It’s been almost a year since the Obama administration launched their version of whitehouse.gov, featuring a blog and videos embedded from YouTube. The White House social media folks also manage an active Facebook page as well as a presence on six other social media sites. So connected!

Here we 11 months later and I’m wondering if the social media habits at 1600 Pennsylvania have trickled down to the Cabinet. “Look, Mr. President, I’m blogging, too!” So today I made visits to each of the 15 executive departments that make up the President’s Cabinet to see which were engaged in social media.

Here’s the list—following each I indicate which they employ: a blog, Facebook (FB), YouTube (YT), Twitter (TW), Flicker (FL), MySpace (MS), or others.

Participating in Social Media

• Agriculture: Blog, FB, TW, FL
• Defense: Blog, FB, YT, TW, FL, other
• Education: Blog, FB, YT, TW
• Energy: Blog, FB, YT, FL, other
• Homeland Security: Blog, YT, TW
• Housing & Urban Development: Blog, FB, YT, TW, FL
• Justice: Blog, FB, YT, TW, MS
• Labor: TW
• State: Blog, FB, YT, TW, FL
• Veterans Affairs: FB, TW

Still in the Stone Age

• Commerce: They have a Videos page that doesn’t include a single video for all of 2009!
• Health & Human Services
• Interior
• Treasury
• Transportation

I was impressed to see 10 of the 15 are making a concerted effort to change with the times and take advantage of new (free) tools to engage with and serve this country’s citizens. I’m really surprised to see a few still in the Stone Age, particularly Health & Human Services. Now, they do run Flu.gov, which is active on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but still, there are other health issues in the world, eh?

If government is of the people, by the people, and for the people then what better way to support that mission than to engage directly with the people? Agencies employing social media are not just keeping up with the President, or chasing a trend, they are actually better prepared to meet mission. The immediacy of information exchange provided by social media allows agencies to more quickly disseminate and respond to information. It makes it easier for the people to interact, too. One great example is an exchange I saw on the Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Facebook page:

Diane H.: I just found out that my daughter is living with a couple that has section 8 housing. My daughter is not part of their lease. They are having her pay to live with them. They have been caught in the past for section 8 fraud. What can I do?…

HUD Response: Hello Diane If you suspect section 8 fraud, please contact HUD’s Office of Inspector General at 1-800-347-3735. Please let us know if this information helps. [plus a link to the hotline website]

Voila! Easy for Diane—as easy as saying hi to any other friend on Facebook—and easy for HUD to put her in touch with the correct authority. Government in action.

Or how about this one:

Tammy A: How does one get a list of HUD housing or apartments in their community?

Brian M: Try HUD.gov, I believe this is the link you want: http://www.hud.gov/renting/local.cfm

Here we have two Facebook users exchanging information via the HUD Facebook page—the HUD page is the vehicle but no HUD folks even got involved. The Facebook page serves as both information vehicle and community. Good stuff.

Now, come on Interior, how about some YouTube videos or weather tweets about my favorite national parks!

Over the 8+ years I’ve been with Mind & Media, we’ve been webcasting and putting video online for nonprofits with much greater frequency than we ever have for the Federal Government even though we do much more work for the latter. But the tide has indeed turned. Recently five different federal agencies have contracted with us to produce videos for different uses.

My November issue of Streaming Media Magazine features an article, “The Government Video Boom”. So it’s not just us seeing that explosion, eh? In the story author Bill Greenwood tries to explain why the boom is happening now, but I don’t think you have to look any further than the new administration. When the White House is both promoting videos front and center on whitehouse.gov and also maintaining a YouTube channel the rest of the Federal Government won’t be far behind. Roll tape! But on what? And for what?

Our four new projects include:

• Using video to promote, and train staff on, new software
• Incorporating video into emotional presentations that are replacing static print documents
• Producing a recruiting video to be distributed via conference give-away
• Producing several videos, specifically for the public Internet (with a goal to get a video featured on whitehouse.gov).

They’re all excellent projects, and not necessarily because they employ video. It’s because they’re employing video in ways that take advantage of that specific medium and what it offers over others.

Many advances in technology, combined with plunging costs, have certainly made video an attractive option for many communications campaigns. But is it always the best way to go? Other mediums have gotten better and cheaper, too. If you need to get a message out, you have at your disposal avenues like: podcasting, screencasting, tweeting, slide sharing, and even email (how archaic!). All of those can be more cheaply and quickly produced compared to video. So why use video? Here are three reasons.

1. Authority: Use video so I can see the Secretary of agency X deliver news so it has credibility. That’s easy.
2. Demonstration: They are moving pictures after all, right? Video is a great choice to show how to do something. Or how something changes.
3. Story: This one is the biggie. With sound, image, pace and movement, video is great for capturing emotion, personality, and humanity—all of those elements that come in handy when you need to persuade or change perception. To change things.

