Category: egovernment

At the public sector web management group conference

Back from Birmingham, and from solving a few ‘local difficulties’ with my broadband supplier, with some observations on attending the inaugural meeting of the public sector web management group.

I travelled up the evening before on the back of a pretty grotty illness so I wasn’t expecting much in terms of my contribution or what I would pick up. I was right on the former but on the latter, the event was very enlightening.

The key (but I suppose unsurprising) thing was how much central government and local government webbies have got in common – similar concerns (central control, lack of budget or resources, great desire to improve things for the citizen) and a great deal of goodwill about sharing knowledge and expertise. Whilst our perspectives might be different our aims are pretty aligned.

It was good to finally meet up with people I only knew previously from their websites, blogs or rants and get their slant on the issues affecting public sector web. There was a genuine commitment to  try and improve our lot collectively and a small committee has formed to try and harness the goodwill and  keep the momentum going.

The things that stood out for me:

  • Strong desire to use our collective voice for putting forward an ‘industry view’ on matters of consultation and debate around the development of public sector online
  • Revelation from one of the speakers that the next stage of their intranet development is ‘turning it off in three years time’ – an obvious extension of the ‘corporate website is increasingly irrelevant‘ mantra
  • Good mix of visionaries and pragmatists – ‘Second Life is the future, you should give it a go’ vs ‘You cannot justify spending a single penny in Second Life until you get your email distribution and website usability right’ (couldn’t agree more…)

All in all, an excellent event. Credit to Dan Champion and Public Sector Forums for putting it on. Hopefully next time I won’t feel so crap and remember to take more notes.

Quick reminder – public sector web management group

I’ve mentioned this before, but a gentle nudge in your direction.

Next Wednesday (10th) is the inaugural meeting of the public sector web management group in Birmingham. If you think its important for public sector webbies to work together to share experience, best practice and improve standards then you should be there and get involved.

There’s an awful lot we can all learn from each other – I’m always rather chastened in the presence of local government webbies, they seem to be much more sophisticated in managing and developing their domains – and its important to support initiatives like this.

If you really can’t make it, you might be interested to know that the conference will be broadcast live in Second Life (is that still going? 😉 ). You’ll need to register in advance so check the details if that’s how you’ll participate.

Hope to see you there. (P.s. they’re not paying me for this ad!).

FCO is web 2.Go

Its already been ‘exclusively revealed’ elsewhere, and even trailed in the national press. Now some of the ‘exciting stuff’ I alluded to the other day has gone live: the Foreign Office’s multi-channel social media initiative.

Combining multiple blogs, a Youtube channel and a Flickr account, the FCO has gone full steam ahead embracing social media tools for a different kind of online engagement, particularly for government.

Of course it helps that they have an enlightened and experience secretary of state to help blaze the trail, but whats interesting about this iteration is that they have depersonalised the initiative somewhat and made it more collegiate. Instead of just one blogger (though no doubt David Miliband will be the focal point) they’ve recruited six from right across the organisation: politicians, diplomats and officials (who said civil servants cannot blog?….). My guess is they’ve learnt the lessons of the foreign secretary’s previous departments: when you lose your blogger, you lose your blog.

The integration of Youtube and Flickr also looks good too. I understand that all six bloggers have been kitted out with gear to allow them to record, edit and upload as seamlessly as possible. I’m also glad to see that they’ve enabled comments on the Youtube and Flickr accounts, something that the Number 10 effort has not enabled.

All in all, it a pretty neat execution, it will be interesting to see what they do next (I have no idea, just guessing….).

The government web strategy – back of a fag packet version

Those who actually read this blog regularly (or get cornered and bored by me in the real world…) know that I have been banging on about the need for a simply defined and well communicated government web strategy for a very long time.

Why? – because there is an awful lot going on in improving the government’s online offerings but it doesn’t seem to ‘hang together’ at the moment, it needs an overarching framework so that its easy to explain as a whole, rather than its constituent parts.

What got me thinking about this was the endless round of meetings that started about 18 months ago on the back of the transformational government agenda. Almost without exception, colleagues would confidently tell me that the government web strategy was all about ‘closing websites down’. Far from it. But because that initiative was so high profile with momentum and buy-in, thats exactly what it looked like.

Now, as other transformational government initiatives kick in – updating guidelines on managing sites, improving search across government sites, archiving digital information etc etc its becoming easier to see how the strategy fits together.

