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

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

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, 21^st 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

It strikes me as being analogous to saying to someone who approaches you for advice about a specific topic you advertise your expertise in, yeah, I can provide you with advice; but you can’t rely on what I tell you.

Obviously, this sort of stance is even more problematic when you consider that people who approach government agencies for advice don’t –as a rule (of law)– have any other options. If, for example, they need definitive advice about licensing a motor vehicle they have to go to LTNZ.

It is for this reason I argued that the fourth principle for public sector social media should be trust:

do not disclaim the content on the blog/wiki/podcast etc. If you are engaging your publics through these media they should be able to expect a straightforward exchange of ideas and information. If your Legal team intend on vetting every post, the venture is doomed.

Of course, the default position for government websites is to disclaim everything on their sites, often to a point that strains both credulity and, in this one case that I feel compelled to share, logic:

Nothing contained on this website is, nor should be relied on as, a promise or representation about past or future events.

This, to my mind, is so nonsensical it borders on being a zen koan. Let’s pause to think about this for a minute. Nothing on this website is, or can be relied upon as, a formal statement of the facts about past events (paraphrasing from the OED). This presumably includes the advice and the policy that is, mysteriously, published on the site in spite of it’s apparent lack of relation to reality…

The point that I am belabouring here is that, if you are launching a social media project, you would be well advised to avoid this sort of pseudo-prophylaxis. In any event, and I haven’t taken legal advice on this but the comments are open, I doubt whether the standard disclaimers you see on blogs would protect you from the law. What they will protect you from is the sort of trust with your publics that leads to engaged communication.

What you should be disclaiming is the comments or edits contributed by those publics, as they are not the intellectual property of your agency. But for all the other content, if you publish it then own it.

There are two reasons for this. One, it means that visitors to your site will be reassured that the content in the government namespace is authoritative and that your agency stands behind it. That builds trust in government.

The second reason is that the staff who are contributing content to your agency blog/wiki/podcast etc., will be a little more cautious about what they post if it is considered to be definitive. And, in terms of your online reputation management strategy, that is no bad thing.

Photo: prozaciswack.

1. Do you blog yourself?
2. What blogs and podcasts do you recommend?
3. What clients have you got into social media?
4. What do you think of ghost blogging?
5. How do you approach a blogger who wrote something negative?

Each of which is, in its own right, an excellent shibboleth for social media practitioners.

However, given the nascent state of social media in the public sector, it seems unlikely to me that many agencies would be in the market for this sort of assistance. Indeed, even if they were, I am not sure that the expertise is widespread or readily available (not according to the list, anyway).

What it did trigger for me was the following thought: what sort of questions should we be asking of ourselves? Or, more accurately, what are the questions that senior management are going to want answered when we pitch this sort of thing?

Control

Their primary concern, believe it or not, will be the degree of control. How much they have, or how much they are giving up. Hierarchical structures like government agencies depend upon tightly controlled corporate communications — for good reasons. So how much of a risk are social media channels to the current practice? Well, not as much as some would think (or fear).

The most common argument that I have heard over the last couple of years is, allowing blogging is like letting anyone talk to the media. There is some truth to this. Once an article is posted, it could very well end up in the media. Is this risk manageable? Absolutely.

One practical way to address the risk is for potential bloggers to be run through a training programme to ensure they understand the responsibilities that come with the sheer unadulterated joy of blogging day after day after day…

Even without that training, the risk of inadvertently posting something inappropriate is at least equal to, if not smaller than, the associated risk of someone just answering the phone and starting to chat to a journalist. And it’s not like that never happens.

In fact, blogging (or wikis or podcasts) have a significant advantage in this respect. Once posted, you have a definitive record of your comment. It’s not like talking to a reporter on the phone and trusting that their shorthand is up to scratch. The downside of this is, of course, glaringly obvious.

The trade-off

As you move along the scale, from total control (like your web pages) though to partial control (interviews, pressers) and end up at very little control (what other people or organizations say about you), you will want to be able to demonstrate a benefit trade-off.

The benefit is increased transparency and engagement. As you relinquish control, you invite others to engage. Using social media, this is a transparent process, which in turn fosters trust and a receptiveness to what it is you are trying to communicate.

Will this be enough to sway senior management? I doubt it. But if you were to demonstrate increased engagement by using social media internally, that would be a different matter.

It would also mean that you don’t have to call consultants on their practical experience with social media, because you would have developed the expertise yourself…

Photo: Lance McCord