Federal agencies have two choices when it comes to the blogosphere.  They can ignore it or they can embrace it.  To ignore it is to allow inevitable conversations to continue without their contribution, which can fuel disinformation.  To embrace it is to take ownership of these conversations and to ensure that an agency’s or office’s efforts and perspective are expressed with intelligence and accuracy – on their own blog, but more importantly, via posting comments and responses on others’ blogs.

From a public affairs perspective, Federal agencies and organizations must:

• Recognize the reach and resonance of blog-driven online conversation
• Create and moderate their own organizationally appropriate messages via blogs in an official capacity
• Increase their participation in others’ existing blogs, continuing conversations via blog comment features, again in an officially approved capacity.

Given the new administration’s call for more transparency and collaboration in government, now is an ideal time for Federal offices and agencies to consider the benefits of blogging and blog-comment participation, particularly for public affairs personnel.  With proper guidance, blogging and blog participation turns personnel into advocates who can speak to mission success, respond to critique and drive dialogue. 

So how do you get started?  Are there any roadmaps out there that agencies can use to guide them in starting their own blogs and setting policies for participation?  In a recently released white paper entitled “Public Affairs Blogging,” Mind & Media presents some good examples of successful blog initiatives in the Federal sector and offers practical guidance for the creation of blogging policy.  While not prescriptive (and I would love to hear of other examples that we can add to the paper in the future), the paper is intended to provide a snapshot of some of the more standardized approaches being used by various Federal agencies.  You can go to the Mind & Media website to download a copy.