How do you reach the most people in today’s world? There is no obvious answer. Informing the public has to use a wide variety of resources. Last year, Catawba County started using Facebook and Twitter to reach the audiences using these media. In a recent presentation to the NC3C conference, our efforts were spotlighted. The article below is by Jason King of the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. My thanks to Jason for recognizing our efforts.
Tuned in to or turned off by SOCIAL MEDIA?
Counties could be missing an opportunity to engage citizens, particularly youth, via Web 2.0
By Jason King, Assistant Communications Director, North Carolina Association of County Commissioners
The world has embraced social media. Everyone from your kids to your hairdresser to the president seems to have hundreds of fans on Facebook or is sharing their thoughts with the world via Twitter. Well, everyone except your county government.
So just why are so many county governments passing on this golden opportunity to share information and services and communicate with citizens on these free and easy-to-use interactive Web sites? The North Carolina City & County Communicators (NC3C) organization recently explored this question during its spring conference, held April 1-3 in Catawba County.
According to Cord Silverstein, executive vice president of interactive communications for Capstrat, President Barack Obama set the new standard for government communications via Web 2.0. In a Web feature on www.whitehouse.gov, the president held a special online “town hall” meeting, taking questions and polling the public, then answering several of the more popular questions in a short video. The White House Web site incorporates a blog and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, and the president is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/barackobama and Twitter at twitter.com/BarackObama.
The biggest pushback from local governments and the corporate world, according to Silverstein, is due to a loss of control. Traditional Web sites allow the owner to completely control the message. They don’t allow the viewer to communicate and connect with the Web site owner and other users. Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Blogger, LinkedIn, flickr and YouTube allow sharing of information.
At least one North Carolina county government is embracing rather than running from Web 2.0. Catawba County has presences on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the county’s official Web site incorporates RSS feeds to allow users to subscribe and receive content via their preferred electronic media, such as e-mail or Twitter.
“The whole concept of Web 2.0 is sharing,” said Terry Bledsoe, chief information officer for Catawba County. “It’s not just pushing information.” Bledsoe said. Web site managers today must think short-term - audiences are looking for fresh content daily - and sites must be agile and able to be accessed on multiple browsers and devices, such as iPhones and Blackberries.
“If what you are sending out won’t reach that device,” he said, “you’re missing a lot of your potential audience.”
Social networking sites can also be used as a means of retaining young talent in a county. By opening county government to forms of communication most popular to youth, you are empowering those citizens through engagement, Bledsoe said.
When developing the county’s Facebook site, Bledsoe met with officers in the county’s Youth Council to gather input on how the county’s information technology department could meet the needs of everyone - including youth.
Bledsoe said such outreach efforts will help talented students, such as then- Youth Council President Gavin Gabriel, keep their connection with the county if they leave for higher education. The hope is that connection will lead them back to the county when they graduate.
“If we don’t reach the Gavins of the world, they’re going to leave and go someplace else,” he said.
In the county’s first seven months on Facebook, 453 users signed up as fans.
So how do Catawba County employees find the time to update Facebook and Twitter? They don’t have to. By using an RSS service, Feedburner, the county broadcasts updates to e-mail subscribers and its Facebook and Twitter pages every time it updates the county Web site.
The county also allows community agencies that receive county funding to get set up to have their event listings automatically post to Facebook.
Implementing an RSS feed on a Web site isn’t too difficult, Bledsoe said, but he recommended that a county work with its IT department to set it up.
For counties that want to get started with Web 2.0 but don’t know where to begin, Bledsoe recommended they “go down your hall and find your two youngest employees.”
Those who aren’t ready to embrace social media will likely see current and future generations leave them behind, he warned.
“In the next 10 years, you will experience more technological change than you experienced in the past 80 years.”
The April edition of CountyLines can be found at:
http://www.ncacc.org/documents/countylines/09_04.pdf
The Future Economy Council met Thursday morning and left invigorated, excited and challenged. Rick Smyre, a futurist held an intriguing conversation with the council. That conversation and the meeting was captured very elegantly by Thom Shell of the Hickory Hound. My thanks to Thom for allowing me to share his post. Thom’s blog is posted below and can be found at http://thehickoryhound.blogspot.com/2009/04/future-economy-council-meetinf-was.html.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Future Economy Council Meeting was awesome
James Thomas Shell
Here is my report on this morning’s Future Economy Council Meeting. Rick Smyre really got me to thinking about the possibilities for our community going forward into the future. We should be thankful that Danny Hearn has moved us in this direction.
