Update on digital engagement in Home Office

My recent frustration at various conferences and unconferences over the last few months has been compounded by the fact that I am already struggling along the path of setting and helping embed a digital engagement strategy in the Home Office. I have to admit to being a little fed up of the endless hectoring – as it is seeming to be now – about how we *must* do this, we *must* engage properly where the communities are already collaborating. I think we all know this now – and many of us attending and speaking at these events are facing the realities of actually making this happen, and we need to do more to support each other. (I am particularly rubbish at this, not through belligerence, rather through busy-ness and actually struggling to find the time to share – hence my use of this blog and twitter account to do this in my *free time* rather than formally sharing the work we do).

What we are up to in the Home Office

In the Home Office we are about half way through the website rationalisation work, converging and migrating content slowly but surely to the decreed websites: Directgov, businesslink.gov.uk, corporate sites and the Police portal. Although this policy has not been welcomed with open arms necessarily, it has been an absolute boon in enabling the digital strategy to be embedded throughout the organisation – rather than being a *thing* that a group of people in the e-comms directorate do. I am not sure how it would have worked otherwise. (This sounds like I am far further along the path than I am – this is still in principle, but the path seems finally clear).

Ignoring the actual development of a digital strategy in a department – really not too much of a challenge as the Cabinet Office and COI have set out extremely detailed and good policies for us to work from; and really it is simply a matter of tailoring that guidance to the work of the department and its agencies – making it something that is integral to all digital communication takes all of the effort and talent of a major change management and internal communication programme.

Thus my gratitude to the work already mandated to take place with the convergence and rationalisation of all government websites: the first giant step has happened.

How we are embedding the principles of digital engagement

In the Home Office we will be drawing the strategy of digital engagement down through every part of the department: policy, strategy, marketing, press office and the communications directorate. The disciplines separated into:

• listen
• monitor
• engage
• broadcast

Policy: listen, monitor and engage (broadcasting consultations through all available channels as well as commentable documents)

Strategy: listen

Marketing: monitor, broadcast and engage

Press office: broadcast, listen, monitor and engage (as they would currently with online and offline press)

Communications directorate: broadcast, monitor and educate the rest of the department in appropriate use of social tools (by social tools this year I mean blogging, micro-blogging, commenting, creating commentable format documents, wikis and networks)

It is not quite as linear as this, Press Office and Comms will alert Policy to anything that may require intervention/response; and collaboration across the piece at timely intervals will enable the department to quickly learn how to use the internal and external community to do its job better. Nor is it as defined, we are working on this and need to learn more, from other departments.

Where are the current pressure points?

Press Office

Press officers seem confused as to how they should best utilise any digital engagement strategy, bringing in expert advice – absolutely right IMHO – as some of the social tools are broadcast mechanisms as much as they are for collaboration. This is something we are working through, hence my previous post about what is currently happening across UK government departments, specifically Press Offices. The common tool being twitter. Our latest thinking is:

• use a dashboard to monitor online conversation, trends and influencers
• be the owners of departmental tweeting – twitter is definitely a broadcast medium and the press office should be experts in its use and be aware of all tweeters in the dept (professional tweeting only, not those who have their own personal accounts obviously)

But this is something that is still being explored and I would love to have a conference/unconference specifically around press office and digital engagement

Education of communication teams

With the best will in the world, those who are working currently in online communcation are not necessarily totally up to speed on everything that is happening in the digital engagement space – but they need to be. For a start, they should all have a twitter account; read blogs or at the very least use rss feeds to keep abreast of news that interests them personally; be sent to conferences that talk about this stuff as a part of their job; be given access to the sites that they need in order to ensure they are confident in advising the rest of the department on what works best in which online communcation challenge.

In the Home Office, we have now finally – and only just – added a permanent agenda item to the weekly meeting on recent developments in digital engagement; and we are going to be setting out some simple things for people to do as a part of their current jobs to enable the necessary skills to be developed. (This does not mean going on half day courses on how to use twitter). It does mean following, reading and learning from people such as Steph Gray, Dave Briggs, Neil Williams, Julia Chandler, Stephen Hale – to name but a few (and probably annoy the rest) – who are doing this brilliantly in departments across Whitehall, almost daily developing new tools and methods for collaboration/engagement.

Again, this is work in progress and something that we are just beginning to address.

