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Gov Web2.0 showcase

Showcasing Government sites in the Web2.0 age

Digital Economy Future Directions blogDecember 10 2008

Buried deep inside the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy is the two day old Digital Economy Future Directions blog.

Unfortunately, the blog was set up by people without a good understanding of social media, this is apparent as you read through the about page. With a promise that a future post will be on:

How do we maintain the same civil society we enjoy offline in an online world?

Clearly this blog was set up as a one way conduit for collecting input into issues that are to be included in a Future directions paper, that will delivered early next year. It will be interesting to see if this blog develops beyond that limited scope into a device for conversation.

Bad points

• The blog is buried deep inside the regular department web site, with no individual identity of it’s own. Just look at the URL: http://

Selling the idea of a Social Media StrategyAugust 21 2008

I agree with Jeremiah Owyang when he wrote How to Overcome Social Media Scare Tactics. You can not scare conservative organisation like government agencies into adopting social media and radical change by using fear of missing out next big thing. It must be more subtle and less dramatic than that. Though that does not mean you can not use fear as tool to get an agency moving along the path to social media.

The one question I would ask what happens when you find:

• a blog post critical about the agency or one of its’ policies,
• a series of critical blog posts, with a number of comments supporting the authors view,
• a facebook group, critical about the agency or one of its policies, or
• a social networking site which is solely about your agency, and most of the content critical?

And would your action be different if was brought to your attention by:

• a junior staff member,
• senior management,
• the minister, or
• traditional media like the doyen of current affairs shows Today, Tonight?

These scenarios are what all could happen to your agency in the near future. If you need some examples do a Google Blog Search on your agency and have a look at the results. The results for

Social Media Strategy and Social Media Policy in GovernmentAugust 19 2008

I have spent over ten years in various Policy and Communications units in the Government and while trying to not sound like an extra from the Hollowmen, there is a subtle difference between strategy and policy. Strategies set the targets, policies are methods for getting there.

Communications Strategy

Most Government Departments have a Communications Strategy, which should be a high level document which broad terms define the communication aims of the agency. With statements like to increase awareness amongst the most disadvantages clients: youth, indigenous, homeless and the elderly of their right and responsibilities in regard to ….

Unfortunately most Communications Strategies are based on previous strategies and are from the time of mass media as the only channel, very much a talk to ideology rather than communicate with.

Most communication strategies are only reviewed every three years or so, which unfortunately in this time of rapidly changing communications technology and practices, is far too long. The maximum time should be 12 to 18 months.

Online Communications Strategy

An Online Communications Strategy should be the aims of what the agency wants to achieve in online communications in the n

Why government agencies need a social media strategyAugust 5 2008

This is the first in a series of posts about government agencies and social media strategies.

Recently, I had a bad experience with Transperth, so I blogged about my experience. I was wondering how Transperth should respond, when I found I was invited to contribute to the Office of eGovernments’s updating of the Guidelines for State Government Websites and the second item on the agenda was Web 2.0, blogs, wikis, RSS, etc.. I realised guidelines are not the complete solutions, There needs to be a encompassing strategy in any agency before guidelines are employed.

The internet is now a major communication channel. In the last two government departments I worked, more people where getting information from their websites than all other communications channels combined.

While the web has given government agencies a inexpensive channel to communicate their message. The internet and particularly social media have also given others an equal inexpensive and effective channel to communicate their alternative message. It is far easier to communicate online, for example, with my bad experience with Transperth, I told 5 people offline and over 100 people online about my experience. Significantly the research (Corporate Social Responsibility Survey 07) shows that people are more than twice as likely to trust a friend than a corporate website.

If you look at results of the

Giving your blog a human faceAugust 5 2008

Evolution of Security is the blog of the Transportation Security Administration and the most popular Government blog I have seen, with most recent posts averaging over a 100 comments.

One of the most interesting differences between this and most Government blogs, is the effort that has been made to put a human face on the the TSA. The closest most people get to the TSA is brief conversations with faceless personnel at security checks in airports. So the TSA has made a serious attempt to show the human side of the TSA, all the contributors to the blog have their first name and a bio on the blog. It works, a large number of comments begin, hi name.

The blog has been so successful that one of the regular authors, Bob has moved from his regular job at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport to be a full time blogger at TSA headquarters.

So why has the Evolution of Security been so successful in such a short time, it was only launched in January this year. I believe it is a combination of factors, airport security affects a large number of Americans an