Posts Tagged ‘Citizen’

STOP before you ENGAGE

Citizen engagement is an important element of government service delivery, and online tools may provide a unique opportunity to engage. It is important that our agencies not only focus on using tools because they exist; they need to think through how these tools can support deep engagement, and create conditions that allow citizens to participate in a meaningful and impactful way. Learn to build a social media team inside and outside state government.

However, before you start – STOP and think about the four points below!

1. You cannot tweet and chat with your citizens without the involvement of specific departments (e.g. Police, Fire, Emergency Services,..)
2. You cannot discuss topics in a forum without the involvement of your support teams
3. You cannot have a citizen service dialog without the participation of your service delivery departments
4. You cannot explore trends and demands without the inclusion of services procurement department

My thoughts on using SocialMedia to support citizen engagement are here.

Citizen engagement through Social Media

“I am not an Athenian, or a Greek, but a citizen of the world”  -  Socrates

Citizen engagement is an important element of government service delivery, and online tools may provide a unique opportunity to engage. However, it is important that our agencies not only focus on using tools because they exist; they need to think through how these tools can support deep engagement, and create conditions that allow citizens to participate in a meaningful and impactful way.

The emergence of sophisticated online tools and platforms that support large-scale, multi-party dialogue, collaboration, data ranking, and amalgamation suggest a new technical capacity for increased civic engagement via the internet.

Further, declining public confidence and trust in government, in addition to the increasing complexity of public policy problems suggest there is significant potential value for public agencies to improve and expand their activities in Social Media.

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