by Mark Drapeau, January 5, 2009

t’s easy to see governments as nameless, faceless monoliths, something impersonal or, even worse, untrustworthy. Much of that is because government culture remains steeped in traditional ideas about public relations and outreach work, notions that have become archaic in an Internet-enabled, hyper-connected world. Just as private companies are learning to embrace social media to manage brand reputations, governments must adapt if they wish to effectively communicate with their “customers” — a.k.a. their citizens and stakeholders.

I propose that using authentic and transparent personalities as public outreach ambassadors can help transform “government for the people” to “government with the people.” This should also have an indirect positive effect on the government organizations — the brands — they represent.

Government 2.0

To be sure, governments are very different from private corporations in ways that create barriers to change. Bureaucracy and entrenched special interests make collaboration between agencies difficult. Information assurance, infrastructure, and legacy system concerns can make using or acquiring novel technologies from startup companies nearly impossible. Constant turnover of elected officials and political appointees as well as year-to-year budget concerns make long-range planning nearly a fantasy.

Nevertheless, as I have written about in my column at Mashable and elsewhere, pockets of influence inside the government as well as outside groups like the Sunlight Foundation are working to change that. And gradually, senior leadership is realizing that the upside of adopting social technologies could be extremely high.

Some criticize the use of social technologies in areas like national security and foreign relations, but I feel strongly that decision-makers cannot make informed choices about this until they or their staffs have personally had experience with this technology. And some senior officials, such as Colleen Graffy, the current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, are bravely taking the plunge.

Colleen Graffy’s Twitter feed

Behind every press release, web page, and social networking account is a person. But when people “hide” behind organizational brands, it reduces the authenticity and transparency that people — citizens, customers, fans — have become accustomed to seeing in the Web 2.0 world. New social tools and niche communications can empower people to connect with their audiences on a more personal level through what has been termed “ambient awareness” or ambient intimacy.

The Collaborative, Creative Class

Governments everywhere are dealing with the rise of the “collaborative creative class” or C3. Often thought of as “Millennials” but in reality composed of people from all generations, C3 are the passionate, talented, and creative individuals who often blur the lines between work and play. To harness the momentum and power of C3, and to recruit and retain such individuals for public service, the government needs to embrace the spirit of creativity and trial-and-error characteristic of the social software community, fund research and development on social software, address information security risks inherent in social software, and create policy, acquisitions, and human resources incentives to encourage the use of such software.

Social software has numerous government applications, including information-sharing within and between agencies; collaborating with outside partners like humanitarian workers; public outreach and crowdsourcing; and empowering people with inexpensive, simple, mobile technology. In addition, as hostile entities become more adept at using social media for propaganda, it is imperative that governments familiarize themselves with social technologies.

How can government use social software to engage people in meaningful ways, understand public sentiment, recruit and retain employees, and harness what is often called collective intelligence? One early and prominent advocate of this is Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.), who has experimented with social software including the text micro-blogging platform Twitter and the video broadcast technology Qik.

Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.) on Qik

In my opinion, there is a good deal of opportunity for bi-directional engagement between the government and its citizens. Rep. Culberson’s visionary experimentation with social software prompted Congressional rules changes that effectively empower members to act as bi-directional ambassadors, bypassing traditional media to directly engage Congress on behalf of constituents, and perhaps more profoundly, vice versa.

Bi-Directional Brand Ambassadors

The term “branding” is most often associated with companies selling products, but government components are arguably brands themselves. And failure to monitor conversations about brands is guaranteed to be PR trouble. Just look at the recent “Motrin Moms” controversy, which has been written about extensively here, here, and here. Briefly, Motrin failed to keep abreast of negative public reaction to an online advertisement aimed at mothers, a failure that may very well have damaged the brand’s reputation in a major niche market.

Conversations like those that surrounded the “Motrin Moms” video are happening every day on issues that directly pertain to governments. How well do governments monitor what their constituents are actually talking about on Twitter and similar open information-sharing platforms?

Businesses, governments, and other organizations are still struggling to find the best way to use social software to engage people about their brands. I have argued elsewhere that on social networks, brands are best represented by individual people as “brand ambassadors.” Ashton Kutcher and Maria Sharapova are in digital camera commercials for a reason — so you’ll watch (and hopefully listen and learn, too).

