Public Servants and blogging
http://davepress.net/2008/03/10/public-servants-must-blog/ I just came across the above article and I wonder what the thoughts of this groups. One would imagine beyond the official policy and regulations there is a social impediment to public servants blogging. What would need to happen to get us to a point where we have official public blogs? I also am reminded of an interesting article (below) by the CEO of Sun Microsystems that was published in a Havard Business Review a while back - If you want to Lead, Blog. If You Want to Lead, Blog *by* *Jonathan Schwartz<http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrol/en/includes/sasearch.jhtml?author=Jonathan+Schwartz> * Many senior executives at Sun, including me, have blogs that can be read by anyone, anywhere in the world. We discuss everything from business strategy to product development to company values. We host open letters from the outside, and we openly respond to them. We talk about our successes—and our mistakes. (If you don't believe me, go to www.blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=dear_john.) That may seem risky. But it's riskier not to have a blog. Remember when, not long ago, CEOs would ask their assistants to print out their e-mails for them, and they'd dictate responses to be typewritten and sent via snail mail? Where are those leaders now? (The last of my contacts of that breed just retired.) In ten years, most of us will communicate directly with customers, employees, and the broader business community through blogs. For executives, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf—and I'm not talking about your employees. Blogging lets you participate in communities you want to cultivate—whether it's your employees, potential employees, customers, or anyone else—and leverage your corporate culture competitively. Here's a good example: Sun, like every organization, receives e-mails from happy customers lauding one employee or another for good work. The idea came up that we should post these e-mails on a "wall of fame" on our intranet. But we realized that this venue would profoundly limit the number of readers, so someone suggested putting the wall of fame up on my external blog. Immediately, people raised the concern that by identifying our best employees, we'd make them recruitment targets. Well, of course that could happen. But it cuts both ways. The upside is the positive ripple effect on workers' morale and on the public's perception of the company. What's more, my competitors' employees could see what I'm saying about my team and could decide whether I'm more compelling than their own leaders. So rather than being a threat to Sun, blogging about my best employees can build loyalty and be a recruitment tool to boot. How do you get started on a blog? I suggest clearly defining a bloggingstrategy and guidelines. ( Or go ahead and use ours at www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/blogs/policy.html. Just make sure to change the company name.) Then find your voice. Be honest and open. Be respectful of your audiences. Don't treat blogging like advertising—it's not. Use humor. Link to those who interest and influence you. Once you get going, don't micromanage the process. Your legal and corporate communications teams do not have to be involved in every post—after all, they're not involved in every e-mail you send or telephone call you make. Once in a while, you may need to add some clarifying language. (For example, a 14A filing was required for my blog posting about acquisition intentions, just as it would be for many other forms of communication.) But the rule of thumb is simple: Know the guidelines, then let loose. If you 're unclear about your company's policy on something, ask around. Maybe it needs to be more carefully defined. Be sure to listen to feedback and respond to legitimate ideas—from inside and outside. And, most important, write the blog yourself. Authenticity is paramount. Some senior executives hire people to write their blogs. Don'tbother. It's like hiring someone to write your e-mail. It's not going to work. Trust me, your market and your employees are clamoring for executive engagement and insight. They will value and remember your candor. And you'll be surprised by how much you learn from them. Reprint: F0511J
Alkags, I did not follow the link you provided; I just jumped in cos this topic is too close to my heart. So my apologies if I go on a tangent. The simple answer to your question is.it would take the Head of Civil Service to blog. If Boss is blogging, then I as a civil servant wants.No, must know what he is blogging about. The copy cat syndrome may take care of the rest. But on a more serious note, the Web 2.0 tools have provided a platform for collaboration in the enterprise including government leading a concept which is slowly but steadily gaining ground known as Government 2.0 or as other people prefer, Collaborative Government. This is meant to be the successor of e-Government and the technologies driving this movement include blogs, wikis, marsh-ups etc, all the so called social networking tools. For Gov 2.0 to take off, there must be a paradigm shift in the public service value chain where these tools can be used for consultation and information exchange between government and its stakeholders. For instance, instead of having a