Managing Public Communications

Anni Rowland-Campbell

ANZSOG Sydney

September 2013

A digital future

“Governments need information to govern; citizens need information to hold government to account.”

Brendan O’Connor OAIC Conference, November 2011

The delivery of Norwich City Council's first computer, 1957

Information Economy

Hyper  connec*vity  –  “UbiComp”  

Social   Mobile  

Global   Local  

Information is available

Information is available

Data  

Internet of Everything

The age of big data

On  Facebook  we’re  not  the  customers.  We  are  the  product.  

Douglas  Rushkoff  

Douglas  Rushkoff  

Data is social, is of a place, is feral, has responsibilities, wants to look good and doesn’t necessarily want to last forever.

What if we designed for data the way we design for people?

Genevieve  Bell  Genevieve  Bell  

Digital Transformation

Late  1990’s  

Pervasive  

Limited  

Digital  products  and  infrastructure  

Digital  distribu*on  and  Web  

Digital  transforma*on  and  business  

models  

2000’s   2010’s  

Degree  of  e

cono

mic  im

pact  

Cyber war

Several prominent media sites and a few media-related Twitter feeds went down Tuesday following an apparent attack by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), the New York Times reported. Among the sites affected were the NYT itself, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, NPR, and Twitter feeds for Reuters, the AP and BBC Weather.

The Gartner Hype Cycle

Peak  of  inflated  expecta*ons  

Plateu  of  Produc*vity  

Slope  of  Enlightenment  

Trough  of  Disillusionment  

Technology  Trigger  

Gartner Hype Cycle 2013

We are cavemen in the digital world

(hVp://www.baekdal.com/ar*cles/Management/market-­‐of-­‐informa*on/)  

How we’ve done it over the past 213 years

Social  technology  is  any  technology  that  enables  

one  to  many  communica*ons  in  a  public  

forum  

Nigel  Fenwick,  Forrester  

Social  technology  is  any  technology  that  enables  

one  to  many  communica*ons  in  a  public  

forum  

Nigel  Fenwick,  Forrester  

Social  technology  is  any  technology  that  enables  

one  to  many  communica*ons  in  a  public  

forum  

Nigel  Fenwick,  Forrester  

Social  technology  is  any  technology  that  enables  

one  to  many  communica*ons  in  a  public  

forum  

Nigel  Fenwick,  Forrester  

They  are  really  just    technologies  that    

facilitate  conversa*ons.  

Sean  Carton  

Technology  

Culture  

Society  The  Polity  

A  revolu*on  doesn’t  happen  when  a  society  adopts  new  tools,  it  happens  when  a  society  adopts  new  behaviours    

Clay  Shirky  

From rowing

(Leanne Fry, FWO)

Government  

Stakeholder  

Stakeholder  

Stakeholder  

Stakeholder   Government  

To steering

Government  

Stakeholder  

Stakeholder  

Stakeholder  

Stakeholder  

(Leanne Fry, FWO)

(From Alterian)

Communica*ons  Engagement  Hub  

TwiVer  Email  

Apps  

Call  Centre  

Direct  Mail  

Website  

Facebook  YouTube  

Talk  back  radio  

Print  

Face  to  face  

Television  

Virtual  mee*ngs  

Virtual  worlds  

Fair Work Ombudsman

Social Media is Counter-intuitive … it’s all about people!

Space defined by Media Owner

Brand in control

One way / Delivering a message

Repeating the message

Focused on the brand

Entertaining

Company created content

Space defined by Consumer

Consumer in control

Two way / Being a part of a conversation

Adapting the message/ beta

Focused on the consumer / Adding value

Influencing, involving

User created content / Co-creation

Communications Media Social Media

Checklist

1.  Content Know what you’re doing & why

2.  Context Know who you’re targeting

3.  Channel Know how to target & integrate

4.  Conversations Engage influential champions

5.  Change Listen! Monitor, evaluate, adapt, evolve

6.  Commit Time, resources, patience

Ethos  -­‐  Trust  What  should  we  do?  

Logos  –  Plan    What  can  we  do?  

Pathos  –  Hope  What  may  we  do?  

Communications execution model

•  How  do  I  get  support  &  buy  in?  

• Who  do  I  need  to  help  me?  

• What  is  the  worst  thing  that  can  happen?  

• Who  trusts  me  to  do  this?  

Trust   Risk  

Leadership  Resources  

EXERCISE

•  Consider the Werribee Zoo Case

•  You are Communications Manager for the Premier

•  Develop a strategy (incorporating social media) six months prior to the release of the campaign utilising the Communications Execution model

DEBRIEF

“We  shape  our  technologies  and  forever  aeer  they  shape  us.”  

Marshall  McLuhan  

DIGITAL SESSION TWO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Affordances

•  "...the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used.”

•  Affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. Plates are for pushing. Knobs are for turning. Slots are for inserting things into. Balls are for throwing or bouncing.

•  When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction needed."

