, much better than the 15.27% bounce rate suffered by the Science and Technology sector, or 10.47% by the Manufacturing/Operations sector.
The average bounce rate was 5.45% and, interestingly bounce rates didn't consistently increase with larger lists.
Vision6's report indicated that lists with under 500 subscribers received, on average, a bounce rate of 5.28%. However lists with more than 10,000 subscribers received a marginally lower 5.26%. There was a bump in the middle however, with lists of 5,000-9,999 receiving 6.07% bounces and lists with 500-999 and 1,000-4,999 reaching 5.90% and 5.70% respectively.
The time taken to open email addresses appears to be falling, with 29.46% opened in the first 24 hours and 90.72% in the first 72 hours. Vision 6 reports that this last figure has increased consistently onver the last five years.
So, finally, what about the email clients used by people? This is important as emails can be distorted, or even unreadable, if the email client doesn't correctly display it.
While the majority of government agencies use Outlook or Lotus Notes email, this isn't the case in the broader world.
When looking at the email clients used by people opening received emails (an average of 21.83% of emails sent), Outlook accounted for 43.54% of clients (22.24%, 14.90% and 6.40% for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 respectively).
Hotmail accounted for another 16.21% and iPhone Mail accounted for 15.14% of email clients (and iPad Mail for another 3.7%) - demonstrating how strong mobile email has become - followed by Apple Mail at 11.98%.
'Other' received 20.11% - which included a range of services such as Gmail, Lotus Notes and others. I would like to see Vision6 really break this out further - however individual agencies can do this if using this type of email management platform.
There's clearly a strong need for organisations to understand how their subscribers receive and view emails as there can need to be important design differences depending on the client - even between different versions of the same product (such as for Outlook).
In conclusion, government in Australia already appears to be using email marketing well - at least when they are using email management systems such as Vision6, it's harder to judge email lists that don't use a management and reporting tool.
However there always remains room to learn from the figures and further improve the design and cut-through of email newsletters - particularly as mobile email continues to strengthen.
Email is still a very strong channel for reaching people with information, particularly in older demographics where social media engagement is less, and should be a core plank of any government communication strategy.
Remember that an email list is an organisational asset. People who have agreed to receive information from you are far more likely to engage and influence others. Don't squander and destroy this asset through poorly considered email strategies, which may include too frequent, too irregular or too 'boring' email updates.
Use approaches like A/B testing to determine what layout and headlines get the most cut-through, improving your ROI, and keep an eye on what people click on to see what types of information or stories hit the mark.
Email marketing is a science, there's plenty of evidence available on what works and cost-effective quantitative measurement tools for tracking and tweaking your own email newsletters.
Don't waste the opportunity by ignoring the evidence, or destroy the ROI by not measuring, reporting and adjusting.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Australia goes mobile - 47% of net connections via mobile devices | Tweet |
It's long been reported that the majority of internet connections in Japan are via mobile devices - since 2006 in fact.
It now seems Australia is on the verge of following the same path, with the ABS reporting that as at 31 December 2011, 47% of internet connections in Australia were via mobile devices.
The report, (8153.0 - Internet Activity, Australia, Dec 2011), has some other interesting findings as well...
There is a clear paradigm shift for users when upgrading to dial-up to broadband, with usage increasing by over 15,000%.
This representing a change from email and basic web browsing to the use of the internet as a multi-media interactive entertainment, engagement and service delivery environment.
It will be interesting to see the the paradigm shift in usage from users on fixed internet connections to mobile. I believe this is even greater as the services relevant to mobile users are very different to those relevant to static users.
Perhaps we can take another lead from Japan on this, based on the use of mobile internet during and following their recent tsumani.
Or learn from these five cities benefiting from mobile apps.
It now seems Australia is on the verge of following the same path, with the ABS reporting that as at 31 December 2011, 47% of internet connections in Australia were via mobile devices.
The report, (8153.0 - Internet Activity, Australia, Dec 2011), has some other interesting findings as well...
- The number of internet connections grew by 11.0% in the year to 31 December, and by 6.3% since the end of June 2011.
- Mobile wireless grew fastest, with a 14.7% increase since the end of June 2011.
- The number of dial-up connections continued to decline, to 475,000 - still a substantial number, but representing only 4% of the total 11,596,000 internet connections in Australia. Of those 379,000 (3.2%) were households, the rest businesses.
- The number of dial-up connections declined 17.9% (from 579,000 to 475,000) since June 2011.
Note the ABS state the decline was 16.7% - I don't know why our calculated figures differ.
- More Australians remain on connection speeds less than 8Mbps (55%), however a good proportion are on 8-24Mbps (34.3%). Only 0.3% are on connections greater than 100Mbps.
- The total data downloaded was 345,518 Terabytes (or 345,518,000 Gigiabytes) for the three months ending 31 December 2011. This was an increase of 26% since June 2011 (remember the number of connections only grew by 6.3% so we're all downloading more).
- The average downloaded per connection was 29.8 Gigabytes (Gb) for the three months so, on average, we download 10Gb per month.
- However dial-up users only downloaded, on average, 67 Megabytes (Mb) of data per month, while broadband users downloaded an average of 10.3 Gb of data - showing a massive difference in usage.
- There were 91 ISPs in Australia with more than 1,000 subscribers - remaining a competitively very robust market.
There is a clear paradigm shift for users when upgrading to dial-up to broadband, with usage increasing by over 15,000%.
