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Social Media in Government conference outcomes | Tweet |
The US "Social Media for Government" conference was held in Washington, DC last week.
It appears to have discussed a large number of topics that would be of equal interest to public servants and officials here in Australia, so I've attached a few below....
Guest post: Supporting a major government project with social media tools | Tweet |
I am pleased to present this guest post from a colleague who has done a fantastic job of incorporating online tools into the government project management mix.
I feel that the work Nathanael Boehm and his team have been doing on the Training.gov.au project is an example of how social media can improve the ability of government to support consultation with stakeholders and customers and to deliver successful outcomes.
Guest post:
Nathanael Boehm is a web user interaction designer currently working for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) on the Training.gov.au project. In addition to web design he is involved in the project and contract management, training and social media aspects of the project. In this guest blog post on eGovAU Nathanael talks about why the Training.gov.au team decided to use social media and how they did it.
The Vocational Education and Training sector in Australia is complex, with many stakeholders playing a role in delivering training information and industry regulation. Collectively they are known as the National Training System and the information infrastructure supporting this System is legislatively referred to as the National Training Information Service. This Service is currently provided by NTIS.gov.au, a website developed by the now decommissioned Australian National Training Authority.
In order to accommodate current policy, stakeholder expectations and user needs, Training.gov.au is being developed by the Department to replace NTIS. The new service is planned to be launched later this year.
The Training.gov.au project team was firmly committed to following a User-Centred Design (UCD) approach. Due to the complex nature of the National Training System, this meant coordinating input and expert opinions from thousands of organisations and key personnel.
The method for managing consultation had to take into account all of the dependencies and linkages between Registered Training Organisations (RTOs), Registering/Course Accreditation Bodies (RCABs), State Training Authorities (STAs), the Commonwealth, legislation, National Quality Council (NQC), Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF), Industry Skills Councils (ISCs) and other players.
To solve this the centerpiece of the project team's thinking was the launch of the Training.gov.au Project Blog which to my knowledge was the first ongoing Australian Federal Government blog.
There wasn't much effort or cost involved, we had existing web hosting infrastructure in place and web skills in the team. Therefore, over a few weeks, the team combined a WordPress theme with static information about the project and launched the Training.gov.au Project Blog.
In the spirit of engagement we aim for a very personal style. Each blog post is attributed to a member of the team, not the team as a whole, with the main blog contributors being Jo, Marty, Jonathon and myself. We try to steer clear of government speak, jargon and acronyms as much as possible.
We're aiming for openness and transparency - people appreciate that they know what we're doing and where we're up to every step of the way. They also appreciate the insights into how the project is being conducted and it gives the Project team an opportunity to show both that we're working really, really hard and that we are talking to our stakeholders.
The blog has been well-received by our stakeholders and users. It allows us to broadcast useful information that would otherwise not be available through traditional channels, simply because we're not prepared to spam everyone involved with an email telling them how our training sessions last week went. But there's still value in that content and the blog allows us to leverage it.
The blog also provides a method for our stakeholders to respond. In addition to formal response mechanisms, like the interest registration form, they can easily post comments attached to blog posts. With Jo out in the field promoting the blog as part of her engagement activities the number of comments and visitors is rapidly increasing.
In addition to deployment of the blog we stepped up our external in-person on-site engagement activities - preceded by bringing on a dedicated stakeholder engagement officer. We have a Twitter account @TrainingGovAu, although that is a secondary channel. We're not really pushing it at this stage but we do use it to engage in the Twittersphere when needed and to provide an additional entry point to blog content.
In the last few weeks we've also started using DOPPLR to demonstrate how much on-site engagement we do around the country and to assist with coordination of travel with stakeholders. Although the incorporation of DOPPLR into our social media strategy is under evaluation, our goal is to let people more readily see when we will be in their region or city if they want to attend a system demonstration or training.
Yes it's hard work doing all this engagement - the easy option would be to lock ourselves up in a room for 12 months and just build the website. However that doesn't give the project team any satisfaction in our work or any assurance that we're going to deliver a solution our stakeholders will like or that people will want to use, in support of the policy and business objectives.
