A group of N. Colorado GIS professionals regularly meet up (about every month or 2) at Loveland City Hall for what's become known as the Northern Colorado [GIS] User Group (NCUG) - se also Twitter hashtag #NCUG. Organized by the Loveland GIS crew and ESRI, Broomfield, Colorado, the group convenes regularly to share and discuss the latest hot topics in GIS and Geospatial technologies. Attendees are typically made up of GIS staff from local area government agencies, utilities, private contractors, and others.
Recently, the group convened and we heard from Brian Sullivan, a local City GIS Manager from the City of Greeley, Colorado (think ESRI award winning enterprise GIS web maps). Brian took center stage at the meet-up not to discuss the city's award winning web map (see http://www.greeleygov.com/GIS/) but rather, he was asked to talk a little about the city's social media activities and plans for using social media for business.
It seems this was a timely presentation as Brian informed us that just prior to his coming to the meet-up that the City of Greeley signed off on their official social media policy. I found this to be an interesting agenda time for this week's meet-up as I'm sure there's many employees at various levels of Government (and in private industry) that are wresting with a similar issue.
I found it interesting that Brian Coleman of ESRI, organizer of the meet-up, was quite surprised and seemingly impressed with the rapid dissemination of information about our local meet-up which was spread via various social media outlets (Twitter tweets and blog mentions to name a few), I also mention the meet-up on a LinkedIn Group for GISusers and a face book page. The rapid word-of-mouth dissemination of information about NCUG was of interest to Coleman... interesting because with Sullivan speaking about the City of Greely's social media policy, the word of mouth and dissemination of City information was instrumental in driving the City's need for a formal policy.
Brian [Coleman of ESRI] seemed surprised that details of a fun contest was circulated from my blog, resulting in some internal discussions between him and other ESRI team members. Indeed, that's the whole point of social media in my mind... Sharing and stimulating discussion. Also of interest, it seemed evident by a show of hands that most attendees of the meet-up were not active with social media (only 2 of us were users) and there were some very common mis-conceptions including the idea that social media is for "kids", or that "I simply don't have the time to do it". These were great points to bring up and in my mind, common, but inaccurate opinions of social media - most users are in their 30s or 40+ and if anything, relatively little time is needed to take advantage of social media; actually I'm sure most avid users will find social media to be a time saver compared to messing with traditional email and other forms of communication. For myself, I use third party tools to schedule tweets, track statistics, browse replies, and even feed RSS feeds to various services - all great time savers that complement my business activities.
And so it was appropriate that the featured speaker of this month's NCUG meet was City of Greeley GIS Manager, Brian Sullivan... very timely as earlier in the day The city of Greeley signed off on their social media policy. Sullivan, who no doubt played a key role in spearheading this policy, noted that discussion really got rolling a few months ago when he returned from the ESRI User Conference where he observed the rampant uptake of social media that was present as the conference (indeed at the UC there was massive Tweeting going on all week long via the #ESRIUC hash tag as well as other notable social activities like Tweet-ups, a social lounge on the hall floor, and loads of blogging and life streaming from the event. Sullivan also noted that about 6 months ago at the City there was a push from a number of departments wanting access to information feeds from various social outlets. Imagine the frustration if you were at the office wanting to watch the ESRI UC unfold via Twitter streams, facebook, YouTube, Qik, and other popular resources, yet were unable to access any of these resources from your desk - this is what employees of the City of Greeley and likely countless other local governments would have faced.
The City of Greeley, like many other local Governments, blocks inside access to many social and information sharing web resources. This reminds me of my own mother who works for a City in BC, Canada... she has no ability to access information from media sites like Flickr or you Tube (as well as others). Quite interesting as these sites are now very common for sharing enterprise information like educational videos (think ESRItv) or even images from the GeoEye satellite on flickr - se also this directory which lists a number of GIS related corporate social media resources http://www.gisuser.com/component/option,com_mtree/task,listcats/cat_id,65/Itemid,174/. Facebook and LinkedIn, for example, hosts a number of professional pages and groups where discussions take place, directories of events are found and jobs or requests for proposals are even posted.
Sullivan then shared details of some of the issues he and other City employees have been facing and described a few key aspects regarding the development of the City's new social media policy. Some interesting points addressed in the social media policy:
Obviously, the main concern of the City in setting out this policy is to address how the City and its employees are represented to the community at large. The policy also addresses the dissemination of city information, badmouthing, personal comments etc.
The policy will be implemented and managed as part of the overall communications and IT policy and strategy
Does not cover the personal use of social media by employees as that is not permitted according to existing policy
Sites considered include: Collaborative sites, social media, micro blogging, online community and other social and media sharing resources. NOTE: the City currently has several social media resources [official] on Twitter, face book, and mySpace.
Creating of new social media sites is started via the submission of a SMART form - social media and related technologies. The form ensures that the city of aware of the creation of the site and of interest, the sponsoring employee must provide details and justification for the creation of the resource... A good idea.
Official sites will not be used for personal use of to convey personal views
The sites are concerned to be a city asset and may be shut down for any breach in policy.
The city then sets out a list of guidelines governing behavior and usage - most of these are "common sense" and take into account logical considerations for business activities.
All of the above are fine points and a great starting point for any local government looking to address the use of social media. Obviously what is key here is that the City is concerned with their image and how official information is distributed to the public. There's no doubt in my mind that City GIS departments will leverage social media greatly in the future, after all the GIS department is charged with gathering and analyzing vast amounts of geographically related information - GIS is the backbone of any city's IT department, their assets, and their infrastructure - social media will be huge when it comes to deciding how information will be pushed out to the public. The following are some of the City's official Social Media accounts:
For any questions regarding The City of Greeley GIS, web map or about their new social media policy I suggest you contact Brian Sullivan with your questions @Taliesn
PS: We'd love to see you at the next NCUG GIS meetup at the City of Loveland!
Additional words from Glenn (@gletham)
The topic is interesting indeed and has brought awareness to myself on a related matter. I recall a while back when I received comments concerning some language that I used in a blog posting. Sure, I thought it was harmless and maybe funny, however, in doing so I did offend someone. In hindsight, now I can see how this could affect someone like Brian or another city employee. Imagine my use of some slang or a profanity in a blog, then if that person is reading my blog at the office and other co-workers notice and perhaps get offended at my use of language. Indeed the blog posting may be just fine for personal reading, however, what about the casual reader at the office... Definitely something to keep in mind - you need to know your audience!
Social media is about sharing, however, some good things can come around as well. Case in point. I don't consider myself to be a social media expert by any means, although I am an avid user and likely best described as a social media evangelist. As an early adopter of the technology and user who likes to think that I have lots to share and contribute, social media is not about me. however, there are some great benefits that result. Recently I was invited to attend a special social location (think LBS+social) in London; I was interviewed for a magazine article; and asked to author an article for a popular industry magazine - all resulting by my participation in social media activities in the GIS/Geo arena.
Social Media activities have enabled me to expand my local business connections, facilitated connections and invites to various social and business events and activities, and helped our business to share content and offerings that many people may not have been aware of - in short, social media has really helped to put our company on the local map!
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