On openness…

July 10, 2009 – 4:40 pm

Open - a Flickr image by Justin MartyThere has been quite a lot of discussion about opening up government data over the last couple of months, both here and in other jurisdictions. In 2007, I posted on the UK government’s Power of Information report, and the potential social and economic value that could be unlocked. At that time Statistics New Zealand were one of the few agencies making their data available.

Recently, Glen Barnes and Nat Torkington launched the Open Data Catalogue and it is encouraging to see how much government data has been submitted in such a short space of time. There are currently more than fourty data sets on the site, from central and local government agencies. These sets range from economic data provided by the Treasury, geospatial data, various sets of energy data and a collection of directories and registers.

The point to bear in mind as you scroll down this list, though, is that these sets represent a fraction of the data the Crown holds. This catalogue could easily extend to hundreds of pages…

So, while we celebrate the initiative of the Ministry for the Environment releasing data under a Creative Commons license, for example, it might be worth pausing and considering how we can accelerate this process.

That conversation is already taking place on the Open Government Ninjas List, where one of the threads has been about the barriers to opening up government data.

While I agree that most of these reasons have some currency, none resonate as much as the senior American official talking to John Geraci of O’Reilly:

There were some interesting apps in there, but overall they didn’t meet with the mayor’s agenda for the city.
Open Gov Is a Dialogue, Not a Monologue

This (completely guileless?) admission underscores for me what is the critical issue in opening up government data: culture change.

It’s not about the technology. It’s not about data quality. Or privacy. Or commercial sensitivity, or any of that stuff. That should all be dealt to as part of the everyday functioning of any administration. It is about accepting that we, the government, collect and manage this information on behalf of citizens and that it is our fundamental responsibility to make it available to them in a way that supports the creation of public and economic value.

This isn’t an add-on, or a ‘nice to do.’ It’s an integral part of our operating environment now.

There is an Open Data BarCamp planned for later this year. Come along and be part of the change.

Photo: Justin Marty

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Technology | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Consult and engage

June 26, 2009 – 4:18 pm

Screenshot of IRD consultation siteIf 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 the hype. Over the last couple of years, I think that we have begun to see some of that potential realized. This week, we moved a step closer.

On Wednesday, Sam Farrow from Inland Revenue let me know that a project that he and his team had been toiling away at for months had gone live: the IRD Student Loans Consultation Forum.

As it says on the home page,

The government is considering changes to the way Inland Revenue administers the collection of student loans. The aim is to make it simpler and easier for borrowers to manage their accounts.

The main idea is to have everything web-based. This means you will be able to check your loan balance when it suits you, saving time and hassle, a bit like accessing your bank account online.

[...]We would like you to take part in this forum and let us know how the changes will affect you. We’ll keep your comments in mind when we make formal recommendations to government ministers on the detail of the changes.

This strikes me as exactly the sort of approach to public engagement that agencies should be considering. Yes, there are some (very limited) risks associated with this sort of open and transparent consultation but the terms of use make it clear that these risks have been considered and are being actively managed. The point is that IRD are actively engaging the people who will be directly affected by any policy changes and inviting their input into the process.

As Peter Shergold said at DevCon last week:

…users of government services have no sense of ownership of the services they receive.
(my notes)

Shergold went on to say that government’s can no longer operate on the assumption that the people it serves are ‘customers,’ as customers have a choice. We are here to serve citizens, and they best way to serve them is to ask them what it is they want — or, if they do not have a choice about the what, how they would like to be served.

Of course, this requires the sort of genuine, and potentially difficult engagement that is real consultation.

If you have any doubts, have a look at the quality of the contributions to date. The forum has only been up for three days, so there is not a huge amount of discussion, but what there is is thoughtful, direct and, occasionally, very entertaining. Exactly what you would expect from the people that IRD is seeking to consult on this issue.

Email and text would be great. Your phone system is currently a joke, so alternative channels would be nice.

Do stuff online? Sure. Just make sure I can do “everything” online, in one place, with one username and password. Dont bounce me around from product to product and if you guys already have the info, then why oh why do I have to type it in again?

Turn off the paper? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. If I want a statement Ill come get one. If I get something wrong at the end of the year, I expect you guys will tell me anyway.

Save some trees. Be good to your mother. Tips to live by.
OzboiNZ

In my view, IRD should be congratulated for giving the people they serve some of that sense of ownership. Let’s hope that their example serves to encourage other agencies to take the next step.

