This week’s launch of a new news information portal MerrionStreet.ie represents a new approach by the Irish Government to communicate with citizens.

The site – named after the Dublin street on which Government Buildings is located – is based on the WordPress Open Source software platform, and was built for the Government by Arekibo for a reported €40,000. The project took five months to pull together since the initial RFP was awarded earlier this year.

The new website provides the Government with a more dynamic web presence with the inclusion of news, photos, videos, Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as options for newsletters and web chats.

The Government describes the site as ‘providing a view of Government not seen before’. It explains:

In simple terms, MerrionStreet.ie will review the wide range of government activity and then report certain key events as news. All government press releases will be accessible from our website – either by way of RSS feed or by way of links to all government departments. But our central task will be to take a variety of events and report on them objectively, in the language of a news bulletin. We will also feature ‘Issues’ where useful thematic information, not tied to a particular date, is presented.

We use the latest audio-visual tools and Internet capabilities to hopefully bring these events to life. We have video, audio, photographs, text, links to other websites and much useful data which people can share. We are linked to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

The site explains how its objective is ‘not to create a competition with traditional media in terms of deadlines, scope or scoop’. Its hope is that it will be used by journalists and others as a reference point upon which to view the latest Government developments. Noticeable it says it will “not engage in political comment.”

Political comment

The site has already come in for criticism, however, with some describing it as a means for the Government to ‘present the most positive spin on its daily news’. In Ireland’s popular newspaper, the Irish Independent, Michael Brennan describes MerrionStreet as providing ‘an uninterrupted outlet for the Irish Prime Minister’s musings’:

Modelled on a news agency, merrionstreet.ie allows the Government’s highly paid spin doctors to “report” on the work of Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his ministers.

Fed up with being unable to control the bad news, which has been frequent, Mr Cowen now has an uninterrupted outlet for his musings, free from pesky analysis and less than gratifying comment.

Such sentiments have also been expressed on Twitter and in discussion forums with comments such as those below representative of a lack of trust in the objectivity of information being released:

@Paul_Duggan: So FF are are using the @merrionstreet as a PR tool rather than a state info service…

@john_mcguirk: Looking at this MerrionStreet.ie thing. Looks like taxpayer-subsidised propaganda to me.

@irish_eagle Wanna know what the Irish word for Pravda is? See http://www.MerrionStreet.ie #Ireland #ItNeverRainsHere

Anticipating this kind of criticism the site says:

MerrionStreet.ie is produced by a team in Government Buildings, involving the Government Information Service, Government Press and IT. Our objective is not to create a competition with traditional media in terms of deadlines, scope or scoop. Indeed we hope journalists find MerrionStreet.ie a useful reference point, and are free to report and use its elements.

Social media tools

The site utilises a number of Social Media tools including Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. The team behind the site told Siliconrepublic they had seen what other nations, like the UK and France, had done in terms of embracing free social media tools and wanted to copy this approach. They cited Number10.gov.uk as a particular inspiration for MerrionStreet.

On announcing the new site, Government Minister Pat Carey tweeted:

New Government Comms. website launching tomorrow – merrionstreet.ie will mimic whitehouse.gov and Number10 websites. Will be a great tool.

The issue is that MerrionStreet does not embody many of the principles of these Government sites. The differences between the social media elements of Whitehouse.gov/Number10.gov.uk  and MerrionStreet are contrasted below.

@MerrionStreet

Follows 0 accounts, does not use hashtags or @replies and all tweets appear to be links to news articles. The current account is not utilising the platform in the manner in which it is intended i.e. as a two way communications medium.

@GSheehy: Right, enough is enough. Unfollowing @merrionstreet until format changes. No doubt someone will RT the interesting ‘exchanges’.

Nevertheless, SiliconRepublic reports that Taoiseach Brian Cowen will eventually be among the MerrionStreet tweeters and will include the initials “BC” in his tweets to indicate his authorship. We have yet to see any tweets of this nature, however. Instead, tweets have been confined to announcements of his press statements, rather than any personal messages.

