Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

August 8 - 12, 2011

It’s Monday, folks. Here’s the weekly.

If you read one thing this week, it should be this post from the Snarky Optimist. It’s a thoughtful, well-written, and eye-opening response (in part) to my previous post: I would’ve eaten glass to get this job. I love a good dialogue, and Chelsea’s post illustrates that the story of contractors in the federal government is a complicated one, with many equally valid perspectives.

This week in cuts:

• An excellent overview of the federal government job cuts, so far
• Why you, not me? The Hill Times publishes a piece on the Environment Canada cuts from last week
• And, more opportunities and even bigger challenges loom large for our newest department, Shared Services -- who is responsible for giving us an infrastructure for the 21^st century

Social goodies:

• Who loves Haiku? People in Japan are flocking to Twitter to make social poetry
• Are Twitter and Facebook the anti-social networks?
• Old, but new to me: Malcolm Gladwell – why the revolution will not be tweeted. OR: Social media can’t provide what social change has always required
• An argument that all of our disclaimers do not matter – and that there is no difference between our personal accounts and your professional ones
• What does the U.S. Army really think about social media? Find out!

Relationships and Cultural change

• Since the PS culture is shifting all around us, here are the 10 key lessons you can take with you for the ride
• The newest web standard is out for us to view, and it’s got me thinking all about content strategy. Here’s a read on why making relationships with your web visitors is important

And let’s end with a laugh, shall we?

• How to kill a dead horse

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney. You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

Round Up: Waking Up Canadian, National Inventory of Bridgeable Students, a friend in need, and more!

Let me open with congratulating @RobWiebe on this great usage of social media in government communications. Both my daughter and I thought it was fabulous, but perhaps we were a little biased. I encourage you to watch the video, pass it along and leave a comment on the youtube channel.



Hopefully you don't fall victim to the cruel irony of not being able to view it behind your departmental firewall like I do.


National Inventory of Bridgeable Students now in GCPEDIA

I have created a National Inventory for Bridgeable Students (NIBS) which can be found here on GCPEDIA. The french is most likely deplorable, but it is there. Have a look and feel free to improve the page or add to the discussion. I have no idea if this will work but it is worth a shot.

Did I mention yet that I love the transformative power of GCPEDIA? If I wanted to roll this out government wide prior to GCPEDIA what would I do? Where would I go? Who would I ask ...

... and if I wanted to do it after GCPEDIA? Well I would create the page, in GCPEDIA, and I wouldn't have to ask anyone... oh wait, that is exactly what I did.


A friend in need

Etienne is looking to help out a friend of his who is looking for federal public service managers w/5 years of experience and 20 employees to do a 60 minute phone interview. Go check out his blog post for more details.


Unofficial Musings

Here is an interesting site that that is built on an interesting concept and is well executed. I wonder what the critical reception. I would also kill to see the even the most basic metrics on the site. [h/t to @spaghetti_p]

Canadian government communicators will be interested in this paper on political control of communications entitled Who is Getting the Message? Communications at the Centre of Government [h/t to @canuckflack]

If you are interested in the concept of "Open Government" you may want to check this out.

Ever wonder about that Canada@150 project that we all got screened out of (at least I, and everyone I know did)? Why not check out these videos on youtube. Not sure how "official" these are but they are there nonetheless.

Looking for some disruptive ideas? You may want to check this out, but remember you didn't get the url from me.

I am not sure if this blogger wanted to get noticed or not but here s/he is... although the last post was back on February 9th.

Speaking of random blog posts, I also found this little gem entitled Public Service Renewal, from the makers of MAFs and DPRs


Official Publications (Canadian and Otherwise)

How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation Annual Report c/o Statscan. Statscan also maintains a page on public service renewal that I hadn't seen until recently.

07-08: Public Opinion Research in Government of Canada c/o Public Works.

Australians' use and satisfaction with e-government services—2008 c/o the Australian Department of Finance and Deregulation.


Advanced Learning Institute's Social Media for Government (in Edmonton)

I will be speaking at #ALI's Social Media for Government conference in #YEG in June, details below. If you are in the Edmonton area and wish to attend the conference fire me an email, I have a promo code for you to shave some dough off the sticker price.

My session is entitled, Putting the Social in Social Media: How to Engage Your Employees before you Engage the Public

In that spirit, just a heads up that this week's column is shares how I use twitter to be a better public servants. It attempts to cover some of what I will cover in my presentation at Career Bootcamp 2009 (Sorry I don't have a link for that handy, but search GCPEDIA and you will find it).

Cheers,