The gathering of over 40 practitioners heard from Ann Moffat and Amanda Waugh from the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), who last year published guidelines for social service workers and their employers on the appropriate use of social media.

We heard about the risks and pitfalls of using social media, with some sobering examples of people being removed from the SSSC register for inappropriate behaviour on the web. See their website for recent hearings and decisions. Examples included:

• a nursery manager who made derogatory and racist comments on her personal blog about children and parents at her nursery
• a care worker who befriended an ex-client’s mother on Facebook and was later seen in online photos drinking large amounts of alcohol with the ex-client (who had a history of alcohol abuse)
• a social worker who was filmed being drunk and disorderly in a shop – the video was posted to YouTube by a bystander

We also heard, though, about the opportunities that social media presents, with some great examples of using it for collaboration and engagement, as a tool for knowledge management, and as a fast and effective communications platform.

The SSSC is keen to hear from social work staff with their thoughts on the guidelines. They were keen to stress that they can’t tell people exactly what or what not to do – every situation is unique and the most important thing is that staff feel confident in using these sites appropriately.

Graphic courtesy of the Edinburgh Local Practitioner Forum.

We've come a long way already

How far we’ve come. Not that long ago, many of us felt like we faced an insurmountable brick wall. Social media remained a black art in so many organisations – misunderstood and distrusted.

Since then, we’ve seen huge advances in the awareness of the true power of social media, with global events like the Arab Spring making it impossible to ignore. Uptake continues to boom, with my own organisation seeing award-winning campaigns go from strength to strength; national tweetathons attracting lots of attention; and a huge internal effort to develop a strategic way forward.

We’ve done much “talking and planning”. We’ve even seen plenty of “doing and learning”. I’d say that we’re now in a strong position to take it to the next level – to start “refining and perfecting”.

However, as the floodgates open, we need to be careful that unbridled enthusiasm doesn’t lead to sloppy delivery. And experience tells me that one platform in particular will continue to cause headaches for those of us charged with maintaining some order in this chaotic online frontier.

I’m talking, of course, about Facebook.

Common Facebook fallacies

Despite all my enthusiasm and optimism around the potential of social media, I still shudder whenever someone approaches me asking how they can get a Facebook page. Fundamentally, they are asking the wrong question. Facebook is just a tool – it is one possible answer to the wider question of how we might improve communication and engagement with our service users. And often, Facebook turns out not to be the answer.

Take, for example, the Primary School Facebook page I saw recently, aimed at promoting sport. Sounds like a nice idea, doesn’t it? Well, not when you remember that Facebook’s terms state that you have to be 13 to register. Suddenly, a nice idea turns into a potential disaster, where a school is seen to be actively encouraging its pupils to register on age-inappropriate websites.

(And by coincidence, the Guardian has today reported that teachers have been warned about befriending pupils on Facebook. This would seem pretty obvious to me, but the sobering examples given in the article prove otherwise.)

The problem is that Facebook seems so ubiquitous that many assume they should be on there. For large brands, that may be true – if just to protect yourself from cyber-imposters.

(That said, though, I was bemused to see an advert this Christmas for a popular cold remedy brand which proudly announced “we’re now on Facebook”. Really? Why on earth would anyone want to follow a page about a cold remedy? What sort of person would be proud to annouce to their friends that they are an ongoing fan of such a product? And what sort of information are they hoping to glean from following such a page? The only thing I can think of would be advice on how to avoid getting a cold, which would surely dent sales!)

For smaller entities, though, Facebook may not be the right answer at all, and can easily cause more harm than good. Some of the main mistakes we’re seeing include:

Using Facebook to just broadcast, rather than to start a conversation

Allowing people to leave comments on a Facebook page is risky. It opens you up to criticism and even abuse. It means you’ll have to constantly monitor things and have a process in place for dealing with comments. You may find that people come to expect a response to questions posted on there, sapping even more staff time.

Many people think they’ve found the perfect solution – simply disable comments. But in doing so, you’re taking the “social” out of “social media” and, arguably, completely missing the point.

Failing to understand how Facebook works

Facebook’s settings remain a mystery to many, yet so much can go wrong if you don’t get these right. Privacy can be easily compromised. For example, many people believe that it’s impossible to publicly track who “likes” a page. That’s because it doesn’t, by default, show up on the page itself. But the info is there for all to see – just set up a custom Like Box to see what I mean.

