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IT has provided the opportunities for governments to remodel the entire process of tax collection over the last decade. It is, however, a continuously evolving process and governments the world over need to constantly upgrade their tax systems to optimise their revenue workflows.
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The advent of social media has seen governments hopping onto the bandwagon in a bid to further engage citizens.
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Citizen Engagement, Government, Policy
How useful is Twitter’s government service?
The news that Twitter will launch a service for public servants has been met with interest from prominent tweeting officials in Asia. However, Trudy Rankin, CIO of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, told FutureGov that government business should not be dictated to by the popular micro-blogging site.
Twitter announced that it would launch a public policy department in June. This was prompted by the rise in government users, not only high profile figures such as Barack Obama and Malaysian PM Najib Razak, but notable decision makers at a local government level.
Twitter’s government liaison officer, who is expected to be appointed this month, will help agencies verify accounts, get the most from new Twitter services and better communicate with their constituencies, the social network’s Vice President of Communications Sean Garrett said recently.
However, officials should avoid being swayed by the new service, an influential government Twitterer cautioned. “Governments are not going to conduct their business according to the wisdom of Twitter,” said Trudy Rankin. “Yes, I am curious about their service. But my gut reaction is: why should I care?”
As well as a government service to give officials guidelines on how to use Twitter more effectively, the company has plans to expand and add services, such as the ability to localise tweets and an analytics feature that allows users to see how retweets their posts prompt, or how many times a link is clicked on.
In an interview with FutureGov, Rankin proposed some Twitter guidelines of her own: “My main piece of advice I borrow from Google’s corporate mantra: Do No Evil. Think about what you’re doing and the impact of what you’re saying.”
There has been debate as to whether government officials should separate the personal and professional use of Twitter. Rankin insisted that this is almost impossible – and potentially dangerous. Civil servants should tweet as civil servants, she said.
“I had a bad experience as I was going customs at an international airport through recently. I thought about tweeting about the poor service I had received. But to do so would not have helped the relationship New Zealand has with this country. It would not have been productive.”
Officials shouldn’t tweet for the sake of it, Rankin added. “Try it. But if you don’t find a use for it, don’t use it anymore. The value of Twitter should be immediately obvious to your line in business.”
Rankin insisted that government officials should not be put off by Twitter’s critics. “The world is divided on Twitter. Some people see it as a waste of time. I see it as quite the opposite: a productivity tool,” she said.
“Government officials are often guilty of not paying attention to what’s going on in the world around them. Just because your kids are using Twitter, it is easy to dismiss it as a frivolous activity.”
With this in mind, Rankin had a final word of advice: “Don’t tweet about what you had for breakfast. Nobody cares, frankly.”
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2 Comments
On 31 July 2010 Steve Lunceford/@GovTwit wrote:
Is there a typo in the 1st paragraph?
[quote]”However, Trudy Rankin, CIO of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, told FutureGov that government business **should be** dictated to by the popular micro-blogging site.”[/quote]
Was the intent for that to read **should not** vs **should be?**
Second, not certain if it's accurate to day that Twitter is launching “a service for public servants” or a “public policy department” at this point. Unless I've missed some news, they've simply spoken about hiring a single government liaison position at this time, perhaps moving into more services or an actual department down the line.
My interview with Twitter's Sean Garrett about the government liaison role: http://www.b…>
On 6 August 2010 Doug Hadden wrote:
The real danger of Twitter to governments is to conceive it as another broadcast channel rather than as a listening channel.
The question of whether to use Twitter in policy formulation is an interesting one. Civil society has the largest impact on policy formulation outside of government. The media often focuses on what is sensational rather than what is important. And, lobbying tends to focus on what is important for interest group, but not necessarily for the rest of us. Twitter offers an ability to disintermediate interest groups. If nothing else but to comment on media reports or lobby efforts.