Social media

This week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a new report with support from the IBM Center for The Business of Government. The report, “New Tools for Collaboration: The Experience of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” is authored by Gregory Treverton, who conducted the study as an independent research effort prior to his returning to government service as Director of the National Intelligence Council. Treverton draws upon but reshapes the results of a RAND project done for the Center for the Study of Intelligence.

ta is there. , but the interpretation can be more complex. The December attack in San Bernardino prompted people to ask whether or not the government should be more active in using social media data to prevent such things from happening again. Certainly, social data can be highly valuable, but it has its limitations, and agencies must be aware of how best to use it. Determining sentiment – It is very useful to understand how citizens feel about certain issues such as a new a policy. Many programs will try to determine sentiment by categorizing certain words as positive or negative.

New SES Onboarding Guidance.  Federal Times reports that the Office of Personnel Management has issued a new guide to agencies.

This ruling cites applicable regulations in the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015. Rulings like this can both clarify some issues and raise new questions about social media usage in government. Those questions may discourage organizations from deepening their social presence. However, as social media remains an essential form of communication with citizens, that would only serve as a detriment to those agencies and the people they are trying to reach.

The White House Twitter feed recently created a survey and asked followers to submit their opinions on how they liked @WhiteHouse and how the @WhiteHouse team could improve their feed.  Here is a quick list of three suggestions that would improve @WhiteHouse - or any other communications-intensive organization.

1. Use hashtags

NOTE: Today I've invited a colleague, John Bordeaux, to be a guest blogger.  Hope you enjoy his insights as much as I do!

A few months ago, I was approached by a university and asked if I could teach a Social Media class.  Though I have not committed to teaching the class (those of you who grade papers will know why), I have put together a rough outline of what I'd like to cover, how I'd structure the class and what texts I'd like to assign.  Below is that course description.  

Next week, I'll share the writing assignments and other hands-on elements the class would encompass.

Social Media in Government

Purpose

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the shift from a 'push' to a 'pull' information economy.  The same forces are also changing the nature of knowledge management (KM) - replacing a model in which KM was an activity that was centralized in terms of time, personnel, and location, to a highly distributed activity.

Gadi Ben-Yehuda