Government workers debate online citizen engagement

WASHINGTON--Washington may be a city of policy wonks, but the District's self-proclaimed "tech geeks" are intent on adding some Silicon Valley flavor to the capital.

Hundreds of Web 2.0 evangelists flocked to a school auditorium in Washington Friday morning to kick off Government 2.0 Camp, the inaugural event of Government 2.0 Club, a national organization created to allow government, academia, and industry to collaborate on Web 2.0 solutions for government.

Attendees of Gov 2.0 Camp wait for different discussions to start.

(Credit: Stephanie Condon/CNET)

Leaders in government agencies have been slow to adopt Web 2.0 technologies, bemoaned many government-employed new-media strategists in attendance. Yet in a well-attended discussion at the event, the new-media directors admitted that if they were to use more online tools to engage citizens, they wouldn't quite know how to tell whether it accomplished anything.

"I have no idea how to measure success," said Sarah Bourne, chief technology strategist for the Massachusetts Web site Mass.gov.

"It's kind of like the pot issue," she said, referring to the deluge of marijuana-related questions users submitted to the White House on its "Open for Questions" tool--and which became the elephant in the room during President Obama's online town hall on Thursday.

Whether a conversation is meaningful "has to be definied from the citizens' perspective," Bourne explained. Yet if they lead the discussion to a seemingly insignificant topic, is the discussion still a success?

"We all want to hear from the public, but we want to hear meaningful stuff," said Joy Fulton of the U.S. General Services Administration. "How do you filter what's going to help us, and filter out what's just noise?"

The user-driven nature of Web 2.0 technologies may create complications for the government, but it served as an effective format for the conference itself. The two-day Gov 2.0 Camp was billed as an "unconference," in which the participants planned the entire event themselves in a collaborative manner on site.

"It's like a Woodstock for the 21st century," said A.J. Malik, a technologist for the county of Arlington, Va., and one of the attendees.

"If you're talking about how our unemployment office can be improved and they go off on a rant on gay marriage, that's not useful."

--Sarah Bourne, chief technology strategist, Mass.gov.

After a brief introduction, the organizers turned the microphones over to the hundreds of attendees packed into the auditorium at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Over the course of an hour, each person there introduced himself and briefly described the issues he hoped to learn more about or lead a discussion on.

The organizers jotted down notes during the introductions and quickly slotted together a schedule of discussions to take place. The attendees all set down their laptops and iPhones to crowd around the large piece of butcher paper with the schedule scribbled on it.

Bourne and Fulton made their comments about meaningful citizen discussions during a session called "Engaging the Public and How You Define Success."

Bourne said that Mass.gov visitors often question whether anyone in the government even reads user comments on the site. Yet addressing user comments has proven to be a challenge, since they are often off topic.

"If you're talking about how our unemployment office can be improved and they go off on a rant on gay marriage, that's not useful," she said.

Max Harper, a social-media consultant who worked for the Obama transition team, said Web 2.0 tools have to be refined to better meet the goals of civic engagement. For instance, if user questions and comments on a government Web site can be directed to a specific category, government officials can try to address every issue in an appropriate manner.

"But if you're not prepared to respond, don't tell people you're ready to respond," he said. "People know when something is inauthentic."

The Obama transition team, he said, was constantly critiquing its online engagement with citizens and refining the process. Even with the potential pitfalls, he said video discussions could significantly improve the government's interactions with citizens.

"Part of it is showing a face inside an agency and letting people realize they've made a human impact," he said.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Whether a conversation is meaningful "has to be definied from the citizens' perspective," Bourne explained. Yet if they lead the discussion to a seemingly insignificant topic, is the discussion still a success?

"We all want to hear from the public, but we want to hear meaningful stuff," said Joy Fulton of the U.S. General Services Administration. "How do you filter what's going to help us, and filter out what's just noise?"

=====

So the government asks the public to give them a clue as to what is significant, and when they get an answer they don't like they doubt its significance?