In summary, the project team cannot read our stakeholders' or users' minds. It is essential to the success of the Training.gov.au project that we engage and consult broadly. Online social media has been a fundamental component of achieving this by closing the gap between the project team and the people we're delivering for.
Information held by the Government is a national resource | Tweet |
Information held by the Government is a national resource and should be managed in the public interest. Access to government information increases public participation, and leads to increased scrutiny, discussion, comment and review of government activity.
What are the best blog platforms for Australian government departments? | Tweet |
If your Department or agency is considering getting started in blogging it's worth considering the platforms that others in government are using to meet their needs.
Looking across the Australian government, there are now at least several different platforms used to deliver successful blogs.
For example the ABS's Statistically speaking blog uses Blogger (as I do for my blog), a free service from Google, whereas DEEWR's Training.gov.au project blog, the Austrade blog, the Australian War Memorial's blog, the Victorian Public Service Continual Improvement Network and the Sydney Observatory blog use Wordpress, also available for free, or in a paid version.
A couple of others I can't determine the system used - if anyone can tell me which system their blogs are using I'd appreciate it (including Defence, DBCDE and Mosman Library).
Considering the platforms I can identify, there's some clear benefits for agencies and for their audiences,
US government opens social media flood gates - legal deal signed to use sites | Tweet |
The US government might have become one of the most active public administrations using blogging, Twitter, Facebook and other online 'social' mediums, but until now there have been legal issues over how and whether Federal agencies could legally use these tools.
However, after nine months of negotiations and discussion, the GSA has now signed an agreement with four video-sharing and social networking sites permitting their use by Federal authorities. Agreements with another two sites are in progress, and I am sure more will come.
Seventeen Federal Agencies have already signed, or are in the process of signing up via GSA's template, opening the floodgates to a significant leap in US government use of online channels.
Reported in Nextgov, GSA signs deals for agencies to use social networking sites, these agreements are a watershed for US public sector internet use.
The four sites with agreements, structured as Memorandums of Understanding, are Flickr, Vimeo, blip.tv and YouTube. GSA is negotiating with Facebook and MySpace.
Federal agencies are also beginning to create new roles to meet the President's new transparency directive and integrate use of online communications and engagement channels within their mix,
Most agencies will appoint directors of new media to determine how they can use social networking tools to meet mission goals and comply with President Obama's open government directive, said Sheila Campbell, team leader of Web best practices for the government portal USA.gov and co-chair of the Federal Web Managers Council.
The directive will instruct agencies to make their operations more transparent and to create a process that asks the public to submit opinions on policy issues and enable collaboration with organizations in the public and private sectors.
"Agencies that already have a business case to use these tools will have the legal footing to do so," Campbell said. Tools should be used strategically, she added, "not just for the sake of using them, but to accomplish agency missions."
The Catch 22 of government online participation | Tweet |
Government often has a narrow path to walk when engaging online, some of the measures in place to protect the privacy and security of citizens and government officials can conflict with efforts to improve the transparency and openness of government processes.
Hence this article from the New York Times, Government 2.0 Meets Catch 22.
The article highlights some of the issues that US government officials must navigate and contend with when participating with online communities or even using the internet to research potential employees.
While the article doesn't present any real solutions for government, it does highlight that there can be the need for some government policies and legislation to be reconsidered to provide the appropriate balance between government's ability to engage online and to protect those it employs and serves.
Are you ready for Internet Explorer 8 and Safari 4? - Overview of the web browser market | Tweet |
Does your organisation keep an eye on current browser standards and adoption rates?
If not it's worth surveying the market a few times each year to ensure that your web standards continue to align with market trends.
Below is a quick whip around the market, looking at the main browsers in use today.
Internet Explorer
Microsoft recently released the final version of Internet Explorer 8, with the expected range of features as demonstrated during the public beta.
It is still early days for the browser, however based on past experience it will experience rapid early adoption up to around 10-15% of the market, primarily offsetting Internet Explorer 7 rather than other browsers, then more slowly grow towards a larger market share over several years.
