Stuff what I has been reading: 01/03/10 – 08/03/10
'b is for: books - my path to personal freedom' by samie.shake
I have been most engrossed in the following essential reading which you may also ‘enjoy’:
1. ‘The Challenge of Co-production‘ by David Boyle and Michael Harris for nef and NESTA
www.neweconomics.org/publications/challenge-co-production
‘Our public services face an unprecedented set of challenges… Reform can’t confront these challenges effectively; radical innovation in public services now needs to move from the margins to the mainstream. The question is what analysis and principles should inform this radical innovation.’
The answer, argued in this discussion paper, is co-production. It defines co-production and sets out an emerging sector through case studies in order to build a better understanding and stronger evidence base for a method that asks both those delivering and using services to contribute in equal measure.
2. ‘Report on Departments‘ by the Better Government Initiative
www.bettergovernmentinitiative.co.uk/sitedata/misc/BGI-Report-on-departments—rev-25-Nov.pdf
‘The quality of Departments’ work depends on their ‘human capital’, built up over a long period through appropriate recruitment, career management and training practices. The Centre has an important input to make in all of these areas.’
The Better Government Initiative aims to canvass the widest possible range of views, and to publish concrete recommendations which will be of practical interest not only to all three major parties, but also to the public more widely. The ‘Report on Departments‘ provides an interesting insight into the balance between the Centre and Departments, and makes a series of cross-cutting recommendations to optimise their relationship.
3. ‘7th Annual Audit of Political Engagement‘ by the Hansard Society
www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/publications/archive/2010/03/03/the-7th-annual-audit-of-political-engagement.aspx
‘The seventh annual Audit of Political Engagement, is the most important since the series was launched in 2004. It is published after a horrendous year for Parliament and just ahead of a general election.’
The Audit of Political Engagement series is a longitudinal study, providing an annual benchmark to measure political engagement in the UK. Each Audit presents the findings from a public opinion poll survey, providing detailed commentary on a range of indicators that have been chosen as key measures. These indicators enable tracking year on year the direction and magnitude of change since the Audit was first published in 2004.
Stuff what I has been reading: 17/02/10 – 24/02/10
'Reading the TV novels summary' by pedrosimoes7
Over the last seven days, I have become a richer and more-engaging person for having read:
1. ‘Evaluating our blogs‘ from Stephen Hale’s FCO blog
“Foreign Office bloggers should focus on making sure that their blogs are integrated, personal, real-time, and 2-way. These are the headline findings of our detailed evaluation of the impact and reach of our blog”
The latest in a strong series of evaluations by the FCO’s Digital Diplomacy Group of their digital media activities. A very useful, well set out contribution to the growing body of research on governments’ use of digital engagement.
2. ‘British Social Attitudes 25th Report‘ from the National Centre for Social Research
“Every year the British Social Attitudes survey asks around 3000 people what it’s like to live in Britain and how they think Britain is run. The survey tracks people’s changing social, political and moral attitudes and informs the development of public policy.”
Published back in January, this report and the short summary of findings provided online, are essential reading on the British social attitudes ahead of the General Election.
3. ‘How to handle and encourage trailblazers‘ by Laurence Jackson for Guardian Public
“The public sector is hardly renowned for taking risks, but leaders should be able to identify trailblazers in their organisation – employees with a creative spark or energy or vision – and encourage them to realise their potential”
An overview of a study – conducted by Manchester Business School and Wickland Westcott – of the characteristics, career history and ambitions of 30 public sector leaders, selected for their ability to drive transformation in public services.
Surfing Spots… all-in-one-page debate, pupil voices and ROI
Do people still talk about surfing the web? Well, anyway…
While surfing around recently, I spotted the following:
1. BBC’s experimental online debates
www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/debates/identity/
This online discussion format is a departure from the normal message boards and comments used by the BBC. I liked the way they had incorporated the issue, the two sides (using rich media), an indication of sentiment, example comments, and the ability to add your own all on one page. The look of the UI is a little bit dated , but hey-ho.
I haven’t been able to find out who’s been behind them or what’s going to happen next. Any leads appreciated.
2. Involver
A former colleague, Greg Sanderson, emailed me a link to the website of Involver, the social enterprise he is working for, which promotes smarter school councils.
I hold this up as an impressive example of what agile small organisations like Involver can do with WordPress and a few well chosen social web accounts to communicate, consult and encourage communities of practice online.
3. SWIX
SWIX is a company that ‘helps companies measure the ROI of their social media marketing campaigns’. I signed up to test their SWIX app, which is in beta. I’ve done a lot of reviews of these sorts of tools and even in beta this is impressive.
You create a dashboard capturing activity across your corporate/personal/campaign presences online, SWIX tallies them all up and calculates an ROI for each. It even gives you the choice of sharing this information in an automated report, a webpage or not at all. Would like to see a tie in with some more embedded market players, such as Netvibes.