zillion workshops to discuss and input into a policy document, why not create a wiki and get people to contribute? See the challenges? My take is, Blogs, Wikis etc are about Collaboration at the workplace, at home etc. And therefore, to get buy in and get people to use these tools, we have to encourage the spirit of collaboration. Unfortunately, collaboration is one of the *taboos* in government. Just look around you, the number of competing projects within government and the lack of harmonized planning on national projects. According to research by Frost and Sullivan, in a study conducted in 2006, Government ranked as the least collaborative sectors while 36% of an organisation's performance is a factor of collaboration. So, that is the challenge, to instill the spirit of collaboration, then provide an enabling environment and get the tools known and working for us. But, lets start small.lets get the Head of Civil Service to blog.any ideas? Harry African eDevelopment Resource Centre 3rd Floor, Nelleon Place Raphta Road, Westlands PO Box 49475 00100 Nairobi, Kenya Cel +254 725 650044 Land +254 20 4453445 www.africanedevelopment.org <http://www.africanedevelopment.org/> My Blogg <http://egov-notes.blogspot.com/> *********************************************************** March 2008 Capacity Building Opportunities Fiber Optics: 3-6 March VSAT Field Engineering: 17-19 March Records Management 17-21 March (Dar es Salaam) GIS 26-28 March Book Now, Limited spaces available P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail _____ From: kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Al Kags Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:17 PM To: harry@africanedevelopment.org Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Public Servants and blogging http://davepress.net/2008/03/10/public-servants-must-blog/ I just came across the above article and I wonder what the thoughts of this groups. One would imagine beyond the official policy and regulations there is a social impediment to public servants blogging. What would need to happen to get us to a point where we have official public blogs? I also am reminded of an interesting article (below) by the CEO of Sun Microsystems that was published in a Havard Business Review a while back - If you want to Lead, Blog. If You Want to Lead, Blog by <http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrol/en/includes/sasearch.jh tml?author=Jonathan+Schwartz> Jonathan Schwartz Many senior executives at Sun, including me, have blogs that can be read by anyone, anywhere in the world. We discuss everything from business strategy to product development to company values. We host open letters from the outside, and we openly respond to them. We talk about our successes-and our mistakes. (If you don't believe me, go to www.blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=dear_john.) That may seem risky. But it's riskier not to have a blog. Remember when, not long ago, CEOs would ask their assistants to print out their e-mails for them, and they'd dictate responses to be typewritten and sent via snail mail? Where are those leaders now? (The last of my contacts of that breed just retired.) In ten years, most of us will communicate directly with customers, employees, and the broader business community through blogs. For executives, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf-and I'm not talking about your employees. Blogging lets you participate in communities you want to cultivate-whether it's your employees, potential employees, customers, or anyone else-and leverage your corporate culture competitively. Here's a good example: Sun, like every organization, receives e-mails from happy customers lauding one employee or another for good work. The idea came up that we should post these e-mails on a "wall of fame" on our intranet. But we realized that this venue would profoundly limit the number of readers, so someone suggested putting the wall of fame up on my external blog. Immediately, people raised the concern that by identifying our best employees, we'd make them recruitment targets. Well, of course that could happen. But it cuts both ways. The upside is the positive ripple effect on workers' morale and on the public's perception of the company. What's more, my competitors' employees could see what I'm saying about my team and could decide whether I'm more compelling than their own leaders. So rather than being a threat to Sun, blogging about my best employees can build loyalty and be a recruitment tool to boot. How do you get started on a blog? I suggest clearly defining a blogging strategy and guidelines. (Or go ahead and use ours at www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/blogs/policy.html. Just make sure to change the company name.) Then find your voice. Be honest and open. Be respectful of your audiences. Don't treat blogging like advertising-it's not. Use humor. Link to those who interest and influence you. Once you get going, don't micromanage the process. Your legal and corporate communications teams do not have to be involved in every post-after all, they're not involved in every e-mail you send or telephone call you make. Once in a while, you may need to add some clarifying language. (For example, a 14A filing was required for my blog posting about acquisition intentions, just as it would be for many other forms of communication.) But the rule of thumb is simple: Know the guidelines, then let loose. If you're unclear about your company's policy on something, ask around. Maybe it needs to be more carefully defined. Be sure to listen to feedback and respond to legitimate ideas-from inside and outside. And, most important, write the blog yourself. Authenticity is paramount. Some senior executives hire people to write their blogs. Don't bother. It's like hiring someone to write your e-mail. It's not going to work. Trust me, your market and your employees are clamoring for executive engagement and insight. They will value and remember your candor. And you'll be surprised by how much you learn from them. Reprint: F0511J
