Monday, September 16, 2013

Guest speaker: Jed Sundwall, CEO Measured Voice

Jed Sundwall, CEO and co-founder of MeasuredVoice.com, will join us on September 18 in our #MaxMedia13 class. 

In preparation for our (online) conversation with Mr. Sundwall, please review his blog post: How Todd Gloria Governs with Social media and read the required articles available on Blackboard.

Please leave your questions for Mr. Sundwall as a comment to this update (see comment section below this post).

More information on social media:
- LinkedIn
- Twitter

21 comments:

  1. Greetings!

    I am Milind, course participant of SMPS course. After going through the link mentioned above, one gets more clarity about the possible use of SM in Public Sector. It's all right when the follower base is small and you are addressing limited public. But it must have been very difficult to handle a big follower base. I would like to know if there is any formal organisational structure to handle the Social Media in Public Sector on the similar lines as it is for other sectors of PS like CFO heading the finance department and onwards. There must be some SOPs and protocols for the use of social media in a formal sector like Public Sector, what are these?

    My other query is regarding the emergency situations. It is the time when one needs to be in the fields, acting on as per the situation. Public will expect information through social media at the same time. How to handle social media pressure when one is more required for field operations?

    As I understand, in the beginning Government Organisation is in active mode by informing public, airing success stories and building a sizeable follower base. Later, public comes takes the driving seat by demanding services, showcasing failures and seeking sensible response from the Government. How is public sector going to manage it? What kind of up-gradation will it need for this?

    Social Media is 24X7 and it never goes off. On the other hand public sector is active for particular time only. Responding social media means taking the public sector to 24X7 mode. This is not absolute necessity, moreover it requires additional cost. In this situation what strategy a public sector is expected to adopt to be alive always, without any additional burden? What should be the response strategy of a CEO in handling social media of 24X7 nature?

    Hope to have an enlightening session by Mr. Jed Sundwall in #MaxMedia13 class on 9/18/2013.

    Milind

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  2. After years of experience, the leaders at Measured Voice have undoubtedly built a strong knowledge base concerning implementation of social media strategies in the public sector. At the beginning of their endeavor, however, knowledge in this area was relatively scant. Mr. Sundwall, would you mind commenting on how you and your associates began building that knowledge base? To what extent was the learning process trail-and-error-based as opposed to research-based? Specifically in reference to Measured Voice's participation in the Code for America Accelerator, was training offered primarily from private sector experts? If so, have the private sector experiences translated analogously to the public sector?

    Looking forward to class on Wednesday,
    Jaclyn

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  3. I am Bharat from India, pursuing EMPA at the Maxwell School. I have gone through your blog post on interview with Todd Gloria on using social media in governance. It is really inspiring to see practical usage of social media by a public representative as one of the tools to enhance two - way communication with citizens and obtaining instant feedback, understanding public priorities and using it even for transactional part of the work. It is equally heartening to see that a public representative is bold enough to take negative comments as constructive criticism and is willing to present himself with full authenticity to his constituents. But since the social media is fairly informal, perhaps it requires the citizens to show maturity in their interactions through the social media. How does Todd Gloria tackle this problem?

    This is an initiative taken by Todd Gloria. Would this mechanism be institutionalised and continue even after he is voted out? Doing it yourself is no doubt essential in social media applications, but isn't there a need to have a team to handle this and evolve a system, so that it continues smoothly in future also?

    Measured Voice seems to be doing a good job for capacity building of Government organisations to use social media. Is it a Government supported initiative?

    Looking forward to a good interactive session with Jed Sundwall on 18th.

    Bharat Khera.

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  4. Hi everyone,I am Muhammed Yildiz from Turkey- student of EMIR at the Maxwell School. Todd Gloria’s story is a fascinating example for using of social media as a tool for enabling of participation and collaboration with sharing information, perspectives, task and even resources. No doubt about that social media provide several opportunities for accomplishing of government organizations’ missions.

    But also this process has a variety of managerial threats like identity thefts or social engineering. To deal with these issues, almost all social media guidelines offer us that sharing of personal information should be limited. My question is how can government organizations define which kind of information is necessary or not? And with these limited personal information, how can government organizations differentiate between real individual accounts and fake accounts which can be created just for manipulation of public decision?

