Nextgov/FCW - Authors - Ines Mergel

Follow Philly’s Lead and Dive into the Big Data Future

Ines Mergel — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:26:59 -0400

“Big data” is quickly making its way into conversations in government . However, it is difficult for government officials to identify what big data means for their own organizations. What are the challenges? How can they take on something new that does not necessarily connect to their core mission? And not least, how should they tackle the issue to respond to requests from the public?

The big data discussion hits government in two ways: First, big data is created by citizens in their daily online interactions using social media either directly with government or talking amongst themselves about issues related to government. As the recently released first guidance for social media metrics for federal agencies shows, government is just now getting into the groove of measuring, interpreting and acting on insights they can potentially gain from their interactions with citizens. The second trend centers around open government and the launch of the federal data-sharing site data.gov , a public website that hosts hundreds of data sets produced by federal agencies.

Originally, the big data discussion started outside of government, but has direct implications for government as more and more agencies, politicians and citizens are using social media to interact with each other. Social networking platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, allow citizens to directly connect to government agencies and share their immediate sentiments via comments in their own newsfeed. In doing so, they create hundreds of new data points. Conversations between government and citizens, and also among citizens, might not even directly involve government, but could be related to ongoing hot-button issues, upcoming policy changes or cuts in government programs.

Keeping track of potentially thousands of externally created data points published by citizens on a daily basis has become an unmanageable problem that is slowly being addressed in the public sector. Some agencies have shut down the option to leave comments on their Facebook pages, thus reducing the cost to respond and track that data. Others actively pull in citizen input or moved on to other platforms that focus the conversation on a specific problem and streamline the solicitation of targeted responses and input from the public ( see, for example, Challenge.gov ).

The second trend that government agencies are facing is the mandate of the Open Government Initiative to release government data sets in machine-readable format for public consumption. The flagship initiative data.gov has paved the way for state and local governments to respond in a similar fashion. Most recently, New York State has released its own data portal , a website that hosts about 6,500 datasets from state, city and local government sources in the state.

The challenge for public managers is manifold: they have to identify appropriate data sets, clean them, potentially merge them from different databases, and make sure that they do not contain any information that cannot legally be released to the public. To meet these requirements, agencies need additional resources and staff with appropriate skill sets. Beyond the internal organizational challenges, agencies also need to understand how they can open themselves up for third parties who are reusing the data.

Mark Headd, the newly appointed first chief data officer of Philadelphia, recently spoke to my social media class at the Maxwell School and shared his insights into the world of big data in government. Mr. Headd was appointed through an executive order of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter . He reports directly to the city’s chief information officer and mayor, who made it a political priority to understand and organically implement elements of the open government movement -- an advantage other cities might not have.

Headd describes himself as a data evangelist and an embedded technologist who has the task to discover government data, think about ways to make it available to the public and find a match between the data and external stakeholders who can potentially use the data to create public value. Internally, he is focused on cultural change more than on data analysis issues or technological problems: He aims to convince managers of the potential value their data can have for the public, and to inform them about citizens’ changing expectations. Mr. Headd then facilitates connections between data sources and potential data users outside of government.

Creating a Data Ecosystem

As one of the first Code for America cities in the United States, Philadelphia’s local tech community of civic hackers is motivated to reuse public information and create valuable applications. As opposed to data.gov, where data sets are mostly available for so-called “elite access” -- a small group of highly trained computer specialists and data analysts -- the approach in Philadelphia focuses on data that is not highly specialized and is already publicly available, such as transit data, day care centers, information about flu shot locations, etc. Most people will consume the existing data through web browsers, either on their desktops or mobile phones. Headd describes Philadelphia’s approach to open data as a focus on the “last mile.” By that he means that the city invites civic hackers who recombine the existing disconnected datasets in a mindful way to go beyond mere display of data sets, as it is done on data.gov. The city wants to collaboratively build new mobile phone applications by recombining data.

