Our First Social Media Election
Canada’s first social media election has begun and it’s going to be awkward to watch. Across the nation, a thousand or so politicians have now jumped onto Twitter and Facebook and they will all be “doing Social Media” for the first time with little or no idea and thought put into how, when and why to use it.
Just like businesses, politicians are brands. You shop at a business that you know, trust and like and you are more likely to vote for a politician that can evoke these feelings in you as well. To build a successful brand requires the ability to package key ideas into short value propositions that are authentic, easily understood and can be spread by enthusiastic, well connected and well articulated supporters. That’s also exactly how both political campaigns and Social Media work. In fact, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country #votekennedy” would have made a great tweet!
Why then are most politicians unable to make the leap to Social Media successfully? I think it’s because they don’t see value in it yet; however they need to and soon. The Internet is becoming the default place where people spend their time researching ideas, forming opinions and discussing things that matter to them. If you’re a candidate and not part of that conversation, you can bet your opponents will be along with your votes.
This election will be the testing ground for new media. It will also be a key inflection point in terms of how politicians campaign and how voters elect. So how are our local candidates making out on the Social Media campaign front? Not bad so far, but lots of room for improvement. Here’s my take as the election gets underway:
@phil4brant – Phil is new to Twitter but showing signs he gets it. He is following 100+ people and has a small but growing number of followers. This indicates to me that he is primarily listening right now. His tweets so far are a mix of political messages and genuine conversation. On Facebook, Phil boasts over 1,100 friends and actively engages in conversations, posts pictures to provide insight into his personality and is consistent in his participation.
@lloyd4brant – Lloyd is brand new to Twitter and so it’s difficult yet to determine his level of comfort and how, if at all, Twitter will fit into his campaign strategy. He is following and being followed by under 20 people at this time and really needs to begin growing his community before a more complete assessment can be made. Lloyd is also new to Facebook and has 200+ friends on his personal account and a fan page with over 200 likes that is showing momentum.
@MarcLaferriere – Marc so far is dominating the online conversation. He has 700+ Twitter followers and is in turn following 500+ which indicates he is both listening and being listened too. He tweets often and engages his followers in conversations that range from political debates to highly personal discussions. On Facebook, Marc has over 2,700 friends on his personal account and over 1,100 likes on his fan page. He posts often and is very engaged with his core group of followers.
After the votes are cast, it will be an interesting exercise to examine the effect of Social Media on the actual outcome of the election in Brant. Do followers equal votes? Do “Likes” transfer to Xs on the ballot? Regardless of the outcome we are witnessing history take place 140 characters at a time, even if it’s a bit awkward to watch.
Kevin Magee is a 2.0 Citizen, Capitalist, Community Builder and member of the Expositor’s Community Editorial Board. You can find him online at www.kevinmagee.com or on Twitter @kevinamagee
Ask not what your City can do for you!
The sheer number of candidates and volunteers who were engaged in last year’s municipal election clearly demonstrated that the citizens of Brantford both want to be involved in local government and that they are willing to invest their time, energy and expertise to ensure a better Brantford. But what’s a citizen activist to do if there’s no election on? One avenue of opportunity open to all is participation and service on City Committees and Boards, a number of which are actively recruiting at this time.
I serve as Vice Chair of both the Sanderson Centre Management Board and the Economic Development Advisory Committee. In this capacity, I was asked to attend an information session at City hall to help answer questions regarding public service and my specific Board and Committee. For me, it was a great opportunity to meet individuals actively seeking ways to get involved. Throughout the evening the questions I was asked were very similar and I thought it would therefore be of interest to others who were not able to attend to share some of the discussion via this forum.
The most common question I was asked was “what do these committees do”? The answer depends on the nature of the committee or board however at the risk of oversimplify things: advisory committees advise council on subjects and issues offering insight, detailed analysis and expertise to assist in the overall management and governance of the City. Management boards on the other hand, have limited autonomous responsibly to actually manage City facilities like the golf courses or the Sanderson Centre with Council acting as the final authority on all matters.
The next most common question was “what will be expected of me and how much investment of my time is required”. This is a tricky question and the answer really depends on you. Public service and volunteering is a very personal thing. A City committee requires a 1 or 2 hour monthly meeting commitment plus addition time to prepare. This may increase with participation on sub committees. Therefore it is possible to put in as little as 4-5 hours per month or as much time and energy as you feel comfortable with. In terms of getting started, joining a committee and being the new member at the table can be intimidating. The best advice I can offer is: don’t be afraid to ask questions. Just remember, everyone else was new once too. If you are committed, willing to learn and driven to succeed as a volunteer you will do just fine. As you grow more comfortable with the subject matter, the procedures and the people around the table you will naturally begin to share more of your own thoughts and ideas and possibly even assume leadership roles within the group.
