Earlier this week, a fascinating and very useful guide to Twitter for Government was published by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The blog post and full 20 page report linked here:   Digital Engagement Blog. 

While specific to ‘official’ department use of this Twitter, even seasoned Twitter users can learn something new about using this increasingly popular micro-blogging communication service.

Four key topics are covered:

1.       Objectives and Metrics – why to use it and how to assess value

2.       Risks and Mitigation – how contain potential risks to reputation

3.       Channel proposition and management – how to populate and use it

4.       Promotional plan – how to promote the presence and increase its reach

The document also includes a very useful glossary, providing a great overview of social media and Twitter terms.

What struck me as interesting?

·         Twitter is being incorporated as part of a larger strategy of the UK government to better engage citizens. It provides a low-barrier to entry allowing people to interact with their public institutions and let them experience live coverage of events when they cannot attend in person.

·         The policy offers clear communication on what constitutes inappropriate content, the importance of ‘light’ but effective procedural controls and guidelines for Twitter users, and how to proactively avoid potential ‘hacks’, misrepresentation or vandalism of content.

·         “Tone of Voice” must be considered and articulated to ensure consistency especially when the account is managed by a team (great tip for any public or private sector corporate social media outreach)

·         Content should be varied, have a human touch, be timely, credible and inclusive.  The report’s tips on frequency, ‘re-tweeting’, use of hashtags (ie, metadata for Twitter updates),  hyperlink shortening tools, how to balance humour and fun – these pointers demonstrate houghtfulness and a good understanding of how to build and maintain a solid list of followers.

·         UK is thinking longer term – including how Twitter may evolve one day into a new source of intake for Ministerial Correspondence systems – and whether these departmental professionals should begin monitoring and responding to Twitter enquiries.

The fundamental missing piece to this otherwise excellent guideline is articulated very well by Gartner’s  Andrea DiMaio in an earlier blog post. What’s not covered is:  “whether and how individual government employees should use it to better fulfill their tasks”.  In other words, while it is a good guideline to create an institutional presence, it is thin on how and why the people working for that institution can or should use social media channels as part of their job.  Perhaps there will be a part 2?

Welcome to Government 2.0!

The hot topic this week in the social media world is all about content management. Yes, enterprise content management.  For the GTEC readers who haven’t been following the latest news, popular social network/communication company Twitter was the target of some malicious activity this week, with some sensitive corporate documents stolen and circulated to several bloggers.  ( Click here for a real-time news round-up) Individual Twitter employees were targeted and the early explanation is that some passwords were compromised. Some bloggers chose to publish the stolen/leaked information, others did not.  The sources of the documents were apparently varied: online ‘cloud’ document authoring and storage platforms, mobile accounts, email addresses, and others.

My post this week isn’t directed at Twitter specifically, nor the individual online/mobile applications that were compromised. But I do question how an organization – whether public or private sector – could risk their sensitive corporate information on any platform not equipped with at least the basics of what we call ECM – document management, records management, retention rules, access controls and audit trails.

What Were They Thinking?

Financial projections, business plans, human resource information and resumes, customer communication:  these are the content types now surfacing for public and competitor scrutiny.  Organizations who view such information as competitive advantage, as strategic to growth, as evidence of trust with their staff or customers need to walk the talk and make the efforts to protect it appropriately. Access control lists to restrict sensitive data to only certain employees or groups; disposal schedules to safely destroy content that is no longer serving a specific business or regulatory purpose but could only embarrass; audit trails and activity history to know when/where/how content was accessed and by whom: this is content management “101”.  The day we get too caught up in the hip and cool world of web 2.0 and cloud applications that neglect and ignore the basics, is the day the utterly preventable backlash begins, and the progress we’ve made over the last few years towards a more open knowledge sharing culture evaporates.

My advice? Use Twitter, but don’t be like Twitter.  Use social media and collaborative tools to share information that is appropriate to share and where sharing benefits your organization, your team and you.  But content that needs protection? That is only your business? That is subject to privacy laws or regulatory scrutiny? That can only harm your organization, your team and you if wrongly shared? Invest in the extra effort to put on the security blanket. The culture of sharing, of knowledge exchange, of openness has its place, but it needs to be balanced with an overall information governance strategy; one that protects organizational interests , intellectual property, and the privacy of its staff, customers, shareholders and partners. 

Last week, AIIM, the non-profit association dedicated to nurturing, growing and supporting the ECM (Enterprise Content Management) community published its state of the market survey findings. The 30 page PDF can be downloaded here: Link to AIIM.org download (free - registration required).

