CHAPTER 13 ________________________________
Webcentricity and Five Challenges for Public Management

Social networking is gaining more attention, thanks to an ever-expanding array of fascinating and useful applications. We seem to have moved from the information age to the interactive or connected age in relatively short order, in spite of any perceived disadvantages of being constantly connected. It was one thing to have our electronic gadgets and devices always on, but it did not take long for many of us to find ourselves increasingly “always on” too. Emails and text messages beg for immediate responses. This chips away at the traditional 9-to-5 workday, weekends-away-from-work mentality. More often than not, work is intertwined into our daily lives 24/7, just like our devices.

Public managers are challenged as never before to expose themselves to an uncertain yet demanding public. The challenge ahead is not only to figure out how best to embrace the new webcentricity in one’s personal life, but also to figure out the enormous power, pitfalls, and possibilities of webcentricity that can be integrated into professional life. For government applications, much time must be devoted to planning as well as experimentation, exploration, and careful navigation. What follows are five webcentric trends that public managers simply cannot ignore.

The Pocket Computer/Phone

In 2007, Apple Computer dazzled the world with its iPhone. Not only did the phone have hundreds of clever and functional features, it was the first successful foray into the cell phone market by a computer manufacturer. The iPhone’s features raised the bar for all technology manufacturers, but now most other computer manufacturers are rushing to develop new and better smartphones in an attempt to outperform the iPhone.

Meanwhile, the projected growth rate of smartphone users is staggering, and the explosion of new interactive applications continues. Many people expected that the smartphone and the computer would converge—it was only a matter of time—but it’s occurring more quickly than anyone imagined. A trip to the online Apple store reveals thousands of new and dynamic applications, many of which are free or inexpensive, but few have anything to do with actually making or receiving telephone calls. Cell phones (and laptops, notebooks, and netbooks) have morphed into computers, and computers have morphed into cell phones. These devices merge voice, data, and video, allowing people around the world to see and hear things instantly and differently.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 62 percent of all Americans use wireless, mobile devices. A growing number of citizens now read news on a small screen, be it handheld or computer. No wonder print newspapers and magazines are struggling and going out of business in record numbers, as advertisers go where the customers are. The millennial generation gets most, if not all, of its news from handheld devices or computers. Many millennials do not own landline phones. They use cell phones instead of wristwatches and alarm clocks. They use handhelds or laptops to watch “traditional” TV programs, movies, and videos and have little need for an actual TV.

For everyone serving in the field of public administration, there is no escaping the changes in technology and how they are being embraced and adopted by citizens. Public managers must examine how people are processing news and information in this new connected society.

Each age grouping appears to process information differently, but people of all ages are moving rapidly into cyberspace, even if only to send email or get directions. (Seventy-eight percent of adults over 64 years old use the Internet primarily for sending and receiving emails.) According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, some 55 percent of all adult Americans now have a high-speed Internet connection at home, and nearly one-third of broadband users pay more to get faster connections. Pew also reports that 75 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have a presence on a social networking site, as do 57 percent of adults 25 to 34 years old and 19 percent of 45- to 54-year-olds. Social networking’s popularity is growing among all age groups. In this connected society, we must take into account a new paradigm for managing public expectations.

Transparency and Citizen Engagement

President Barack Obama, the nation’s first technology president, ran for the nation’s highest office on a platform of changing government by making it more open and transparent, while encouraging greater citizen engagement and empowerment, mostly through web-based technology. One of his first initiatives was to ask all federal agencies to establish procedures to carry out this new mandate. The Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 requires each of the 50 states to post information on its website showing how funds are being spent and to solicit and share citizen feedback. States are also required to update their sites with spending progress reports on a regular basis.

Many state and local governments are also changing how they disclose information and encourage participation. However, not all public managers and elected leaders have warmly embraced such initiatives. Many think that these initiatives will expose what some citizens may consider wasteful spending and bloated bureaucratic organizations.

On the other hand, many enlightened public managers believe transparency and citizen engagement will strengthen their relationships with citizens and residents. They know what when knowledge is used properly, citizens benefit.

Web 2.0 to 3.0: The Social Networking Phenomenon

The terms Web 2.0 and 3.0 refer to the new kinds of applications and opportunities available online. Web 2.0 generally connotes web-based applications such as second-generation social networking sites, wikis, new communication tools, collaborative or social tagging, intelligent interfaces with mobile Internet devices and cameras, blogs, and text messaging. Web 3.0 describes the evolution of the “intelligent web,” where we will find micro-formats, natural language search capability, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies.

The 3.0 web browser will be far more intuitive; it will know what people most often like to do or search for—and so much more. Moreover, because the same technology will be available on mobile devices, futuristic scenes in movies such as Mission Impossible, in which actor Tom Cruise walks through a shopping area as hidden biometric scanning identifies him and every store he passes offers him deals by name and preference, will not seem so far-fetched.

Twitter

Twitter, an incredibly fast-growing social networking site that boasts 200 million unique users as of this writing, has become the nation’s “chat box” for everyone from rock stars to sports and news junkies—and even governments. Users can update their Twitter accounts from computers or mobile devices—anywhere there is a broadband connection. In what some refer to as microblogging, people “tweet” snippets from their everyday lives. At the same time, local governments are offering real-time notifications of crimes being committed, fires and other emergencies, road work and accidents, and weather alerts, as well as notices about meetings and other events. Local governments also are encouraging citizens to report happenings via Twitter.

One of a growing number of social networking utilities linking people with common interests, blogs—informal online journals—also are used as a tool for expressing feelings, voicing opinions, or sharing a political point of view. Blog entries can include videos or photos.

