Getting people to use Web 2.0 takes more than just having a great new tool – the buzz around social media is key to its success. And while access to GCpedia may be limited to public servants, discussion of it certainly is not. Most of the buzz around GCpedia is positive, but more importantly, a slice of the discussion offers TBS and users some very concrete ways to improve the Wiki in terms of what went right and what needs to change in the deployment of future Web 2.0 tools. That’s why the public service needs to pay attention to what people are saying about GCpedia – especially outside of its walls.

Here are the top 5 things to know about how GCpedia is discussed on the web:

1- Wikipedia’s take on its GC cousin – Oddly enough, the Wikipedia article on GCpedia is an orphan, as “few or no articles link to it.” It is also tagged as a stub – there isn’t much about GCpedia on its closest public analogue. As is Wikipedia’s aim, the language about GCpedia is neutral – so, one has to wonder why TBS hasn’t taken advantage of what is potentially a good, and at least a cheap and easy opportunity to tout the goals of GCpedia. (Who cares about GCpedia outside of the public service? Taxpayers, quite possibly,)

2 – GCpedia will save the public service!  – David Eaves makes the point that GCpedia is an excellent way to capture all of the tacit knowledge that will walk out the door when senior management  retires in droves. Used properly, GCpedia could serve as a wealth of go-to information for those who will advance to mid-level and senior positions. Government departments and agencies need to be willing to endure the temporary pain of dedicating staff to interviewing almost-retirees and posting the findings to GCpedia, to avoid a longer term consequence: losing the collective intelligence getting ready to exit the public service.

3 – GCpedia remains the domain of GCgeeks? – Peter Smith is worried about how well GCpedia lends itself to use by newbies. The level of technical knowledge necessary to using GCpedia is one of the reasons Eaves cites for why soon-to-be-retirees aren’t likely to post what they know themselves. Smith is right – the interface is confusing, and could easily intimidate anyone with techno-trepidation. What is the solution? One is likely more training than what is largely available thus far, especially if TBS is sold on the MediaWiki platform.

4 – Lots of talk on Twitter – Interestingly enough, many public servants have turned to Twitter to talk about GCpedia. This isn’t surprising, just important. Remember that Twitter may well be the easiest real-time resource for anyone who wants to take the pulse of the Web-2.0-crowd’s feeling about GCpedia.

5 – Mostly love, but some concerns, too – Overall, the talk about GCpedia is overwhelmingly positive. And where challenges are discussed on the Web, so are solutions, which gives GCpedia’s owners and users an opportunity to engage in in-depth and strategic discussions about the role of this communication channel. That discussion is vital if GCpedia is going to live up to its potential.

I read an interesting post on measuring the value of social media by Nick Charney at his blog CPS Renewal. I found his post thought provoking as usual and, as usual, I loved that Nick issued a challenge to readers (mostly government employees I am assuming) to send him stories about social media experiences in government.

Nick presents his conundrum as follows:

“The more time I spend examining the use of social media within government, the more I think that measuring the value it brings is a near impossible task.”

I don’t agree that the task is impossible at all. At NRCan – and I appreciate the fact that our SM experience is going into its third year – we celebrated SM “successes” at every opportunity. By “successes” I mean, the innovative and sustainable ways employees are using tools like the Wiki, blogs, NRTube, Delicious, RSS Feeds, etc. to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing across lines of business and to change the way they worked. We go to great lengths to profile the “value” that this new way of working brings to the department.

Nick goes on to state:

“…the more I reflect on the situation the more I realize that we can’t quantify the value because we still rely heavily on traditional empirical standards. Don’t get me wrong I am not advocating doing away with empirical approaches but rather simply stating that social media is still so new to government that it would be premature to expect to accurately capture its value in a spreadsheet.

Perhaps the spreadsheet is the wrong vehicle. I don’t think it’s premature at all to quantify the value of SM in government. But why would you want to? The SM tools speak for themselves - not through quantitative stats like page views and hits but as they are used to replace “traditional” approaches in the way we manage information. For the first time ever (well, certainly during my six years at NRCan) employees are truly in control of the information they create and share. I believe this is due mostly to the availability and ease of use of SM tools.