Data

To have a digital engagement strategy that does not include having a single entry point to all of our raw, non-personal data would be frankly bonkers. We are working towards this but the issue is not an unwillingness to do so; rather no single ownership or knowledge of all of the data sets we are currently publishing across the corporate and agency sites.

We have now drawn together an informal team across the department, whose job it is to gather bits of this picture – and we are in the process of deciding whether to crowdsource the information with the digital community as well as this *team*, or to create the single entry point and just add data sets as we find them (which will take longer).

We are seeking help from Andrew Stott, director of digital engagement in the Cabinet Office, and the power of information taskforce to nut this one – and I will post on this separately when we have a plan.

Devolution of trust

This was the most interesting thing that has come out of recent discussions: managing the risk of having devolved broadcasting and engagement – this seems to be one of, if not the, biggest concern. No longer is it as simple as marketing doing the broadcast ‘sell’, press office managing the influencers and being the corporate voice and e-comms sorting the websites, with policy and strategy units setting the priorities and requirements. Now everyone needs to re-evaluate their role in an ever-changing consumer market, and trust that – with education and a certain amount of live testing – all colleagues do have the skill and nous to operate in this environment.

We are nowhere near resolving this one – and we are actively looking to other departments and governments worldwide for guidance.

Time

This is not something that is new, nor something that requires a ‘unit’ dedicated to *doing* it. It is simply a discipline that needs incorporating into current working plans and practices. In order to make it work well, it is necessary for digital engagement to be just an alternative method of behaviour that in time becomes the norm. Hence why it requires the principles of change management in order to be a success – as no one can really get away with assuming that someone else is going to do it for them.

But this takes time, something that the already lean civil service holds as a premium and any extra demand on a person or unit’s time comes at the cost of something else: and in my experience of the civil service – dropping anything will have a measurable impact on something.

Therefore digital engagement needs to be of proven and mandated strategic priority, with measurable benefit, in order to make this something that anyone can take seriously.

This can only be achieved by education and awareness in the senior civil service, strategic and policy teams. This is a deal-breaker, and one of the greater challenges.

Concerns over job security

As website rationalisation takes hold, so online communcations teams begin to feel disillusioned that their roles in departments are either feeders for the franchise teams running content on Directgov, or putter-uppers of corporate content on the official departmental website. Not exciting particularly, nor challenging and career-developing.

Naturally, attention is focussing on the digital engagement world, and there is a decided move towards *ownership* of social media. Any new project that uses social tools, challenges the status quo, involves a map (:)), or is at least vaguely more interesting than the convergence of content, triggers a pinata-bashing type scramble for the work. This is not in itself a problem, but – and here I risk being beaten at work on Monday – the scramble does not necessarily result in rational thought as to whether the idea in itself was a good one. The huge risk here is that projects are taken on and assigned simply because they are different and engaging, rather than whether they are right.

This can be mitigated by rapid education of online communcation teams, increased internal communication and… time. But again – this is an issue that needs to be addressed somehow.

Conclusion

The challenges that I have listed above are ones that I am particularly interested in resolving publicly (as it were). And would welcome conferences/unconferences/geek dinners/conversation in addressing. Apologies if this seems very last year, but the reality is that however exciting new stuff is – it’s not as challenging (therefore exciting) as creating the right environment in the first place that will utilise future development as a part of its daily work.

PS If anyone is reading this who works in the Home Office and is bewildered as to what I am talking about, seeing as there is nothing apparently happening where you work, do hunt me down on the gsi email and ask me. This is all WIP and there is much to be done (as you can see) before we achieve the nirvana I have set out.

THAT Dir of digital engagement job…

OK OK! I have to write about this if only to stop repeating myself endlessly!

Answers to what everyone is asking me:

1. Am I applying? NO…

2. DO I have any idea WHO should apply? No… well, I have one, but am not saying here

3. Did I have anything to do with it? NO!!!

If there happens to be someone out there who has not happened upon the job description, it is here.

My thoughts, for what its worth, and only because so many have asked:

I believe that it is so easy to sling the usual insults at something like this (and assume that it will be a bloke, of course!), which is fine, but actually it is a position that is certainly going to have quite a profound effect on everything that has been happening in the public sector Web 2.0 (if I must use that term) over the last few years.

