Government Going All A-Twitter?
Dennis McCafferty | Date: 03-22-10 | Comments: 7
- Say goodbye to the stereotype of the stodgy bureaucrat. Government agency managers now are getting totally "with it" when it comes to using social media tools to provide better services to taxpayers.
For government bureaucrats, a casual conversation often involves terms such as "request
for proposal," "government-wide acquisition strategy" and "protocols
for enterprise management procurement." In other words, not exactly the
kind of chat that would win you any points at a singles bar. So it’s difficult
to believe that these agency managers are now embracing the same popular
social-media tech tools that are all the rage on the Web these days.
But that’s
exactly what’s happening. Thanks in part to President Obama’s call for a more
interactive and open federal government, and the greater inclination of localities
and states to embrace the inevitable, agencies are now using Facebook, Twitter
and other social media tools to better connect to citizens. Here are some
notable examples:
- Crowdsourcing is a big part of the social network equation. Spigit for Government, a tool from
Pleasanton, Calif.-based Spigit, can be used by federal, state and local
government organizations to encourage citizens to collaborate on better ways to
provide public service. The city of Manor, Texas, is using the tool to ask citizens for
input in eight categories, including IT services, the court system, police,
utility billing and public works. The site, manorlabs.org, has even inspired a
blog posting from White House OpenGov Deputy CTO Beth Noveck. For participating, Manor
citizens get virtual currency for their efforts, called "Innobucks,"
and can cash these rewards in for a ride along with the police chief or even a
rare custom-framed flag of the state of Texas.
- The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance is among the government customers
reaching more citizens through Albany, N.Y.-based readMedia, which takes the
standard press releases and other agency-churned information fodder and
transforms them all into an online newsroom, with RSS feeds to subscribers and
regular postings to social network sites. It also provides Web stats that
reveal to agencies where online traffic to their news releases is coming from,
and how well their news performs against peer organizations. The New York tax
department used the platform to publish updates on citizens convicted of fraud
and evasion, and the increased profile has resulted in prime coverage by The New York Times and other major media
outlets.
- Tallahassee, Fla.-based Wahi Media has introduced a video-based social media online platform
in which Tampa Bay police officers, educators and other active community
members are interacting with gang members online to get a sense of how these
members get recruited so as to come up with better ways to execute early
intervention. Because the interaction is one-on-one, face-to-face (virtually,
at least), police officers are able to hold the attention of a gang member
longer (as much as 8 to 10 minutes at a time), unlike traditional social media
outlets where users quickly click from one conversation to another. So far,
more than 5,000 one-on-one conversations have been conducted with gang members.
Other Wahi clients include police departments for Atlanta and Tallahassee.
- The Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) is using the RightNow Cloud Monitor to stay on top
of what’s being said about its services on social networks, and has improved
services to customers as a result. The monitor, from Bozeman, Mont.-based
RightNow CX, taps into cloud-based technologies to pinpoint what users are
seeking when it comes to products and services. It then builds content to match
the demand. It can also track what citizens are saying about an agency such as
NFCU and, as a result, credit union managers have updated and clarified
information on its Website to make for a better user experience.
