Column: Tactics Around the Table

Do you do enough to prepare for important meetings? Sure you may read the required reading and make sure you get there on time, make sure you know who else is coming, but how much effort do you really put into setting yourself up to be the person leading the charge coming out of the meeting?

You know the person I am talking about - the one who gets pulled into other related fora because the puller can sense her grit and determination; the one who people stick around to talk to after the meeting.

I'll be honest, if you don't want to be that person, this column may not be for you. If, however, you do want to be that person and want to take your game to the next level, then you may find some of what I am about to share useful. Furthermore, I know that this kind of preparatory work isn't warranted for every meeting you go to - it's up to you to decide which ones you should be putting the extra work into.

A word of caution: some of the language here is colloquial but as always, I am sharing this in the spirit of scheming virtuously. I know there is a lot at stake here, and I wouldn't want you to misconstrue my attempt to make this column entertaining as a gross simplification of what could be some very important lessons regarding tactics around the table.


Pre-Meeting Reconnaissance

As with anything, your preparatory work should start before you step into the meeting room. Of course you should read whatever documents are being presented, discussed, etc., but you should also be taking the time to figure out who all the players are around the table - who wrote what, what circles they run in, what they have influence over, how they relate to the other people around the table, and anything about their work history that may be helpful.

I am generally pretty good with keeping most of that type of information in the back of my head, but I am not afraid to bring it in writing to a meeting should I need to verify or contextualize something on the fly. If you choose to come prepared with these types of background materials it should probably look akin to a cheat sheet: small, cryptic, and not easily decipherable by a passerby.


Approach on Arrival

Whether or not you realize it, the dynamic of the meeting is always influenced by the physical arrangement of the meeting space and how people choose to make use of that space. You should aim to use both to your advantage whenever possible. There are a number of ways to do this, but my approach is to be one of the first to arrive. This provides me the opportunity to survey the space, talk to people as they arrive, and determine where I should sit based on how the room is filling up. This is a delicate balance because you don't want to get squeezed out.

You need to make some determinations about who you want to be able to see clearly around the table, who you want to be able to make eye contact with.

This may also give you an opportunity to defuse potentially adversarial situations by adopting a position next to the person you figure may take a contrary position (based on the work you’ve already done about who does what, etc.), or break up teams that are likely to have differences of opinions. Both of these actions can considerably shift the power dynamic away from the table, which easily lends itself to adversarial positions when looking across the table.

Likewise, if you are calling on allies, then you may want to position yourself in a way that calls them in from around the room. This provides people with a sense that your position is well supported around the table. The same amount of support, geographically concentrated at one spot around the table, is much easier to dismiss than support of equal magnitude that comes from all directions.


Mapping the Room

Sit down, draw the table, label the players and map out the interactions. Observe the people as much as the discussion, start to pay attention to body language because writing down exactly what people say is often far less important than writing down a key point and knowing who nodded in quiet agreement, who shook their heads in disagreement, who wrote down notes, and who didn’t.

Over time, these observations can paint a very detailed picture of how business proceeds (or doesn't proceed) around the table, and can provide tremendous insight in to how to maneuver within the relationships (amicable or adversarial) in a way that best ensures that your voice is heard and your opinions considered.


Making a Contribution

Make it good, use everything you have learned to your full advantage, and anticipate the responses of others.


Linger Afterwards

Make sure you are one of the last ones out of the room. Stall if you have to - gather your things slowly, check your blackberry - and allow people to come to you should they desire. Don't be afraid to time your elevator ride down to squeeze in a couple of words with a key person around the table. Often the meeting after the meeting is more important than the meeting itself.


Seek Feedback from Those You Trust

Don't be afraid to ask those you trust how you performed in the meeting: what you could work on, what worked, what didn't. They may be able to provide you with some useful feedback to help you streamline your approach or give you additional intelligence that will inform your actions at future meetings.


Rinse and Repeat

Remember this is an ongoing and iterative process, don't stop learning, applying that knowledge, and scheming virtuously.

Column: Measuring the Value of Social Media in Government

The more time I spend examining the use of social media within government, the more I think that measuring the value it brings is a near impossible task.

I didn't think that way at first, rather, I thought that its value simply defied quantification. But the more I reflect on the situation the more I realize that we can’t quantify the value because we still rely heavily on traditional empirical standards. Don’t get me wrong I am not advocating doing away with empirical approaches but rather simply stating that social media is still so new to government that it would be premature to expect to accurately capture its value in a spreadsheet.

I am not really sure how to approach this line of reasoning, so please bear with me while I think a couple of examples through out loud.

For example, how does one measure the value that the single Government of Canada-wide wiki (GCPEDIA) created when I switched departments? Two important things happened while I was in that awkward position of awaiting transfer papers to be completed – you probably know the spot, the place where your new boss is anxious to get you rolling and your old boss is either trying to squeeze every last drop out of you or is otherwise ignoring you completely. First, since I had already fully integrated the wiki into how I was working, I was able to seamlessly carry over all of my ongoing research. This was incredibly valuable to both myself and my new department because I was working on similar issues (e.g. use of collaborative technologies in government). Second, I was able to physically start pulling the pieces together for my new role given that my predecessor had also fully integrated his work into the wiki.

So here is the dilemma: how does one articulate the value created by GCPEDIA in this example? It can never be a line item on a spreadsheet because, first, there is no easy way to attribute a dollar value to it, and second, because there is confusion over whose spreadsheet it should go on. Do we assign it to my previous employer who realized the benefits of me not having to spend as much time managing my departure and thus was able to continue to work right up until my last day? Do we assign it to my new department? Do we assign it to Treasury Board, who provided the tool that facilitated the creation of this value? All, in my opinion, very good questions.

A second (related) example: How do we measure the value of the National Inventory for Bridgeable Students, in the last 30 days, the most popular landing page within GCPEDIA? Again, this is something that simply could not have happened without GCPEDIA. So who does this inventory generate value for? Students? Hiring managers? In what department? Is it quantifiable?


I’ve got a little scheme, I hope you are interested

Like I said above, I am simply not comfortable with trying to quantify the value of social media within government yet, that being said, I am willing to qualify it. So in the spirit of purposeful story telling I would like to pull together as many of our stories as possible into a small package (which I will make available on GCPEDIA) that we can share with others so that they might better understand what we have accomplished and what we hope to continue to accomplish in the future. Moreover, if you have tried to use social media within the government and have found your effort fall flat, I would like to hear about that experience as well because there may be an opportunity there to do some learning.

I am looking forward to hearing form you.

Cheers.

Column: Enabling the Web 2.0 Worker

I am working on a presentation that, among other things, provides managers with strategic advice on how to enable Web 2.0 workers. I would like to share some of those thoughts with you. I would also like you to leave me your comments, given that you are Web 2.0 workers, around what would better enable you to do your job that I didn’t outline below?

Trust your employees with your IT resources

Provide your employees with unfiltered access to the Internet. If you want them to take full advantage of the richness of information available to them on the web, they need to be able to immerse themselves in the content. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to access something for work, only to be blocked by the firewall.