But television commercials, billboards, and press releases are unidirectional — the audience sits back and passively receives information. Through social software, brand ambassadors have the potential to promote messages through what I term “indirect, intimate influence” or I3. Brand ambassadors ideally listen and learn from ongoing conversations, and then engage in them, creating bidirectionality as outlined in books like The Cluetrain Manifesto. Ideally, they also talk about more than just their brands on social networks — a good ambassador will also talk about other aspects of his or her life, to the point that followers eventually begin to see the brand ambassador as something of a trusted friend.

Becoming Individually Empowerful

As the influence of traditional media sources like television networks and newspapers declines, I predict that brand ambassadors will become a critical part of government public relations and outreach. In an environment of rapidly changing global issues, an increasingly fractionated media sector, and people more and more defined by unique combinations of niche interests, the government sorely needs enhanced public relations that involve bi-directional multimedia engagement with specific niches of public interest.

Every citizen now has the potential to be a collector, an analyst, a reporter, and a publisher — and so does every government employee. Engaging, trusted personalities employed as brand ambassadors will complement — not replace — traditional public affairs and government outreach. Depending on their agency or office’s mission and goals, individuals can follow customized strategies to engage specific niches of the public at events, in interviews, and through constant, pervasive use of new and emerging media tools. In an ongoing bi-directional conversation, brand ambassadors employing I3 would work not only on behalf of the government among the people, but also on behalf of the people within the government.

Government social ambassadors should be fully accessible, transparent, authentic, and collaborative leaders that inspire people to cooperate for the sake of common concerns. As part of their missions, government brand ambassadors should conduct community-based research to understand the “marketplace.” What do the elderly living in the Southwest think about health care? What do kids from different household incomes think about their public schools? What does the man-on-the-street in Greece think of U.S. foreign policy? My guess is that most people don’t know who the government authority is on elderly health care, impoverished schools, or foreign policy towards Greece. And while many interests are represented in Washington DC, the interests of the average person are sometimes misunderstood or overlooked.

The strategy of lethal generosity can be incredibly powerful when engaging micro-niches. Lethal generosity holds that the most engaged and sharing person in a community will eventually become the most trusted. By leading overt discussions online and in person, combined with the ambient intimacy brought about through I3, government brand ambassadors will gain a greater sense of public sentiment, which in turn will allow lawmakers to formulate better informed public policy.

Conclusions

While governments certainly face challenges in using social tools, the pros of using these tools far outweigh the cons. Social technologies can make networking and engagement with the public simple and powerful, make research faster, identify influencers in useful micro-niches, provide mechanisms for combating negative publicity, and measure public sentiment to help inform public policy.

These tools can also be used to advertise job vacancies or agency needs as well as provide live broadcast coverage of niche events. And there are increasingly quantitative measurements of social software return-on-investment. Finally, they may even save money. Phone calls, focus groups, and airline tickets can be expensive; social software can provide a cheaper alternative in some situations. Governments everywhere will benefit greatly by adopting progressive new approaches to social software and the indirect, intimate influence it propagates.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist and government consultant. He has a B.S. and Ph.D. in animal behavior, conducted postdoctoral research on complex genomic and neural systems, and has published writing in Science, Nature, Genome Research, American Scientist, the New York Times, the Washington Times, and other venues. He is also a contributing writer to Mashable.com on government and social technology. These views are his own and do not represent the official views of the National Defense University, the U.S. Department of Defense, or any other part of the U.S. Government.

You’ve got questions?

The Obama transition team might have an answer.

A new feature on President-elect Barack Obama’s transition Web site, Change.gov, which allows users to submit questions and then vote on the ones they most want answered, went live on Wednesday.

The tool, “Open for Questions,” already appears to be getting traffic. As of Wednesday afternoon, users sent in roughly 1,000 questions and logged more than 70,000 votes, and those numbers were climbing higher by the minute. The Obama transition team said that some of the most popular questions would be answered “on a regular basis.”

Leading the pack was this submission from Diana in New Jersey: “What will you do to establish transparency and safeguards against waste with the rest of the Wall Street bailout money?”

Other questions in the top 10, based on user rankings, focused on what incentives Mr. Obama would provide to encourage “greener behavior across the country,” what steps he would take “to restore the Constitutional protections that have been subverted by the Bush Administration,” and whether the president-elect plans to lift the federal ban on stem cell research during his first 100 days.