Of the nearly 800 survey respondents to the May 2009 survey, 19% were from public sector – the largest single industry vertical. National governments as well as provincial, state and local were included here. 67% of the participants were from North America (no breakout of Canada vs. USA). The IT sector, finance and insurance were the next 2 largest responding, at 15% and 12% respectively (Survey Demographics on page 20).

The points that that caught my attention:

What a difference a year makes:

In 2008, over 40% of the survey participants had “no clear understanding” of Enterprise 2.0, or what it could do. In 2009, only 17% chose that response. And in 2008, 44% considered Enterprise 2.0 to be important/very important to their business goals, rising to 54% in 2009.

Age matters – sometimes…

Not a big surprise that the 18-30 demographic is more willing to open up their personal details to an mixed business and leisure social network, 32%, in fact. Less open are the over 45 crowd, where only 12% see a mixed network of value.

But – Not a big difference across the generations when asked “I can do a much better job at work making use of professional networking on the web”. And everyone has the worry that “there is so much out there I could read, I get ‘information overload’”.

2.0 content is our looming ATIP/FOI/e-Discovery nightmare

This is the part that scares me: the ‘newer’ online tools were the least likely it is to be covered by usage policies or records management retention rules. Here is a wake up call to government and regulated private sector to look carefully at this next generation content explosion. While 50% of companies have email records management rules, less than 10% have figured out what to do with wikis, forums, text messaging, chat rooms, social network groups or Twitter. RM 101 = the format shouldn’t matter… the content purpose should.

Still lots of room for education and awareness

2.0 technologies and social media aren’t new anymore, but real adoption for business purpose is still in early adoption phases. Organizations need to pay attention to where and how their content is being created and shared, and ensure we’re not ramping up for nasty surprises in the future.

The time to develop safe social media practices is now. Encourage innovation, better collaboration, fuel the social workplace… but not at the expense of good information management fundamentals.

This week my team and I are at the premier Enterprise 2.0 Conference, in Boston as part of the launch of our new Open Text Social Media product.

One of the ½ day workshops was led by Mr. Dion Hinchcliffe, noted Enterprise 2.0 consultant/analyst/blogger and author of some of the most well known E 2.0 Frameworks such as SLATES and FLATNESSES (see links for more information on these very useful constructs).

One of the key topics he addressed today was how to fund and plan for a 2.0 deployment inside an enterprise – public or private sector. Where should an organization expect to spend its resources – both financial and human costs?

In Hinchcliffe’s experience, the breakdown often follows this pattern:

• Tools = 15%

This includes the cost of acquiring, and often customizing the tools to suit particular organizational needs. Cost of course can vary widely, depending on the tool selected, whether existing licenses can be used, or net new product introduced. But bottom line, this is often the smallest single outlay to consider

• Customization and Integration = 25%

The degree to which a tool must be customized to meet specific user experience needs, or perhaps tie into other key business applications to meet upfront requirements often will exceed the initial software license cost. Again, highly variable depending on complexity, number of integrations, and suitability of the initial software tool to meet the bulk of the requirements

• Community Management = 25%

This is the key ongoing cost consideration – once the software acquisition and required integrations are completed, ongoing community facilitation, moderation, internal awareness education, coaching and mentorship is essential to be successful and meet user engagement targets. Don’t neglect investing in people to make this successful. Communities and 2.0 adoption are not short term campaigns – they require commitment and promotion to succeed.

• IT Support = 15%

Ensure the system functions smoothly, has appropriately resourced infrastructure to meet expected load and up-time commitments

• Project and Change Management = 20%

Next generation collaboration and communication tools will be embraced easily by some people, not by others. Invest in creating clear objectives, coaching, measure success and correct things that don’t work. Ensure senior management is supportive of the objectives and have them lead by example. Cultural and behavioural change – as with any project that changes work habits and computing tools are bound to encounter roadblocks and challenges ; human nature is to resist change.

Bottom line? Don’t starve the change management, education, internal marketing and ongoing community support requirements. Success with 2.0 is much more than software deployment. It’s about engagement, better knowledge sharing, better support for the increasingly virtual work teams and extended networks we need to do our jobs.

This week I’d like to open up discussion about what we see south of the border. Open Text as a Canadian headquartered, but globally-focused provider of Enterprise Content Management applications gets to hear and see firsthand what public sector around the world is doing with 2.0 and the collaborative culture this phenomenon brings.

One of my colleagues, Debra Lavoy, inspires and engages me. She’s an active participant in the Government 2.0 community inside the beltway in Washington DC.  She’s become a popular contributor to transparency workshops and is an active and thought-provoking blogger on issues that resonate well here in Canada too.

