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Martin Hofmann

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Civil Tweets

Civil Tweets

by Martin · Feb 18, 2012

Ottawa’s lengthy social media rulebook for civil servants may be counter to the spirit of Web 2.0, but at least it’s a start

BY MARTIN HOFMANN

[A version of this article appeared in the print edition of Marketing Magazine on January 16, 2012]

Jesus has been on Twitter since December 2009 and his earthly father Joseph of Nazareth joined this holiday season to narrate the entire Nativity story through 140 characters in German and English. Clearly, if you’re associated with heavenly power, you can tweet pretty much what you like. Yet it’s not so simple for mortals in the service of that other, more earthly power: the Canadian federal government. And so it was that Ottawa recently published its first overarching “guideline for external use of Web 2.0“.

Before government workers can interact through social networks and collaboration tools, they have a lot of reading to do. The federal guideline is 12,000 words long. That’s roughly four times the size of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If someone were to tweet the document in its entirety, it would take 570 tweets or more. And that’s not including the Policy Framework for Information and Technology and the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, which, the guideline says, should be read in conjunction.

One of the guideline’s key points is that “governance of Web 2.0 initiatives should be clear, succinct and well communicated.” Apparently, the guideline doesn’t have to adhere to its own principles. The document makes readers yearn for the early, simpler days of social media, when organizations like Microsoft informally steered employee bloggers with three simple words: “Don’t be stupid“.

It’s not just the document’s length that’s attracted attention, however. Gartner analyst Andrea Di Maio was quick to criticize it for being “all about obligations and risks”, noting that “there is nothing about how to encourage, assess [and] reward the use of web 2.0 tools to improve individual contributions to department’s outcomes.”

The guideline does indeed aim to cover every possible consideration, from accessibility and official languages to privacy, procurement and security. But it tries to make clear that it was written primarily to empower government departments, not employees. So there’s hope for Microsoft-style CliffsNotes versions of the thing, which will help Ottawa’s civil servants put social media to good use. And it encourages the principle that “personnel are trusted in their use of Web 2.0 tools and services just as they are trusted in every other aspect of their work.”

Di Maio also thinks the guideline doesn’t go far enough down to the individual level. That’s true, but there’s an even bigger miss. In recent years we’ve seen growing political will to empower government through social media, and this is entirely absent from the document. South of the border, President Obama has been reaching out directly to Americans through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for years. His online presence has become so strong that some reporters in the White House press corps have voiced concerns that they are being turned into a sideshow.

In 2009 Obama also directed his government departments and agencies to establish “a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration,” which has resulted in a multitude of initiatives, many of the integrating social media. In Canada, federal Treasury Board minister Tony Clement just ordered the overhaul of government websites to include some social media functionality (the guideline page could have been a good starting point). In general, however, Canadian political leaders have yet to catch up with a powerful, overarching approach comparable to the United States.

Lengthy as it is, the new Web 2.0 guideline is as an encouraging sign that slowly but surely, social media will creep into the Canadian public sector. They may not have the leeway of Jesus or Joseph, but until change is driven in full force from the top, here’s hoping that some of Ottawa’s public servants accept the guideline as fine print on a ticket that gives access to meaningful engagement with Canadians.

Martin Hofmann (@martinhofmann) has worked in the public sector and agency world in Europe and North America. He currently is senior VP, social and digital, at Veritas Communications.

Filed Under: Canada, English, Featured, Ongoing, Public Sector

Fotos vom Urlaub in Polen

by Martin · Jul 9, 2011

Lori und ich waren fuer eine Woche an der baltischen Kueste in Polen. Hier sind einige Fotos von der Kueste und aus dem Umland. Noch mehr Fotos vom Urlaub befinden sich hier.

Filed Under: Deutsch, Featured

Tiere in Costa Rica

by Martin · Mar 5, 2010

Lori und ich sind gestern aus Costa Rica zurueckgekommen. Hier sind ein paar Fotos von Voegeln, Schmetterlingen und Tieren, die ich auf unseren Ausfluegen in den Regenwald und in Naturschutzgebiete gemacht habe. Meine ersten Fotos mit einer Digital SLR Kamera und einem kleinen Teleobjektiv.

Filed Under: Deutsch, Featured

Urlaub in Neufundland

by Martin · Sep 6, 2009

Filed Under: Deutsch, Featured

Quick thoughts on innovation

by Martin · Jul 28, 2009

When you are in technology PR for a long time, you can’t help but feel a little jaded about the usage of ‘innovation’. New feature? Innovation. New function? Innovation. Slight upgrade? Innovation. A little faster? Innovation. It’s easy to slap it on anything that moves in the technology world, and it is done too often.