“Open for Questions,” is part of the Obama team’s effort to create an online platform that provides a measure of interactivity, though the format is not a new one. The Web site, CommunityCounts, in partnership with several other organizations, has also been collecting text and video questions for the president-elect that users can vote up or down.

Change.gov also includes a discussion board where citizens can post comments on topics posed by the transition team. (The current question is: How is the current economic crisis affecting you?) The site also features a new section that lists the groups meeting with the transition team.

What follows is the unedited version of my latest post for TechCrunch, “Is Obama Ready To Be a Two-Way President.”

Source: Barack Obama’s flickr stream

Where there’s victory, there’s also opportunity…

America voted while the entire world watched and listened. Whether you supported Obama or McCain, we equally shared the hope for positive change and a new beginning towards a brighter future. This Presidential election was the first in 50 years, in which there was no incumbent President or Vice President from either party competing for the Presidential nomination. On Tuesday November 4th, 2008, history was made and America is now poised to break new ground as it continues to define and document unwritten history as we work together over the next four years.

Close to 65% of the American population voted in this election, its highest turnout since the election of 1908.

By all means, this election was profound in its results. While I’m not an avid proponent of the Electoral College system for electing our President, the numbers were absolute and decisive. Obama won both the Electoral College vote 364 to 163 and the popular vote 53% to 46% with roughly 127,000,000 votes cast.

Credit: CNN

With Obama’s wins in key “swing states” including Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, this election is considered a monumental victory that fundamentally redrew America’s political dynamics. A Democrat had not won Virginia and Indiana in a generation.

Obama’s victory is deeply symbolic. It is a justifying, magnificent, and powerful testament and redemption to those who have struggled for national and personal freedom throughout the history of the United States.

Congratulations is the very least I can send to Mr. Obama and his campaign team.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s examine the election another way, one that may bring to life a different picture of how Obama earned his place in history, and in doing so, his campaign both redrew political lines and also forever changed the political ecosystem.

Over 46% of American voters and 22 states sided with John McCain. Either way you look at it, it’s still a significant portion of America who didn’t believe #change or #hope were attributes of the Obama campaign. These voters believed their future lay with another candidate.

Politics aside, whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent or member of the Green Party, we can not overlook the power of real world community relations combined with the reach and engagement of online social communities and networks.

Again, almost half the country was split with a noteworthy percentage heading into the election undecided.

Online tools such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter contributed to the netting of record-breaking campaign funding and the staggering galvanization of a younger generation of first-time voters who truly made an impact and a difference. The Obama campaign, for example, outspent McCain nearly three-to-one on TV ads toward the tail end of the campaign, which many credit the technology and the corresponding impact of sociology in of itself. The Obama campaign leveraged multiple technology platforms, social immersion strategies and good old fashioned door-to-door relationship building to engage constituents directly, raising an astounding $600 million in campaign contributions.

They went directly to the people online and in the real world.

The Obama team, for example befriended almost 130,000 friends on Twitter with an almost equal amount following him.

On Facebook, the Obama page boasted over three million fans compared to McCain’s 618,000.

YouTube also swayed towards Obama with a network of 358,000 to 191,000 with the Obama camp posting over 1,800 videos compared to McCain’s 330. These videos accounted for millions of views.

If you compare the other social networks and communities from FriendFeed to MySpace to Flickr, the stats are asymmetrical in Obama’s partiality.

Many of these two-way tools however, were simply used as broadcast mechanisms to send updates, solicit contributions, provide updates, and to also rally and unite supporters, albeit successfully.

Reaching the Other 46%

My question is, what if these same social media tools where deployed to not only communicate “to” constituents, but also to listen and interact with supporters as well as those who don’t currently endorse the President-elect?

I argue that if Obama dedicates a team aside from the outbound crew that “pushed” content through social channels in order to strategically reach, listen to, and embrace the 46 % that voted against him, he might be able to run a truly democratic term and head into the next election with a record-breaking approval rating – curtailing the necessity to campaign while in office in order to focus on the issues we elected him to fix – while also cultivating the country for greater future prosperity.

Winning over, conservatively estimating, 5% of voters who were on the fence but ultimately voted for McCain, accounts for almost three million votes.

