The lottery game: or 100K for social media
Posted by Ingrid Koehler on May 20, 2009
I can always tell when I’m in a bit of a funk about things because I start playing the lottery game. It’s a simple what-would-you-do-if-you-won game. For a million or two, I might well buy a really nice house in Tennessee (my home state), maybe something formerly owned by a lesser stars in country music, and I could afford to look around for just the right job. For one of those mega Euro wins, I’d probably see about buying a few hundred acres and starting my own distillery. A girl can dream, and as you can see, my dreams are entirely selfish (though I’m sure I’d endow a scholarship or two.)
But what if I could lay my hands on £150K of public money? And what if it were earmarked around social media for improvement in local government. What could you do?
The traditional stuff
We’re at the tipping point in social media in councils right now. We have some early adopters. We have some interested parties. But we also have a number of people who are sort of in wait and see mode. They want proof that it makes a difference. And that want that proof from a respectable voice, not the passionate and pixel-eyed.
Some money could be usefully spent in evaluating existing projects, here and abroad to find out what works well, to identify the things that are (currently) value for money.
A little bit of guidance never goes amiss. And (gasp) as dreadful as this sounds, I think maybe something in hard copy would be worthwhile. Maybe an introduction to social media for councils and councillors that’s accessible to the people who hardly ever go online but who may have a lot of weight in local decision making processes.
A contest?
Is there a Show Us a Better Way equivalent for local government? Some people are already using local government data (what there is of it available) to help local people find out about things and get involved in their local areas (BeLocal, HopHive for example). Is there a way to spend money that could help councils make the data available to developers. Would public money spent with social entrepreneurs in this context make sense?
Improving performance
Using and capturing data in more effective ways is really the next big step in improving performance. But there’s a lot of soft data out there, the real experience of customers, users and non-users that’s not cycling into performance. People are talking online, via Facebook, Twitter, local forums about what it’s like to live in an area. Is there something we could do to help councils tap into the chat and use it to engage in conversations about how make things happen locally?
I’ve seen some councils (Hackney, Rotherham, Barnet) using social techniques to capture the customer experience. The material is often never put online, but is used is to show the impact of poor quality services to managers, councillors and decision-makers that could never be expressed through traditional performance report. Would a bit of money help advance this kind of work?
What if there was a way that you could more effectively map people’s experiences of public services and their needs not tracking them with potentially out-of-date data but by working with them using social media and mashing-up mood and fact? Could a little bit of money make that happen?
Dream bigger
This is just off the top of my head. I’m in a bit of a funk this afternoon and a girl can dream… Can you dream up something better?
This entry was posted on May 20, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under improvement, socialmedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Sus said
Random thoughts:
- First: does the acceptance issue lie within the organization or with the public
- Acceptance issues within the organization: Does your intranet provide social media features? People could make first hand experiences playing around.
- And just today I was wondering whether mobile phones are the platform for future social media apps? More people have a phone then a computer and it is literally mobile.
Ingrid Koehler said
Ahhh…brilliant point and one I’d totally missed – the mobile apps one.
Re acceptance: I think there’s already a firmly entrenched section of the public that would be accepting of this. There are other programmes that support digital inclusion for those that don’t/can’t – not that more couldn’t be done.
Acceptance on an organisational level will come when the benefits become more clear.
Carl Haggerty said
MMM, what a classic question – What if?
well, I’d have to say evaluation is a key priority – But i think the money does need to go where we can support a culture shift so my thinking has led me to 2 things
– An online social media training experience.
– FREE public sector roadshow on social media best practice (reaching the parts of the UK that other roadshows don’t)
my experience here in Devon has shown me that once people start to play the ideas come think and fast, but skills in key areas such as media editing, effective blogging, online facilitation, is a barrier for real progress. So some kind of formal training experience to support these people would enable them to get the kind of thing they need.
I’d also suggest a near to FREE public sector roadshow on social media best practice (perhaps in partnership with a commercial events organiser) where a series of events around the country travelling far north and south and east and west to reach those who often never attend conferences but want to find out how it is done. Some money could support paying councils for their staff time to share experiences and enable others in similar fields to be inspired.
I’d rather let my libraries people speak to fellow libraries people about good practice then a webbie speaking to a policy person for example.
The key issues and challenges for me this year where money could be well spent filling a gap are in these key areas of:
– Evaluation
– Awareness and training
– Innovative apps (open source re-usable for local authorities) mobile as well as computer based
I will think some more on this though.
What would you do? – The lottery game: or 100K for social media « Policy and Performance « Carl’s Notepad said
[...] The lottery game: or 100K for social media [...]
