Did You Know?
–MySpace has 200 million users; if it were a country it would be 5th largest in the world?
–Google boasts 31 Billion searches every month?
–More text messages are sent every day than there are people on planet Earth?

For anyone out there who still thinks they or their organization can keep doing things the same way and not be part of the new Web 2.0 – information-sharing, social-networking phenomenon, take a minute to look at this fascinating video.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a superb webinar hosted by the Young AFCEANS, Bethesda Chapter. Jeffrey Levy, EPA’s Director of Web Communication, provided wonderful insight on how his agency used a mix of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 to promote Earth Day in 2008 and how he’s taking those techniques and elevating them in 2009. He offered some interesting suggestions for how to build traffic and promote the mission of an agency/organization through widgets, podcasts, Flickr photo contests, and viral videos. I’d encourage those interested in more effectively reaching out to the public in cost-effective ways to check out his presentation and attending the next seminar in the YAFCEAN webinar series .

With the upcoming administration changes, it seems safe to predict that we will see a shift in the use of new Web 2.0 social media technologies by the U.S. Federal Government. Much like the Apple/PC commercials, if the Government doesn’t start to embrace, use, and empower their employees to get involved in the social network and media areas, they will start to look more and more like Mr. PC, instead of looking like the younger, hipper, and more knowledgeable Mr. Apple.

Dr. Mark Drapeau points this out very well in his article Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR on the PBS website. Dr. Drapeau explains the issue of the Federal Government embracing this change the following way:

…governments are very different from private corporations…Bureaucracy and entrenched special interests make collaboration between agencies difficult…Constant turnover of elected officials and political appointees as well as year-to-year budget concerns make long-range planning nearly a fantasy.

But the Government will have to change in order to keep up with the industry around it, which is the same industry that supports it. As industry embraces Web 2.0 and starts to encourage more communication to be passed through these technologies, the Government can’t afford to stay behind. Not everyone in Government is behind the Web 2.0 curve. The Coast Guard recently embraced using Facebook to communicate. Collen Graffy, the current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, and Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex) use Twitter to keep people up-to-date on what they are doing.

Dr. Drapeau points out that the Government can use these new social network tools for PR to:

(share information) between agencies; collaborate with outside partners like humanitarian workers; public outreach and crowdsourcing (def. the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call)…engage people in meaningful ways, understand public sentiment, recruit and retain employees, and harness…collective intelligence.

At a time when it is critical for information to flow quickly and for issues to be discussed in a timely manner, it is also time for the Federal Government to think in a new way about communication and to see that, while there may be risk in delivering information quickly over the Web 2.0 space, the positives surely outweigh the negatives when it comes to the results of playing in this brave new world.

A recent article in Washington SmartCEO hit the nail on the head about Twitter and many senior level staffers’ unwillingness to embrace the new media. Laura Van Eperen and Allison Gebhardt in Twitterpated: How You Can Learn to Love Social Media write:

“If you immediately associate the word ‘twitter’ with ‘chatter about trivial matters,’ your vocabulary may be robust, but your knowledge about cutting-edge social media is probably lacking. Ask a 25-year-old young professional about Twitter and he or she will undoubtedly reference the popular social networking Web site that allows users to micro-blog by sending and receiving short text-based information. And so exists the great divide in today’s workplace regarding social media.”

Like many of my generation, I shied away from Twitter since I didn’t understand the concept of “micro-blogging.” Why in the world would anyone want to spend the time to tell strangers what they’re doing at the moment, and what value could these fragments of information hold for others?

But over the last month, I’ve discovered how much value Twitter really can have. It’s amazing how many interesting and relevant bits of information I gain by simply glancing at updates from those I’m following. I learn about great new books, new web sites, and technologies. I get links to important articles relating to my many different interests. I have the opportunity to let people know what Mind & Media is working on, share information that I believe important, promote my blogs, share inspirational quotes, and gain connections quickly that I never thought possible.

Eperen and Gebhardt encourage senior executives to take advantage of their “built-in experts” (the young people in their companies who can give them a tour of Twitter and other social networking tools). And they encourage all of us to join in the conversation since “it is time to stop resisting and start embracing the expanding workplace generation of social media enthusiasts — your [organization's] ‘street cred’ and future bottom line will depend upon this new media marketing evolution.”

Sounds like a good New Year resolution to me! www.twitter.com/Bright_Builder