[kictanet] Public Servants and blogging

Thu Mar 20 16:58:17 EAT 2008

'Technology vs (perceived)Power'...

that's really what blogging for a civil servant in .KE
would boil down to. A typical civil servant (except
ofcourse some enlightened few) would often get overwhelmed
by their immense powers.  Power is often considered to be
an inverse function of 'Reachability'.   Put differently,
the 'Less Reachable' you are, the 'More Powerful' you
presumably become.  

That is why getting Passport/ID Card/Land Registration/etc
used to be a nightmare (Less Reachable) so that you get to
appreciate the 'Power' needed to deliver the service. Now,
we know very well that Blogs, email, and other Web2.0
technologies make you extremely reachable/accessible. And
from the hard-core civil servant perspective that would
'presumably' make you less powerful, disrupting your old
'value-chain'...

Until and unless the wider general civil service snaps out
of this self-inflicted conflict of 'Power vs Service' many
technologies will come and pass by...web1.0, web2.0,
web-whatever...  

So the moral of the story is:-Government is indeed aware of
these technologies, but is there a sufficient and critical
mass of civil servants willing to drop their old and
twisted model of the value-chain? And are they sufficiently
motivated to actively participate in creatively destroying
their the old mentality in order to lay the foundation for
the future? Maybe Not....

walu (probably the 1st civil servant blogger ;-)
http://jwalu.blogspot.com/

--- Harry Hare <harry at africanedevelopment.org> wrote:

> Alkags, 
> 
>  
> 
> I did not follow the link you provided; I just jumped in
> cos this topic is
> too close to my heart. So my apologies if I go on a
> tangent.
> 
>  
> 
> The simple answer to your question is.it would take the
> Head of Civil
> Service to blog. If Boss is blogging, then I as a civil
> servant wants.No,
> must know what he is blogging about. The copy cat
> syndrome may take care of
> the rest. But on a more serious note, the Web 2.0 tools
> have provided a
> platform for collaboration in the enterprise including
> government leading a
> concept which is slowly but steadily gaining ground known
> as Government 2.0
> or as other people prefer, Collaborative Government. This
> is meant to be the
> successor of e-Government and the technologies driving
> this movement include
> blogs, wikis, marsh-ups etc, all the so called social
> networking tools. For
> Gov 2.0 to take off, there must be a paradigm shift in
> the public service
> value chain where these tools can be used for
> consultation and information
> exchange between government and its stakeholders. For
> instance, instead of
> having a zillion workshops to discuss and input into a
> policy document, why
> not create a wiki and get people to contribute? See the
> challenges?
> 
>  
> 
> My take is, Blogs, Wikis etc are about Collaboration at
> the workplace, at
> home etc. And therefore, to get buy in and get people to
> use these tools, we
> have to encourage the spirit of collaboration.
> Unfortunately, collaboration
> is one of the *taboos* in government. Just look around
> you, the number of
> competing projects within government and the lack of
> harmonized planning on
> national projects. According to research by Frost and
> Sullivan, in a study
> conducted in 2006, Government ranked as the least
> collaborative sectors
> while 36% of an organisation's performance is a factor of
> collaboration. So,
> that is the challenge, to instill the spirit of
> collaboration, then provide
> an enabling environment and get the tools known and
> working for us. But,
> lets start small.lets get the Head of Civil Service to
> blog.any ideas?
> 
>  
> 
> Harry 
> 
>  
> 
> African eDevelopment Resource Centre
> 
> 3rd Floor, Nelleon Place
> 
> Raphta Road, Westlands
> 
> PO Box 49475 00100
> 
> Nairobi, Kenya
> 
> Cel +254 725 650044
> 
> Land +254 20 4453445
> 
> www.africanedevelopment.org
> <http://www.africanedevelopment.org/> 
> 
> My Blogg <http://egov-notes.blogspot.com/> 
> 
>  
> 
>
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> From:
>
kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=africanedevelopment.org at lists.kictanet.or.ke]
> On Behalf Of Al Kags
> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:17 PM
> To: harry at africanedevelopment.org
> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> Subject: [kictanet] Public Servants and blogging
> 
>  
> 
>
http://davepress.net/2008/03/10/public-servants-must-blog/
> 
> I just came across the above article and I wonder what
> the thoughts of this
> groups. One would imagine beyond the official policy and
> regulations there
> is a social impediment to public servants blogging. What
> would need to
> happen to get us to a point where we have official public
> blogs?
> 
> I also am reminded of an interesting article (below) by
> the CEO of Sun
> Microsystems that was published in a Havard Business
> Review a while back -
> If you want to Lead, Blog. 
> 
> If You Want to Lead, Blog
> 
> by
>
<http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrol/en/includes/sasearch.jh
> tml?author=Jonathan+Schwartz> Jonathan Schwartz
> 
> Many senior executives at Sun, including me, have blogs
> that can be read by
> anyone, anywhere in the world. We discuss everything from
> business strategy
> to product development to company values. We host open
> letters from the
> outside, and we openly respond to them. We talk about our
> successes-and our
> mistakes. (If you don't believe me, go to
> www.blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=dear_john.)
> 
> That may seem risky. But it's riskier not to have a blog.
> Remember when, not
> long ago, CEOs would ask their assistants to print out
> their e-mails for
> them, and they'd dictate responses to be typewritten and
> sent via snail
> mail? Where are those leaders now? (The last of my
> contacts of that breed
> just retired.) In ten years, most of us will communicate
> directly with
> customers, employees, and the broader business community
> through blogs. For
> executives, having a blog is not going to be a matter of
> choice, any more
> than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the
> conversation, others
> will speak on your behalf-and I'm not talking about your
> employees.
> 
> Blogging lets you participate in communities you want to
> cultivate-whether
> it's your employees, potential employees, customers, or
> anyone else-and
> leverage your corporate culture competitively. Here's a
> good example: Sun,
> like every organization, receives e-mails from happy
> customers lauding one
> employee or another for good work. The idea came up that
> we should post
> these e-mails on a "wall of fame" on our intranet. But we
> realized that this
> venue would profoundly limit the number of readers, so
> someone suggested
> putting the wall of fame up on my external blog.
> Immediately, people raised
> the concern that by identifying our best employees, we'd
> make them
> recruitment targets. Well, of course that could happen.
> But it cuts both
> ways. The upside is the positive ripple effect on
> workers' 
=== message truncated ===>
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