Events such as “ Code for Philly ” promote collaboration with the local tech community to use data and build new projects that have the potential to create something of value for the public. Philadelphia, much like Boston, Baltimore, and New York City, has a very active civic technology community with programmers who are passionate about their city. Headd’s goal is to capitalize on that passion.

One example of Headd’s success are applications such as CityGoRound.org , a clearing house for applications built around transit data that help users catch trains. The application and code are made available for reuse in other cities by simply plugging in local transit data. Transit authorities agreed to a standard that makes it easy to share existing applications. As a result, the city and its technology stakeholders are collaboratively building an entire ecosystem around government data from which all cities can benefit.

One of the challenges is convincing citizens to reuse the data and make use of the applications, Headd says. One approach Philadelphia has chosen is to advertise the newly created third-party products on public buses (see for example SEPTAlking ). However, the question of endorsing and publicly sponsoring products that were built outside of government is still an unresolved issue.

Another challenge is changing the bureaucratic culture. For Headd, the solution is to lead a conversation about the effectiveness and efficiency of the current use of government data. He shows public managers how they can reduce inefficiencies in responding to a steady stream of Freedom of Information Act requests to release data to citizens or journalists. Requests can be burdensome and labor-intensive to research. Headd works with public managers to identify the five most common data requests, collaboratively release the data and reduce the administrative burden. Employees can simply point requestors to the publicly available dataset and save time and resources.

For example, the Department of Licenses and Inspections receives multiple requests to release data about the number of locations of vacant houses as well as code violations. By releasing the data on a public website, the city allowed developers to create mobile applications, thereby significantly reducing the number of written requests and phone calls. The research activities for similar types of requests are minimized by simply pointing requestors to the new app. Government staff can then focus their attention on the core mission, instead of being distracted by FOIA requests.

Hackathon events have also enabled efficiencies by allowing civic hackers to build a service on top of government data sets -- they are effectively helping themselves instead of having to reach out to government for help.

Headd shared a few insights on how other chief data officers can tackle issues in their own cities: “Nobody wants to be first, so point people to other success stories in other agencies,” he said. He is continually evangelizing about the value of big data, promoting developments elsewhere, which helps people understand the benefits of releasing data. He suggests showing public managers tangible benefits instead of talking about openness or accountability, which can be very difficult to quantify, especially in budget-driven conversations.

The big data applications Headd sees are limitless: Budgets, spending, crime or transit data enable people to see how well city employees are doing their jobs and help educate the public about improvements in services. Most of the new coverage government receives is unfortunately focused on things that go wrong -- big data can change the focus.

Lastly, social media and government data can come together to create more personalized connections with citizens. Philadelphia has identified about 40 processes, such as voting, in which engagement is low and new experiments to increase feedback are needed. The city recently launched an application to pull citizen opinions into the policy-making processes: Textizen.com allows users to send in their feedback by cellphone -- without needing an expensive smart phone to actively participate in the policy-making process. By institutionalizing easy to use tools to which most have access, tools like Textizen can become part of a government’s future planning process and can automatically generate input without hosting town hall meetings, which attract a limited number of participants.

The example of Philadelphia’s success is certainly an outlier: The city is blessed with a unique combination of advantages that other local governments might not have:

A mandate to reuse public information,
A technologist who understands managerial, technological and cultural issues in government, and
A unique tech community with a passion for the city and an interest in innovation.

However, all cities around the United States are invited to simply reuse existing applications without reinventing the wheel on a daily basis. Get going with resources that are already freely available and dive into the future of big data in government.

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New Guide Offers Tips for Collaborating Across Agencies

Ines Mergel — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:31:39 -0500

The IBM Center for the Business of Government just published a new report in its collaborative governance series titled “Implementing Cross-Agency Collaboration: A Guide For Federal Managers.” Author Jane Fountain is professor of political science and public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amhurst, and director of the National Center for Digital Government.

Based on Professor Fountain’s in-depth analysis of collaboration projects in the U.S. federal government, the report provides insights into two main factors that support effective collaboration in government:

People skills to develop trust, norms, and connections, and
Organizational processes that allow cross-agency actions to be sustained over time.

