Andrea Di MaioYesterday I spent an hour in a videoconference with a government organization issuing student loans. They had a number of interesting discussion points about the use of wikis, microblogs and social media for both internal and external collaboration.
When we touched upon externally facing initiatives, we started from the usual communication and public affair perspective. How can one use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, wikis and the likes to improve communication with the public and to make sure citizens get information, news and updates more frequently and effectively?
Then we moved to how to use these same tools to engage citizens in policy-making as well as service delivery. Some folks on the client side said this should be almost a natural evolution of the communication strategy. At the end of the day, soclal media are all about people sharing each other’s comments, posts, pictures, so why should that be different for government?
Well, it is different.
Using social media to communicate means to expand a multichannel communication strategy to encompass new channels. It used to be the counter, the telephone and the web site: now you have the Twitter hashtag or the Facebook page, but these are just channels. Of course citizens can engage, retweet your information, post on your Facebook page, and so forth. So it would appear that simply setting some ground rules about what people can and cannot do and how the moderation policy works would go a long way toward moving from simple communication to engagement.
But “real” engagement is something else. It is about figuring out where citizens are already having conversations that government needs to be aware of. it is about bringing information and dialogue to places where citizens want that dialogue to happen: their blogs, their Facebook groups, their Twitter streams.
In essence, in gov 2.0 terms an effective communication strategy is likely to be almost the exact opposite of an effective engagement strategy. The former chooses and controls channels, while the latter joins somebody else’s channels The former determines rules of engagement, the latter follows somebody else’s rules. The former assumes that citizens reach out to government, the latter is based on government reaching out to communities and groups.
Of course there will be areas where government’s communication on social media is so compelling that will effectively evolve into engagement, pulling people onto the government’s virtual turf. But – to many gov 2.0 experts’ and enthusiasts’ surprise – this cases will be the exception rather than the rule.
Category: social networks in government Tags: government 2.0, social media
12 responses so far ↓
1 uberVU - social comments January 14, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by AndreaDiMaio: Government 2.0: Communication and Engagement Are On a Collision Course – http://bit.ly/6vXjDf #gov20…
2 Doug Hadden January 14, 2010 at 5:58 pm
There needs to be a an effective framework for understand the effects of Government 2.0. We’ve proposed such a framework at http://www.freebalance.com/blog/?p=606 where we distinguish between internal and external engagement, and between structural and social. Your observation that there is a major difference between effective communication (structural) and engagement (social) strategies is an important distinction. Many view Enterprise 2.0 and Government 2.0 as toolsets for improved communications. You are right, there is no ability to “control” the message once it evolves in the blogosphere.
It appears more likely that internal collaboration using social networking techniques will morph externally than structural communication methods. Government organizations will exercise social muscles internally and discover how to best engage organizational wisdom – including engaging those beyond the typical sphere of experts.
3 Tweets that mention Government 2.0: Communication and Engagement Are On a Collision Course -- Topsy.com January 15, 2010 at 2:22 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jim Harris, DJ Kelly, Cara Keithley, Cara Keithley, Idoiallano and others. Idoiallano said: Gobierno 2.0 : atención porque comunicar e involucrar no es lo mismo de AndreaDiMaio http://bit.ly/6vXjDf #ogov [...]
4 Bookmarks for January 13th through January 17th January 17, 2010 at 12:02 pm
[...] Government 2.0: Communication and Engagement Are On a Collision Course – "In essence, in gov 2.0 terms an effective communication strategy is likely to be almost the exact opposite of an effective engagement strategy. The former chooses and controls channels, while the latter joins somebody else’s channels The former determines rules of engagement, the latter follows somebody else’s rules. The former assumes that citizens reach out to government, the latter is based on government reaching out to communities and groups." [...]
5 James Dellow January 18, 2010 at 7:18 pm
We tried to address this from an engagement/communication design process in the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce commissioned Online Engagement Guidelines (“Project 8″) by adding a ‘listen’ step to the typical engagement cycle. The point being that government agencies should first understand where conversations are taking place online, before deciding where and how they engage. In some cases they may need to go where the community is, but in other cases they will host the conversation themselves. I agree however that more maturity and experience is needed to appreciate the need for this approach and how to do it well. For more information see http://gov2.net.au/projects/project-8/
6 Robin Grant, We Are Social January 25, 2010 at 6:05 am
Hey Andrea
I know I’m coming to this late, but this is spot on (and applies just as much to private companies and non-profits as it does to government) – thank you!
7 US EPA Social Media Policy: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back January 29, 2010 at 12:51 pm
[...] social media is only a part of communication strategy, and little else. But, as I said a while ago, engagement and communication are on a collision course. So what the EPA and other agencies also need is not a policy (codes of conduct and ethical [...]
8 Communication vs. engagement / we are social February 2, 2010 at 12:43 pm
[...] Di Maio, a VP at Gartner specialising in e-government, recently penned these thoughts about communication and engagement in a Government 2.0 context. I think he’s spot on, and it’s a pretty universal lesson. [...]
9 Online Marketing Connect — Blog — Communication vs. engagement February 2, 2010 at 6:30 pm
[...] Di Maio, a VP at Gartner specialising in e-government, recently penned these thoughts about communication and engagement in a Government 2.0 context. I think he’s spot on, and it’s a pretty universal lesson. [...]
10 Social Media Agency UK: Qube Media: Blog : The State of the internet and the lost civilisation of “Friendster” February 3, 2010 at 9:54 am
[...] Government 2.0: Communication and Engagement Are On a Collision Course [...]
11 links for 2010-02-03 « Notes from the Web February 3, 2010 at 11:06 pm
[...] Comms and Engagement Are On a Collision Course An interesting post from Gartner. However I do believe that she oversimplifies and misses that point that a true 2.0 strategy is based on interaction and therefore cant be controlled, only managed. (tags: socialmedia gov2.0) [...]
12 marcus February 4, 2010 at 2:19 am
please disregard “links for 2010-02-03 « Notes from the Web // Feb 3, 2010 at 11:06 pm” I posted too fast and on a friendly pointer from Andrea I re-read his post and realized I 100% agree with him!