Rialtas.net - Government 2.0

Here is an overview of some research into blogging undertaken in January 2008 by BIGresearch in the US.

What’s A Blogger?
Bloggers are younger and higher percentages are Hispanic & African American than the general population. A higher percentage of Democrats than of Republicans are blogging.
Now that Blogging might better be called a market segment rather than a market niche, it’s useful with regard to positioning the marketing message to understand what a Blogger looks like, as distinguished from the rest of the population. According to the BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey, 26% of all adults say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of those:

• 53.7% are male

• 44.7% are married

• 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position

• 10.4% are students.

Bloggers tend to be younger, averaging 37.6 years old, compared to 44.8 for adults 18+ (the “general population”). Ethnically:

• 69.7% of Bloggers are White/Caucasian (vs. 76.1%)

• 12.2% are African American/Black (vs. 11.4%)

• 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%)

• 20% of Bloggers are Hispanic, compared to 14.8% of adults 18+

In addition, Bloggers report a lower income ($55,819 vs. $56,811) and are better educated (14.3 years of education vs. 14.2).
Political blogs are becoming increasingly common, especially in this election year, where 24.6% of registered voters say they regularly or occasionally blog.

Political affiliation of regular/occasional Bloggers look like this in 2008:

• 37.6% of Libertarians regularly/occasionally blog

• 26.9% of Democrats

• 25.7% of Independents

• 22.9% Republicans

Analysis of Bloggers shows that they are using most forms of new media significantly more than the average market.

Although Bloggers are more likely to use new media, the analysis finds that more conventional forms of media trigger their Internet searches. Magazines, at 51.6%, rank highest, followed by:

• 48.8% reading an article

• 46.1% broadcast TV

• 44.5% cable TV

• 42.5% face-to-face communication

• • 39.7% newspaper

Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch, concludes “Bloggers are a diverse group and not who you would expect…”
For more information, please visit BIGresearch here.

This from Micah L. Sifry of Techpresident blogging from the Politics Web 2.0 conference at the University of London, Royal Hollaway, here below are some excerpts from Micah’s notes on one of the first keynotes:

Helen Margetts, of the Oxford Internet Institute, is presenting on “Digital-era Governance: Peer production, Co-creation and the Future of Government.”

Her key argument: We are seeing a shift in government management reform. For many years, the benchmark was “new public management,” but this trend is dead or dying, she argues. For the next twenty years, the dominant theme will be around digital technologies.

New Public Management was focused on disaggregation (breaking up large bureacracies into smaller units), competition (more use of markets, outsourcing, deregulation) and incentivization (privatization, public-private partnerships, performance related pay).

Digital Era Governance has three flourishing themes: reintegration (joining up bits of govt, sharing central processes, simplification at the same time), needs-based holism (redesigning processes around the citizen, coproduction, agile govt, client-focused structures), digitalization (open book governance, electronic service delivery, disintermediation, and web 2.0 for govt).

She notes that “we found it very hard to find examples of web 2.0 government” while working on the “Government on the Internet” report for the OII last year. It’s not there yet, but she is pointing towards where things are going. E-govt in the UK lags behind e-commerce: half as many people interacting with govt online compared to commerce sites (about 45% compared to 90%, if I saw the slide right)….

….What kind of management culture is needed for DEG to succeed? She argues that it requires really using transactional information to inform policy making, decoupling information analysis from control, being more oriented around customers, and getting more pro-active and experimental. These all seem like good principles, but I wish she’d give some practical examples to illustrate these points.

The citizen culture DEG implies includes the idea of “isocratic” government–helping citizens do for themselves; co-production, where the public sector provides a frame and citizens help deliver (like eBay enabling a cottage industry of sellers); co-creation of information as well. (Isocratic=personal democracy? I wonder.)

This new model can have positive incomes for social problem solving, she concludes.

Examples of Web 2.0 for government are difficult to find. People in govt have very 1.0 notions, like government shouldn’t be cool, it should be boring. “Our site is not aimed at young people,” she was told while working on the OII report. Only old-fashioned web uses make sense. Also, they were uncomfortable with the notion of partly-authenticated involvement, or para-state involvement–no integrating with society’s networks. Govt is also very text based.

What might it mean, if we overcome these issues?
-rich information, not just text
-deep search to allow people to learn more about their own conditions
-playing back information to users, about what they do and feel
-creating part-finished products

Please read the full post here.

Interesting post by Jason Ryan on PSnetwork.org on the need for Public sector organisations (in New Zealand) to increase the rate at which they are adapting to changing cultural and technological conditions.

“The problem, as such, is not that public sector organizations are not adapting to the change; the fact that there is so much interest in understanding social media is a good indication they are. The problem is the rate at which they are adapting, and the consequences of that lag.

Change management

Public sector managers should all be conversant and comfortable with change. To narrow the strategy gap, what needs to happen is for senior managers to recognize that social media are a symptom of a wider cultural change, and to begin revising their strategies accordingly. Agencies should begin to consult, communicate and involve staff in the process now, because if the gap widens too much, our people will —literally— leave us behind.

As I noted at the outset, this doesn’t require any specialized management knowledge or technical skill; it is just another expression of the (hopefully commonplace) need to constantly manage change. What it does require, however, is a sense of urgency, a willingness to engage and a focus that is on people, rather than technology.