Much of the existing research either focuses on specific roles that are needed or the resulting inter-organizational structures. What is largely ignored are the resources and processes needed as well as informal networking and governance mechanisms that need to exist outside the established formal hierarchies to allow cross-agency collaboration.

This is a timely report that is helpful for public manager to understand that even in a bureaucratic hierarchy, innovations, knowledge and resources to fulfill broad mandates need to involve new roles in government, such as the recently established Chief Innovation Officers. These new CIOs (not information officers) need to be boundary spanning individuals who tap into the resources they can access from their own networks, as well as have the freedom to connect with other public managers across organizational lines.

As the new open government paradigm spreads around the world, this report also can help open government activists to understand, build, and evaluate the processes and roles needed to successfully collaborate with all stakeholders: activists, nonprofits, public sector organizations at all levels of government as well as contractors to implement innovative platforms.

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Tool helps agencies manage social media messaging

Ines Mergel — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:50:45 -0400

Social media is here to stay. There is no question about that, especially after Facebook reached 1 billion users and Twitter surpassed the 500 million-account mark. What is less clear, however, is how government organizations can respond to the changing communication demands of citizens who want government to use social media in a meaningful, interactive and engaging fashion.

Agencies face a tough challenge: Citizens demand participation and responsiveness via social media – otherwise they complain or even mock government. But organizational missions and standard operating procedures do not allow for the fast and furious back-and-forth conversations on social networking sites. Instead, they mostly see social media as an additional channel for providing information to an audience that prefers to receive news and updates in a newsfeed. After all, government organizations are not in the business of competing for followers, fans, or to create peaks and spikes in their online communication. They are also not looking for volunteers, donors, or new customers whose interest they most spark over and over again to keep them coming back and buying their products.

In general, government missions are much simpler and focus on providing a trustworthy public service upon which citizens can rely. The existing information and communication paradigm is highly hierarchical with standard operating procedures that don’t necessarily support the 140-character news cycle. Instead, blog posts, Facebook and Twitter updates have to be carefully crafted to avoid confusion, rumors, and misinformation. There is rarely an update that goes out without revisions and explicit approval after carefully considering the potential impact or consequences. In this risk-averse communication environment, social media constitutes a departure from the existing standards.

Agencies' current approach to using social media focuses on broadcasting pre-existing information. They don't use social media channels to replace traditional media, instead they add social media channels to the mix and to share content that is also available through other channels, such as websites or mailings. Rarely do agencies and departments venture out to actively interact and engage in a conversational style in their newsfeeds on social media. A colloquial tone, sarcasm or jokes -- the Internet’s fuel -- can be misinterpreted or may even lead to misunderstandings. Many social media innovations develop as government officials experiment with different tactics, gain more experience, learn what tactics work and what should be avoided in the future.

In this new problem space, in which regulations and rules follow the changes in observed online behavior of citizens, it is necessary to create functions and standard operating procedures that help government agencies interact online. GSA has taken a first step and provides guidance on HowTo.gov : The social media registry was launched earlier this year. The tool allows government users to register their official social media accounts, so that journalists and researchers can verify their authenticity. This increases confidence in the nature of the account.

Similarly, internal workflows for crafting, reviewing, revising, and scheduling social media messages need to be designed to reduce the risks associated with the professional use of social media. An example is the recently launched “Measured Voice” social media workflow tool. Jed Sundwall, who presented the tool at the “Code for America Summit” in San Francisco in October, describes measured voice:

“ Government needs to be thoughtful about their social media postings. Agencies can’t post in real time answers to Facebook’s ‘What is happening?’. Instead, they have to be measured, reliable and accessible. They don't have to draw attention to themselves. ”