This representing a change from email and basic web browsing to the use of the internet as a multi-media interactive entertainment, engagement and service delivery environment.
It will be interesting to see the the paradigm shift in usage from users on fixed internet connections to mobile. I believe this is even greater as the services relevant to mobile users are very different to those relevant to static users.
Perhaps we can take another lead from Japan on this, based on the use of mobile internet during and following their recent tsumani.
Or learn from these five cities benefiting from mobile apps.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
govdex upgrade coming soon! | Tweet |
In all the time I worked in the public service I had a fondness for govdex.
As a secure collaboration system (built from the Confluence wiki platform) for government, it was often one of the few pre-built tools that agencies could use to share information between agencies.
Although it did, at times, suffer from slow speeds, low levels of promotion and a clunky interface, the support team was unfailingly helpful and cheerful and AGIMO's management stuch with it through thick and thin, knowing that govdex had the potential to transform the way agencies interacted with each other and with external stakeholders.
I am extremely pleased to see that AGIMO is working on an upgrade to govdex that will dramatically reshape the appearance and usability of the service.
Anticipated later this year (though I, for one, am happy for it to take as long as needed to ensure quality), the upgrade to govdex appears from the screenshots to make the interface far more comparable to modern online and social media tools - the tools that public servants are familiar with at home.
AGIMO says in the govdex support pages that the new upgrade will,
I hope, with the success of this redesign, we'll see other agencies with less experience using this approach adopt this as a best practice example of user-centred design and employ the approach for their own online services to staff, stakeholders and citizens.
As a secure collaboration system (built from the Confluence wiki platform) for government, it was often one of the few pre-built tools that agencies could use to share information between agencies.
Although it did, at times, suffer from slow speeds, low levels of promotion and a clunky interface, the support team was unfailingly helpful and cheerful and AGIMO's management stuch with it through thick and thin, knowing that govdex had the potential to transform the way agencies interacted with each other and with external stakeholders.
I am extremely pleased to see that AGIMO is working on an upgrade to govdex that will dramatically reshape the appearance and usability of the service.
Anticipated later this year (though I, for one, am happy for it to take as long as needed to ensure quality), the upgrade to govdex appears from the screenshots to make the interface far more comparable to modern online and social media tools - the tools that public servants are familiar with at home.
AGIMO says in the govdex support pages that the new upgrade will,
make govdex more user friendly, provide easier use for navigation and collaboration, incorporate better use of customisation, improve interoperability and functionality, and accommodate Web 2.0 tools and technologies.The new govdex will,
will bring faster performance, greater levels of accessibility, improved document management capability, a higher degree of networking within communities, and better user customisation.Even better, AGIMO is modelling an excellent user-centred design approach in that the system is being redeveloped based on a simple principle, "build a system for users, by users", with govdex "seeking feedback from its users on the design features of the new govdex."
I hope, with the success of this redesign, we'll see other agencies with less experience using this approach adopt this as a best practice example of user-centred design and employ the approach for their own online services to staff, stakeholders and citizens.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Co-Design conference day 2 | Tweet |
We're into day 2 of the Co-Design for Citizen-Centric Service Delivery conference and I will be liveblogging part of the day. Unfortunately I am presenting this morning, and have to run away early for a flight, however will cover as much as I can.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Liveblog for the Co-Design for Citizen-Centric Service Delivery conference | Tweet |
I'll be liveblogging this conference today, and part of tomorrow.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Is online influence measurable or meaningful? | Tweet |
Online influence is a hot topic right now, with companies such as Klout, PeerIndex, Empire Avenue and Kred all building online services that aim to measure the influence of internet users, in order to better target advertising dollars.
But how effective are these services really?
Does the number of followers, retweets or likes or some form of combination really identify those most likely to influence decisions and behaviours on a large scale?
Would any of these services have identified Janis Krums as an influencer of millions, before he tweeted a photo and message to his 170 Twitter followers about the plane that had landed on the Hudson River?
Would they have identified QLD Police Media as an important and influential account a few weeks before the Brisbane floods?
Would any of them have identified Rebecca Black, singer of 'Friday', as influencing an entire generation?
Influence online can ebb and flow rapidly. People go from virtually unknown to globally famous to unknown in a matter of weeks, days - even hours.
Therefore I was interested, but perplexed when I received the following email from PeerIndex a few days ago.
PeerIndex email:
I work at PeerIndex and we have a group on Australia top Twitter influencers and was wondering if I could get your feedback because you are on the list. PeerIndex measures interactions across the web to help people understand their impact in social media.I was wondering if you could look over the list and let me know if you felt it was accurate? Do you recognise the other people on this list? Is it missing people that you think are important?We would like to open up a dialogue with people in your field and think this would be useful to them (or at least start a conversation) it was accurate and interesting.Thanks very much for your time,
I had a bit of a think about this and realised that I am an influence sceptic.
I am interested in sentiment online - whether people believe/perceive and say good or bad things about a topic. I think there's a strong future in this as a way to judge a general mood, supported by other more refined techniques.
However influence is just too hard to measure if only one dimension - online is taken into account.