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Social media | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

Networked citizens

November 2, 2008 – 7:10 pm

Social Network - a Flickr image by luc legayDemos, 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 nature and scale of networking.

Many public sector agencies view access to social networks, the likes of Facebook, Twitter and – incomprehensibly – LinkedIn, with what can only be described as either fear or deep suspicion. Some of them even go so far as to block access to these sites:

…these technologies are most often though of as social – more pleasure than business. When discussed in the context of work, they have tended to be regarded as a drain on productivity, a leaking of people’s social lives into office hours.
Network Citizens [PDF 356 KB], p.17

That last clause is a telling one. As if, in the minds of the people that think blocking access to these sites will make people more productive (or protect them from themselves…), there is some sort of impermeable divide between what we do at work and who we are.

The fact of the matter is that professional public servants, like any knowledge workers, rely on a range of competencies in their roles. And many of those competencies are based on interpersonal skills. In short, in order to just do their jobs passably well, they need to be able to interact with a range of people inside and outside the organization. In order to excel at their job, they need to be able to draw on the knowledge and experience of their networks.

Given the economic crisis that we are facing, and the constrictive impact that this will have on agency budgets, the imperative to develop higher levels of staff engagement (and the resulting increases in productivity) is paramount. As the authors of the report note:

These social ties are strong predictors of wellbeing at work; to that extent, networked firms are happy firms, too.
p.27, my emphasis

Of course, there are risks associated with new technologies. Or, more particularly, with the behaviours that these technologies enable. The case yesterday of the Virgin employees dismissed for comments on Facebook is a good example. It highlights the need for appropriate guidance to ensure employees can use the tools confidently and responsibly.

Weighed against the alternative approach, blocking access, this risk is at least manageable; and in the short term. The implications of blocking will likely be far more deleterious. First, for many skilled and connected professionals, a disconnected workplace will be the equivalent of a career backwater. Second, from an organizational point of view, you are effectively abandoning what is now a competitive advantage and will soon be the industry standard.

Attempts to control employees’ use of social networking software in the office may end up damaging the organisation in the long run by depleting its network capital.
p.72

One other interesting aspect that this paper raised was seeing it through the context of a larger, quantitative piece of research. Earlier this year, academics at Harvard Business School published a fascinating analysis of the communications activities of a multi-national organization.

The data we analyze include the complete record, as drawn from the firm’s servers, of e-mail communications and scheduled meetings (both face-to-face and conference calls) among 30,328 people during an observation period of roughly three months.
Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization, [PDF 645 KB] p. 12

The conclusion that the authors reach suggests to me that, rather than adopt a suspicious or sceptical view of social software, organizations would be well advised to accelerate the use of these networks (both in terms of the technology and the behavioural aspects). For public sector agencies, that tend to be more hierarchical and siloed anyway, these tools offer opportunities to improve internal communications, lift engagement and – in what would admittedly amount to a harmonic convergence – promote innovative and transformative practice.

The authors found that:

The overall conclusion to emerge from the dyad-level analysis is that organizational structure and geographic space sharply delimit patterns of exchange. Social categories also influence propensities to interact, but the magnitudes of their effects are modest relative to those of organizational structure and the (organizationally assigned) spatial organization of BigCo.
p. 37

The message is clear. Understand the change that is happening inside your agencies. Ensure that you provide people the sorts of tools that will allow them to develop professionally and to invest and grow their social capital. Attempts to restrict the ability of your staff to build their networks (online or off) will only result in a disengaged workforce that expends most of its ingenuity trying to get around your blocks in order to find a job that is both fulfilling and professionally relevant.

Photo: luc legay

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Communications, Social media | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (10)

Embracing failure

October 19, 2008 – 8:17 pm

Fail company - a Flickr image by eelsmannWhile 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 public servants, or jurisdictions, how we use social media is both disingenuous and, potentially, harmful.

Let me set aside for the moment the distinction between Govt 2.0 and social media, because they are not one and the same thing (rather, one is a condition for the other); that can wait for another post…

Instead, I would like to explore some of the issues around framing these early attempts at government use of social media as almost exclusively success stories and the implications for this (entirely understandable) tendency.

Fear of failure

Why is it understandable? A couple of reasons. One is that public servants are naturally loathe to admit that they spent tax payer dollars unwisely, or worse, ineffectively. Consequently, there is always a temptation to adopt an overly optimistic assessment of the impact of a particular initiative. Of course, there may be cases where this view is supported by metrics. Or not.