Volunteer Committee work is perfect for those of us who want to be involved but are not interested in running for office and also for those who want to find out if a political career would suit them. It provides an opportunity to better understand your City’s government and community and to make a positive personal difference. It’s also a great way to meet new and interesting people and learn valuable skills that can be applied in other areas of your professional and personal life. Whatever your age, skill set, experience and background, if you feel that public service is something you would like to try, I encourage you to ask your councillor for more details, read up on the committees who are seeking volunteers and if you are truly committed, just do it.
Kevin Magee is a 2.0 Citizen, Capitalist, Community Builder and member of the Expositor’s Community Editorial Board. You can find him online at www.kevinmagee.com
Republished from the Brantford Expositor: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=2975115
“Friending” advice for Council
Politicians are not generally early adopters of new technologies, however when they do, and they get it right, it can yield incredible results. With an informal opening of “Good evening Friends” a depression stricken nation tuned in their radios to listen to Roosevelt’s fireside chats. It’s hard today to imagine that a radio address was a big advancement; however at the time the ability to speak directly to citizens provided hope, reassurance, transparency and leadership which when scaled to a national level was unprecedented. This small technological step was in fact a phenomenal leap forward in the modernization of government. Radio, and later Television gave citizens a means to both hear directly from their leaders and know them a little more intimately; yet these mediums still only enable one way communications. Broadcasts do not enable actual interactive “chats”.
During the municipal election many candidates gave Social Media a try yet it was largely underutilized. Most councilors stuck with tried-and-true methods such as door knocking. While face to face interaction can never be replaced by online methods, there is a place and a purpose for both. It is in knowing that purpose and acting with purpose that will yield the results that Councilors need and constituents deserve. In conversation with Mayor Friel during our Editorial Board roundtable last week, he assured me that he will encourage City Hall and Council to embrace new technologies and modernize our municipal government. He also agreed that there is an opportunity to enhance, innovate and rewire the local political operating system for the next generation of constituents and politicians and that perhaps it’s time for Council to “friend” it’s constituents.
It can be a little scary to take that first step online and I would therefore like to humbly offer to our new Council some friendly and “friending” advice to help them get started:
Don’t accept the status quo: If you were given the opportunity to speak with hundreds, possibly thousands of your constituents simultaneously and have immediate feedback on any issue or question that would help you make better informed and quality decisions would you not take it? Framed this way, it’s difficult to argue that there isn’t any time for Social Media. Invest your time where your constituents are whether that’s at the Farmer’s market on Saturday morning, the Civic Centre for a hockey game or Facebook.
Leverage passion: Don’t just tell your story online, connect with and enable like-minded people that are passionate about the things that matter most to our community. Imagine a vast untapped talent-pool of individuals and groups who can help you deal with every conceivable problem that we collectively face. It already exists, now go make use of it.
Show interest, be authentic and listen: Remember, it’s not all about you.
Be yourself: Talk about what interests you. Share as much of your personality and personal life as you feel comfortable with. But please no press releases, no canned political messages and also keep in mind we really don’t need to know what you had for breakfast.
Don’t just follow, lead: Influence online is a function of the consistency and quality of your content and interactions. It’s who you are and what value you bring to the greater community that will determine your success.
There exists today an unprecedented opportunity for leaders to make a significant impact for our community online and it may even help you get re-elected in 2014. My final advice would be to seize this opportunity, take action and lead the way.
Kevin Magee is a 2.0 Citizen, Capitalist, Community Builder and member of the Expositor’s Community Editorial Board. You can find him online at www.kevinmagee.com or on Twitter @kevinamagee
Brantford 2.0
The future leaders of our community have grown up in a world in which there has always been an Internet. So, too have future voters. Tech-savvy and sophisticated, this new generation is completely comfortable with online participation and collaboration and cannot conceive of a hierarchical and closed government that denies them a voice, an opinion, a say.
This generation will not patiently wait for one opportunity every four years to express their concerns, hopes, and ideas by checking a box in a voting booth with a No. 2 pencil. They expect to be consulted, to be involved in real-time, to be heard and surprisingly, to contribute.
Most importantly they expect to be able to do it all online.
Governments should not fear this paradigm shift but instead embrace it. The best place to make a difference is where government most often interacts with citizens, and 80% of the time this occurs at the municipal level.
In a world where we can trade derivatives on an iPhone, telecommute to work and even eFile our taxes, what can we accomplish online as a citizen of a city? Not much yet, but we’re beginning to imagine the possibilities and they are indeed boundless.
Like most cities in the world today, our municipal government’s “operating system,” let’s call it Brantford 1.0, was developed and installed during the Industrial Revolution and it’s due for an upgrade.