With two clicks, I'm able to see who "liked" the aforementioned cold remedy. Strange people.

Apply this ability to a fairly specific Facebook page (such as for a local school or youth group) and you can start to see the inherent risks of getting privacy wrong.

Not measuring success

Many of the proposals I get from people wanting to set up a Facebook page refer to “followers” and “page views” as the way in which they will measure success. Yes, these are reasonable indicators for exposure, but that’s only part of the picture. They don’t really tell you much about engagement or conversion. Are those page views actually helping you to achieve your goals?

Of course, this is an impossible question to answer if you haven’t set any goals. Which again begs the question – why? Why do you want to be on Facebook – what are you trying to achieve?

Underestimating the invisible cost

When people talk about social media as “free”, I’m quick to put them right. A social media presence requires a huge investment of time and effort to be successful (and even that’s no guarantee). And whilst staff are doing that, they’re not doing other things. It’s not a reason to not do it, but it’s a damn good reason to think long and hard about it first.

Simply being bad at it

Producing a constant stream of engaging, interesting content is actually quite a skill. I’m certainly no expert at it. But huge expectations are being placed upon relative novices, who are suddenly being asked to do the job of a communications expert on top of their day job. And in truth, many of them are getting it wrong. They’re probably not doing anything horribly, scandalously wrong – they’re just not doing it that well. Dull, predictable or irrelevant updates; barren attempts to start a conversation; misjudged efforts to sound trendy or youthful – all of these pitfalls plague the many Facebook pages I’ve come across, and only really serve to damage the reputation of the associated brand.

Time to get it right

Of course, most of the above would apply to any social media platform, and we have a long way to go to tackle these challenges. But for all the half-baked efforts we see, there are also plenty of great examples of people doing social media really well – genuinely innovating and redefining the boundaries of success.

We’re undoubtable seeing a continuing increase in the uptake of social media. What remains to be seen, however, is whether we’ll also see a notable increase in the quality of those efforts.

Footsteps photo courtesy of MollaAliod – licenced under Creative Commons

The Tartan TweetMeet will take place on Wednesday 22 February at a number of venues across Scotland, and will allow like-minded individuals to meet and share ideas. There will also be a chance for members of the public to get involved by tweeting questions and suggestions, hopefully leading to some valuable new opportunities for engagement.

Explaining the concept on the event’s website, organiser Carolyne Mitchell (@Cal444) lists the rules for the day:

• They have to be free.
• No business cards allowed.
• There must be a hashtag.
• Come with an open mind and be prepared to share ideas.
• Most of all have fun and make connections

Anyone interested in the event is invited to register to allow organisers to get an idea of numbers. We’re currently exploring suitable venues here in Edinburgh and welcome any suggestions.

You can follow the event at #tartanTM. I look forward to meeting some of you there!

Name labels

Feel free to download and use this label

Download as a printable sheet of labels (designed for Lyreco Multipurpose Labels, 14 per sheet).

The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) is hoping to repeat the success of its Make It Local programme in England, which saw the creation of three new services based on data held by Councils and other organisations.

Organisations have until 31 January 2012 to submit an application for Make It Local Scotland.

An invitation to collaborate in Edinburgh

The City of Edinburgh Council has put out a call for local organisations and developers to get in touch and help develop a proposal, and I’d urge anyone with an idea or experience of building great services around data to get involved. There’s already been some exciting thoughts around a “green/environmental” theme but we’re keen to gather as many ideas as possible – both for this and to also help inform future developments.

The day will bring together people from local authorities across Scotland who are using social media (or at least thinking about it) to offer better customer choice and engagement, improve access to services, and reduce costs.

Being an unconference, delegates are expected to bring their own suggestions for topics to shape the agenda on the day. People then vote with their feet and gravitate towards the discussions that interest them most. The emphasis is on collaboration – everyone will have the chance to contribute and share.

A starter for ten

I’m sure everyone will be bursting with ideas, but I thought I’d get some of my own thoughts down here, as a bit of a starter for ten.

Social Media and exclusion

How do we ensure that our use of social media doesn’t exclude anyone? The most obvious risk is around accessibility – i.e. potential barriers to accessing online content encountered by certain users due to various factors such as vision impairment. I’ve blogged about this before, but still have more questions than answers.

Also, what about those who are unable to (or choose not to) access these channels? How do we ensure that the opportunities afforded by social media are still available to all?

