Regeneration and recruitment. It’s a fact of life in many organizations, but a particular challenge for civil services around the world. Most civil services have traditionally been structured to retain experts and encourage the concentration of specialist knowledge and corporate history. In practice, this means that recruitment and regeneration of the working force has proved difficult.

We are facing tremendous challenges with the arrival of the wired generation - the kids who used to be called the Nintendo generation. They bring a ground-breaking approach to communication to their life and their work. And it may threaten stability in the office.

(Not that a little disruption and iconoclasm can’t be good - in moderation)

Take, for instance, how a generation used to interacting with insight, sarcasm, disregard for the feelings of others, or irrationality - largely through comment fields - might restructure the traditional business meeting.

A video from College Humour shows us the possible result.

h/t to Jake McKee.

It’s at an international conference that your skills as a high master of government communications are tested.

Your policy and program colleagues have spent months developing a comprehensive agenda. They have convinced experts from around the country and around the world to attend - and to speak.

And they look to you for the entire gamut of communications skills:

Oh, and some communications plan that will tie everything together and wrap it with a pretty bow.

If you’re lucky, your organization has hired some very experienced conference planners to drive the process and make sure every detail of the event proceeds smoothly and as planned.

It’s still up to you and your communications staff to hit the bricks, so to speak. Pick apart the conference agenda, find the topics, the nuggets and the speakers who are at all interesting to the general public. And sell the bejesus out of them.

It’s an exercise in identifying your spheres of influence:

• people who normally cover your organization and your topic
• people who have covered your topic in the past
• people who have written about subjects related to your topic
• people who have interviewed the speakers invited to your conference
• people who have reported on the topics covered by your speakers
• reporters in the town where you’re hosting your conference
• assignment editors in other towns who will make reporters in the town where you’re hosting your conference actually come to your conference.

In our case, we managed to have an issue to lead into our conference. And it was an issue that drew attention.

Luckily, we brought most of our communications team to town in preparation. And I needed help from each and every one of them. Still, I’ve spent the entire day on the phone with reporters. As have four other, expert, spokespersons.

It shakes the bones of a staid government communicator, I’ll tell you. Sometimes we get used to events and schedules unfolding as expected - and as routinely and quietly as possible. It suits a government employee.

But all it takes is one day - just one day - where your skills as manager, strategist and media relations expert are challenged to remind you how most government communicators leave a lot on the table every day.

Really. We all arrive at work vowing to produce our best work and provide our clients with the best counsel possible. But how often do we arrive at work thinking “I want this file to explode - but in a good way.”

And the conference doesn’t really start until tomorrow. Stay tuned.

but we’ve pulled together a blog for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. It’s en francais as well.

Joe and others have asked for details, like why the identities of the authors aren’t more clearcut. I’m trying. My name is at the bottom of the Welcome page, and my name shows up on the posts in the RSS.

To be fair, we’re making this blog a true team effort. Two of the posts have been written by members of my Public Education and Communications team.

We’re really excited about the developments in our shop - the blog is just one step in our efforts to expand our outreach and public education efforts.

Beta vs. Pilot Project

Which one is sexier? And which one is preferred by bureaucrats, politicians and heads of the civil service?

We’re back to our old discussion about risk.

When you’re in beta, there’s a tacit acknowledgment that the whole experiment could go sideways. You’ve hit upon a good idea, your idea is based on solid analysis and an understanding of the market … but you’ve got crazy eyes.

In beta, people are willing to bet that your crazy eyes are a strategic advantage. Your funders, your mentors, your underpaid employees - they all believe that the end result will outweigh the risk.

In a pilot project, the entire process is built around eliminating risk. That initial spark of insight and creativity may have found a backer and some money, but let’s not get out of hand here folks!

The fundamental weakness is right there in the name: pilot project. The expectations have already been raised: colleagues and bosses are expecting big things.

A beta is allowed to wander. A beta is allowed to make a mis-step or two. A pilot project has already been enrolled in engineering school.

For the older members of my readership, a beta is Tweety Bird. A pilot project is that nerdy chick, the one Foghorn Leghorn used to push around.

It’s a fundamental problem: how does a government bureaucracy, built on ensuring stability and rational order, accomodate risk?

Unfortunately, many government organizations shy away from any risk that cannot be modelled and quantified.

If it cannot be quantified, it must be controlled. It must be boxed in. It must be measured, evaluated and reported on.

Talk about setting up ol’ crazy eyes for failure. It’s a real poke in the eye.

This week, I’ve had some opportunity to experiment with blogger relations in reaction to a fast-moving story. How do government spokespeople and representatives “engage” with bloggers, especially if your online conversation begins to outstrip your internal policy development process?

That’s the basic problem: program and policy decisions are rarely made quickly, especially in a government organization with responsibility to administrators and politicians.

There’s been some discussion lately of a blogger outreach code of ethics - particularly at Ogilvy. What would a blogger outreach code for government look like?

First, a caveat. Blogger outreach, in many cases, has involved a freebie of some sort. Unless you work in a tourism promotion program, you probably don’t have freebies.

Instead, blogger and social media outreach in a civil service context revolves largely around ideas, issues and public affairs.

With that in mind, I suggest some social media outreach maxims for civil servants:

• Know your strategy - your strategy for policy development as well as communications. Your contact and discussion with bloggers and social media must fit into your overall strategy for outreach, consultation and legislative action.
• Build a detailed outreach list. Make sure you’re speaking to influencers and bloggers well-versed in your issues and concerns.
• What does it take to win? Agree on your organization’s goals for your outreach.
• Explain how your outreach program can go wrong. Map out for others how a comment stream can go negative.
• Be thoroughly aware of the “state of play” in your issue or program. What are you trying to say? What are the limits to what you can say?
• What is the logical next step? Be ready to continue the conversation or debate.
• Be straightforward about your limitations. Don’t just drop a conversation or comment thread - explain your reasons for disengaging and identify how your organization may pursue the subject in other ways.
• ALWAYS be clear about your identity and level of authority. Communications staff shouldn’t wade knee deep into a technical conversation.
• Link and Point - don’t just restrict the conversation to your own knowledge. Point to other sources of information and commentary, especially if its buried deep inside the site map of your own organization, partners or international organizations.

Any thoughts?

UPDATE: Kaye points out in her response (linked in the comments) that quite good codes already exist, including that developed by WOMMA. I still feel that some work needs to be done to help bridge between the existing and traditional policy development process and the new world of social networks, honest conversation and frank discussion.

Technorati Tags: blogger outreach code, blogger outreach, government communications, social media code

In today’s world, we are all used to a superior making a last minute change to a document. Sometimes it’s a valuable contribution. Sometimes its an accurate correction of an error. Other times, it may just be a power play. The decision may be subliminal or it may be explicit, but it still forces the author to rework the document.

Last minute editing has really only become endemic because of the introduction of electronic writing and editing. Before the word processor, revising a document at the last minute meant finding someone from the typing pool who could rework the whole text - just to add a comma or an adverb.

Which made this powerplay seem amusing and quaint:

“How often has the drafter of a paper come rushing into a senior’s office, saying, breathlessly, ‘Hope you can read this right away, sir. I spent all weekend on it, and it’s got to go to the DD this afternoon. Incidentally, the girls have started typing, so I hope you won’t have too many suggestions.’”

Basic Psychology for Intelligence Analysts, Studies in Intelligence (Winter 1971)