The engagement ethic

February 11, 2010

Unless you are compelled to trawl the grey media for research purposes another study that may not have come everyone’s way is from the Innovation Unit entitled “The Engagement Ethic“, a slim, 35 page, PDF, that goes some way to criticizing the New Public Management model of citizen as customer along with the resultant issues.

Written by John Craig, Matthew Horne and Prof. Denis Mongon it is essentially about the use of co-operative and mutual governance when delivering public services. However, as well as consumerism, it does examine engagement, disengagement and the influence people think they have upon public services.

A key part of the summary is their argument that (p.5): “approaches to both delivery and governance have to change if we are to build an ethic of engagement at the heart of our public services.”

Importantly, whilst emphasising the need to help people to help themselves, it is stated that (p.14): “what they most want from public services is knowledgeable staff that provide high-quality advice.” So whilst your web site might provide the service, you may need human beings to answer, confirm or assist with any questions that might arise before they tackle that application.

Whilst web services are cheaper, services have to be delivered to the quality needed by the citizen and if this means mediated, it should be provided that way.

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Accountability

February 9, 2010

A report to appear amidst the grey literature in February is one from Localis entitled “For Good Measure – Devolving Accountability for Performance and Assessment to Local Areas“.

However, what worries this practitioner/researcher amongst all the proposals for a bright, lighter world is an issue raised in 

Dunleavy, P., Margetts, H, Bastow, S and Tinkler, J., (2006). “New public management is dead. Long live digital-era governance.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16(3): 467-494.

Where, in the conclusions, on p.488 they ask “whether managers and political elites, long-educated and socialized in NPM approaches, will actually be able to change direction radically enough to fully exploit the potential of DEG reforms.” Where DEG is Digital Era Governance, a model that is e-government done the right way round without all the New Public Management (NPM) baggage of targets and boutique-bureaucracies that have undermined it. A particular concern of mine is that the existing local government management have grown up with NPM and got their jobs by supporting the regimen of performance indicators and inspection, how will they manage without it?

However, the report, along with providing a history of audit in local government requests a reduction of the increasing burden that it places on local authorities, such as the quantity of performance indicators and the indicators employed. Instead, the authors request the involvement  of  citizens (or as they describe them – residents). This needs the new regime to be prepared for co production, cooperatives and communication.

Leave a Comment » | e-government, engagement, Metrics, NI 14, NI14, Systems thinking, transformational change | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
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Social media as a channel

February 7, 2010

I’m not sure whether social media is a service channel but it’s certainly one for feedback. A short report from Right Now clarifies this and explains, obviously in order to sell their product, why we should take notice. The little pamphlet is entitled “Customer Service Meets Social Media – Best Practices for Engagement”, and you’ll find it on their web site. Even more appropriate for me is the term “engagement”, since anyone who has looked at my model will realise I promote “Citizen Engagement Management”.

I wonder how many councils even employ “Google alerts” on a daily basis to find out whats being said about them, without delving into the different social media? If you don’t I should get on with it!

However, the Right Now publication does offer some important guidance, such as (p.3): “Another major difference between traditional contact channels and social media is that when you respond, your conversation is often visible to a large audience” and on the same page and perhaps more importantly: “social media accelerates and democratises publication, which means consumers can create content about your organization.” The development of the alternative Birmingham City web site #bccdiy was one example with all the local and national social media debate that followed.

The report also provides a list of eight simple questions entitled “Before you get started”, which can be employed in many ways, and in many media, but check that you are prepared for the venture before you waste too much time and money on it, or before it comes back to bite you on the bum!

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Satisfaction levels out

February 2, 2010

The latest report from Larry Freed and Foresee Results (January 26, 2010) continues to use the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to benchmark a vast range of US government and agency web sites. The report continues to press the message that a good web site enhances trust, participation and service-delivery savings, which I don’t doubt.

In Larry’s words the argument is (p.20): “Providing a good experience for website visitors clearly has value, so it’s in an agency’s best interest to see where their weaknesses lie and make improvements in order to keep citizens happy. “

Which means one has to get feedback from the users.

My own argument with Foresee and similar approaches is that whilst this is a great start many of the problems lie in process, in the back office, and resolving the channel issues may not get to the heart of the matter, although it may reveal symptoms.

Larry’s conclusiom on the data is that (p.22): “Although satisfaction with federal government sites remains flat this quarter from last quarter, it remains flat at an all-time high. When looking at satisfaction over the past five years, there is clearly an upward trend. This trend can be expected to continued if federal government agencies embrace Obama’s goals to increase transparency, participation, and collaboration through e-government.”

This applies internationally but let’s not forget that the web is essentially an information and service delivery mechanism, and the excluded are always with us.

Leave a Comment » | customer satisfaction, e-government, engagement, Metrics, Systems thinking, transformational change | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Social networking news

February 1, 2010

Or should that be social networking in the news?

For a start, the January 30th edition of The Economist contains a special report on social networking.  The report is available on-line for download at http://www.economist.com/members/survey_paybarrier.cfm?issue=20100130&surveyCode=NA
 
There was also a piece on the same topic in the New Statesman of 1 February 2010 by Will Straw (Where would we be without the nepotism of the political classes?)

Social media is a useful tool for media-whoring amongst  the Twittering classes but can only benefit street-level political organization when those on the receiving end of it also employ their personal skills amongst the digitally excluded (for whatever reason). As I’ve found, it can also have some use as an academic research tool, within the toolkit of traditional approaches.

I’m not aware of any of the local or national politicians I have a particular interest in using social media, and in most cases what they have to say in the conventional media is pretty trite, so where’s the likely benefit? Well, they could try putting out the sort of stories that might get me to trust them once more, such as describing how they’ve made this world a better place by being in the seat of power they occupy. Am I asking too much?

Leave a Comment » | engagement, Social media, transformational change | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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