Communications

Is social media a good platform for political debate?

Image by Premshree Pillai via Flickr With a great deal of fascination I watched, and lightly participated in, a Twitter-driven debate between many of the mayoral candidates in Calgary. The event, called Twibate Tuesday, brought together most of the candidates into a virtual room (Twitter) where roughly every ten minutes a new question was askedRead… Read more »

If You Won’t Vote, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post. Memo to all progressives, activists, eco-warriors and Lefty paradigm shifters: I get it, I get it. Obama is a wimp. The Senate is completely dysfunctional, and your congressperson isn’t doing nearly enough. Right. Check. Now get over yourselves and vote. I agree that the stimulus billRead… Read more »

Disqusing foreign policy

We’ve been playing around with commenting functionality on the Foreign Office blogs for much of the summer – trying out our old system (which, oddly, asked you to perform basic maths before commenting), with Facebook Connect and with another proprietary system. In the end, we’ve plumped for none of them – and all of them.Read… Read more »

Do you need a social media strategy?

I alway enjoy reading Bill Ives posts on the FASTforward blog and today is no different. He asks the simple question, Is Social Media Tactical or Strategic?, and points to a post from a month ago about Social Media Strategy usage. The poll asked a very simple question to the readers, Does your company haveRead… Read more »

A world where DVRs and social media collide

I didn’t want to know. I was behind on watching “America’s Got Talent”, but I had faithfully DVRed each episode. And then I went on Twitter last night… and that was my downfall. There it was… a tweet from TheDailyBlonde that simply read… “America’s Got Talent Winner Michael Grimm” followed by a link. I didn’tRead… Read more »

How disillusioned are people with Gov 2.0?

Engagement Enhanced democracy Citizen 2.0 Gov 2.0 Public service 2.0 Parliamentary reform APS Reform Innovation Culture change Participation Openness Parliamentary reform Social media Web 2.0 Web 3.0 Do you feel besieged by buzz words? Does the action match the rhetoric? Is there a big mismatch between those who are passionate about the possibilities the useRead… Read more »

A friend, of a friend, of a friend

This is a post originally appeared at http://nusum.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend/ I was part of an interesting information chain the other day and wanted to share it. No surprise to those of you that know me, I was walking the dogs and received an email on my phone from a colleague who was looking for a freelance contractorRead… Read more »

An Avatar Picture Worth 1,000 Friends

Do default avatar pictures bother you, or you still shrinking back from showing the world your pearly whites or using an agency logo on a consumer-oriented social media site? It’s often surprising how many new social media users fail to update their generic avatars when starting out. And failing to do so is likely toRead… Read more »

Local Government Hiring: Interview with HR at City of Eden Prairie, MN

Interview with Karen Kurt, Human Resources Manager, City of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Eden Prairie was just ranked number 1 on MONEY magazine’s 2010 list of the 100 “Best Places to Live” in America. 1. I know local governments have been hit hard by the recession. How has hiring been reduced? Have there been layoffs orRead… Read more »