Keeping safe

In my organisation, we conduct risk assessments for any new social media proposal. This allows us to take a step back and look at it from every angle, often spotting risks that weren’t immediately obvious. Some may call it dull, but it’s actually crucial to protect both our staff and the public.

One issue, though, is that the rules are constantly changing. Facebook seems to be forever tweaking their Privacy settings, for example, and this means we need to constantly re-assess whether what we’re doing is still safe.

Measuring success

One of the hardest questions to answer about social media seems to be “what does success look like?”. It’s also pretty fundamental – without knowing if we’re being successful, how can we improve what we’re doing (or know when we should maybe stop and try something else)?

We’ve already had some great success stories. Our Scottish Youth Parliament campaign has won several awards and the figures speak for themselves. But it’s not always that easy to say when something has been a success.

This is especially important because social media, despite what many people think, is not free. There may be no cost to set up an account, but the effort required to make it a success can easily mount up. It’s therefore easy to see why some managers might expect to see evidence of a return on that investment of time.

Staff 2.0

As we increase our use of (and by logical extension, our dependence on) social media, how do we ensure that our staff have the relevant skills and enthusiasm to do this kind of work properly. It’s probably not in anyone’s job description, and there’s very little formal training available. The challenge, then, is to find practical and sustainable ways of upskilling our workforce so that we are not relying on the limited few for whom this is all second nature.

Part of this might also mean increasingly bringing social media into our own working practices. Internal blogs are a good example of introducing people to Web 2.0 gently – offering the ability for staff to comment but not making contribution essential. I know that some organisations have really embraced internal social media, and the benefits are compelling, with reports of better collaboration, avoided duplication and the most wonderful serendipities.

Get involved

I look forward to discussing these and many more issues, and hopefully coming away with lots of ideas to take back to my organisation. If you’re going, I’ll see you there. If not, feel free to submit your thoughts or suggestions via a comment below or on Twitter. The hashtag for the event is #smuncon – I plan to live-tweet if at all possible.

Early this morning, pursuing a personal vice nurtured since childhood, I bounded along to the local branch of a well known national video game retailer, planning to grab myself a copy of a newly released and hotly anticipated game. On arrival, I was shocked to discover that the price tag on the game was a whopping £5 more than advertised on their own online store – a 14% mark-up. On principle, I left empty handed.

Luckily, I have the luxury of going home tonight and browsing for a better deal online. But what about those who can’t shop online? They would be stuck with paying the premium rate.

I got to work and didn’t think any more about it, until I read the excellent and profound article on the BBC Ouch blog – Martha Lane Fox talking about the case for getting more disabled people online.

“We know now that if you are online, even from a low income household, you save £200 a year, net, of the computer and internet connection.”

“Direct debits, switching energy deals, searching around for deals; you are massively disadvantaged economically now, if you are not online.”

Martha Lane Fox, UK digital champion

There are so many arguments for helping people to get online (many of which were explored at the recent GovCamp Scotland, which culminated in the signing of a digital participation charter for Scotland). Whilst many of the impacts can be hard to measure (though arguably far more profound), it’s good to see some cold hard figures that underline the economic imperative of helping people get online.

Couple that with the main story behind Martha Lane Fox’s article – that over 4.25 million disabled people in the UK are not online (worryingly, over half of the 8.43 million of all UK residents not online), and you can really start to perceive the impact of digital exclusion.

In the same article, Nigel Lewis from AbilityNet suggested why he thought so many disabled people remained disconnected:

“Often it’s because it is not accessible to them. Either they can’t engage with and use the standard computer out of the box, and so it needs adapting in some way, or the online services, the websites, are not accessible with their adaptive technology.”

Nigel Lewi, CEO of AbilityNet

One of the major messages in the aforementioned charter for Scotland was that we all have a part to play: friends and neighbours helping to support people to log on; tech companies helping to make the necessary devices readily available to those who need it; telecomms companies working with communities to improve connectivity; online providers making their products and services truly accessible; and local and central government pushing the digital agenda across all sectors.

I have no doubt that every reader of this post will fit into one or more of the above categories. I’d therefore urge everyone to take a moment to reinforce that message in their own minds – it won’t truly be the World Wide Web until everyone is online.

