Thursday, June 27, 2013 local authority....
Some people really get the social web, what the web can do and what it can do for organisations. One of those is Euan Semple. His book 'Organisations Don't Tweet People Do' is one of the few social media books that take space on our bookshelf. We urge you to buy it. In this post he asks some key questions of local government.
by Euan Semple
The problem is in the title isn’t it? Being an authority in a time when authority is being called into question by so many people in so many ways isn’t easy.
Authority used to rely on information asymmetry. You were either in the know or you weren’t. You either had access to controlled information or you didn’t.
Being an expert, or maintaining an official version of events through your authority, has never been harder in an age when information is available at everyone’s finger tips. Whether doctors facing patients who have been researching their ailments online, or roads management teams facing online databases of unfilled potholes, information availability has suddenly become symmetric and those in authority are understandably uneasy.
Let’s take education as an example. We all remember the boring teacher who simply trotted out facts or read the words straight from the blackboard. We also all remember the inspirational teachers who helped us understand for ourselves, helped us to learn, and fired us with enthusiasm. Given our ready access to information we need the former less and less but arguably need the latter more than ever. People who are good at encouraging engagement in topics or activities, who help people find their way around subjects and encourage them to take responsibility.
Could this be the role of our local authorities in the future? Rather than holding on to information and bearing the burden of decision making conferred by authority, couldn’t they get better at harnessing the increasing inclination being shown online for people to get involved in things and take responsibility for their futures? Watching my local town’s “Your Chesham” group on Facebook is fascinating. They are talking about all sorts of things like where to find tradesmen, what do to with stray dogs, when the refuse collections happen. It’s all there in its mundane detail. But so too are the discussions around the town fete, what it means to live in Chesham, what people think about Chesham’s future and what to do about it. The mayor is in there as are a number of councillors and it is fascinating to watch them connecting and reacting to this new coming together of people in their area.
Last year I tweeted “Is authority more important to those who wield it or those who defer to it?” Do we prefer to let our institutions do the hard work for us and complain about what they do or are we willing to step up and take more responsibility? Over the next few years we are going to see more and more institutions grappling with their new roles in an emerging connected civic world. What do we expect of those institutions? How do they continue to add value and be relevant? What does authority mean in the future and how will people achieve it?
'Organisations Don't Tweet, People Do' by Euan Semple is available in print and has just been published in audio book. He also blogs here.
Reader Comments (1)
Great post Euan. This chimes with the work of the commission on the future of local government. http://civicenterpriseuk.org/about/
I work for Leeds City Council, one of the councils who contributed to the above project. The commission was set up to reassess the role of local government in the 21st century and put forward practical actions to revitalise local democracy and public service.
A key task of the commission was to take the concept of ‘Civic Enterprise’ and test its practical application across a broad range of services to identify genuine opportunities for new ways of working between the public, private and third sectors. This concept is based on the premise that services built on the strengths of the public, private and third sectors will produce better outcomes for local people.
The commission made five propositions, one of which was to ‘devise a new social contract’.
I’ve worked for the council for 25 years and have seen many changes, including to my role in comms and PR, but I sense this wind of change is different. I know this civic enterprise and social contract work will shape how councils will be different. However, I think it would be fair to say we need to explain the concept of civic enterprise, and make it mean something internally and externally in order to grease the wheels for the changes it will bring.
So, in Leeds we are looking at what a truly social place to be might be like. Not just the council either - this is a shared initiative. The Sociable Organisation blog http://trulysocial.wordpress.com/ is really a space where we hope there will be ongoing discussion and debate which may help shape what and how more sociable organisations might be and what the benefits for it and for the people and communities they serve are. It includes more details of the commission work and the new social contract.
I’m hoping it will encourage comment in the form of guest posts from people who are involved, or interested and not just from Leeds. There are some great posts so far and it seems to be starting to create discussions which are leading to pieces of work and people running projects. It is also be a place where those confusing terms and metaphors like ‘civic enterprise’ WILL be explained. It will also be a diary of progress.
Perhaps this is also about better understanding how digital can contribute to how we do things; about learning ‘how’ we are now and what we will need to become. Also it is realisation that it’s not just about shifting to digital as the cheapest communication channel. With changes to welfare reform, people will increasingly want and need to find a place where they feel confident to talk about their problems face to face. It has to be about being sociable.
So in the posts made on the blog, we would be interested to hear people’s views on if, why and how they think public sector organisations can be more ‘sociable’; on things like how we can support/contribute to existing discussions where we live and increasingly be accepted where those discussions may already be; where the views are but perhaps are felt not listened to or acted on?
What struck me in this post is Euan inadvertently described what my job has morphed into; “encouraging engagement in topics or activities, helping people find their way around subjects and encouraging them to take responsibility”. Perhaps all comms professionals will be moving to more of an engagement/involvement role in the future. Can we afford not to?
So, bring on the debate, planning and testing of practical application.
Please feel free to drop by the blog and add a comment or suggest articles on what you are doing . I can be contacted at phil.jewitt@leeds.gov.uk or @philjewitt