Some insights on how San Francisco is going Social

I spent some time chatting with Adriel Hampton about the ins and outs of Social Media and Government 2.0.  Adriel is in a great position to speak on the topic, being heavily involved from several angles, as part of his work in the San Francisco’s Attorney’s Office, in his past bid for a seat in the US Congress, and in his role producing and hosting the Gov 2.0 Podcast series.  You can read more about Adriel’s experience, if interested, by checking out his blog.

Government 2.0, in my opinion, is all about engagement and transparency, providing citizens with a clear picture of what is happening within their government and seeking to get citizens engaged in co-creating, co-governing.  As I tweeted today, Engagement + Transparency = Government 2.0. 

Adriel notes that he sees a lot of politicians, campaigns, and agencies, using social media as a pure push technology, delivering one-sided conversation.    Many people are starting out this way, treating twitter, Facebook, and other social channels similar to how they have always used e-mail, radio ads, TV.    When I asked who was ”doing social well”, who is engaging and going above and beyond, here is what Adriel said:

• The Massachusetts Governor’s office, @MassGovernor.  I have reached out to the account today, will share with you more about their level of engagement as I chat with them.
• Martha Coakley’s office has been a model that has been followed.
• Sarah Bourne (CIO in Massachusetts) has been another model followed.  I have to 100% agree  this one, Sarah is fantastic.
• SF Deputy Director of Public Works is also doing a great job, as are many of the agencies in San Francisco.
• Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of San Francisco.

San Francisco is doing a great job of sharing data, pushing social campaigns, working to get citizen engagement to ever higher levels.  In fact, Adriel is providing training session focused on getting people engaged on social channels.  This effort, which he calls Citizens 2.0 training, focuses first on those individuals that are already involved with politics but not yet involved on the social front.  He works with them to give them the training they need to bring this passion to the broader social networks.  I am really interested in seeing how this works out, especially if he is able to go a level deeper working with the less politically involved.

So, how did the Attorney’s office get started?  First, Adriel had to convince his bosses to go social, that there was value from doing so.   They initially started out using social channels as an additional broadcast tool, pushing out their press releases, blog posts with details about what is going on in their offices.  Much like the State of Washington is doing in their Department of Transportation, they are working to get the story out, the full story, good or bad.  They have done a really good job of building an online press room with media kits for their big cases.  While the newspapers can typically only write a small amount about any given case, they use they use their presence to push out much more detailed information, enabling people to get the full story.  This gives individuals, businesses, agencies, a chance to be their own press.

Other things I like about their efforts:

• On their twitter account they clearly identify all of the people involved with the account.
• They typically initial responses so that you can see who has responded.  I have seen many more accounts following this practice, including @MassGovernor, @JetBlue, @MidwestAirLines, and others.
• They are posting regularly.  As I have noted before, and others have as well, content is king.  Keep providing fresh information on a regular basis, otherwise people will not be there to listen.

Do you have questions for Adriel?  Feel free to leave him a comment.

John (aka The Social Anti-Guru)

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