Second, the people who are promoting social media in government are, by and large, enthusiasts; early adopters who champion these tools with – let’s face it, a zeal that is borderline messianic. The last thing these people want to see is the non-believers (principally senior management) arriving at the conclusion that this stuff is just hype, Or worse, that it doesn’t work. Thus the drive to label it all a runaway success.

With social media, however, it isn’t that simple. First, success – or failure – is not a value that we are able to ascribe ourselves. It is a co-production. We, ie., the government, can’t unilaterally decide that an engagement initiative with our publics was an unqualified success. They, those with whom we have tried to engage, have as much – if not more – say in whether or not the engagement was mutually satisfactory (mutual satisfaction being the key determinant of any successful relationship).

A good example of this for me is the Police Act Review Wiki. This received a lot of attention at the time, and continues to be one of the stock examples for a lot of commentators on what constitutes a successful public sector social media implementation. I don’t think it is that simple.

The Police Act Review was an outstanding piece of public policy work. It engaged a wide range of people and initiated an enormous amount of discussion. The overall communications programme would have to be regarded as extremely well executed.

But let’s be realistic about the social media element of the Review. It failed. Not a National Australia Bank sort of epic fail, but – in terms of providing a transparent forum for people to contribute their thoughts to how the Act should be reviewed, a failure nonetheless.

Is this sort of failure a bad thing? The wiki delivered what the Police wanted – some suggested changes to the wording of the Act and a lot of publicity/awareness, nevertheless it was shut down after less than a week. What sort of public consultation can take place in less than a week? What about those thousands of visitors to the site who arrived only to find that they were too late, the wiki was locked and it was all over? Did they consider it a success?

Twitter Fail Whale.

What price failure?

Which brings me to an important corollary. Failure in social media should not be stigmatized. For an emerging set of channels/tools, it is both inevitable and I would argue, welcome. Why? Because it is social. As long as you are engaging in a principled way, it is OK to make mistakes. Own them and learn from them; and do it publicly.

It is also welcome because we are unlikely to collectively improve our performance in this space if we are busy congratulating ourselves on what a good job we are already doing.

The real risk to your agency’s reputation is to continue to talk up your social media efforts as wonderful examples of engaging with citizens, while those selfsame citizens think that you have just built another creepy treehouse.

Photo: eelsmann

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Reputation management, Social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (12)

Election 2008

September 13, 2008 – 2:42 pm

Ballot Box - a Flickr image by Jeremy ToemanIn case you had missed it, the Prime Minister announced yesterday that the country will go to the polls on November 8. That puts us, public servants, fairly and squarely in the pre-election period. What does that mean? For public sector communicators there are a couple of issues that we should consider.

SSC has guidance on the website for public servants in general, and the relevant information for communicators is split across two parts of the document. Section 2.2 contains specific guidance around communications issues. Appendix 2 has further guidance, including principles and some helpful examples.

Rather than rephrase the material on the SSC site, I thought it would be more useful to look at a couple of scenarios that involve social media, and consider how public sector communicators might manage these issues in the pre-election period.

Public comment

Public servants, like everyone else, have the right to participate in the democratic process. Unless you are one of the few bureaucrats in the country that spends a good part of your time in the Minister’s office, then you can happily get involved. You may decide to adopt an old-school approach and do letter box drops or stuff envelopes for one of the parties. Equally, you may decide that a thread on a forum or a particular blog post warrants comment. The caveat in both these scenarios is the same:

Don’t bring politics into your job, and don’t bring your job into politics

If you do decide that you want to weigh in to a debate on a blog or forum, make sure that you do it from your home computer, on your own time and, whatever you do for God’s sake, don’t preface your comment by establishing your expertise in a policy area by stating that you work for Ministry X. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is not unheard of…

As well as not using your work machine for flaming trolls exciting forays in the political blogosphere, you might want to refrain from editing Wikipedia pages or otherwise leaving an obvious digital link back to your place of work.

For those of you who are running their own blogs or maintaining some other forms of social media presence, there is a particular line of the guidance that does bear repeating. Adopt a conservative approach. If you are in doubt about a particular tweet or post, pause and think how you would feel if it was brought to the attention of your chief executive or Minister…

Moderating comments

The other risk for public sector organizations (and one that is not restricted to a specific time in the election cycle) is for political comment to be posted to an agency social media site. This should be covered by your moderation or comments policy.