Once you have opened the door though, don’t let them wander the halls aimlessly. Have conversations about how we can make better use of the Internet, and in doing so, build a common understanding of what is appropriate and inappropriate use. Whatever you do, don’t misunderstand “common understanding” to mean “your understanding,” the learning here should flow both ways. Challenge them, and allow yourself to be challenged, because things are changing.

For example, think about the implications of this interesting statistic:

• 21.4% of Canadians smoke (via Statistics Canada)
• 56.5% of Canadians use web based social networks (combined stat via Internet World Stats and Web 2.0 Secondary Analysis - note the second link is to GCPEDIA)
  

No one would dare tell someone they can’t go for a smoke, but people are told daily not to participate in social networking. Yes the two are different activities, but they can share certain social elements. Now I don’t want to get bogged down into an odd discussion about smoking versus social networking, but in my mind if you are allowing one and banning the other, you need to be able to articulate the differences because the truth of the matter is that social networking is far more popular (not to mention healthier!) than smoking


Make time to learn about social media / web 2.0 (and everything else that gets pulled in) with your employees

Social media offers new ways of working collaboratively, and that will take some getting used to. These types of tools are still new in the government and there is a lot of learning ahead.

You may initially feel that figuring out exactly how to interact with others and manage relationships in a virtual environment is challenging. Be open with one another and discuss issues with your colleagues as they arise. Remember that these tools offer tremendous opportunities to share with each other, break down silos, better engage our colleagues and to change our work culture for the better.

Moreover, unless you work specifically in the area, most of us likely don’t have a thorough understanding of Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP), Official Languages (OL), Public Service Values and Ethics, Accessibility, etc. So why are we so quick to point our fingers at new collaborative technologies and declare that they will never work under these frameworks? I think that it is unfair to place the burden for that lack of understanding on the tools themselves because the tools don’t cause the problems; they only bring the problems to the forefront where they become considerably more prevalent. So discuss the implications of all of these frameworks when considering, designing, implementing and using new collaborative technologies, and be open to the idea that maybe, just maybe, if there isn’t a zone of agreement between the two, that perhaps it is the frameworks that need modernizing not the tools that need antiquing (Oh and then don’t be afraid to step up and start working on updating whatever you have found to be in need of an update).


Give them the tools internally where it is safe to experiment

Behind the firewall is a lot safer than outside it. Inside there is coaching, learning and room to wiggle whereas outside there is media, public perception, and little room to maneuver. My advice to you is wherever possible, create conditions which are more likely to foster successful outcomes because if space behind the firewall isn’t provided people will ultimately venture outside it.

So provide the tools internally and encourage colleagues to learn how to use and appropriate the technologies to their work within the work context, and encourage them to be open and innovative in their approaches. Furthermore, don't punish them for failed attempts. There was probably a great deal of learning that lead to that failure, learning that may help you avoid mistakes in the future, and more importantly avoid them outside the firewall.

If someone in your organization proposes to implement a new or complimentary tool, encourage them to articulate their argument, to document it and champion it. This does a couple of things. The first is that it teaches the proponents about the processes involved in seeing something through while also (hopefully) building up their tenacity and resilience. It also provides everything you need when approaching senior managers for support. But in so doing make sure you take care in your approach because you want to be a virtuous schemer not a block in the system.

Finally when implementing, try to find a way to deploy quickly and at low cost, don't make them wait and don't spend millions, the technology changes too fast.

The truth of the matter is that what I am suggesting is by no means a novel approach, but simply taking full advantage of the opportunity that lies in using an established process to try to bring in something new.

If you make this a war, it will be a war of attrition, one where everyone loses

Focus on the attitudes you want to foster within the workplace without getting caught up in generalizations based on generations or you risk alienating people. The last thing the public service needs is more alienation.


Your Thoughts?

Again, please leave me your thoughts; they will ultimately help me provide better advice to others. Thanks in advance.

Column: Sometimes You Strike Out

This is more of an unfinished thought than a full out post, and given the context, perhaps that is more fitting.

One thing that I’ve learned repeatedly during my time in government is that you can't always knock it out of the park, especially come summertime.

Vacations, on top of vacations, on top of vacations make it incredibly difficult to hit that home run. Generally speaking, one of two things happen: either the people you need to work with aren't around when you need to work with them (which includes yourself) or you get swamped because you're expected to cover off other people's work during what is supposed to be the "slow period".

I have experienced both this summer. First, I've been caught in the out of office loop. You know what I'm talking about, you send an e-mail to someone in your department whose out of office reply points you to another person, whose out of office reply then points to another person, whose out of office reply points back to the first person you sent the e-mail to. Second, I have been asked to cover off work that I didn't anticipate and that took away from the time I needed to be able to do my own work.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming anyone for taking vacation, nor am I complaining about having to do some additional work. What I am saying is that it can sometimes make things more difficult, and that perhaps we need to do a better job of collectively managing and scheduling our vacation time while making better use of summer students who are sometimes, but not always, underworked.

I wish I had some good pieces of advice to share but the truth is sometimes you strike out, and despite being ready to stand and deliver, for me this is just one of those times.

Weekly Column: The Evolution Will Be Social-ized

This column was inspired by Gil Scott-Heron's famous piece, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I have embedded a video below and you can get the official lyrics here. What you will find below the video is my rendition, which I lovingly call, The Evolution Will Be Social-ized.



The Evolution Will Be Social-ized

You will not be able to maintain the status quo
You will not be able to unplug, turn off, or silo up
You will not be able to lose touch with your citizens
Nor keep your approaches rooted in aging norms
Because the evolution will be social-ized

The evolution will be social-ized
The evolution will not be brought to you by procurement
Out of the box can't fix outside the box
True solutions lie not with the companies
Making profits from the sales of technologies
While the tools change from day to day
Underlying behaviours are here to stay
The evolution will be social-ized

The evolution will not be handed to you by the
Deputy Minister, the Assistant, or the Secretariat
Although we hope they play a role
The evolution will help us collaborate
The evolution will help us communicate
The evolution will position you in the global marketplace
For talent, because the evolution will be social-ized

There will be plenty of pictures of you and other champions
Spreading the word at every turn, employing the soft talk or rant
Or celebrating the small victories that are so damned important
Remember that telling these stories is essential
To release our social potential
Because the evolution will be social-ized

There will be no pictures of the obstacles
Getting in our way.
There will be no pictures of the obstacles
Getting in our way.
There will be no pictures of those who breed division
Nor those who take the time to speak but not listen.
There will be no slowing us down now
Soon you will run out of time to learn how
To engage in this new world, stop hesitating
Things are almost in full swing

Hierarchies, closed communications, and knowledge
As power will no longer be so damned relevant, and
We can work together without the need for territory
While fear of reprisal ceases to be obligatory
Not to mention good ideas dead in the water
Closed systems, formerly leading them to slaughter
The evolution will be social-ized

There will be no more clockwatching from 9-5
The rules change, and now it is the open who survive
Bureaucracy can no longer be blamed for our woes
We are starting to see what is right before our nose
The paradigm has shifted, continued relevance
Is simply not something we can leave to chance
The evolution will be social-ized

The evolution will not, die, fizzle or fade
Real people, real outcomes, not a game to be played
Stakeholders on all sides, inside and out
Changes so fundamental from within and without
The evolution will loosen a tight grip
The evolution will enable new leadership
The evolution will put the onus on us all

The evolution will be social-ized, will be social-ized
will be social-ized, will be social-ized
The evolution is no longer the frontier
The evolution is here.