Is everyone familiar with a site called SlideShare.com?  If not, it’s worth some exploration. Think of it as PowerPoint heaven.  People and organizations can share their key slides, with notes and talking points that they want to broadcast. 

Two of Debra’s decks I want to highlight here are posted on Slideshare.

The first is “Social Workplace for Government 2.0”: http://www.slideshare.net/dllavoy/social-workplace-for-govt-20 .  Three key points?

·         Social Media tools make connections that drive collaboration and knowledge management

·         Culture is more important that technology

·         New technologies are pleasant to use, so people use them

All of these key points highlight the new world of opportunity that Web 2.0 brings to the immense information management challenges public sector professionals face.  Simpler tools can foster better connections, leading to a more cooperative and efficient working culture.

Next key point Lavoy makes – Collaboration is not one size fits all.  She argues there are three main types of collaboration that have different motivations and offer different types of success.  These three types are:

·         Creative

·         Connective

·         Compounding

The second slide deck does a deeper dive into the concepts of these 3 ‘C’s:  in “Social Media at Work” , specific scenarios and examples are explored.

Creative Collaboration

·         Means Innovation. Finding new solutions when and learning how to meet new challenges. Incorporate new insights and brainstorming across a team to develop, vet and test ideas.

Connective Collaboration

·         Means awareness and agility: spreading critical information quickly in even in complex and dynamic situations

Compounding Collaboration

·         Means finding the right person at the right time. Grassroots knowledge management and expert locator to get to the right information and ensure that critical gut instinct we call tacit knowledge can be shared.

Take a look at the slides I’ve linked to and let me know what you think. Maybe I can get Debra to come up for GTEC in October, and we can continue the conversation further.

Ever wonder why so many software vendors use vertical stacks to demonstrate their products? Perhaps it makes sense when evaluating platforms, APIs, integration points… but does it really make sense when we trace the functional life of our information? Doesn’t it make sense to look at content in the context of flow – how it moves among and around users, devices and applications, gathering value and contextual richness along the way.

When I provide an introduction to Enterprise Content Management to a business-use audience, I like to look at things horizontally. Where does content originate? Who needs to work with it? How does it support other content and applications? How is it consumed? What happens when it has reached the end of its natural business cycle?

I call this slide “ECM for the Information Worker”, and like to trace content movement as it lives its natural business usefulness. “Follow the bouncing ball“of the document.

The importance of thinking of how information flows horizontally – as it moves across business unit silos, from team to team, experienced via a range of user interfaces and applications really rang home when I read a blog post this weekend from a GTEC 2008 attendee. Public sector IT professional Jeff Rose shared his observations and his own ‘a-ha’ moment as he attended a GTEC keynote last year by the then Chief Librarian and Archivist Ian E. Wilson. In Jeff’s own words:

“He spoke passionately about digitization and the preservation of Canadian culture. He spoke on information and knowledge. It was maybe the first time I’d really considered the distinction.

A shift in thinking from Information Technology to Information Management professional – the kind of epiphany absolutely essential as we build a public sector workforce equipped and ready for the new collaborative world of Government 2.0.

And yes, as Ian Wilson transitions into his new role as director of the Stratford Institute, the newest University of Waterloo research facility, Ottawa’s loss is indeed Stratford’s gain. The kick off conference – Canada 3.0 Forum – to christen this brand new think-tank will be June 8-9 in Stratford Ontario. If you’re interested in digital media, international commerce and culture, think about joining other public policy-makers and technology leaders. Register here: http://canada30.uwaterloo.ca/

A bright sunny day last week, and like every sun-starved Canadian in the spring, I could not resist an unscheduled walk at lunch time to enjoy the fresh air and rejuvenating warmth. But… I’m one of those pale, freckled types… who burns and never tans. As I navigated the gravel in the office parking lot, I was glad that as part of a regular morning ritual I had put sunscreen on before makeup.

What does this have to do with Government 2.0 or Collaboration, one might ask?

It struck me on that walk that preventive protective measures made great sense – especially to mitigate that risk that comes early in the season, before any tolerance to the sun has had a chance to build up over the summer. Isn’t this preventive layer needed for our departments and public sector employees making that first enthusiastic venture out into the bright light of world of Social Media?

A few months ago on my regular blog, “Candy and Aspirin”, I drew the analogy of The Sun, The Cave and the “a-ha” Moment to describe that moment of understanding and clarity one gets when the potential and possibilities of 2.0 technologies and practices are first grasped. Using the allegory of Plato’s “Cave”, the sun represents that bright light of true knowledge – that sense of truth and enlightenment that comes with discovery of the reality outside of our narrow inward-focused perspectives.