Hence my reply, below:
Hi, I would love to help, however I don't think I honestly can.I just do not understand how influence on Twitter, or on other online or offline social networks or situations, can be calculated in any effective manner.Interactions online don't necessarily translate into actions offline and influence is generally a subtle and cumulative process - which requires multiple sources over a period of time.For example, you tell me something on Twitter, I see something related from someone else in a forum, it gets discussed at work, I do some research as my interest is raised, then it appears in the traditional media and then I see others I trust taking a position and then I do.The interlockings between topics and influence are incredibly complex and related to individual mental models and worldviews. Something that would influence one person will have no impact on another, people weight influence based on source, channel, frequency and relationship - and every individual has their own influence model - what will or will not change their view.For an example (or study) of this, just watch the classic movie '12 angry men'. It is a brilliant look at how varied the influencers for different people may be.I don't think there is a reliable way to identify influencers or put people in boxes for influence.I find your, and other similar services, amusing, but do not see how your algorithms have accurately modeled my, or anyone else's levels of influence on the micro or metro topical level.Your models are simply far too simple and work on a subset of observable influences with no characterization of the individual influentiability of different people in different environments at different times - nor how long-term that influence will be.Behavioural psychology is an extremely complex and poorly understood science. About the only way we can reliable detect influencers at any specific time or micro topic is in hindsight.Humans are lousy at determining what is likely to be influential, other than by 'gut instinct', or through sledgehammer techniques, such as mass repetition (show the same message enough times to a broad enough group of people and some will be influenced).So sorry, I don't know what makes people influential - chance, chemistry, repetition, a match with a particular mental model, a combination of influencers all working in alignment, or a reaction against a 'negative influencer' (a de-influencer? Someone we love to disagree with).I certainly don't see how dividing people into boxes by arbitrary topic helps define their broader influence, or specific influence across other topics. The amount they talk about a topic isn't a good judge either, and it is always unclear whether someone 'heard' the message on a service such as Twitter.So I don't think I can help you. Nor am I sure if your service, or Klout or the others in the space has a real business model. Though I do hope that your collective efforts expand our understanding of how connections between people can sometimes influence them.Cheers,Craig
What do you think?.
And for interest, here's another view from TechCrunch, "Klout and PeerIndex Don’t Measure Influence. Brian Solis Explains What They Actually Do".
Friday, March 23, 2012
Don’t dumb me down! (guest post) | Tweet |
With the permission of Geoff Mason (@grmsn), I've republished his blog post Don’t dumb me down! from 21 March this year below.
I thought this was a very good post on a topic that, as increasing amounts of information and discussion only appear online, is increasingly affecting how effective public servants can be and the policy outcomes across government.
There continues to be a fear of the unknown and the misunderstanding across the Australian public service about the internets – which baffles me to be honest.
Agencies continue to block social media websites, cloud based email services, and restrict mobile access during business hours. At the same time the government is pushing for greater innovation, greater mobilisation and capability of staffing, and increased staff performance while seeking to make cost reductions across the breadth of the public service.
The two are one in the same in this modern age. Social media provides the first point of call regardless of the industry for professional development, access to innovation, and in sharing how people work to increase productivity.
As a quick case study, Google + while not a social media site in itself provides a social layer which covers all its services from search through to document sharing and collaboration. The interlinked services include the Google email groups all of which requires access to not just the platform but to a Google account. The service helps tailor search results and improves the breadth of information and opinion provided by adding Web 2.0 functionality. Increasing a person’s ability to undertake a critical analysis of the information being provided.
For example, Tim O’Rielly a prominent person in many ways, including a leader in facilitating discussion, direction, and promotion of modern communications, and open and transparent government uses Google + as a key communication channel for engaging and sharing ideas of the many through an established community which actively engages in frank discussion on the merits and disadvantages of many key concepts attached a public servants work life.
Restricting access to this type of discussion during working hours means federal employees are required to actively engage in these environments during their down time - all the while trying to manage their families, their dogs, the gardening, and everything else which comes from having a life outside of the office. While I think that’s fine for myself, I don’t believe it should be expected of everyone.
As more and more key representatives access similar services as their communication channel of choice it will be fundamental for public servants to not only have access to but be encouraged to be a part of and monitor the discussions on these platforms as a cheap and effectively method for self-development and idea generation for not only their team but for their agency as a whole.
Beats the hell out of spending $2,500 to send staff along to a workshop to hear other public servants talking about something that they could be getting for free online don’t ya thunk?
In short, government agencies need soundly assess the short term risks which access to these systems pose in comparison to long term benefits which being a part of a global community could provide.
I thought this was a very good post on a topic that, as increasing amounts of information and discussion only appear online, is increasingly affecting how effective public servants can be and the policy outcomes across government.
Don’t dumb me down!
There continues to be a fear of the unknown and the misunderstanding across the Australian public service about the internets – which baffles me to be honest.
Agencies continue to block social media websites, cloud based email services, and restrict mobile access during business hours. At the same time the government is pushing for greater innovation, greater mobilisation and capability of staffing, and increased staff performance while seeking to make cost reductions across the breadth of the public service.
The two are one in the same in this modern age. Social media provides the first point of call regardless of the industry for professional development, access to innovation, and in sharing how people work to increase productivity.
As a quick case study, Google + while not a social media site in itself provides a social layer which covers all its services from search through to document sharing and collaboration. The interlinked services include the Google email groups all of which requires access to not just the platform but to a Google account. The service helps tailor search results and improves the breadth of information and opinion provided by adding Web 2.0 functionality. Increasing a person’s ability to undertake a critical analysis of the information being provided.
