Marquis Côté .com » The Web Strategist & Marketeer

Social Media Workshop for Government

Marquis — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:22:47 +0000

We facilitated a workshop yesterday on “Social Media 101: Making Your Organization Social Media Friendly” at this Feb 2009 Social Media for Government Forum from The Advanced Learning Institute.

If you are trying to understand why social media is such a hot topic and what your organization should be doing about it, then take this opportunity to learn how to successfully implement social media within your institution.

The speed at which online communication is changing is phenomenal. Odds are your employees and clients are already active users of social media. It’s fundamentally changing the way organizations operate. People have the opportunity to take part in an on-going conversation with their Government by participating more than voting once a year, creating a true democracy.

The objective of the workshop is to outline the basics of social media, such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis, while providing the purpose and strategy behind these technologies, along with exploring how to leverage these techniques to change the way your organization collaborates and communicates. Also understanding the risks and benefits of social media, but more importantly, understand the risks of NOT using social media. Specifically, learning strategies, tactics and ideas for:

Influencing the internal culture toward new media concepts and Web 2.0 technologies
Introducing and integrating social media in your organization
Establishing web governance, policy and operating protocols
Reprioritizing human and financial resources to incorporate social media
Developing capacity and procedures that facilitate use of social and new media
Monitoring and assessing success

GCPEDIA, bringing people and knowledge together

Marquis — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:42:08 +0000

GCPEDIA has been officially launched this past October at the annual Government in Technology (GTEC) conference in Ottawa. Only available within the gc.ca internal network. GCPEDIA is an initiative of the Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat, with support from members of a Steering Committee and its participants.

From its “About” page we can read:

GCPEDIA will enable public service renewal by creating an environment where public servants can:

Learn from each others successes and failures

Build on the great work of others

Eliminate duplication of effort

Find and publish tools and models

Share knowledge and expertise

Work collaboratively

Build and preserve corporate memory

Ultimately improve the way we deliver service to each other

GCPEDIA is a collaborative proposition that does not need, and should definitely not have, a large formal organization running it. Rather it should provide a stable environment with a limited number of rules in which communities can form, develop, and share knowledge.

It may be a while before something like it is opened up to all Canadians and allow them to participate in conversations around federal government policies and initiatives, but it’s certainly a step forward! Kudos GoC!

Today’s wiki stats:

Today there are 1,432 registered users. There are 5,250 total pages in the database. This includes “talk” pages, pages about GCPEDIA, minimal “stub” pages, redirects, and others that probably do not qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 1,260 pages that are probably legitimate content pages. 824 files have been uploaded. There have been a total of 217,985 page views, and 26,269 page edits since GCPEDIA was setup. That comes to 5.00 average edits per page, and 8.30 views per edit.

In the Media:

The article makes OpenText look like they are associated with GCPEDIA, when they are not.

The iPhone: I-Life in my pocket

Marquis — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:55:17 +0000

I’ve had my iPhone for almost a year now. There’s no way I would consider using any other mobile device today. I’ve been playing around with iPhone Apps and making iPhone friendly sites for a while now and I must concur that Apple has just delivered us the beginning of the “Mobile Age Revolution”.

Here’s my top iPhone Apps list:

Updated 2008-08-15

My Top Productive iPhone Apps:

My Top Useful iPhone Apps:

My Top Social Media iPhone Apps:

My Top iPhone Show off & Play Apps:

My Social Media Circle

Marquis — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:14:34 +0000

Here’s a good overview on how I use social media on a daily basis.

Stay Informed & Participate in Conversations

Google – Main search engine
Google Reader – RSS reader, here are a few of my feeds:

iTunes – A few of the video podcasts I subscribe to:

Create

Not everyone is a creator of content.

Stay Connected with Social Networks / Media

Communicate and Collaborate

Gmail / Gtalk (imkreativitea)
MSN Messenger (imkreativitea)
Skype (marquiscote)
Google Docs

Please note that I can do most of this anywhere from my iPhone. Create your own Social Media Circle by downloading the PSD.

A Wiki Government could lead to a true democracy

Marquis — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:23:09 +0000

We claim to be living in a democracy but we have also come to believe in an administrative governance of professional experts is the best (if not only) way to organize decision-making in the public interest. Experts decide on acceptable levels of mercury emissions in the air and the standards for digital copyright laws.

“The justification for this professional decision-making, articulated by theorists ranging from Max Weber to Walter Lippmann, is that while citizens can express personal opinions based on values, they are incapable of making fact-based decisions on matters of policy. For Weber, the complexities of modern governance call for “the personally detached and strictly objective expert.” Only institutionalized and governmental professionals possess the expertise, resources, discipline, and time to make public-policy decisions. And citizen participation is hard to organize and administer, and even harder to scale. It is one thing for 10 bureaucrats to debate a policy and come to an informed consensus; try getting the same result with 10,000 people–or 10 million.” – Beth Simone Noveck’s posted on the Democracy Journal

We are now seeing the voice (screams) of the people all over while we understand that there are available collaboration tools today that can create a huge shift of power from the professionals to a grassroots movement. People have now the opportunity (and want to) to take part in an on-going conversation with their Government by participating more than voting once a year. The future looks like we can produce government decision-making that is more democratic.

