This document discusses three situations involving the use of social media by public sector employees and presents guidelines for addressing related issues: 1) A staff member posts criticisms of another department on her personal blog, prompting a complaint. 2) An online forum is making false and potentially damaging accusations about your department that could be reported by media. 3) A senior advisor asks an employee to delete unflattering nicknames of a minister from Wikipedia. The document concludes that social software offers opportunities for the public sector if handled properly, as the benefits generally outweigh the risks, but users must remember that while the tools are theirs, they do not own the content.

1. Information and Knowledge Policy
Development 2008
Social Media and the Public Sector -
Examining the Hazards and their
Policy Implications
Matt Moore

2. Situation 1
You are a public sector manager. Anne, a member of your staff,
has a public blog where she posts mostly personal news about
her rock climbing hobby. You don’t read the blog but
occasionally she sends round email links to her climbing photos
on the blog to her colleagues in the office. One afternoon you
receive an angry phone call from Tricia, a senior public servant
in another department. Apparently Anne has posted a blog entry
critical of activities of that department that involve the rock
climbing community. The post is not defamatory but some of the
readers' comments attached to the blog post are abusive. Tricia
believes that Anne has broken her terms of employment and
wants to institute disciplinary proceedings against her.
What do you do?

3. Situation 2
An internet forum site with thousands of Australian users –
tidalwave.com.au – includes a number of threads that are openly
critical of the work that your group does. One thread in particular
contains accusations that you and your group have acted
illegally. These accusations are false. A major national
newspaper has been lifting stories from this forum site on a
regular basis and you fear that the contents of this thread could
be next. You contact the media relations advisor in your
department but they do not appear to understand the risks
involved.
What do you do?

4. Situation 3
A wikipedia entry referencing the minister of your department
includes derogatory nick-names given to your minister by the
press. A senior advisor to the minister approaches you in the tea
room one day and asks you – as the office “computer whiz” – to
delete the offending remarks.
What do you do?

5. http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004717.html

7. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ppym1/343729914

8. Tim O'Reilly - http://www.flickr.com/photos/timoreilly/44349798/

9. Andrew McAfee, Dion Hinchcliffe - http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=143

10. http://www.netratings.com/pr/pr_080226_NZ.pdf

24. Three situations
Internal

Official & External

Unofficial & External


30. 9 Issues (Not Excuses)
To Consider

31. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nexus_6/264060490/sizes/l/

33. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfraven/1334244592/sizes/l/

34. http://www.flickr.com/photos/residae/2560241604/

35. http://www.mcmag.com/gold/awardlogos/images/Gold_Key.bmp

36. http://www.divasthesite.com/images/Greta_Garbo/Greta_Garbo_intro.jpg

37. http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/images/ironmountain_archive2.jpg

40. In Summary
Social software offers many opportunities for

the public sector.
These opportunities (mostly) outweigh the risks.

It's ours but we don't own it.


41. http://www.advcomms.co.uk/footprint.jpg

42. Thank You

43. Matt Moore
matt@innotecture.com.au
+61 423 784 504
http://innotecture.wordpress.com