The campaign has scooped the award for “best use of social media by a public sector organisation”, as well as being shortlisted for “best use of social media by a non profit/charity organisation”, at the Some Comms Awards 2011 in Manchester last week. It also bagged the “Grand Prix” award, singling it out as the “best of the best” of all the entries.

Some of the things we introduced or improved for 2011 included:

YouTube videos of the candidates’ manifestos on a dedicated YouTube channel embedded on the elections page of the Council website, along with text versions. YouTube was also used earlier on in the campaign, to help generate interest amongst potential candidates.

SYP candidates presented their manifestos on YouTube

An interactive map of polling stations, including a “find your nearest” postcode search. This made it very easy for potential voters to find out where they could vote in over 50 different locations across the city.

An interactive map of polling stations

A strongly branded presence both online and offline, to catch the eye and imagination of young voters.

Strong branding played a vital role

A Facebook page for posting candidate photos and written and video manifestos, allowing people to become fans and to share with online friends. There was also a competition to win an iPod if people became a fan of the page, and even a QR code linking to the page for use on related printed material.

A Facebook page pulling everything together

Huge success

In 2009, 18 candidates stood for 11 seats and 5019 young people voted.
The 2011 objectives were to:

1. increase the number of candidates to 24.
2.  increase the number of voters by 50%.
3. ensure number of candidates is more than one in all constituencies to guarantee competitive election

These were ambitious targets, as the 2009 campaign had already seen an unprecedented increase in the number of voters. However, the 2011 results spoke for themselves:

1. Initially had 31 registered candidates of which 26 stood for election, equalling a 44% increase.
2. Voting more than doubled from the previous election with 10,228 young people voting – a 104% increase.
3. Each constituency had three or more candidates with one boasting seven.

Team effort

As with the 2009 campaign, this was a real team effort, with colleagues from across the Council and our partner, Stevenson College Edinburgh, pulling together the various strands of the campaign. And of course the young people themselves played the most vital role, working so hard and bringing so much enthusiasm to the process.

It’s another good example of the power of social media to reach out to audiences, to empower citizens and to excite interest in important issues.

GovCamps are self organised unconferences for people that work in and around government. They’re free; have no set, pre-defined agenda; focus on attendee participation; integrate with online stuff and are relentlessly positive, constructive and creative. GovCamps enable folk interested in developing innovation and technology in government to come together in an informal setting to share their ideas. And eat pizza.

There will be two different strands to this year’s event:

• Discussion sessions – the more traditional ‘unconference’ style sessions and presentations
• Hackday – hacking sessions for those who want less of the chat and more making stuff!

We’d love to repeat the success of last year, so sign up and I’ll see you there!

Apps were a $5 billion business in 2010

Last week I facilitated a session on mobile apps, for various interested parties. We were joined by Jamie and Mike from the Improvement Service, as well as Gordon and Niall, developers of the Android and iOS apps for the popular Edinburgh My Bus Tracker.

It was a really interesting session, with lots of great ideas thrown around. Below are some of the headlines and common issues.

Native apps vs mobile web

Macmillan's mobile-friendly web pages

One issue that arose time and time again was the difference between providing native mobile apps, which people download and install to their device, and offering a good mobile experience with your existing web offering. There are many great examples of web content being served up for mobile devices in a clever way – Macmillan’s mobile website being a good example of design that imitates a native app.

But there are many reasons why a native app might be useful – to exploit a device’s hardware, to make full use of location based information, or to provide functionality that doesn’t rely on a permanent web connection. However, the developers around the table were quick to point out that a native app has to have a clear use, and needs to be something that people would come back to. Users typically judge the value of an app in the first 30 seconds of using it. If they’re not impressed by that point, they will most likely delete it or just not bother using it again. There’s also no point building an app which simply mirrors a website’s functionality – serving up static information. That should be left to a well constructed web page which renders itself well on mobile devices.

Why mobile?

Jamie Kirk from the Improvement Service delivered a fascinating presentation on mobile usage and the rise of the app, providing various intriguing examples. His overall message was that mobile browsing is indisputably on the ascendancy – it is expected that by 2013, more people will be using mobile devices to access the web than PCs. In fact, Jamie tells us that there are more mobile phone subscriptions in the world than there are toothbrushes. And these advanced devices will continue getting cheaper, meaning more and more people have access to them (including those who can’t afford a computer).

This profound shift in how people are accessing online services will have a massive impact on how we are providing those services and information, and we need to start thinking about this now.