For example, Tim O’Rielly a prominent person in many ways, including a leader in facilitating discussion, direction, and promotion of modern communications, and open and transparent government uses Google + as a key communication channel for engaging and sharing ideas of the many through an established community which actively engages in frank discussion on the merits and disadvantages of many key concepts attached a public servants work life.
Restricting access to this type of discussion during working hours means federal employees are required to actively engage in these environments during their down time - all the while trying to manage their families, their dogs, the gardening, and everything else which comes from having a life outside of the office. While I think that’s fine for myself, I don’t believe it should be expected of everyone.
As more and more key representatives access similar services as their communication channel of choice it will be fundamental for public servants to not only have access to but be encouraged to be a part of and monitor the discussions on these platforms as a cheap and effectively method for self-development and idea generation for not only their team but for their agency as a whole.
Beats the hell out of spending $2,500 to send staff along to a workshop to hear other public servants talking about something that they could be getting for free online don’t ya thunk?
In short, government agencies need soundly assess the short term risks which access to these systems pose in comparison to long term benefits which being a part of a global community could provide.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Letting the cat out of the bag - I've joined Delib Australia | Tweet |
I've finally been able to let the cat out of the bag today and publicly announce my primary post public sector project.
I have been officially appointed the Managing Director for Delib Australia (and are a shareholder too). So, effective immediately, I will be working full-time with Delib in the UK and with associates and partners in Australia and New Zealand to grow and support Delib's footprint in our region.
For those who don't know them, Delib is a digital democracy company that builts online tools to help governments and other organisations consult and engage their citizens, communities and stakeholders.
The UK company has been operating for over ten years and has worked closely with both the UK and US governments.
More information is available in our media release at the Delib blog.
Delib has a strong commitment to digital democracy and is committed to supporting the Gov 2.0 and open government community, which aligns neatly with my own goals in this area.
As such you can expect my blog to continue to be commercial free, focused on Gov 2.0, social media and open government musings from me and selected guest bloggers.
In fact, I'm about to start a project of redeveloping my blog to better expose some of the resources and tools it contains - with the support of Pia Waugh.
Hopefully this will improve my blog's usefulness and provide more opportunities for me to demonstrate how to walk the Gov 2.0 walk.
I have been officially appointed the Managing Director for Delib Australia (and are a shareholder too). So, effective immediately, I will be working full-time with Delib in the UK and with associates and partners in Australia and New Zealand to grow and support Delib's footprint in our region.
For those who don't know them, Delib is a digital democracy company that builts online tools to help governments and other organisations consult and engage their citizens, communities and stakeholders.
The UK company has been operating for over ten years and has worked closely with both the UK and US governments.
More information is available in our media release at the Delib blog.
Delib has a strong commitment to digital democracy and is committed to supporting the Gov 2.0 and open government community, which aligns neatly with my own goals in this area.
As such you can expect my blog to continue to be commercial free, focused on Gov 2.0, social media and open government musings from me and selected guest bloggers.
In fact, I'm about to start a project of redeveloping my blog to better expose some of the resources and tools it contains - with the support of Pia Waugh.
Hopefully this will improve my blog's usefulness and provide more opportunities for me to demonstrate how to walk the Gov 2.0 walk.
Who is watching the watchers? Civilian surveillance of government | Tweet |
With the widespread availability of phones in cameras and tablet devices - in fact it is hard to buy one today that doesn't include a camera - it is inevitable that people will take them out and take a snap of their most - or least favourite - public figures.
These photos and video get shared, usually online, and generally contain metadata detailing when and where they were taken.
So what is the outcome when citizens, concerned at the actions of politicians or public servant officials, begin photoing and filming their movements for accountability purposes?
David Eade (from Qld's Gov 2.0 community) has written a fabulous blog post on this topic in Govloop, Citizen Surveillance and the Coming Challenge for Public Institutions.
In this post David specifically highlights citizen surveillance of law enforcement officials and agencies - something of intense interest to anyone following cases such as the recent death of a Brazilian student after being tasered by Sydney police (by the way, for more on the rise of non-lethal law enforcement devices, watch this great TEDx Canberra video from Stephen Coleman).
What if a group of citizens, frustrated at the conduct or decisions by a government official (that is any public official - elected or appointed), took it upon themselves to organise round-the-clock surveillance of that person's movements and activities, using a group of people armed with phone-based cameras, filming only from public property (as is legal)?
What if they uploaded all these images, with commentary, to social networking sites for discussion and debate?
What if there was an organised movement, perhaps by someone like Get-Up, to release 'mug shots' of key government decision-makers in a controversial department or matter, and then invite people to photo them and report what they were doing wherever they went?
There could even be a new phenomenon known as 'public servant spotters' - people who take, publish and even trade photos of particularly rare breeds of public servants (such as Secretaries). Imagine the kudos in that community for photographing the entire SES!
This is an interesting new area for citizen power that we haven't yet seen explored very far.
In many places around the world law enforcement agents now have the legal right to detain or arrested people for photoing or videoing their activities - a course that may be increasingly hard for citizens in liberal democracies to swallow and, given the growing use of CCTV and difficulties in identifying bystanders filming a public occurance, very hard to control. Of course, in more restrictive nations people are routinely beaten or killed for filming police activities.
Is it justifiable or appropriate for governments to broaden these legal powers to all public servants?
Should these legal powers exist at all?
