More for less: three cheap ideas to do now

I’ve been chatting to quite a range of folk grappling with the issue of what to do – on a shoestring – in the digital space with their Department in this brave and uncertain new world. It’s fair to say that digital plans in government right now have to take account of three realities:

1. There’s no money left, so to speak. An exaggeration of course, but all round central government at least, there’s appetite to do things at low or no cost – not just do ‘more for less’. Perhaps more than I predicted, the squeeze is accelerating senior leaders’ appetites to make strategic bets on digital channels as a solution now, instead of the mañana approach which has tended to prevail in recent years.
2. Like most leadership transitions in big organisations, there’s a change curve being followed, with the sense of pace and excitement in the early days, whilst still there, now being overtaken by the process of reviewing, reorganising and strategising, before the full weight of delivery really kicks in. It’s a crazy busy time in some parts of government, but still an uncertain, wait-and-see game in others.
3. Perhaps most seriously, communications and marketing especially as a discipline are out of favour politically. The freeze on advertising and marketing spend is as much mood music about the tone and purpose of communications under the Coalition as it is a way to save actual money.

Here are three ideas I would be looking at:

Build links with online communities

Everyone know Netmums, of course. But there’s a big wide world out there from The Student Room and Moneysupermarket to Pistonheads and Shooting People; The Poultry Keeper to Runners Forum – plus a thousand hyperlocal and hyperniche blogs some with suprisingly influential readerships.

Members feel ownership of these spaces, so it’s not good enough just to buy ads or spam a discussion thread (though buying a few ads might be a nice way of showing support). If your team feels comfortable moving away from broadcast messages and branded campaigns, working directly with online communities offers a way to talk directly with a highly-targeted audience and build a two-way relationship with them. That sounds like a cliche but it can really work, with discussions and links in these spaces living on longer than any PR agency retainer would have done.

Start to map out the forums and communities in your arena using good old search tools, Twitter lists and Facebook groups. Put out feelers to the admins and moderators, pay some visits their offices if they have them and buy some coffees. Find opportunities to work together so when something comes up, you can phone a friend. Will Perrin reports some good stuff from HM Treasury along these lines, supporting the Budget last week.

Help colleagues learn to tell their stories

A key element of achieving a more authentic tone in communications is giving voice to members of staff to tell their stories, within the constraint of remaining a cohesive organisation. DFID, UKTI and the FCO do it with their bloggers, fast-growing startups like Huddle do it on Twitter or like Abel and Cole on their blog. The Auckland Theatre Company’s Posterous blog lets interested audiences into a virtual green room to learn more about the company.

In times of austerity, encouraging staff to tell their own stories is paradoxically thrifty: it develops and extends their skills, it increases their engagement with their work, it helps them build new partnerships with people who can help on the outside, it helps the organisation make links between different areas of work, and become more comfortable collaborating with others. And of course, it presents a human, open account of what the organisation does to the outside world. Which in turn becomes more appreciative of what an ambassador, a policy official, a faststreamer or – gasp – a press officer, actually do.

Set up something simple with Posterous or Tumblr, or something a bit cleverer with WordPress.com. Recruit half a dozen varied interested amateurs to get involved, and expose them to how other bloggers think, write and respond. Help them film things on their phones or take pictures when the words aren’t coming easily, and channel their posts through someone in Comms who has the gift of common sense.

Put together a listening strategy

This is also a good time to develop a plan for how monitoring and feedback will be gathered and used – the scale of response to the Programme for Government and Spending Challenge suggest that Britons in their thousands are potentially willing to contribute their ideas to the Coalition.