Most of the initial adoption will be by households - government customers - meaning that it is important to track usage and determine when your agency will begin supporting the browser. Fortunately this is the most standards compliant Microsoft browser in recent years, simplifying the task of supporting it alongside other modern web browsers.
I expect to see limited effect on Internet Explorer 6, which now has negligible and continually declining market share anyway. By my website reporting under 5% of Australian web users now use IE6. Wikipedia articles indicate (drawing from various reports) a similar trend, with IE6 in February 2009 accounting for only 18.85% of the 68% of computers using IE - making its overall share around 12% internationally.
IE6 is also very much a 9-5 web browser, used primarily in government agencies and libraries, which are more resistant to rapid software upgrades due to their security frameworks. Once government agencies move away from IE6 due to Microsoft withdrawing support for the browser I expect it will largely disappear, removing the need for many code hacks and saving significant development costs for organisations.
Most larger private companies are happily using Internet Explorer 7 and while they are likely to adopt Internet Explorer 8 at some point, they are more likely to follow a wait and see approach to ensure the product is stable and secure before upgrading.
In overall terms, IE is at its lowest market share since 2004, with only around 68-74% of internet users now using the browser. I do not see IE8 reversing this decline to any measurable extent and I am willing to predict that we could see IE's share declining into the sub 66% range by the end of 2009.
This would still leave IE the dominant web browser overall, however Firefox may have close to equivalent share with IE7, making it just as important.
Safari
Apple is getting closer to launching Safari 4, with a public beta now available for both Mac and PC.
The new version appears from my testing to be less of a jump for coders (therefore has less of an impact on business management of websites), with Safari 4 appearing to largely extend the features of the already very standards compliant Safari 3.
As Safari is still primarily regarding as a browser for the Mac, I expect Safari 4 will experience a fairly rapid growth replacing Safari 3, but will have very limited impacts on browser shares across non-Apple platforms.
As Apple continues to grow, particularly in the mobile space, there will be some growth from the current 4-8% market share (depending whose reports you believe), however it would take inroads on the PC front to see this browser grow significantly into the double digits range.
Firefox
Firefox is continuing to pick up market share from Internet Explorer, now holding 18-22% of the market according to reports featured in Wikipedia.
The browser continues to be highly standards friendly and has a huge groundswell of support despite a few intermittent speed bugs in several recent releases.
I predict that Firefox will reach 25% market share by the end of 2009, which could take it almost to parity with IE7 use by that time.
Ignore Firefox at your peril.
Chrome
Despite being lightening fast in running web-based applications, Google's new Chrome browser does not appear to be gaining significant uptake.
It currently sits at slightly over 1% of the market by most measures and in my view it has failed to capture the popular imagination.
I've spoken to a number of people who've said that Chrome just doesn't look familiar enough as a web browser, indicating to me that aesthetics may be more important than its super fast javascript engine.
Given that Google introduced this browser to encourage others to improve the speed of their engines (in order to run Google web applications faster and cut down speed differences with desktop applications), I don't think Google is worried about the take-up rate at this time.
The browser is on a rapid development curve, with around 30 incremental updates since release, but still doesn't support some key web features and doesn't render all sites correctly (I have troubles with managing my blog with it - ironic given I use a Google blog tool).
I expect that when (if) Google really wants to push adoption it will engage its marketing muscle to do so, then we might see rapid take-up, however this will most likely occur at the expense of Firefox and Opera before it impacts on IE.
Opera
I am beginning to feel that Opera is the 'nice guy' of the browser industry. In other words, it will finish last.
While the browser has had significant success on non-Apple mobile platforms, its overall browser market share remains around 0.7% and has been stable for most of the last year.
For whatever reason Opera hasn't managed to convince users that it has a unique selling proposition and given the competition across the browser market at present I don't see it coming up with anything new quickly enough to prevent others copying the feature and capitalising on the benefits.
What do I use?
Personally I use all of the browsers above, with Firefox my preferred browser for web surfing and Chrome for web-applications (such as Gmail and Google Docs). IE has a place as a secondary browser, but I rarely open Safari or Opera except when testing sites.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Please attribute in the form: Sourced from eGovAU