Read the full post here:
http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/2008/02/24/early-adopters/

Don Tapscott (one of the authors of Wikinomics) was invited by the Davos management to organise an impromptu meeting of business and government leaders and some leading academics and thinkers on the topic of rethinking democracy. The topic he chose was government 2.0 – how the new Web 2.0 might lead to new models of citizen engagement.

During the discussion Nine themes emerged:

1. Self organisation
2. Youth
3. What should governments do?
4. The Body Politique
5. Open APIs for Government
6. Levels of Government.
7. Past technological paradigms
8. What does geo-spatiality mean to government?
9. If there really is a new paradigm in government emerging – a government 2.0 – how can such a change occur?

Don blogs about the discussion in Canada’s Globe and Mail Newspaper (last Saturday 26th January 2008)

Read the full blog entry 

• Big Read Blog – National Endowment for the Arts literature director David Kipen blogs regularly about his experiences promoting the 2007 Big Read initiative.
• Dipnote – This blog offers the public an alternative source to mainstream media for U.S. foreign policy information and the opportunity to discuss important foreign policy issues with senior State Department officials.
• Eye Level – This Smithsonian American Art Museum blog covers American art and the ways it reflects American history and culture.
• Flow of the River – Find out the answers to interesting questions about the Environmental Protection Agency in this blog from their Chief Operating Officer Marcus Peacock.
• Future Digital System – U.S. Government Printing Office blog about the Future Digital System program that will be a world-class information life-cycle management system
• GLOBE Program – Dr. Peggy LeMone, chief scientist of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), shares her comments and thoughts on science topics through this blog.
• Gov Gab – Gov Gab’s six bloggers share tips and information from the federal government to help you make life a little simpler. Read along each weekday and comment and share your own experiences.
• Health and Human Services Department Blog – Secretary Mike Leavitt blogs about health and the related challenges that face United States.
• Health Marketing Musings – A blog about research, science, and practice in health marketing and communication, social marketing, information technology, public health partnerships, and more with Jay Bernhardt, Director of CDC’s National Center for Health Marketing.
• Homeland Security Leadership Journal – Secretary Michael Chertoff blogs about working to protect the American people, building an effective emergency preparedness and response capability, enforcing immigration laws, and promoting economic prosperity.
• InfoFarm – The National Agricultural Library blogs about what they do and your world of agriculture, food, nutrition, animal care, and the environment.
• Library of Congress Blog – Highlights news and collections for the Library of Congress
• National Museum of the Air Force – Blog posts from the public about their experiences at the National Museum of the Air Force
• Peace Corps Volunteer Journals – Blogs about experiences of Peace Corps volunteers from around the globe.
• Pushing Back – Office of National Drug Control Policy blog to educate Americans about illegal drugs and the latest international, federal, state, and local efforts to reduce drug use
• Trip Notes from the Middle East – Senior White House staff members blog about President Bush’s trip to the Middle East region January 8 - 16, 2008.

Here also is the US Government’s guide to Blogging for agencies and individuals within government wishing to publish a blog.

David Stephenson has published the content of a speech he gave to New Internet Web 2.0 conference on November 1, 2007

David outlines the possibilities more transparent government offers to the public and to business and gives some very good examples of several US agencies that have opened their data to the public using well documented APIs

He also outlines some possible concerns that government organisations may have in regard to opening up their datasets:

Concerns
There are a lot of concerns that can and should be addressed before a transparent government project is launched. Fortunately, there are sound solutions to most of them.

* Concern: Amateurs will just confuse issues
Response: As Jon Udell says, “Those who don’t cite data will be laughed at. Those who do cite data but interpret it incorrectly will be corrected. Those who do great work will develop reputations that are discoverable and measurable.”
* Concern: will violate privacy
Response: there is already a lot of personal information available on the web as well as data theft and inadvertent disclosure by government agencies. This issue must be addressed on a comprehensive basis, and shouldn’t be given as the justification for denying transparent government.
* Concern: releasing and combining bad data will compound problems
Response: No justification! Bad data must be cleaned up under any circumstances.

And offers some advice on how this process could perhaps begin…

Test transparent government behind firewall first
I realize this whole concept of releasing data to the general public is downright scary to many in government!

So here’s a great way to ease into transparent government: apply the same strategy behind the firewall first.

After all, your own employees may be struggling with incompatible data bases, may need to reach across agency “silos” to see if there might be synergies between programs, or they may need to see if plotting various data bases geographically might illustrate hotspots where intervention should be concentrated.

Just as with public transparent government projects: employees from outside a given agency may be able to provide new insights simply because of their differing life experiences and insights.

Also, as more young workers, who have never known life without the Web, join governmental workforces, they’ll naturally ask why tools they’ve used can’t be used in government. This can empower them and tap their expertise.

Experimenting with transparent government on the inside lets you:

* learn more about approach
* encourage inter-agency cooperation
* clean up data
* create your own data visualizations and information mashups before going public.

When launching a behind-the-firewall data visualization site, you need to have the same components as with a public site:

* clean up your data, and establish common formats for feeds: XML, RSS, and AJAX.
* create a single web site for the project, that will allow you to include the feeds, show how the process works, and then aggregate all of the mashups and visualizations that result
* encourage users to create and use tags, so that the projects can be clustered and searched.

Read the full speech here…