The above screenshots of the Proof of Concept for the Collaborative Library Wiki from The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows they have begun to explore the use of Wikis and other Social Media tools. Our baby steps continue towards a better connected world.

CDC on Second Life, could Canada follow?

Marquis — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:57:02 +0000

Nedra Weinreich posted a great article on how U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took advantage of the Second Life hype to build their CDC Health Fair within Linden Lab’s virtual world and pushing social marketing to the next level by leveraging social media.

Nedra writes how the initiator of the project at CDC was able to make it happen, she tells the story how John first started exploring Second Life and had convinced the powers-that-be within a 4 month period to build a CDC virtual presence. John seems to be the CDC’s go-to guy for their health communications “Special Forces” by not only setting up new communications offices in various parts of the agency but he is contently exploring how social media can be used to promote public health, and he plans to continue to serve as the CDC’s virtual face in Second Life.

I decided to check it out, I logged on and teleported to the CDC Island.

I’ve been consulting for the CDC’s Canadian equivalent, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) since February 2007, with the mission to educate senior managers and staff and begin the deployment of new communication tactics to reach stakeholders and targeted audiences by taking advantage of social media and new technologies. The CDC has not only pioneered the use of social media within the public sector in virtual worlds but has also initiated conversations with their Health Marketing Director’s blog.

On a side note, Mike Kujawski on his post MARCOM 2008 Debrief mentions hearing that Library and Archives Canada has bought some property on Second Life.

Thank you Nedra for your article and Kudos John!

Hey Google – Look At Me!

Marquis — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:24:22 +0000

It’s about time I post something on Search Engine Optimizing (SEO)! We’ve all gone to Google and found what we were looking for – right? But did we? Maybe there was better information available, but because the Web page had not been crafted to respond to Google’s criteria, it ranked low down on the search results list.

Not only can Google be used to find information, but also to reach the intended audience. Most Web writers want their content to be retrieved by Google and displayed on the first page of the search results. Accomplishing this requires an understanding of the various factors that have an influence over this powerful search engine. Of those various factors, which are the ones that Web writers can manipulate?

Tips on Google’s searching priorities:

Page title – what you see at the top of your browser has the most effect.
Breadcrumbs – a series of links appearing above the text which form a navigation trail back to the entry point of a website.
Main title – the wording of this should clearly indicate what the content is about. Generic titles, e.g. ‘Links’, should include distinguishing information.
Sub-titles in the document – these too should relate to the topic.
Content of the first paragraph – this should contain as many of the relevant keywords, that a user might employ to find content on a particular topic, as possible.
Complete text of the document.

If Web writers ensure that words are strategically selected and placed, they will be harnessing the muscle of Google and making it a mighty partner. Both partners, working in unison, can connect the right information with those searching for it.

Keep in mind that there are a number of other important elements that contributes to pushing that search result up, such as domains .gc.ca and .org have better ranking as a credible source, also the amount of links from other credible sites to your site pages ads value to your ranking score.

Social Media "in plain English" videos

Marquis — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:38:49 +0000

As a Web Strategist, once we find resources and tools that help us educate our clients in Social Media and its importance in the future of communications, it’s our role to spread these tools within our own network. Last year I stumbled upon the first few smart and witty short, unique and understandable videos by Common Craft, today with the launch of their recent “Social Media in plain English” clip they’ve pretty much rounded up a library on all the top aspects of Social Media.

Social Media in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

RSS in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

Blogs in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

Wikis in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

Podcasting in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

Online Photo Sharing in Plain English

Produced by Common Craftt

Social Networking in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

Twitter (micro-blogging) in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Produced by Common Craft

More great videos by Lee Lefever from Common Craft on his YouTube‘s page

Micro-blogging? Why? Twitter in Plain English

Marquis — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:54:55 +0000

During a presentation on social media to a group of senior corporate communications managers at a Government organization, they had picked up on the role and advantages of most social media elements, but the one I had a little harder time to explain and even a harder time to convince them on what could be an interesting social media medium to explore is the phenomenon of “micro-blogging” (ie. Twitter)… why? This is a great little video from Common Craft Show explaining it nicely.

I’m not an avid user of twitter (today) but maybe you are ;) From time to time I’ll make an update.

digitalOttawa : Building eGovernment

Marquis — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:59:54 +0000

We’ve officially launched the new face of digitalOttawa, a consulting firm composed of consultants with experience delivering strategic advice and services to over 50 public sector clients since 1997. We create a foundation with governance review, education and change management (including financial and human resource restructuring) and then build project-specific tools to help meet and exceed mandated goals with sustainable solutions.