Social Media for the

Government

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How does the military, which is structured and hierarchical, deal with social media, which is fundamentally flat and “democratic”?

What is Social media?

Social media is the next generation of communication

It uses technology to streamline the information sharing process

Social media is a new way of people working together to communicate, share and collaborate

Increase team collaboration crosses geographical boundaries

Improve communication efficiency

Retaining intellectual capital

Create community

Recruit talent

Drive innovation

Why Social media?

“.. I do not expect the person with the answer to run it through you, your OIC, the branch chief, the exec, the Division Chief and then get the garbled answer back before he or she posts it for me.”

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- James E CartwrightGeneral, USMC

Commander, USSTRATCOM

“The metric is what the person has to contribute, not the person’s rank, age, or level of experience.”

Social Media is about communicating using platforms, not channels

Which one is simpler?

The social media phenomenon has extended to the public sector

Government use of RSS, blogs, wikis, and podcasts is exploding

More than 30 different official government blogs exist

Social media democratizes the discussion by allowing the public to comment

Members of congress, cabinet members and agency leaders are directly engaging with their constituents on a regular basis

Organizations that shy away from social media face greater risks

Potential loss of innovation – Enterprise 2.0 cultivates ideas and best possible solutions from untapped and unexpected sources

Potential loss of intellectual capital – Without E2.0, information will continue to be stored on hard-drives

Team collaboration suffers as silos remain intact

Ability to recruit and retain top talent is reduced as the disconnect between staff and the organization increases

Proprietary information becomes available on external social media sites because an alternative is absent

Many of the hottest online tools now in use turn out to be ideal for sharing Intelligence

What now?

The DNI's National Intelligence Council has just launched an experiment to produce the first NIE by wiki on Nigeria

Top experts on Nigeria are working together to help chart the wiki's future

…Understanding how to use blogs and wikis is a “matter of survival”

“I am an early addict and an early convert. More than half of the intelligence community today came in since 2001...they’re making [social media] a condition of continued employment with the government. This is not a trend, it’s not something that’s being forced. We have to go there. And when we do go there, we’re incredibly more effective.”

- DNI McConnell, responding to a question from the Council on Foreign Relations about how much faith he has in blogs and

wikis making a difference to the Intelligence Community

Better control the information to monitor enemy communications / leaks

Ability to identify expertise and knowledge rapidly

Effective way to communicate to the public and across agencies

Cost effective way to provide innovative training

More structured sharing of intelligent information

Benefits of Social Media for the Military

Threat surveillance

Training

Effective communication

Emergency response

Strategic public relations

Knowledge management

Recruiting

Examples of how the military can use social media

Department of Homeland SecurityTransportation Security Administration

Issue: Challenging to solicit recommendation from all level employees

Solution:Started a blog called IdeaFactory, to promote innovation and new ideas around safer public transportation

Case Studies

Federal Emergency Management AgencyIssue:

Difficulty in creating awareness to the general public

Solution:Launched a series of social media campaigns. FEMA is one of the first federal agencies that initiated user agreement between social vendors such as Google, Facebook.

Case Studies

Issue: Would like to improve the current knowledge management and information sharing process

Solution: Created a wiki with customized dashboard to facilitate information sharing and collaboration

National Institute of Health

Case Studies