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E-Government

The perils of vanity publishing

By James Smith | 22 March 2011

Anyone can put up a web site these days, which is why everyone does. There’s a plethora of web sites which have a pretty logo, aggregated news feeds, and an uncertain grasp on who should be reading them, and why.

Anyone can put up a web site these days, which is why everyone does. There’s a plethora of web sites which have a pretty logo, aggregated news feeds, and an uncertain grasp on who should be reading them, and why. They bring the semblance of meaningful endeavour, but end up creating more heat than light. You can spot them a mile off: a skeleton crew of irregular contributors supplemented by automated trawls of press releases and other web flotsam and jetsam. It’s a form of content, certainly - but it’s never going to amount to much. Somebody should tell those responsible, but truth is - nobody really cares.

Whilst there’s nothing stopping people from being busy doing nothing, public sector organisations need to guard against going down this vanity publishing route. The prevalence and immense usability of social media tools, coupled with the low cost of serving large audiences cannot by itself be the motivation to grow your online empire. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

I’ve noticed a number of online communities established by the region’s public sector - at first they glow brightly with the fuel of enthusiasm, before minds wander, policy agendas shift, and eventually the whole enterprise ends up acquiring the air of quiet embarrassment; a monument to what was only ever half of a good idea. These web sites couldn’t sustain themselves ultimately because they were artificial creations that depended on an excess of civil service supply, as opposed to audience demand.

As civil servants venture in to the brave new world of building conversation-driven online communities you need to keep a few questions front of mind: who am I writing for - myself, or my audience? Who is the audience? Who am ‘I’ for that matter - a personal opinion, or the voice of my organisation? What do they want from either me or my organisation? Why do they care about what we write? I’ll give you a Singapore example which I think is instructive.

The Ministry of Health, Health Promotion Board and the Minister of Health all leverage the online channel to publish content in different, but highly complementary ways. The Ministry of Health web site is facts and policy-centric - comprehensive, no-nonsence, sterile and of greatest use to those who already know what they’re looking for. The Health Promotion Board’s web site by contrast is thematic, tailoring its content to a wide variety of demographic groups - indeed their latest focus is on something called an ‘EmoCube’, a travelling musical roadshow enabling teenagers to select the music that best reflects their state of mind. This is not the health authority our parents would have recognised. Finally there is the Minister’s blog (“Health Minister says…”). This refashions much of the official guidance in to a very personal and homespun version that makes sense to the curious non-specialist, and plays well in the heartlands.

Taken together, and Singapore’s health authorities deserve plaudits for having created a nuanced platform for sustaining conversations across multiple citizen groups, with voices of varying formality. Indeed much of this will be touched upon during the forthcoming FutureHealth Forum in Singapore (27-28 April), where Jianggan Li, FutureGov Asia Pacific’s Editorial Director (as well as our healthcare specialist) will be chairing proceedings.

Relevant web sites that create useful content will always attract an audience - and in the process drive citizen engagement as you convert bystanders to participants. Everything else is just a waste of time.