But it goes without saying that there’s no point inviting comments unless you can review them properly, and even then, it’s better to be able to point to a timescale and process for responding in a way which makes the exercise worthwhile for all concerned. So it’s good to see the Spending Challenge team setting out that they will monitor blogs, social networks and WikiLeaks (excitingly), and provide some indication of how ideas will be filtered. But to save yourself time and pain later, put together a short listening strategy now, setting out:

• The organisation’s goals in reaching out to new/different/larger audiences online
• The key principles that will guide online discussion and listening (openness about scope, any constraints on debate, moderation policy, commitment to review feedback and so on)
• Some of the channels and tools that the organisation will use to listen to its audiences, how these will be listened to and by whom across the organisation
• How listening will be followed up by the people who can do something about the feedback, and what help is available to those team

This isn’t just another notorious Twitter strategy (fine as that was). By thinking some of these challenges through now, Ministers and policy officials will get better advice not just on what tools to use, but on how to make digital engagement something sustainable and credible in the coming years.

Photo credit: Here’s the thing…

The Coalition: what now for digital?

So, a week into a new kind of government, what does the outlook for digital look like?

In terms of public sector IT at least, it looks broadly as through the principles and plans outlined by the Conservatives over the last six months are being brought into effect, with added emphasis on civil liberties.

Looking at the speeches, publications and campaign style of the Conservatives – and in particular Francis Maude (Cabinet Office, focus on efficiency & IT strategy), Jeremy Hunt (DCMS, dot com entrepreneur), George Osborne (Chancellor and open source fan) and Grant Shapps (digitally-engaged MP) – there seem to be three big ideas about the role and potential of the internet:

• Transparency: the internet as a publishing medium for government spending and Parliamentary expenses, to unleash ‘armchair auditors’ on government and politics to rebuild trust and promote consumer choice, e.g. publishing all government spending over £25k;
• Collaborative individualism: the internet as a decentralised network enabling individuals to come together as civil society to support their communities both altruistically and as an alternative mode of service provision to traditional state-run models, e.g. Wikipedia, the open source movement, involving the public in a ‘public reading stage’ of new Bills in Parliament;
• Efficiency: the internet as a lower-cost approach to delivering government IT programmes effectively including through smaller and more modular approaches, e.g. hosting health records via Google or Microsoft, increasing procurement from SMEs, and prohibiting the signing of very large (>£100m) IT contracts.

But what does that mean for jobbing webbies in the public sector? (n.b. of which I am no longer one, but more on that on a future occasion) Here are my predictions:

1. Government IT will become more agile. Big IT is in a weak position right now, with unhappy customers having to work around the straightjacket of long-term contracts, and a Treasury review of all big contracts signed since the start of the year. There are serious and repeated suggestions of a government skunkworks as part of a more radical rethink of the recently published Government IT strategy. Sure, big desktop contracts and the planned gCloud are not likely to go away soon, but underneath their feet, there will be a strong expectation from the centre of government that digital should move fast, be cheap and learn from its own (small) mistakes. Likelihood of happening: 60%.
2. Departments will begin to involve civil society in delivery, as well as policy. The ‘post bureaucratic age’ concept is a provocative label for a concept with much broader agreement: that addressing the deficit demands a slightly smaller State, and that this can be achieved in part through the enabling power of technology to convene individuals and civil society groups to help deliver public policy outcomes. Though rejecting the notion of a post-bureaucratic age, a great man once summed up the challenge to the role of government in terms of the need to become a collaborative state, working more closely with the civil society organisations – the Netmums and Horses Mouths – that the internet has made possible:
   

   The collaborative state still requires leaders and enablers, doers and thinkers. It still requires public services but services with boundaries porous to external ideas… The future of government is to provide tools for empowerment, not to sit back and hope that laissez-faire adhocracy will suffice.

   The Office for Civil Society in the Cabinet Office, and the fact that the first summit of civil society social entrepreneurs took place within a week of taking office, imply that this is going to be high priority, even if the shape of the programme is in its infancy. The challenge for still-bureaucratic government will be how to re-engineer procurement, commissioning and communications to support this kind of voluntarism, in place of traditional command-and-control. Likelihood of happening (in some areas, at least): 95%.