These forays into new ways of engaging online have happened mainly because of the willingness and enthusiasm of a few people already working across departments: and I have chronicled much of it here, but if you missed that, or for a more in depth explanation of this I suggest reading through Steph Gray’s blog.

So, regardless of what I think, or anyone thinks really, about whether having someone do this job is a good idea… it is very beside the point, especially for me. (Will come onto the money bit later). What does occupy my mind is the fact that with this person in post it could either dry up everything that has been going on, because it has been maverick, or (hopefully) note it, build on it, but let it remain organic (hate that word too but… you know what I mean when I say it).

Much of the delevopment in this area over the last few years has been in direct response to needs, rather than planned as Prince 2 projects. People who can make a case for what they are doing and require little/no budget, have been pretty free to do some great stuff. There has been a collaboration across departments amongst this happy band, such as I have never seen before; and unmitigated support from the Minister.

Undoubtedly, there has been some stuff done just for the sake of it, but at little/no expense (a plethora of twitter feeds, for example, 99% of which IMHO are pointless). There has been some guidance written on how to behave online as a civil servant using social media, but little on how to properly use it in delivering objectives, or some such awfulness.

The beautiful Power of Information piece of work has been like nurturing a small baby, and I know is a very serious piece of work, with high expectations. It is currently sitting behind a password protected area for some reason, but it is coming back out to play soon I am assured.

So, I can see that there is a need for someone to ‘own’ this, to coin yet another horrible phrase, and the bulleted list on the JD seems to imply that this is indeed what this person will have to do. But what I don’t see is any mention of the fact that this particular area is not fallow ground, it is a small seedling nursery, and I worry that the implication is that this is virgin territory; and that COULD attract someone who likes to (oh shall I say plough their own field? No… no OK) do stuff from scratch. Much of the explanation underneath the bulleted list seems to me to be very heavy on how HARD this job will be, high profile, Ministerial importance… etc etc, but that defies the counselled and collaborative way this has worked across departments to date.

I agree that there does need to be someone to say: Why? (especially with new twitter feeds 🙂 or the prolific use of WordPress whatever the need); and there needs to be some consistency, but only light touch, on the ‘How’.

There also needs to be a great understanding of the transformational government agenda, in particular website rationalisation. As that limits all citizen digital engagement to Directgov, well it did when all government did in the digital space was use websites to communicate: monologue not dialogue. So everyone will be rather confused by what the message is, but to be fair, it is recognised that one of the greater challenges of the job would be the communication of this, and getting people to do as suggested.

WHO?

Well… I think that the money will put off the people perfect for the job: it’s too much. It will attract exactly the kind of person everybody fears.

And I do share the concerns that this wunderkind does not exist; it is an extraordinary cross-section of skills, requiring generalist stuff, even though it is specific in saying that this is not the case.

Justin Kerr-Stevens suggested that this would work best as a job share, and I completely agree. If you could have two days of a great, proven geek and combine this with three days of someone who knows how government works now, with the empathy to nurture that which has been created or started so far in scattered spaces and the foresight to recognise and develop the skilled civil servants already doing this stuff (no I am not blowing my own trumpet, am not a civil servant); that would be a good thing.

But whatever I think, it is happening, and yes, I shall be watching out for who gets this: from behind the sofa 🙂 Part of me wonders if this is almost too polar opposite to the Director of Citizen Participation: which makes it far more in line with the future of Dig Eng; rather than corporately planned and executed ENGAGEMENT.

Steph Gray reaches for the big guns

During my ridiculous January, nearly over now hurrah, I missed some important stuff – too much for me to list here, and possibly not overly interesting for you all, but THIS, this has to be shared.

Steph Gray, the community manager at DIUS, has decided to start fighting corporate decisions to close down access to social media by creating this social media test suite. Here is his blurb:

So let’s try and build a picture of access to social media tools from the workplace. Please run my social media test suite survey from your workplace machine and let’s see who the blockers are. I’m happy to publish here, or in the survey results you can see when you complete the survey, any appropriate explanations or justifications from IT providers. I know there can be good reasons for limiting access, and we should separate those from the bad ones.

This is a great thing to do, and especially apt for departments where in recent weeks all access to social media has been inexplicably turned off without rhyme or reason.

People will understand if there is a problem that is being solved by switching off access to certain sites, but this blanket bigotry is ill-informed and often not based on solving a proven problem.