@Whitehouse

Follows 107 accounts (mostly Government entities or administration personnel). It uses re-tweets, hashtags and has a real person tweeting from inside the Whitehouse. Many members of the administration have also started using individual accounts in an official capacity.

@Number10gov

Follows 474,600 accounts. It uses re-tweets, hashtags and has a real person tweeting on events from Number 10.

Along with this the strategy explains the value of hashtags, re-tweeting and adding value with exclusive content. If the @merrionstreet account remains a static platform to be used simply as an RSS feed for news stories, it will quickly loose followers, and its value and usefulness will be further questioned. Instead, it should follow the strategy outlined by the UK Government, and embrace medium as a means of engaging with nearly 500 followers.

The MerrionStreet.ie images page displays sets of photos from the site’s flickr account. The Number10.gov and Whitehouse.gov websites also have flickr accounts, however, their use of these accounts differs in one noticeable and important way – their Copyright policy.

MerrionStreet flickr:

All photos published on the MerrionStreet flickr account use a Copyright All Rights Reserved license. This indicates ‘that the copyright holder reserves, or holds for their own use, all the rights provided by copyright law, such as distribution, performance, and creation of derivative works; that is, they have not waived any such right’.

For each photo there is a “Request to license MerrionStreet.ie’s photos via Getty Images” link, which forwards users to a Getty Images site to purchase the photos. Strangely even photos of Government buildings are licensed in this way.

Number10.gov flickr:

Publishes photos using the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license. This means that others are free to copy, distribute and display the photos on their sites, provided they give original credit to Number10.gov, do not use the photos for commercial purposes and do not alter or build upon the original works.

Whitehouse.gov flickr:

Publishes photos as United States Government Work. This means they are “not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work.”

The impact of setting such a restrictive license policy on Irish Government photos, is that any blogger or media outlet will need to either purchase the photos from Getty for use on their sites, or contact MerrionStreet directly. There appears to be a contradiction here as the site says: “We have video, audio, photographs, text, links to other websites and much useful data which people can share”. Unfortunately, this sharing does not extend to their photos.

Both the Whitehouse and Number 10 websites have their own video players through which they often broadcast live video, and which others can embedded on their sites. They also upload these videos to their respective YouTube channels, but YouTube does not represent the exclusive distribution mechanism for this media. Unfortunately, this is not the case with MerrionStreet.

MerrionStreet Video:

The site includes video footage of Ministerial speeches, Government announcements and a feature called “doorsteps” – where the Taoiseach or Minister answers a range of questions asked by a number of journalists. These videos are, however, all exclusively presented through YouTube. As such, the Irish Government appears to be explicitly endorsing this platform over and above the plethora of other video sharing platforms available.

The Irish government should avoid publicly endorsing one product or service over its competitors. Instead, it should ensure videos are available in different formats (e.g. .mp4) and on more than one video sharing platform. Also, they should ensure that when YouTube videos are embedded on MerrionStreet.ie they do not include the YouTube logo. This should apply to other areas of Government that create video content e.g. the House of the Oireachtas short films.

The MerrionStreet team could create its own branded, neutral video player that would allow anyone to embed the content. That would  be a more equitable way for the Government to spread its message, while still retaining a YouTube channel.

Number 10 Video:

Number 10 has its own platform neutral video player available called Number 10 TV. Videos on this player can be freely embedded in other websites and blogs. It also maintains a YouTube channel, however, it does not exclusively present its videos through this platform.

Whitehouse Video:

The Whitehouse has hundreds of videos available on its website, YouTube and Vimeo channels. It has been careful not to endorse any Video platform exclusively, and was required to create its own video player with captioning for Section 508 compliance.

The Whitehouse has also used YouTube.com to allow the public to pose questions to the President on a wide range of issues, and has recently been used by Press Secretary Gibbs to respond to questions regarding the recent oil spill.

There are longstanding policies against using advertising on federal websites or having sites endorse specific software or products. General Services Administration (GSA) guidelines prohibit .gov websites from commercially endorsing any product, commodity, or service.

