Stap isi

19 January 2010

Creating the taste

I’m reading The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes. It provides an elegant analogy for where we are with the web and concepts like sharing, open source and open data.

Discussing Charles Babbage’s prototype computer – “one of the legends of Victorian science, and a parable about the failure of government research funding” – the author posts this note (emphasis mine):

Unlike Harrison’s chronometer, Herschel’s telescope or Davy’s voltaic battery, Babbage’s ‘computer’ had no immediate application that officialdom could see or even imagine, though Babbage claimed correctly that it would transform the calculations for logarithms, astronomical tables, engineering construction models, map-making and marine data. Coleridge once said that radically new poetry ‘must create the taste whereby it is appreciated.’

Sharing technologies are similarly misunderstood by officialdom. Ask your colleagues what they think of Twitter.

The only way to demonstrate value is to implement. That’s why Fix My Street gets a guernsey at every gov 2.0 conference. And why it’s incumbent on agencies and public servants to publish the results of their experiences with online engagement.

To create the taste.

At the risk of over-extending the analogy, the early ‘scientists’ were also mad for self-organised meet-ups, and ‘educating’ the public on the importance of their work.

Sound familiar?

— b3rn   engagement, the persuader   Jan 19, 08:17 PM   #   Comment

15 December 2009

Getafix

The argument in favour of communicating with your constituents beyond your website has been made and won over the last two years. But how to accelerate your organisation’s acceptance of web-based tools for community and collaboration?

We all know the hurdles:

• locked-down PCs and aggressive internet filters and firewalls;
• inadequate resourcing (time, in particular);
• policies that restrict who can speak on behalf of council (outdated now that everyone is a media outlet);
• recordkeeping and privacy requirements that (similarly) date from an era pre-internet; and
• fear – of failure, and success!

How to get over (or around)?

Continued...

— b3rn   guidelines, the persuader, web teams   Dec 15, 10:45 PM   #   Comment

12 May 2009

Still no click love for local government

Bob Cranshaw alerts us to the latest Hitwise report on Australian government website traffic.

Although government website visits were up 10.4% in the year, and Australian government’s share of total traffic (2.4%) is higher than the U.S. (1.7%) and U.K. (0.9%), local government still ain’t getting much click love. About 0.14% of all Australian visits on the Internet.

The results are consistent with those of July 2008.

Of course it’s not just about the numbers. In local government, the first priority is usually to connect with your constituents – an exception might be where tourism is a key local industry – and so you’re looking to engage a large percentage of your constituents rather than a big number of visitors.

How?

Hitwise report a 16.1% increase in traffic from social media to government websites in the past year. For local government, 4.6% of visits originate from social networks and forums. That’s more than twice the number from print media (2.0%). Across government as a whole that trend is even more pronounced.

Search is far the biggest source of visits – an estimated 61.2% at the local level. Hitwise make the point that government is competing with the commercial sector for traffic and must get serious about SEO.

They also recommend that agencies determine which sites get most traffic for specific subjects, and feed those sites with government information.

Download the report here.

— b3rn   stats, the persuader   May 12, 07:26 PM   #   Comment

9 November 2008

Excellence is a useful reference point

From this week on it’s going to be a lot easier to argue for government being part of social networks.

When I saw Obama’s “beautiful behind the scenes images” from election night on his Flickr page and read the comments, I was struck by how this approach was smack-bang right in the middle of the mainstream now.

I know you know, but chances are most of your colleagues now have a notion too.

I liked Marina Hyde’s opinion piece in the Guardian on Saturday.

…this week people were reminded of what an inspiring politician sounds like, and how he carries himself. Excellence is a useful reference point. While that memory remains fresh in the public mind, people will be measuring their own leaders against it…

We know he didn’t take the photos himself, didn’t upload them to Flickr. But they are still real, authentic and human.

Not too many councillors, general managers or council workers are as eloquent as Obama. But most are in fact real, authentic and human.

Perhaps they should show it.

— b3rn   flickr, the persuader   Nov 9, 07:43 PM   #   Comment [1]

22 October 2008

The case for social media #3: Reach

Craig Thomler has just posted a very helpful article called Putting Australian government web traffic in perspective.

We – local government web workers – collect things like page views and visits, but we don’t have much context for these figures. It’s just another KPI that gives good graph.

A few NSW Councils have been sharing their stats on the LG Web Network. Over in the UK, a number of municipal bodies have made their’s public. See for example Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s website statistics. I hope to collate these figures soon in a table, anonymized, to allow some comparison.

But Craig Thomler’s calculations for July 2008, even if a bit out, confirm what we already know. That we’re not getting much attention.

• The total government sector (6,634 sites) accounted for only 2.26 percent of all tracked website visits by Australians.
• Local government’s 1,596 sites accounted for 6.51% of all Government traffic and 0.15% of visits to all tracked websites.
• The Bureau of Meteorology accounts for almost a quarter of all visits to Australian government sites!

The answer? Thomler says engage citizens on their own turf.

— b3rn   stats, the persuader, web metrics   Oct 22, 06:36 PM   #   Comment [1]

17 October 2008

The case for social media #2: Trust

Demos, the think tank for ‘everyday democracy’, has a report online called State of Trust: How to build better relationships between councils and the public. It looks at what they call the “worryingly low levels of public trust” in politics and democratic institutions.

It’s worth paying attention to Demos because their methodology is good. That is, they talk to lots of real people.

Many of their recommendations for improving that level of trust could include social media components.

Continued...

— b3rn   blogging, identity, the persuader, trust   Oct 17, 09:05 PM   #   Comment

10 September 2008

For those 'drink the kool-aid' moments

When talking to management, a neat and precise explanation of the shift required…

Online is a service option, not just a media channel

From my perspective I view online as an engagement channel – combining service delivery, consultation and communication into a single medium, an enabling driver at the core of how organisations interact with their stakeholders, customers, staff and shareholders.

— Craig Thomler, eGov AU, 5 September 2008

… and it’ll fit on a PowerPoint slide.

— b3rn   the persuader   Sep 10, 02:17 PM   #   Comment

8 September 2008

The case for social media #1: How people use government websites

There’s a good case to be made for using social media as part of an online communications strategy based on how Australians currently access government services on the internet.

1. The internet is now the preferred way to contact government – but that desire is not being adequately met.
2. Users want convenience and time savings – but they also want the capacity to communicate with a ‘real’ person.
3. Government is good at informing constituents online – but not so good at empowering constituents to provide information themselves or otherwise transact with government.

Continued...

— b3rn   stats, the persuader   Sep 8, 08:12 PM   #   Comment [6]