Since 1954, the approval rating of each President has been actively tracked and published as a reflection of sentiment among the American people:

Among those Presidents with the worst all-time approval rating, our current President holds the dubious honor of ranking at the top:

- George W. Bush – 76% (in a report published 11/10)
- Truman – 67%
- Nixon – 66%
- George Bush – 60%

Perhaps even most concerning is that each President has historically disregarded these numbers so that they could focus on the issues at hand. If the Whitehouse were a business, many of these Presidents would have filed for political bankruptcy.

All signs and words emanating from the Obama camp and Mr. Obama himself, point to a strategy of leveraging today’s powerful, two-way bridges of communication.

In a text message sent to supporters on the eve of the election, he reaffirmed that they will be part of Presidency moving forward, “We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.”

But perhaps the most revealing promise that revealed Mr. Obama will run his office for the “people” of the United States, not just those who voted for him, was shared through his inspirational words on November 4th:

I will listen to you, especially when we disagree…and to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

His first step to bring the vision of running a cross party campaign is the launch of Change.gov, a portal for transparency and interaction during, and hopefully post the transition.

In a sense, Change.gov is a simple and engaging site, but also highly intricate in its goals to give voters a voice. It is resource center for sharing information, updates, jobs, and also provides a channel for people who share their vision, concern, and ideas with the President and his advisors through text, an uploaded image or video.

Mr. Obama offers a message to visitors:

I ask you to believe – not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours. I know this change is possible…because in this campaign, I have had the privilege to witness what is best in America.

Change.gov is the first step in a long road of reshaping the dynamics of politics and communication with voters.

They’re on the right track however.

Obama’s history-making campaign that fused community relations with social sciences, after all, carried him to the Democratic nomination and also the Oval Office. Mr. Obama and his team have cultivated and collaborated with a database of millions of people that spans a sophisticated contact relationship management infrastructure that spans across the real world to all popular social networks.

With an elaborate and revolutionary channel that will only grow with his Presidency, Obama takes office with a powerful new medium that may eclipse the reach and drive of traditional broadcast media.

Transforming Voters into Customers, While Potentially Erasing Party Lines

But, what about those who voted against him?

What’s the channel for Obama to ask, “Why didn’t I get your vote?” Is it Change.gov or is it through the combination of inbound and outbound engagement that will unearth the concerns that offer genuine potential for not just listening, also but response and earned support?

Most successful businesses around the world place customers at the center of everything. Before the Web, Nordstrom built its engendering foundation on world-class, and now world famous, customer care. In today’s Social Web, Zappos is growing its business by engaging with customers and creating a public and transparent customer-focused culture that is quickly building the company into a global brand that will make it easy for the company to extend its business beyond shoes.

There’s an extraordinary opportunity here for the Whitehouse to leverage these new and influential channels of conversation to embrace and cultivate voters as if they were customers, winning market share, one person at a time.

This is era where information was and is democratized. It is also a live and unfiltered looking glass into the office of the Presidency and also the thoughts, insights, support, satisfaction, and grievances of the American People.

It’s a Two Way Street

This isn’t just about broadcasting content through new channels or merely soliciting feedback, participating in popular networks or actively listening, it’s the ability to identify and internalize themes to precipitate change and earn support through action – not just words.

For the first time, the U.S. President can simultaneously cultivate communities through traditional door-to-door interaction and also directly where people create, discover, and share information online.

Shortly after completing the first draft of this post, the Washington Post ran an article announcing that Mr. Obama will record the weekly Democratic address on the radio and also on Youtube. The videos will be hosted on Change.gov and the official YouTube video channel, with the first one already recorded.

Other opportunities include:

- Launch a social network at Change.gov and/or whitehouse.gov

- Create a citizen feedback and collaboration page at GetSatisfaction

- Solicit policy proposals that people can vote up or down on Change For Us.

- Open the blog to comments on Change.gov (with community moderation).

- Address the country on YouTube and all other video networks with updates, polls, and also address issues in between official State of the Union broadcasts.

- Capture behind-the-scenes footage of the inner workings of the White House and share across all video networks.

- Create a user-generated channel on Magnify.net that features content from constituents.

-Create an @obamacares or @whitehousecares account on Twitter and other micro-blogging communities to listen and respond directly within each network.

- Complement the Presidential radio show with a regular podcast or livecast on uStream.tv or BlogTalkRadio and also interact with the people online, in real time.

- Publish speeches and important policy documents on document networks such as Scribd and Docstoc to be shared and disseminated throughout blogs and personal social profile pages.