GSA finalised an agreement with YouTube in February last year to resolve the legal concerns such as liability, endorsements, advertising, freedom of information and governing law. This allows for other government agencies to use YouTube without conducting their own formal assessment of its suitability and adherence to government laws.

MerrionStreet Facebook:

The MerrionStreet Facebook page has already garnered over 250 fans, but has seen very little by way of interaction or dialogue with these users. The current page appears to be merely an outlet on which news stories are posted, rather than a genuine attempt to start a conversation around particular news stories.

Number 10 Facebook:

The Number 10 website has developed a Facebook application in order to disseminate news and other information throughout the site. They’ve also recently announced a partnership with the Social networking site to support the Treasury’s Spending Challenge. The Democracy UK page will be used to stimulate debate regarding ideas proposed to cut public spending.

Whitehouse Facebook:

The Whitehouse has an extensive Facebook presence with more than 600,000 fans and thousands of ‘Likes’ and comments on news articles and videos. This provides a platform upon which the Whitehouse can share information including photos and videos, announce official government events and observances and gather feedback from constituents. This page enables users to publish their comments on Whitehouse news, something which is not possible on Whitehouse.gov.

Earlier this year, GSA signed a terms-of-service agreement with Facebook to make it:

easier for government agencies to create Facebook pages and use them to dramatically increase access to information, offer education on government services, and further empower citizens to interact with government.

This new agreement with Facebook resolves the legal concerns found in many standard terms and conditions that pose problems for federal agencies, such as liability, endorsements, advertising, freedom of information, and governing law. As part of this there is no advertising on the Whitehouse Facebook page, in contrast to the usual advertising that is included in the sidebar and header of users’ profiles and which appears on the MerrionStreet page.

Reaction

Reaction to the new site has been mixed. Many have commented on the cost involved in the creation of the website, when it uses freely available software. Some twitter reactions to the site include:

@gavinsblog: So Merrionstreet.ie is exactly what I expected – crap

@paulmwatson: When they said @merrionstreet.ie was inspired by number10.gov.uk they weren’t kidding. Expensive WordPress blog.

@ronnymitchel: In all fairness to @merrionstreet, although they paid waaaaay too much for the site, it does look nice for just @wordpress.

@micflan: 40k obviously doesn’t buy you a favicon, custom 404 pages or decent URL’s (index.php in every one). http://www.merrionstreet.ie/

This, however, misses the point and we should consider what the Government originally tendered for. The original RFP sought services including:

• Design of the website and associated accessible HTML templates
• Building the website according to the agreed design specifications
• Installation and commissioning of solution
• Provision of software maintenance and solution support including the associated templates,
• Provision of solution documentation
• Provision of solution training and handover to Department personnel

The RFP made no specific requirement for citizen engagement or dialogue through Twitter or Facebook. The only mention of social media in the RFP was:

The design must integrate seamlessly with various social networking sites ((e.g. YouTube, Facebook etc.) while maintaining a consistent look and feel wherever technically possible

Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that these elements remain relatively static.

Improvements

This is not to say that these elements shouldn’t be improved upon. The Government could attempt to create much more entertaining and informative YouTube videos – by taking inspiration from Whitehouse.gov’s West Wing Week and the Inside the White House series. MerrionStreet should be more aggressive and original in its efforts to communicate the Government’s message, over and above the creation of glossed up press releases.

As of now, their Facebook/Twitter pages merely republishes information posted on MerrionStreet. The team behind the site should consider posting more content that is original to Twitter/Facebook, giving users added incentive to visit these pages.

Finally, the Taoiseach’s office should try to expand MerrionStreet into a more sophisticated online operation that seeks to engage with citizens, rather than merely push information to them. Unfortunately, the initial scope of MerrionStreet was far too narrow. Its objective was simply to ‘Deliver a cohesive and whole of Government approach to the dissemination of Government information in a wide variety of formats’.