3. We’ll see less enthusiasm for social media and digital engagement for its own sake amongst ministers. The last couple of years saw an explosion in the interest of politicians across the spectrum in using innovative technology to been seen to consult and to raise their own profiles online, frequently (but with honourable exceptions) managed by a member of their staff. The new political masters will be fewer in number (BIS seems to have shed three ministers, for example), more focussed and less keen on tools like Twitter, for example. Where tools deliver practical value – like Grant Shapps’ famous email list to 10,000 of his constituents, or short pieces to camera which extend the reach of a speech – they’ll be used. Likelihood of happening: 50% (politicians remain, after all, personalities in public life)
4. By contrast, we’ll see a lot more online policy engagement and idea generation. Today’s Coalition Programme announcement (itself intended to be a commentable document, I understand) ended with a clear commitment from the Prime Minister to involve the public directly in shaping the new Freedom Bill, as well as establishing a new Public Reading stage for Bills in Parliament before they become law. Administrative government has always been keen on the process of consultation; but it seems as though political government may be willing to make a firm commitment to take the wisdom of online crowds on board (and there’s still the prospect of the £1m prize for a suitable online platform which makes it possible, maybe). Likelihood of happening: 95%
   
5. Power will shift in central government at least from Communications & Marketing teams, back to Policy and the front line. There is always talk from politicians about reducing the cost of marketing, but with a public plan to reduce the COI budget to its 1997 level (£163m down from £391m) that’s starting to look like it might happen; the previous government had already committed to a 25% cut in marketing spending across the board [PDF], albeit on a leisurely timescale. Government comms teams have seen these threats come and go over the years, but this time it looks serious, with money (and influence) moving back to policy teams delivering the major programmes of the new administration and a disinclination to be seen to be ‘spinning’. Whether smart, targetted digital marketing helps save the credibility of government marketing as a whole in a post-TV advertising era will be an interesting story to follow in the coming years. Likelihood of happening: 80%.
6. There will be renewed interest in how digital can save money by enabling new forms of internal collaboration. Thoughtful people have long argued that the real potential of social media in the public sector is in internal collaboration within and between public bodies. As CIOs and Finance Directors look to reduce travel expenses and improve staff productivity, expect to see more interest in tools like Huddle and Basecamp to support remote working beyond the GSI and on e-learning packages to deliver training. If smart folk can make the case internally for the productivity benefits of LinkedIn or Twitter, expect to see more strategic use of social media tools too. Likelihood of happening: 70%.
7. The rise of the open data movement will accelerate. Commitment to opening up government data has already been publicly affirmed, but expect to see a shift in emphasis from the potential benefits of open data to expose poor performance and motivate improvements in public services, towards the two other pillars: transparency in spending and lobbying; and perhaps especially the potential commercial benefits in providing the material for new enterprises and civil society groups (watch out for the the promised syndication of Directgov content in the next month or so). Likelihood of happening: 100%.
8. The rethinking of government structures and programmes will introduce new opportunities for lightweight and social digital approaches. It’s a truism that a new government will have new priorities and – even though most central government departments escaped without too much immediate reorganisation – that it will inevitably set up new organisations with a sense of mission and desire to do things differently: the Office for Civil Society and Office for Budgetary Responsibility seem like two such examples. New organisations and teams tend to be more open to creative approaches, and supportive of pilots of lightweight digital tools to help them engage staff with the new mission and create a strong public profile. Likelihood of happening: 80%.
9. There will be a renewed focus on digital skills. For all the talk of Government 2.0 and 3.0, there’s some bug fixing of 1.0 still to do to meet the needs of users who aren’t upgrading anytime soon. Use of email, search optimisation and strategy, accessibility, basic digital marketing, mobile integration and usability will all emerge as the drivers of more productive and efficient IT – without which more ambitious ideas such as personalisation or engagement will struggle. Government digital teams have suffered from outsourcing over the last decade or more, but look out for a renewed interest in the skills and activities really needed to optimise digital tools. Likelihood of happening: 70%.
10. The number of contractors and consultants working on public sector digital projects will grow. What? This is a more speculative prediction, but with pay and recruitment freezes imminent or already in place in many organisations, as people leave teams they will leave skills gaps which need to be plugged, if not by management consultants, then by freelance and contract staff with lower overheads or based outside the organisation – hopefully with a clearer mandate to coach and mentor civil servants to help transfer knowledge in key areas.  Likelihood of happening: 50%.