Obama didn't have to dismiss the topic in the mocking way that he did. The fact is that there are serious issues surrounding the Drug War, and he could have spoken sincerely about them and what his Administration will be doing about them. Instead, he tossed off an answer that satisfies nobody but those who are still drinking the Drug War Kool Aid, or who believe Obama can say and do no wrong.

[finleyd]

The problem here is that online conversations can be hijacked by "noisy minorities", such as the "legalize marijiuana" crowd. The "noise" fron that "noisy minority" crowded out discussions by the majority who may think differently and have diiferent issues/priorities.

[ghostofitpast]

I suppose it would be fair to say that those directly involved with all levels of government operation still have a lot to learn about support technology. The "signal-to-noise-ratio" problem is just as great in filtering out "evangelical noise" as it is in dealing with "citizen input!" However, I would modestly suggest that what the government folks still need to learn is dwarfed by the "negative magnitude" of how little technology advocates seem to know about basic principles of government, how those principles worked their way into our Constitution, and how the operations of our government have evolved since it was first constituted. For too many of those advocates, the world of social software "is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know;" and I find that myopia far more dangerous than perplexities within the Government Services Administration! Further thoughts about basic principles of government at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2009/03/democratic-press-conference.html

[cedarhillbilly]

maybe part of the answer is found in NYT article on wikipedia
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html?ref=technology
it's the community, stupid?

[EvilBankers]

"We all want to hear from the public, but we want to hear meaningful stuff," said Joy Fulton.

"...if they lead the discussion to a seemingly insignificant topic, is the discussion still a success? said Sarah Bourne,

I've got some news for you, Ms. Fulton and Ms. Bourne - if you hear it from the pubic, it IS meaningful. If you are hearing ANYthing from the public, it is a success. You should be thankful the public even talks to you after how badly the government has run this country into the ground.

YOU ARE A PUBLIC SERVANT. We pay your salary. Now quit trying to second guess everybody and read between lines that don't exist. You come off as crazy. Get off that elitist, high horse of yours.

In typical government fashion, you can't figure out what to do with the information you are collecting... So you blame the citizens for not telling you what you want to hear. Why even ask anyone's opinion if you are just going to tell them its irrelevant or in the "wrong" category?

[AI7R]

I work for a municipality and we have been struggling with this for years.

Here's an example. I put together a project where the public could comment on the General Plan for the City. I had warned the staff asking for it that it was a mistake to post the comments publicly. Sure enough, for the next year, two staff members spent more than half their time responding to comments....from three people who each posted whatever was on their mind every single day!! Other than those, maybe 20 other people had comments over that same period.

I've found the key is to let people know up front if they should expect a direct reply, and NEVER ever re-post the comments. If they know they have a soap box they will use it. And that's not helpful at all.

My PR staff was clamoring to have a 'Facebook' page and use Twitter. I've told them over and over that these are for individuals to communicate with individuals. And that people who are 'followers' or 'friends' expect answers to comments. Where does this help government? Of course, they opened a Facebook account and received such a backlash of hateful comments in the first hour that they shut it down. Facebook isn't for organizations and shouldn't be. Anyhow, what if North Korea wanted to be our 'friend'?

It's not easy to take input from people as a government. Unless you are faced with the problem it's hard to comprehend the issues involved. Can we legally repost some comments and not all because that would be censoring - not a good thing for our type of government. Do people want to read the comments if they have nothing to do with the topic?

Those that think anything the public says should be listened to, they are right. But, if the traffic staff gets a bunch of comments about illegal immigrants or complaints about a public pool, how does that help them work on bus schedules?

We focus on what we read to topics we want. Input needs to be very specific in order to be of help to those humans that have to deal with it. Venting seems to be the theme of the day and everyone seems to think they have the 'right' to say anything, anywhere on the net.

I know exactly what these folks were trying to solve in this conference. I have to deal with it every day and we still haven't found a good solution, other than never re-publishing the comments to keep the venting down and feedback quality high.