Weekly Column: Purposeful Story Telling

A couple of weeks ago I posted a link on twitter to a blog entry entitled "A Good Way to Change the Corporate Culture" written by Peter Bregman over at HarvardBusiness.org.

The essence of the article is that if you want to change the culture of an organization, you need to start changing its stories. I urge you to read it because the more I reflected on the article within the context of the public service the more I thought that its core message was bang on.


Defining Our Culture

The article linked to above reminded me of something so fundamental about the formation of culture; something I have known for a long time yet only hinted at in my previous writings (as opposed to being the explicit subject thereof).

That something is this: the culture of the public service is not defined by the rules, the hierarchy, or the paperwork but by how we have interacted, and continue to interact, with these (and other) things. More specifically, culture is defined by how we and others talk about our dealings with these things. Once we realize this we understand that we actually have a tremendous amount of power over our surroundings.


Changing the Work Culture

If you want to work in a different type of culture, then share the stories that reinforce that type of culture and refuse to repeat the ones that work against it. Be more aware of your interactions with others and their implications when taken in the aggregate.

Take this blog for example, it and everything I think it represents (grassroots participation in Canadian Public Service Renewal) has taken on a meme of its own, but how did you find out about it?

Chances are you didn't find it in a search (less than 5% of our total traffic comes from search engines). Either someone you know told you about it, or another site you read/trust referred you here. Culture, and our ability to influence it, works in much the same way.

Culture grows organically and CPSRenewal, which includes both its writer, editor, and readers, is simply another contributing factor to the growth of that culture. I need only to look back at the discussion that followed our last post for evidence that it is stimulating genuine dialogue among interested and engaged public servants.


Call to Action

I have a small favour to ask each and every one of you. In the coming week, think about a story you want to share, one that reinforces the culture you want to work in, and share it with someone else (and while you are at it, leave it as a comment on this post).

But please, if you can, share it with someone who is still on the fence, help them come down, because if we want to shape the way we work and relate to one another within the public service - if we want to shape the culture - then we must be more purposeful when we tell the stories that promote the one we want to work in.

[Aside: If you don't think you are ready to be more purposeful in your story telling, simply share the link to this site with them, maybe we can convince them.]

Weekly Column: Territory or Synergy in Government 2.0

These last couple of weeks have been interesting ones for me. I won't bore you with the more mundane details, but suffice it to say that the conversations that have been taking place have covered the full spectrum of issues around collaborative technologies, governance, and culture, and have included people from all classifications, levels, and subject areas.

The sum of these conversations has made one thing abundantly clear. It informed last week's column, and this week’s column endeavours to flesh it out in more detail. It is this:

As we embark on this journey towards Government 2.0, public servants who have built, who are building, and who will attempt to build their careers by staking out their territory and defending it vehemently (‘territorialists’) will ultimately clash with those who have built, who are building and who will build their careers by seeking out synergies and capitalizing on opportunities, irrespective of those territorial boundaries (‘synergists’).

I won’t call it a culture war. That analogy doesn't sit right with me because rarely does it add value. It is much more apt to promote division (real or otherwise) than anything else. Besides, there are way better analogies and/or pop culture references out there. We don't have a war raging, what we've got here is a failure to communicate.

Furthermore, both sides are responsible for this communication breakdown as neither side is communicating effectively with one another. Truth be told, I would actually argue that the two sides don't even speak the same language.

I myself have run into a couple of situations recently where I could do nothing else but walk out shaking my head. I am physically incapable of truly understanding why someone would defend their territory so vehemently to the point of misconstruing my offer to help as a threat to their continued relevance. Personally, I have so much on my plate on a daily basis that I welcome whatever help I can get.

From where I sit (admittedly, firmly in the synergist camp) I think that, ultimately, those who orient themselves and their careers towards opportunities irrespective of territory will eventually "win out" over those who focus on territory irrespective of opportunity. What started as a slow shift in the underlying public service culture is now being sped up exponentially by the powerful accelerant we call web 2.0 (social media and collaborative technologies). In this kind of environment, it is incredibly difficult to build a fence around something.

The logical conclusion for me is that, as this evolution continues, the ground will continue to shift in new and unexpected ways. Those who are going to be successful in this world will be those with the broadest base of transferable skills, those willing to move around and try new things, those who are connected to the larger issues that transcend functional or jurisdictional areas. In short, the rules of the game are changing and synergy is the new territory; and most importantly it is a territory that no one can build a fence around.

Column: Stop, Collaborate and Listen

Stop saying you want to be more open, and then find reasons not to be.

Collaborate at the enterprise level. Look beyond your department, push it government-wide.

Listen, this isn't about you, so put that ruler away. We aren't measuring anything here today.

Signal-to-Noise: How I do Research on Government 2.0 Using Social Media

Just to be clear, this is not an abstract example. While I employ this methodology for a number of communities and topics, the one I will use as an illustration here is what is generally referred to as "Government 2.0". Also, you may notice that this is in some respects similar to the popular post I penned earlier: How I use Twitter to be a Better Public Servant. This post focuses more closely on my methodology, which I have since refined.


Problem: Signal-to-Noise

For the uninitiated, signal–to-noise ratio is essentially the level of a desired signal (in this case valuable information) to the level of background noise (valueless or value-neutral information).

When discussing social media, I often run into people who look at it and see a whole lot of content varying in usability and wonder how in the hell they are going to manage it without getting overwhelmed. In short, their question is: how do you get to what you want and filter out what you don't?


Solution: What You'll Need

My methodology for filtering out the noise relies on two things:

1. An active community creating, linking, rating, responding, sharing and tagging content; and
2. Knowing what tag(s) is/are being used by that community.

It also requires 5 tools, all of which allow me to manipulate and/or read RSS feeds. They are:

1. Search Twitter
2. Yahoo Pipes
3. Firefox
4. Post Rank (an extension for Firefox)
5. Google Reader

I will try to keep this explanation as clear possible and supplement it with supporting graphics whenever possible. But before I get into the technical explanation, I want to share this little hand drawn process map that will hopefully pique your interest, simplify the model, and illustrate how I start with approximately 250 items of unknown importance (re: Government 2.0) and whittle them down to 3 items over a single day.





Step 1 (Install Firefox, PostRank extension and set up a Google Reader Account)

If you don't already use Firefox, then you will need to install it for this to work. [Hint: here is a valid reason to get it installed at work.] You will also need to install the PostRank add-on for Google Reader. Then either sign in to your existing Google account or create one.


Step 2 (Search Twitter)

Now you will need to use search.twitter.com to create your initial RSS feeds.