Improving the site to become a two-way medium with comments and citizen engagement is when it’ll really become interesting. At the moment, the site isn’t up to the standards of Whitehouse.gov or Number10.gov.uk. Getting to this point will require a change in focus from the ‘dissemination of information’, to – as Australia announced yesterday – a more:

open government based on a culture of engagement, built on better access to and use of government held information, and sustained by the innovative use of technology.

Hopefully, this will come with the next release.

Further reading:

• Irish Government’s MerrionStreet.ie goes live
• Ireland’s Government reveals its social media strategy
• Broke State shells out €40,000 on ‘spin’ website
• RPF for Provision for and Support of a Government News Website
• GovFresh Free Gov 2.0 theme
• Australia Gov 2.0 Taskforce report
• April 2010 – OMB Social Media Guidance
• June 2010 – OMB Guidance for Agency use of Third-Party Websites and Applications
• Six New Media Challenges – Legal and Policy Considerations for Federal Use of Web 2.0 Technology
• PBS special segment on the White House new media team

Over the past few months I’ve become more and more impressed with the videos on the White House YouTube channel. The President’s Weekly Address is almost a stalemate of my weekends. His explanations of Healthcare reform or assessments of the economy are both engaging and informative.

There is currently well over 400 videos on the White House YouTube channel. These collectively have amassed over 2.2 million views. The channel has 80,400 subscribers, with viewers coming from many different countries depending on the topic e.g. the President’s Message to the Iranian People was ‘most popular’ in Iran.

While the number of viewers has been decreasing over the past few months, it still remains the most viewed political channel on YouTube and far more popular that similar international initiatives from the UK or EU.

The five most viewed White House videos have amassed nearly 5 million YouTube hits. These videos include:

1. President Barack Obama’s Inaugural address – 1,281,063 views
2. 1/24/09: Your Weekly Address – 1,163,256 views
3. Lower Quality Version: President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt – 614,761 views
4. The President’s Message to the Iranian People – 612,576 views
5. President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt – 586,653 views

It’s not so much the formal speeches or policy announcements that are what attracts me to the White House videos; Rather it’s the informal behind-the-scenes clips that are most interesting. These provide an insight into the White House and the President, not normally seen on TV news bulletins. They – along with the other new media activities from the White House – provide greater transparency on the activities of the institution, and serve as a platform upon which to build greater trust with the American public.

I’ve embedded my five favourite videos below. They’re all short clips, but I hope demonstrate a side of President Obama and the Administration not often seen through traditional media.

Behind-the-scenes

The video below is the first in a series of “Inside the White House” videos that will be appearing on WhiteHouse.gov. It shows the President reading letters from ordinary citizens. He reads 10 letters from the Public every day and the video provides a behind-the-scenes look at the process of how those letters make it to his desk. It also provides short interviews with White House staff involved in the distribution of thousands of letters, faxes, and e-mails that are received each day.

Mike Kelleher (Director, Office of Correspondence) describes how they get 65,000 paper letters, 100,000 e-mails and 1,000 faxes each week. This is combined with 2,500 – 3,500 calls per day, and highlights what a huge task it is to distill this into 10 letters each day.

Other behind-the-scenes videos provide an insight into the President’s day-to-day interactions and other less newsworthy activites at the White House. These include:

• White House interns reflecting on their experiences
• The White House Easter Egg Roll
• The President chatting to Willie Mays, grilling with Bobby Flay or taping the audio for Disney’s Hall of Presidents or the Colbert Report

Obama’s personality

It’s rare that TV news bulletins or newspaper articles delve into the personality of President Obama, or provide an insight into how he interacts with people. I think the video below demonstrates how at ease he is conversing with others and taking an interest in what they do.

Some of his personality is reflected in other videos including the dunking of Senior Advisors, playing basketball with the Lady Huskies, reading to children and working with the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. The sight of the President having fun and enjoying himself is something not often seen in press conferences or his Weekly Addresses.

Setting the facts straight

The current debate on Healthcare reform has provoked fiercely passionate arguments on both sides. Unfortunately, the facts of the proposed reforms have often been held hostage to inaccurate portrayals of proposed legislation. The video below refutes many of the scare tactics employed by those against reform.