My approach would be to delete the comment and email the person who posted it and suggest they refrain from any further such activity. If the political content was only an aside and the rest of the comment was on-topic and thoughtful, you could redact the offensive lines and post a comment as to why the comment was edited.

Conclusion

Public sector communicators are at the front line when it comes to maintaining a professional, politically neutral public service. Elections bring more pressure onto communicators as they strive to continue to serve their Minister and to ensure that they are equally able to serve future governments. Social media have not had a big role to play in our thinking in previous elections, but as more and more New Zealanders, and by extension public servants, become active in this space that will change.

The only other point that I would add is that, after having read the guidance, if you are unsure as to where the line is on a particular issue, or would just like to test your thinking on someone who is not so close to that issue, please give me a call.

Photo: Jeremy Toeman

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Communications | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

Kiwis’ usage of the Internet

August 8, 2008 – 6:27 pm

Server Cable Mash - a Flickr image by kenyeeLast week, as part of the World Internet Project, Auckland University published The Internet in New Zealand 2007, a survey of 1430 New Zealanders’ use of and attitude towards the Internet. It has some interesting findings, particularly for public sector communicators.

The topline results of our usage habits are fairly unremarkable: 78% of Kiwis use the Internet, 6% are ex-users and 16% have never used it. What is more revealing is the data on our attitudes to the Internet:

New Zealanders who use the Internet rely on it heavily. 61% think it would be a problem if they lost access, while only 2% think this would make life better.

More tellingly, as a source of information, the Internet is rated important by more users than are family and friends – 71% compared to 56%. Word of mouth, particularly that of family and friends, is generally quoted as being the most trusted source of information about companies and their products.

Perhaps Kiwis think of the Internet as more a source of news than product information? That makes more sense when you consider that newspapers or television only rate as important with 52% of the respondents.

Government

What are New Zealanders’ views with regard to government on the Internet?

Information about government services online

New Zealanders use the Internet to access government, mainly for information about services (47%), from both local and central government sites. Unsurprisingly, the most common activity is accessing information about government or council services.

What I was both encouraged and delighted to see was that 33% use the Internet to obtain information on government policy. One third of respondents are interested enough in government policy to research in online: that is an impressive result.

Unfortunately, the Australian report [PDF 3.9 MB] – which is in many ways a more interesting read – focussed on peoples’ interest in politics, rather than government, so there is no opportunity for comparison with our closest neighbours… Although it is worth noting that only 25% of users agree or strongly agree with the statement that by using the internet public officials will care more what people like you think.

Fewer Kiwis, only 15%, seek information online about political parties or MPs. In terms of e-government, payments such as rates, taxes or fines are made online by 21% of users.

All of these results contrast markedly with the findings in the Kiwis Count survey that SSC ran at roughly the same time. Only 4% of respondents used a website to contact a government agency about a service. That 17% gap is one that needs to be explored and understood.

Social media

To return to a recurring theme of this blog, it is the behaviour of younger Kiwis (and by extension, younger public servants) that should serve as a harbinger of change in the workplace.

A significant minority of users are active in posting different forms of material on the Internet. 27% have posted messages on discussion or message boards, 34% have posted pictures, photos or videos, while just 8% have posted audio material.

However, it is not just ‘casual’ use of social media. The report notes that a significant minority of users are engaged in forms of online content creation. 13% maintain their own website and 10% keep
their own blog. How are agencies planning for this influx of behaviour into their organizations? What sort of strategies do they have in place to support and manage this creativity?

Of course, it doesn’t begin and end there. The report’s authors note, with classic antipodean understatement, that socializing is a major use of the Internet. They found that 77% of users check their email every day. At least weekly, 34% use IM and 28% participate in social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.

Accordingly,

most users say that the Internet has increased their contact with other people, especially overseas (65%). There is increased contact with people in the same profession (51%), those who share recreational interests (33%), and people generally in New Zealand (42%). [My emphasis]

Over half of the respondents use the Internet to connect with professional networks. It’s probably not such a good idea to block access to those sites then, is it?

Conclusion

There is a tremendous amount of material to sift through in this report. It is the first that New Zealand has contributed to the project (some of the other countries have notched up six or seven), and it provides a valuable insight into the behaviour of Kiwis on- and off-line.

