Viaspire - Define.Innovate.Maximize.

Social Media & Open Government

Social Media + Open Government at NASA

View more presentations from Nick Skytland.(@skytland)

Social Media Policy: 113 Policies Indexed and Counting

Chris Boudreaux's Social Media Policy Database was white hot today under #socialmedia. This is an invaluable resource, which you can view social media policies by industry, get email updates when new features or policies are added and even add your own.

From About.com to Yahoo!, today there are officially 113 social media policies listed. This resource is exceptional and particularly essential for any organization (and their employees, members, partners, etc.) currently exploring, discovering and participating on the Social Web. Having a social media policy is essential to establish a framework for acceptable participation - both personal and professional. Bourdeaux's mission seems to express it best, social media governance - "empowerment with accountability." - Well said!

Source: Social Media Governance
Author & Contributing Credits: @cboudreaux, @EdBennett, Jason Rup
Referring hastags: #smg, #socialmedia

Creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity

The exploration of new ideas, the expression of different ways to present those ideas, and most of all the unique nature of communicating complex ideas simply or provocatively -- all require time and an open opportunity to explore, test, and try again. Creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Reading through my feeds, I came across this great "tongue-in-cheek" article by Paul Sloane, author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking, entitled - Ten Great Ways to Crush Creativity. 

Sloane says, "Leaders have more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection."

Here's how Sloane sees a top 10 list to "crush creativity" in an organization:

1. Criticize new ideas
2. Discourage brainstorming or collaboration to explore new ideas or creative solutions
3. Hoard problems - don't seek ideas to create innovative solutions
4. Focus on efficiencies not innovation
5. Overwork - "hard work alone will solve the problem"
6. Adhere to the plan at all costs
7. Punish for mistakes, reduce taking any risk
8. Don't look outside (the organization, the processes used, the existing solution in place)
9. Promote only those who think and manage like you
10. Don't waste money on training - just learn as you go

For the full article, read on >>

See Paul Sloane's latest book, The Innovative Leader: How to Inspire Your Team and Drive Creativity.

Change Manifestos Worth Reading from ChangeThis

There are always great manifestos published on ChangeThis and some of the latest I wanted to share with you. If you are a manager in today's Organization 2.0, the following manifestos are an excellent read. These ideas and concepts are worth sharing. Check them out!

Change Master: Why Adapting is the Most Crucial Skill You’ll Ever Need
By: M.J. Ryan Web | PDF
“In order to not merely to survive, but to thrive during the greatest period of transformation humans have ever experienced, we are all being called on to stretch mentally, emotionally, and spiritually into the future. It’s my hope that this manifesto offers you both comfort and practical support as you take on this challenge and become a Master of Change.”

See M.J. Ryan's latest book, AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For

What’s Your CQ and Why Should You Care?
By: David Livermore Web | PDF

“You’ve heard about IQ and EQ. But what’s your CQ? CQ, or cultural intelligence, is more than just a kitschy catch phrase for cultural competence. It’s a fresh, new approach to leading in our multicultural, globalized world. Cultural intelligence is defined as the capability to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures. And research demonstrates a leader’s CQ may easily be the single greatest difference between thriving in the 21st century world and becoming obsolete.”

See David Livermore's latest book, Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World (Youth, Family, and Culture)

Below C-Level Strategy
By: John Spence Web | PDF

“Whereas C- level strategic planning is for people that ‘make’ budgets; below C-level strategic planning is for those of us that are given a budget. Folks at the C-level make broad reaching decisions that direct people and departments across the entire organization, while those of us below C-level often have to focus on the few places within the organization where we do have impact, influence and some level of control. Luckily, the most important strategies for creating a highly successful organization fall into a handful of key result areas, most of which are completely within your control.”

See John Spence's latest book, Awesomely Simple - Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action

Quit Managing Your Time… and Start Managing Your Attention
By: Lee J. Colan, Ph.D. Web

“The myth of time management never dies. Many people enroll in 'time management' classes and learn techniques like making to-do lists. That’s fine. Lists can be useful, even satisfying. It’s great to experience that rush—Ahhhh!—as we check something off the list. However, by the end of the day, or the week, or the month, most people discover projects that are still not checked off and some projects they haven’t even started. That’s when frustration begins to set in. The time is gone, and there’s no way to get it back.

You can’t manufacture time, you can’t reproduce time, you can’t slow time down or turn it around and make it run in the other direction.

You can’t trade bad hours for good ones, either. About all the time management you can do is to cram as much productive work as pos¬sible into each day.

What you can manage, however, is your attention..."

See Lee Colan's latest book, Winners Always Quit

Writing for the Web - Articles, Blogs, Books, Oh My!

To all of our Web content creators out there, here's a list we've compiled to help inspire, guide and instill good writing techniques for effective online communications:

Insightful Articles - Give These a Try

• Optimizing the User Experience
• Usability Basics
• Content Organization
• The Importance of Headings, Titles & Labels
• Writing Web Content
• Writing for the Web/Plain Language

Blogs & Feeds - Read & Subscribe

• How to Write for the Web
  By OJR: Online Journal Review | Online Journalism Wiki | RSS
• Copyblogger
  By Brian Clark

Books - Get Them Off the Shelf

• Developing Online Content - The Principles of Writing and Editing for the Web
  By Irene Hammerich, Claire Harrison
• The Web Content Style Guide
  By Gerry McGovern
• Writing for the Web - Writers' Edition
  By Crawford Kilian
• Call to Action - Secret Formula to Improve Online Results
  By Bryan Eisenberg
• Persuasive Online Copywriting
  By Bryan Eisenberg
• The Elements of User Experience
  By Jesse James Garrett
• Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
  By Steve Krug
• Information Architecture - Blueprints for the Web
  By Christina Wodtke

Also, be sure to visit past posts, Viaspire has written on Writing for the Web.