So what is a Brantford 2.0, anyway? Well first off, let’s deal with what it isn’t. It’s really not about technology! It’s not about having a Twitter account or a Facebook page and most of all, it’s not about politics. Call it what you will– e-government, Government 2.0, whatever — the idea is simply to leverage technology and citizen engagement to continuously innovate our local government to a new and better version.
A 2.0 world is coming and the evolution of government can no longer be the exclusive domain of the politician. It’s not simply an IT project, either, nor is it fair to task the tech folks with modernizing the very source code of democracy.
Rather than striking a task force or hiring a consultant to complete a paper-based master plan, why not crowd-source the solution using online tools and ask the actual users what they want, need and can imagine? Why not even ask them to help build it?
Citizen engagement is imperative for a successful upgrade, anyway.
If we citizens are willing and able to contribute to the future of our community, then why not empower us to do so? The debate regarding the Southside, attendance at various city-sponsored town halls and open houses, the conversations on Facebook and Twitter and most revealingly the number of candidates already declared for the fall election all indicate our citizens want to engage, be heard and make a difference. To borrow liberally from late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, “We’re from the electorate and we’re here to help!”
So how do we begin the upgrade to Brantford 2.0? Why not start by leveraging what we already have rather than completely rewriting? Take, for example, our current citizen committees: community- minded volunteers bring their expertise, experience and passion to the table to tackle municipal challenges and provide advice to council on such diverse topics as economic development and the control of vicious dogs.
Why not then establish a Brantford 2.0 or, at the very least, an e-government citizen advisory committee? It would be a good place to start and if nothing else I hope the idea can spark a valuable conversation and perhaps even give a few of the candidates something to Twitter about!
Kevin Magee is a 2.0 Citizen, capitalist, community builder and member of The Expositor’s Community Editorial Board.
Republished from the Brantford Expositor: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2642452
Reimagining government as a platform
During the early days of the evolving technology industry, the Internet was often called the “Information Highway,” AOL was its principal onramp and Netscape was almost synonymous with what we now call the web.
How did these pioneering giants of tech rise so far so fast and then ultimately become irrelevant while other companies such as Google and EBay built billion-dollar businesses that have completely transformed much of our society?
The answer lies in vision: Google’s is to organize the world’s information while EBay’s is to provide a global trading platform that will allow anyone to trade anything.
These companies have built iterative, interactive platforms, not simply products and services, and have thrived because of what I as a user, entrepreneur or citizen can accomplish by both using and leveraging them. In contrast, governments tend to interact with their citizens much like vending machines do. We drop our taxes in, choose from a pre-defined selection of stale services and then hope that what we wanted will actually be delivered. When it isn’t, we can protest. We can shake it, kick it, call it names, but ultimately if you wanted a Mars bar and ended up with Doritos, it’s pointless to try to reason or argue with a machine.
Government is, however, successful when it builds quality infrastructure for the use of its citizens, institutions to govern use and a justice system to maintain order and then stands back. Sound crazy?
Well there is precedent for this sort of thing: think roads. Governments build and maintain them, create laws to govern their use and then police them to ensure that order is preserved. What governments certainly do not do is attempt to make cars. It’s left to the individual and the private sector to create and add value leveraging a network of roads as a platform.
The success of Web 2.0 is similar. It’s not actually about Twitter or IPhone’s. It is a “webenaissance” that has emerged out of the dot-com dark ages wherein the Internet has been rediscovered for its core purpose, that of networking, connecting and sharing. Once that happened, everything began to change and corporate, static, outdated vending machine-style web pages were replaced with all sorts of creative and interactive services like Amazon, Linkedin, Salesforce.comand Facebook, which are interestingly also platforms themselves.
In both examples, it is what can be accomplished by users or citizens and the private sector leveraging the platform that amplifies both economic and social value. Unfortunately, most governments today are intent on reinventing themselves as eVending machines and would probably have more success trying to build cars.
So, what would a Government 2.0 service look like? For one thing it should not be simply a “webified” version of an existing service rebranded with an “e”. An inapt or dated service ported to the Internet becomes not only an inapt or dated eService but also a missed opportunity. A true platform would allow citizens to create innovative and valuable services whose outcomes are not completely predetermined; services that evolve and are iterative creating a government that is an enabler for its citizens.
It is beginning to happen in cities like Vancouver and Toronto and in countries like the U.K. Collectivism and capitalism, left and right inexplicitly coming together to enable government as a platform. With elections at all levels on the horizon in Canada, we as citizens now have an opportunity to encourage this momentum and participate directly in the creation of the next version of government. Let’s ensure we do not allow existing goat trails to be paved over and called eRoads. If we do, then perhaps government too risks becoming irrelevant in the future.
Kevin Magee is a 2.0 Citizen, capitalist, community builder and member of The Expositor’s Community Editorial Board.
Republished from the Brantford Expositor: http://brantfordexpositor.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2609595