Benefits of searching Twitter:

1. Results are real time (i.e. what people are talking about right now);
2. You don’t need a twitter account to do it; and
   
3. You only need to set up your search once and then grab the RSS feed from it.

In order to set up your searches, click the advanced search option on the main page, and configure your search as follows:

1. Must contain "#gov20" (no quotes) [Hashtag denotes that content is relevant to Government 2.0];
2. Must contain a link [I want the full article, not a 140 character tweet about the article]; and
   
3. Must contain either "RT" or "via" (no quotes) [Syntax for retweeting, a social measure of value which indicates that someone has decided to re-disseminate that link within their own network].

This search is configured to capture only links being retweeted (RT or via) on twitter about Government 2.0 (#gov20). Therefore, this first step removes any of the chatter that doesn't contain links and any content that hasn’t been deemed worthy of re-disseminating by people on Twitter.

However, within the wider Government 2.0 community, there are multiple hashtags being used, including :

1. #opengov
2. #opendata
3. #govloop
4. #gov20

So if you want to capture everything within that community, then you are forced to repeat the process, substituting the hashtag [Note: it is possible to set this up as a single feed, but separate feeds are more manageable.].


Step 3 (Yahoo Pipes)

Yahoo Pipes is a free web-based program that allows users to manipulate RSS feeds and re-syndicate them afterwards. It can be overwhelming at first, and I am still by no means an expert, but I am achieving my desired results using it.

I start by importing the four RSS feeds from the searches we ran in Step 1. Yahoo Pipes combines all four feeds into a single feed. If you look at that feed closely you will see that there is some duplication. This duplication occurs when people tag content with two (or more) of the hashtags I searched for and when a tweet is retweeted multiple times by different users. In order to deal with the duplication I have configured Yahoo Pipes to analyze the content of each feed item. I then apply a filter that removes any non-unique item from the feed based on the results of that analysis.

An important caveat is that Yahoo Pipes removes the duplicates in order of occurrence, which means that if the content analysis module determines that something has been retweeted 5 times, it keeps the original retweet while removing the others. The importance of this will become apparent later when we discuss the application of PostRank filters.

Here are a couple of screenshots of the Government 2.0 pipe I am running. The first shows the starting point of the pipe prior to applying the filter. As you can see it indicates 60 items in the feed (look bottom right).



Here is the second screenshot which indicates that after we apply the filter. The pipe is down to 33 items (again, bottom right).


Step 4 (Google Reader and PostRank)

Now that you are rolling with Firefox, login to Google Reader and add the feed you created in Yahoo Pipes.

Now if you look near the top of the page you will see a drop down filter option that allows you to filter the content within your reader using Post Rank (the add-on you installed earlier).

PostRank allows you to filter items by the community's level of engagement with the content: it measures other content being created as a response to this content (e.g. blog posts, comments, retweets, clicks, etc). In short, it gives you a social measure of the popularity of each item in the feed based solely on how and how often people are interacting with the content itself. This is why the Yahoo Pipes filtering process is important, keeping the first retweets (chronologically) allows PostRank to give an accurate measure of the susequent retweets, click throughs, etc.

[Note: This is an awesome extension that can do a lot more for you then just this. I use PostRank daily to determine which posts I should read and which I can probably skip. (More details can be found here).]

Finally here is a screenshot showing the application of the "Best" setting to my original feed in Google Reader.





Notice anything interesting? There are only 3 items there. This process started out with approximately 250 items of unknown importance ended with 3 items of high importance, which is clearly much more manageable than 250, especially when we remember that we are talking per day here.


Three Usual Objections

Despite showing how effective the filter is in terms of whittling down the number of items I have to decide to read or not (because yes, even with all this I still decide whether or not to read them), people remain skeptical.

Three questions frequently come up whenever I explain it:

Q1: What if you miss something?

A1: Fair question, but no one is catching everything no matter what their methodology. Besides, where am I more likely to miss something? At the beginning when I am dealing with approximately 250 items, or at the end when I am dealing with 3?

Q2: How can you be sure what you are reading is important?

A2: Because the methodology is designed to deliver what people in the community are reading and reacting to; the fact that they are reading and reacting to it is what makes it significant. In other words, if it isn’t being read already, then I would argue that it probably isn't required reading.

Q3: Can you give a concrete example of something you found that was of value that you might not have found otherwise?

A3: This example is from the field of knowledge management where I employ the same methodology, but I cite it because it was the best find to date. I came across a knowledge management conference in Copenhagen, which I would otherwise have never known to look for. The best part about that conference was that they made all 250 of the discussion papers presented at the conference available on their website. I skimmed the abstracts and downloaded all of the papers that discussed the confluence of information communications technologies, knowledge management, and communities of practice. I walked away with over 25 papers that were either already peer reviewed, or in the process of. You want to talk about a learning opportunity?


Conclusion

I apologize if this was a little too technical. I tried my best to keep it simple and in plain language. Like I said, a lot of people have been asking me details about this so I figured this was the best venue to share it. I think it does a good job articulating how you can use social media to do research, which is not often the focus of social media discussions within government.

If you have any questions about or suggestions on how to improve, my methodology please let me know: I’d be happy to elaborate if required, and am always looking for better ways to improve my signal to noise ratio.

Cheers,

Back to Basics: Scheming Virtuously

When I was in Edmonton last week I had the opportunity to present Scheming Virtuously (SV) twice. To be honest, at first I was a little apprehensive because the venue was a little different than I am used to: a small group (15-20 participants), no standing, no mic, and no podium. In short there was neither pomp nor circumstance.

Yet, in retrospect (and I could sense this at the time) this was probably the most genuine delivery of SV to date. I hit that flow early, I barely glanced at my notes, and most of all I really enjoyed delivering it.

Those who know me well will probably attribute my enjoyment to what they might call my innate desire to be in the spotlight. While that may be partially true, I think the real reason I enjoyed it was because of the proximity to the audience and their level of involvement.

The smaller group meant more eye contact; it meant we could more easily work through ideas and problems while generating new insights. This last point, about generating new insights is one of the first things I say during my presentation. More specifically: the real value of the session comes not from having me come to speak but in looking across the table at your peers, see them nodding in quiet agreement (or maybe not?) and then coalescing around the issues after the session. SV is as much about building community as it is about empowering people.


Generating New Insights: Example From Edmonton

I think the most interesting thing that came out of the sessions was a discussion I led around critical mass and performance learning agreements. During my presentation, I made the point that teams or communities should work on their Performance and Learning Agreement (PLA) together. While there could be any number of reasons why this could be important, I want to focus on two interrelated problems: the “outlier” problem and the “we don't have any money to train you” problem.


Outlier Problem

First, you don't want to be the outlier. By this I mean that if you are the only one in your group that has a PLA with some teeth then you are likely to appear needy or demanding (or worse). I am not trying to begrudge managers here at all, but when demand is low, managers do not necessarily feel they need to deliver, especially if the standard is employees who ask for very little training or rarely hold their managers to account.

However, I really do think that this is understandable, and in most cases inadvertent. That being said, if you step back for a moment and think strategically, you will notice an opportunity to take advantage of that inadvertent behaviour because it cuts both ways.