Mr. Hearn made introductions of a few new members that will participate in our Future Economy Council: Mary Sizemore - Director, Hickory Public Libraries; Karen Foss - Director, Hickory Public Libraries; Patty Thompson, Mountain State University; Tom Alexander - Fire Chief, City of Hickory.
Mr. Hearn stressed the importance of utilizing library resources to get our message out. We have applied for a $10,000 grant from the Catawba Valley Community foundation. This money will go towards training 15 to 25 “Master Capacity Builders;” “Futures Institute Training at L-R, CVCC. and ASU;Improving the IT curriculum of Catawba County’s 3 school systems; Transformative Dialogue Groups - to involve and educate the citizenry; and for Incidentals. Mr. Hearn stated that even if we don’t get this grant, that there are other avenues available to raise the monies needed. We will know in 5 weeks whether we get this grant or not.
Mr. Hearn then introduced Rick Smyre. He was a CEO of a textile company in Gaston County and is a leading Future Development Specialist. He believes that we are in a period of Historical Transformation. He told us that he used to debate people, but now he has learned to listen and connect with what people are saying. He stated that everything he told us was an opinion and that he has no truth left in his body. One of the real challenges is to create a culture in communities where they can transform themselves.
His experiences led him to think structurally and linearly in the past. He used to debate upon what he heard. If he agreed with what a person thought, then he could carry on a discussion with the person. He said he really wasn’t listening to what people were saying.
We need to learn to not just reform, we need to learn how to transform. Transformation means something has not been around (existed) before. Reformation is just changing something that already exists. Transformation requires people to rethink what they have thought for years. These are fundamental issues.
Dialogue is communication in the form of questions and statements. Dialogue is not enough in the transformative times we are in. We have to find value (a connection) in what one another are saying. This can help us with our capacity to innovate. The skill to ask appropriate questions is going to be more important at times than to make a statement.
Traditional Leadership is project oriented and is focused on outcomes.Transformative Leadership requires that we use new ideas that create a futures context. New ideas do not have a model or template to go by. If we don’t open our minds to these new ideas, then we don’t have the capacity to make the changes necessary to transform our community. We must have a sense of what is emerging, instead of being fixated on the way that things have always been.
Work of the future will be mental. Biological Principle says that you do not have innovation, growth, or evolution unless you have diversity. Diversity alone is not enough, you must have processes that allow that diversity to take shape. Nobody changes unless we as individuals decide that we must change. This is the reason that Statements are no longer effective. We must build connections between individuals. Questions help us to evolve and develop ideas and processes.
We are seeing 3 different Economies emerge:
1) The Knowledge Economy - Thought to be taking place from 2000 to 2025. Creation of an environment in the culture that supports continuous innovation that is always open to new ideas.
2) Industrial Economy - The Industrial age. Peaked in the 1980s. This is still the focus of most leaders in our community.
3) Creative Molecular Economy (Open Source Economy) - When you cannot control where you want to go, because you don’t no where you are going, because things haven’t been invented yet, then you have to create productive capacities. Adaptive planning says that you must work and network together (as individuals) to respond and adapt to what is emerging. Connectivity (And/Both reasoning) is important in understanding context, structuring statements, and objectives. The two major components a) Technology and b) Organization of economy and society around individuals, global innovation networks, and small groups.
People resist change, because of comfort. That makes it hard to make positive transformations in society. If we want to have our economy be vital and sustainable, then we must be willing to take what are considered radical approaches in changing society. We must depend on one another to achieve higher objectives. This is a systemic issue and we must build parallel processes to achieve objectives in an exponentially changing world.
We need to build relationships with cutting edge individuals that can help our area. These people might come to this area, if we are supportive of a Creative Molecular Economy. We must learn to collaborate and cooperate. Leaders need to develop environments where others can come to their own conclusions. We should not limit ourselves, because we are not willing to listen to others who might have different ideas than our own. That expands the mind.
Marching Orders - Lead and talk to one another. Ask questions of one another. Design a 6 month strategy. Bring our own ideas to the table, so that community transformation can emerge over the next 5 to 10 years. Build connections with people that we know virtually or personally and collaborate with them so that they can see the value in what we are doing.
