Challenging us
Em
of people who are keen to work closely with us. One was Oli Barrett,
who is working on this:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/071211_council_social_action.aspx
They are going to announce a new awards scheme that will celebrate the
use of social media in resolving social problems. There is a lot more
to it than just this, but I will ask Oli to explain it in person. He
is wanting to get to the very people that we are targetting - to try
to get the Ministers and SPADs thinking about how social media can
work with their strategic direction/policy making etc etc. He is
already well-placed (being on a committee with the PM helps) but he
would like us to go with him to Tom Watson in a month or so.
The other person I spoke to was Mark O'Neill, the CIO of DCMS (Dept
for culture media and sports). He is wanting to throw us some
challenges to solve within a time limit. Oli is keen that we do this
and could even involve some of his contacts. I shall be speaking to
Mark later about this, but I would like anyone who is up for taking
this forward actively to let me know, so that we can start properly
motoring with this.
Cheers
Jeremy Gould
Em
respond to these in a very public and lauded way. So - before we
launch into answering these problems, can you clever people find some
way that we can very loudly do this? I would also like to have some
record of the amount of time it has taken us to find the solution, and
how much the solution might cost.
Challenges are as follows:
1. How do we communicate important messages over multiple channels -
text messages, RSS feeds, emails, Twitters (brrr) in a way that is
inclusive, sustainable and useful?
2. How do we come up with a way for people to authenticate with us
just the once? And no, not the Government Gateway! OpenID? Why should
someone who wants to comment on a paper on the FCO website also need
to set up a DCMS account to comment on one of ours?
3. How do we link initiatives with delivery? We define a policy,
someone implements it and then it makes a positive difference to
people's lives but that's not captured anywhere. Should all public
initiatives have a social media/vlogging strand?
>
>
>
>
>
> > At Steve Moore's Seriously Social event last week I spoke to a couple
> > of people who are keen to work closely with us. One was Oli Barrett,
> > who is working on this:
>
> > use of social media in resolving social problems. There is a lot more
> > to it than just this, but I will ask Oli to explain it in person. He
> > is wanting to get to the very people that we are targetting - to try
> > to get the Ministers and SPADs thinking about how social media can
> > work with their strategic direction/policy making etc etc. He is
> > already well-placed (being on a committee with the PM helps) but he
> > would like us to go with him to Tom Watson in a month or so.
>
> > The other person I spoke to was Mark O'Neill, the CIO of DCMS (Dept
> > for culture media and sports). He is wanting to throw us some
> > challenges to solve within a time limit. Oli is keen that we do this
> > and could even involve some of his contacts. I shall be speaking to
> > Mark later about this, but I would like anyone who is up for taking
> > this forward actively to let me know, so that we can start properly
> > motoring with this.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Em
the wrong forum :)
Lloyd Davis
I have simple/simplistic/stupid answers -
1. This is the Social Media Snowflake - I believe we will find the
answers to this question by experimentation, making snowballs that
contain multiple media/methods and by letting go of the idea that any
of them are "channels". Also Project VRM
2. OpenID works for me, but this is where some of the clever people
agree with me and others get really angry and jump up and down and go
a funny colour (I think)
3. I have a bit of an aversion to the word "capture" - comes from too
much time in knowledge management. Otherwise I think it's the same
thing as Q1.
I think overall the challenges are still framed in broadcast terms and
need to be more conversational, but I refer my honourable friends to
the caveat I gave earlier re: simple/simplistic/stupid.
ll
--
Lloyd Davis
Perfect Path Consulting Ltd
Helping people be brilliant in the knowledge economy
http://www.perfectpath.co.uk/
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Feargal Hogan
>
> 1. How do we communicate important messages over multiple channels -
> text messages, RSS feeds, emails, Twitters (brrr) in a way that is
> inclusive, sustainable and useful?
Try something. See how it works. Figure out who it reaches.
Get some feedback. Analyse the effectivenedss of the medium,
although not too deeply.
Try another approach. See how that works.
Repeat and learn.
>
> 2. How do we come up with a way for people to authenticate with us
> just the once? And no, not the Government Gateway! OpenID? Why should
> someone who wants to comment on a paper on the FCO website also need
> to set up a DCMS account to comment on one of ours?
Why would you need to authenticate someone just for commenting?
