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Gwynne - I remember us having this exact conversat...

2011-02-28T10:16:51.106-05:00

Gwynne - I remember us having this exact conversation at a Gov 2.0 event about a year ago, and am a little frustrated that we're still having this same conversation a year later. While I'm glad that we have overcome many of the policy barriers in many agencies, the fact that each agency interprets these policies differently is probably the most frustrating thing. Personally, I come from the camp that believes things like Facebook and Twitter are public commons where the government is simply a participant.

I'll be fascinated to hear the legal perspecti...

2011-02-23T22:29:27.771-05:00

I'll be fascinated to hear the legal perspective, but it seems to me that government is simply a participant. What do the official government Terms of Service say? Anything?

On the other hand, I think the last time I followed a link off a government website, it warned me that I was being taken to a site that the US government had no control over. If basic website interaction for some agencies is still circa 1997, I don't suppose these other concerns are too surprising.

Thoughtful as always! Challenge is that we are st...

2011-01-03T22:29:09.340-05:00

Thoughtful as always! Challenge is that we are still having many of the wrong discussions on many levels. Sequence: (1) expected results with education and evangelism -the why? (2) the organizational investment with story narratives -the how? (3) the experiences created by the combinations of technology -the what? and performance /implementation -the when/who. We are getting virtually every question confused-the why,how, what, when, who because we are using spectrum extremes of "social media" and procedures designed for transactional processes that create communication barriers. Linear vs distributed. For all of the flash, little return to this point. The results we get directly derive from the way that we define the problems. Not hard to obfuscate!

Much to think about there. Thank you for the refle...

2011-01-03T00:36:22.050-05:00

Much to think about there. Thank you for the reflections, the link and the comment.

Reminds me of the high school students in a Texas ...

2010-12-19T11:10:57.754-05:00

Reminds me of the high school students in a Texas school who signed up to participate in a telephone fundraiser, and had to ask the adviser how to dial out. See, their cellphones allow any 10-digit number to be dialed without a "1" or "9" first. Not for those telephones. When I heard the story, it was a wake-up call.

Thanks very much to Joe Sanchez who passed on the...

2010-11-29T21:59:34.292-05:00

Thanks very much to Joe Sanchez who passed on the link to the excellent post by Douglas Rushkoff in the Huff Post, "Why Johnny Can't Program: A New Medium Requires A New Literacy." Mr. Rushkoff does a much better job on this topic than I did.

And, follow Joe on Twitter @sanchezjb.

Auto-caption does not work. TheGreatPing.com capti...

2010-11-27T21:23:47.079-05:00

Auto-caption does not work. TheGreatPing.com captioning does.

Networks of social media are valuable marketing ve...

2010-10-15T05:39:08.715-04:00

Networks of social media are valuable marketing vehicle. The demographics of each network must be reviewed to establish an effective marketing plan for each.

online background checks

@nusum yes, agreed that trust underlies this succe...

2010-07-19T20:53:46.304-04:00

@nusum yes, agreed that trust underlies this success. Importantly, this is actually an element that any individual can help build. There are so many things that an individual has no control over. I have heard many times that "they" don't get it, but I have had bosses who were reluctant to trust. If you can deliver for them--and be honest when you can't--you build the infrastructure that becomes trust. I know that you have had that experience, too!

Thanks, Thom!

Great observations Gwynne. Fun campaign and I thin...

2010-07-19T14:50:10.871-04:00

Great observations Gwynne. Fun campaign and I think the lessons of Speed, Planning, Talent and Trust are incredibly valid. Especially the trust one. Without the trust in this case none of this could have happened. Imagine the replies going though a communications approval process similar to that in most agencies and being released 3 months after the fact...somehow I suspect they just would not have the same impact, not to mention relevance.

I really think trust lies at the root of it.

Good one. (Any comment more than two sentences des...

2010-07-11T20:59:54.403-04:00

Good one. (Any comment more than two sentences deserves its own reply blog post, I always say.)

"blindly avoiding risk is as bad an idea as b...

2010-06-17T11:16:53.675-04:00

"blindly avoiding risk is as bad an idea as blindly embracing risk" ... nice!

Superb!

2010-06-14T09:13:58.517-04:00

Superb!

Excellent points. I consider it a failure on my p...

2010-06-13T22:32:10.658-04:00

Excellent points. I consider it a failure on my part that despite my persistent lobbying I can't get my agency to give serious consideration to using social media for anything more than repackaging press releases and whatever the current campaign is pushing.