But the realization made on that walk last week was about the potential for a new and energized person or department to ‘get burned’ in the excitement of those first days engaging in social media or online collaboration. The opportunity to be open, engaged with peers or constituents, brings with it tremendous rewards – but also the risks: risks of being too exposed, of getting a little burned, of regretting the rush into openness.
Government departments looking to become more externally engaged need to be diligent and look closely at education and awareness for the individual public sector employees tasked with this outbound social networking or collaborative web communication. Very clear guidelines, boundaries and appropriate use policies are absolutely essential as the first building block to a social media strategy. Nothing can be more detrimental and bring a shadow over a move towards transparency than repercussions over inaccurate disclosure, inappropriate commentary or poor representation of the department’s mandate.

Policies and guidelines need not be perceived as barriers to transparency or a hindrance to better engagement. Think of them as your department’s Digital Sunscreen. Don’t let your valued and trusted internal experts get burned.

Want to learn more about the Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and how it relates to the world of 2.0 in just 2 minutes? Click this YouTube link and find out.

At GTEC 2008, I presented a seminar called “Managing Corporate Memory in Public Sector”.  The well-attended session explored the pending shift in workforce demographics as the Boomer generation approaches retirement age. Sectors at most risk included government, utilities, engineering, transportation and manufacturing. I sought to explore how IT and IM professionals could play a strategic role as our workplace transforms and to minimize risk of information and knowledge loss.

Though this is no longer a new topic challenging public sector management, the situation continues to grow in urgency and awareness.  Over the weekend, I noticed that Gartner Research VP, Jeffrey Mann, had twittered about a recent spike in his customer inquiries precisely on this topic.  He “tweeted”:  “three of this morning’s 4 calls are on knowledge management (two on capturing experience of retiring employees) who says KM is dead?”. Whether we call it knowledge management, corporate memory preservation, succession planning… whether the project is led by IM/RM, Human Resources or IT…  regardless of the tools we use to capture the intrinsic knowledge held in the brains of our most senior valued employees – we know it must be done. Public Sector is a knowledge-economy enterprise. Information, policies, and programs:  services are delivered to the citizens, residents, businesses within our jurisdiction to provide a stable infrastructure for social, commercial and political activities.  To not pay attention to prospect of losing mentorship, best practices, and institutional culture is to do a disservice to the investment we’ve made in cultivating depth and breadth of public sector experience.

We all have our “keep me up at night” moments. Mine is a story told to me at the annual ARMA Conference in 2006.  I was conducting a workshop on this topic of “Managing Corporate Memory” and a woman from an academic institution came up to me, very pleased to see the research I had done on the topic. As part of her Records Management responsibility, she was tasked with capturing the legacy paper and physical records of the scientists and engineers who retired from her institution. She told me the story of a scientist who upon his departure handed to her a large box of ore samples. He said to her very intently, “make sure you hang on to these… they are very very important”. And so she took them. And put them on a shelf, documented with the date and location and name of the scientist who left them behind.  She looked at me rather sadly, and admitted that she had no idea what those rocks meant, or WHY they were so important. There was no corporate memory preservation mandate to ensure the samples got to a new researcher who could continue the work. So to this day, they sit on a dark shelf.

Was the cure for cancer in that box of rocks? Did they tell us something about our world that could make our lives better? We may never know.

To learn more about this topic of Managing Corporate Memory, click here to listen to a recorded educational seminar we hosted earlier this year. Any comments or feedback welcomed.

Last week I had the very good fortune to share a panel discussion with Mr. David Tallan – one of the drivers behind the Stewardship & Web Portfolio initiative, in the Office of the Corporate Chief Strategist for the Ontario Provincial Ministry of Government Services.  The topic is was I’ve been working on for the last two years: “What Do Records and Information Managers Need to Know About Web 2.0”?  We’d collaborated in advance – I’d overview the industry trends and emerging best practices for 2.0 adoption in public sector and highlight the risks and rewards, then David would then turn the topic specifically to how the Ontario government was piloting, prototyping and exploring new forms of inter-departmental collaboration as well as new forms of 2.0-inspired citizen engagement and communication.