How to build apps

A common concern amongst local gov colleagues is the time and effort that it takes to develop mobile apps. In these days of budget cuts, it is hard (if not impossible) to justify directing valuable funds to such developments. But there are alternatives to an organisation forking out thousands of pounds on a trendy new iPhone app.

Working closely with local developers is perhaps the best option, but raises a vital issue – open data. To build useful local gov apps, developers needs access to useful and usable data. This is a crucial element and is something we need to start doing better. If we get that right, people will have everything they need to build the apps that they, as citizens, see a need for. If we invest in documenting and releasing data in standards-compliant formats, expose that data to the right people, and advertise the problems that we are trying to solve, the people are far more likely to help us solve those problems. A good example of this happening is challenge.gov in the US.

Challenge.gov - a place for public and government to solve problems together.

Local universities are also great place to scout for talent – students will often happily take on a project in support of their studies, to gain valuable experience and reputation.

However, the cost and time required to build an app should not be underestimated, and the necessity to design for multiple systems and form factors adds to this exponentially. The developers around the table were unconvinced by app-building competitions, where a prize fund is offered to successful developers. Their concerns were about the amount of time and effort required to submit to such a competition, without any guarantee of a return on investment.

People power

Another aspect discussed was that of crowd sourcing – getting the public to gather data themselves. Obvious examples include allowing residents to report street faults to their local authority. In this instance, the potential of a mobile app is clear – it provides all the functionality needed to log the relevant data (location and perhaps a photo) on a device that is always with you.

Whilst this opens up a lot of exciting possibilities, it also presents challenges for the local authority in terms of how they monitor and deal with these potential new channels of customer engagement.

Social exclusion

Just as our efforts on the web must always come with the caveat that “not everyone is on the web”, so too must we remember that web-enabled mobile devices are a long way from ubiquity. Anything we do with these channels must be seen as complimentary to other methods, and not exclusive.

However, web and mobile also opens up new opportunities for reaching out to certain individuals who we may be struggling to reach. An obvious demographic is young people – where possession of a smartphone is likely to be very high, whilst engagement with government may be very low. Innovative use of the web and mobile can offer us new and powerful ways to reach these citizens.

Make it fun

Foursquare badges

Many of the successful apps we’ve seen recently include an element of gaming, even if the app or task itself is not a game. Foursquare or Gowalla are good examples, where badges and other rewards add a competitive edge to the basic and arguably dull act of geotagging your current location. It’s not hard to think of ways in which this could be incorporated into local gov apps, to encourage engagement and uptake. And local authorities often have good ties with local businesses to offer prizes, to further attract interest.

The risk of success

Something interesting happened when the Edinburgh BusTracker service got really popular during the extreme weather of Winter 2010, it started putting unexpected pressure on the servers responsible for delivering the data, ultimately leading to performance issues and the need to expand capacity. This is an important aspect to consider when building such functions, or allowing others to do so. Through limiting access to an API, and retaining the right to withdraw that access (even if just temporarily), we can mitigate some of that risk.

These points simply scratch the surface of the challenges we face in becoming mobile-friendly, and there are no doubt many more elements to consider. There is definitely a groundswell of interest, though, as well as a growing demand from the public, making for interesting times for anyone involved in making sure their services are ready to go mobile.

Jamie is off to the US in a few days to conduct research into mobile and government. Follow his adventures at howappt.com.

iPhone photo by yum9me – shared under the Creative Commons license.

@walsallcouncil posted over 1400 updates throughout a 24 hour period using the hashtag #walsall24, and tweets ranged from updates from the early morning CCTV team, the work of street cleaners, information about road closures and much more.

The Guardian reported on the event – with some interesting reflections at the half way point based on comments they had recieved through their site. Reactions were mixed, with some people questioning the value of the experiment and the use of Twitter.

However, no one could fault the attention that the experiment got (the BBC also picked up the story), and there is no doubt that awareness of what the council does would have been boosted as a result – as David Higgerson writes about when referring to the “no one understands what we do” dilemma.

The debate about the value of such an approach, or the media used, will no doubt rage on, but this is a fascinating case study of how social media can be used to open up an organisation and help it to better engage with its customers – to reinforce lines of communication and be seen as a transparent, proactive agency.

For a nice final visual, Dan Slee has set up an interesting Wordle which highlights some of the more common words that were used during the session.