For example, if everyone in a team or functional community has carefully crafted compelling PLAs, then there is significantly more pressure on managers to deliver because the demand is high. The interesting thing is that they may not even see it as pressure, because that higher standard quickly becomes the norm. Yes, managers naturally have expectations of employees, but we often forget that most managers react to the expectations of their employees; and low expectations tend to yield poor results.


We Don't Have Any Money to Train You Problem

When I introduced these problems I said they were interrelated, here is why. That critical mass of expectation (upwards, sideways, downwards, what have you) can create real pressures and real results.

One of the self-identified problems facing the functional community involved in the presentation was that there was never any money for training, or at least that was the excuse being cited. I suggested that perhaps the community should work together (in a space like GCPEDIA) and start to have a conversation around common training or learning opportunities that the entire community could benefit from. Hash it out in conversation, then agree to two or three points to include on everyone's PLA.

I went on to caution them that simply including it in everyone's agreements was probably insufficient in that they should not rely on others (e.g. their managers) to identify the commonalities on their own, nor should they expect to ask others in their cadre if they were dealing with similar circumstances in their own teams.

I advised them to craft a simple note they could pass on to all their managers and further up the chain. The note should simply state:

• The number of people in the community who identified the same learning needs;
• The cost of sending everyone to attend individually;
• The cost of bringing in a group to deliver the training to everyone at once;
• Three to four people who have been selected by the community to complete the train-the-trainer equivalent to move the community to greater self-sufficiency;
• a list of people the note went to; and
  
• a key contact in the community who has volunteered to respond to management's inquiries.

Could you imagine if a functional community of 100 people or more self-organized, identified common learning needs, conducted a cost-benefit analysis, and presented a singular training plan to management that would allow them to reach 100% completion (and compliance!) of PLAs within that functional group? That would be an opportunity no senior manager could say no to.


Do You Want to Scheme Virtuously?

You may have noticed that we are working on an update to Scheming Virtuously; but we need your help. We want to know what we missed. So please leave us a comment, fire us an email, or drop content or a comment into the GCPEDIA page.

That being said, if you are more of a visual person, I would like to do a live presentation of Scheming Virtuously sometime in the near future. Please let me know if you would be interested in attending so I can make the necessary arrangements. The presentation would help me get more feedback, generate some new ideas, and allow me to streamline my presentation.

We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Special Edition: I admit it, I care.

One of my recurring jokes with my peers is that I don't actually have a great deal of public service motivation (PSM): The desire to serve Canadians for the greater good.

I doubt I am alone in this, although I’d hazard a guess that the subject is somewhat taboo. After all, who wants to be considered a public servant lacking the motivation to serve the public?

But somehow, I don't think where you draw your motivation matters so much as the fact that you are actually motivated. The most important thing is finding and using that motivation to do your job effectively. This is actually a topic that Etienne has blogged about before.

Think about it.

Who would you rather have working next to you, for you, or managing you? Someone who is highly motivated by their desire to serve the public, but can't deliver results based on that desire? or someone who simply loves to solve problems, and goes about doing it based on its own merits (e.g. a passionate communicator who loves to deliver the message, or a financial officer who loves crunching numbers, etc)?

Don’t take this the wrong way. I am by no means trying to say that those motivated by their desire to serve are in some way inferior or poor performers. The point I am trying to make is that it cuts both ways, namely that high PSM is not necessarily a determinant of performance, poor or otherwise.

But, does the degree to which I draw my motivation from serving the public make my contribution any less real or valuable?

I think I know the answer.

I often joke with people and tell them tongue in cheekily that I just don't care about the bigger picture. I am intrinsically motivated and always have been. Given the role I play in the renewal discourse, that joke often provokes an interesting exchange.

Colloquially, I make the argument that it is highly unlikely that a Canadian would approach me in order to thank me for my work (let alone give me a hug). Public recognition isn’t necessarily a deterrent from being PSM, but it may have implications on how we draw our motivation. I often undersell my PSM because it isn’t the thing that comes to mind immediately when people ask me why I am a public servant, and I purposely dismiss it in conversation with others because I find that it gets them thinking about why they are doing what they do.

But the truth of the matter is that I care (there, I admit it).

I care about Canadians. I cry every time a fallen soldier comes home (now that is public service), I tear up when I hear the national anthem - hell my wife and I sing it to our kids as a lullaby. I care about the future of our government and I care about our citizens.

But when I am at work, I can’t draw the inspiration I need from those larger-than-life connections. I draw my inspiration from my friends, my colleagues, and from you. So when I say I care, in the context of my work the thing I care about most is the apparent lack of introspection on the part of the disengaged public servant.

When was the last time you asked yourself the tough question?

"Why am I here?" may not be a question you need to ask yourself every day, but you sure as hell better know the answer to it every minute of every day. Regardless of what it is, if it motivates you – if it drives you – it should be the on the tip of your tongue in everything you do. I want to you to tap into it, show it to and celebrate it with others, and make it contagious.

So, what motivates you? What better time to find out than National Public Service Week? After all, It starts with you!

PS - If you didn't read the post I put up on Saturday, you should, pretty cool stuff. Scroll down, or click here.

PPS - I photoshop'd the care bear myself =)

Weekly Column: The Experience Trap

I, like many others - perhaps like many of you, have run into problems within the public service because of my "lack of experience".

I call it the Experience Trap. Have you ever run into it?

Someone looks you in the eye and says something like, "Nick, you need more experience doing this in order to get this position, be assigned this task, etc."

I have. In fact, nothing motivates me more to accomplish something than being told I can't, or that I need to do X and Y before I can do Z. In these situations, my response to the experience trap is always the same:

"If you don't give me a chance to try it and prove myself, how will I ever get the experience I need? Besides, if I only ever work on what I am doing now, how do I move to where I want to get? There is an opportunity here for both of us: me, to learn and apply new skills and you, to reap the benefits thereof. You either need to give me a shot to prove myself or I need to look for a manager that trusts me, one that is willing to stretch me with tasks that are a little beyond my initial capacity. Did you get to where you are by keeping your head down or by taking on new challenges?"

If they say "by keeping my head down and following orders" that should be your red flag right there, and if I were you, I would immediately start looking for a new manager.

If they say by facing and learning from new challenges, ask about how they got those chances.

Was it a good manager who saw something in them? If so ask your manager what it is that is preventing them from seeing those similar qualities in you.

Was it a risk they took on their own? If so, ask why they did it, and would they advise you to do the same? How did it impact their manager at the time? Wouldn't they rather be involved than sidestepped?

Either way, start that conversation and see it through. You might learn a lot about yourself, and maybe even enlighten your manager.

Holding people back by refusing them stretch assignments isn't new, nor is it something that is limited to new or young public servants. People of all ages, with varying degrees of tenure and experiences are denied chances to face new challenges due to the experience trap. Sometimes, disarming that trap may mean having some difficult conversations.

Have you run into the experience trap? How did you get out of it? Share your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment - it might just help get someone else out of the trap.

