How better to start a blog that will discuss how government organizations communicate and integrate social media than to make some general observations about the integration of new (and not so new) technologies at the government level?

The Network of Public Sector Communicators notes that, in the most recent version of the Gartner Hype Cycle for Government (released last July), instant messaging for public servants has still to find an audience among IT specialists and senior executives. In the meanwhile, public servants are busy implementing hacks, convincing friends in the IT department to open ports on firewalls, and IM’ing from their PDAs.

Just as important is the observation that state and federal governments are slow to implement customer relationship management software:

“…Local authorities are embracing CRM, but there is not yet an enterprise mind-set above the municipal level. National, state and regional governments have not yet engaged in CRM or citizen-centric government through CRM capabilities at the enterprise level. However, some governments at this level have embraced CRM as a form of case management for large human services agencies and programs.” (Gartner, 2006)

We can all recognize that a customized CRM or case management software package would help communicators set a much clearer course to negotiate the maze of relationships, messages and interactions among audiences, stakeholders, government agencies and, as we say in Ottawa, federal/provincial/territorial relationships.

As for other social media applications, I am sure every public sector communicator can cite at least one internal implementation of tools like wikis, podcasts and blogs, usually as pilot projects, that they have heard of.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under IT Issues, Government to Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.