Social media usage / participation guidelines

This seems to be something that plenty of people in local gov are trying to work on at the moment and it's not always easy, so I thought I would just post up where I'm at with it in case it was useful to anyone else, and if you want to be useful to me, then I have no problem with that either ;-)
So, not always easy. I've found getting the organisation to have a peek over the edge into online space has taken time and pursuasion in itself. Getting it to be brave enough to dip a toe in more of the same. Now we're paddling in the shallow end I think we need the waterwings of documented policy and/or guidance so we can go further*.
One of the great things about working in the public sector is that we're all so ready to share, and most of the time it isn't just because we need to as resources / time / support are scant to go it alone. I throw my hands up in appreciation of those who are already splashing about (in a waving not drowning way) and have shared their progress. It got me started.
It started as a policy but soon became more of a guidance document. In my head I envisage it being accompanied by a less formal overview, probably the content of the intranet page which becomes it's home.
I've tried to straddle the line between friendly advice in a conversational tone (if we're talking social media surely most appropriate) and the established style of this sort of document. I've tried to include a bit of a summary of what each network or space is to make it more inclusive to 'beginners'.
There is still some work to do...
Useful talks with Lee Jorgensen (Blackburn and Darwen) highlighted an area I had initially shyed away from; special guidance for purdah periods. I intend to revisit this. There is also some mopping up of duplication and conflicting advice.
I'm not sure whether I am almost ready to suggest this is moving closer to version 1.0 than draft...which is the main driver for this post!
And having written it I am now annoyingly aware that there is no facility to attach documents to this post. So I guess...if you want to see where I'm at DM me on Twitter with your email and we'll take it from there. Hopefully there will be time to talk at localgovcamp too!

*I accept full responsiblity for the mixed metaphor and then pushing it too far. In defence, m'lud, I've not had resonable quota of coffee yet.

Old life vs New life

I'm currently undertaking the Digital Media and Society module as part of my masters. It's been great to get stuck into as it meets up with not only so much of what I am currently working on (online local gov) but also my undergraduate work and first industry (journalism and newspapers).
It's been good to retreive some of that undergraduate learning (hello Habermas, my old friend) and put it into context with the current state of play for both sectors.
But while all this is fascinating learning, the time has come to pick my assignment and get on with the final paper. I find myself torn between my old life and new life when it comes to assignment topics:

1. Old life: Discuss the characteristics of online news journalism, indicating where and why it differs from traditional models and practices. (You may discuss the topic either in general or with specific reference to blogs.)
2. New life: It is often claimed that digital technologies have the potential to restore ‘direct democracy’. Explain and evaluate the claim with particular reference to electoral politics.

Option one would be interesting not only as there is so much chatter about this subject at the moment but also as it would be a nice update to my undergraduate dissertation (worryingly 10-years-on).
But I already know which way I will fall. Option two it will be seeing as am in the middle of all our local election online coverage right now (perfect timing). I'm happy with my choice...but it feels a little disloyal and sad to have to choose between my old life and new life.

And the subject is...

Social media in local government internal communications.
After thinking long and hard about whether to go down this route, look at social media in local gov engagement with young people or another avenue entirely I decided internal comms would be best suited to my organisation, the limitations of a part time dissertation and perhaps be useful to others in the sector too.
I'm happy to say this has now been approved by my tutor and I'll be returning to plan the thesis in more detail from the autumn. My feeling at the moment is that an 'active research' approach may work well and be interesting, hopefully piloting some possible social media solutions next year.
While the thesis will mainly look at problems and solutions within my own organisation I do plan to research what else is already in place across the sector.
I'm looking forward to getting started and really excited that my first bit of pilot research took place in the online space!
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to read and/or comment on my post about topic ideas. I'll be happy to share the outcome of my research with anyone interested when the time comes.

Thoughts on my thesis

The time is upon me where I must get some clarity about what my thesis will focus on next year. My dissertation will complete my part time study for a masters in eCommunication.
My ideas so far have been pretty vague and I've got only as far as deciding that my study will look at social media usage by local government. I've come across a couple of other people already researching this area but don't think much has been done as it is such a new area.
Anyway, I've had a few ideas about what I might look at:

• local government use of social media to engage with young citizens
• library service use of social media and effect on take up of service

I am being encouraged to concentrate on service specific research as the other research so far looks to map who is doing what and why. While I don't want to repeat existing research I would also like to think that whatever I look at will be of use within my organisation but perhaps also to others working in the sector.
So local government web people - is there anything you would like more research on or would find particularly interesting and useful for going forward? I obviously don't want other people to decide my thesis for me but would certainly be interested in hearing the thoughts of my fellow local gov webbies.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read, think or respond to this!

