Category: community     Posted by: cornelius     Discuss: view comments     Views: 460

The April 11 edition of the Ottawa Citizen published a story called PS must embrace Web 2.0 tools citing Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters’ call for "collaboration, innovation and better use of technology" in the Canadian Public Sector. If anyone bothered to read the (mostly negative) comments of the story, they would realize that such ‘call to arms’ articles simply do not resonate with the Canadian public, especially in difficult economic times for those currently underemployed or unemployed in the private sector.

Is His Clerkiness (my term of endearment for all things Wayne Wouters) right? The answer is 'Absolutely!' (although based on his usage pattern of social media tools to this point my own evaluation would be that His Clerkiness himself still doesn’t have a clue as to what to do and how to engage, but hopefully he’s learning and that is commendable in its own right). But when it comes to the public, I think they are sick of impersonal press releases and newspaper articles that do not bother to do any research or provide relateable information. This type of article and press release may work internally because someone who is essentially the CEO of Federal Government employees pushes down a communication piece to his team, but at the end of the day, this only means a waste of printing paper when it comes to the public at large. I would make the argument that the public would likely respond much more positively to case studies or examples of how web 2.0 and social media tools used within the public sector are directly or indirectly improving the lives of public servants and citizens.

As a private person, I use social media tools (almost) daily. It makes sense for me to do so, mainly from a networking and research point of view. The internet is a huge repository of valuable information and I need social media users to point out the more popular resources that I may be interested in. I also am able to connect with thought leaders in my domain without having to fly to San Francisco, New York and LA and introduce myself during a professional conference. Social media saves me time and money, and it helps expanding my professional network.

My Own Example

And if you’re wondering why this is relevant to the public, I’ll give you my own example of how a public sector organization’s use of social media tools helped me make an educated decision and helped me save time. The Ottawa Public Heath agency has a Twitter account (@ottawahealth) that continually broadcasted the locations and wait times of the H1N1 immunization clinics during the winter season. Because I live close to City Hall, the location of one of the immunization clinics, I was able to show up and get my H1N1 flu shot at a time when there was almost no line, and I was in and out of there in less than 20 minutes. I know some of my friends have waited in lines for more than 2 hrs for the same thing when they just showed up. To me, the fact that Ottawa Public Health used real-time Twitter messaging was definitely a real timesaver. And I suppose there are many more people who can attest to that. This example has direct public implications, but I am sure there are many more (internal or external) public sector examples that may have indirect implications to those outside the firewalls of public institutions.

Consider Your Audience

Rather than telling or implying to the uneducated public that the PS will be using Facebook (for non-specified reasons) at work (which rendered so many Ottawa Citizen readers irate) give us some your own personal examples of how you’re using web 2.0 and social media tools internally for the benefits of your fellow employees or Canadian citizens, and maybe then people will lend their support to this whole technological renewal of the public sector and its potential cost implications.

We all know that the PS already has a huge perception problem related to productivity, staffing and execution, and social media tools may improve at least some of those facets (even though I know this mostly applies to the younger generation of public servants that are curious enough to figure out what Web 2.0 and social media tools can do for them).

Am I wrong to think case studies and examples are a better way of promoting this process as opposed to press releases and glorified newspaper articles? Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on this.

Tags: research, public sector, marketplace

diana (27.04.2010 15:44:46) wrote:
I don't know if I could be persuaded to think Facebook in the workplace is a good thing. I am ok with the more professional social media tools (ex. linkedIn), even twitter or digg, but facebook caters a lot more to the personal side of things and unless absolutely justified, it will be more of a ticking timebomb.

cornelius (27.04.2010 16:55:24) wrote:
@diana: all social media tools can be used for work or for play, Facebook is not a singularity. That's why i think case studies and examples make sense, to educate people on how they are being used on the work side (since they can all figure out the play side on their own).

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