YouTube

YouTube has become the nation’s repository for home and professional short videos. Thousands of new videos are posted every hour, 24 hours a day. Less well known are contributions from numerous federal, state, and local agencies, which include informational videos about health alerts and issues, transportation, training, recruiting, and local attractions; messages from elected leaders; and tutorials.

The ability to share visual media can be very empowering. At least one enterprising politician encourages his citizens to post videos or still pictures of problems, such as potholes, broken streetlights, or improperly picked-up trash, that they used to write or call about. Meanwhile, the ubiquity of digital cameras and cell phone or smartphone cameras has even helped citizens act as eyewitnesses to crime. Perhaps technology has taken the old neighborhood watch concept to a new level.

Governmental Social Networking Sites

Federal, state, and local governments are experimenting with many other social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. GovLoop.com, a social networking site for government leaders at all levels, boasts over 10,000 users; 80 percent of that growth occurred in one year. A highly resourceful group called MuniGov2.0 (https://sites.google.com/site/mu-nigov20) has over 400 members (membership is free) who meet regularly (virtually, of course) to explore how Web 2.0 can be used to improve citizen services and communication. And, through the popular virtual world website Second Life, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) offers an amazing application: two virtual islands that students (and adults) can visit to experience what NOAA does in a highly experiential and interactive way. In addition to participating in the social networking trend, major universities are offering online classes, cities and counties are creating virtual experiences to reach out to citizens, and federal agencies have storefronts for recruiting specialized staff.

The Dangers of Social Viral Media

The immediacy of the online world creates both pitfalls and opportunities. During the swine flu pandemic scare in 2009, one information-gathering group counted 10,000 Twitter “tweets” on the topic per hour. Most of these were anecdotal observations, opinions, and downright false information. Online, information and media are frequently wrong. Public administrators are facing a new challenge: monitoring what is being said and broadcast throughout a community—or the entire connected world! Falsely screaming “fire” in one country could start a digital stampede elsewhere.

Not too long ago, a clever marketer posted three low-cost videos on You-Tube that showed young people popping popcorn just by placing a few cell phones in front of a handful of corn kernels. When the phones rang, the popcorn exploded. The young actors appeared genuinely stunned. The not-so-subliminal message was that if cell phones could generate enough radiation to heat a kernel of corn, just think what that radiation could be doing to your brain each time you hold a cell phone to your ear. More than 30 million people across the globe were baffled by the videos. They were part of a marketing hoax that was perpetuated for many days before the plot and strategy were exposed. The marketer gained millions of dollars worth of free advertising for Bluetooth headsets, which enable the use of cell phones without having to hold the phone to the ear. This serves as a prime example of how viral messages or video can spin almost out of control into a very believing universe.

The Immediacy of Video

Budget woes always bring about innovations intended to save money. However, even before the recession that began in late 2007, advances in technology were making peer-to-peer videoconferencing a preferred method for instant meetings. High-definition (HD) video and sound can almost make it seem as if people in disparate locations are all in the same room. The next generation of video cameras will be smaller, lighter, and more powerful in every way. New still cameras can take HD video and can easily be connected to the Internet and big-screen TVs. These cameras will enable even more peer-to-peer and group-to-group communications. And the new easy-to-use video processor programs allow almost anyone to produce movies.

What are the implications of high-quality video for government? Public safety communication officers are beginning to think about new training for their dispatchers, who will soon be able to see emergencies from the field in real time and in HD. They are concerned that many dispatchers may be unprepared for the potential shock of seeing blood and trauma in ways that could be disturbing, shocking, and far more stressful than answering emergency telephone calls.

Meanwhile, the news media is encouraging ordinary people to be citizen reporters by taking and uploading video of news events. Often the first people to arrive at a scene are amateurs clicking and posting away long before anyone from the media arrives. Clearly, this increase in “unplanned” transparency will create new demands (and opportunities for teachable moments) to which the public sector will need to respond.

Managing E-Connectivity

Government leaders are realizing that the idea of “e-government” is being replaced by the reality of our connected society—e-connectivity. Among other challenges, governments must recognize that the new social networking technologies put their technology infrastructure at greater risk for malicious attacks and breaches in security than ever before. Despite these concerns, thousands of local, state, and federal enterprises are already experimenting with social networks and Web 2.0 applications. While all the focus thus far has been on the exciting uses of the new technologies, the challenge of e-connectivity is in determining the best way to manage it—and who should manage it. Governmental organizations should ask the following questions regarding policies and procedures:

• What is the jurisdiction’s policy on social networking sites and applications?

• Who determines which websites and applications may be used? What criteria are used to make this determination?

• What safeguards, including policy, enforcement, and hardware, are in place to ensure the highest level of network infrastructure security from all possible malicious threats and intrusions?

• What processes and procedures are in place to monitor sites to which the public may contribute?

• What processes and procedures are in place to thwart the spread of false or harmful information? In other words, how will the organization respond to misinformation—which in a worst-case scenario could lead to a panic or other crisis?

• Moving forward, what will be the role of public-access cable channels? How can public-access television measure up when so many citizens are using web-based technologies?

• Who is in charge? Are today’s web managers equipped with the necessary people skills, training, and management skills to coordinate multiple web-based communication platforms?

• How does e-connectivity fit in with a local, state, or federal agency’s mission?

• Who will be the senior person to coordinate all online communications?

• How will success or failure be measured? Each organization should have a set of metrics that can be used to periodically assess the performance of, and satisfaction with, online programs and services.

• How do the organization’s new social media policies affect records retention requirements and other existing policies and procedures? Our world continues to become more web-centric as new kinds of online technologies are developed. It is very exciting to watch this growth, but governments at all levels desperately need to do more than just casually observe the changes. Citizens will expect nothing less.