It’s worth keeping our feet on the ground here. There was a nice piece in the Guardian earlier this week by Mark Davies, former Special Advisor to Jack Straw:

When the change took place that brought forth the Lib-Con coalition, all that happened in my own department was that six ministers and two special advisers left the office, and new ones arrived. The other 90,000 civil servants remained. Any minister or adviser who wants to be effective needs to work with that in mind, and recognise that progress will only be achieved by harnessing the departmental machine.

It will be fascinating to watch things unfold over the next few months.

Photo credit: Number10Gov on Flickr

Ada Lovelace Day: A new kind of civil servant

It’s Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science, and I’ve taken the pledge to write about a female heroine of science or technology.

My everyday heroine is Marilyn Booth, a civil servant, working in Science & Society policy in a central government department not a million miles from my own. To my knowledge, Marilyn’s not discovered any new elements, won many Nobel prizes or authored many W3C specifications (though I could be wrong). But she’s at the forefront of a revolution that should and must happen if government is to start engaging online in any meaningful way.

Marilyn tweets, about her work and her life. She retweets eminent scientists and stakeholders, including the minister and the department’s official channels, and has built up a 600-strong following. She runs a Facebook group, helping promote the work of her team, long after its original intended purpose was concluded. She sets up stakeholder events in Second Life that would terrify me, logistics alone. She uses low cost web tools like Eventbrite to manage events, saving taxpayers thousands of pounds a time. The bottom line is, she has her ear to the ground, knows her stakeholder audience well, thinks laterally and courageously about how to use the new tools, and won’t be thwarted by the limitations of corporate IT.

It’s great for government departments to set up social media channels and talk to their audiences in new ways. It’s even better when ministers and senior officials take the plunge personally. And it’s critically important that people in my kind of role walk the talk.

But we’ll only change the way government works when bureaucrats deep in the bowels of policy departments take the step of using them regularly and for professional purposes. When they know who’s influential and interesting beyond the formal steering group, and informally involve them in solving public policy problems in the open. Soon, that won’t be the difficult and at times brave step that it is today. For now, three cheers for the Marilyns showing us the way.

Au revoir

Shortly after the forthcoming General Election, I’ll be leaving the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Tomorrow will mark my second anniversary of working at BIS, and its predecessor, DIUS. It’s been a fantastic couple of years, which has introduced me to some phenomenally talented and creative people in and around government. I’ve been privileged to have the time, space and trust to experiment with how a policymaking department might use social technologies, though I’m conscious we’ve barely scratched the surface.

But it’s time for a change. I have virtually no idea what I’ll do next. I appreciate that this is, in the words of a long-time colleague, insane. For those curious: my departure is at my own behest, is on good terms, and isn’t a result of civil service cuts, linked to my own use of social media or in any way politically-motivated (I’d be happy to serve pretty much any government).

I’m optimistic that it’s a good time to be a general purpose webby. There are exciting opportunities for digital engagement around government, and lots of clever folk drumming up new ones. It would be interesting to step back into the private sector world of digital marketing, or the fast-developing world of digital campaigning in the third sector, and learn more about how things are done there. Or maybe it’s time to go back to my roots as a market researcher. In PR and digital, there are some smart young agencies and startups doing exciting things. And I’ve always been a bit of an entrepreneur manqué, so perhaps this is the moment to listen to Lord Sugar, take the plunge and turn some of those crazy tools and techniques into grown up products and services myself.

If you have a project or venture you’d like to discuss with me, I’ll be all ears for the next couple of months – I’m hoping not to rush into anything too quickly. You can contact me via this blog, DM me on Twitter, or contact me via LinkedIn.

Thanks all for your support over the last couple of years. I’m looking forward to whatever comes next.

Photo credit: Kisforkate

Unpacking the world of digital in government

Recently, I was in a meeting of government communicators at the leading edge. The discussion was informed, and mature; the examples innovative and and impactful. Though the group had diverse backgrounds in Press Offices and Strategic Marketing, they were all in agreement that digital, and social media in particular, was the way of the future.