That’s why we get hired. Not to make a video, but instead to educate, recruit, persuade, support, and ultimately to affect positive change.

I just got out from behind a van sporting two eloquent bumper stickers.

1. Warning: Driver carries only $20 worth of ammunition

2. Lost your cat? Try looking under my tires.

With as much sarcasm as can come across in writing I’ll say he seems like an awesome, friendly dude.

I actually can’t even figure out what he’s trying to do besides scare crooks and cats. I get paid to communicate so I realize I might give this more thought than the average bumper-sticker-reader, but I can’t help wonder why he used the time, why he made the effort, why he spent the money, to slap those stickers on his van. All communication takes time, effort, and often money so I can’t imagine extending any of the three just for the hell of it (or just to tell folks I’m kind of a jerk).

Sure, there’s a lot of communicating via social media that is essentially for the hell of it, but even those tweets and posts, I think, can be categorized as having the point of connecting with friends, sharing a laugh, or building a network. I’ll argue that all of those reasons, and more, are worth my time, effort, and even money.

But what about all of the organizations that are racing to social media platforms, often employing staff to lead an organized effort? Talk about time, effort, and money spent! Are the communications worth it all? Do they have more to offer than cat jokes? Building a community online can be valuable, but only if that community is basically doing what you want them to do. What action or change do you want to see? If you’re Health and Human Services I’m guessing you’d like to stem the H1N1 virus, for example. The Department of Energy might like to promote new advances in renewable energies. Now that’s something to talk about. But still what will they say and how will they say it? It’s not enough to tweet that X is awesome or to post Y on YouTube if those messages are not promoting a change in action or perception.

I recently received an RFP that include a requirement, “add interactivity to the site.” I’m not sure what to do with that if there is not some purpose or desired outcome dependent on those interactivities. A bit further down the RFP included that the organization would like to increase online donations. Aha, now we have purpose, so we can craft messages, features, and functions that support that. Whether it be indirectly, like supporing an online community which in turn might pursuade members of that community to donate money because they feel more connected and committed to the group, or more directly like allowing users to cast votes and opinions as to what the money they donate will be spent on, purpose driven messages and communications campaigns can inspire audiences to act in ways you want, not just hide their cats.

“Someone from HR will be going home with you this weekend to listen in and watch everything you do.How does that sound? Oh.Well then how about you give us all of your social media logins and just agree that we’ll track everything you do online. Of course, outside of the office, too. And outside work hours. All that.”

I’m happy to report that I don’t know this scenario depicts real life anywhere, but I can tell you it’s up for consideration. On his freesourceagency blog, Nathan Egan explains his (unnamed) client’s request to devise a plan for monitoring all employee social media activity. You can read my comment I wrote there, but I’ll sum it up here: Are you kidding me?!

There are plenty of reasons why such a move by any organization, save for maybe the CIA, is a bad one, but the mere idea of it exemplifies just how new/scary/confusing/alarming the social media landscape can feel to those not dug into it. I recognize that Joe Employee flaming his company at a 20-person barbecue is not quite the same as if he flames said company via his blog or other web-based communication. I guess that can be scary, but it’s still just one voice. Mr. Company Owner, do you have that little faith in your products, services, or people? What are you afraid of? Corporate secrecy can be handled by NDAs. Corporate culture and morale should be handled by leadership. Playing Big Brother to your employees is no way to handle anything. How about a little trust or respect? It might earn it in return.

I just read in Federal Computer Week that USA.gov director Bev Godwin was named the White House’s Director of Online Resources and Interagency Development. Worth noting that the source cited was, “several blog posts.” I guess that’s as good as an anonymous source, eh? According to FCW, Godwin will be on the New Media Team rallying the federal government into using social media. I can’t say I remember other administrations having such a team. It’s an exciting time to be a participant in this government and an exciting time for communications and new media companies!

The inclusion of “Interagency Development” in her title to me, indicates an emphasis on using social media internally to perform work. Certainly noble and necessary (good article also in FCW about that), but I’m interested in how agencies can use social media to engage the public and better serve their missions. For example USDA could support a social network site where schools, students, healthcare workers, nutritionists, etc. share information about diet and exercise, show off their field day events, and generally support healthy living. Compare that to printing a bazillion “Healthy Eating” leaflets to be stuffed in kids’ backpacks. Money can be spent more wisely!

Maddie at Socialfish pointed me to some social networking stats that Nielsen posted recently. The two charts showcase growth of social media sites from September 2007 to September 2008. You can see which are growing the fastest and which are simply the largest in terms of audience. I’m not surprised to see Facebook (FB) sixth on the list of fastest growing but also second on the list of sheer size. What a great place to be! And by that I mean both what a great place to be for FB, but also FB is a great place to be for you and your organization.

