The United Kingdom Civil Service has come out with its Guidance on Participation Online, and the document is a beauty to behold. Short, simple, and, best of all, a document that encourages action and risk-taking.

Running the text through Wordle reveals that the writers have put the emphasis on the right concepts: representative, disclose, being aware, online participation - all enabling terms.

Peter Spaghetti, Dave and Emma (and Jeremy)have all commented on the guidelines ahead of me, but I don’t hold that against them.

Technorati Tags: Civil Servant Guidelines for Online Participation, United Kingdom, Govt 2.0

And the experimenting by government institutions gets either more creative, or simply strange.

A user called UKParliament has shown up on Twitter, sending tweets several times a day about the business of the House and other Parliamentary housekeeping.

The user/operator/junior communications clerk was kind enough to reciprocate my following, but I honestly don’t expect the disembodied voice of the House to reply back to my daily commuter commentary on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: twitter, United Kingdom, Parliament

Having just got off the phone with Jeremy Gould, I wonder what appetite there is for a Government Barcamp, likely in Ottawa in September or October?

All the details are up in the air, but I’m imaging a very flexible and co-operative event, where we can get together to discuss personal initiatives in social media and bang heads about how to move innovative technology and tactics further within the context of working for the Government of Canada.

If you can, respond in the comments, so others in town will get an idea of the demand for this sort of self-organized social media event, I would appreciate it.

Otherwise, email me at colin@canuckflack.com.

Hopefully, we can generate as much energy as the UK version.

This is still sketchy, but fascinating. At what point must a government department (or political staffers sharing the government network) be aboveboard about the editing they perform on Wikipedia and other open online resources?

After all, a department will edit documents on its own network without leaving editing tracks.

But if a department feels it is making legitimate and independent changes to an erroneous Wikipedia entry, should it make the changes under an official identity?

It seems like the tide is turning in Canada, and more senior executives in the public service are expressing an interest in social media of all types.

Being a cautious species, many are experimenting behind the firewall, with Deputy Ministers setting up blogs to speak with their employees, and departments using wikis to revitalize their intranet.

Over the next year or so, this trend will accelerate - and managers will find themselves facing a staffing crunch.

That’s right. I think we all agree that social media demands a flexible skil lset, capable of interpreting organizational priorities, incorporating communications goals and acting as a strategic advisor on engagement and consultation

Social media strategists also need to have a sense of experimentation and an appetite for risk - in tools, tactics and strategy.

That’s not a combination easily found in the public service.

I can see a point - not too far in the future - when communications branches will be identifying the social media strategist as a valuable and high profile position in the branch.

It will be a transitional appointment, where young and upcoming strategists will be given the opportunity to bridge the world of traditional policy development and innovative communications.

It will be a recruiting tool and a staff retention strategy - to prevent the bleeding of otherwise interesting and stimulating staff in the communications branch.

These strategists will have to navigate the world of information technology, strategic communications planning and reassuring senior management - a skill set that will prepare them well for larger horizontal files and wide-ranging projects.

As we begin to see concrete and measurable results from government experiments in social media, these multi-faceted communications strategists will find more doors open to them at more senior levels of the bureaucracy.

The question is, will they want to move on?

The plodding and somewhat regressive bureaucrat. These are the subjects of Jan Banning’s portraits, drawn from trips to Bolivia, India, Central Asia and other places.

I admire the pictures for their composition, but despise them for the effort they imply: the bureaucrats are shown posed behind their desks, stiff backed and waiting for a request to be opposed or denied.

There may be signs of modernity, like a solar calculator or a large bakelite phone, but the overwhelming imagery is of large bulky furniture, a traditionally built space in some form of disrepair, and a process that is largely dictated by paper documents and personal relationships.

That may be reality, but I don’t have to like it.

This is perhaps the must succinct guide to working with digitally enabled employees: whether a Generation “Y”, a millenial, or a particularly adept Generation Xer.

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Well. I find myself in an interesting situation. After years of working as a government communicator, albeit with extensive exposure to the policy development process, I have just moved over to a largely research-based role.

This means I am busy ginning up on leading an actual policy and research function. And adjusting to being responsible for a planning window that extends beyond next Tuesday (us communicators, especially media relations types, are notoriously short sighted).

You may have felt the effects - my posting rate has been erratic of late.

Rest assured, my interest in communications and social media remains strong (and I am restraining from making a lame Yoda reference here).

But I’m certainly being helped by these great guides from New Zealand, via Jason.

Here in Canada, we’re undergoing a routine review of all our major government-wide administrative policies - and that includes the Government Communications Policy.

Earlier this week, the Auditor General of Canada was appearing before a Standing Committee of Parliament, speaking to MPs about her department’s spending plans for the upcoming year.

An opposition Member of Parliament, David Christopherson, asked the Auditor General about the rumoured revisions to the Communications Policy. As one news report characterized their exchange:

“… [The Auditor General] … revealed this week that the government is drafting a new policy that could require departments to vet their communications plans through the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic wing of the Prime Minister’s Office.

“There’s a draft communication policy going around that would have all communication strategies, all communications, everything, go through Privy Council Office,” Fraser told a Commons committee on Tuesday. “Well, I can tell you there is no way that my press releases about my report are going to go to Privy Council Office or our communications strategies are going to be vetted by Privy Council Office.”…” (Toronto Star)

You see, the Auditor General is an Officer of Parliament - her and five other Officers* are considered independent of the Government of the day.

The exchange got a little news coverage.

All thanks to the liveblogging of Macleans journalist Kady O’Malley.

I mean, who liveblogs parliamentary committee meetings? A lot of them?

Despite the attention paid to the exchange, it’s important to note a separate paragraph from the Toronto Star piece cited above:

“… Treasury Board President Vic Toews wrote the six officers of Parliament in March saying he wants to “preserve and strengthen” their independence. “I fully accept that due to the unique statutory mandates of agents of Parliament, not all Treasury Board instruments can be applied to these offices in exactly the same manner as they would to other government institutions,” he wrote…”

*and I happen to work at one of those Offices, in the interest of full disclosure. At the moment, our communications materials do not go to PCO for review or approval. And we don’t expect that to change in the future.

This seems to be a new development. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a standalone Crown Corporation wholly owned by the federal government, is advertising for a temporary media relations officer on Craigslist.

Well, the corporation isn’t. They’ve hired Quantum staffing to run the competition, and the consultant has posted the job description and requirements on the Ottawa Craigslist site.

It’s a mid-level position requiring experience in media relations and having acted as an organizational spokesperson.  Before you start snickering, we haven’t seen the same housing crunch and mortgage crisis  as the Americans.

Interesting, considering the job isn’t on the CMHC job site and is buried behind drop down menus on Quantum’s site. I can’t find the position on jobs.gc.ca, the public site intended to make federal government positions available to the general public.

Then again, the Craigslist posting was two weeks ago - maybe the position has been filled and Quantum is just slow in covering their tracks.

Thanks Daphne!