If we build it, will you come?

If we built a free, day long conference focused on teaching and learning about collaboration (not technology!) in the public sector would you want to attend? Would you want to lend a hand?

If you are inside the Government of Canada firewall I would invite you to look at (and contribute!) to the planning page in GCPEDIA.

If you are outside the federal public service and want to be a part of the planning team, the first planning meeting is being held Friday June 4th at 4pm, details here.

If you are interested in participating but not helping organize please let me know via email, twitter, or in the comments here so I can get you more details when they are available.

Rant on Productivity

I will spare you the pleasantries, and cut directly to the chase: social media behind the firewall does not present any new management challenges in the public sector.

If you were a strong manager before the age of social media, you are a strong manager in the era of social media. Conversely, if you were a weak manager before social media, you are a weak one with social media. The same can be said about employees of every stripe and at all levels.

In short: poor performers are poor performers.

The only real difference is the radically transparent nature of the environment enabled by the tools and their underlying ethos: the gift economy.

Transparency is the key to efficiency in the public sector: it rapidly exposes poor performance, information hoarding, and posturing, all of which are endemic to and even rewarded in the public sector.

I simply cannot accept an argument that says: “We deny you access to tools and large chunks of the web because you will waste your time.”

Unproductive people in your organization have been unproductive for years without social media and will continue to find ways to be unproductive even if you block access to it. Why stop there? I could rhyme off a huge list of things that may take you away from your immediate work that, when looked at more closely, has an ambiguous effect on productivity: smoke breaks, coffee breaks, walks around the block, working from home (or anywhere else), lunch time workouts (which often surpass 30 minutes), walking to a meeting instead of taking a cab, etc.

If we measure productivity in terms of milliseconds spent at your workstation we might as well bring back the punch clock and get back to making widgets.

If your management strategy is based on denial then you are in denial: you really don't have a management strategy at all.

The bottom line is that social media doesn't present new challenges, it just shines some new light on old ones.

[image credit: ibai Lemon]

Recharge the Batteries

To be honest I had a difficult couple of weeks and I needed to take the time to unwind (buy me a coffee if you want the details). It was probably the first time in over three years in the public service where I took time off for the express purpose of simply recharging my batteries.

I took two days off this week and spent the time doing things I wanted to do. I created some nifty visualizations of the Digital Economy consultation paper, went for a run, had lunch with my dad, spoke at an event, taught a course, and wrote this simple blog post.

How often do you take the time to recharge?

What do you do?

I'm certainly going to start doing it more often and I'm interested in how it's done; I'm learning just how important it can be.

[image credit: Princess Cy]