Not only does FB have a huge and growing audience but the company also has a great FREE offering to support organizations. They’re called FB Pages, with a capital P. This is not a post about what FB is or how to use it, so I’ll just jump right to what a FB Page can do. It’s like giving your organization the same presence on FB that any person would have. So step one, you can connect with friends which is the basis of FB functionality. In the case of a FB Page, they would be “fans” of your organization instead of “friends”, but the purpose is the same. Step two, here are some things you can do with your FB Page:

• Grow a fan base. When a fan joins it’s reflected in their newsfeed which encourages others to join. Oooooh viral.
• Send messages to fans
• Promote events (physical or virtual) to fans, which they promote via their pages when they RSVP
• Host forums for fans to connect with each other and your organization
• Share photos and videos
• Promote other sites (your formal website)

Here are some other pros of FB Pages:

• They are indexed by search engines
• They are viewable by non-facebook users
• Fan demographic data is captured and made available to you.
• Pages can be set to automatically accept fan requests which limits the need for administration

Which leads to the one big con:

• You cannot administer/moderate wall or discussion board posts before they go live. Once they are posted, you can delete anything you’d like, but you can’t hold comments in moderation like you can with a blog, for example.

That one downside will keep many organizations away from FB Pages. As much as I agree that transparent communication with your audience, both positive and negative, will build a great brand and great relationships, many CEOs or SESs will not love the threat of the unhappy customer. So pay an intern to sit and watch your page all day! Just get out there and connect.

Usability expert Steve Krug just rolled through DC to conduct his one-day website usability testing seminar. I attended along with about 35 other folks who love to discuss the placement and colors of buttons. We’re a rare breed perhaps. Most of our discussion and the shared examples centered around e-commerce and marketing websites, which I guess is to be expected. The folks that get really hyper about creating a very usable website are those who make money with that website. Better bring in the usability experts before you lose a sale, right?

Do owners of other types of sites give usability some, if not equal, attention? Do government agencies worry about the usability of their sites? They don’t sell, but they do have a mission to meet. They provide information or push an agenda for the public good. And they serve the government itself. Take USAJobs.gov as an example. The big story these days is the retiring government work force and the challenge associated with hiring the new breed. Well if USAJobs is a pain to use (and I’m not saying it is), then there go your applicants. Want to fight rising health care costs? Then let’s make sure Health.gov is easy to use.

The mission for government agency websites is to make information easily available, or to persuade viewers to take a certain action. So purchases may not be on the line, but usability should still be a concern. Why make the effort, and spend the money, to stand up a site that your audience can’t easily use? No matter the scope of your web effort, focus on usability from the early stages of design and information architecture, and then conduct usability testing during the production process. As Steve showed us, it doesn’t have to be expensive or derail the time line; on the contrary, usability testing can both save money and keep a web design project on track.

Thanks to Maddie at Social Fish for pointing me to Steve Radick’s post, What Makes Government 2.0 Different from Enterprise 2.0? I was chewing on a parallel topic last week when I was wondering why government can’t put together marketing campaigns like private sector firms do. The bottom line is we’re talking about very different animals. As Steve writes:

“What makes implementing social media on the intranet of a government agency like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) different than say, General Motors (GM)?  I’ve worked with clients from across the government who are all seeing social media succeed in helping organizations communicate, collaborate, and share information better than they ever have.  From wikis in the Intelligence Community to internal blogs at IBM, many of my clients see these articles and want to use social media to realize these same benefits, but don’t know how to do it.  The first thing that I have to tell them is that just because another organization, company, or agency implemented blogs or wikis or whatever else, they won’t necessarily see the same results, especially if they compare themselves to case studies in the private sector.  There are several fundamental differences between implementing social media behind the firewall in the government as opposed to a Fortune 500 company.”

Steve goes on to point out six of those differences and then asks for any others.

I offer a seventh, purpose of the organization.

Private sectors firms exist to make cash, the government exists to provide public services. So while in both environments I can see great reasons to embrace a web 2.0 workflow, the desire to undertake the transition likely varies. When we develop communication plans at Mind and Media we always determine the hook, meaning we answer “what’s in it for the audience?” Without hook it’s difficult to get buy in. Well, for profit companies will bite on a hook that contributes to higher efficiencies, greater competitive advantage, and better recruiting and retention—all elements that contribute to greater profits. The collaborative tools of web 2.0 support those elements so the private sector is more likely to push for their adoption.

But again, there are great reasons for government to embrace web 2.0, as well. One hook is knowledge management. As Steve points out, every four years can mean big shake ups in government agency personal and operations. Add to that mix, the constant stream of retirees leaving federal service. How can everything in their collective minds be captured, searched, and updated without effective use of tools like wikis and knowledge management systems? Members of the SES could build a legacy on the adoption of web 2.0 strategies.