Sundwall, a contractor working on USA.gov and gobiernoUSA.gov , noticed early on that government agencies need a tool to organize their collaborative workflow in a distraction free environment to craft social media messages. The “Measured Voice” platform allows editorial teams to go back and forth during the editing process. Each team can define different roles: For example, writers craft the initial message, editors then rewrite and approve before the final messages are posted to an agency’s social media platform. The platform -- kept simple outside of Facebook and Twitter to avoid distractions -- helps to schedule updates: A feature that is especially important to avoid distractions from other important tasks government has to perform, for example emergency management situations or face-to-face interactions with citizens:

Source: Screenshot provided by Jed Sundwall, Measured Voice

Social media updates – fit into 140 characters on Twitter, or a few lines on Facebook -- absorb more time than a press release that allows more space for longer explanations. Sundwall points to a recent FBI update on Twitter that was carefully crafted and provided all the necessary information to diffuse the rumor that computers were stolen:

Source: https://twitter.com/FBIPressOffice/status/243089221529763840

As citizens and government experts become more social media savvy they will focus their activities more on networking opportunities that citizens demand and social media platforms support. Government organizations will also invest more in understanding if they are truly reaching the right audiences. Measuring the impact of social media interactions is therefore a core task that every agency should carefully consider. All social media interactions need to serve one purpose: to fulfill the mission of the organization. Only if online interactions are designed to support the mission will they provide both tangible and intangible benefits for government and its diverse audiences. Government agencies are just now starting to think about metrics that go beyond the quantitatively measurable insights, such as the number of retweets a Twitter update receives, or the number of Facebook comments citizens are willing to leave. There is, however, more: Social media engagement can be measured on different levels of an engagement scale.

The number of retweets a Twitter update receives is an important indicator of short-term attention paid to a specific update or event and are mostly context-relevant.
The number of followers and “likes” can indicate long-term community building and the degree to which citizens will actively follow updates -- an indication of continuing interest in government updates.
Leaving comments or actively asking questions shows even more engagement – and at times even concern for mission-related issues.

Attracting too much attention, however, is not in the interest of most agencies (except emergency management agencies that are involved in ongoing disaster relief and prevention). Instead, for most agencies a continuous attention curve without many spikes and peaks is the best indicator that they are providing a reliable information flow to their audiences.

As Sundwall notes “ Government agencies are not out to advertise for ‘The best driver’s license in town’-attraction and don’t need to draw attention to their operations. ” Measured voice therefore looks at the 100-message average in attention and provides feedback to its users in the form of smileys. But don’t make them smile too much; there might be too much good or bad press waiting for you!

Metrics have become an invaluable source of real-time information for government -- when they measure the right type of engagement. Moreover, measuring for the sake of data accumulation will not help social media managers make their case. Instead, data needs to be carefully interpreted. Based on the insights government agencies should adjust their social media tactics.

Government users can sign up for the private beta of Measured Voice at http://measuredvoice.com/govbeta .

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Creating Online Audiences That Break the Language Barrier

Ines Mergel — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:11:34 -0400

How are messages going viral in today’s social media economy? Who picks up content and is willing to spread a video or a statement through their own social network?

This week, the Ellen Degeneres Show picked up a music video by the South Korean artist Psy and it is now quickly spreading in the United States. The number of viewers increased overnight by 10 million on YouTube (jumping from 144 million views to 153 million views). The celebrity boost started weeks ago when Britney Spears tweeted that she wants to learn the outrageous dance style, Justin Bieber’s manager hired Psy for his own portege, and many other celebrities chimed in.

This example shows that viral campaigns need the support of so-called network stars -- nodes in a network with a very prominent position who are connected to many other nodes. The messages are snowballing through the network and repeated (or retweetd and shared) over and over again.

The video was posted on July 15 and within a short two months it went viral. It features South Korean musician and comedian Psy and picked up more than 153 million views. Gangnam is the Korean word for the southern part of Seoul.