But what struck me as we were getting set up and settled into the conference room was the buzz in the audience.  People were already talking, debating and sharing their current projects: what was worrying them, what new approaches they wanted to explore.  I turned to David and said, “we have to talk fast, this room needs lots of time for questions and discussion at the end”…

Clearly public sector is on the leading edge of this new generation of collaboration. Tangible business problems were raised and discussed among the panelists and with other participants in the room.  How can newer, simpler forms of web-collaboration tools – such as wikis, maybe community workspaces – be used to handle knowledge management and corporate memory preservation challenges? How can we better measure the consumption rates and usage patterns of communications published through blogs?  And how to public sector information professionals walk the fine and often-changing line of using external social networks for program awareness, public relations, citizen engagement when their access to such sites are often limited from their work computers?

The topic of corporate memory preservation inside government as the demographic shift slide towards that long-projected retirement bubble is one I’ve been researching for several years.  A significant factor in how information and content management systems can be used to mitigate long term risk of the loss of electronic culture and work product.

An extremely valuable discussion with a full room of public sector professionals wanting to learn more about new social media tools to better fulfill their citizen service mandates…  looking forward to more of this type of interactive discussion in October in Ottawa.

Last week we discussed the concept of a “social” workplace and the value of collaboration among public sector information workers.  But where is the real return? What specific areas can benefit most from an investment in collaborative technologies and encouragement of better communication of information?

Managing Human Capital

Recruitment, attraction and cultivation of a skilled public sector workforce remain an expensive challenge, even when economic conditions expand the pool of candidates. A flexible and committed workforce who can fill critical gaps during periods of staff turnover and use collected intelligence to prioritize tasks can only exist when information is simple to find, and experts are ready to share.

Skills and learning management, expert finders, employee on boarding and mentorship, alumni networks, succession planning, and career development: these are the key functions that often determine an organization’s ability to attract, maintain, and cultivate a talented employee base.  Collaborative tools deliver in-house networks that weave the strong social fabric of trust, connection, and shared goals among colleagues.

Self-Service and Peer-to-Peer Empowerment

Time spent on repetitive tasks, struggling with email inbox overload, trying to track down the right person to answer a question – sound familiar? As departments downsize, right-size, reorganize, merge, spin-off, or decentralize, complexities compound, and productivity and a sense of accomplishment suffers.  Disengagement sets in.

Organizations that build a Social Workplace can make effective use of simple and intuitive content creation tools. Measurable productivity gains, reduced search times, efficient reuse of shared content are demonstrated with web-based authoring tools for FAQs, project knowledge bases, best practices, or meeting notes. Employees who are encouraged to share their educational background, previous work history, and expose hobbies and interests very often are called to share these formerly hidden skills on new projects. Easy location of in-house experts, regardless of level or role, becomes a natural part of internal knowledge discovery.

Transparency and Corporate Governance

Poor decisions that contribute to negative business results are often made without the benefit of internal expert consultation. One-to-one communication tools – including email – are not conducive to open, vetted discussions on risks, precedent and implications. Organizations with narrow definitions of compliance that focus only on retention rules miss the opportunity to proactively root out and shed light on risky behaviors or patterns.

2.0 technology and culture also delivers a compliance educational opportunity beyond mere publication of statements or policies. It allows rich media, peer to peer discussion, and online interaction to deliver a compelling vision of enterprise goals and expectations. Audio, video and rich graphic content forms transcend language, geography and generations to communicate acceptable practices and instill understanding. 

The Virtual Enterprise

Providing an equivalent online Social Workplace experience for employees who work away from the physical office is an important aspect of employee engagement and productivity. Geographical separation can lead to a disconnection from team or organizational shared goals.  Adoption of a Social Workplace allows distributed organizations to offer the same virtual water cooler networking experience to remote staff as the more traditional office employees.  Opening awareness to hidden skills and undervalued experience, finding common interests, and building personal trust and networks is the value of the human connection we find among our colleagues. The Social Workplace now brings this to the virtual enterprise.

Enable the Front Line

Service representatives, program managers, help desk staff, inspectors, and emergency responders are mobile professionals who require accurate timely data at their fingertips and they move quickly to execute on opportunities.  Often the most accurate intelligence on field conditions, public concerns, hazards, or safety issues will come from peers—this is the buzz, the scoop, the first-hand observational knowledge. The pressure to be in tune with issues can be impossible when individuals are left to fend for themselves.

Organizations that get better at capturing and disseminating the intrinsic knowledge in the field will find competitive advantage with the Social Workplace. Quick and easy web or mobile capture of data, images, or text notes shared with a broader team leads to timely awareness of trends and conditions on the road. This field intelligence needs to become part of mainstream corporate memory. Seeking input directly from front line services deepens collected wisdom and shows responsiveness to changing conditions.