Currently the public service is grappling with policy for how it should deal with employee’s use of social media. What are fair guidelines for online behaviour? Am I allowed to blog at work, what about if I talk about my work while I’m blogging at home? Tricky territory indeed unless agencies are generous with their staff in terms of self expression but provide clear codes of conduct. It’s certainly not going to work to blanket ban people using social media because, as a recent Nielsen study reminds us, social networking is now the most popular online activity rather than email.
Grappling with social media policy is a noble sentiment indeed – at least we’re talking about it and not pretending it doesn’t exist. If some progressive policies are nutted out it may lead to more e-government initiatives which put people in touch with their leaders, and maybe more importantly, with each other.
It’s been very amusing this week to watch the outing of the Fake Stephen Conroy who turns out to be Telstra employee Leslie Nassar. His twitter feed has proved hilarious reading to his almost 2000 followers, many opposed to the dreaded internet filter. He is now blogging under Department of Internets and will no doubt continue his social commentary in a new guise. The big question has been what are Telstra going to do about this wayward employee and what is their policy with employees using social media. Their social media expert Mike Hickinbotham has posted an explanatory blog post on their nowwearetalking.com.au which explains all.
Telstra is learning the best way to engage in social media – notice our response has come in the form of a blog versus a media release.
We believe transparency promotes credibility. This post is about getting the facts into the open.
Whew, glad we got that one straight guys, as long as the company responds via a blog post everything’s hunky dory. But I tip my hat to Telstra for admitting publicly that they are still learning about this stuff and that’s a far more productive take on social media than denial or trying to stamp it out.
I saw a great presentation today by Ben Self from Blue State Digital who was one of the driving forces behind Obama’s online campaign. Self worked with Obama in the lead up to securing the democratic nomination and then throughout the campaign itself.
What was immediately evident was that this was a well executed but relatively straightforward campaign. The grass roots strategy reminded me a bit of direct sales film distribution stories like how the documentary Outfoxed built an audience that eventually propelled it to cinema release. The Obama campaign built a community and a war chest by asking for small contributions of $5 or $10 from ordinary people – over 3.2 million people donated all up. The campaign rewarded the people who were most active in that community and gave them incentives to go out and field more members and contributions.
A lot of the organising was done via email to a database that reached 6 million people (apparently this has doubled in size since again since the election). Over $500 million dollars was raised online – total donations exceeded $700 million. The relationship management was crucial in growing the community, ensuring that the campaign was inclusive. The main web site featured a number of different touch points and ensured the barrier to entry was as low as possible. The community was addressed through a dynamic and interesting email campaign and the mode of address was as personal as possible.
Obama built loyalty by sending emails and videos to the community before they were made available to the mainstream media channels. In this way he brought donors into his confidence and made sure they remained informed. The campaign itself was characterised by a very high level of face to face advocacy – apparently over 230 million people were talked to directly in this process. The community loyalty was such that people would take on the role of campaign advocates with calls to action via email and the web site. Ben Self showed a google maps mash up tool which was fed to community members showing houses in their surrounding streets marked out for them to doorknock. Membership of the community was grown through direct marketing techniques reminiscent of Amway except on a much bigger scale. And why not, these techniques are very effective, especially when leveraged by such huge numbers of people signed up. This is the wikipedia model applied directly to politics.
One of the most interesting things revealed in the presentation was that the most active online users in the campaign were women in their 50’s. There was a conscious effort to design an online campaign which didn’t just appeal to Gen C’s. Clarity of presentation, ease of use and multiple touch points meant that the online tools worked for a wide demographic. Although Obama’s huge number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers was mentioned in the presentation, the social networking tools were played down a little. Certainly the MyBarackObama social networking tool played an important role with over 200 000 people signed up and blogging on this platform throughout the campaign. But I got the distinct feeling that secret weapon was the call to action which actually got people to go and talk to their neighbours. It was this local aspect of the campaign which dealt such a killer blow to the ‘command and control’ approach of the republicans. And apparently Sarah Palin’s derogatory comments about ‘community organiser’s was one of the best calls to action to all those grass roots community organisers working for Obama. There was a huge spike in activity after her comments.
So the movement was built through regular and personalised contact with the community creating a relationship of trust which inspired and activated people to act locally. Ultimately it was also about connecting people to each other and building strength through local alliances that snowballed on a national scale. There’s no doubt that the ability of the internet to not only connect people globally but on a local level is key to the success of such a mass campaign. Certainly a few customer relationship tips there for the asking which can be equally applied to a range of businesses. You can hear Ben Self speaking on Radio National Breakfast here.
Another great speech by Sir Ken Robinson is now up on the RSA site and can be found here. Sir Ken has a very enlightened view of education that goes beyond many of the commonly accepted divides – vocational vs academic, back to basics vs. liberal free-for-all – and urges that we embrace complexity to best nuture talent, encourage innovation and a life long love of learning. It’s a thought provoking talk that, like all the best educational experiences, is engaging to listen to. But the message is very important: that rigid systems of education are not necessarily the way forward. The metaphor of education as an organic process rather than a linear route from A to B is something that is way too rarely heard. Encouraging the development of skills that are matched to the talents and passions of the students is key to good education. Whew, it’s not all brussel sprouts after all. Photo by Sebastiaan Ter Burg.
It’s worth checking out the Studio GameOn site which runs between Jan 5th and Feb 13th following the trials and tribulations of a team who are making a playable game during this six week period. The studio runs alongside the GameOn exhibition which is now in Brisbane fresh from its season at ACMI last year. The Brisbane IGDA team are behind this effort and it’s great to see so much activity in the independent games arena taking place up north. You can follow the progress of the teams on Flickr, Twitter or YouTube. There is even a live webcam link to the studio so you can see what’s happening minute to minute. Well worth checking out in person (if you’re in Brisbane) or online.
MIT has put students to work creating mobile applications for the iphone and android platforms among others. The results look impressive after a 13 week development period. They’re predicting that creating this kind of application is only going to get easier over time. Read the article and see a selection of the applications featured here.
All of the applications listed look fairly intuitive and that’s the catch with a successful mobile ap – it has to work there and then without any fiddling about. I have my doubts about restaurant bill-splitting and cinema ticket purchase aps as I’m someone who doesn’t always keep my contacts list up to date. For my money I think the locative applications offer the most potential because they are primarily intended for a mobile platform are they not? Another one of those moments where you question, why aren’t we doing this? Let’s hope that MIT are right about the potential of this to spread to educational programs everywhere. Photo from Crunchgear.
Gamejam 08 is coming up very soon. A group of us are running a game pitching event this coming Saturday from 10am – 4pm at AFTRS in the Entertainment Quarter in Sydney. Come along and demo a game, pitch an idea for a game or virtual world or attend our rapid ideas development workshop. Among the glitterati attending are Australia’s primo Virtual World Presence creator Gary Hayes, Game Designer and Writer Joe Velikovsky and Dr D Studio’s Dan Graf. As days go by more people are signing up so please hurry before all the available slots are eaten up. Register at http://www.gamejam.org.au before it’s too late. It’s a great atmosphere at the Entertainment Quarter on Saturdays with the market in full swing, so get prepared to pitch or at least cheer from the sidelines.