'Technology vs (perceived)Power'... that's really what blogging for a civil servant in .KE would boil down to. A typical civil servant (except ofcourse some enlightened few) would often get overwhelmed by their immense powers. Power is often considered to be an inverse function of 'Reachability'. Put differently, the 'Less Reachable' you are, the 'More Powerful' you presumably become. That is why getting Passport/ID Card/Land Registration/etc used to be a nightmare (Less Reachable) so that you get to appreciate the 'Power' needed to deliver the service. Now, we know very well that Blogs, email, and other Web2.0 technologies make you extremely reachable/accessible. And from the hard-core civil servant perspective that would 'presumably' make you less powerful, disrupting your old 'value-chain'... Until and unless the wider general civil service snaps out of this self-inflicted conflict of 'Power vs Service' many technologies will come and pass by...web1.0, web2.0, web-whatever... So the moral of the story is:-Government is indeed aware of these technologies, but is there a sufficient and critical mass of civil servants willing to drop their old and twisted model of the value-chain? And are they sufficiently motivated to actively participate in creatively destroying their the old mentality in order to lay the foundation for the future? Maybe Not.... walu (probably the 1st civil servant blogger ;-) http://jwalu.blogspot.com/ --- Harry Hare <harry@africanedevelopment.org> wrote:
Alkags,
I did not follow the link you provided; I just jumped in cos this topic is too close to my heart. So my apologies if I go on a tangent.
The simple answer to your question is.it would take the Head of Civil Service to blog. If Boss is blogging, then I as a civil servant wants.No, must know what he is blogging about. The copy cat syndrome may take care of the rest. But on a more serious note, the Web 2.0 tools have provided a platform for collaboration in the enterprise including government leading a concept which is slowly but steadily gaining ground known as Government 2.0 or as other people prefer, Collaborative Government. This is meant to be the successor of e-Government and the technologies driving this movement include blogs, wikis, marsh-ups etc, all the so called social networking tools. For Gov 2.0 to take off, there must be a paradigm shift in the public service value chain where these tools can be used for consultation and information exchange between government and its stakeholders. For instance, instead of having a zillion workshops to discuss and input into a policy document, why not create a wiki and get people to contribute? See the challenges?
My take is, Blogs, Wikis etc are about Collaboration at the workplace, at home etc. And therefore, to get buy in and get people to use these tools, we have to encourage the spirit of collaboration. Unfortunately, collaboration is one of the *taboos* in government. Just look around you, the number of competing projects within government and the lack of harmonized planning on national projects. According to research by Frost and Sullivan, in a study conducted in 2006, Government ranked as the least collaborative sectors while 36% of an organisation's performance is a factor of collaboration. So, that is the challenge, to instill the spirit of collaboration, then provide an enabling environment and get the tools known and working for us. But, lets start small.lets get the Head of Civil Service to blog.any ideas?
Harry
African eDevelopment Resource Centre
3rd Floor, Nelleon Place
Raphta Road, Westlands
PO Box 49475 00100
Nairobi, Kenya
Cel +254 725 650044
Land +254 20 4453445
www.africanedevelopment.org <http://www.africanedevelopment.org/>
My Blogg <http://egov-notes.blogspot.com/>
***********************************************************
March 2008 Capacity Building Opportunities
Fiber Optics: 3-6 March
VSAT Field Engineering: 17-19 March
Records Management 17-21 March (Dar es Salaam)
GIS 26-28 March
Book Now, Limited spaces available P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
_____
From:
kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of Al Kags Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:17 PM To: harry@africanedevelopment.org Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Public Servants and blogging
http://davepress.net/2008/03/10/public-servants-must-blog/
I just came across the above article and I wonder what the thoughts of this groups. One would imagine beyond the official policy and regulations there is a social impediment to public servants blogging. What would need to happen to get us to a point where we have official public blogs?
