Comments on: Radical transparency in local government – what can you do?

By: Esko Reinikainen

Esko Reinikainen — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 12:13:02 +0000

Thanks Dave, I’ve posted a link to this article on our, erm, yammer I think those of us who make it our business to gain early awareness of the consequences for public services from wider technological and societal shifts have been expecting a wikileaks style manifestation in local gov was in the brewing. It’s a great argument to make internally, given that there is only more of this to come; do we want to create and own (but not spin and control) the platforms for openness in govt, or do we want to wait until they emerge externally? Our use of the yammer tool is precisely for this reason.

By: Justin Partridge

Justin Partridge — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:51:04 +0000

We use Yammer as well – has given people the opportunity to express views in a relatively safe environment – but of course it is not anonymous, so some people will always want to stir trouble on the web at large!

As you say, the answer is not to try and shut down all discussion (the ‘how do we get Facebook to delete this page?’ approach), but to recognise that if there are lots of people saying the same then there is a genuine issue to address, and if there is only a lone voice, then the issue may be genuine, but if it isn’t it will attract little attention anyway.

By: Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 13:06:51 +0000

I feel fortunate to work in a large authority with a big Yammer network, to which our equivalent of Chief Exec contributes alongside the rest of us. I’d love to see more people on it, and would welcome it being used for a bit more challenge and controversy, nevertheless. I actually believe that unless it got spiteful or very personal, we’d handle it well.

That’s not to say that there would never be the risk of some form of whistleblowing outside of Yammer. However, I suspect anyone so minded would be well aware that in any big organisation, there will be a number of voices whose first shout would be of the “close it all down” denial/secrecy/control nature.

I’d fear that something like Yammer might then become an innocent victim in the fall-out, because many of those voices would belong to the very managers yet to embrace social media. They are the ones who fear its power, like they fear most things they cannot control or do not comprehend. They are, of course, also the ones to be justifiably afraid of it for the right reasons too.