Social Media & the Gov’t, Helpful Insight for Managers

Number one recommendation for managers in government, learn everything you can about Social Media. Jeffrey Levy, Director of Web Communications at U.S. EPA provides a great introduction to Social Media for Government managers.

Social Media And The Gov’t: A Brief Introduction for Managers

View more presentations from levyj413.

Being Proactive & Prepared for Response in Social Media - U.S. Air Force

There is an excellent business process workflow map published by the U.S. Air Force Public Affairs Agency - Emerging Technology Division addressing their standard of operations for reputation management and response in social media.

It's simple, clear and addresses the way in which the U.S. Air Force Public Affairs intends to engage online. For any organization assessing their level of engagement -- what it is or will be, this visual decision map may help create a framework for discussion and planning.

Special thanks to Joey deVilla for sharing this at Global Nerdy.

eGov 2.0: Bi-Directional Engagement

It's interesting that this morning we see a lot of news about the Social Security Administration's move towards facilitating boomers to apply online for social security at socialsecurity.gov. According to an article on NewsDay today, "Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said Americans are becoming eligible for retirement at a rate of 10,000 a day for the next 20 years."

Providing the service and streamlining access is foundational for most eGov initiatives, but in the age of Social Media, it's interesting to see where government needs to focus, apply and adapt how these online services and the Gov-Citizen relationship evolves online.

When it comes to government and social media, there is amazing opportunity and responsibility to evaluate, plan and incorporate a deeper level of engagement into their online strategies. In an exceptional article by Mark Drapeau, he addresses this more specifically, related to Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR.

Reading both these articles back to back, it's interesting to see where the SSA is focused now and where they'll be headed in the future. The idea of streamlining the application process online is in today's realm, necessary. Looking at how social media can facilitate, expedite and improve the process collaboratively as well as creating extensive reach and a more personal connection is fascinating and hopefully on the horizon.

In a recent post we took a look at an interesting documentary addressing how mass collaboration online will completely transform the way institutional organizations, like government can/will operate.

In a great video excerpt from the documentary US Now, there is a great video that addresses Governments Getting with the Internet with Alan Cox.

When it comes to government and social media, there is amazing opportunity and responsibility to evaluate, plan and incorporate "collaboration" into their online strategies. It's exciting to be a part of this evolution with many exceptional state agencies and we look forward to the realization of true bi-directional engagement in the future.

Thought Leaders Spotlight - Clay Shirky

In an age where there are so many "thought leaders," particularly in the emerging social media space, it is really refreshing and mind-nourishing when you get to really sit with some ideas that make you stop, think and want to feed your brain some more. Drawn in to watch every clip of US Now, Shirky's videos really made me want to follow and learn more (interesting inherent behavior in social media right off the bat). :)

Today, we are going to kick off a new blog series, entitled "Thought Leaders Spotlight." It's an opportunity for us to explore the roll out of ideas, critical thinking and viewpoints from varied sources over time to study their opinions, perspectives and view the dialogue discussed on, by or about these thought leaders.

We've assembled a few of our favorite presentation videos from Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations book tour and his recent contribution in the film documentary, US Now.

Here Comes Everybody

Where Do People Find the Time

The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Shirky also spoke at the RSA, where there is another great video on this same topic.

Instutions vs. Collaboration

Future Transformations

US Now | Mass Collaboration Online Can Transform

There is an exciting new British documentary that just debuted in London on December 3, 2008 at the RSA. The film, US Now explores how mass collaboration, the internet and its power to transform society has extraordinary potential to transform institutional structures, like government, broaden citizen participation and, "deepen" democracy. Each perspective included in this film constructively looks at simply, "the potential" of what lies ahead. With that, includes the challenges and some of the structural barriers to date, but given the timeliness of this documentary, there is also the sense, that the time is now to leverage and utilize what we have used, learned, built, and participate in to take such institutions like "government," go beyond "e-government" and create a richer, more interactive, participatory democratic government. The film looks at the potential and the opportunity to "unbundling and reconstituting" the institutional ways to create greater access and broaden the participatory role of the citizen. It's an interesting and extremely timely exploration in these new time ahead.

Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy, such as Wikipedia, Facebook and others.  For the first time, this film brings together leading-edge visionaries in the field of participative governance to describe the future of government. Us Now follows the stories of the people that are redefining what is an institution. The film explores common organizational structures plotting the fate of a football club owned and run by its fans, a bank in which everyone is the manager, a global network whose members share their homes with strangers and asks politicians and thinkers what all this means for society.

"There's a whole new model emerging where we become part of the government," says film contributor, Don Tapscott.

There are great clips available online now and will culminate in an hour long documentary to be released publicly in January 2009.

View some of these clips now to see how exciting the dialogue and critical thinking is.

Governments Getting with the Internet

Social Networking

Organizations & Democracy

Models For Government