The video -- sung in Korean -- itself shows many symbols that can only be interpreted and identified by South Korean audiences who followed the artist Psy during the last 10 years, as Jason Lim , columnist for the Korean Times and a former student in my Social Network Analysis at the Kennedy School explained to me on Facebook:

Two very popular Korean comedians participate in the video (the yellow suit guy in the parking garage and the dancer in the elevator) are both rarely known outside of Korea.
The other symbols include references to Gangnam, a part of the nation’s capitol, Seoul, that is known for its upcoming new wealth. Previously one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city, it is now an area where you can get everything. As one of my former EMPA students tells me, there are more Mercedes Benz cars driving around than anywhere else in Korea. The video highlights expensive horse stables, high-rises, exclusive Yoga lessons, pools, and bold-colored sports cars as symbols for things you can only get access to in Gangnam.
“Gangnam style” therefore provokes two very different reactions among South Koreans: Either envy or pride.

For Koreans the symbols are easy to identify. Everyone knows about Gangnam and Psy was already known for his witty and outrageous gigs, according to Jason Lim, a columnist at the Korea Times , who responded to my Facebook post of the video.

One of my former EMPA students, Sungyeol Shin, reflects on Psy’s background and fame in South Korea:

Psy himself is a Gangnam guy, a very typical Gangnam school dropout case whose family was super rich. At his high days, the only way to go to a decent college in Korea was got a high score in SAT and he could not make it because he was good at the other thing, hanging around with his friends on the dance floor. So his parents sent him to the US and he found his talent in music there.

When he made his debut around 2000, he was a very ‘abnormal’ figure because he talked about his story (which was a very shameful one most modest Koreans wanted to hide) without any hesitation. Later, he went to the military in his 30s because the prosecutor found a forgery on the his military examination paper which changed his military service into an alternative civil service. (That was also a very typical “Gangnam style military manipulation by bribing the doctor”) The reason his abnormal attitude and acts were accepted in the society was he looked so funny and talked [about] it with a sense of humor. His face and posture completely betrays his background – a typical Gangnam guy. This song uses this contrasts very well. (Typical Gangnam things like Ferrari and skyscrapers are mixed with kitsches and cheap symbols like subway station and duck boats.)

The following video shows reactions of American teens who had never seen the video before and are filmed while they are trying to make sense of the dance style, the language and even the chorus “Gangnam style”. They do quickly identify it as K-pop (Korean pop), but can’t make sense of the title, the symbols in the video, and except for one will never want to hear and watch the video again:

With all successful online memes, the Gangnam style dance video was also used to mock presidential candidate Mitt Romney – giving him a more human character than most of his own speeches so far:

An addition to the Romney video added Obama’s dance move to the mix:

Mashable has put together a nice infographic about the anatomy of a viral video :

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Does the Public Have an Appetite for Political Cookies?

Ines Mergel — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:52:47 -0400

This election season, people started to talk about political cookies – a new expression for the term previously used for targeted or customized ads. These are advertisements that are automatically pushed out based an Internet user's search habits. Computer cookies are files stored on the user’s computer that save the browsing history and behavior on websites s/he visits. This history can be activated by companies to provide a tailored browsing experience as soon as users return to these websites. Every time a user submits information to a website the information is stored. The data in the cookie file is stored locally (and reactivated at return visits) and can also be transferred to another website.

This practice has been around for a while and Google especially has become known for pushing context-relevant ads based on individual email content to Gmail accounts or to search results. Similarly, TV ads are targeting those cable TV subscribers in states that are known to be swing states – or states where pollsters know that there are many undecided voters. Other states, such as NY state – a historically blue state – will likely see very few TV ads.

This is where political cookies come in. A recent ProPublica article revealed that companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo are selling political candidates access to their users’ data:

Microsoft and Yahoo are selling political campaigns the ability to target voters online with tailored ads using names, Zip codes and other registration information that users provide when they sign up for free email and other services.

Based on the users known search and browsing history cookies, in combination with their voter records, political campaigns now have a much better sense of who they should target. These ads then pop up using a network of different sites, including social media platforms, online news sites, etc. Subtle reminders are pushed at a user based on their previous search and browsing behavior and pop up in the ad section of the visited site – instead of the previous practice pushed at them in a targeted email from which users can actively unsubscribe.