Steven Tuck said
I’ve have been thinking about ways to use social media to collect qualitative data and use it to enhance the quantitative data we collect relatively easily (mood and fact). Parental or student opinion of a school presented with the Ofsted report, community groups maintaining information and sharing intelligence about the localities in which they live etc.
I have been working on a rudimentary watchlist in order to discover and aggregate online communities and individuals with an interest in their area and council with a view to possible engagement. The watchlist also serves as a useful tool for demonstrating how much is going on online that may not be being captured and considered – (can be quite a shock to some). I would imagine many local councils eventually going down the same road. Is it worth developing such a tool that any/all councils could use to save them redeveloping a bespoke version every time. Might even be useful for individuals and community groups too.
David Wilcox said
We had a fascinating discussion yesterday at the RSA about digital inclusion and social capital, from which I distilled some ideas about “digital barn rising” that might chime in with Carl’s.
The idea was to develop a roadshow/travelling circus that would:
* do some pre-planning with key interests in an area to map what happening at present
*help run an event that would provide a practical similulation of how to aggregate and enhance exising online activity
* also provide hands-on experience
* leave behind a demonstration of what’s possible … using free or low cost systems so it doesn’t matter if it isn’t developed further but just starts a fresh round of thinking
There’s lots of experience of design charrettes in community planning and architecture … why not the equivalent in this field, where shared commitment and experience of the new tools involved is even more important?
I’ll be discussing later today with colleagues Amy Ward and Andy Gibson how this might be supported using the terrific how-to content we have developed with Cass Business School for the NESTA-funded Social by Social handbook and website.
Make sense? Any support over on the Digital Engagement Network would be welcome and/or glad to develop further here of course.
x333xxx said
I’m with Carl on this one. I think one of the biggest challenges in addressing social media issues in local government is ignorance and fear. It’s rather like accessibility of third party applications which council web teams desperately need to get onto suppliers’ agendas as an issue that needs fixing sooner rather than later.
But I digress. Raising awareness of what social media can do for the council in terms of democratic engagement, service user engagement or simply telling people what’s on in the local area, is definitely the way to go. I know of at least one council which has met a brick wall from its legal people over establishing a council presence on Facebook because of fears of reputational damage, etc., etc.
Whilst many elected members are twittering away, they’re still way in a minority. Personally I’d not be in favour of councillors tweeting all the way through council meetings when really they should be focusing on the business at hand – it can be very disconcerting to notice that people seem to be otherwise distracted, and in a democratic context is rather disingenuous I feel.
So what’s needed is an education programme – aimed at policymakers, senior management teams, web teams and key services (eg those identified by Socitm Insight Website Take-up Service as being what the public are looking to access). By dispelling myths, illustrating examples of good practice, improved take-up of service, engagement of young people in democracy through social media, and how to manage reputational management issues, is key to ultimate success in my view.
adrianb1 said
Some really good suggestions here.
I wonder does it break into three parts:
1. getting the message to those not currently using social media, e.g. through hard copy publication. I like the free roadshow idea. You could blitz it with five people covering 70 councils each over 6-9 months so you go directly to all councillors and senior officers. The presenters share their experience on-line as they go, including picking up existing good examples.
2. Make the best of what’s already being used – sharing good and interesting practice. Do using social media, but maybe collect in a more systematic way (e.g. on a wiki?) This could be applied to particular issues, perhaps working with pilot authorities already reasonably well advanced, e.g. on use of public data, or using social media to help transformation efforts (e.g. using the service user’s view to redesign how public services work together).
3. Look to the future. With existing and emerging technology, where should we be heading 3-5 years hence: what do we need to be laying a path for, what barriers to circumvent, what issues to beware of? Get leading thinkers together virtually and in reality supported by discussion in social meida.
I’m sure there would be overlap and cross-pollination between the strands.
x333xxx said
Great points Adrian, broadly in agreement with everything you say, especially (1) which I wouldn’t mind being involved in myself!
Social media is a phenomenon that will be familiar to web teams and IT people, but in the wider organisation, particularly in policy making areas, the realisation of both the benefits and implications of social media are much slower to be recognised and acted upon. Indeed social media is progressing so fast that local authorities are playing catchup all the time.
Your suggestion (3) is spot on for the future and needs to be built into any education programme devised.