The White House has sought to defend its position through a series of videos to the American public. The Reality Check videos debunk many of the myths and propaganda surrounding Health Care reform. Allegations of ‘Death Panels’ and the rationing of Healthcare are all dismissed in this series of interviews with those involved in Health care policy. Often the videos are a response to questions from anxious citizens attending health care town hall meetings across the country. It’s important the White House refutes these allegations and explains in simple language the facts of proposed reforms.

Foreign Visits

The montage below highlights the excitement and enthusiasm expressed by the people of Ghana during the President’s tour. It is narrated by extracts of the President’s speech interspersed with African music. Overall, it’s a really nice clip of what looks like a colourful and welcoming reception in Accra.

Overlaying extracts from speeches with travel clips is evident in other videos such as the inaugural Whistle Stop Train Tour or the President’s visit to Canada.

Plain taking

The video below sets out succulently the benefits of the new Credit Card bill of rights. What I like about this video is the language Mr. Goolsbee uses. When referring to credit card contracts he describes the frustrations of many Americans: “I’ve a PHD in economics, but I can bearly read these things’’. He outlines some of the activities of these companies as ‘evil genius’. This kind of plain talking is refreshing and demonstrates how in tune the White House is to the concerns of ordinary citizens.

Other videos include Peter Orszag describing the benefits he gets from reading blogs and the rational for setting up the OMB blog. He explains how he wants the blog to clarify misconceptions and confusion surrounding the activities of the Office of Management and Budget.

John Monroe’s article on Federal Computer Week earlier this month collates advice from social media experts at May’s Government Leadership Summit in Williamsburg, Va. He outlines 7 key steps towards achieving social-media success within government. These steps quantify the risks associated with social media, and explain that only by embracing these can success be achieved. These 7 steps are key tenets of Web 2.0 and are expanded on below.

1. Take control by giving up control

This is about recognizing and accepting that a brand’s value is inherently based on, and reflected by, whatever people say it is. While perceptions can often be inaccurate, they reflect the view of a brand from the outside and cannot be said to be ‘wrong’. Rather, it’s better to accept that the marketing or communications department cannot control the message, but instead should engage with those discussing it. The growth and power of social media means brands are becoming more heavily reliant upon consumers/citizens for survival, and therefore reaching out to brand evangelists/government enthusiasts cannot be underestimated.

Charlene Li notes that while communication specialists do not like the idea of giving up control over their message, it’s important to realise that in a socially networked environment controlling messages is not feasible. Instead, it’s better to participate in, and become a part of, discussions relating to the message. This can be through social networking sites, blogs, twitter or other communications platforms upon which your message is being discussed. The State Department’s twitter account participates in conversations regarding their mission, and can be seen as a tool in rebuilding the US brand overseas.

2. Keep the finger off the policy panic button

Any social media policies should guide employees on how to use new technologies, rather than simply outline what they can and cannot do. The recent Dow Jones social media guidelines are an example of what not to do. Your employees are usually your best brand ambassadors and should be trusted to uphold the values and aspirations of their employer. Harnessing and embracing their passions and expertise is a much more suitable policy, than restricting exactly how they can represent themselves.

Nevertheless, there are many considerations that need to be taken into account when creating sustainable policies and guidelines. There are many legal and policy challenges, that need to be acknowledged in any set of guidelines. Many agencies have included aspects of these in their different social media policies.

It’s also important to appreciate that policies can and should be flexible to deal with unexpected scenarios. This is aluded to in one of Steve Radick’s twenty theses for Government 2.0:

Policies are not written in stone.  With justification, passion, and knowledge, policies and rules can and should be changed.  Sometimes it’s as easy as asking, but other times will require a knockdown, drag-out fight.  Both are important.

There is, however, a need to update existing practices to allow the use of new tools to break down barriers to communication and information. The Open Government brainstorming sessions outlined many policies which need to be looked at – and potentially updated – in order to effectively promote citizen participation. These include the Paperwork Reduction Act, Federal Cookie Policy and Records Management. Notwithstanding these existing policies, we’ve already seen many examples of successful social media initiatives. Therefore, there should not be any assumption that existing policies or legislation create barriers for any agency to engage with social media.

