Andy Budd has just posted Blogging in Government - a reflection on his experience speaking to Government officials at 10 Downing Street… the topic? “Blogging in the Public Sector”. Kindof relevant to those of us blogging within TAFE or other public institutions here in Australia!
Andy and his mates talked about:
how governmental weblogs could give a human face to often monolithic organisations and mentioned how Robert Scoble had helped change the public perception of Microsoft
Lots of great stuff in there, such as:
Tom suggested that rather than taking a draconian standpoint, organisations should have clear usage policies in place and treat staff weblogs like any other public conversation.
Although Andy doesn’t think the UK government will start public blogging immediately,
I do think the seed has been planted and as the internal culture starts to change over the next few years I see the potential for some very interesting and useful weblogs to develop.
Andy has made the slides from his presentation available (See Blogging in the Public Sector). Slide 11 has some very relevant points on “Institutional Problems”, a few of which I’ll reproduce here:
- Culture shift is necessary
- Start small, with several blog champions
- Many organisations fear frank and open discussion and criticism - however open discussions are healthy
- Control culture needs to change
I’d like to know how these factors have been overcome in organisations such as Microsoft (I mean, it’s a huge organisation, bigger than TAFE I would think?). What strategies can TAFE or other organisations in the public sector take to begin such changes?
There seesm to be some common themes emerging whihc may describe the shifts that can be made in organisations;
Knowledge management versus knowledge developement
Individualism to Community
Education versus learning
Privacy versus sharing
Intellectual Property versus high quality collaborative tools
Glad you found the post and associated slides interesting.