The Prime Minister Twitters
I was shocked when I read a UK Publication that mentioned how UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined the social media revolution by becoming the first head of a European government to open an account on Twitter. I might have to revisit my previous comments that Twitter is a fad and does not have main-steam appeal!
I find it really interesting that the UK government has a Cabinet Office minister for transformational government. The minister, Tom Watson, has set up a Whitehall taskforce so ministers can use Web 2.0 for their own ends.
From the article:
In short, the taskforce will look at, and learn from, the way people are communicating with each other online, suggesting popular forums and social networks will be scrutinised. Officials might end up using such sites to advise the communities within – so a network of mums would get near real-time tips from the state on health, welfare or pre-school education.
Wow. A government looking to use social media to enter in, and converse with, its citizens. What a novel idea!
Ever more earth shattering is the comment that “the taskforce will also look at making government-owned data, such as maps, more accessible, so people can create ‘mash ups’ with other available data on the Web”.
Mr Watson who says he was the first blogging MP said that he would put forward draft guidelines on how public servants should use social media next week, with the full guidance due to be published by the Spring.
This is pretty amazing stuff. I thought the U.S. Presidential campaign was pretty cutting edge with the ways that the campaigns have used social media tools, especially YouTube to get their message across. But what the government is doing in the UK from a social media standpoint is much more evolved.
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (7) : Apr 9th, 2008
April 9th, 2008 at 7:15 am
[…] - Social Media Optimization wrote an interesting post today on The Prime Minister TwittersHere’s a quick excerptThe Prime Minister Twitters I was shocked when I read a UK Publication that mentioned how UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined the social media revolution by becoming the first head of a European government to open an account on Twitter. I might have to revisit my previous comments that Twitter is a fad and does not have main-steam appeal! I find it really interesting that the UK government has a Cabinet Office minister for transformational government. The minister, Tom Watson, has set up […]
April 9th, 2008 at 11:58 am
[…] Og en ting til…fikk denne lenken inn via Twitter-brukeren Marius Eriksen for noen sekunder siden: I was shocked when I read a UK Publication that mentioned how UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined the social media revolution by becoming the first head of a European government to open an account on Twitter. […]
April 9th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
It’s interesting although I can’t imagine him using it that much! Twitter is fascinating me at the moment. I’m still not entirely sure how it can effectively be used, targetted or developed in any practical way to extend a network. But I’m trying to use it responsibly but in a way that might be useful to anyone stumbling across one of my twitters, and seeing how it developed. There’s enough discussion out there about its effectiveness, so I’m giving it some time to see how it might develop.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I checked out Brown’s Twitter feed but its very staid and consists mostly of an RSS feed of press releases prefaced with “No10 news:”. I do agree that it shows a change of direction from the usual party line that “the internet is full of evil terrorists and must be censored for the good of the children” parroted by New Labour drones.
A much better use of Web 2.0 by a politician is Nick Clegg’s FriendFeed. Clegg is the leader of the Liberal Democrats (3rd place party over here in the UK with approx 20% of the vote).
His FriendFeed shows that he uses del.icio.us. Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. There’s still very little sign of any personality there though.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Robin, I am battling with the same ideas about Twitter as you are. I just don’t think anyone is really in following what I am doing that closely.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Thanx for the Twitter links Andy, especially Nick Clegg’s one.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Hi,
To see some of what’s going on in the US Government with social media, you might want to check out some of the conferences by the Advanced Learning Institute. I spoke at one of their conferences last year about Social Media in Govt. While the campaigns are really utilizing social media (well, some of them more than others), there are some very interesting things that are being done by different branches like the CIA - Intellipedia (think Wikipedia, but for the Intelligence community), and the CDC.
Here’s a link to the ALI Conferences:
http://www.aliconferences.com/index.htm
Michael Pranikoff