I suppose you could count the number of emails with Wiki links vs the number of emails with documents attached. You could count the number of videos viewed on NRTube. You could probably even count the number of NRCan employees with active Twitter accounts. But to what end?

If you are looking at this from a GC renewal perspective, then I suggest you look at the big picture. In my opinion, SM helps distribute decision-making and leadership amongst all users. I agree that this is probably easier to measure from a qualitative perspective. But if SM is contributing to GC renewal – it most certainly is at NRCan – then is that not measurement enough?

Nonetheless, count me in on your scheme Nick, I have a few NRCan SM stories to share.

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 I joined 70 of my GC colleagues at the first Web 2.0 Practioners Conference held at the Canada School of Public Service in Ottawa’s lower town. My first impression of this group of attendees was its level of diversity - age, discipline, department, and opinion about Web 2.0. The latter meaning mostly that while the group was generally unanimous in its appreciation of Web 2.0 for government, participants had many differing opinions about how Web 2.0 should be approached in government, what Web 2.0 tools should be introduced to government employees and the public and when these tools should be implemented.

The first in a series of four, this conference was pulled together in a matter of weeks thanks to the efforts of a small team with a big vision. It was promoted to federal public servants by word of mouth and on GCPedia (the GC “Wikipedia-like site designed to increase collaboration and information sharing amongst federal government employees). In fact most every other conference logistic was handled through GCPedia including planning, registration, agenda, table discussions and community development.

This event was also the first one that I attended with a Twitter board displaying the running Twitter commentary from conference participants and their communities. I have tweeted during other events recently and am fairly comfortable – though far from prolific – in the Twittershpere, but, to see the stream of comments in real time was fascinating and it gave me a whole new appreciation for Twitter and the value of broadcasting a message in 140 characters or less.

Within minutes, tweets were coming in from curious readers not in attendance wondering what this event tagged #w2p was about while others were thanking conference participants for the great tweets. That was my “ah ha” moment.

Might be time for a quick Twitorial:

• Twitter: A free, social networking tool allowing users to stay connected with other relevant users.
• Tweets: Individual posts of 140 characters or less responding to the question – “What are you doing?”
• HashTag: Label used to identify a common subject or theme often incorporating the cross hatch (#)
• Twitter Board: Running commentary of users connected by a common subject or theme.

So here we are, about half of us tweeting away; sharing what we are learning with our Twitter communities. In my case, I have 56 people following me, but if you do the math using that relatively low number of followers, the proceedings of the Web 2.0 Practitioners Conference (according to those tweeting) were broadcast to almost 2,000 people. What’s important to note here is that through this simple social networking tool, I and my colleagues were conversing about something we found noteworthy enough to share with others who find us relevant enough to follow. Yes, we were having a conversation – just like we would have had in the good ole’ days at the water cooler, in the elevator, at the coffee shop. Beauty is, the conversation now takes place in real time and with a greater number of people.

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.

The phenomenon of emergent communities of practice at NRCan is one that’s been referenced repeatedly in our blog posts here. At NRCan, it really is fascinating to watch one community after another come to fruition over common interests and to see the energy and giddy enthusiasm of members who have self identified and are passionate about changing the culture of work. Communities of Practice (CoPs) are by no means new, but at NRCan their emergence seems to be directly connected to our Web 2.0 implementation that began almost 2 years ago. It was as if a new order of employee was created revealing wonderfully unexpected skills such as video editing, facilitation, subject classification, photography and countless others as well as, a new way of connecting, learning and sharing.

Some communities quietly meet on a regular basis to share and exchange ideas while others have created a niche market and are actively delivering products and services within the department. One such community is the Video Community of Practice (VCoP). In just over one year, this community has created some 15 videos for use in the department and by building in-house expertise, has reduced the need to outsource this requirement. Granted, some early productions will not be recognized by the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences anytime soon, but that’s not the point – they meet a need, create an appetite for more video and make video as a knowledge sharing tool more accessible. The same goes for NRCan’s other CoPs – replacing “video” of course with the common element in each of the following:

• Technology Mentors (tech-savvy employees mentoring senior managers in the use of Web 2.0 tools)
• Learning Organization (providing planning, facilitation and training support as well as promoting Learning Organization concepts such as shared vision and values, continuous personal learning and systems thinking)
• Information Management (addressing IM issues through a horizontal approach)
• RADAR (creating weekly NRCan science and policy news aggregator to inform and support decision making)
• Shadow Team (bold, young policy analysts working alongside DM-appointed horizontal task team on NRCan’s international strategy development)

Community and social media blogger, Chris Brogan states in a recent blog post that “Community happens when people feel they’re among like-minded others and when they feel their contributions matter.”