3. Brace for, and embrace, the unexpected

The example of NASA’s online contest to name a new module of the International Space Station is cited as an example of how online participation can produce unexpected results.

More than 230.000 people suggested the name Colbert as a result of comedian Stephen Colbert, who used his nightly talk-show to rally audience support for this name to be used. NASA did not expect this when they conceived the contest, but it was not necessarily a bad thing.

As a result of Colbert’s campaign, and the subsequent appearance of a NASA official on his show, NASA received a lot of great publicity. Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said:

You just have to understand that there will be unexpected ‘opportunities’ that social media will give you

In the end NASA named the station Tranquility — in honor of the touchdown site of Apollo 11 — but gave Colbert’s name to an on-station exercise machine.

The story above highlights how engaging in social media, and soliciting public feedback can have unintended consequences. NASA’s ability to deal with this through a compromise highlights a fundamental trait which all social media initiatives must adhere i.e. if you seek public participation and feedback you must be prepared to recognize it even/especially when it’s not what was originally expected.

4. Relinquish your pride in your own expertise

Beth Noveck (Deputy CTO for Open Government) explains this when she says:

We [Government] do not have a monopoly on the best ideas. We do not have all the answers …to the tremendous challenges we confront today.

An acceptance that all the subject-matter experts – in relation to government data – do not work in government agencies, is the first step towards creating platforms upon which outside ideas are solicited. These platforms have been enthusiastically embraced by the Obama administration and many State agencies. Recent examples include:

• Virginia’s State Government’s Idea portal
• New York State’s Tech talk
• Regulations.gov exchange
• Apps for Democracy – District of Columbia’s Community edition
• Open Government brainstorm
• The National Dialogue on Recovery.gov

Vivek Kundra recently blogged about using different technology strategies to empower government officials and the public to work together. Federal officials should actively tap into the public’s expertise to help solve specific problems. Whether this is how to improve a website, or ideas on Healthcare reform, this form of citizen to government interaction is a central pillar of an open civic system, and should be utilized to enhance existing agency expertise.

5. Everything you know about productivity is wrong

The prevailing orthodoxy within many government agencies is that access to social networking sites should be restricted, or actively banned. The theory is that staff will be so busy updating their Facebook or Twitter accounts, that they will neglect their work.

Instead, agencies should evaluate the productivity risks in not allowing people to access these tools. RRW recently reported on a study by Australian scientists which found that allowing access to ‘websites of personal interest, including news sites and YouTube, provided workers a mental break that ultimately increased their ability to concentrate and was correlated with a 9% increase in total productivity.’

Social networks can be used to harness the knowledge of experts to find better answers and ideas to work related issues. Networks such as Twitter can provide feedback on all kinds of questions, and serve as real-time information repositories. The Army has recently ordered bases to stop blocking Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, in order to ‘facilitate the dissemination of strategic, unclassified information’ among troops.

The Federal Web managers council outlined this issue in a paper last year. They identified the reasons for blocking these sites as relating to security, time wasting and bandwidth. Nevertheless, their view was the ‘new Administration should require agencies to provide access to social media sites unless the agency head justifies blocking certain employees or certain sites’.

6. Same employees, new job descriptions

President Obama explained in his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government:

Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.

Collaboration within government and among citizens will become a much more important aspect of how agencies and their employees work. Whether this is through sharing best practices within networks such as Govloop, or contributing to blogs and twitter streams, online collaboration will become a matter-of-fact activity, in which everyone may be required to engage with.

The recent Open Government brainstorm session distilled ideas on collaboration into three main topics:

• Enhancing Intra- and Inter-Government Collaboration – to improve institutional collaboration
• Creating Incentives for Public-Private Partnerships – to ensure all government partners work together
• Innovating in Alternative Dispute Resolution – ideas on dispute resolution strategies

The ideas submitted around these topics highlight the public’s expectations of great collaboration within, and around government. The Enterprise 2.0 movement – primarily concerned with greater collaboration and networking possibilities – is fueling a reorganization and re-evaluation of roles within corporations. Successful social media and government 2.0 implementations, will necessitate similar changes in job descriptions to prioritize collaboration and sharing among government workers.