In a society where everyone is a journalist, able to to record and distribute video, photos, opinions and facts, how does a government and its citizens agree on what is appropriate surveillance of the activities of government officials - particularly when activities occur in public on public property at the public's expense?
I can see this becoming a growing issue for governments around the world. It is a small and simple step from reporting police activities, filming road workers or snapping photos of elected officials flirting with someone who is not their spouse to photoing and using public facial recognition tools to identify every person entering and leaving a public office.
It is then a simple matter to use social networks or Gold.gov.au to identify their responsibilities and activities. Another simple step to film or photo or text record their public activities wherever they go. Another simple step to publish their activities online, and another to use the pressure to influence their judgement and decisions.
Note this may not be the world we want, however it is the world we already have, it has just been slightly hidden behind private investigators and paparazzi.
When every citizen has a camera with them all the time, what will it mean to governments if they choose to use them?
These photos and video get shared, usually online, and generally contain metadata detailing when and where they were taken.
So what is the outcome when citizens, concerned at the actions of politicians or public servant officials, begin photoing and filming their movements for accountability purposes?
David Eade (from Qld's Gov 2.0 community) has written a fabulous blog post on this topic in Govloop, Citizen Surveillance and the Coming Challenge for Public Institutions.
In this post David specifically highlights citizen surveillance of law enforcement officials and agencies - something of intense interest to anyone following cases such as the recent death of a Brazilian student after being tasered by Sydney police (by the way, for more on the rise of non-lethal law enforcement devices, watch this great TEDx Canberra video from Stephen Coleman).
What if a group of citizens, frustrated at the conduct or decisions by a government official (that is any public official - elected or appointed), took it upon themselves to organise round-the-clock surveillance of that person's movements and activities, using a group of people armed with phone-based cameras, filming only from public property (as is legal)?
What if they uploaded all these images, with commentary, to social networking sites for discussion and debate?
What if there was an organised movement, perhaps by someone like Get-Up, to release 'mug shots' of key government decision-makers in a controversial department or matter, and then invite people to photo them and report what they were doing wherever they went?
There could even be a new phenomenon known as 'public servant spotters' - people who take, publish and even trade photos of particularly rare breeds of public servants (such as Secretaries). Imagine the kudos in that community for photographing the entire SES!
This is an interesting new area for citizen power that we haven't yet seen explored very far.
In many places around the world law enforcement agents now have the legal right to detain or arrested people for photoing or videoing their activities - a course that may be increasingly hard for citizens in liberal democracies to swallow and, given the growing use of CCTV and difficulties in identifying bystanders filming a public occurance, very hard to control. Of course, in more restrictive nations people are routinely beaten or killed for filming police activities.
Is it justifiable or appropriate for governments to broaden these legal powers to all public servants?
Should these legal powers exist at all?
In a society where everyone is a journalist, able to to record and distribute video, photos, opinions and facts, how does a government and its citizens agree on what is appropriate surveillance of the activities of government officials - particularly when activities occur in public on public property at the public's expense?
I can see this becoming a growing issue for governments around the world. It is a small and simple step from reporting police activities, filming road workers or snapping photos of elected officials flirting with someone who is not their spouse to photoing and using public facial recognition tools to identify every person entering and leaving a public office.
It is then a simple matter to use social networks or Gold.gov.au to identify their responsibilities and activities. Another simple step to film or photo or text record their public activities wherever they go. Another simple step to publish their activities online, and another to use the pressure to influence their judgement and decisions.
Note this may not be the world we want, however it is the world we already have, it has just been slightly hidden behind private investigators and paparazzi.
When every citizen has a camera with them all the time, what will it mean to governments if they choose to use them?
Monday, March 19, 2012
From open data to useful data | Tweet |
At BarCamp Canberra on Saturday I led a discussion asking how we can help governments take the step from open data (releasing raw datasets - not always in an easily reusable format) towards usable and useful data (releasing raw datasets in easily reusable formats plus tools that can be used to visualise it).
To frame this discussion I like to think of open data as a form of online community, one that largely involves numbers rather than words.
Organisations that establish a word-based community using a forum, blog, wiki, facebook page or similar online channel but fail to provide context as to how and why people should engage, or feed and participate in the discussion, are likely to get either receive little engagement or have their engagement spin out of control.
Equally I believe that raw data released without context as to how and why people should engage and no data visualisation tools to aid participation in a data discussion are likely to experience the same fate.
With no context and no leadership from the data providers, others will fill the informational gap - sometimes maliciously. Also there's less opportunities for the data providers to use the data to tell good stories - how crime has decreased, how vaccination reduces fatalities, how the government's expenditure on social services is delivering good outcomes.
Certainly there will always be some people with the technical experience and commitment to take raw open data, transform it into a usable form and then build a visualisation or mash-up around it to tell a story.
However these people represent a tiny minority in the community. They need a combination of skill, interest and time. I estimate they make up less than 5% of society, possibly well under 1%.
To attract the interest and involvement of others, the barriers to participation must be extremely low, the lesson taught by Facebook and Twitter, and the ability to get a useful outcome with minimal personal effort must be very high, the lesson taught by Google.
The discussion on the weekend seemed to crystalise into two groups. One that felt that governments needed to do more to 'raise the bar' on the data they released - expending additional effort to ensure it was more usable and useful for the public.
The other view was that governments have fulfilled their transparency and accountability goals by releasing data to the community. That further working on the data redirects government funds from vital services and activities and that there is little or no evidence of value in doing further work on open data (beyond releasing it in whatever form the government holds it).
