Governments are still struggling to get their heads around Social Media #g2g

I went to Canada House last Friday for the Global networks, local action: transforming communities with social media (Twitter hashtag #g2g). I thought I'd add a few thoughts about what I learned there.

While it was an insightful meeting I don't remember there being a great deal of discussion about "transforming communities" or "local action". Lovisa Williams from the US State Department is clearly an enthusiastic social networker and had a lot to say about a website that the State Department helped set up for facilitating and advising US Citizens on international exchanges. Emer Coleman from the Greater London Authority understood that, in the face of impending public service cuts, Social Media could be a good tool for finding out from people where their priorities lie in order to inform their decisions as to where to swing the axe. However, that seemed to be the extent of discussion of communities from what I could make out.

Instead, the direction of the discussion moved about how Government departments understand the characteristics of Social Media tools. I found it very interesting that the FCO assign Twitter IDs to specific trusted personnel only. This suggests that they see micro blogging as publicly available and therefore something that needs an extra layer of control in case somebody tweets the wrong thing, so to speak. The tweets aren't cleared but the people doing the tweeting are. Meanwhile, others argued that social media is a form of communication, just as e-mail and the telephone is and no one needs clearance to use that, not anymore anyway.

By way of an illustration, Colleen Graffy, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy at U.S. State Department recounted an unpleasant experience while using Twitter. She started micro-blogging in order to getter engage with her stakeholders only to find her thoughts, which included a few personal anxieties, exploited by the mainstream press. This was something she felt could be damaging and may deter other diplomats who are considering using Social Media.

I'm not sure to what degree this was understood at the time but it does suggest that using Twitter, is not quite like using e-mail or the phone. Twitter is a presumed public conversation while e-mail and telephone is a conversation that presumes involvement with a defined number of selected individuals or groups. If you're a public figure whose actions are open to scrutiny (and subject to misinterpretation) from third parties, this can present difficult challenges. Over time and as Social Media drops the "social" and becomes just plain Media, the relationship between the Fourth Estate and Government may change as the former's business model alters to adapt to the new media landscape. In the meantime however, its good to see that Colleen is still tweeting.

Needless to say it wouldn't be Government without an element of menace. Social Media, was not created to be sinister (unlike the Death Ray) but it can be used for sinister purposes. The discussion on "Public Diplomacy" didn't sit well with some of the non-Government people that I spoke to afterwards. Stephen Hale, Head, Of Engagement at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seemed quite excited about the idea of engaging with other country's citizens directly by bypassing their own governments. The framework of the discussion was specifically within the realms of combating counter-terrorism, a sort of electronic equivalent of dropping propaganda leaflets out of planes if you will.In many people's eyes this may be perfectly benign and justifiable but is it Social Media?

There was a fair amount of network admin bashing as well. It seems that a number of government departments on both sides of the Pond are having problems getting access to necessary online tools (although it was intriguing to learn how they were finding their way around their departmental IT policies). Unfortunately, it is on that basis that I'm not convinced that Government is going to be pushing the boundaries of social media in matters of democracy anytime soon.

With any technological breakthrough comes an historic opportunity to better enfranchise and democratise. Social Media presents Governments with such an opportunity to provide and extend democratic services to the citizenry and further engage them in the political process. A sort of Digital Enfranchisement.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that Government is equipped or inclined to face the many challenges that Digital Enfranchisement would present. As one audience member implied (a civil servant from Culture Media and Sport whose name, alas, I do not recall), Government is very much about putting the breaks on things and stopping people from getting too far ahead of themselves.

Broadly the lessons I learned was that Governments, (in the UK and US at least), see Social Media as another means of broadcasting their message. Holding conversations is fine but it must be within their own parameters. There is no suggestion that the nature of Government's relationship with people is changing. I had also hoped to hear more on how they envisage a digital future and how they and we can become more involved in running our lives. Instead, I felt their was too much emphasis on what Social Media can do for them as opposed to what they can do with Social Media.

Nevertheless, at least they're talking about it and are prepared to have the discussion in public. Perhaps future sessions will prove more inspiring. Kudos should go to @dominiccampbell of Futuregov, @Chrisheuer at the Social Media Club and the Canadian High Commission for setting it up and laying it on.

Posted via email from redduffman