Emma Mulqueeny welcomes the social media guidelines…

Small dance for joy! They are here http://tinyurl.com/5naylg but this is what the front page synopsis says, and this says it all:

I am a civil servant

Principles for participation online

1. Be credible
   • Be accurate, fair, thorough and transparent.
2. Be consistent
   • Encourage constructive criticism and deliberation. Be cordial, honest and professional at all times.
3. Be responsive
   • When you gain insight, share it where appropriate.
4. Be integrated
   • Wherever possible, align online participation with other offline communications.
5. Be a civil servant
   • Remember that you are an ambassador for your organisation. Wherever possible, disclose your position as a representative of your department or agency.

Jeremy Gould has written about how these came to fruition and what it means and how to feedback &c here.

I think they are brilliant in their simplicity – not entirely sure why they have taken so long to be published, but am not mud-slinging. Now I want to see civil service engagement all over the place!

Hurrah!

Web standards and guidelines for UK Gov websites

Are here: http://www.coi.gov.uk/guidance.php?page=188

Don’t get too excited, much of this is still in consultation (opportunity, folks, to get involved) – for example, the following:

• Using social media (in consultation)
• Metadata (in consultation)
• Minimum standards for web metrics (in consultation)

Sadly, I am unable to fathom how to contribute to these consultations, but someone will know – I know many of you would have some great insights into this, so I will work alongside you to find out how to be included in the consultation.

I am disappointed, and I so SO did not want to be, that the section on domain name guidance and use of a dotgovdotuk url is still in the dated and a bit wonky section of the Cabinet Office website. I know many of the individuals involved in developing this, and I promise you that this apparent belligerance belies the passion of those involved in developing the new standards in light of website rationalisation and convergence.

In my own opinion only, I believe that it is a simple message: no content is to be published online for citizens or business, unless through the adequately funded Directgov and businesslink.gov.uk. Saving the public purse from a hammering through unnecessary website deployment. (That means, you and I no longer have to fund the near on 1000 websites published by the UK government – each with their own design and marketing budgets (it can add up quite quickly)).

Yet it is a very difficult message to deliver. I could bore on about how hard it is to join policy makers with their communication teams, and to establish enough of a relationship to even discuss online delivery of what is happening – my explanation: it is as hard as trying to explain a rave to your parents (for those born in the 70s/80s). Neither party is too fussed by the detail, but both want the outcome to meet our needs, whilst successfully avoiding our worst fears.

These guidelines are the detail, the ‘yada yada’… but they are key, paramount to success. We need to understand the (un)spoken rules – let’s just clarify them and get on with it. But as ever, the devil is in the detail (I really did not want to use that phrase but hey ho) – and probably there is an element of JFDI and if there is a fallout – manage it. (But what fallout will there be, other than brand arguments and ownership concerns? This is the public sector – there is no argument).

Frustration all around.

My reason for posting about this is to show you where the guidelines will be published and to encourage you to keep a close eye on this. Please do join in consultations where you can, and please don’t use it as a stick to beat the beaten. There will be some super cool stuff coming out of this huge change – and this change will benefit us all.

Who could do with a ‘tell us once’ policy and delivery channel that works? All of us, birth, marriage and death – pretty salient and definitely doable… if we can get this absolutely right from the start.

Let’s get on with it.

PS Anyone who knows any more, please let me know, particularly on the status of the consultations.

Links, libel and law

This has been a week of mixed emotions. I have been very touched by everyone’s comments both on- and off- line about the post on the justicefortom site, and was equally as elated when I found out that I had – finally – been linked to from David Miliband’s blog.

Now, I have to confess that I bullied and nagged to get a link – simply because I harbour a completely unrequited respect for the man (the man not the politics, necessarily).

Within minutes the elation of finally having achieved nirvana was replaced by panic about what his linking to me might mean; not for myself, for him – well for both of us actually – with the death throws of civilserfgate still reverberating around Whitehall. By linking to me, he was seeming to bring my own views and opinions into his own blogosphere and could, perhaps, be seen to be endorsing whatever I say. In light of my post on justicefortom this might not be a good thing for a Foreign Secretary to be doing. Hmm…

I could detail the following 24 hours but it is neither interesting nor relevant – however, I ended up asking someone to remove me from the links on Miliband’s blog, as I was on the point of throwing up if they didn’t!