7. Fail early, fail often

One of the best measures of success might be failure. During Clay Shirky’s recent talk at TED@State, he repeated his oft stated mantra of how failing fast and quickly is sometimes of tremendous benefit. Failure can be informative and serve to create longer lasting success; it’s synonymous with risk taking and experimenting. Also, the public is often forgiving of failure if it’s in the execution of a worthy principle.

Charlene Li notes how managers should try to imagine five to 10 worst-case scenarios and create plans for mitigating or responding to these if they come to fruition. This enables the risk associated with failure to be actively managed and contained.

The steps highlighted above do not conform to traditional governance models of how to achieve project success. The tenets of social media i.e. transparency, human interaction, collaboration and conversation, represent a paradigm shift in how government institutions can dialogue with citizens. Understanding what makes social media different is a key ingredient towards achieving success in this area.

]]> http://www.rfahey.org/2009/06/20/7-steps-towards-social-media-success/feed/ 1 http://www.rfahey.org/2009/06/10/the-challenges-of-web-20-within-government/ http://www.rfahey.org/2009/06/10/the-challenges-of-web-20-within-government/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:11:55 +0000 Richard Fahey http://www.rfahey.org/?p=721

The Center for American Progress (CAP) held a panel discussion in Washington last week on the use of Web 2.0 technology by the Obama administration. The panel was chaired by Peter Swire (Senior Fellow at CAP, and former counsel to the Change.gov New Media Team). He led an interesting discussion with Tim O’Reilly (Founder of O’Reilly media), Alec Ross (Senior Advisor at the State Department on Innovation), and Faiz Shakir (Research director at Center for American Progress), on Web 2.0 initiatives at the State Department and the issues in its future use throughout the Federal Government. 

At the outset Peter mentions three papers on the CAP website in relation to the Federal Government’s use of Web 2.0. These are:

1) It’s Not the Campaign Any More – This memo documents the different approaches to Web 2.0 by the White House, and the challenges they face. It discusses the contrast between the new and fun things that could be done on the Obama campaign, versus the limitations imposed within the Federal Government. The primary reasons that things are more difficult in the White House include:

• Scale: The Obama campaign had to cope with motivated groups of over 10 million individuals, while the White House has to cope with, and respond to the concerns of over 300 million Americans. This makes it difficult to respond to and manage individual comments. The White House Open for Questions initiative generated over 103,978 questions from 92,937 people in just a few days. This provides an idea of the scale of comments and questions the administration needs to deal with. Given the New Media team at the White House consists of just 8 – 10 people, it’s not feasible for them to interact or engage with so many individuals. Crowdsourcing initiatives such as the use of Google moderator (for Open for Questions) and IdeaScale (for Open Government brainstorming) suggest the administration is attempting to use the wisdom of crowds to filter comments and suggestions. Other organisations e.g. OMBWatch, are also providing analysis of comments, potentially helping the administration to deal with large quantities of feedback. 
• The Clearance process:  Responses to questions need to be “cleared” with all of the relevant agencies, before they can be posted on blogs, twitter or social networking sites. Peter describes an analogy of where an incorrect response to an North Korea question, could result in missiles being launched. While it’s a rather extreme example, the comments and answers posted from the White House could be construed as official government policy or opinion. In terms of foreign relations even seemingly inconsequential comments could have major diplomatic ramifications, and so everything needs to be vetted and analysed before posting. 
• Limits on Government authorizing actions: The White House needs to be careful not to endorse or authorize others to act on its behalf. While the campaign may have been able to take a lackadaisical approach to endorsing individuals or events, things are more nuanced and difficult in the White House. There could be charges of favoritism or politicization if the White House endorses individuals or organisations. The White House has to project an appearance of fairness and objectivity when discussing outside entities e.g. websites or platforms, and as such often says very little in response to it’s use of different technologies. 