It also provides yet more evidence (if you are still holding on to the forlorn hope that you can ignore this whole online thing…) that, as a profession, we need to be doing a lot more and urgently about getting our agencies in shape to adapt to — and manage this change.

Photo: kenyee

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Communications, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (6)

Citizens’ views on Govt 2.0

July 6, 2008 – 4:58 pm

Liverpool St Station - a Flickr image by victoriapeckhamColin McKay posted earlier this week about a fascinating piece of research published by the Canadian government. The paper, New Technologies and GC Communications [Word], is the first phase (the qualitative) of a survey into Canadians views on their government’s use of Web 2.0 technologies.

There are a couple of points that the survey throws up that illustrate some of the issues that we are facing here in New Zealand. Working on the assumption that there would not be too much difference between the views of the Canadians in the focus groups and their Kiwi counterparts (an assumption based on the fact that, reading the survey, the comments seem for the most part to be eminently sensible), there are some valuable insights to be gained.

Pace

The first point, and one that brings warmth to my cardigan wearing breast, is that there is no need to be bleeding edge with this stuff:

[G]overnment should proceed, if not cautiously, at least thoughtfully in the implementation of these technologies. Concretely, this involves preceding on a case-by-case basis when deciding which application to use and for what purpose. [...] the GC should not adopt Web 2.0 applications simply to look ‘cool’ or modern, but rather should adopt specific applications to address specific communications or service requirements. (My emphasis)

That means no gratuitous or ill-conceived attempts to deploy social media solutions for the sake of it. It also means that, from a planning point of view, these implementations are driven by business and communications objectives – not technology ones.

Supply

At the same time as framing the need for implementations that are part of a planned approach, participants in the focus groups did provide a strong mandate for government agencies to adopt social media.

There was a widespread perception that the GC must foster awareness of its use of these new applications among the population. This was a theme that recurred at various parts of the discussion, and was seen to be essential to their use.

This desire to see government introduce these tools was based on a number of reasons. Two that stood out for me, given one of the themes that I have been belaboring here, were inevitability:

[G]overnment cannot ignore these applications because they are more and more prevalent. [...]In short, there is a technological imperative at work, and one that will force the government to respond and/or adapt. (My emphasis)

and the opportunity to support more and richer engagement with our publics:

[A] recurring theme throughout the discussions was the perception that [Web 2.0] adoption represents an opportunity to transform the ‘face’ of the Government of Canada, to make it more approachable, less remote, and more responsive to Canadians. [...]Conversely, if it does not adopt these types of applications, the GC risks being seen as more out-of-touch than it is already perceived to be.

Audience

The risk that, in avoiding or being too slow to understand these tools, government’s can damage their reputations is a real one. The negative impact of this inability to adapt sufficiently nimbly to new technologies will manifest itself initially – and critically – with employees.

A related point and one of the most interesting observations is included as part of the final miscellaneous communications issues. The authors note that, of the sub group of participants classified as ‘Internet users,’ nearly all of them think that public servants should be able to use these tools as part of their work;

There was general agreement that public servants should be able to access these sites to understand how they work, as well as their potential strengths and weaknesses as communications vehicles if the government is considering using them.

If public servants can’t access these sites, can’t learn how social media work by observing how the public use them, then there is precious little chance of, when they need to be able to deploy one of these tools, of them getting it right.

Conclusion

If this paper is any guide, the second phase of the project, the quantitative survey, promises to yield a rich array of insights about citizens’ expectations of governments use of social media.

What would be really interesting, however, would be some data on views about how these tools might be implemented inside government, because that is where, for me, the real value for much of this lies.

Without the people and knowledge management practices that can be achieved through the smart use of social media, governments will struggle to attract and retain the type of public servants that could use these tools to effectively engage with citizens. The question is: how long will it take us to reach that point. And, more tellingly, where will everyone else be by the time we get there?

Photo: victoriapeckham

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

Open sourcing government

June 8, 2008 – 2:01 pm

Open - a Flickr image by kool skatcatIn April last year, I published a post on what I considered to be the 5 principles for Govt 2.0, one of which was open source government. This week, some academics form Princeton University have published a paper, still in draft, with the wonderful – if only slightly melodramatic – title, Government Data and the Invisible Hand, that considers this very issue.

