10 Sep 2009
There are encouraging signs that government is finally opening up to the potential of the internet as a public information exchange.
In Whitehall, the Home Office has begun the process of putting state information online, while the appointment of Sir Tim Berners-Lee to spearhead the opening-up of government data suggests more progress can be expected soon.
But it has been a slow process - the Power of Information review was published more than two years ago and has required a titanic effort from the Cabinet Office to drive the programme forward.
There is no such central co-ordination in local government, however. Councils have been left to their own devices both in how they put information online and in how they use social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as tools such as RSS, blogs and open data interfaces.
Statistics compiled by the Local Government Engagement Online Research blog, run by Liz Aryan, show a wide discrepancy in the use of such technologies.
More than half of councils are not using any kind of online tool at all beyond running a web site. Of the half that are, 20 per cent are only using one tool usually Twitter or RSS feeds.
Many authorities are naturally cautious about social media for understandable reasons, according to Chris Head, who is writing a report on councils’ use of social media for user group Socitm, due out in November.
“Every council is autonomous and most take a conservative approach, including blocking access to social media because of fears over threats to reputation and security,” he said.
But Head said councils are going to run into two key problems in future if they continue a head-in-the-sand approach.
Young people coming to work in local government will expect to use these tools as they would email or telephones. And councils could be isolating themselves from online communities and thus be perceived as distant and unengaged by an increasingly digitally-aware public.
Part of the problem is the lack of guidance there are no rules that govern what councils should and should not do, or help them establish the appropriate tone for engagement.
This leaves many being guided by their standard IT rules, which ban such activity on the assumption that citizens would engage through council social media channels in the same casual way they do with friends risking damage to an authority’s reputation.
Where councils have started to engage successfully, it has usually been driven by a few champions in the communications or web teams who have managed to persuade IT departments and politicians that such actions are beneficial.
The fastest development has been in the use of Twitter. About a third of councils (30 per cent) use the micro-blogging service, compared to 15 per cent who use YouTube and 11 per cent on Facebook.
“Twitter allows councils to distribute information in a filtered and direct way, meaning people don’t have to dig through piles of information,” said Head.
While the increasing use of social media is a good thing, there are better
tools that councils could be using, according to Adrian Short of Mash the State,
a grassroots campaign to encourage authorities to make their data available to
the public.
“Lots of councils are getting on the social media bandwagon, but older tools
such as RSS are still only used by a quarter of councils,” he said.
Mash the State argues that RSS feeds have great potential because people that councils want to reach can sign up for updates that are relevant to them using the delivery methods they choose: be it text messages, email, Facebook or Twitter.
But Short said the use of all online tools should still be encouraged because
they will move councils towards a new view of the internet that he calls “inside
out
e-government.”
“They need to stop thinking about their own web sites as the limit of their engagement, forfeiting end-to-end control of the process and providing open data to be used in any interface the public may choose,” he said.
But with only two councils opening their data in such a way so far, the campaign has a long way to go. In the meantime social media will help open councils’ eyes to the possibilities that lie online.
Local Government faces the same issues as many other "knowledge based" organisations. How do I find the people with particular knowledge or expertise? How can I construct efficient project teams? How can I ensure that these teams work more efficiently, and capture learnings for future use by others in my organisation?
The adoption of Business focused Social Computing tools, such as IBM's Connections product, are likely to be the way forward for "conservative" organisations such as Councils. Commercial tools have the obvious drawback of not being free, but their tailorable nature and productivity features probably outweigh the cost issue.
The real key to success with social Media is deciding what you want to accomplish with it. Installing a product and letting users get on with it (or simply granting access to Facebook or Twitter) will likely accomplish very little in terms of improved performance. Working with users at the coal face of local government to understand the problems they face, and then defining solutions based on Social Computing tools is the way to go.
Posted by: John Lindley 16 Sep 2009
Interesting posts and comments, but forgottten in all the jumping on social media wagons, is that it is or could reignite the art of conversation.
A point councils need to wake up to when they blog or twitter - its not a one way push but a two way dialogue requiring time to listen and respond.
And as to the comments from the Taxpayer Alliance, are you aware of or have you checked out the conversations that are taking place about you, your organisation on twitter in blogs, and in facebook.? A quick search reveals a lot.!
A Google search is a search of past things, items people have put onto the web, a twitter search is more immediate, a search of what people are talking about right now. Thats a big difference.
Posted by: Brand 11 Sep 2009
All of these "social" networking facilities are broadly a waste of time.
Most of the stuff that the postman delivers is junk. Doesn't even get opened. Goes straight into the recycling bin.
Most of the email I receive at home is spam; Thunderbird filters it out for me.
Nowadays, I'm interested only in what I have asked for. My only major sources of events happening beyond my horizon are the BBC, Google news feeds (while they are still free) and the occasional trade mag (while still free).
Everything else is irrelevant. If it were relevant, it would already be part of my portfolio of information sources.
If I have to go out of my way to collect yet more sources of information, then I will spend most of my life collecting garbage.
Who has time to read through tonnes of self-publicising garbage from local authorities who have already wasted millions of pounds of advertising services that do not face marketplace competition?
The typical consumer of public services is supposedly the alleged poor. They, of course, are so poor, they can't afford an internet connection. Supposedly.
Supposedly, they are probably so poor that they cannot afford a mobile phone either, let alone a mobile phone with whoopee-do internet access. And if they can just about afford such a phone, they'll certainly then be unable to afford the spectacles required to read the poxily small cellphone screen.
So, those of us with an internet connection have a job to pay for it and thus have no time to read endless twits, twats, twonks, feeds, blogs (blagging, more like it), mutters, mashups, wikis, forums etc etc etc. Those of us without an internet connection will need an old-fashioned lump of refined tree pushed into the letterbox.
We need less communication of a better quality. Encouraging government to use the latest in frivolous teenage toys will simply create more communication of a poor quality.
We will all end up more insular, ignorant and disenfranchised as a result.
Although, perhaps that what party politicians want us to be, to increase their immunity from an adverse result at the ballot box.
Now there's a thought.
Posted by: Martin of St Albans Taxpayers Alliance 11 Sep 2009
...Too much, social media is seen as a 'box ticking' exercise, yes, you need to engage using social media, but many councils think it's enough to feed their RSS feeds into Twitter or a Facebook fan page and watch the kudos roll in.
These things need to be actively monitored and used as proper engagement tools. It's also important to monitor what people are saying about you elsewhere on the web and engage appropriately. It's only then that social media becomes really powerful.
Posted by: Stuart Harrison 10 Sep 2009
While it'll be great to see councils getting on board with tools like Twitter and RSS feeds, councils also need to think about *what* they do with those tools.
All too often, feeds are used as additional channels on which to broadcast corporate messaging. To get the most of social media, councils needs to embrace the social element and consider how they use these tools to engage citizens in meaningful discussion.
Social media cannot be one-way. Councils need to use it to listen as well as talk to citizens.
Posted by: Sharon O'Dea 10 Sep 2009
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