Category Archives: Social media

twitter.govt.nz

July 31, 2009 – 4:26 pm

I have, despite forces almost gravitational in their inexorability, resisted the urge to post about Twitter. Primarily because, over the last 18 months, the web has been awash with commentary about how to use the micro-blogging service. However, the publication this week by the UK Government’s Cabinet Office of a strategy template for government agencies [...]

By Jason Ryan | Tagged , , , , | Comments (21)

Consult and engage

June 26, 2009 – 4:18 pm

If you spend any time at all trawling around the web you inevitably encounter a lot of comment about consultation and engagement. In the public sector, this triggers an immediate tension between what we have historically delivered and the huge potential we see for online channels to deliver the sorts of outcomes that would justify [...]

By Jason Ryan | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

Networked citizens

November 2, 2008 – 7:10 pm

Demos, the UK think tank, this week published a pamphlet on the impact of social networks in the workplace. Called Network Citizens, the report is a qualitative study of six workplaces that documents their internal and external networks. Unsurprisingly, much of the focus is on the role of technology, and how it is changing the [...]

By Jason Ryan | Also posted in Communications | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (10)

Embracing failure

October 19, 2008 – 8:17 pm

While chatting with Matt Lane last week about what New Zealand examples of social media in the public sector we should add to the Government 2.0 Best Practice Wiki (a terrific initiative launched by Mike Kujawski, a Canadian public servant consultant) it occurred to me that by only including successes when we discuss with other [...]

By Jason Ryan | Also posted in Reputation management | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (12)

Social media & change management

April 28, 2008 – 3:00 pm

Reading and responding to the comments left on the last couple of posts had me returning to a question that I have wrestled with periodically over the last year or two: how do you convince senior management of the need to begin planning for online engagement? One tactic that occurred to me is to use [...]

By Jason Ryan | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (8)

Rate your agency

April 13, 2008 – 8:10 pm

As we approach the end of the financial year, public servants (with varying degrees of apprehension) start to turn their minds to their performance reviews. And while typically this is when you demonstrate your unswerving devotion to the cause and highlight the prodigious efforts you have been making throughout the year, it is also an [...]

By Jason Ryan | Also posted in Communications, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (5)

Social media metrics

March 24, 2008 – 8:55 pm

Last week, while looking at the effectiveness of microformatting government media releases, the vexed issue of metrics reared it’s head. Vexed, because it is an ongoing issue for communicators, public sector and otherwise, to collate and report communcations metrics; even more so for the newer social media tools.
The sense of dissatisfaction I felt with my [...]

By Jason Ryan | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Government social media release [gamma]

March 16, 2008 – 7:47 pm

Just over I year ago I posted the first government social media release, using an in-development microformat, hRelease. Since then, I have issued 7 more releases using this format (you can see them all on the e-government site). During the course of that year the markup has evolved as I worked with the hRelease working [...]

By Jason Ryan | Also posted in Web standards | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Public sector wikis

March 2, 2008 – 5:00 pm

Chris Wilson posted an interesting article on Slate last week, The Wisdom of the Chaperones, that uses some interesting data on Wikipedia and Digg contributors to look critically at the notion of the wisdom of the crowd.
Essentially, Wilson points out that these social sites are not built and maintained by the masses, rather they are [...]

By Jason Ryan | Also posted in Technology | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (8)

Early adopters and the strategy gap

February 24, 2008 – 8:19 pm

Reading through the latest Pew research paper, A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters, at the same time as talking with colleagues from a variety of government agencies over the previous week, I was reminded how the challenges that social media present to government are neither particularly new nor require especially innovative or radical management responses.
It [...]

By Jason Ryan | Also posted in Public affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (11)