Marquis Côté .com

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.

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!

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.