Ingrid Koehler said
This is incredibly helpful….
x333xxx said
We aim to please Ingrid
alex said
Suggestions
1) why don’t you go to the conversations – have a facebook page ; twitter ; Common Craft type video ; a you tube video for every school to watch ; something for the elderly, community centres ; local government TV ; a bbc 1/2 hour documentary ; Channel4 – they are supposed to be ” public service ” broadcasters so rather than doing programmes on polar bears, how about something useful like social media
cbb may be too young
2) do all this with a set of volunteers or students who have no work and can be found through the DWP Future Builders programme. Use public money for public good
3) the lorry going round the country sounds expensive
4) set up a social media site called ” Claim your Expenses and see what you can get away with ” and promote this via the press. This might show people how to engage with media and campaigns
5) encourage people to play David’s social media game
Generally be a bit more edgy and go to where the conversations are happening.
Cederash said
Подойдя к второму обзацу необходимо будет побороть в себе желание его пропустить
x333xxx said
@Cederash: I’m not sure what stating “Approaching the second obzatsu will need to overcome one’s desire to skip it.” adds to this discussion?
Dave Briggs said
Ingrid
This is a great post, and would work perfectly as a session at LocalGovCamp – if you fancy running it?
Dave
Stuff I’ve seen May 20th through May 31st | Podnosh Blog said
[...] The lottery game: or 100K for social media « Policy and Performance – [...]
Steve Dale said
I keep banging on about the Knowledge Hub project – fully funded for this year to the tune of £1.5m, and (IMHO) floundering a little bit because it has so far been beyond my capabilities to explain what it is and why it could be so different to the many previous incarnations of ‘knowledge repositories’ or ‘knowledge libraries’. If I called it ‘Show Us a Better Way For Local Government’ would people then understand what it is and how it could be used? At present it can be shaped to the needs of the local gov community, but the core purpose is to identify, collect and and publicise good next practice for local gov service improvement. This includes (but is not limited to) best practice for use of social media in local gov. Of course – this won’t work if no-one contributes the content, but incentives are planned – including cash – and in my experience this seems to work. If a roadshow is needed to gain momentum, then let’s add it into the mix.
I guess what I’m really saying is that before inventing new solutions, check out what is already happening, and pile in to help!
Ingrid Koehler said
Steve, I think there’s plenty of opportunity for these two funding streams to complement each other. But there is a natural conceptual split – in my mind, anyway. The hub is about serving the sector – the next phase in the maturity model for sector self-support. So it is knowledge sharing – but in (hopefully) ground-breaking ways. Some of that will be about knowledge sharing on social media techniques and some of that will be about using social media to share and create knowledge! (OK, that’s my take anyway).
This other funding is about how the sector serves its public – so should be seen as outward facing – supporting the direct development of social media tools and techniques that support interaction between councils and the people they serve and helps to transform services based on the “customer experience”.
The focus of some of the effort may be different but we’ll all have to work in concert to make sure both are successful.
PaulGeraghty said
Ingrid,
I have a tentative grasp of what Steve’s Knowledge Hub (Khub) is meant to do, and I see a clear crossover of interests.
In a future Khub practitioners and participants from Local Government (LG) will be allowed and even prompted to contribute and collaborate with their peers using social web (web2.0) tools and devices.
Effect: 1 In order to grant permission to their people to fully participate and benefit from Khub Council’s IT departments will have to open firewalls to some Social network traffic.
Participants of Khub would come together for a variety of reasons:
Pick each others brains
Sound out ideas
Tell user stories, using simple narratives
Network with like minded individuals
Teach and/or learn from each other
Meet old friends/colleagues
To collaborate
Effect: 2 These social and business-needs-driven motivators will cause a rise in the “embedded web2.0 zealots” in councils up and down the land, in the same way as internet access became acceptable as more and more officers needed it to do their job.
People used to look over my shoulder “You’ve got internet access! How’d you get that?” (are you special? why am I victimised?)
The nag factor of those shut out of this ring will have an immediate impact on Effect: 1 above.
The output of Khub could be knowledge such as;
Federated ‘current thinking’ documents
Narratives
FAQs
Lists of people
Media types
Advice, summaries, the state of play
Another output from Khub, which was not implicit in the documents that I remember, is the possibility of the production and ongoing maintenance of public facing documents and advice.
Initially I thought about typical web1.0 (read-only) style documents.
If a number of contributors from around the country put together a document, say, based on a narrative which told a story and all were happy with it – and were happy that it would help the public to read it, then why would they not want to put that document on their own website?
Then again, why put it on their website, leave it on a public place in Khub – kept in one place and it will always be up to date. Other councils may agree and link to that document too.
Effect: 3 There could be elements of a public web2.0 interface with Khub.
I hope I am not applying excessive spin to the importance of web2.0 for Steve’s vision of Khub.
In this light Khub could be seen as a way of getting the infrastucture (firewall, software, wetware, attitudes) in place for councils to switch to public facing web2.0 activities.
el gordo said
The lottery game can make us a millionaire within a short period.