Banks, Government 2.0 And Honesty In Social Media

The numbers using social media are huge. Digital marketing people understand this, but do large institutions like banks and government?

The following comments, from expert observers I have found through Twitter, could indicate a need for some of our institutional leaders to bring themselves up to speed…

Telling The Truth, Being Credible..Collaborating

The following observations were made by Craig Thomler – online communications director for the Department of Health and Ageing and a Gov 2.0 advocate – after attending a ‘Social Media in the Banking Industry Workshop’ at the Gartner Symposium 2010 in Sydney.

* Social media is not about technology, it’s about collaboration – the only risk is in ignoring it.

* There are 20 exabytes of social media information available online today – it is real, it is not a fad. It doesn’t matter whether you are using social media – you cannot ignore it because your customers use it.

* In a world where people can talk to people, as an organisation you had better be believable – traditional PR no longer works. If you wish to be credible in social media, you have to tell the truth. Black box organisations will not survive.

* The public will judge organisations not on whether they make mistakes, they all do, but on how they visibly recover.

* Bloggers are hugely important public influencers. Organisations no longer control the message, they must influence the influencers. This is an entirely new approach to public relations.

Gov 2.0 In Australia

Gartner Inc is a global company that provides IT insight to large corporations, government agencies, technology companies etc. One of their senior public sector analysts, Andrea Dimaio, notes that the new Declaration of Open Government by the Federal Government asks agencies to:

“reduce barriers to online engagement, undertake social networking, crowd sourcing, and online collaboration projects and support online engagement by employees..

also that the Australian government recognises:

“engagement is bi-directional, and takes place only if citizens and employees engage among themselves and with each other…for the first time a large government recognises that the engine of engagement and transformation is its workforce..

The declaration goes even further, by requiring agencies ‘to develop policies that support employee-initiated, innovative Government 2.0-based proposals’. Another powerful statement to recognize that open government is an organic, bottom-up process, and must tap into the creativity of employees.

After setting these tenets, the declaration states its key principles: informing, engaging, participating, which respectively match transparency, collaboration and participation in the US Open Government Directive. Despite the similarities, the Australian declaration is far more powerful than the American one, as it sets purpose and context around the machinery of government and puts its center of gravity on employees rather than citizens..

It captures the essence of Gov 2.0 as an employee-centric, viral phenomenon, which cannot be planned for but only enabled and nurtured..

Of course there will be challenges to turn the declaration into action, but what it says sets the Australian Federal government off to a good start.”

Government 2.0 Has Not Failed Yet, But The Clock Is Ticking

In this later article Andrea follows his ‘usual line’ about insufficient emphasis on the role of employees.

“This is actually the thing that I found most refreshing in the Gov 2.0 Taskforce reports in Australia. However, this got somewhat diluted (or implied) in the subsequent Declaration of Open Government. While I know that there are many people making a genuine effort at the Australian federal government level to make this work, I was also surprised by the number of federal clients that I met there and are still blocking access to most social networking sites.

So the problem is not that Government 2.0 is failing. The problem is that it is not proceeding in those areas where most of the value can be accrued, i.e. the ability of employees to use social media as working tools.

We have to take Government 2.0 off the policy table and move it into the machinery of government, into bureaucratic processes, into transforming the way civil servants work.

I find that the three new realities mentioned in the Gartner Symposium keynote are absolutely spot on to describe where Government 2.0 should be going:

• The power of unprecedented choice – Employees have now much greater choice about technology devices and platforms that can allow them to access information and people they could not access before
• A Wild Open World – The days when information was contained within the four walls of any organization are long gone. Government employees need to be able to access external information to become more effective and efficient
• A shift from output to outcome – Government employees must be measured by how they contribute to their agency’s objectives and not by the outputs they produce by complying with a process

Real World Examples

“The story of a case worker deciding whether to pay a visit to a fosterkid by tracking changes in her Facebook behavior is a great, and real example of where government 2.0 should be going.

It was quite refreshing to see how those same clients who block access to social media today saw that story as an eye opener, and could easily relate to what this might mean for their employees. Australian clients in domains like veteran affairs, health and safety, employment, tax and revenues all came with ideas about how this may work and unleash great opportunities in their own agencies.

In order not to fall into the trough of disillusionment Government 2.0 must shift its emphasis from the organization to the individual, and from policy to operations. There is still time for that to happen, but we need to talk less about transparency and open data and do more around training, encouraging and rewarding government employees.”

A Practical Point Of View

The US Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, speaking about the Obama use of Social Media, says

“Social media can help spread facts as quickly as fictions. Government and politicians can use it to manage the 24 hour news cycle, mitigating issues by correcting news..
..like all media since the printing press, [it] is a two-edged sword – what’s most important is that you have a handle on it.”

Craig Thomler On Gov 2.0 And Banks

The final quote from Craig to sum up:

“I’ve formed the view that banking is about two to three years behind government in Australia in engaging with social media effectively.

The banking sector is facing significant challenges. Regardless of whether its senior leadership wishes to engage via social media or not, their customers, stakeholders and even their staff are using these channels more and more.

Increasingly, banks are seeing the rise of services like Paypal, which the panel said that banks laughed off only a few years ago but now see as a genuine threat to their business.

They are concerned about the risk of Google starting a banking business, as they believe Google has a better reputation and greater capability to be agile.

They are worried about online comparison services, which make it easy for the public to compare banking and insurance rates; and about online services, which offer substitute banking services more conveniently.

In other words, the banks are facing reputation, transparency and agility crises, brought on by a culture that resists change and innovation, at the hands of social media empowered individuals and small, agile, innovative organisations.

Government isn’t always slow, conservative or inflexible, particularly compared to large institutional banks.

Maybe, in the public sector, we’re doing much better than some people might appreciate. “

Times ARE changing…