I think there's some truth in both views - however also some major perceptual holes.
I don't think it necessarily needs to be government expending the additional effort. With appropriate philanthropical funding a not-for-profit organisation could help bridge the gap between open and usable data, taking what the government releases and reprocessing it into outputs that tell stories.
However I also don't accept the view that there was no evidence to suggest that there was value in doing further work on open data to make datasets more usable.
In fact it could be that doing this work adds immense value in certain cases. Without sufficient research and evidence to deny this, this is an opinion not a fact - although the evidence I've seen from the ABS through the census program (here's my personal infographic by the way), suggests that they achieved enormous awareness and increased understanding by doing more than releasing tables of numbers - using visualisations to make the numbers come alive.
Indeed there is also other evidence of the value of taking raw data and doing more work to it is worthwhile in a number of situations. Train and bus timetables are an example. Why does government not simply release these as raw data and have commercial entities produce the timetables at a profit? Clearly there must be sufficient value in their production to justify governments producing slick and visual timetables and route maps.
Some may argue that this is service delivery, not open data (as someone did in the discussion). I personally cannot see the difference. Whenever government chooses to add value to data it is doing so to deliver some form of service - whatever the data happens to be.
Is there greater service delivery utility in producing timetables (where commercial entities would step in if government did not) or in providing a visual guide to government budgets (where commercial interests would not step in)?
Either way the goal is to make the data more useful and usable to people. If anything the government should focus its funds on data where commercial interests are not prepared to do the job.
However this is still talking around the nub of the matter - open data is not helping many people because openness doesn't mean usefulness or usable.
I believe we need either a government agency or a not-for-profit organisation to short circuit the debate and provide evidence of how data can be meaningful with context and visualisations.
Now, who would like to help me put together a not-for-profit to do this?
To frame this discussion I like to think of open data as a form of online community, one that largely involves numbers rather than words.
Organisations that establish a word-based community using a forum, blog, wiki, facebook page or similar online channel but fail to provide context as to how and why people should engage, or feed and participate in the discussion, are likely to get either receive little engagement or have their engagement spin out of control.
Equally I believe that raw data released without context as to how and why people should engage and no data visualisation tools to aid participation in a data discussion are likely to experience the same fate.
With no context and no leadership from the data providers, others will fill the informational gap - sometimes maliciously. Also there's less opportunities for the data providers to use the data to tell good stories - how crime has decreased, how vaccination reduces fatalities, how the government's expenditure on social services is delivering good outcomes.
Certainly there will always be some people with the technical experience and commitment to take raw open data, transform it into a usable form and then build a visualisation or mash-up around it to tell a story.
However these people represent a tiny minority in the community. They need a combination of skill, interest and time. I estimate they make up less than 5% of society, possibly well under 1%.
To attract the interest and involvement of others, the barriers to participation must be extremely low, the lesson taught by Facebook and Twitter, and the ability to get a useful outcome with minimal personal effort must be very high, the lesson taught by Google.
The discussion on the weekend seemed to crystalise into two groups. One that felt that governments needed to do more to 'raise the bar' on the data they released - expending additional effort to ensure it was more usable and useful for the public.
The other view was that governments have fulfilled their transparency and accountability goals by releasing data to the community. That further working on the data redirects government funds from vital services and activities and that there is little or no evidence of value in doing further work on open data (beyond releasing it in whatever form the government holds it).
I think there's some truth in both views - however also some major perceptual holes.
I don't think it necessarily needs to be government expending the additional effort. With appropriate philanthropical funding a not-for-profit organisation could help bridge the gap between open and usable data, taking what the government releases and reprocessing it into outputs that tell stories.
However I also don't accept the view that there was no evidence to suggest that there was value in doing further work on open data to make datasets more usable.
In fact it could be that doing this work adds immense value in certain cases. Without sufficient research and evidence to deny this, this is an opinion not a fact - although the evidence I've seen from the ABS through the census program (here's my personal infographic by the way), suggests that they achieved enormous awareness and increased understanding by doing more than releasing tables of numbers - using visualisations to make the numbers come alive.
Indeed there is also other evidence of the value of taking raw data and doing more work to it is worthwhile in a number of situations. Train and bus timetables are an example. Why does government not simply release these as raw data and have commercial entities produce the timetables at a profit? Clearly there must be sufficient value in their production to justify governments producing slick and visual timetables and route maps.
Some may argue that this is service delivery, not open data (as someone did in the discussion). I personally cannot see the difference. Whenever government chooses to add value to data it is doing so to deliver some form of service - whatever the data happens to be.
Is there greater service delivery utility in producing timetables (where commercial entities would step in if government did not) or in providing a visual guide to government budgets (where commercial interests would not step in)?
Either way the goal is to make the data more useful and usable to people. If anything the government should focus its funds on data where commercial interests are not prepared to do the job.
However this is still talking around the nub of the matter - open data is not helping many people because openness doesn't mean usefulness or usable.
I believe we need either a government agency or a not-for-profit organisation to short circuit the debate and provide evidence of how data can be meaningful with context and visualisations.
Now, who would like to help me put together a not-for-profit to do this?
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Encyclopedia Britannica ceases paper publishing after 244 years - how about government reports? | Tweet |
On Tuesday Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. announced that the company would cease printing a paper edition of their iconic Encyclopedia Britannica, after 244 years.
