Comments on: Seven principles for digital engagement (help me please)

By: DDAM: Don’t discriminate against machines :: Adrian Short

DDAM: Don’t discriminate against machines :: Adrian Short — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:06:20 +0000

[...] like to emphasise a point that Emma Mulqueeny has alluded to in her seven principles for digital engagement and which I also made in passing in my previous article on building local news [...]

By: Walt

Walt — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:28:55 +0000

I’m currently carrying out a requirements gathering exercise to make recommendations for e-consultation ’software’ on behalf of a UK gov dept.

My recommendations will be made from the users’ perspective. The parallels between your principals, Steph’s principals and good user experience principals are quite clear.

There are also some clear parallels between online interaction/consultation/engagement and Grice’s Conversational Maxims, always worth a look at.

The energy and appetite for digital engagement in government is clearly growing, it’s very exciting.

By: Lucym

Lucym — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:09:54 +0000

Wow, Steph = impressive!

By: JCB

JCB — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:15:35 +0000

I’m also creating a User generated content strategy for NHS Choices. I’ve gone down the principles road as well but I’m also looking at segmentation e.g. the right medium/techniques for the right audience which is particularly relevant in health.
And I’m fascinated by the Obama campaign which used digital engagement to create a virtuous circle where people signed up, got sent a call to action, went out and did it (knocked on doors) and then reported back to the site and were given more tasks. Would be happy to share draft strategy.

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:26:39 +0000

Thanks Catherine, will follow definitely.

By: curiouscatherine

curiouscatherine — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:05:40 +0000

Hi there – yes – am very happy to share results and am doing a kind of research diary at http://curiouscatherine.wordpress.com/ – first proper results in the summer I hope!

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:01:53 +0000

Catherine, great PHD subject, good luck and keep us posted. Your first point I *hope* is covered by principle 2; on your second point I would be really fascinated to find out what you discover, can you share?

Libby, really useful links, cheers.

Lucy, you raise a really valuable point there:

*Do something real with the community’s contributions.

Unless part of the strategy is what to do with all the helpful suggestions/harsh criticisms/requests for answers that any engagement with real people will bring, then it’s just a tick box exercise…

One that we all talk about but I have not included in any of the papers written so far I shall include it.

With regard to your suggestion for a community manager, I could not agree more, but at the moment it is baby steps and we have to start somewhere. I believe the need will become quickly apparent. Have you seen the work Steph Gray is doing in DIUS? He comments above, follow his blog and you will be way more impressed

By: Lucym

Lucym — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:20:57 +0000

I think the biggest challenge for dept.s is getting the right people to put any social media strategy into action.

It sounds like you’re being asked to come up with a social media ‘how to’, Emma. If so, I think the key issue for you is ‘who’ does this community engagement work.

It’s great that you have buy in from marketing/policy/comms, but I know from experience that they’ll run fleeing for their blackberries if you suggest that they share the actual day-to-day *work* of community engagement.

You need to lobby for resource to secure at the least one community manager who will manage the practical day-to-day that comes with engaging citizens/customers online:
*Setting the tone by constantly creating content and being identifiable/accountable as the community manager of the site/dept
*Moderation issues – creating clear moderation guidelines, managing moderators, dealing with violations and problem users
*Regularly updating whichever social media networks are appropriate to the community with exclusive content/services
*CRM – responding to user communications, personally
*Constantly creating new reasons for visitors to come back to the community (new features/content/tools)
*Internal social media cheerleader – Tweet-training, blog editing, etc. etc.

But the one element that the strategy must contain is that intend to:

*Do something real with the community’s contributions.

It’s brave of depts to be up for this kind of engagement. Am surprised and excited it’s happening!

By: Libby

Libby — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:48:45 +0000

hi Emma – with respect to (3) Michael Smethurst at the BBC has got a couple of great presentations about doing it right that might be handy –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/01/how_we_make_websites.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/03/designing_for_your_least_able.shtml

By: curiouscatherine

curiouscatherine — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:17:28 +0000

Am popping up for the first time here so hello to all. I am currently working on my PHD around the area of how we find a way to use social media to support local democracy and so found the priniciples useful – thanks.
I think their are two additional things to consider:

1) Tone / Authenticity. Don’t go digitally native unless you you actually speak the language. So many local authorities are turning up in social spaces and doing themselves no favours because they don’t respond to the tone of the site.
2) Make sure you are having the right conversations in the right places. My growing convinction is that government needs to create online civic spaces and draw social conversations to these rather than try and engage out in the wild. I have some EU funding to try and figure out if this is true (www.citizenscape.org) so we shall see!

One other thing – I think its probably important to think about the fact that online communities are really good at building bonding social capital but do less well at bridging capital. The public sphere of debate needs that bridging capital and this is an opportunity for democratic institutions I think.