By Minsun Kim
The government and public agencies have provided invaluable services for the public. In order to deliver its essential services, in a traditional way of setting, the government unilaterally approach to the clients (public) through agencies, based on the “command and control” procedure. Modern government system, however, need whole different kinds of service delivery process, in which government has more opened and networked structure. This paradigm shift also affected how the government communicate with its clients, from the notice like “what we want you to know” to the conversation like “what you want from us,” and in sync with the recent social media revolution, the government makes efforts to engage the public more interactive way.
So, how can you successfully engage with your client and constituency?
Scott burns, Co-founder and CEO of GovDelivery had very insightful process and thoughts on this.
Agile Management Strategy??
One of the strategies of building database I found very interesting was his adapting “Agile Product Management” techniques which software developers use, into the public sector. Unlike traditional delivery methods – spending huge amounts of money over many months and years to eventually deliver possibly not quite the right thing or even the completely wrong thing, you launch not the perfect service at first, rather you start with the manageable amount of programs and keep testing and upgrading.
Credit: GovLoop
In this way, for the many nonprofit professionals and public officials who are overwhelmed by the pressure of online communications, this could be an another way of good starting point. You can do it by step-by step or by trial and error, for instance, after you make some good contents on the blog, then you can share these through Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. Maybe then, you can publish them by your newsletter, you can make testimonial pages if your clients would give you some good feedback.
C.O.P.E / APIs
He also touched on the more practical ways of communication using technologies. Among the ideas, C.O.P.E (Create One, Publish Everywhere) and crowdsourcing through open API (Application Programming Interfaces)s methods also can be helpful to reach people easily and effectively. For instance, if you make a press release for an emergency on your website, system automatically sends it by SMS, posts on Twitter and Facebook. Also, by opening your APIs, people can make some smartphone /web application using your open data. These show the way how government and public communicate interactively. You can read more on the C.O.P.E in here. (link: Guardian)
Possible Obstacles
You should think about some bumps you can encounter. How could we reach the population that are not familiar with these online things? What if you work for (rural) social service agency and your dominant clients are composed of elderly people who barely use internet and smartphone? This “digital divide” issue can make you hard to employ all of those online strategies. You might consider segment your clients by digital accessibility and reach them differently. In addition, you always consider how online communications make offline things happen, in other words, you need to think about how each online connection you are making has real values.
strategizing social 
I like the idea of being incremental about implementing an online strategy, but I also think that this can lead to losing a base of users. I assume that the first to access a website may be the most loyal customers/users, and when they see a project that needs improvement it may drive them away. On the other hand, these loyal users may hang around while you make improvements, and eventually an improved product will invite new participation as well. It is an interesting concept to be incremental, and I think it is important to look at each individual situation.
Will- I would like to add an example to your thinking. Look at the new Apple IoS. I would start by saying that Apple has some of the most loyal customers in the tech market today. When they release a new product they literally have lines out the door. I am sure these die hards were the first to download the new operating system as well. As an iPhone user I have also noticed that before the first week had passed there was already and update to the o.s. because of security issues. Will this force people to give up Apple? Probably not. Does this happen every time they release a new Operating System? Yes.
But one most ask if the loyalty Apple is what keeps customers coming back even when they know they are being used as a guinea pig for their technology.
Michael, I definitely agree with you. Looking at the example of Facebook- it changes very often and people grumble about the changes at first, but nonetheless still use Facebook. Do some people get a little frustrated at change at first? Sure, but I don’t think it’s enough to drive people away. At the end of the day, I think people accept change because they realize that these companies are trying to improve thier products for the users.
Minsun, I like how you linked the general discussion of online engagement with our speaker’s, Scott Burns’, specific focus on government and public agencies. I too found a couple of the points you mentioned interesting and helpful when thinking about my own group’s online engagement plan, given its limited resources. They were: planning to “iterate and improve,” rather than “perfect and launch;” and C.O.P.E. (Create Once, Publish Everywhere). I have already adopted those as my new, more practical approaches. But, Will, I see the point you’re making the first approach in particular might be less than desirable for the early adopters and heavy users.