The last paper version - the 32-volume, 2010 edition - will be unavailable once the existing stock of about 4,000 copies runs out.
I can see it becoming a collector's item overnight.
This change marks the end to a troubled 25 years for the company as the Encyclopedia Britannica struggled to compete against multimedia and then online encyclopedias which were much cheaper to product, distribute and buy - despite some concerns over accuracy.
Today Wikipedia, as a free online encyclopedia, contains more 'pages' of information than all 15 Editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica combined, compiled by hundreds of thousands of volunteer contributors from around the world, compared to the roughly 100 paid researchers who work on Britannica.
This isn't the end for Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, they will continue to publish the encyclopedia in an online and mobile format, and produce a range of other educational products (which today provide 85% of their income).
However it does flag the encrouching end to most large-scale print production.
Book runs, annual financial statements, research reports and other massive printing exercises are increasingly shrinking as organisations provide a digital or mobile version and supplement with a minimal print run.
Given the enormous costs of printing documents in large numbers, and the challenges of allowing sufficient time for printing, fixing errors after they go to print or updating them on a regular basis, where they are a living document, this is a good thing for organisations - except for the printing industry.
For government too this is a good thing.
The budgets allocated to large print runs for annual reports, policy statements, research reports and similar documents can be re-allocated to other uses - bearing in mind that some of it should go to ensuring that agencies have robust print-on-demand and 'eprinting' systems, with strong templates, editorial controls and distribution formats (ebooks, mobile apps, PDFs and interactive versions).
The challenge now is to overcome some of the barriers of moving to more digital printing in government. Firstly there's some legislative requirements for copies of documents to be tabled in parliament, or for some reports to be printed on paper - even if no-one wants a paper version.
There's also expectation management. Many older people, and I include myself in this, feel more comfortable reading a document on paper and assume that others feel the same way. Therefore without even considering the alternatives they will give the instruction to "print 10,000 copies of this white paper", an instruction that may never be questioned or challenged as to whether there are better and cheaper ways of meeting the actual goal (to get the white paper into peoples' hands).
Finally there's the challenge of media lock-ups and similar managed releases. Agencies need to consider the alternatives to printing hundreds or thousands of documents and giving them to people in a locked room.
Do they provide tablets or ebook readers with all the documents in electronic form, but no way to electronically distribute the information?
Do they use self-destructible digital formats whereby each individual 'copy' of a document can only be opened using a one-time username and password, and then self-destructed if copied or distributed?
I hope government agencies will treat the end of the paper-based Encyclopedia Britannica as a sign that there are now alternatives to paper - often better and cheaper alternatives - and consider their own print production to see if there's any unnecessary printing that can be stopped or transitioned into more useful digital forms.
The last paper version - the 32-volume, 2010 edition - will be unavailable once the existing stock of about 4,000 copies runs out.
I can see it becoming a collector's item overnight.
This change marks the end to a troubled 25 years for the company as the Encyclopedia Britannica struggled to compete against multimedia and then online encyclopedias which were much cheaper to product, distribute and buy - despite some concerns over accuracy.
Today Wikipedia, as a free online encyclopedia, contains more 'pages' of information than all 15 Editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica combined, compiled by hundreds of thousands of volunteer contributors from around the world, compared to the roughly 100 paid researchers who work on Britannica.
This isn't the end for Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, they will continue to publish the encyclopedia in an online and mobile format, and produce a range of other educational products (which today provide 85% of their income).
However it does flag the encrouching end to most large-scale print production.
Book runs, annual financial statements, research reports and other massive printing exercises are increasingly shrinking as organisations provide a digital or mobile version and supplement with a minimal print run.
Given the enormous costs of printing documents in large numbers, and the challenges of allowing sufficient time for printing, fixing errors after they go to print or updating them on a regular basis, where they are a living document, this is a good thing for organisations - except for the printing industry.
For government too this is a good thing.
The budgets allocated to large print runs for annual reports, policy statements, research reports and similar documents can be re-allocated to other uses - bearing in mind that some of it should go to ensuring that agencies have robust print-on-demand and 'eprinting' systems, with strong templates, editorial controls and distribution formats (ebooks, mobile apps, PDFs and interactive versions).
The challenge now is to overcome some of the barriers of moving to more digital printing in government. Firstly there's some legislative requirements for copies of documents to be tabled in parliament, or for some reports to be printed on paper - even if no-one wants a paper version.
There's also expectation management. Many older people, and I include myself in this, feel more comfortable reading a document on paper and assume that others feel the same way. Therefore without even considering the alternatives they will give the instruction to "print 10,000 copies of this white paper", an instruction that may never be questioned or challenged as to whether there are better and cheaper ways of meeting the actual goal (to get the white paper into peoples' hands).
Finally there's the challenge of media lock-ups and similar managed releases. Agencies need to consider the alternatives to printing hundreds or thousands of documents and giving them to people in a locked room.
Do they provide tablets or ebook readers with all the documents in electronic form, but no way to electronically distribute the information?
Do they use self-destructible digital formats whereby each individual 'copy' of a document can only be opened using a one-time username and password, and then self-destructed if copied or distributed?
I hope government agencies will treat the end of the paper-based Encyclopedia Britannica as a sign that there are now alternatives to paper - often better and cheaper alternatives - and consider their own print production to see if there's any unnecessary printing that can be stopped or transitioned into more useful digital forms.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Let your People Services/HR team know - LinkedIn reaches three million Australian members | Tweet |
LinkedIn has just announced to members that it has reached three million Australian members, slightly over 10% of the population and roughly 30% of our working population.
