Is your organisation an Apple or a Google?

Nice post from Steve Rubel, comparing the approach taken by two hugely innovative companies to engaging with their customers:

Google isn’t exactly known as the most transparent company in the world, but they’re light years ahead of Apple – a company that in some ways they share a kinship with when it comes to their reputation for innovation. Apple (or for that matter any big company) can learn a lot about radical transparency, customer service and PR from Google, even though they’re hardly perfect here.

The post is worth reading in full as Rubel analyses some of the good stuff that Google does (open about improvements to their products and lots of blogs) – and compares it to the lack of such activity by Apple.

I dare say that many public sector organisations are behind even Apple in this regard. Would you even want to be as open as Google about this sort of stuff? My view would be yes, but I would imagine that the idea would scare a lot of folk to death!

LGSearch update

LGSearch is something of an anomaly in my ‘portfolio’ of stuff I’ve made in that is actually works and is useful. I built it a couple of years ago while working as Risk Management Officer at a County Council. Essentially, I found it a pain in the neck to find relevant material online using traditional search engines, so I put my own together.

It’s based on Google’s Customised Search service, which requires you to provide a list of sites you want the search to be limited to. What I did originally was find an online list of all local authority sites and plug that in. This way, searching for a term generated results only from local government.

Later I developed things a bit further, adding in a variety of other public sector sites, such as those in central government, police, fire and health authorities and some of the organisations in and around government. Google helps here too: by categorising sites under the headings mentioned, users can then drill down into results by clicking a link to produce results from just, say, central government. Nice one.

The site has been pretty popular, with usage increasing as word gets around. Some councils have even embedded it in their own sites. There is a Google Group set up to manage requests for change, etc, which if you visit it, will show how terrible I am at keeping on top of it. Now I have some more time for this stuff, that will improve. There is also the list of sites searched, which could well be out of date. If you need changes made, email the list or just me.

Anyway, after all that introduction, I have today made a significant change to the site, long overdue, which has included various bits of social media to the search, including a load of blogs. These have all been added under the category of ‘social media’ so if you just want to search these sites, you can. The blogs added are (just pasting URLs as I am lazy):

  • http://whitehallwebby.wordpress.com/
  • http://steve-dale.net/
  • http://tom-watson.co.uk/
  • http://lostconsciousness.wordpress.com/
  • http://davepress.net/
  • http://digital-pioneer.blogspot.com/
  • http://mulqueeny.wordpress.com/
  • http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/
  • http://puffbox.com/
  • http://andrewkbrown.wordpress.com/
  • http://carlhaggerty.wordpress.com/
  • http://ideapolicy.wordpress.com/
  • http://blogblogblog.ws/
  • https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/
  • http://extendedreach.wordpress.com/
  • http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com/
  • http://www.owen.org/blog/
  • http://blog.helpfultechnology.com/
  • http://strategytalk.typepad.com/public_strategy/
  • http://www.futuregovconsultancy.com/
  • http://neilojwilliams.net/missioncreep/
  • http://gallomanor.com/
  • http://civicsurf.org.uk/

Any heinous ommissions, let me know.

Digital dialogues third report

Am very late in writing about this, but am only just getting round to reading the third report produced by the Digital Dialogues project. This bit, from the Guidance and Recommendations section, is very nicely put:

From our research we have identified four conditions that lead to a higher probability of success with online engagement:

  1. Engagement is embedded within the processes and culture of the organisation, it does not just happen as an afterthought or on the periphery.
  2. The choice of engagement tool is driven by the need, not by the technology.
  3. Engagement works when organisations are prepared to listen – risk aversion and a fear of exposing the organisation to the outside are the biggest inhibitors of good listening and, therefore, of successful online engagement.
  4. Reflexivity is vital to success and organisations that are adaptable – able to listen, reflect, learn, respond and change – prove better at engagement.
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