Here’s a new guide to government 2.0, designed to offer success strategies for applying proven social networking principles within the government and military, just in time for the Open Government and Innovations starting tomorrow in DC. I’ll be speaking at the event tomorrow as a panelist in Session 4-1 Openness, Information Sharing, and the Use of New Media in DoD which takes place Tuesday July 21st at 10:15 a.m. Or stop by and see me at the Tomoye booth – #1 on the show floor.
Guide to Government 2.0
Social media and networking web sites, along with successful social learning communities, provide powerful examples of the principles that government and the military can apply to their social learning programs.
Here’s principle #1 – simplicity. The other principles will follow in subsequent posts.
Call this the Google lesson. The popularity of sites like Google and Twitter are based on the simplicity of their interfaces, and a clear path for participation. Even new users can quickly and easily comprehend the steps they need to take. To increase adoption of government 2.0, organizations need to ensure that they practice simplicity and not make things overly complicated. A clean user interface, with a specific path for participation from the first visit engages users instead of intimidating them. Furthermore, it is important to understand that much of simplicity is about layering; you can achieve the same outcome in terms of activity or desired activities by just not showing everything up front.
Excellent point! There has a been a big shift in site design since Web 2.0 content management applications appeared. I’m not sure what’s driving it, but there are way too many sites with everything but the kitchen sink on the entry page.