Weekly Column: The Role of Unions Reloaded

In the past, I wrote a column in which I explored the role of public service unions (if you go back and re-read that column, make sure you read the comments, and then read this response). In the face of some lingering uncertainty of their role, it seemed to me that the most effective way for me to receive communication from, learn about, and be able to influence decision-making in the union was to get involved. So I decided to set out to add "shop steward" to my CV.


Context

The training was 2 and 1/2 days; paid in full by the union (which really means paid for by my own – and probably some of your - monthly dues). The sessions were geared towards teaching us how to be a shop steward and how to use/interpret the collective agreement (CA).


Quick Recommendation

I would recommend that all public servants take a course of this nature. Not so much to be a shop steward, but to help familiarize yourself with your CA. Should an issue arise, knowing your rights and recourse is important, especially in the absence of solid and enterprise-wide HR solutions, standards, and consistency. I can honestly say I learned more about my rights (esp. regarding leave and harassment) during my training with my union than I did during my departmental or public service-wide orientation session.


Shocked by the Tone

The session started well enough. The Labour Relations Officer (LRO) encouraged us to seek informal resolutions prior to involving the union. However, it quickly descended into the simplistic “management bad – union good” discussion. The adversarial tone of the entire experience was rather shocking and detracted from what was otherwise valuable information.

The conversation also quickly drifted away from the actual training, and towards more substantive questions: ‘how is the union dealing with this? How can we change that? What if we have an issue with this?’ and in every case the answer seemed to be to delegate those decisions to the union executive - that is what they are there for. While participation is supposed to be a founding principle of organized labour, the union’s approach, namely defer any and all matters to labour relations officers, just doesn’t sit well with someone like me.


Making an Exit

By the end of the 2 and ½ days, I could no longer tolerate the adversarial tone that framed the entire experience. In the end, I lost control and I left the room with this little diatribe:

I have some serious reservations about the unionization of knowledge workers in a knowledge economy. Generally speaking, given today’s demographic pressures, I think the relevance of unions will continue to decline.

New labour market entrants (e.g. youth) have no historical connection to organized labour. I have worked in unionized environments for about 10 of my 14 years in the labour force. Yet, I have no deep connection to the movement because I have never had to fight to establish any of my rights, nor have I ever had to resort to filing a grievance to uphold those rights. Work relationships should be managed actively, by all parties, in a manner that renders grievances moot in all but the most terrible of situations.

Furthermore, by 2017, 1 in 5 Canadians will be a visible minority, many of them recent arrivals to Canada, and 96% of them settling in large urban centres, and accounting for 100% of the labour force growth. Their views on unions are likely to be as diverse as their educational, cultural and geographical backgrounds.

Further still, Canada's Aboriginal population, a population with little affinity for the federal government, let alone its unions, is Canada’s fastest growing population segment and represents an enormous pool for potential labour.

Couple all of that with the fact that most public service unions are still communicating via bulletin boards by elevator bays or in lunch rooms, and I would hazard a guess about the pickle that public service unions will find themselves in if they don’t start to do what is required to make themselves continually relevant.

Oh, and in my three years in government I have only worked with a current collective agreement for 2 months, and it was legislated, not bargained.


Conclusion

Mike and I have discussed this issue multiple times and there are a whole host of issues here: legacy, untapped potential, communication, transparency, etc. What happens next? Well we can either sit back and watch, or stand up and get involved, and for once, I am not certain doing the latter will make a difference… there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of interest among my contemporaries (in mind and attitude, not age) coming-together around the issue, at least not yet.

Weekly Column: On Leadership

Let me just start by saying that I highly recommend you watch the TED talk by Seth Godin embedded above, either before or immediately after reading this column. His talk frames this entire reflection on leadership, and his delivery far better than my own.

I must confess that I have been trying to wrap my head around something for a while now, something that has really been bothering me. I have discussed it repeatedly with colleagues (friends, really), and recently one of those friends suggested that I blog about it.

So here goes.

Much of what I am doing in this column is relating Godin's talk to my own experience in the public service. Compared to his talk, this column may also be the most inarticulate thing I have ever penned - but that being said, it is no less genuine.

I am Not a Leader…

Recently a lot of people have been calling me “a leader”, and I have no clue how to react. Mostly because I don't feel like a leader, at least not in the traditional sense: I am not a senior public servant, I have no staff, no budget, no decision-making power. I have nothing that makes leadership tangible in the traditional public service model. By hierarchical bureaucratic standards, I am not a leader. Though I have always tried to be one of those “good people to know” and pride myself on my ability to connect with other people.

…or Am I?

Maybe. Maybe by Godin's interpretation.

My own initial experience in government is a story I only share in person, and a lot has changed since then. I could have walked away and in fact, I almost did.

In the end I chose to stay, but that decision hinged on my unwillingness to accept the status quo anymore. I won't lie, I am a live wire, I speak my mind, I challenge others, and I call things how I see them. At the start, I felt underutilized but I refused to waste away and, by extension I refused to allow those around me to wither away and die the slow death of a thousand bureaucratic (paper and red tape) cuts.

Among the other things that I was doing within my department, I decided to go a bit bigger: I started this blog and I wrote scheming virtuously, both supported by a friend and talented editor from another department.

I enjoy writing this blog, but you should also know that it also adds a lot to my plate. Everything written here receives a lot of thought, and a lot of time – nothing is haphazard, and we never sacrifice quality for timeliness. But I think that dedication gives us credibility. It is precisely why you come here to read it. One of the most important things that this blog, delivering talks, and connecting with others via social media (or in real time!) does is that it allows me to connect with all of you.

The more of you I connect with, the more I realize that we are all looking for similar things but have so much trouble finding each other – we are buried somewhere in different departmental org charts that can often undervalue our ability to contribute, or that throw up roadblocks to our collaborative efforts.

I think this may be one of the reasons why people are pointing that leadership finger at me. But the only thing I am doing is stepping up and challenging a little bit. If something doesn’t make sense, I will say it. If I see value by adding something (or by taking it away) then I will say it.

I think another reason is that I spend a lot of time connecting people. But the happy irony here is that once connected, these people just take off and run with the connection. Perhaps the even happier irony is that these people are already engaged and interested in public service renewal (and all of the related issues). All I am really doing is helping brilliant and passionate people organize around a common story and purpose.


I am a Leader…

Simply put, I tell a story to people who want to hear it; I connect people who, deep down, want to connect with others; I help encourage a movement; and I help make change so that we can all start telling a new and different story.

If doing these things makes me a leader of a movement, then “leading” it (rather, being one of many people leading it concurrently in somewhat divergent directions with the same underlying principles) has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career in public service. I think that this is something we are all after, and this shared desire is one of the principle reasons why you read this blog, why you connect with me via social media, and why you want to share your own experiences with me.


…Are You?

I took this graphic out of Godin’s presentation; I was originally intention was to put my headshot in the middle to try to help illustrate what I think I’m doing and why people are looking to me for leadership. Instead, I opted to put leave the middle empty – because, well, I need your help. I need you at the centre.

You know the key people, you know the issues, and you know what needs to be done better than I do. So with that in mind, I want to leave you with one last point from Godin's TED talk. According to Godin, leaders share certain things in common. Leaders:

• Challenge status quo;
• Build a culture; they are curious; they ask questions and connect people; and
• Commit to the people they lead, not the mechanics of the project.