- Create a portable and evolving Obama Widget using a SproutBuilder.

(What other ideas do you have? Add them to comments).

This is how a President, or any politician or business for that matter, can authentically connect with the people formerly known as the audience – in the real world.

It creates the foundation for people to participate in a crowd-sourced Government that doesn’t need Congressmen to share discontent or new ideas. The Web cuts through political tape to spotlight real time threats and issues to expedite support and response.

It’s through this collaboration that any public official, particularly the President, can continually maintain a real-time pulse of the country to learn from the human effects and responses to actions to run a more in-tune and effective campaign.

It’s the art and science of stripping down the politics to reveal truth. This is a political ecology rooted in sociology and conversations. People shouldn’t only have a voice during an election time; listening and responding should be an ongoing practice and process of any office.

The President can’t satisfy everyone, that’s just the reality. It’s human nature to disagree. This President-elect is not purporting to be perfect, but it seems he’s honestly willing to learn. With a national CTO in place combined with an informed engagement team versed in social sciences and psychology, we can use technology and two-way channels to not only increase economic efficiencies and boost education and media literacy, but also “listen” to those influential beacons in order to continue to redraw, or potentially erase, party lines.

My hope is that these incredible networks remain a constant source of conversation to extend beyond campaigning, but also collaborative governance that unite people across party lines.

It’s not about being Republican or a Democrat, it’s about representing the majority of the people, their views, passions, ambitions and struggles, in order to be a representative of the people for the people. This is Obama’s opportunity to use the tools and channels of today’s emerging voter demographics to rewrite the future of politics, while serving the best interests of the American People in the process.

Sometimes the best advisors and cabinet members are the very people who elected that person into office, and maybe, just maybe, also those who voted against him in the first place.

If the Obama camp reads this, I’m more than happy to release @obamacares and @whitehousecares on Twitter. I held them for you.

Special thanks to Drew Olanoff.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security (S3) project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC.

Thoughts of a future President Obama have gotten many people in the tech community abuzz with glee. Indeed, this is a great opportunity for new ideas and creativity to impact the federal government, and society in general. As someone who works in the government every day, I’d like to see the readers of Mashable put their money where their mouths are, as it were.

Many people have commented to me personally, and in general, that the term “Web 2.0” and anything else with “2.0” after it is tired. When I was very new to the social software world, I was sitting next to Peter Shankman at a workshop when he exclaimed, “If I hear someone mention the term Web 2.0 one more time, I’m going to [redacted]!” I was half-laughing, and half-terrified, since I had only just recently heard the term!

Using “2.0” to denote applying new social technology to a noun has become practically ubiquitous. So maybe its use is tired. But often people don’t have any better ideas. Articles like this and this prove that while empty criticism is easy to dish out, suggesting good alternatives is hard work.

Searching for alternatives

My gut told me that better ideas were out there. As a preliminary test, I recently queried my Twitter followers for ideas about what to rename Government 2.0, and got one great response from Jody Reale. She suggested “Quantum Government,” which I like, because in physics a quantum is the smallest unit that light can be broken into. If we consider government the light and individual employees the quanta, we might think of social media empowering each individual quantum to achieve more than they could before, and truly make the whole more than the sum of its parts.

Help a bureaucrat out

Let’s get back to Peter Shankman, who created a wonderful crowdsourcing service called Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which connects reporters’ story ideas with sources’ knowledge. Well, I hope that the people who read this column can “help a bureaucrat out” – what do you think Government 2.0 should be renamed? Please post your comments publicly here on Mashable, and discuss them with me and amongst yourselves. Be creative, be vicious, and most importantly, have fun.

To make things interesting, I’m going to personally give away prizes. First prize will be an excellent blue CIA coffee thermos and other emblazoned gear (pens, etc.). Runner-up will be an awesome-looking classic white coffee mug from the historic and prestigious National War College in Washington, DC. Finally, I will give out a prize for the “most creative” name that isn’t chosen in the top-two (I have to be creative with that prize, so I haven’t thought of it yet – suggestions?).