I hope People Services and Human Resources people across government are beginning to recognise the potential of the service for reaching professional people as potential hires and to connect past employees back to organisations through alumni networks (you never know when you might be able to lure them back).
While on the topic, it is also worthwhile for agencies to keep an eye on services like Glassdoor, which allows employees to anonymously rate their organisations (yes there are agencies reviewed in the site) and is also growing as a recruitment tool.
Twitter is also becoming a tool for highlighting positions to potential staff (used by the Australian Department of Human Services in a coordinated way for graduates, and by other agencies on an ad hoc basis) and several agencies have used Facebook for advertising (such as ASIO) and managing graduate groups (such as the Department of Finance and Deregulation and the Australian Department of Human Services).
Blogs are also being used (such as by the Department of Health and Ageing).
In fact, if your organisation is not using social media to attract staff, perhaps you're being outcompeted for skills by those organisations who do.
If your recruitment team still isn't sold on the value of Web 2.0 and social media as a useful recruitment and retention tool for organisations, point them in the direction of Michael Specht's 52 ideas for Social Media for HR professionals.
This ideas sheet identifies a range of techniques available to "support key HR and Recruitment processes. Including the use of Twitter, blogs for employees, wikis to create organisational polices and social bookmarking to identify talent pools.".
I hope People Services and Human Resources people across government are beginning to recognise the potential of the service for reaching professional people as potential hires and to connect past employees back to organisations through alumni networks (you never know when you might be able to lure them back).
While on the topic, it is also worthwhile for agencies to keep an eye on services like Glassdoor, which allows employees to anonymously rate their organisations (yes there are agencies reviewed in the site) and is also growing as a recruitment tool.
Twitter is also becoming a tool for highlighting positions to potential staff (used by the Australian Department of Human Services in a coordinated way for graduates, and by other agencies on an ad hoc basis) and several agencies have used Facebook for advertising (such as ASIO) and managing graduate groups (such as the Department of Finance and Deregulation and the Australian Department of Human Services).
Blogs are also being used (such as by the Department of Health and Ageing).
In fact, if your organisation is not using social media to attract staff, perhaps you're being outcompeted for skills by those organisations who do.
If your recruitment team still isn't sold on the value of Web 2.0 and social media as a useful recruitment and retention tool for organisations, point them in the direction of Michael Specht's 52 ideas for Social Media for HR professionals.
This ideas sheet identifies a range of techniques available to "support key HR and Recruitment processes. Including the use of Twitter, blogs for employees, wikis to create organisational polices and social bookmarking to identify talent pools.".
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
US government launches state-based food alerts on Twitter | Tweet |
There's a lot of the work and lag involved in releasing emergency alerts using old fashioned approaches such as media releases.
Even when an agency's systems are tuned to fast-track emergency approval processes, when the media release gets distributed that may only be the beginning, not the end, of the process.
The release need to be brought to the attention of journalists and editors, they need to be convinced it is important to their readers and, once achieved, it must be re-written or edited, included in a news report and distributed.
For newspapers this can add a day or more lag, for radio and television (unless it is critical breaking news) it adds at least hours.
Mashable reports that the US government has cut through this by recently introducing its own direct to public food alerts via social media, using a custom Twitter account per state.
This means that the US government can get out the alerts it finds important more rapidly (even accounting for internal checking and approvals). It also gets them to the right audience - people interested enough to sign up for the alerts.
Alerts can (and should) still be distributed by media release into traditional media channels for breadth of reach, however the addition of Twitter-based announcements ensures that people can access the information when government releases it, rather than waiting for media distributors to deign to distribute it.
In this type of approach the government is using social media to bypass traditional media channels - effectively becoming its own media outlet. There's plenty of other activities where government can use this type of approach to great effect - regaining a level of control over messages and reducing the ability for traditional media to spin or obscure important information.
I hope we see the US extending this approach to other forms of emergency - and non-emergency uses.
And I hope Australia's governments will follow this lead - as some agencies already have.
Video below.
Even when an agency's systems are tuned to fast-track emergency approval processes, when the media release gets distributed that may only be the beginning, not the end, of the process.
The release need to be brought to the attention of journalists and editors, they need to be convinced it is important to their readers and, once achieved, it must be re-written or edited, included in a news report and distributed.
For newspapers this can add a day or more lag, for radio and television (unless it is critical breaking news) it adds at least hours.
Mashable reports that the US government has cut through this by recently introducing its own direct to public food alerts via social media, using a custom Twitter account per state.
This means that the US government can get out the alerts it finds important more rapidly (even accounting for internal checking and approvals). It also gets them to the right audience - people interested enough to sign up for the alerts.
Alerts can (and should) still be distributed by media release into traditional media channels for breadth of reach, however the addition of Twitter-based announcements ensures that people can access the information when government releases it, rather than waiting for media distributors to deign to distribute it.
In this type of approach the government is using social media to bypass traditional media channels - effectively becoming its own media outlet. There's plenty of other activities where government can use this type of approach to great effect - regaining a level of control over messages and reducing the ability for traditional media to spin or obscure important information.
I hope we see the US extending this approach to other forms of emergency - and non-emergency uses.
And I hope Australia's governments will follow this lead - as some agencies already have.
Video below.
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