thinking

At the Political Innovation Camp sessions at Reboot Britain we starting the creation of an 'Interactive Charter' - an open invitation to local authorities, national government departments and other organisations to take practical steps to embrace the use of social media and unlock the opportunities for improved efficiency, engagement, collaboration and accountability.

And we want to draft it in the open.

The Interactive Charter will be made of four parts:
- THE CHARTER - a statement of change;
- THE CASE FOR CHANGE - setting out the foundations on which change should be built;
- DRIVERS - a list of positive forces to work with in creating social media aware organisations;
- BARRIERS - a list of barriers to be overcome;

The Drivers and Barriers are being explored on the Social Strategy wiki.

The Charter and Case for Change are being drafted through Mixed Ink here.

When complete, the Charter will be presented to organisations and actors across the public sector & it will be tabled as an Early Day Motion on the floor of the House of Commons for Members of Parliament to offer their support to.

THE CHARTER

- We will become a social media aware organisation;

- Every part of the organisation will be able to harness the potential of relevant social media to help fulfil their goals;

- Citizens and stake-holders will be able to use social media to engage with our work;

- We will particularly embrace social media approaches that enable us to be: more efficient; more participative; more collaborative; and more accountable;

- We commit to removing the barriers that currently hold back use of social media;

THE CASE FOR CHANGE

We face big social challenges

Many of these challenges are driven by changes in the way we communicate.

- The way we communicate is driven by technology

- Both by communications technologies, and other technologies such as transport

- But the changes are also driven by people

- By the way we respondt to different media, devices and channels

- By the culture that emerges and is created around new forms of communication

- By the choices we make in how to use new communication tools

(Of course, many social challenges are not fundamentally about communication. But communication still had a role in their formation. And it will have a role in overcoming them.)

Social Media = New technologies of communication + New communication behaviours

= New expectations

= New configurations of citizens

= New balance of power

= New actors

= New possibilities

= New challenges

Social Media is part of the answer

(only a part, but a part that cannot be ignored)

Public bodies and voluntary agencies are limited in their current use of social media

- Because of fear

- Because of knowledge gaps

- Because of skills gaps

- Because leaders don't understand it

- Because managers don't understand it

- Because of a lack of technical capacity

- Because of technical barriers and imposed filters or restrictions

- Because policy lags behind practice

The 'barriers' which limit public and voluntary sector use of social media can be overcome

- With a committment to overcome them

- With a 'map' to help co-ordinate action

The Interactive Charter provides a means for that commitment to be made; The 'Social Strategy' toolkit will provide a map for action - supporting organisational change to embrace and effectively use social media.
THE CHARTER

- We want our representatives to be able to have conversations with as many citizens and customers as want to have conversations with us

- Because we believe that this will help us innovate and address the challenges our communities face

So

- We will become a social media aware organisation;

- Every part of the organisation will be able to harness the potential of relevant social media to help fulfil their goals;

- Citizens and stake-holders will be able to use social media to engage with our work;

- We will particularly embrace social media approaches that enable us to be: more efficient; more participative; more collaborative; and more accountable;

To make this possible,

- We commit to removing the barriers that currently hold back use of social media;

- We pledge to not try to control the conversations about us, and to receive more mossages than we transmit

THE CHARTER

- As an organisation, we will recognise the power of social media and embrace social media approaches where they enable us to be more efficient, to collaborate better, to involve more people in our work and to be more accountable;

- We will ensure that every part of our organisation is able to harness the potential of social media to help fulfil its goals;

- We will ensure that citizens and other stake-holders will be able to use social media to engage with our work;

- We will remove the barriers that currently hold back use of social media;

THE CASE FOR CHANGE

We face big social challenges, but we can meet them if we find better ways of working together. A key part of this is moving away from the closed collaboration of the past to more open forms of collaboration. These forms of collaboration involve greater transparency and greater participation. Instead of having rigidly-defined roles and structures that limit who can contribute, the use of social media enables a wide-range of people to contribute with contributions reflecting interest and expertise rather than institutionally-defined status.

Adopting this kind of approach is not a magic solution and the most appropriate strategies to adopt will depend on the specific context. It is also true that we are only starting to learn how best to apply these kinds of approaches. Nonetheless they have huge potential, since rather than letting a limited number of people contribute in role-constrained ways, they allow each individual to contribute to the full extent of their ability and experiences.