So, do you have something for me? Can you beat Jody’s “Quantum Government” idea, currently the number one? And most importantly, will the readers of Mashable prove that government crowdsourcing can really work? I challenge you.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, klikk

By Julian Sanchez | Published: November 06, 2008 – 05:26PM CT

Only time will tell whether President-Elect Barack Obama will be able to deliver on his promise to bring change to government, but the Illinois senator has already brought it to the dot-gov domain. Obama’s transition Web site, Change.gov, went live today, soliciting suggestions from citizens and providing a guide to the people and procedures behind the transfer of executive power.

In many ways, the site—fairly clearly still a work in progress—resembles that of any other government agency, with biographies of the transition team, backgrounders on the incoming president’s policy priorities, and links to information about the cabinet offices to be filled when the Obamas move into the White House on January 20. But the speed with which the site was launched may nevertheless be an attempt to signal that Obama is serious about his pledge to bring greater transparency to government, and to put more data online more rapidly for public comment. A Change.gov blog, for instance, promises regular updates on the transition process.

If it’s on the Internet, it must be true

There are also several sections on the site that invite user feedback. “Your Story” asks visitors to explain “what this campaign and this election means to you”—and is sure to be a source of Touching Anecdotes from Ordinary Americans in future speeches. And there’s an online suggestion box where citizens can share their “vision” for America.

Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s a jobs page where visitors can submit applications for non-career positions in the new administration—including, apparently, some that “require Senate confirmation.” Forgive us if we’re a bit doubtful that the next Secretary of Defense will be chosen from the pool of online applicants, however.

The Government Accountability Office launched its own transition site today as well, outlining 13 challenges facing the new administration. Among these is the move from analog to digital television broadcast, which GAO warns could “undermine the public’s confidence in government” if it isn’t carried out smoothly.

While change may have arrived rapidly, there is no sign—as yet—of hope.gov.

nalysts Explore Social Networking Impact on Government at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008, 3-7 November in Cannes, France

Egham, UK, October 23, 2008 —

By 2011, 70 per cent of social computing deployments in government that achieve business benefits will do so in unplanned or unexpected ways, according to Gartner, Inc. Government organisations around the world are showing great interest in social computing, yet deployment so far is relatively limited.

“The current global financial turmoil bolsters the case for government adoption of social networks as technology-budget cuts make tapping into societal resources, such as voluntary groups, philanthropists, associations and social network groups essential to complement weaker government action in some critical areas,” said Andrea Di Maio, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

According to Mr Di Maio, there are plenty of government-initiated networks and – like any such network – they succeed only when they have a clear and magnetic purpose such as Diplopedia, a wiki created by the US State Department that supports collaboration across intelligence and foreign affairs agencies.  “However, the most promising, and yet, most disruptive, communities are those created outside government. Examples in the UK include Netmums, a community of parents dealing with child-care issues, and PledgeBank, which allows users to set up pledges and then encourages other people to sign up to them,” he said.

Today, the primary role of social networks for governments is to facilitate the exchange of information and to establish novel collaboration patterns, often across organisational boundaries. “For example, a case manager in human services is responsible for identifying clients in need through outreach or referral, and conducting a comprehensive social and financial assessment. In the future, he or she will be part of a more complex socio-ecosystem, including a voluntary sector, online communities and individuals who play a fundamental role through all the different phases. Their role will shift from managing a case to ensuring that community resources are complemented where needed,” said Mr Di Maio.

Boundaries in government are blurring at every level and driving the uptake of social computing. Horizontal business processes such as financial management, HR and procurement are subject to increased sharing across agencies and even jurisdictions. This means that government organisations no longer own or control them. Instead they are becoming clients to other organisations leading to increased adoption of social media. In addition, government IT infrastructure is subject to consolidation efforts and will be progressively commoditised and challenged by cloud-computing solutions.

Gartner points out that the benefits of social computing — when accrued — will rarely occur in the context of government-driven initiatives. For example, governments’ desire to retain ownership and control of the network, through restrictive participation policies, will be detriment to magnetism.

Gartner recommends that governments engage selected employees in finding external social networks relevant to the agency and its domain of government. They should also ensure that the use of social computing inside and between government organisations is based on a clear and compelling purpose – which is likely to be something that they cannot ‘engineer’. “Instead, they should recognise that spontaneity is needed for success,” said Mr Di Maio.

Mr Di Maio added that social networks require little investment to start so, at a time when budgets are increasingly tight, such technology is welcome. Social networks have worked well to aggregate people and information to face natural disasters. People look both for peer support and for government when times are tough.