As a member of four of these communities I find this work incredibly rewarding. My network of like-minded colleagues has increased exponentially, I am acquiring new skills and I am sharing my expertise with others. I also have the good fortune of having a boss who “gets it”. But, working as a community in a government context is not always easy. The issues of leadership, ownership, accountability, recognition, permission to participate and workload present huge challenges. Many of us still do this community work off the corner of our desks. Management promotes collective leadership but struggles with it at the same time. Old organizational structures and accountability and compensation frameworks rely on well defined roles and are based on individual contributions.

The question is no longer “should management change” but rather how management must change to fully leverage the opportunities associated with Web 2.0 and new ways of working.

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.

Last week I made a passing reference to an interdepartmental meeting I participated in regarding government’s use of the social networking tool, YouTube to engage Canadians.  I was thrilled to learn about the wonderful video work going on across government.  A few examples:

Waking up Canadian is a quirky Citizenship and Immigration video announcing a change to the Citizenship Act affecting mostly those living abroad with rights to Canadian citizenship.  In this case, YouTube was an ideal channel.  The video was viewed over 100,000 times and was picked up by US media outlets.

Afghanistan Challenge is a joint initiative with NGOs and CIDA working together in a fundraising effort to improve life for Afghan women and children.  The GC will match funds contributed by Canadians.  In this case, the video is hosted on a YouTube channel.

Youth Privacy, a branch of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada also has a separate YouTube channel onto which it is posting a variety of informational videos.  One interesting initiative was the video contest aimed at the 12 - 18 year old market designed to promote good privacy practices in the use of social networking tools.  A few of the winning entries are posted.

This is very exciting and the potential to reach broad audiences and initiate meaningful dialogue is enormous.  However, one thing that struck me during this meeting was the duplication of effort.   Many of us in government create our own YouTube channels to ensure our departmental brand is fully represented, while others rely on the search function of YouTube to drive users to their videos.  We all start from scratch in the creation of our videos.  Some of us hire agencies to do the work, others use internal resources.  We each have our own unique experiences with the approvals process of posting videos to YouTube - is it collateral? is it advertising?  We are all going through the same processes but re-creating the wheel each and every time.

Quite frankly, in government we are all still learning how to incorporate Web 2.0 tools like YouTube in our processes and infrastructures, but because of their ease of use and accessibility we sometimes tend to bypass certain processes in a valiant, well-meaning attempt to get on with the business of government.  But why are we doing it independent of each other? Let’s take this opportunity to learn together and build on the experiences of one another. In the end, I am pretty sure that Canadians don’t really pay much attention to which department – municipal, provincial or federal – is providing the service or product they need. Nor should we in government. Social networking tools are in fact, well, social in nature. We are a community of public servants working together to serve an audience of Canadians.

I wonder if we really need multiple government channels on YouTube. Can we not just create one GC YouTube channel to which we can drive all Canadians for information? While we are at it, let’s put in place centrally located image/video repositories, processes and whatever else is required to enable collaborative GC video creation. What’s stopping us from engaging Canadians to participate in the creation of music sound beds for our videos – a community creative commons of sorts? The allure of collaboration and recognition would be enough to attract even the most reclusive of basement jammers.

Basically, my call for openness, collaboration and sharing – the one I seem to make in almost every blog post I write – is the same. Default to openness. Enable collaboration. Embrace information sharing. These are not new concepts, but thanks to social networking tools, they are easier to integrate now than they’ve ever been. Let’s make it easy for Canadians to access us, trust our information and rely on our services. We owe it to them, don’t we?

(More on “The art…or is it the science…of working as a community” next week – the second of a two part blog post)

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.