To recap, the concept of open sourcing government is essentially about allowing third parties (citizens, companies, non-profits, etc.,) direct access via APIs to government data, so:

that individuals, communities and businesses are able to interact with government web applications in ways that are useful to them.
5 principles for Govt 2.0

The UK Cabinet Office released a report in June last year that looked at what this would mean for their public management system. The economic impact alone, as the report makes clear, had the potential to make a significant contribution:

2006 figures from the Office of Fair Trading that estimate that improved availability of information to re-users could double the direct market value of public sector information to £1.1 billion per year.
The value of government information

The Princeton paper authors, however, seem to be going some way further, calling for the US federal government to reduce the role it plays in presenting online information to citizens. The authors argue that the key role for federal agencies should be opening up their data, rather than building websites that provide a platform (and by inference, not a particularly good one) and a filter for people to access the information.

Their premise is an attractive one. That government

should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that “exposes” the underlying data. [... The Government should] require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large.
Government Data and the Invisible Hand, p1.

Effectively, this means that government agencies could focus their attention (and taxpayer dollars) on the quality and accessibility of the information, and not on the presentation level. It’s a compelling proposition, particularly when you consider the current state of the namespace (in any jurisdiction, really).

The authors argue that the market, in the form of these third parties developing applications that reuse the government data, will drive economies of innovation and accessibility that are beyond anything that government itself could hope to provide. They list some of these advanced features:

It is worth pointing out that some of these advanced features are already part of the namespace here; albeit with mixed success. Advanced search, RSS feeds, and wikis are all essential elements of the .govt.nz space.

There are a couple of concerns that I have. The authors acknowledge that in some case there will be no private actor willing to step forward and create a compelling website based on the data. The notion that government makes all information accessible, irrespective of it’s apparent value, is a fundamental one. Abrogating that responsibility to third parties seems fraught with potential to disadvantage some sections of the community. Mike W leaves a comprehensive comment to this effect on Ed Felten’s blog (one of the authors of the paper).

As an aside, ensuring that people can access a government data set via a visualization (like EveryBlock, for example) using a screenreader can be done, but it is hard work…

More of a concern, however, is the notion that we can either continue to try to build usable websites or simply outsource innovation in the namespace. I don’t see, as the authors apparently do, that the two are mutually exclusive. Indeed, there is an argument that government should retain and build more capability for innovation, rather than adopt practices that would encourage this sort of activity to atrophy.

Those concerns aside, however, what the authors of the paper are proposing is both an effective and efficient approach to transformed government. We should be seriously considering the same here in New Zealand.

Photo: kool_skatcat

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Technology, Web standards | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (12)

The future of communications

May 11, 2008 – 4:13 pm

Ladder for Booker T Washington - a Flickr image by krystal.pritchettFor the last couple of months I have been focusing on (what I hope has been) a less technical and more strategic approach to public sector communications; with a particular emphasis on using change management as the context for understanding what social media and govt 2.0 mean for our agencies.

This has been motivated partly by the belief that we won’t be able to effectively adapt to the changing external environment without articulating a sound business case to senior managers – in a language that they relate to and respect. The second consideration has been the desire to promote the communications function as a strategic, rather than tactical or reactive, one.

Late last year the Arthur W. Page society issued a report on the evolution of corporate communications, The Authentic Enterprise [PDF 421 KB], that zeroes in on exactly these issues. And while it is written for the private sector, it has any number of valuable insights for public sector communicators.

The report is divided into two parts. The first looks at the changing environment for corporate communications, citing three factors as being central to the challenges for businesses:

  • the emergence of a new digital information commons;
  • the reality of a global economy; and
  • the appearance and empowerment of myriad new stakeholders.
    The Authentic Enterprise, p.6

The second part of the report looks at the evolving profession. In order to succeed and thrive in this new environment, the authors suggest that the communications practitioner will need to develop not only new skills, but a new approach to the role. Including the advice that:

We must shift from changing perceptions to changing realities. In a world of radical transparency, 21st century communications functions must lead in shaping behavior – inside and out – to make the company’s values a reality. (p.16)

Their point about shaping behaviour is a signal one. How do we, as communicators, shape those desired behaviours? I would argue that it is through a change process. Clearly articulating the future state (as well as, in the language of the report, the enduring values that will power the transformation), engaging with our publics through the change to monitor and evaluate progress and to fine-tune tactics, and continuing to cultivate support in the wider authorizing environment for the change.

In this scenario, what quickly becomes apparent is that in order for us to manage the change while still effectively discharging our accountabilites, we must have engaged and empowered staff. They are the most critical of all our publics.