Do comments carry greater validity if you know who sent them?
> 3. How do we link initiatives with delivery? We define a policy,
> someone implements it and then it makes a positive difference to
> people's lives but that's not captured anywhere. Should all public
> initiatives have a social media/vlogging strand?
>
Yes. Without exception.
jerem...@gmail.com
On Feb 12, 2008, at 10:55 pm, Feargal Hogan wrote:
>
>> Challenges are as follows:
>>
>> 1. How do we communicate important messages over multiple channels -
>> text messages, RSS feeds, emails, Twitters (brrr) in a way that is
>> inclusive, sustainable and useful?
> You approach the project with an open mind and a willingness to learn.
>
> Try something. See how it works. Figure out who it reaches.
> Get some feedback. Analyse the effectivenedss of the medium,
> although not too deeply.
>
> Try another approach. See how that works.
>
> Repeat and learn.
>
Agreed. Enough navel gazing. We need to do more trying and reviewing.
>>
>> 2. How do we come up with a way for people to authenticate with us
>> just the once? And no, not the Government Gateway! OpenID? Why should
>> someone who wants to comment on a paper on the FCO website also need
>> to set up a DCMS account to comment on one of ours?
>
> Why would you need to authenticate someone just for commenting?
> Do comments carry greater validity if you know who sent them?
>
Don't know if this is about commenting but about transactions?
>
>> 3. How do we link initiatives with delivery? We define a policy,
>> someone implements it and then it makes a positive difference to
>> people's lives but that's not captured anywhere. Should all public
>> initiatives have a social media/vlogging strand?
>>
> Yes. Without exception.
>
Why? Measurement and evaluation of a behaviour change or service
improvement - why should that involve social media necessarily?
>
>
> >
Em
but will ...
On Feb 12, 11:17 pm, jeremygo...@gmail.com <jeremygo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
Feargal Hogan
> > Do comments carry greater validity if you know who sent them?
> >
> Don't know if this is about commenting but about transactions?
I have some small measure of reservation about this. I can see some validity
in making it easier to give feedback. A single point of registration where a
cookie (or whatever) remembers who we are and eases our way thro' various
layers of .gov.uk sites.
But as we all know, there are good cookies and bad cookies. And when the
government comes into it, there is a real possibility of an embarassing
kickback from a 'realisation' that the govt is tracking everything we do
across <<every>> govt website.
Lets go back for a moment to the original question
> Why should someone who wants to comment on a paper
> on the FCO website also need
> to set up a DCMS account to comment on one of ours?
Can I ask a more important - IMHO - supplementary?
Why would anyone need an account to comment on <<any>> govt paper?
Is the "who said it" more important than the "what they said"?
This is key to the social media explosion. That there is no lectern and no
spotlights. People 'speak' from their seats in audience and we don't always
see who they are. Or if they are wearing a suit or jeans? Or are they male
or female? Or black or white?
So we have a real opportunity for listening to the message and not admiring
the speakers poise and control.
IMHO, the DCMS are asking the wrong question. Authentication is not
something they should be concerned about, until the point that the audience
is screaming and shouting at them for their failure to deliver a common
authentication system for all govt websites.
And I'm pretty sure that won't be very soon.
> >
> >> 3. How do we link initiatives with delivery? We define a policy,
> >> someone implements it and then it makes a positive difference to
> >> people's lives but that's not captured anywhere. Should all public
> >> initiatives have a social media/vlogging strand?
> >>
> > Yes. Without exception.
> >
> Why? Measurement and evaluation of a behaviour change or service
> improvement - why should that involve social media necessarily?
Why not? Don't lets pretend that we know today what tomorrows beneficiaries
will want/need/use.
It is not difficult to setup a social media response platform. And only
ministers and SPADs have the clout to say "... and from henceforth thou
shalt include a social media response platform with every initiative".
Some will be ignored. Fine. Move on. Learn from it.