2) Six New Media Challenges: Legal and Policy Considerations for Federal Use of Web 2.0 Technology

3) How to Buy Free Software: Procuring Web 2.0 Technology for the Federal Government

Panel discussion

The first part of the discussion focuses on Diplomacy 2.0 and the State Department’s efforts to engage and interact with an online audience to further its mission. Such initiatives include twitter, blogs, youtube and facebook.  An interactive travel map is available to track Secretary Clinton’s travels, while initiatives such as Ask the Secretary have  allowed the public to submit questions directly to the Secretary of State. The initiatives outlined by Alec Ross (including the SWAT campaign), provide a good indication of how social media is being utilized within the department. 

The second part of the discussion focused on the issues facing the adoption of Web 2.0 within government. These include privacy concerns, access for those with disabilities, commercial endorsement and advertising, terms of service agreements, regulations and security concerns. These are highlighted in Peter Swire’s paper on New Media Challenges, and overlap with many of the barriers to social media adoption outlined by the federal Web Managers council last year.

While the issues won’t all be solved overnight, it’s enlightening to see departments and agencies within the federal government taking risks in this area. The rollout of Web 2.0 across government requires risk and the acceptance that while mistakes maybe made, the greater risk is to not embrace these new forms of social software.

Tim O’Reilly talked about Government as a platform, in which users can easily access and mash-up government services to allow for a more transparent, open and participatory form of public interaction. Recent initiatives such as Data.gov, Open Government Initiative, The National Dialogue etc. all serve to highlight how far the administration is embracing the tenets behind Open government. While this movement is only at the beginning, the prevalence of discussions like this, recent barcamps and the upcoming Gov2.0 summit, serve to ensure the lexicon of Web 2.0 increases throughout the federal government.

If the video above is a bit too long there’s a 5-minute Youtube video in which Peter surmises Web 2.0 specific issues in relation to the federal government. There’s also a 23-minute audio interview with Swire available at Science Progress.

The video above was recently released on the GSA’s new Youtube channel. It outlines a wide selection of social media activities throughout the US government. A full list is included at the Whitehouse.gov newmedia page, and more extensive case studies are available at the National Academy of Public Administration’s wiki. Some of the most interesting examples of new media outlined in the video include:

• Library of Congress Flickr photo stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/

• National Park Service Facebook App to share stories and photos http://apps.facebook.com/mynationalparks/

• Peer-to-Patent project http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/peerpriorartpilot/

• Recovery.gov http://www.recovery.gov

• Serve.gov http://www.serve.gov

• State Department’s DipNote blog on Twitter http://twitter.com/dipnote

• State Department on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/US-Department-of-State/15877306073?v=wall&viewas=0

• Troop Tube http://www.trooptube.tv/

• TSA blog http://www.tsa.gov/blog and other federal blogs http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/News/blog.shtml

• U.S. Government channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/usgovernment

• USA.gov http://www.usa.gov

• USA.gov’s government FAQs, email and online chat http://answers.usa.gov

• USA.gov on Twitter http://twitter.com/usagov

Ideas and policy

Govloop has details about the different range of social media policies for different federal agencies, and details of the GSA agreements with social media sites are outlined in a good post at Socialgovernment.com.

Some recent new media examples from the US government which I’ve been particularly interested in relate to the crowdsourcing of ideas. These include:

• National Dialog on Recovery.gov
• Open Government Dialog

Whatever the critics say about these initiatives, they represent a sea change in attitude towards public consultation. Beth Noveck, Vivek Kunda and others recognize that Government does not have a monopoly on the best ideas, and thus should solicit public participation and ideas in appropriate areas. While the ideas and votes submitted for these initiatives are not necessarily large (say in comparison to Open For Questions), they do represent a not insignificant level of engagement with those parties particularly interested in these areas. That cannot be a bad thing.

To keep up-to-date with many of these sites check out govfresh.com, or the new news.usa.gov site (a government-wide news feed service).