The SWIX blog is at http://blog.swixhq.com.
Nudge nudge, think think – competing strategies for changing civic behaviour
Governments can no longer rely on the traditional behaviour change tools of regulatory and economic instruments to shape civic actions. But should they turn to choice architecture or deliberative participation as an alternative? Both are very in vogue, but can real shifts be achieved by appealing to perceptions of cost-benefit or by changing values?
In their fantastic discussion paper Nudge nudge, think think, Peter John, Graham Smith and Gerry Stoker walk us through the emergence of ‘Nudging’ and of ‘Deliberation’ as competing strategies available to policy makers seeking to change the behaviour of citizens. The authors discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both strategies and provide a handy comparative analysis, which is neatly summarised in this table:
| Nudge | Think | |
| View of preferences | Fixed | Malleable
|
| View of subjects | Cognitive misers, users of shortcuts, prone to flawed sometimes befuddled thinking | Reasonable, knowledge hungry and capable of collective reflection
|
| Costs to the individual | Low but repeated | High but only intermittently
|
| Unit of analysis | Individual-focussed | Group-focussed
|
| Change process | Cost-benefit led shift in choice environment | Value led outline of new shared policy platform
|
| Civic conception | Increasing the attractiveness of positive-sum action
|
Addressing the general interest |
| Role of the state | Customise messages, expert and teacher | Create new institutional spaces to support citizen-led investigation, respond to citizens
|
In the coda, the authors explore how the two strategies can learn from each other and be brought together in a coherent manner. Although they accept that coherence is very difficult in practice because both strategies hold different understandings of human behaviour and theories of change, they both share a fundamental driving principle:
Governments accept they cannot rely on issuing commands or creating incentives: they must deal directly and engage with the citizen, whose participation helps to co-produce public outcomes.
Ultimately, as the authors conclude, to be a successful practitioner of nudge it you need to understand what makes deliberation work and to be an effective practitioner of think you need to understand the dynamics of nudge.
The paper discusses at length the design of Nudging and Deliberative processes, but does not spend enough time – to my mind – considering how they are communicated to the public, even though both strategies are highly reliant on effective marketing of intriguingly differing styles.
Room for improvement aside, this is a very accessible article containing learning and challenges for functions across government.
Another paper from the same ESRC-funded research programme that is also worth a read is Can the internet overcome the logic of collective action? which takes an experimental approach to investigating the impact of social pressure on political participation. This paper tests the hypothesis that social information provided by the internet makes it possible in large groups to exert social pressure that was previously only considered viable for smaller groups.
Who is accountable? Giving power away in a centralised political culture
We are all localists now.
So starts a new research report by IPPR exploring the political consensus around decentralisation and the barriers to achieving it in practice – Who’s accountable? The challenge of giving power away in a centralised political culture.
The researchers asked a representative sample who they regarded as accountable for the performance of public services. Across a range of services – health and policing, for example – no matter who is charge, the public placed responsibility firmly at the feet of government. However, in other cases – such as education and transport – accountability is more diffuse. Why?
The report considers a number of factors, but of particular importance seems to be good communication. When power is devolved, the lines of accountability must be made clear. The examples of devolution in Scotland and public transport make for interesting case studies in this respect.
However, in the report the authors write:
… ministers may be more inclined to give up powers where lines of accountability are clear and when they can be reassured that once they’ve let go, the public, the media and the oppoistion will accedpt that responsibility rests at the local level.
I do think the authors should have spent longer considering the important influence of party politics and media representation, alongside that of public attitudes and perceptions, in order to get the full picture.
Otherwise, it is an interesting and well set out piece of original research.
Twitter is tomorrow’s email… technology adoption in organisations
Phases of technology adoption in organisations
In 2004 – in Lithuania, of all places – Professor Stephen Coleman introduced me to a four-phase model for understanding how new technologies are adopted and influenced by organisations.
Don’t know if he came up with it directly but finding it beautifully simple and functional, I’ve used it countless times since to make sense of how technology use is developing in organisations I have worked for or with.
I was discussing it with Neil Williams over a cerveza recently, and decided to add a fifth phase that I’d like to share here.
Coleman’s four phases (note – I’ve tweaked the names, but not their essence) ran as follows:
hyperbole > resistance > institutionalisation > transformation
Read More…
UK Government and Social Media… 10 to Watch
I’ve been working in the Central Office of Information for just short of 9 months.
I work on an array of the digital media projects, but the area I value most is the use of social media to enable engagement.
It is in the area that I see Government undertaking some of its most open and purposeful innovation. And, I think the fruits of that activity are up there with the very best from the consumer, educational and media sectors.
There’s always more work to be done, but I wanted to draw attention to ten current examples set to advance our understanding and capacity.
[In no particular order...]