•  Donald J. Norman, “The Psychology of Everyday Things”, 1988)

(Zuboff & Maxim, “The Support Economy”, 2000)

Key characteristics of digital

•  Transparency

•  Accountability

•  Better business practices

•  Ability to manipulate complexity

•  Collaboration and co-operation, globally

•  Immediacy

•  Infinite “plasticity”

•  From linear to kaleidoscopic relationships

•  Ubiquity - anywhere, anyhow, anytime

(Zuboff & Maxim, “The Support Economy”, 2002)

Physical and digital Characteris*c   Physical  -­‐  photograph   Digital  –photograph  

Transparency   Printed  -­‐  fixed   Can  be  edited  -­‐  open  

Accountability   Deemed  to  be  authen*c  as  “fixed”  

Can  be  tracked  and  traced  –  gps  (iPhones),  tagged,  but  can  be  edited  

Business  prac*ce   Needs  to  be  either  digi*sed  or  physically  shared  –  can  be  locked  down  

Can  be  shared  easily  

Complexity   Two  dimensional   Mul*-­‐dimensional  and  temporal  

Collabora*on   View  only,  needs  to  be  “copied”  

Can  be  shared  and  edited,  infinite  copying  

Immediacy   Available  when  printed   Can  be  downloaded,  accessed  

Plas*city   Printed  -­‐  fixed   Can  be  edited  -­‐  open  

Kaleidoscope   Can  print  mul*ple  copies   Infinitely  shareable  in  mul*ple  direc*ons  

Ubiquity   Accessed  via  physical  means  -­‐  album  

Can  be  accessed  via  any  digital  screen  

Exercise

•  In your groups think of a “document” that is important in your work –  Strategy Document

–  Media Release

–  Job Advertisement

•  List the physical and digital affordances of the document

•  Discuss how this influences the impact of the document

Web Science

An emerging discipline which aims to understand the deeper structure of the social Web and how people are using it, not only now, but potentially in the future

Tim  Berners  Lee  

Real  life  is,  and  must  be,  full  of  all  kinds  of  social  constraint  –  the  very  processes  from  which  society  arises.    Computers  can  help  if  we  use  them  to  create  abstract  social  machines  on  the  Web:    processes  in  which  the  people  do  the  crea*ve  work  and  the  machine  does  the  

administra*on.  …  The  stage  is  set  for  an  evolu*onary  growth  of  new  social  engines  

The rise of the Social Machine

Technology  input  

Technology  Plajorm  

Data  Analysis  

Machine  Learning  

Human  input  

Social  Machine  

Characteristics of the social machine

1.  problems are beginning to be solved by very large scale human participation via the Web;

2.  there is access to, or the ability to generate, large amounts of relevant data using open data standards;

3.  there is increasing confidence in the quality of the data; and

4.  human-computer interfaces are becoming far more intuitive and seamless.

www.eq.org.nz

Ø Scale of human participation on the Web Ø Timely mobilisation of people, technology and

information processes Ø  Incentive to participate which feeds on itself Ø Access to/ability to generate large amounts of

relevant data Ø Confidence in the quality of the data Ø Trusts in agents and processes Ø  Intuitive interfaces and user-centred Ø Works cross platform Ø Efficient, effective, equitable Ø Exploits power of “open” – open source, open

standards, open data, open licences

Social  Machine   Descrip*on   Input   Human   Media*ve  

eBay  www.ebay.com  

Provides  an  online  auc*on  model,  with  internet  users  as  buyers  and  sellers  and  eBay  ac*ng  as  the  auc*on  house  

Seller  promises  in  the  form  of  lis*ngs;  Buyer/Seller  communica*ons,  both  before  and  aeer  commitment  to  buy.  Sellers’  fulfilment  of  those  promises,  as  perceived  by  the  buyers,  in  the  form  of  feedback  

Anything  requiring  judgement.  eBay  from  *me  to  *me  adjusts  the  feedback  mechanism  to  draw  par*cular  aVen*on  to  certain  elements  of  a  seller’s  performance,  in  order  to  further  improve  the  customer  experience.  

In  addi*on  to  raw  feedback,  the  system  also  provides  aggregated  feedback  in  the  form  of  simple  numeric  scores  and  even  coloured  logos.  Can  automa*cally  remove  sellers  with  consistently  poor  feedback  

Social  Machine   Descrip*on   Input   Human   Media*ve  

Fix  My  Street  www.fixmystreet.org  

A  website  through  which  users  can  report  potholes,  broken  street  lights  and  similar  problems  with  streets  and  roads  to  their  local  council  or  related  organisa*on,  and  see  what  reports  have  already  been  made  

No*fica*on  of  “things  requiring  aVen*on”  Data  rela*ng  to  problem  

Data  rela*ng  to  problem  

Provides  geo-­‐contextualised  and  temporally  filtered  list  of  reported  incidents  and  things,  visualised  on  a  map  for  easy  consump*on  

www.sociam.org

www.sociam.org

Objectives:

1.  Understanding - the emergence of social computing

2.  Seamless access to a Web of Data

3.  Accountability - how to make social machines accountable and to build the trust essential to their operation.

4.  Interactions – humans and machines

5.  Social Machines Observatory

“Government as a Social Machine”

Research Questions:

1.  How does Government as a "social machine” change the way that it interacts with citizens?

2.  What key challenges are emerging as a result of this perspective?

3.  How are Government agencies addressing these challenges?

“Government is, at bottom, a mechanism for collective action. Government 2.0 is the use of technology … to better solve collective problems at a city, state, national, and international level.”

Tim O’Reilly

References

•  Web Science Trust – www.webscience.org •  Web Science Australia – www.webscienceaustralia.org •  SOCIAM Project – www.sociam.org •  Shoshana Zuboff – “In the Age of the Smart Machine” -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshana_Zuboff •  Clay Shirky – Blog - http://shirky.com/ •  Genevieve Bell – Talk at Gov 2.0 Summit 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvn_l_Vh3hw&noredirect=1 •  Sherry Turkle - http://www.transparencynow.com/turkle.htm •  Tim O’Reilly - http://oreilly.com/tim/ •  Michael Wesch - http://ksuanth.weebly.com/wesch.html •  The Machine is Us/ing Us -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE •  Douglas Rushkoff - http://www.rushkoff.com/ •  www.intersticia.com/blog •  Pew Internet Research - http://www.pewinternet.org/

Thank you

anni@intersticia.com

+61 413 626 737