But don't say "Oh we won't need one with this initiative", because we are
quite likely to be wrong.
philralph
govhack wiki
http://www.govhack.com/Main_Page
(under propositions)
On Feb 13, 7:47 am, "Feargal Hogan" <fear...@thehoganfamily.info>
wrote:
Alasdair...@googlemail.com
them and apologise for the techy nature of the reply
1. The first thing to think about here is what is generating the
message - if you can get RSS off the page then it means that the
information is available in xml somewhere in the system. In theory if
you can get xml out of the system then you could use an xsl to style
the same message into any other message format - ie a text message or
email. Depending on how sophisticated you wanted to make your
messaging system - ie targetting messages at different groups of
people you would then probably want to process it through a rules
engine such as JBOSS rules (others will work but this one is open
source so you could roll it out without licensing issues) to determine
which message goes to which text group etc. For the social media sites
it would be worth looking at the Google Open Social API - I haven't
had a chance to look at this in any depth so far but in theory it
should enable you to distribute messages to multiple platforms - the
other alternative is to inlcude the API from the social networking
sites into your own application, this is something that we are
currently doing in Camden for a couple of website enhancements that we
are about to launch later this month. Whilst these approaches are
potentially sustainable from a technical point of view - it does not
help with the useful bit. This will depend on the relevance of the
information - and that is down to you guys.
2. The question of federated ID is not as complex as suppliers like to
make out. There are a number of systems that exist already that will
allow tokens to be passed from one identification system to another
and authenticate users accross one system , Gvt gateway is just a
complex implementation of such a system. The issue always is whether
or not the receiving system is set up to accept such tokens and in the
case of many government systems whether that system is outsourced and
in these cases just how expensive the contractors will be to carry out
a relatively trivial piece of development. There is an associated cost
with the federated id system of maintaining it and its linke to the
other systems it connects to which someone would have to pick up.
3. Sounds like a serious piece of academic research to me. I suggest
that someone gives Bill Dutton at the Oxford Internet Institute a call
( http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/) I am sure that they will have some ideas
in this space
Alasdair
Noel Hatch
And the everyday person can use social media simply to gather info (google/wikipedia) or communicate quickly (msn/texting) right to producing blogs/videos, mashing data or creating social networks. These all develop useful skills from social capital to entrepreneurial/creative production skills (pretty useful for the DCMS). This is the outcome stuff, but on the practical initatives side, it could be
- introducing social media tools (whether in house/external) when people "check into" or "check out of" transactional services (using RSS feeds in a similar way as Patient Opinion does)
- getting a group of residents together and videoing how they interact with social media tools used for (or to interact with) public services and another group interested in data mashing about how they could improve how data is presented
Justin
Can I just reiterate something from a government perspective. Yes
it's blocked in a lot of departments (very different from banned) but
there are a lot of departments that can use it.
I think Noels point is spot on - its about how the channels are used
and the differences they can make to work activity. I also find that
trying to find a comparrison and overlaying on existing work practices/
systems also helps.
On to the questions
> > 1. How do we communicate important messages over multiple channels -
> > text messages, RSS feeds, emails, Twitters (brrr) in a way that is
> > inclusive, sustainable and useful?
instance? What would others suggest would be a good rate of success
when using these tools? These tools need to be integrated into
standard communications activity. They should not be used as a single
channel to reach an audience.
> > 2. How do we come up with a way for people to authenticate with us
> > just the once? And no, not the Government Gateway! OpenID? Why should
> > someone who wants to comment on a paper on the FCO website also need
> > to set up a DCMS account to comment on one of ours?
> > 3. How do we link initiatives with delivery? We define a policy,
> > someone implements it and then it makes a positive difference to
> > people's lives but that's not captured anywhere. Should all public
> > initiatives have a social media/vlogging strand?
demonstrate ROI.
On Feb 13, 9:31 pm, "Noel Hatch" <noel.hat...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Most of you have already covered the key points and from a technical point
> of view I don't have enough expertise to propose anything better! I would
> try and picture all of this from the perspective of the everyday person, how
> do they use these channels and how would social media make a positive
> difference to their lives. This was the biggest lesson I faced when
> introducing these tools in our organisation for internal/multi-agency use
> (with an exceptional pilot with a service user group). We had to unlearn
> everything about the tools and start getting people to start from
> collaborative policy making on a flipchart and then moving onto using a wiki
> right at the end. This in a climate where Facebook has been banned for
> staff!
>
> And the everyday person can use social media simply to gather info
> (google/wikipedia) or communicate quickly (msn/texting) right to producing
> blogs/videos, mashing data or creating social networks. These all develop
> useful skills from social capital to entrepreneurial/creative production
> skills (pretty useful for the DCMS). This is the outcome stuff, but on the
> practical initatives side, it could be
>
> feeds in a similar way as Patient Opinion does)
> another group interested in data mashing about how they could improve how
> data is presented
>
> a local government perspective, which may or may not be relevant to govt
> depts?