It is a valuable bolg for me, thank you for sharin...

2010-06-11T04:28:41.587-04:00

It is a valuable bolg for me, thank you for sharing.

Dennis, thanks for bringing up the point about sta...

2010-04-09T22:48:37.015-04:00

Dennis, thanks for bringing up the point about statistical validity--and the double-edged sword of surveys. The PRA guidance memo does talk about not using ratings/thumbs up/stars to make policy decisions. This is especially important given the informal nature of social media commenting. Even YouTube has changed their rating system away from 1-5 star to a simple "like" because they found the 5-star meaningless.

I'm going to read this in more detail; thanks ...

2010-04-08T08:45:35.146-04:00

I'm going to read this in more detail; thanks for the overview. Having been in the survey business at one time I well remember the hoops (and extra costs and expensive delays) we had to go through getting public surveys approved.

Agencies still avoid performing statistically sound surveys to measure their effectiveness in order to avoid the complications of reviews. That reduces "burden" on the public. It also leads some agencies to use less statistically sound methods to measure their effectiveness.

Opening up more clear opportunities to use social media based metrics concerning government programs is definitely a good thing, as long as people realize that it's not easy to map data describing web-based conversations and comments to reliable population statistics.

@gwynne: Yes, very true.

2010-01-25T20:36:50.013-05:00

@gwynne: Yes, very true.

@govy said "It's the same kind of agreeme...

2010-01-25T20:01:11.706-05:00

@govy said "It's the same kind of agreement that people have made with Facebook...or at least have come to assume Facebook has agreed to. Same thing with Google."

And let me say, "same thing with government."

While I do believe that users on social networking...

2010-01-25T05:13:55.004-05:00

While I do believe that users on social networking sites are slowly becoming less concerned about their information being public, there STILL must be a level of agreed upon and trusted privacy between the user and the organization (gov't or commercial).

Making a statement like that which Schmidt made is like him telling me not to use online banking services unless I want all of my account and financial information publicly available. Simply because I do things online doesn't mean I expect every bit of it to be public. There are some things that should always be private and that's an agreement which happens between the user and the company. It's the same kind of agreement that people have made with Facebook...or at least have come to assume Facebook has agreed to. Same thing with Google.

If our federal agency depends on Youtube, a "...

2010-01-13T13:56:36.470-05:00

If our federal agency depends on Youtube, a "free" service, for captioning and hosting mission critical video, what are the risks? Do we have a guarantee that those captioned videos will be available like we would if a paid outsourcing vendor hosted them?

As the Section 508 coordinator at my agency, I like the idea of easy-to-acquire captions. Once the budget line item goes away for paid transcripts and captions, it will be a negotiation to get that money back in the departmental budget. Can Youtube deliver?

Gwynne, I've been taking a wonderful trip thro...

2010-01-07T15:50:10.062-05:00

Gwynne, I've been taking a wonderful trip through your blog archives and I just wanted to thank you for this post.

The act of sharing simple (although sophisticated) insights like this is a great way to foster a data-driven, CITIZEN-driven culture within government communicators.

@ari I think you nail one of the challenges of mul...

2010-01-06T09:27:39.655-05:00

@ari I think you nail one of the challenges of multiple channels--coordination. I know that it drives me insane when somebody decides to link, for example, their Posterous to their Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, etc., and then unsuspecting friends get spammed with circular updates!

While that may be annoying for an individual, for a government agency it's unacceptable. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the traffic flow. Just because the vendors make it easy to rebroadcast, that doesn't mean it makes sense. My recommendation? Before you start multi-casting, map out the flow. Make sure you are feeding in a strategic way.

For what it's worth since it was commented abo...

2010-01-06T02:32:05.656-05:00

For what it's worth since it was commented above, I am a stickler opposed to anyone regardless of reason for sending Twitter messages to Facebook and/or LinkedIn. I can see the value of the reverse; I occasionally send Facebook updates to Twitter... but Twitter out? No. But that's me.

@Tom, thanks for sharing what you all are doing. N...

2010-01-04T22:17:36.092-05:00

@Tom, thanks for sharing what you all are doing. Nothing beats experience like experience. :-) I'm interested in hearing more about the metrics you develop. Like is there a difference in clickthru on your Twitter messages vs. those same messages posted as FB status?

@annon, funny! If you are interested in a federal job, check out www.usajobs.gov. Don't know if there are many twitter-typist positions, tho.