Of course, they obliged and I felt relieved yet confused.

At lunch the next day I discussed this with a respected colleague and he asked whether by linking to someone are you endorsing all of their views? In the same way as quoting something libellous that someone else has said, in a court of law makes you guilty of libel. Does the same law stand for linking?

By linking to me, was Miliband saying that he endorsed my fight for Tom?

By my linking to anyone, or recommending anyone on this site, does that mean that I endorse every belief they have?

No… but what if it did?

Social media and democracy – Part 2 (in light of civilserfgate)

Resistance is futile, I was really trying not to say anything about all of the media reports on the civil serf blogger, and the news in the Timesonline today that Sir Gus O’Donnell (aka Sir GO’D) is about to (finally) release the guidelines for civil servants on engaging in the social media space. However, the charming Simon McManus linked to my social media and democracy post, was himself linked to from the Guardian and so I thought it would be churlish not to say anything.

I will not repeat my misgivings about how social media will affect democracy in countries where autocracy rules, you can read that on the other post 🙂 but I will have a little muse about it in the context of civil servants, living in a democracy, under the auspices of the civil service code.

Aside: our civil service is highly respected, and the civil service code of conduct is key to this – I fundamentally believe that it should not be written off or ignored. Nor is it complicated, you can view it in all formats here: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/iam/codes/cscode/index.asp

There are some misconceptions in the Press about who exactly civil servants work for. Here is a good definition of a civil servant, for those not wanting to leave my prose the explanation is as follows:

Civil Servants are those who are employed by the Crown, excluding those employed by the Monarch herself. The Civil Service therefore excludes those who are employed by Parliament and those employed by other public bodies.

It may remain confusing, but basically, civil servants are employed by the Crown, the Crown’s executive powers are exercised by government, therefore, civil servants must do as they are told by the governing party – but they remain loyal to the Crown as their ultimate employer. (This explains why a rather brilliantly painted picture of the royal family en flagrante on the balcony of Buckingham Palace was refused in horror by a colleague in HMRC!)

So, to our very own Belle du Jour – the civil serf. She is a civil servant, therefore is required to do the bidding of the Labour Government Ministers, whilst remaining in the employ of the Crown. She will have signed up to the Civil Service code and therefore will be required to stick to the rules of the game. On reflection, (OK printing and scribbling) I believe that the following bits of the civil service code are salient here:

The code is broken down into four simple sections: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality, so taking these areas and looking at what they require, I am just going to highlight those guidelines that should have given any blogging civil servant pause for thought…

Integrity

You must always act in a way that is professional and that deserves and retains the confidence of all those with whom you have dealings

You must not misuse your official position, for example by using information acquired in the course of your official duties to further your private interest or those of others (NB I am intrigued by what the last four words imply)

You must not disclose official information without authority. This duty continues to apply after you leave the Civil Service

Honesty

You must set out the facts and relevant issues truthfully, and correct any errors as soon as possible

You must not deceive or knowingly mislead Ministers, Parliament or others

Political impartiality

You must serve the government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of your ability in a way which maintains political impartiality and is in line with the requirements of the Code, no matter what your own political beliefs are

You must act in a way which deserves and retains the confidences of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government

My take on it all

As with any mediation, we need to remain true to the facts… however entertaining it has been to read the riotous posts about what it is like in whichever department this lass works for, what damage is it doing to her colleagues? Employers? People working for her? Citizens of this country? Has she broken a contract that she signed up to when taking on her job in the civil service?

My position is that she had a right to write down her thoughts, but she went too far.

I am far more reassured by the only other blogging civil servant I know – Jeremy Gould – I hope that he is still able to talk about his thoughts and experiences, in his own way. I may unduly promote his blog, but with reason – it is all the things we want from the civil serf without the sensationalism.

Update 11th March: Yikes, thank you David Briggs for having the grace not to point out that you too are a blogging civil servant! I shall unduly promote your blog forthwith! Oops and Paul Canning… I am not doing well here am I?

I should make a public curtsey to Tom Watson MP who is not a civil servant, rather a rather precocious politician – however, he does seem to have some empathy with what we are trying to achieve. Many bloggers have spoken about him today far better than I can… go read: up-to-date bloggers on Google