The Podcaster

Archive for the ‘Government 2.0’ Category

Image source: http://www.chiff.com/science/hurricane-pictures.htm

With the hurricane season already started the various Government departments are co-operating and actively using social media alongside traditional media to get their public safety messages across.

Working over the last few years with UK local Government and Agencies I have noticed just how many still ban employee access to social media due to ‘managagement, IT or security issues’. At a recent Kable event over 70% of the attendees in my session (Sharing Data for citizen engagement) said that they either did not have a policy (and so banned access) or their IT policy was to ban access anyway.

In comparing other Governments policy it is interesting to see how the US Department of Defense (DoD) is approaching it. Here is an article about social media from the troops and family perspective when serving on active duty abroad.

The Department of Defence is now ‘positive’ about social media use and has an official policy covering it. As their web site says they ‘…wecome and encourage all DoD employees and families to use social media…’ but to be aware of the safety and security issues. This is where Net Smart – CyberSafe policy comes in (see logo above and link here). It is interesting that an organisation as large and security concious as the US military has found a way to navigate the issues social media may cause.

As to be expected for such organisation its leadership is embracing social media – the top brass are using Twitter, blogs, Facebook, podcasts and other tools to engage with service personnel and their families as well as the general public. You can see the lists here. They have also created a DoD Social Media Hub where information, best practice and advice can be shared. The hub also includes a central resource listing what parts of the military are actively using social media. The idea is that by sharing examples and best practice everyone can learn without having to manage it as a single massive exercise. In effect they are ‘crowdsourcing’ ideas but within a framework of guides and leaders ‘modelling the way’.

As mentioned in a previous post the US Air Force has produced a guide on social media and its use that is provided to all recruits as part of their basic training. Within the US State Department all employees attend specially designed training programs. These are also run for all employees at US Embassies overseas.

Businesses considering the practical value and use of social media may well find the guides and materials that the US DoD and specific branches of the military have developed useful background reading and good sources of content.

An interesting video from the Salt Lake Valley Health Department in the USA on how they have been using social media tools to maximise public and media communications relating to H1N1

An interesting analysis of
some of the practical issues the US authorities are facing implementing Govt 2.0.

I heard this morning on BBC radio 4 that part of the reason for slow case hearings
in the UK Court system is weak IT and document management processes. The example given
was where one part of the court system keyed in documents online and scanned them
for another part of the organisation to have to re-key all the data. That is the way
it has been done for over 20 years! When I started in IT back in the early 1980s I
actually worked on a Magistrates Court system. Established practices and ’silos’ of
operations and departments caused us all sorts of challenges in developing and deploying
a unified system.

To implement change in any organisation is hard. Into something like local
and cetral Government with well established and embedded processes is hard.