How’s that going to work, then? – Government 2.0 and purdah

So it’s an election year – Federal and State – how much fun can we have all at once? But seriously, it will be interesting to see how the politicians utilise social media in their election campaigns.

More importantly however, in the long term, is how governments employ online methods to better and more widely consult with constituents, deliver greater transparency and using technology to drive social change.

Last week I was lucky enough to be at a presentation from Jonathan Greenblatt called ‘Twittering through history – the changing impact of social media on civil society’. He worked on the Obama campaign which employed social media highly successfully.

It was really a groundbreaking campaign, but beyond that it is also interesting to see the use of social media to open up Obama.gov. It is enabling citizen activism and strengthening communities. For example the President makes a weekly YouTube address and has made all govt budget data available online at USASpending.gov

These are things Australian governments of all persuasion are grappling with – how to join the conversation, how to let control into the hands of the people (because they are going to take it anyway) and how to bring the online and offline together to help create new ideas everyone can contribute to.

For one Australian perspective, read the following piece from acidlabs.org

The State of Online Word of Mouth Marketing

Influencing the influencers is very important when you are trying to get coverage and take up of a new product or idea.

Mashable and Forrester Research brought together some research and ideas about online word of mouth marketing and have given us a model to use to consider how to reach each level of influencer and where your effort might be best placed.

Again the key seems to be to spend the time to build real relationships – don’t just communicate when you want something.

It’s a great combination of common sense, new intelligence and a framework which will help in developing strategies (with a bit of stew analogy thrown in… well it is MasterChef time!).

Read on and see what they have to say.

Twitter aims to tweet brands with respect

Twitter has received a lot of press this week – many more characters than it allows!! – about its attempts to reach that balance between popularity, usability and money making.

Its growing popularity means Twitter is definitely a tool that all marketers are considering as part of their eMarketing mix, but now it will be important to consider it from two further perspectives – can you use it to advertise (as well as Tweet) and what is the risk that your Tweets or ads get mixed up with those you wouldn’t choose to be associated with.

These are issues which have been very tricky for Facebook to manage and so Twitter may have learned some lessons from its successful web 2.0 big brother.

Now is the time to achieve a delicate balance. Let’s hope they can do it.

Autism iPhone breakthrough: from tantrums to app-y days

When most of us first play with an iPhone we are thrilled – look at all the time-saving devices allowing us to do business anywhere and the cool applications which give us more things to play with as we go to work on the tram or travel overseas.

But one of the really great aspects of new technology is how it is starting to give a voice to those who may not have otherwise been able to connect with the rest of the world quite so easily.

This article caught my eye because I work with the team in the Victorian Office for Disability. With a growing prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnoses in Australia and internationally, it is crucial to their quality of life that young people who have this disorder feel connected and able to take part in normal aspects of life.

If you are interested in these kinds of issues, the Victorian Government also launched a world first website for and by people with disabilities late last year called DiVine. One of the key sections of that site is its Tech Talk section, which focuses on how a range of technologies help people with disabilities. The web and these technologies really help people feel connected, which is a great step forward.

Is publishing dead? Let’s turn this around

This is just so clever – just showing that there are always two sides to every argument. This time it is about the relationship between the internet and publishing. It also makes some telling comments about Generation Y and the role of marketing in this new age of social media. Take a look and add your views.

The Social Media Bubble

The following piece about The Social Media Bubble is thought provoking, as you might expect from someone writing a blog for the Harvard Business Review.

I think deep inside we know that the ‘friends’ we have on Facebook, the ‘followers’ we have on Twitter and the people reading our blogs are not necessarily the same people we’d have over for a barbecue or even do business with.

However, these social media tools do let us connect with a wide range of people very, very quickly and then the sifting process to find the real ‘friends’ and the great potential business partners begins. They are allowing us to fish in a much deeper, broader pool and to filter online before we make the real face to face move. A bit like searching for a house online or online dating.

But Umair Haque has some excellent points and we should all think about them. We need to be careful not to blur the online with reality and just as in real life, try to get to the ‘real person’ before you make any big decisions about how close to get to your new online social network buddies.

Give him some feedback and let me know what you think too.

What are the consequences of paying for news?

So last time we met in Swinburne’s e-marketing class, we had a pretty lively discussion about whether or not we’d pay for online news.

The class was pretty evenly divided…  should we pay for something we’d always received for free? Would we still access news online if we had to pay for it? Would we pay for more specialised news but expect the mainstream news to stay free?

Others thought it was fair to start charging for a service which is at our fingertips. What a great service it is.

Well in the last week, the theoretical has become reality, or is about to. Mr Murdoch didn’t float the idea just on a whim – he’s going through with it.

I will be very happy if this new charge means that the standards of journalism will rise and more journalists will be employed. But somehow I don’t think that’s what Mr Murdoch has planned.

Will this mean that people stop accessing news altogether? How can this be good in a democratic society? The Crikey people have been at pains to explain to Mr Murdoch that regardless of the security he puts in place, people will find a way to get to the content – I hope they are right.

I saw some interesting research during the week which indicated that online news is supplementary to newspapers – in other words large percentages of people read papers and go online so why, when you can employ the one journalist and ask them to develop written and online content and sell advertising on two mediums are you still losing money?

Any ideas?