Now let’s look outside the agencies, toward the public. Certainly the primary web presence of most government agencies are the epitome of a resource website. Visitors come with inquires and obtain information. On that type of site the most valuable tools are simply good organization and powerful search. But what about agency efforts to raise public awareness or support public education? In those cases, user-generated content or other social media tools could prove invaluable. A site like Hireveteransfirst.gov (very different in purpose from its parent agency dol.gov) serves the purpose of supporting veterans by encouraging companies to consider them for hire. That mission could be furthered by letting employers and veterans actually interact on the site, or on existing social networks, like Facebook. Veterans and employers, both, could share tips and participate in an ongoing dialogue. The result could be both greater success of the mission, but also a lesser workload on the agency because the role of gatekeeper is lessened and audience interaction is increased.

Support you mission, lessen your burden, improve efficiencies…no matter if you’re working in government, private sector, or non-profit, how can you not be attracted to social media and web 2.0?

I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Interact08 conference in DC which, in short, brought folks together to talk about web-based marketing. I was surprised—considering the choice of host city—that none of the discussions or presentations touched on the federal sector. Looking at the speaker list, I probably should have known—big dogs of marketing, advertising, and web development with private sector clients that probably outspend the DoD pushing sneakers and hamburgers. But still, we were in DC, and there are plenty of federal government dollars supporting marketing campaigns no matter that they may be less glamorous.

On day one I was a little annoyed, feeling like none of the content was relevant to me and my federal clients. The examples and strategies were, as I first saw them, simply too cool to fly in the federal sector. Too cutting edge. Too risky. Too expensive. Too original. On and on. I debated returning on day two, but, hell, it was paid for.

I went into day two looking to maybe just meet some folks, but somewhere between coffee number 11 and the lunch I found purpose. Maybe it was better speakers (Brent Canfield from RTCRM was awesome!) or topics, but I ended up jazzed and inspired. Most of all, I came away wanting to do the stuff I was hearing about, but in my sphere, the government sphere. Possible?

First, what makes that level of work possible? What factors support the creation of best of the best marketing? After listening to the slew of speakers I’d say:

• Trust between the client and vendor
• The client’s willingness to accept risk, meaning an acceptance that original ideas may fly or not
• Time to dream, execute, measure and revise and
• Money to get it all done

So, if those four things are necessary to generate killer marketing, can it be done in the government sector? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how agencies, with non-government clients, work versus companies focused on federal government clients. The most glaring difference is the inherent competition injected into federal contracting. Certainly the system is designed to eliminate preferential treatment from buyer to seller, which is good if you imagine someone awarding a billion dollar airplane design contract based on who’s his favorite golf partner. But think of the drawbacks. Does the nature of government contracting allow for all four of those factors? Can you develop trust, take risks, and spend time brainstorming as partners when the bid,  proposal, and contracting process is drenched in oversight and mandated recompetes?  Or when RFPs must be so clearly defined that deliverable are pre-determined?

Keep in mind I’m not talking about multi-year billion dollar aircraft design and production contracts. I’m talking about marketing, recruiting, and public awareness campaigns that are often doled out based on specific deliverables as opposed to being based on mission or measurable results. Budgets reset each year. Contracts recomplete. Agency leadership turns over. That environment runs counter to long-term, successful marketing efforts. It seems to me that in order to sustain top notch marketing campaigns the sphere of each effort has to get bigger. Imagine an SES being able to plan out a three- to four-year strategy knowing that one partner will be along for the whole effort. Or even (bite my tongue!) that an SES could choose to work with a vendor with which s/he has a previous successful relationship. In such a scenario there could be all four factors: trust, acceptance of risk, time, and money. And with that come innovation and excellent work.

Following Marilyn’s post about why she uses Facebook, check out this lengthy article from The New York Times Magazine from Friday. It tells some great stories about how folks are using social networks, but also digs into some anthropological subjects, too. Like can humans actually maintain more than 150 friends at any given time? Is there enough time in the day to keep tabs on 400 Twitter feeds? And maybe the biggest one, WHY would anyone care to amass a huge circle of loosely connected “friends”?  One reason is the power of collective know how:

“Laura Fitton, a social-media consultant who has become a minor celebrity on Twitter — she has more than 5,300 followers — recently discovered to her horror that her accountant had made an error in filing last year’s taxes. She went to Twitter, wrote a tiny note explaining her problem, and within 10 minutes her online audience had provided leads to lawyers and better accountants. Fritton joked to me that she no longer buys anything worth more than $50 without quickly checking it with her Twitter network.”

We’ve been hearing it for years, right? It’s all about who you know. With social networking you can be super connected without leaving your cube.