1. UK Trade and Investment – LinkedIn Group
www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1769629&trk=anet_ug_hm
A clever use of LinkedIn for stakeholder engagement. The UKTI LinkedIn group brings together trade and investment experts and businesses. It offers knowledge, insight, support and facilitates connections. The group is open to worldwide businesses of any size, sector, or level of international trade.
2. Business, Innovation and Skills – Science: [So What? So everything]
www.sciencesowhat.direct.gov.uk
BIS is the Muhammad Ali of the Government’s heavyweight digital engagement division – tireless, fleet of foot and inventive. I could have selected any of a number of examples but I’ve gone for Science: [So What? So everything] because it is a campaign about to go through change. Expect to see clever use of community to amplify existing UK science content online, and agile use of tools to light up user-pathways to everything from careers to events.
3. Department for International Development – ‘Building Our Common Future’ White Paper
www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Quick-guide-to-DFID/How-we-do-it/Building-our-common-future
Steph Gray said it most succinctly on his blog ‘this is a sign of the future for major white papers – blending the downloadable PDF with a package of summary versions, background info, video and materials for people who want to engage around the issues online.’ Based on these solid beginnings expect more advances in this area. Have a look at the accompanying SMNR while you are at it.
4. Cabinet Office – Civil Service Jobs API
www.civilservice.gov.uk/developers/index.aspx
The Civil Service site brings all public sector jobs online into one place. But it hasn’t stopped there; there is also the Civil Service Job Service API for government departments to use and incorporate onto their own sites. This is a great example of cross-government collaboration. It has even spawned an iPhone App, which I admit I haven’t used (well, I’ve no use for it do I), produced by Aspire Media.
5. Downing Street – Twitter
1,089,557 followers at the time of writing. Regular, consistent, engaging tweets. Nuff said.
6. Ministry of Defence – Defence Bloggers
www.blogs.mod.uk/homepage.html
‘Defence Headquarters’ already has an impressive track record in use of social media. As this portal page demonstrates, blogs, YouTube and Twitter are being used by a range of staff from press officers to squaddies. MoD has recently developed excellent guidance to help staff navigate between their personal, sponsored and official online profiles; so I anticipate the MoD list growing in length and sophistication.
7. Cabinet Office – Data.gov.uk
Nothing much to see at the moment, but with Tim Berners-Lee installed as Information Advisor and departments – like the Home Office – surfacing data sets, we should see some significant movement in the coming months.
8. Cabinet Office – DirDigEng Blog
http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement
Off to a cautious start, but with occasional guest-posts from officials like Neil Williams, this blog is set to become the most important touch-point for anyone keen to keep up with digital goings-on across government.
9. DirectGov – Innovate
An excellent platform to enable collaboration with developer communities. In addition to the team blog, you can submit examples of innovative apps or ideas for apps that could be developed. I expect this to be the first of many such initiatives across government; although based as it is on DirectGov, this platform ought to become a focal point for citizen-focused apps. There is already some great to stuff to check out.
10. Foreign & Commonwealth Office – Digital Diplomacy Blog
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/hale/
Given Gordon Brown’s pronouncement (at TED Global 2009) that ‘technology means that foreign policy will never be the same‘, the work of the Office of Digital Diplomacy at the FCO has taken on even greater importance. Stephen Hale is the Head of Engagement there, and his blog is consistently insightful – ranging across evaluation, tools, policies and all with a unique foreign policy lens.
If you know of examples that ought to have been on the list, leave a comment.
Stuff what I has been reading… 27/07 – 02/08
Push too hard for revenue in the short term, they might drive away users, undermining a network. Leave it too late to monetise and the business could collapse.
Social media – is it about money or people?
[From The Economist]
There are no self-evident connections between the key objectives of counter-terrorism, development, democracy/ state-building and counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building.
Rory Stewart knows Afghanistan, and this essay is a expert analysis of the problems with the Afghan ‘mission’; it is a pity that his solution to the problem is not as clear as his diagnosis of the problem.
[From the London Review of Books]
Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself.
A spirited but balanced defence of the dismal science.
[From The Economist]
Where’d you get that natty stat?
If we’re talking general stats about who’s online and why, I tend to use the following sites, not just for the readily available free data but also for the crucial analysis:
- BBC
- CIA World Factbook
- ComScore
- Econsultancy
- The Economist
- Hitwise
- Ipsos MORI
- Mashable
- Neilsen Online
- Ofcom
- ONS
- OxIS
- Pew Internet
- Techcrunch
- World Internet Project
What about you?
The UK Online in 2009
- Are you an average web user?
- What makes some people upgrade their connection, while others don’t even have dial up?
- Why do some people think they spend too much time online?
- Why do so many of us trust what we read on the web?
These questions answered and more by the 2009 Oxford Internet Survey produced by Oii.
Shots
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