    Looking forward to class.

    Muhammed

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  5. (1)How do you separate agency from employees in terms of What guidelines are not? Because agency is functional only through its employees and employees are very much part of the agency.
    (2)How to maintain uniqueness when number of agencies adopting social media is increasing day by day?

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  6. Hi!I am Sihong Yang from China, an MPA student in Maxwell. After going through the readings and the blogs, I have some questions for Mr. Sundwall:

    1) In many governments or organizations, the accounts of social media are run by a specific position or a group of staffs, who has their working hours. However, social media keep running in every minute, there will be things needs to be responded immediately at any time. Do these staffs still have responsibility to these social media activities after their working hours? If not, how to keep an eye on social media activities and give response in time in non-working hours?

    2) How much can a staff running government’s social media account present his own opinion when he represents the organization? If he can only spread out information that has been formally approved without freedom of expressing his own opinion, will the social media account look less human? If he can add in his own opinion, how can ensure the content he speaks perfectly reflect the overall attitude of the whole organization?

    3) In traditional media, most of interactions between government departments or organizations are not showed to the public. In this era of social media, is it better to have more interactions between departments to show the government as a whole, or is it better to have fewer interactions in public and keep departments relatively isolate? If interactions are necessary, what is the difference between the guideline for inter-department interactions and that for government-people interactions?

    Looking forward to Wednesday's class!

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  7. One of the most interesting parts about using social media in a professional capacity is the distinction that should be made between professional and personal social media. However, this boundary is often not acknowledged to the extent that perhaps it should be. Mr. Sundwall, you seem to encourage groups and people to be as authentic in their social media postings as possible.
    What are some of the biggest challenges to striking a balance between sharing enough to be authentic and sharing too much with your audience? Are guidelines then a necessity to presenting yourself or your organization over social media even though they may hamper authenticity?
    Measured Voice seems to focus somewhat on the "voice" of an organization or person. Voice is something very important for public servants to keep in mind, but as we read in the interview with Todd Gloria, there are many other ways for public servants to use social media. How can we adjust "strategic communication" to include aspects of working in a public agency or office? Is there a different strategy?

    I am looking forward to Wednesday's class!

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  8. Questions for Jed Sundwall:
    1. Do you have any suggestions for balancing transparency and forthrightness on social media with strict information security standards? I am an active duty member of the military and sometimes social media opens you up to questions you can't answer. Saying things like "that is classified", dancing around the issue, or giving vague unsatisfying answers can make the whole process counterproductive. It pushes people away rather than opening up dialogue.

    2. Do you have any experience with military or security sector officials who have really embraced social media? If so how effective was it and why?

    3. What social media strategies have you seen implemented to bring back people who might be disenfranchised or put off by an organization? In other words if my organization has a bad reputation and we are making an honest attempt to turn around the culture and make the organization more effective how do we reach out to people and get them involved in the solution on social media?

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  9. Hi!! I am Ritika Bhatia, EMPA student from India. The link provided for an interesting reading as it is a live example of how the role of social media can be expanded to help in governance. I would be interested in knowing that how can one reach the larger populace as in this case the target population is small. In the case of mr. Todd Gloria, he prefers to do all the communication himself. Would it be possible to have the same kind of effective communication for a larger target group? Is there any media strategy for that?
    In the present case, Mr.Gloria shared personal information about him judiciously as the people preferred to know the real him. As a civil servant, what is the right mix of personal and professional information that should be shared?

    One of the

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  10. Questions for Jed Sundwall:
    1) Similar to the previous poster, I'm wondering if Todd Gloria's personal social media strategy would be feasible with a larger constituency (say Governor versus Council member). If not, what would your recommendations be?

    2) It seems Mr. Gloria did not have a strategic approach to social media at the outset and so far it has served him well. Yet, he was an early adopter. What if he was entering the fray now, with many norms/conventions already in place for a given platform?

    3) Who do you think the next mayor of San Diego will be and how would you advise them in terms of a social media strategy?