So, please come join the movement and help make a change.

Weekly Column: The Opportunity for Enterprise

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to participate on a "one person task team" run by the President of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Mme Monique Collette (who btw is an absolutely wonderful woman). Essentially, Mme Collette was asked by the soon to retire Clerk of the Privy Council, Kevin Lynch, to travel across the country collecting best practices in three areas: diversity, official languages, and communication.

As you might expect, I was invited to participate explicitly because of this blog. The session was very well run, with some pleasant surprises, unexpected fun, and most importantly, great ideas being exchanged.

Early in our conversation, someone raised a fair point: the conversations we were having about fostering bilingualism, capturing diversity, and opening up communications had already happened, a number of times, in a number of places. So how do we move beyond them? Ironically, her point was one that had also been raised repeatedly.

Being the “blogger/social media evangelist/new collaboration preacher” in the room, I’m not sure if Mme Collette was just keenly aware of who was in the room, or if it was just ridiculously apparent by my face that I wanted to jump into the conversation. Either way (though it was probably a bit of both), she quickly gave me the floor.

Naturally, I brought up GCPEDIA and its enormous collaborative potential, and made a couple of points worth sharing.

First, I pleaded (begged really) for Mme Collette to make the findings of her task team available in GCPEDIA, and even volunteered to put them there myself (to which they were quick to oblige).

Second, I drew attention to a statement made by the Clerk in his latest report. Specifically, when he states that:

The business of government has become markedly more complex than in the past. Today, almost every department and agency must deal with global challenges, using new tools and asking people to work in new ways - in integrated teams, often across organizational boundaries.

Great statement, right? Anyone looking to build a business case for the adoption of new tools (e.g. social media tools) should be quoting the Clerk on the first page. That being said, I think the Clerk could have been a bit more specific, something like this perhaps:

The business of government has become markedly more complex than in the past. Today, almost every department and agency must deal with global challenges, using new tools and asking people to work in new ways - in integrated teams, often across organizational boundaries. That is why a tool like GCPEDIA is so important. GCPEDIA is the first of a series of small but deliberate steps to address enterprise-wide problems in a more systematic way.

Those extra two sentences would have been a boon to the project; I need not even explain why. The more I reflect on public service renewal the more I feel like enterprise-wide (i.e. federal government-wide) technical solutions are necessary. They are important because they do something that has thus far seemed to elude the public service for too long: they show us the need to think about our business as an integrated whole, and more importantly, give us a proven and tangible means to act as an integrated whole.

Quite often I run into people who say they are frustrated by “the bureaucracy”, but what they are really frustrated by is people’s unwillingness to share, their unwillingness to adapt or embrace change, and their unwillingness to let go of what they think is theirs. They are not frustrated by some abstract or amorphous entity, but by a lack of vision around what it means to be, and act as a single enterprise, while creating tremendous value by sharing, trusting and challenging within it.

I will be honest, I have a whole lot more to say about this and leadership under these circumstances(things that I have been reflecting on a lot lately), but for now I bite my tongue.

Maybe next time, but until then your thoughts?

Weekly Column: National Public Service Week: It Starts With You! (or does it?)

Well, National Public Service Week (NPSW) is quickly approaching and is undoubtedly worth mentioning in this space.

First let me point you to the official Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) web page for NPSW.

Then, let me draw your attention to the theme: It starts with you!

If NPSW starts with me, then why can’t I help plan some activities here (in GCPEDIA)? The external TBS page is scant on the details and if I want to help out, it seems that I have to fire off an email to one of the coordinators.

Correct me if I am wrong here but isn't GCPEDIA the only cross-departmental collaborative tool that we have inside the Government of Canada?

Isn't it supposed to help us move away from collaboration via email?

The kicker is that the official NPSW page is being hosted by TBS.

So why a webpage and not a community inside GCPEDIA? Or why not both? The TBS webpage can be the point of contact for people outside the federal public service while GCPEDIA is the coordination takes place.

In my opinion this could be a win-win situation. NPSW benefits from better collaboration, greater involvement in the planning phases, huge reductions in email to regional coordinators, better transparency and less duplication across regions. At the same time, GCPEDIA benefits by gaining new users, new communities, and better exposure nationally. Imagine the Clerk coming out in praise of the collaborative efforts in organizing these events enabled by the use of GCPEDIA.

Whatever the reasons are for not rolling NPSW event coordination inside GCPEDIA, the only tangible one I can think of is that it may or may not involve partners from provincial governments, who sadly don't (yet) have access.

Maybe we should just start something up ourselves... of course we can invite the regional coordinators to the space. Hmmm… there is an idea. I am going to email the regional coordinators (all of them) and ask them to use GCPEDIA to plan their activities.

Holy Cra… Craig Sellars!

No sooner did I type out the last paragraph did I receive an email from Craig Sellars. Craig, the man behind the NPSW page in GCPEDIA sent out an email (in both official languages) to every contact person for NPSW across the country.

Kudos Craig, you beat me to the punch! Here is Craig’s email (reproduced w/permission):


(ENGLISH FOLLOWS)

Bonjour tout le monde,

J’espère tout va bien. Veuillez pardonner mon français modeste.

Je m'appelle Craig Sellars et je travaille avec le Comité Semaine Nationale de la Fonction Publique (SNFP) dans Alberta. J'ai localisé vos noms sur le site Web de SNFP en tant que les coordonnateurs régionaux et contacts départementaux. Si vous n'êtes plus le contact, transfères de cet email au nouveau contact, si vous plait, et réponse ainsi je peux vous enlever de ma liste.

www.gcpedia.gc.ca

Je cours un concours national pour SNFP 2009 pour la Meilleure Nouveau Page 2009 de Usager de GCPEDIA. C'est une excellente occasion d'examiner les possibilités de collaboration de GCPEDIA. Je créai une page pour le concours:

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Meilleure_Nouvelle_Page_d%27Usager_GCPEDIA_2009

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Best_New_GCPedia_User_Page_2009

Un exemple, C'est mon page de usager de GCPEDIA:

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/User:Craig.Sellars

GCPEDIA est un outil qui fournit le potentiel pour la collaboration derrière du pare-feu du Gouvernement du Canada, indépendamment d'endroit. J'ai également créé une page générale de NPSW GCPEDIA pour que vous employiez pour montrer et partager des événements nationalement:

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Semaine_Nationale_de_la_Fonction_Publique_2009

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/National_Public_Service_Week_2009

J'ai inclus des connexions aux GCPEDIA pages régionales que vous pouvez éditer librement. Si vous avez un événement ou l'ordre du jour de SNFP que vous voudriez partager, satisfaire ajoutez-le vous-même, si vous plait, ou expédiez aux détails moi le***.

***Note: Je publierai seulement des événements/ordres du jour de SNFP dans la version finale et de finition. Ils doivent être dans un format téléchargeable (Word, Excel, PDF etc.) ou facilement copié et publia sur la page de GCPEDIA. J'exécuterai seulement le formatage mineur pour nettoyer les pages. Je travaille tout seul.

