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?

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

I have posted before about the seismic change that social media is bringing about for the public sector. As communicators, more than most other staff, we need to be able to track the impact of this change and begin to experiment and engage in order to provide our managers with the advice they need to remain abreast of developments or, in a perfect world, capitalize on this changing environment.

Are you getting the support and the tools you need to do your job well now and to grow and develop professionally? Or are you stuck in a backwater where managers are dismissive of the impact of this change and are determined to continue to pursue a course that was first plotted in the late ’90’s?

Unsure? Here’s how you can tell.

Internet access

Do you have unrestricted access to the Internet? No blocking of social media sites?

What about the ability to download files to your local machine? Do you have a bandwidth limit that means you have to prioritize your podcasts? Or is your internet traffic one-way only?

What about the ability to FTP files to a remote server?

Do you have a configurable web browser like Firefox, or are you stuck with Internet Explorer (I call IE7 ‘the pendulum,’ because it spends most of the time hanging…)?

RSS

If you haven’t got your head around this yet, then it should be at the top of your priority list. Being able to source, process and file an enormous quantity of fresh content from news sites, blogs and search engines is a basic competency for a communicator.

Do you have access to an online feed reader or aggregator, like Google Reader, Pageflakes or Bloglines?

Or have you installed a desktop client, like the free and brilliant NetNewsWire?

Mobility

Do you have a mobile device that allows you to access the Internet? What about reading your RSS feeds on the commute to work in the morning? Can you visit your agency website in a meeting and retrieve relevant documents quickly and easily? That last one is probably unfair, as we know it is not the technology that is the problem…

Conclusion

If you found yourself nodding smugly as you read through this post then you are obviously working in the public sector somewhere, but probably not here in New Zealand. If you were running at around 50%, then you are way ahead of the curve and you should probably contact me so I can hand over responsibility for this blog.

If, on the other hand, at the end of that list you realized that your agency is in the social media equivalent of the dark ages, then you have two choices:

1. start agitating for change
2. embrace the 21st Century

The clock is ticking. What are you going to do?

Photo: J.McPherson

How long do you think it will be before everybody (or at least those people with access to broadband) just give up on the old model entirely?

The answer –or at least a pretty compelling indicator– has been provided by this recently published survey of people’s attitudes to TV and the Internet.

Don Tapscott, one of the people behind the Government 2.0 blog and wiki, surveyed 7,600 young people between the ages of 16 – 29 in 12 countries and found that:

77% of today’s online youth would sooner live without television than live without the Internet. China has the most devoted young Internet users, with 87% choosing the Internet compared to 13% favoring television. In the United States the figures were 77% for the Internet and 23% for TV.

Tapscott puts these findings down to the fact that television is unidirectional and passive, and doesn’t allow meaningful participation by the viewer, and I would agree with him. I would suggest, however, that it is also a reflection of the fact that the Internet has already superseded television. Why would you expect youth to choose an obsolete technology? In most instances (Vista being one exception that readily springs to mind) almost everyone prefers 2.0 over 1.0.

The video shift

At the end of 2006, Peer-to-Peer traffic was 60% (and rising) of all Internet traffic, the majority of this being video.

A more recent study, in June this year, points to HTTP traffic having clawed it’s way back to the top spot, a move attributed to the phenomenal popularity of YouTube.

What, you are wondering, is the point? All this traffic, this content, is what people would otherwise be forced to watch on their TV, when it suited the networks.

Of course, they would prefer to give up Television over the Internet. Take an example close to home. You read about the Flight of the Conchords premiering on HBO in your local paper, follow the reviews as they begin to appear online. Now, do you wait the 6/12/18 months before it is shown locally? Or do you find a torrent and download it and watch it when it suits you?

The end

The Internet won’t kill television. Television (the channel) will just quietly atrophy while television (the industry) works harder and harder to develop content (and advertising) for people who will access it on their terms.

And if you are wondering who Flight of the Conchords are, check out this clip:

Photo: ark.