Social media companies are heavily using this practice in less subtle ways:

Facebook’s application to register voters and to use the same application, including voter registration records to invite friends who haven’t registered. On election day 2008 Facebook pushed an application out to count the number of people who voted and published it as an update to the newsfeed, increasing awareness among those contacts who haven’t voted. Washington State is the first state this year to actively use a Facebook application to help people register online.
Amazon’s election heat map displays political preferences based on its buyers’ purchases of political books.
Twitter displays user sentiments posted in tweets about both candidates in real time on the Twitter election index and sells trending topics to political candidates or promoted tweets based on the sentiments.

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How to Engage the Public to Promote Your Mission

Ines Mergel — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 12:16:06 -0400

While everyone is watching the social media memes erupting on Twitter and Facebook around the presidential campaigns, the question remains how social media can enhance governing to provide regular government operations with a human face. In my conversations with social media directors I hear one expression over and over: “You have to be where the people are,” which reinforces the idea that social media is necessary to reach audiences where they prefer to receive official government information.

This is easier said than done, especially because the mission of most agencies does not necessarily include engagement goals. Instead, most mission statements are fully focusing on broadcasting -- providing scientific information to the public, informing the public about a policy issue or educating the public.

Translating these mission statement into social media interactions often ends up employing push tactics: Social media channels are used in highly static formats to push press-release style messages out through additional channels beyond the official agency website. But social media has the potential to be used for more than one-directional broadcasting. Many highly innovative agencies have shown that interaction and online conversations with the public are possible – if they have the right social media policies in place.

Recently, truly engaging and highly creative social media tactics emerged that give government agencies a human face in very unlikely places. Take for example the recent landing of the NASA’s Curiosity Rover on Mars . The landing itself and the reactions of JPL’s employees in the control room were broadcast worldwide, inspiring many online memes that went well beyond just the landing. The Internet community was inspired by mundane side effects such as flight director Bobak Ferdowsi’s haircut, a.k.a the “ Mohawk guy ,” which resulted in many Tumblr posts and JPL team’s awkward high fives inspired a YouTube dance and song: We're NASA and We Know It .

NASA social media use has kept the curiosity about the rover alive even after the usually short-lived Internet memes. Three NASA social media managers are tweeting on behalf of the rover to give her (yes, it’s a she!) a human face. Speaking in the first person about her daily experiences, using movie, popculture references and Tweetspeak, they catapulted her Twitter follower number to over 1 million users within a 20-day time period.

NASA has always had a great sense of involving audiences fascinated with space and tapped into the fan base of TV shows such as Star Trek or Enterprise. As an example, NASA organized Tweetups during space shuttle starts and landings; astronauts tweeted from space and the public was allowed to interact directly with the agency’s stars. Even before the social media era, other NASA missions inspired the public with glimpses into the world of science. Take, for example, Hubble -- also known as the people’s telescope . Until it’s flawed mirror and subsequent decommission, Hubble provided the public with inspirational space pictures and videos and NASA allowed the public to book time using the telescope.

Other government agencies are not far behind in using social media platforms in imaginative ways to connect to audiences they would otherwise not reach or who would not make use of government information. Take the U.S. Geological Survey’s ingenious use of social media, for example. USGS is well known in the social media sphere for their Internet community maps to measure the impact of earthquakes and display Tweets on a geographic map. As USGS states on its website: “ We can get a more complete description of what people experienced, the effects of the earthquake and the extent of damage than traditional ways of gathering felt information .” Now on to the Muppet movie: USGS social media strategists picked up a reference from the Muppet movie and connected it to explanations their scientists can provide . An ingenious connection: Government agencies using their data and expertise to provide insights into geological procedures that are referenced in a popular movie and provide a public service by helping movie viewers understand the reference.