Nous explorerons que Web 2.0 et GCPEDIA peut faire pour la collaboration dans le Gouvernement du Canada. Sentez-vous SVP libre pour inclure les liens ci-dessus dans vos communications de SNFP 2009.

Merci de votre temps et ayez un jour spectaculaire.

Craig Sellars.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
(ENGLISH VERSION)

Hello everyone,

I hope your day is well.

My name is Craig Sellars and I am working with the National Public Service Week 2009 (NPSW) Committee in Alberta. I located your names on the NPSW website as Regional Coordinators and Departmental Contacts. If you are no longer the contact, please forward this email to the new contact and reply so I can remove you from my list.

www.gcpedia.gc.ca

I am running a national contest for NPSW 2009 for the Best New GCPEDIA User Page 2009. This is an excellent opportunity to test GCPEDIA’s collaborative capabilities. I created a page for the contest:

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Best_New_GCPedia_User_Page_2009

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Meilleure_Nouvelle_Page_d%27Usager_GCPEDIA_2009

An example is my GCPEDIA user page:

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/User:Craig.Sellars

GCPEDIA allows for collaboration behind the Government of Canada firewall, regardless of location. I also created a general NPSW GCPEDIA page for you to display and share events nationally:

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/National_Public_Service_Week_2009

http://www.gcpedia.gc.ca/wiki/Semaine_Nationale_de_la_Fonction_Publique_2009

I included links to regional pages you can edit freely. If you have an NPSW event or agenda you would like to share, please add it yourself or forward the details to me***.

***Note: I will only post NPSW events/agendas in the final, finished version. They must either be in a downloadable format (Word, Excel, PDF etc.) or easily copied and pasted onto the GCPEDIA page. I will only perform minor formatting to clean up the pages. I am a one man show.

This is an exciting opportunity to explore what Web 2.0 and GCPEDIA can do for collaboration in the Government of Canada. Please feel free to include the above links in your NPSW 2009 communications.

Thank you for your time and have a spectacular day.

Craig Sellars.


Suggestion

If you are interested why not help out, and contact a coordinator yourself? After all NPSW starts with you - or does it? I suppose that choice is yours.


Cheers,

Weekly Column: Online Namespaces, Twitter and #Swineflu

I was strapped for a good idea for a column this week so I put out the question on twitter:


To which I got this reply (and others):


In my presentation a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the need for government departments to at least lay claim to their departmental twitter accounts, even if they weren't ready to use them. Essentially, my argument at the time was that government departments need to circumvent the problem of cybersquatting (or in this case twitter squatting) and the potential for harm to one's brand that could arise there from.

Just how easy is it for someone to lay claim to your department or agency's online namespace? About this easy.

Point proven, right? (Hint, PCO doesn't own that twitter space ...)

Ok so let’s move on to a more in-depth conversation within the context of the twitter-fuelled swine flu panic, which will provide for a more interesting discussion.


A Case Study: Swine Flu Spread by Twitter

While it is obvious that you cannot catch swine flu from Twitter, what you can catch is a greater understanding of the importance of Twitter's ability to spread information quickly, and the subsequent need for government departments and agencies to use Twitter to help shape that spread.

As Evgeny Morozov, a fellow at the Open Society Institute in New York puts it:

Here is a tough question to communication experts out there: how do we reach the digital natives out there, especially those who are only accessible via Facebook and Twitter feeds? The problem is that while thousands of concerned and misinformed individuals took to Twitter to ventilate their fears, government and its agencies were still painfully missing from the social media space; the Twitter of account of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was posting updates once in a few hours -- and that was probably the only really trustworthy source people could turn to online.

Disclaimer

Before I proceed I want to be clear that what follows is by no means intended to be a criticism of PHAC or their handling of the Swine Flu situation. I am simply putting on a citizen engagement via social media observer hat and doing some preliminary and hypothetical analysis.

A Closer Look at PHAC on Twitter

Interestingly, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is already on Twitter. Even more interesting is that PHAC's Twitter account was actually created back in September 18, 2008:



Second, it would seem that their first tweet didn't occur until April 28th:

I can only speculate that the decision to start actively using twitter (rather then just idling the account) has something to do with the perceived demand/need to provide more reliable information on the swine flu via twitter.

Morozov again has some insight:

... In an ideal world, [government organizations] would have established ownership of most online conversations from the very beginning, posting updates as often as they can. Instead, they are now faced with the prospect of thousands of really fearful citizens, all armed with their own mini-platforms to broadcast their fears -- which may cost it dearly in the long term.

The question of whether we need to somehow alter our global information flows during global pandemics is not a trivial one. A recent New York Times piece highlighted how a growing number of corporations like Starbucks, Dell, and Whole Foods are turning to Twitter to monitor and partially shape conversation about particular brands or products. What the piece failed to mention was that conversations about more serious topics (like pandemics- and their tragic consequences) could be shaped as well.

I think that there are three interrelated things worth discussing within the context of PHAC's use of Twitter to disseminate information about Swine Flu, they are (1) frequency, (2) conversation, and (3) trending.


Frequency

PHAC's timeline at the time of writing this column contains seven (7) tweets - all linking to their website. My assumption is that PHAC is only using (or has only approved the use of) Twitter to drive people to press releases. Yet, given the amount of the discussion on Twitter about Swine Flu, a low number of tweets severely limits the agency's exposure and reduces their overall ability to shape the conversation.


Conversation

While writing this column I started to wonder if they would respond to someone who tweeted at them (e.g. engage in two way communication), so I threw them a softy:

4 hours later I have yet to receive a response. In fact they have not responded to any of the tweets directed at them or referencing them.

Truth is that I wasn't expecting a response, because I know how difficult it is to know how to respond to an inquiry via Twitter "as a government organization".

But the truth of the matter is this: the proliferation and expectation of instant communication as facilitated by services such as Twitter and the multi-layered communication approval hierarchies of government just don't mix. One of these things is going to collapse, and my guess is that it will be the latter. Until then, rigid communication policies will ultimately hamstring departments and agencies looking to engage citizens via social media.


Trending

The last thing I think we can learn from PHAC has to do with trending. Let's again examine PHAC's timeline. Looking at PHAC's 7 tweets we see that:

• 4 mention "Swine Influenza"
• 2 mention "swine flu"
• 1 fails to mention swine flu in any variant

These slight variations are important because the majority of people on Twitter are not talking about "Swine Influenza" - they are talking about "swine flu" and "#swineflu" (the latter are both trending topics, while the former is not). The result is that 70% of their tweets are left out of the larger conversation, thus impeding their ability to contribute and shape it.


Conclusion

You may be asking yourself: when my department or agency is facing a communications crisis of pandemic proportions, will it be able to wield social tools with confidence and efficiency in order to engage citizens and shape the conversation?

I think the better question is: Why wait for a crisis to find out?

If you are interested in further reading, Chris Brogan has some great tips for businesses looking to use Twitter, I am confident that they apply to government departments and agencies as well.

And please, at the very least secure your organization's online namespaces before someone less forgiving/honest than I do it for you.

Cheers,