>
Em
and deliver to Mark - publicly? I will then write a case study and try
to get some attention to this? I have flu, therefore rubbish :(
Em
Jeremy Gould
Is there any value / point in us spending time on this? What is Mark planning to do next. Better if he becomes part of this conversation himself or comes along to a meet up. Which reminds me, new thread coming up...
Mark O'Neill
here to turn up at the end of the discussion, steal what I think may
be of use and ignore anything that sounds a bit difficult.
A bit of background to the three challenges which Emma was so kind as
to post for me.
The first - how do we handle the multiple channels of discourse? -
reflects the fact that people want us to communicate with them in ways
which are convenient to them. So if I launch something on the web
people may want us to tell them about updates/status via email, RSS,
Twitter, carrier pigeon etc. So it's not about our choice of channels
where I agree entirely with posters about the need to understand the
benefits/disadvantages of each option but more about how people want
us to keep in touch with them. So given that they want different
channels how do I manage it?
I am aware of individual tools for repurposing feeds but is anyone
offering a simple aggregator which I can point to so I can just direct
an RSS feed or nicely formatted XML and it will do the push? Or should
I knock something together out of S3 and Skype?
On the second, there are two issues here - the first is how do we
support registration as part of the individual consultation process
where we use it to a) have a conversation with people as opposed to a
goldfish encounter and b) as a way of tackling astroturfing and sock
puppets? The second is how do we carry conversations between domains?
Transactions are one thing but information is quite another. I take
the points about the need to avoid a sense of surveillance but if I
have a joint initiative with BERR and FCO wouldn't it be nice if
people could use the same identity in all worlds, if they want to?
The third is a more meta question. Policy development risks being
rooted either in abstraction or anecdote. I am not proposing a
cybernetic approach to policy development and implementation but it
would be good if we had a basic toolkit for making some of these
things real back in the ivory tower. I am always amazed and delighted
when I get a chance to see some of the amazing things my Department's
policies foster but it is intermittent and disconnected. I know CIO
are pondering on this but I am always glad to hear about what people
have done.
I take Jeremy's point and will try and get along to a meet up.
Mark
Em
Em
x
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
Lloyd Davis
exactly what you're after. Are you saying that you'd like to be able
to say "Here's the message of today" and then for that to be
automagically fired out through as many media as we can think of?
I'll be there on Thursday so perhaps we can talk about it then.
ll
Feargal Hogan
> The first - how do we handle the multiple channels of discourse? -
> reflects the fact that people want us to communicate with them in ways
> which are convenient to them. So if I launch something on the web
> people may want us to tell them about updates/status via email, RSS,
> Twitter, carrier pigeon etc. So it's not about our choice of channels
> where I agree entirely with posters about the need to understand the
> benefits/disadvantages of each option but more about how people want
> us to keep in touch with them. So given that they want different
> channels how do I manage it?
I'm really unsure that we should try to fulfill your wildest dreams.
There really is quite a few dangers in having a one-click publishing system.
IMHO, you should be looking at upskilling your people.
Why not have 5 people working on 5 different communication streams.
Taking ownership of and interest in response rates and impact, but not being
blamed for systemic failure.
All learning from their new experiences and sharing their new found
knowledge with each other.
That will produce lasting and real benefits.
>
> On the second, there are two issues here - the first is how do we
> support registration as part of the individual consultation process
> where we use it to a) have a conversation with people as opposed to a
> goldfish encounter and b) as a way of tackling astroturfing and sock
> puppets? The second is how do we carry conversations between domains?
> Transactions are one thing but information is quite another. I take
> the points about the need to avoid a sense of surveillance but if I
> have a joint initiative with BERR and FCO wouldn't it be nice if
> people could use the same identity in all worlds, if they want to?
I am delighted that you are aware of the ID/BB issues.
So long as the reg systems are voluntary and have tangible user benefits
then there is no real issue about implementing a cross domain tracking
solution.
But unless sock puppets are a real and known problem you shouldn't really be
planning to combat them. You may end up tackling aproblem that isn't there.
Feargal