Does oil exist under the @ muppetsstudio ? They asked us! See oil assessments here: bit.ly/tsLtgA # Muppets
— USGS (@USGS) December 1, 2011

Another agency capturing current pop culture references and using social media to reach out to broader audiences is the Center for Disease Control. Using the Zombie Preparedness tool kit , the CDC uses popular zombie and werewolf references to get the attention the population not watching TV ads or listening to emergency announcements on the radio, because they receive their information and news through their friends on networks such as Twitter or Facebook, according to a recent Pew report :

Source: http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/mobile-devices-and-news-consumption-some-good-signs-for-journalism/what-facebook-and-twitter-mean-for-news/?src=prc-section

These examples show that government agencies can use social media channels in unexpected ways to connect government data and operations directly to popular events. They are tapping into social awareness streams, linking data to questions the public is focused on and engage with elements of the population that might otherwise be disconnected from government.

Another important side effect is that the public is more likely to understand the reasons and impacts of large-scale expenses for technology policies or might in the future support additional spending for an agency’s mission. Especially in times of budget crunches and massive budget cuts, giving an agency a human face, being part of the ongoing conversation and providing insights into the importance of the agency’s mission might help to gain public support. NASA rover landing has certainly inspired the President to promise his ongoing support to the JPL budget in a recent phone call mentioning the Mohawk guy meme .

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GAO's Web 2.0 Proposals Could Stifle Digital Innovation

Ines Mergel — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 07:53:31 -0400

A new GAO report released Tuesday finds that existing laws and regulations don't adequately reflect privacy needs in the changing technology landscape. The report highlights specifically that agencies using Web 2.0 and data mining tools need to find ways to protect private information. The key findings address:

Applying privacy protections consistently to all federal collection and use of personal information. The Privacy Act’s protections only apply to personal information when it is considered part of a “system of records” as defined by the act. However, agencies routinely access such information in ways that may not fall under this definition.
Ensuring that use of personally identifiable information is limited to a stated purpose. Current law and guidance impose only modest requirements for describing the purposes for collecting personal information and how it will be used. This could allow for unnecessarily broad ranges of uses of the information.
Establishing effective mechanisms for informing the public about privacy protections. Agencies are required to provide notices in the Federal Register of information collected, categories of individuals about whom information is collected, and the intended use of the information, among other things. However, concerns have been raised whether this is an effective mechanism for informing the public.

Agencies using Web 2.0 and data mining tools are instructed to take the following steps:

Assess the privacy implications of a planned information system or data collection prior to implementation;
Ensure the implementation of a robust information security program; and
Limit the collection of personal information, the time it is retained, and who has access to it, as well as implementing encryption.

The report points out many important issues and I agree that it is immensely important that government agencies have information security and privacy protection systems in place that prevent data breaches and leakages of user information to third parties.

Nevertheless, the implications of the report’s requests for the use of Web 2.0 applications and especially innovative data mining tools reach beyond privacy protection issues and might have unintended consequences. Many of the social media directors I talked to in the past two years have reported an important challenge in their use of social media tools: Measuring and analyzing the impact of their social media interactions.

So far very few agencies actively measure and analyze their online interactions. This is mainly due to the previously existing cookie policy, resulting in learned routines to not capture user data, and the existing survey restrictions that require agencies to go through a lengthy approval process before they can ask citizens for feedback.

While I am very much in favor of protecting personal information, such as health data, personal browser histories outside of government websites, I see a lot of value in developing appropriate measures and routines to capture digital interactions.

Government needs to be able to understand online social interactions beyond the pure quantitative numbers of followers on Twitter or likes on Facebook – which are most of the time publicly observable. Instead, I believe agencies should have routines in place to understand how issues related to their mission are publicly discussed, how information is snowballing through online social networks, and ultimately be able to draw conclusions about their impact.

Again, the report has important implications for agencies for reviewing their privacy policies and implementation of these policies. However, I hope that it won’t restrict innovation in social media analytics and won’t prevent agencies from understanding how well they are doing online and to what extend their digital interactions are fulfilling the agency’s mission.

