Walking the walk
Inspired by colleagues in DIUS, BERR and POI Taskforce, I’ve been working with a small team at COI (Adam Bailin, Seb Crump and Tiffany St James) to quickly pull together some social media activity around the consultative review on the UK government’s guidance on improving its websites.
It’s the first time we’ve had a go at a corporate level, so we’re evaluating it as we go.
I pulled a short briefing together on what we are doing, where and why; I thought it would be worth sharing for anyone who is interested in the background…
Background
The Transformational Government Digital Policy Team is opening its TG116 (‘Measuring website usage’) and TG128 (‘Measuring website costs’) guidance to stakeholder review.
The exercise has been identified as an opportunity to evaluate ways in which social media can facilitate the Review.
Purpose
This will be the first time that COI has used the social media for the purposes of a consultative review.
It is projected that using social media in this way will open the Review out to a wider pool of participants, offer a more efficient means of facilitating the Review, provide the process with greater transparency and produce a stronger end-product.
The pilot will help COI capture and measure activity and results. The resulting evaluation will then be available to inform future practice (by COI and other departments).
Deliverables
- Collaboratively reviewed documents (general discussion comments and specific recommendations for amendments);
- Traffic/usage figures (to, within and from site);
- Qualitative feedback on process from participants and spectators;
- Automated capture of online activity relating to the Review.
Components
The following social media components will be combined to facilitate the Review.
They have been selected because they are free to use, quick to mobilise, appropriate to the objectives and user-base, and they are measurable.
1. ‘Commentariat’ themed Worpress blog
- will explain the purpose and scope of the Review;
- will provide information on how to contribute to the Review;
- will make the PDF versions of the documents available for download;
- will house the ‘commentable’ versions of the documents.
2. Digital Policy team Twitter account
- will be used to promote the review and encourage participation;
- will be used to flag milestones in the Review process (such as the launch and impending closure of the Review);
- will be used by the DP team to engage the participants and spectating stakeholders.
3. COI Netvibes feed aggregator
- will be used to automatically aggregate online coverage of Review and ‘off-site’ activity;
- Review will be given dedicated sub-page;
- will encourage use of appropriate #tag.
4. UserVoice
- Used to offer participants opportunity to feedback on ‘what we did well’ and ‘what we could do better’.
Locations
- The Review will be accessible via www.coi.gov.uk/improvingwebsites.
- The Team’s twitter account will be at www.twitter.com/digigov.
- The Netvibes agrregator wil be at www.netvibes.com/coi#Digigov
- The Uservoice survey will be via www.coi.gov.uk/improvingwebsites and also at http://coi.uservoice.com.
Administration
The Review components will be managed by the Digital Policy team, with set up and evaluation support from COI Interactive Services.
It’s good stuff, Ross. Given the subject matter the team works on and the audience for it, it’s been ripe for the application of some social web tools.
How are you going to follow this up? Feels to me like the next logical step would be to seque into some kind of blog for the team for the likes of me to keep in touch with their emerging work and standards, and provide a simple platform for future informal consultations? Policy blogs are often doomed to failure when they’re a bolt-on for the sake of it, but in this case, it feels like blog-based communication could be a really good fit.
Hi Steph. You’ve been making this point for some time now and I have to admit I’m coming round to the idea. So far the team have been using the CivilBlogs platform try out blogging with the safety net of knowing it stays within government. I think it’s time we went public!… This Review certainly seems like a step in that direction.
Here comes the most predictable comment of the day: I’m delighted to see COI using WordPress.
This particular consultation is incredibly detailed: it’s hard to know the right level at which to start addressing any comments… although of course, it’s far from unique in that respect. All the more reason then, as Adam suggests, to take the internal blogging outside – which of course, you’re effectively doing here Ross!
The constant connection of a blog is still consultation, albeit a different angle on it. I have a suspicion that it might be a more effective method too.
@Adam: Well, I’m Being Consistent (http://beta.civilservice.gov.uk/about/work/codes/participation-online.aspx) at least… :-) Good for you though – good luck!
It’s great that COI are doing this – definitely a step in the right direction and all credit to Ross, Adam and co. Especially good as you’re in a position of influence and this could help other Depts (who haven’t yet enjoyed the delights of a fully open online consultation) win internal arguments and bring their barriers down.
I look forward to more of the same for the other guidance you’re working on, too. Glad you listened to the feedback from Steph and others.
Hey Ross-
Great to be a part of what you’re doing at COI Interactive Services. Let us know if we can help you further your efforts with UserVoice.