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From the Lefevers, a simple explanation of a wiki and how it benefits collaborative work. This is a tool that could really help you break down barriers to new technologies and social media in an organization.

I’ve got some colleagues who are seriously addicted to Facebook. Luckily, they don’t work for the Ontario provincial government, where the site was banned yesterday. Despite knee-jerk reactions from bureaucrats largely concerned with bandwidth bottlenecks, it seems that “respectable” networking sites like Facebook (or myragan) may prove to be the thin edge of the wedge for social media in the workplace.

Simply reading blogs, which is a frequent activity in government offices around the world, really doesn’t count as a participatory activity that builds value. Listening to podcasts, while informative, may not lead to further interaction with the podcasters or their audiences.

Social networking sites, on the other hand, offer office-dwellers an opportunity to extend their network of professional and personal contacts.

The “friend of a friend of a friend’s colleague” model may be their first chance to stumble into new friendships and networks since smokers were forced to take their fags to the lowest level of the parking garage.

“When workers tried to log on to their accounts yesterday, they were greeted with the same “access denied” message that pops up on their screens should someone attempt to download pornography on an Ontario government computer.

“The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes,” the warning reads.

Facebook joins YouTube, online poker gambling websites and hardcore sex sites as verboten in any provincial government office across Ontario, said Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips.

But similar rival MySpace is still accessible to provincial government employees at work.

Facebook is prohibited from being used on computers in some – but not all – federal departments in Ottawa but the provincial ban affects every Ontario ministry.

“The staff determined it’s not as directly related to the workplace as we’d like it to be so we’re restricting access to it,” [Government Services Minister] Phillips told the Toronto Star.”

I’ve volunteered to write a chapter - okay, a one page note - on how government communicators will have to adjust to dealing with the the members and issues embodied by new online networks and affinity groups for the new e-book being corralled by Gavin Heaton and Drew Mclellan:

… And out of that blogging conversation and a few e-mails, Gavin & I concocted the idea for an e-book about this new era of communications we’ve all entered together. But not just any book. It has to be a quick book. Exciting. Sharp. Inclusive. It had to be a book about community and conversation that came from that community and spoke the same vernacular. The title — The Conversation Age.

I’ll post my contribution when possible, I promise!

How can a government communicator help convince traditional bureaucracies to adopt social media tools - even as part of a pilot project? The key lays in the preparation of arguments and counterarguments, to be used as part of a pitch to senior management.

We are not all naturally risk adverse, but we can work to anticipate the points that will prompt questions from our Undersecretaries, Assistant Deputy Ministers and Directors-General. Building from that analysis, we can make sure our presentations and white papers address concerns about IT infrastructure security, information retention and workplace productivity that are sure to come up as a proposal makes its way through a department or ministry.

Some of this data is being pulled together already. As corporate consultancies begin to play in the arena, they are beginning to address the implications of social media adoption from the point of view of a corporate manager: what about the risk?

For example, Clearswift recently conducted surveys in Britain and the United States to examine use of social media and “Web 2.0″ sites in the workplace. Their news release highlighted the term “data leakage,” and the U.S. news release emphasized that the “Growing popularity of Web 2.0 sites put corporate information at risk and drains productivity.”

The data points being fed to corporate clients, as a result, emphasize three points:

• without a plan to deal with social media use, corporations risk the loss of valuable corporate information, either intentionally or inadvertently;
• employees, especially the younger generation, are already online A LOT during work hours; and
• use of “Web 2.0″ sites can significantly affect productivity in the workplace.

Key to these arguments are two separate sets of findings:

United States

• 46 percent of office workers have discussed work-related issues on social media websites;
• 71 percent of office workers use Web-based email at work for personal reasons;

Britain

• 42 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 have discussed work-related issues on social media websites
• 59 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 believed that employees should be entitled to access Web 2.0 Internet content from their work computer for personal reasons, compared to 38 per cent of employees aged 30+.

It’s hard to compare the two sets of surveys, as their methodology is different in each country. Still, the results are similar and reinforce the message being driven by Clearswift:

“More than half of the people we surveyed feel that they are entitled to access the Internet and social media sites at work, and 27 percent of them work at organizations that don’t have an acceptable use policy or don’t know if one exists,” added Ian Bowles. “We have become way too casual with the Internet; this despite the propagation of viruses, bugs, spam and scams that plague the Internet and can harm an organization. We urge businesses to take a sensible approach to the risks posed by the Internet and social media sites.”

Does that voice sound familiar? Can you visualize having that conversation with a senior manager in your organization? Have you already lived through that type of exchange?

h/t to the Melcrum Blog, and cross-posted to canuckflack.com

Building on yesterday’s post about Web 2.0 technology adoption in businesses, some more data on business intentions for the technology. From the table excerpted below, it’s hard to tell whether adoption has reached a peak - with a sizable proportion reluctant to invest in anything but “web services” or “peer-to-peer networking” - or whether technologies like podcasts and wikis are about to tip over into popularity.

There’s much more information available at McKinsey’s “How businesses are using Web 2.0: A McKinsey Global Survey” - including how many respondents plan to bring in these technologies, broken down by region and continent.

Once again, I see similarities between these corporate results and government intentions. (my observations are completely unsupported by data, by the way)

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.