This happens a lot. For people looking to do more for less, digital offers a more cost-effective delivery channel. For people looking to reach younger or more mobile audiences, it offers new and engaging channels. For people looking to innovate, it offers exciting tools and techniques. All of this is possible, and I’d argue, desirable. But if we’re going to make it happen on the scale people envisage, we need to translate that enthusiasm into a deliverable configuration of people, suppliers and skills. And to do that, we need to unpack what digital means in the context of government.

Brian Hoadley kicked this off for me with a great post unpacking two contrasting approaches to social media: as a one-off campaign tool vs an enduring set of communities. In my mind, it’s also the difference between the digital marketing approach to social media, compared to the digital engagement or channel management approaches.

So here’s my attempt to do a bit more unpacking (click to expand, or download the PDF version):

I came up with eight groupings of professional disciplines within the digital realm, within which are a total of 47 activity areas – each of which is a justifiable professional specialism in itself:

Digital Marketing

- Email marketing
- Mobile marketing (SMS & Apps)
- Online display advertising
- PPC search
- Paid partnerships
- Social media campaign strategy (short term)

Online PR

- Social media news
- Influencer mapping & blogger outreach
- Earned (non paid-for) partnerships
- Social media monitoring
- Offline PR integration (including traditional media)

Digital Engagement

- Community management
- Social reporting
- Digital mentoring & internal guidance
- Social media engagement strategy (long term)

Digital Project Management

- IT project management
- CMS strategy & procurement
- Hosting strategy & procurement
- Agency briefing & management
- Wireframing & visual design
- Resilience & Disaster Recovery planning
- IT security and information assurance
- User Acceptance Testing

Digital Publishing

- Content strategy & commissioning (including social media)
- Web copywriting
- Publisher training & QA
- Multimedia commissioning/production/editing
- Online brand guidelines

Digital Channel Management

- Corporate channel management (i.e. core website)
- Web analytics
- Social media channel management (e.g. corporate Facebook, Twitter)
- Accessibility
- User Experience research/design
- Archiving and link management
- Microsite integration and branding
- Legal compliance with privacy, data protection, copyright regulation
- SEO
- Horizon-scanning (e.g. tools, trends, technologies)

Digital Government

- Website convergence
- Directgov franchise management
- Business Link theme management
- Workforce channel management
- Freedom of Information & Parliamentary Question responses
- Channel/efficiency strategy
- Cost, quality & usage reporting

Open Data

- Linked Data publishing (e.g. RDFa)
- Data visualisation
- API creation & consumption

What does this tell us? I think there are a few noble truths there:

• Digital needs go-betweens: just look at the overlaps. In a day’s work, webbies find themselves in discussions with IT, PR and digital agencies, lawyers, photographers, data geeks, half-trained web publishers and vocal online communities.
• It’s not just a technical or communications discipline: the old cliché of webbies being from IT, or more controversially being just a branch of Marketing, doesn’t bear out. It’s obvious from the scope of the work mapped out there that there will be tensions with people who see the aspects of digital that relate to Marketing, but can’t relate to the IT project management aspects; or who can relate to copywriting, but not user experience analysis or channel strategy.
• It’s demands a diverse team: the most important conclusion from this thought experiment is that government digital work is now such a vast, diverse and yet professionally specialised field, that we need to rethink who does digital. Either we radically scale up the late 1990s concept of a ‘web team’ from a primarily publishing operation to some much more sophisticated (you could easily see a Head of… each of the groupings above within much bigger digital operations). Or, someone needs to do a whole lot more engagement with people elsewhere in the organisation who work in parallel fields (IT service operations, offline marketing, training, internal comms, statistics etc) to help them become professional specialists in some of these fields themselves (of course, there are external agencies that offer many of these services, but they still need intelligent clients to work with).

So perhaps that’s the biggest challenge for government in using digital more effectively to listen, discuss, inform and deliver. Somehow, we need to find ways to increase skills and capacity across this enormous field.

How on earth are we going to achieve that?