Education & Training

This is a presentation I gave on Monday to NSW Health, including a review of Australian social media adoption, how agencies have been using social media, risks to watch out for and some examples of good public sector social media execution.[read more]

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A public-private alliance will begin by bringing Microsoft training and resources to North Dakotans in kindergarten through graduate school to increase skills in three main areas: education, employability and entrepreneurship, focusing specifically on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).[read more]

Image credit: David Pearson

Of course, how you get open, collaborative working practices going within a large organisation is jolly tricky and the answers probably won’t be found in a blog post. However, start small and you can achieve great things. So, the most obvious thing to do, I think, is to run your own GovCamp.[read more]

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Preserving the separation between politicians and public servants is a primary consideration of Australia's system of governance - as it is in most democratic states - while a delicate balance needs to be maintained where public services proactively carry out the will of the elected government. However unelected career public servants retain the independence to provide frank and fearless non-partisan advice in their professional lives.[read more]

Over the next few days I am in Singapore at Liquid Learning's Future Citizen Engagement for Government Forum Asia conference. I'll be liveblogging the presentations today and may liveblog parts of tomorrow, when I am chairing, speaking and on a panel. Liveblog: Future Citizen Engagement for Government Forum AsiaeGov AUCraig...[read more]

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Women's rights issues are as old as time. The struggle for them - for us, for me, for my daughters - goes back to the beginning. It is largely not men who have fought this struggle, but women. So I am very suspicious when all of a sudden the cause becomes popular.[read more]

This report provides a look at how online tools can be used in citizen deliberation, with recommendations on which tools to use when.[read more]

Here's an entry for speaking at BlogWorld next January about how a local government blog can be more engaging.[read more]

Following up on my earlier post on tweeting meetings, here are a bunch of quick, easy – and probably free – ideas for getting started with digital engagement.[read more]

There are lots of ways to kill people. One really quiet way to do it, is simply not to talk to people. Shunning. It's the most painful thing you can do, and 100% legal.[read more]

Image: Cheryl Stephens/Flickr (creative commons)

Calling something an “e-newsletter” does not mean you can ignore the rules for plain writing. Some agencies are publishing “e-newsletters” as summaries of current issues or news. They’re typically 1-pagers of 2-3 blurbs. Remember this: no matter what you’re publishing on the web, you have to make content scanable and easy for web readers to use[read more]

In retrospect, I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't another "you can do it if you believe in yourself" self help/business book (a la Seth Godin). It was more of a "starting your own business is a ton of work and if you are ready to make a go of it, here is what you should probably think about" type book.[read more]

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The moral of the story, for me, is that leaders do not usually communicate all that well with their employees. (Surprise, surprise.) They are traveling in circles different from their staff.[read more]

Good news! The Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act, H.R. 538 has passed out of a House committee and is moving forward. What? You’ve never heard of the Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act? Oh, my. Well, let me tell you about it because this law would be great news for public servants and citizens alike.[read more]

The Twitter network below was created by Marc Smith, Social Media Research Foundation. He used it in a recent workshop on Social Media Network Analysis that I organized here at Syracuse University on January 19-20.  I picked it up and posted it here on my Social Media in the Public Sector blog, because it relates to the Global...[read more]