I also am reminded of an interesting article (below) by the CEO of Sun Microsystems that was published in a Havard Business Review a while back - If you want to Lead, Blog.
If You Want to Lead, Blog
by
<http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrol/en/includes/sasearch.jh
tml?author=Jonathan+Schwartz> Jonathan Schwartz
Many senior executives at Sun, including me, have blogs that can be read by anyone, anywhere in the world. We discuss everything from business strategy to product development to company values. We host open letters from the outside, and we openly respond to them. We talk about our successes-and our mistakes. (If you don't believe me, go to www.blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=dear_john.)
That may seem risky. But it's riskier not to have a blog. Remember when, not long ago, CEOs would ask their assistants to print out their e-mails for them, and they'd dictate responses to be typewritten and sent via snail mail? Where are those leaders now? (The last of my contacts of that breed just retired.) In ten years, most of us will communicate directly with customers, employees, and the broader business community through blogs. For executives, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf-and I'm not talking about your employees.
Blogging lets you participate in communities you want to cultivate-whether it's your employees, potential employees, customers, or anyone else-and leverage your corporate culture competitively. Here's a good example: Sun, like every organization, receives e-mails from happy customers lauding one employee or another for good work. The idea came up that we should post these e-mails on a "wall of fame" on our intranet. But we realized that this venue would profoundly limit the number of readers, so someone suggested putting the wall of fame up on my external blog. Immediately, people raised the concern that by identifying our best employees, we'd make them recruitment targets. Well, of course that could happen. But it cuts both ways. The upside is the positive ripple effect on workers' === message truncated ===>
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--- Al Kags <alkags@alkags.com> wrote:
http://davepress.net/2008/03/10/public-servants-must-blog/
I just came across the above article and I wonder what the thoughts of this groups. One would imagine beyond the official policy and regulations
We cannot avoid starting with the "siri kali" colonial relic law (Official Secrets Act, Cap 187, Laws of Kenya) because Civil Servants risk outright sack for "leaking" *any* useful info:( unless blog's about how they spent their holidays;) I think this is why selective amnesia plays when certain uncomfortable questions are put to people in authority--even on this list. --- 1.16 Security The Cabinet Office briefs Ministers on applicable security requirements, from time to time. During their tenure of office and after, all Ministers and Assistant Ministers are bound by the Oath of Office, the Official Secrets Act as well as the Public Officer 7 Ethics Act and must therefore maintain confidentiality at all times. In addition, they must ensure that cabinet information is not released without Cabinet Office approval. Permanent Secretaries are accountable to their Ministers for the security of departmental personnel, information, facilities and other assets. All individuals who work in or for Ministers offices must be vetted and approved before appointment. In addition, Ministers have been granted armed police security throughout. The officers are always in contact with the wider police network in case additional back up is necessary. However, Ministers should not hesitate to inform their Permanent Secretaries if increased security is needed. Ministers are required to notify their Permanent Secretaries immediately of any potential compromise of Cabinet confidences. The Permanent Secretary, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Public Service can provide Ministers with further information on security matters. <http://www.marsgroupkenya.org/Reports/Government/mar_07/HANDBOOK_ON_GOVERNING_RESPONSIBILITY_IN_KENYA.pdf>
is a social impediment to public servants blogging. What would need to happen to get us to a point where we have official public blogs?
Thus in the prevailing situation the blog would be no more that another intelligence gathering avenue to help Government spokesman respond better else untrustworthy "anonymous" Civil Servant blogger trying attempting to to opinionate us by releasing "confidential" misinformation, in my opinion. Scrap OSA and give Civil Servants room to freely inhabit the internet space. Happy Easter Holidays! Alex ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping
participants (4)
-
Al Kags -
Alex Gakuru -
Harry Hare -
John Walubengo