This is borne out in the second part of the report where 31 CEOs were surveyed about their perceptions and expectations of communications chiefs. Emerging strongly from this section is the view that internal communications are now regarded by the CEO as, if not more important than, at least on par with external communications.

The weight of the job between external and internal communications has shifted. And I think internal communications is just more important than it ever used to be. (p. 42)

Before, PR was mostly generating stories, but today a big part of the job is enlisting your own employees and associates to buy into and help drive the strategy of the company. (p. 47, my emphasis)

In the public sector, this translates to driving employee engagement and communicating the values of the Code of Conduct. It also reinforces the notion that, in terms of introducing social media into out communications planning, we should be implementing it for internal audiences first.

In fact, this view gives rise to the best quote in the paper, one that senior public sector managers should cut out and paste on to their office walls:

It is in the corporation’s best interests to empower more and more of its workforce with new collaborative tools, training, know-how – and trust – so they can responsibly and strategically interact with the external world. (p. 29)

If you don’t trust your staff to act responsibly, you will quickly find yourself with a disengaged workforce and, as a result, fundamentally incapable of responding to the challenges that the authors identify in the report.

This is a valuable report for anyone interested in understanding how we might conceive a strategic approach to the changes in the operating environment of the public management system. For public sector communicators, however, I would rate it as essential reading.

Photo: krystal.pritchett

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Communications, Public affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Social media & change management

April 28, 2008 – 3:00 pm

Time for Change - a Flickr image by David ReeceReading 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 the language of public sector managers; that the issue of social media is one of change management.

Change management is often most closely associated in the public sector with machinery of government changes or internal departmental restructuring. However, it can just as easily be required as a result of changes in the external environment. It could be new legislation, a crisis of some sort, or it may be – as is the case with social media – a social and cultural change.

The transformation of New Zealand’s public management system is, for example, essentially a change management programme for the State Services:

Organizational Change Management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. Organizational Change Management is characterized by a shift in behaviors and attitudes in people to adopt and embrace the future state.
Wikipedia

Public sector agencies coming to terms with the impact of social media on their staff, their policies and their external and internal engagement programmes can similarly be thought of in these terms; shifting behaviours and attitudes to this future state.

The change

According to the Wikipedia article, going by the comments on this blog and the discussions I have with most of you, it would not be unfair to characterize most of the public sector in the ‘unfreezing’ state:

It involve(s) overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing “mindset”. Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed.

One expression of this change is the various guerilla activities that are happening in the social media space. These vary from Ministry Facebook groups through to full-blown (and successful) implementations.

Another indicator that I have discussed before is the changing nature of the media landscape, and in particular the emergence of Google as the largest, most profitable and practically omnipresent player in this space.

The plan

How do we manage the change? Simple. It is about moving from the current state to a future state, in a structured, organized way.

Naturally, you will need a strategy. Essentially, this will be a plan that assists your organization take the manageable, moderated steps necessary to evolve over a period of years into a model Govt 2.0 agency.

Begin with an audit. Develop as comprehensive a picture as possible of all of the social media touchpoints in your agency. Does your agency have a Wikipedia page? A del.icio.us account? YouTube channel? Who in your agency is already blogging? Are there people already commenting and engaging in fora (even if not necessarily relevant to your business)?

Find a champion. Every change management programme needs a senior manager as a sponsor. Try and avoid the CIO for this role as it may reinforce the misconception that this is just about technology — its not, it’s about behavioural change.

Agree on the future state. Make sure that everyone from the sponsor down has a clear conception of where you are going, and the steps that you will take to get there. The reality for most public sector agencies is that this will be a modest vision…

Measure your inputs, outputs and outcomes. This will enable you to accurately report progress towards the future state and to tweak your plan accordingly.

Seize opportunities to bind the change into other organizational initiatives. Use an internal blog in concert with your employee engagement programme; launch a wiki as a knowledge base for staff inductions; podcast your staff talks. By including social media in your people and organizational development activities, you are effectively building capability for the future state.

Conclusion

Pitching the integration of social media into your agency’s internal and external engagement and communications programmes as a change management strategy won’t guarantee you traction with senior management (see the quote above about inertia and defense mechanisms). It doesn’t hurt, however, to have these conversations in a language that managers are comfortable with and connects more purposefully with the organizational goals – rather than focusing on the technology or the tools.

Photo: David Reece

By Jason Ryan | Posted in Social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (8)