A list of existing rules and regulations relevant to use the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the U.S. federal government is available on HowTo.gov and on my blog.

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11 Tips for Crafting Your Social Media Policy

Ines Mergel — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:10:35 -0400

Social media applications have become an (almost) accepted standard to explore new ways of communication between government and its stakeholders. However, government agencies willing to jump onto the bandwagon had to jump over many hurdles to make social media work for them. As early as December 2008, the powerhouse behind what is now known as HowTo.gov -- Bev Godwin, Sheila Campbell, Jeffrey Levy, and Joyce Bounds -- have published a manuscript describing the hurdles and perceived barriers for new forms of online engagement. Among them are:

Employee access to online tools
Terms of service
Advertising
Procurement
Privacy
Persistent cookies
Surveys
Access for people with disabilities
Administrative requirements for rulemaking

Many of these barriers prevented the rapid and risk-free adoption of social media technologies. Some of the perceived barriers were solved in the meantime. As an example, GSA signed model Terms of Service agreements with many social media providers.

A few agencies were willing to jump into the cold water early on and started to experiment with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and so on, until GAO released a report directing government organizations to create social media policies for managing and protecting information they access and disseminate using social media applications. As a result most federal government agencies now have internal social media guidelines in place (for an overview, visit my blog , which includes pdf documents of publicly available social media policies).

Some guidelines only provide a general context for the use of third party platforms others describe in very detailed fashion including daily schedules, accepted tools, directions for tactics, campaigns, etc. The Army social media handbook is already published in its third iteration. It not only includes guidance for the internal use of government-run social media accounts, but extends suggestions beyond the boundaries of organization to include family members who could potentially reveal sensitive information and thereby harm the Army’s missions.

Based on my conversations with social media directors in the U.S. federal government and an analysis of the available social media guidelines, I came up with the following elements for the design of social media guidelines in the public sector:

Social media use should support the organizational mission and overall communication strategy.
Government agencies need to decide what they regard as appropriate content and what online products they are willing to share with their stakeholders via social media.
The workload and decision responsibilities need to be assigned and distributed among a social media ringmaster, content creators and curators, account administrators, and content providers with expert knowledge about issues.
Before agencies can select the right tools it is important to understand who the (potentially diverse) audience is.
Access to social media content needs to be made available through alternative mechanisms to avoid exclusiveness.
I am a big fan of “hierarchy in the network” and always tell government officials who ask me for advice to clarify what their online netiquette includes, such as a comment policy or appropriate online conduct. EPA provides great guidance using this flow chart .
After all these issues are clarified and answered as part of a social media guideline, the tool question can be tackled: Where do an agency’s stakeholders prefer to receive their information? On Facebook? Twitter? Via a newsletter? The answer should not be: We need to be on Facebook, because everyone else is.
After the tools are selected, guidance on how and who sets up and administers the accounts needs to be designed.
Daily routines need to be established. For different social media tactics see more in my PA Times article “ Government 2.0 revisited: Social Media Strategies in the Public Sector .”
One of the most challenging tasks it to measure and interpret the successful use of social media tools on behalf of government. Many agencies use quantitative measures, such as counts of the increasing number of followers or likes. Others use anecdotes highlighting responses from their audience. Other more sophisticated approaches include the use of dashboard solutions by third party providers.
Lastly, a social media strategy needs to include a section on training. Providing the resources, including opportunities to discuss tactics and strategies with peers, is however not only important for those employees who will be managing social media accounts, but also for top managers to understand the culture and changing social interactions with the public, as well as their evolving expectations.

Read more in my IBM Center for the Business of Government special report “ A manager’s guide for designing social media strategy .”

Ines Mergel - Designing Social Media Strategies - IBM - 2012 from Ines Mergel

Dr. Ines Mergel is assistant professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She studies the strategic, managerial, and administrative aspects of the use of new technologies in the U.S. federal government. Ines is the author of "Social media in the public sector." Read her blog: http://inesmergel.wordpress.com , and follower her on Twitter: @inesmergel

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