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  11. Hello,
    I am Vibha, EMPA student and a participant of SMPS course. The interview with Mr. Todd Gloria is an informative reading about how elected public representatives can manage their social media profile. What I could understand from the interview is that Mr. Todd Gloria is managing a personal social media presence for information sharing with public. He is also sharing some personal info occasionally. It gives valuable insights about how people can shed their inhibitions and reticence and start using social media to communicate with the people with whom it is required to share information. My questions would be :
    1. What could be the strategy for a Government Department to use social media for information sharing?
    2. Will it be advisable for head of any Government Department (a bureaucrat) to maintain a personal social media presence as Mr. Todd Gloria is doing? Or alternatively, the Department can have social media presence in official way, but in that condition, the updates will not be as spontaneous and quick, so what could be the best strategy for sharing information with public in such a situation?
    3. Further, if that Government Department is public service oriented, there will be a lot of noise in reverse communication, ie, communication from public. How can one sift meaningful conversation from the noise and handle that noise effectively and constructively?

    Regards,
    Vibha G. Mishra

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  12. Hello there Mr. Sundwall, I do have a couple of questions for you!

    1.) Essentially, the use of Social Media by governments allows us as citizens to have a closer look at the decision making processes. Do you think the rise and growth of social media will have negative implications on traditional offline communication strategies?

    2.) Todd Gloria's use of social media is clearly very idealistic and it may even be that it works so well because he has a small constituency.
    Are there any particular strategy tactics you learned from him that would translate onto a bigger government platform? Would you say that your "Guidelines to Using Social Media Well in Government and Advocacy" are applicable across all agency types and sizes?

    Looking forward to our conversation later today.

    Emily E

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  13. Hello I am Fatma TEMIZ from Turkey and an EMPA student at Maxwell. Mr. Sundwall,

    1)Public sector organizations are more likely to restrict use of personal accounts for sharing work-related information. What do you think about this issue?

    2) Inadequate responses to online activity can contribute to service disruption and low levels of citizen satisfaction. How can Government manage that threat effectively?

    Looking forward to class.

    Best regards,
    Fatma TEMIZ

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  15. Prior to creating Measured Voice, what was your experience with Social Media? How has it evolved since the creation of measured voice, and what are some examples of the ways in which measured voice has impacted organizations in developing their social media strategy?

    As a social media consultant, how would you recommend students utilize social media to stand out to employers. Without an organization for whom we'd represent, it is difficult to view twitter as something to use professionally. How can I best advertise my social media skills while only representing my own thoughts and interests?

    Do you believe that Todd Gloria's use of social media to gage the responses of 150,000 people would be effective for a congressional representative with potentially millions more people to represent? Do you believe that relying upon social media for community engagement and communication limits the audience participation to those who are computer literate?

    Thanks so much for coming to speak with our class,
    -Liz

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  16. Questions for Mr. Sundwall.

    1. Based on Todd Gloria's experience using social media to gather customer's feedback, how do you think an elected official should manage people's expectations, specially when demands can't be satisfied or problems can't be addressed immediately?

    2. In your opinion, to which extend are elected officials using their private accounts responsible or accountable for the statements shared through social media? Could we consider that this content is in some degree binding and/or compromises the institutions they represent?

    3. Social media can be powerful to share personal insights and "humanize" elected officials, but it could also very effective destroying their careers. What can we learn from Todd Gloria in order to find the right balance between safety and "charm" in social media?

    Thanks!

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  17. this is what you say in the article is your personal experience of using the social media for the public cause. But what is the experience of using social media institutionally? in general.

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  18. Use of social media institutionally need some kind of change management. How you did or what is your experiences with the process?

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  19. what kind of legal precaution required to take before you launch social media on government platform? what are systems needs to be placed in for managing the data and frauds?

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  20. Welcome of behalf of whole class and professor. Eagerly waiting for you to be enlightened. Lets have nice sharing for the public causes.

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  21. Hello Mr. Sundwell and welcome to our class. I'm looking forward to your insight today.

    1. How do you differentiate between openness and transparency? Are they or are they not two distinct things?

    2. What are recommendations would you give about keeping your social media followers actively engaged in an online conversation?

    3. Councilmen Gloria's story reminds me of Mayor Cory Booker's style of governing through media. Now that Mayor Booker might potentially become Senator Booker do you think this model will be sustainable if he has to accommodate a larger audience?

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