@citizens –local government twitters

I started thinking about this after being inspired by Simon Wakeman’s and Liz Azyan’s recent posts on the whys and ways that local government is using, or could be, using Twitter. The spur into action was Twitter’s change from @replies to@mentions, leading me to spot this one of @Derbyshirecc (the twitter of the organisation for which I work and for which currently I do most of the official tweeting for).

Twitter is not RSS. Why is @DerbyshireCC on twitter if it's not about giving it a human face? *sigh* #LocalGovtFail – 1:31am Mar 14th from TweetDeck.

I think this first part of the post will probably come across as defensive. I don’t really want it to but I think it probably will.
We soft-launched on twitter on 4 March 2009. This was the first step into social media for the organisation. Sure, we have a website but we hadn’t got involved in any other networks.
As yet we’ve not publicised our twitter presence elsewhere online or offline. We’re still finding our feet. Mostly, we’re still learning from other council’s and organisations who have been on twitter for longer and who have different approaches.
Yes, most of our tweets so far could seem like an RSS feed – news, events, consultations. We split jobs off into a separate @JobsDerbyshire account (as an aside I don’t think this one will survive long term and am struggling to identify value in it).
Our intention is to start making our tweets more conversational. We’ve been watching @Dorsetforyou and like their approach although perhaps ours won’t end up being quite so chatty (not saying their approach is wrong, again just my own feeling for our organisation).
We started moving in this direction with ad hoc tweets yesterday – all related to content on our website but more conversational nevertheless.
Where we go from here or where we end up is still very much up for discussion. And all local government is in the same boat really…the general feeling seems to be that we should be getting involved in social media in order to engage with citizens (or talk to people in everyday language) but how and where we do that are still questions to which we’re all trying to find answers.
The @mention tweet is really interesting though – how would we give @Derbyshirecc a ‘human face’?
I suppose I (or another member of the online communcations team) could be the ‘face’ of the organisation and tweet conversationally with followers. There would surely have to be guidelines though of what is and isn’t appropriate to deal with in person on Twitter? Could / should a communications officer have this responsibility?
I think that if we ever do get contacted by one of our followers about a service we’ll be much better off forwarding that query onto a relevant officer (in similar fashion to contact into our call centre) rather than an online communications officer trying to answer directly. So, played out all 30,000 plus staff could need to have access to tweet to the account at various times. Apart from being logistically undoable would this multi-voiced twitter feed be anymore worthwhile than the seemingly faceless one we have now?
How else then? Perhaps the best way would be for our chief executive and leader of the council to have personal twitter streams. Would these contain personal tweets as well as highlighting news etc on our website or elsewhere? The potential here is for ghost-writing (been enough about that on Twitter recently) and possibly having tweets posted by communications officers of one ilk or other rather than the chief exec or leader themselves (I am not saying this WOULD definitely happen, merely is a possibility for any organisation). Is that really any better either?
I would certainly like to see more councillors using twitter or social media to listen to and talk with people. With county elections in June I hope social media and what use it is to them will be something that will be put on the agenda for any new as well as re-elected councillors.
At the moment I don’t think we’ve got @Derbyshirecc quite right but neither do I think we’re completely off track. Although I doubt it looks like it to our social-media-savvy citizens taking a step into the online space is big step forward and we hope to move on from here in leaps and bounds.
Perhaps it may be back to a slightly-tempered but defensive stance: if you aren’t interested, don’t listen; if you want to talk to us, please do; and if you think we could do something better, tell us!
I don't think we joined Twitter with the intention of gaining another broadcast channel although that is pretty much all we’ve done with it so far. I think it would be great if people started talking to us, about council services but also about themselves, via social media. I would love for this to be a starter in the organisation being able to be involved and work in online communities. I do question whether people want to though. In my personal life do I want to talk with my county or district council, my fire service, the police force? No more than I wanted to converse with them by phone, email or in person ie only when I want a service or something has gone wrong.
I want to spend my time talking to people who share my interests or can further my knowledge. I guess I apply some roughly Reithian values to my networks – do they inform, educate or entertain?
I would see an organisation as falling into one of the first two categories and therefore merely broadcasting at me is fine for me.
But I want to know (and I think the organisation should want to know) how people want us to engage with them on social networks, if in fact they do? It is, after all, about conversation and that takes at least two!