But what exactly does innovation mean?

The standard Merriam-Webster defines it as “the introduction of something new” or “a new method, idea, or device.” The web, of course is full of contextual definitions: some say innovation has to lead to “tangible societal impact” while others believe it simply captures “the ability to deliver new value to a customer.”

The discussion history behind the Wikipedia page on innovation is an example of the challenge to reconcile different interpretations. And Bruce Nussbaum started a good debate by suggesting that “‘Innovation’ died in 2008, killed off by overuse, misuse, narrowness, incrementalism and failure to evolve.” If one thing is clear, it is that innovation means different things to different people.

In preparation for a brainstorm session, I read a few articles and online discussions about innovation. But I also wanted to get a feel for its everyday perception: “What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear ‘innovation’?” I threw this question out there through email, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and was happy to get more than 100 answers, which I put in the video above.

Now, the video is a collection of anecdotal thoughts, not an attempt at a definition. I just wanted to know the first thought that people had when hearing ‘innovation.’ People who responded are either people I know or colleagues/friends/family of people I know – with all sorts of backgrounds. It’s a quick, subjective litmus test on the perception of the word, and I was mostly wondering how many people would react negatively to it. It also turned out to be a nice visual kick-off for the brainstorm session with a client.

I was amazed by all the great, fast responses I received, and actually encouraged that the majority was positive or neutral. This should be an incentive to keep filling innovation with meaning – not just with verbiage – especially in a business context. I also found it interesting that a number of people included in their answers that innovation does not necessarily have to be something altogether new. Does an idea need to be original to be called innovative, or at what point can an improvement on something existing be called an innovation?

Scott Berkun’s perspective is that innovation is always relative : “[…] the trick to innovation is to widen your perspective on what qualifies as new. As long as your idea, or your use of an existing idea, is new to the person you are creating it for, or applies an existing concept in a new way, you qualify as an innovator from their point of view, and that’s all that matters.”

That approach is quite broad. But when push comes to shove, I’d say benefit trumps originality. If something has had a positive impact for a group of people, it may be okay to call it innovation, even if it turns out that the concept – in a slightly different form – has been around elsewhere. And one man’s innovation may be another man’s incrementalism. But it is important that the outcome of “innovation” is actually meaningful to people beyond the one coming up with the idea (or the description).

As one of the respondents to my question put it: “something others say about you rather than what you say about yourself.”

Here are links to websites and blogs about innovation:

BusinessWeek Innovation & Design
BusinessWeek: The most innovative companies 2009
McKinsey What Matters: Innovation
Business Strategy Innovation
Scott Berkun’s essay: How to innovate right now
Scott Anthony – Innovation Insights Blog
Scott Anthony – What makes a company “The World’s most innovative”?
Knowledge@Wharton: Innovation and Entrepreneurship
USC Stevens Institute for Innovation

[cross-posted from highroad.com/blog]

Filed Under: English, Featured, Innovation

Surprise trip to Germany

Surprise trip to Germany

by Martin · Jun 8, 2009

Lori “conspired” with my colleagues to send me on a surprise birthday trip to Germany. In “Amazing Race” style, I followed instructions from 16 envelopes that took me to different places in Germany, where friends and family had prepared different surprises for me. It was such an awesome week, and I am so lucky to have such amazing colleagues, friends and family. Oh, and Lori is the best wife ever!

Here are some photos from my week in Germany. Click on the thumbnails for the Flickr galleries.

photos from my days in berlin
Berlin

photos from my days in dormagen
Dormagen

photos from my day in bonn
Bonn

photo from my day in cologne
Koeln

photos from my days in reutlingen
Reutlingen

Filed Under: English, Featured, Photos

Road Trippin’ for Research

Road Trippin’ for Research

by Martin · Apr 29, 2008

Stephen Rouse over at IGLOO gave me a heads up on a new blog that tries to explore the “differences and similarities between US and European startup success stories”. Created by three German PhD students who currently travel through the United States, Ventureroadtrip.com profiles entrepreneurs and investors in short video clips.

ventureroadtrip.com

Ralf Schmelter, Carsten Ruebsaamen and René Mauer use the blog to capture some of the impressions from their research trip. For now they mostly seem to focus on short video profiles of startup companies. Once the research phase is over, I hope they will also share some of their insights and observations on emerging patterns/trends with us.

Ralf, Carsten and René are still looking for more entrepreneurs to participate in their research. For anyone who is interested, head over to Ventureroadtrip.com to get in touch with them.

Filed Under: English, Featured, Technology

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