Gartner predicts the execution of many government processes in human services, tax and revenue, health care and education will involve individuals who are neither employees nor contractors. Examples include replacement of some human services functions such as online collection of charitable donations to be directed to people in need combined with online ‘time banks’ through which citizens provide time to help others.

“The future of government is a very different government and, in some cases, no government at all,” concluded Mr Di Maio.

Mr Di Maio will provide more detailed analysis on the impact that social networking is having on governments during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008, taking place on 3-7 November in Cannes, France. Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the IT industry’s largest and most strategic conference, providing business leaders with a look at the future of IT. More than 3,000 senior business and IT strategists will gather for the insights, tools and solutions they need to ensure their IT initiatives are key contributors to and drivers of their company’s success. Gartner’s annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees’ annual planning efforts. They rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organisations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/eu/symposiumfall

Members of the media can register for the event by contacting Laurence Goasduff, Gartner PR on + 44 (0) 1784 267195 or at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com

Additional information on social computing and government is in the Gartner report “The Business Impact of Social Computing on Government”. The report is on Gartner’s website at
The Business Impact of Social Computing on Government

After years of banning access to blogs, YouTube and Facebook, it seems the federal government has figured out that maybe that Internet thing isn’t so bad after all. In fact, it might even be useful.

At the annual Government in Technology (GTEC) conference, taking place at the Westin Hotel in downtown Ottawa, federal officials took the wraps off the government’s internal version of the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which it calls GCpedia.

The service will allow federal employees to post, comment and edit articles placed on GCpedia by their peers.

By doing so, the federal government hopes it can make its processes and decision-making much more transparent. It also allows departments to share information better and catalogue policy developments or new services.

For example, information about climate change policies could be posted and commented on by scientists and bureaucrats from National Resources Canada (NRCan), Environment Canada and Industry Canada. The concept may help break down walls between government departments that have traditionally been stingy when it comes to sharing information.

“This way, not one person owns the information,” said Brian MacLeod, chief information management architect, Canadian public sector, with Open Text Corp. “GCpedia proves that they (government) get it and they are using the tools available.”

Mr. MacLeod was speaking at the conference yesterday about the benefits of collaborative Internet technologies, which are called Web 2.0 technologies. He said to understand the benefits of new social networking technologies, all a person has to do is look at e-mail.

Most messages could easily be posted in a blog, or as short “yes” or “no” responses. Attachments could be shared on a GCpedia-like website, as opposed to blasting it to an entire mailing list, he said.

The worst part about sharing information through e-mail is that most of it gets deleted.

“As people engage in the community, you are capturing it,” said Mr. Macleod. “You can record all of the dialogue, know how it evolved. All of the changes and all of the opinions. You acknowledge that these people exist and you can connect with them.”

Mr. Macleod said adopting Web 2.0 applications will also help the government appeal to younger people, a priority for the aging federal public service.

“When you talk about Generation Y, this is how they think,” said Mr. Macleod. “The culture is changing as a result of all these new technologies coming forward.”

Services such as Napster, Facebook, Myspace and Google were all created by people in their 20s and underscore the “I want it now” mentality of today’s youth.

The federal government is lagging behind other countries that have actively pursued collaborative technologies. In the United States, soldiers are allowed to post blogs allowing their families, friends and casual observers to follow what the soldier is up to on a daily basis. Federal health officials post updates on YouTube, letting people know about disease outbreaks. Ontario has used Second Life, an online virtual world, to recruit new public servants.

GCpedia emerged from an obscure National Resources Canada initiative called the NRCan Wiki. The department created the Wiki a year ago to better network its 5,000 employees. To date more than 1,900 are actively using the service.

“It’s not just about gathering information, it’s about collaborating,” said Marj Akerley, chief information officer of NRCan. “Anyone coast to coast can contribute, we don’t have to have meetings where we all get together and brainstorm.”

Ms. Akerley said the NRCan Wiki worked so well that Treasury Board decided to use it as a template for a government wide version, which they called the GCpedia.

Still, it may be a while before GCpedia, or something like it, is opened up to all Canadians to allow them to comment and debate on federal government policies and initiatives.

“We have to walk before we run,” Ms. Akerley said. “It is a culture change. People are very risk-averse within the government of Canada.”

kNow Note:  Thanks for the tip Brigitte

By David Chartier | Published: October 26, 2008 – 03:30PM CT