Social Networking Pre-Conference Workshop

I got to the registration table in time to check in a few people before I had to run to my morning workshop.

Discussion starts with the convienience or possibility of coming to the government office versus using online eGovernment tools to interact with the government. Social media is convienient for questions, initial contacts, but other benefits include ...

A good number of attendees have LinkedIn accounts, even more have Facebook pages. All admit they have not personally met each person they are linked to. This opens conversations to people you may not have had the chance to talk to before. Through social media, you can showcase local places (parks, maps, video) and what a particular county or government is like.

Social media is cool. A downside, is that it can be used to avoid face-to-face contact with the public. Unlike telephone tag, and verbal communications, social media has a verbatum text record of a communications. Active listening (like repeating something said, leaning in closer, or asking a follow-up question) doesn't really work, since those cues are removed, so choosing the correct language and conventions is even more important when the physical element of a communication is removed.

Emoticons. Can be used effectively if the audience understands the meaning behind the ones you use (like the smiley face :)), but becomes a roadblock when not understood >&-<. Active voice vs. Passive voice. Use active voice to invite people to join the conversation. One Federal Gov org locks down all staff use of social media, with the single message of the agency coming from the Public Relations office, but the GSA keeps it all open, with very few actually using it, being such a new medium of communications. A big concern is that there is already so much email to deal with, how much resources are being dedicated to maintain social media efforts. Most agencies are currently developing their social media policies. Twitter - microblogging. geared towards younger & tech-savy public. Facebook - very informal, lots of exposure to all types of citizens. 25 fans for 'vanity' URL. BaseCamp - For collaborating on projects. LinkedIn - 'trusted' contacts, more professional. YouTube - Video sharing in 10 minute form. Apply for Government Channel - 1 GB per video. Ads are gone. youtube.com/morriscountynj Vimeo - Read terms of service before using free service "For personnal, non-commercial use" Flickr - Hosted photos. Premium account for gov use. Picnik - Hosted image manipulation tools website. Premium account for gov use. A long discus Zooomr - Photo sharing website, similar to Flickr, free w/premium levels, images are there 'forever', less restrictions on images that can be posted (think Philly Naked Bike Ride). Livestream - service that lets you stream, broadcast from webcam. Not Hi-Def. You can do graphics, titles & you can archive. 4 hour time limit, space limit. UStream.TV - also good (cspencer suggestion). Eventful - calendar - can be searched by geographic area. Value is the link to other calendars that are setup for the same area. Eventful 'scrapes' 'Upcomming' tool. Good website integration tool. Helios Calendar IM Clients - real-time media contact. Gtalk - comes with Gmail, hooks into AOL Pidgin - open source
Social Bookmarking -
Del.icio.us - A few use it. easy to tag, install browser toolbar to tag it.
Google Maps -
skype -
Qik - stream live video from your mobile device
Orkut - Google's online community app (Google's 'Facebook')
Google Wave - Next gen messaging and collaboration (Apply now for account!) You have a play-by-play of a conversation, so new people to the discussion can go back and easily catch up to speed.
FriendFeed - Aggregates your social content from other networks (now owned by Facebook)
Tumblr - Blogging client with great interface (like blogger)
Picasa
Google Docs
Google Calendar
Yugma - online meetings, share screen, share presentations, best on 32-bit OSes.
StumbleUpon - Discover and share websites based on your preferences.
Plurk - Blogging/lifestreaming app with timeline format.
Doodle - pool availibility w/o using a group calendar, schedule events, can be embedded as a widget.
Scribd - using Flash iPaper, stats are collected.
AddThis - lightweight social media for a portal.
Posterous - a bloging tool that lets you post everything.

TWITTER APPS
Tweetdeck - also does Facebook
Hootsuite - Prof. Twitter client, scheduled tweets, follow multiple accounts
TweetTake - manually save as .csv for backup of all tweets

#HashTags
Tim O'Reilly's twitter book - good resource

REALITIES / ROADBLOCKS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Time, money,
www.bayfieldcounty,org/social-media.asp
Be Mature, Don't Be Mean, Decide For Yourself. Very common-sense approach that did not get the lawyers involved. Good approach for DVRPC, with review by lawyers.

Nightmare scenario - what if somebody posts offensively or as a personal attack, but also has a criticism about the way government operates, gets censored for the inappropriate attach, then sues for surpressing their opinion.

Put your opinions up on Facebook, since you are being talked about anyway. Address issues directly when it is posted on your Facebook page, then when it shows up in a newspaper the next week. Misinformation about an organization and our stance on certain issues can be very damaging. Social media gives us a chance to address issues or misinformaiton before a problem escalades into something bigger.

PACE
Better to respond late than never. Different reaction times are expected on BBS, email, facebook, and Twitter.

Presentation notes are hosted here: http://social.bayfieldcounty.org/

"webmaster" account cannot be used for the Fan Page.

Followers on twitter can be a porn-bot, which would show the last post. It is VERY IMPORTANT to delete followers that are not actual people, but bots.

Human aggregation is a good way to push usefull information to your group of people.

County does not follow anyone on Twitter, but people are able to follow the County. Think the website linking policy, which limits links to partners and other government presences.

Document retention in Twitter? Scribd OK, so is YouTube - the document owner is responsible for record retention. In NJ, the owner of the document or record is responsible for maintaining it for archival purposes. Archiving tool for Facebook?