Government web isn’t unique in this regard. I’ve previously referenced Jeremiah Owyang’s work on why the corporate domain is increasingly irrelevant. Corporate domains in government are still important, but its just as essential to understand how to integrate other online channels into the mix.

At the recent heads of ecommunications meeting, there was a discussion about developing departmental web strategies and a call for those who have already developed them to share them with the network. That got me thinking that it would be an awful lot easier if there was a clear statement – call it what you will: strategy, framework, statement of intent – setting out government-wide priorities, channels, audience segmentation etc. This would then allow organisations across government to align themselves with it and take their lead from it.

So what follows here is an attempt to capture how I usually respond when people ask me, ‘ what is the government’s web strategy’? Call it a bar-stool or Mickey Mouse version if you like. Its not perfect (in any case, it changes every time I recite it), probably missing bits or not expressed quite right. But its a start. Grateful for any thoughts on how to improve it. Who knows, we might actually create a credible statement about what all this stuff we do is actually about:

GOVERNMENT WEB STRATEGY (rough guide)

The aim of the government web strategy is to improve the delivery of government information, services and engagement (ISE) online.

This will be achieved by:

  • Clearly defining online channels by audience and need
  • Ensuring online channels meet required government standards for accessibility, usability and other technical aspects
  • Ensuring ISE is easily findable and searchable by improving it visibility to search engines
  • Providing opportunities for interaction and engagement with government online.

PRIMARY DELIVERY CHANNELS and who they are for (this is not definitive but a rule of thumb)

Services and information for the citizen, other than healthcare. are delivered through DirectGov.

Healthcare information is delivered through NHS Direct/NHS Choices.

Services and information for business sectors are delivered through Businesslink.

Policy news, publications (reports, consultations etc) and corporate stakeholder engagement is delivered through departmental corporate domains.

Stakeholder/workforce specific ISE (guidance, resources etc) could be delivered through the corporate domain or via a standalone site dependent on the size/scale of the defined audience (e.g. armed forces specific domains but smaller groups of practitioners by the parent department).

CHANNELS FOR DRIVING TRAFFIC / INFORMING USERS

Info4local delivers tailored, opt-in messages to the wider public sector

Bespoke email marketing can be used for other tailored audiences

Syndication tools (e.g. RSS) can be used to inform and/or push information to users.

ENGAGEMENT CHANNELS

Social media tools can be used for a variety of purposes to generate engagement opportunities (e.g. in support of consultation, elicit feedback, collaborate etc)

Social networks can allow government to engage and interact with pre-existing communities.

ENABLING CHANNELS

search – improved standards for site/content optimisation allow users to find what they are looking for more easily.

Site user statistics – better standards of evaluating metrics allow us to tailor and improve online channels by user experience and usage.

Archiving content – improved standards on ensuring hyperlinks persist allows users to find older content and support the government record.

So thats about it. Not perfect – I’ll probably want to rewrite it in the morning but finally committed to paper(?).

What’s good/bad/missing/needs refining?

Whitehall’s really getting social media now

At the quarterly government heads of e-communication meeting this afternoon. Sure I’ve mentioned this little shindig before, a chance for head webbies from the various departments to get together chew the cud and solve the worlds problems…

No surprises that there has been a great deal of interest in social media over the last nine months or so (when we’ve managed to collectively draw breath over website rationalisation).

When I was working on the government communications social media review we discovered an awful lot of experimenting going on around departments, some of it good some of it not so good. The great thing was that it was happening, even if it didn’t always seem to be clearly defined. But the piloting was patchy, really confined to a few more forward thinking departments. Everyone else was keen to find out more and there was great appetite for this stuff.

That was around February / March time. The review was a good snapshot of activity at that time but its already out of date.

By early summer, appetites had been wetted and plans were being drawn up by others to invest (a lot of) time and (a little) money in utilising social media tools to prove their value (and to stop policy bods saying that they ‘wanted a blog’ without really knowing why).

Proof of the change in understanding can be seen in some recent innovations such as the Our NHS blog – using the technology in the right context and not just to use the technology.

But even that mindset has been overtaken. Today, the talk was about exploiting the range of tools and online communities to promote, explain and involve citizens in government policy initiatives. I don’t want to steal others’ thunder before anything gets released but there is some really exciting stuff just around the corner. I’ll let you know when it finally sees the light of day, but I’ll give you a hint: everyone’s favourite online politician and is involved. Simon Dickson will be so pleased he asked the question first….