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The Ups and Downs of Online EngagementPaul Johnston, IBSG, Cisco

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The Connected Republic 2.0• A whitepaper on Government 2.0 published Sept 2007

• www.theconnectedrepublic .org – a website community for people interested in how the public sector was changing

• A Forum, a group blog, a YouTube account, A delicious account, a SlideShare account, RSS feeds

• Cheap, cheerful and fairly innovative!

• AimsOpen out and enrich our internal discussionsBuild a community of like-minded individualsPromote our ideas (and our brand!)

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What Happened• Very limited uptake from colleagues

• Much more time-consuming than anticipated

• Other things happened (e.g. GovLoop)

• Some good connections were made

• A reasonable amount of traffic was created

• External assessment of site suggested that siloed nature of the many different free tools undermined user experience and that new capabilities (e.g. ability to submit via email) would help make the community more lively

• New investment and new version of the site launched

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What Happened (2)• No increase in colleague involvement

• A small community developed

• We ran out of resources to further develop the site

• We didn’t have the staff time to keep generating the activity (in the absence of spontaneous colleague support)

• Site more or less mothballed

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Conclusions• There are many communities and sites out there, why should

people become active, committed participants in our site?

• It’s not about the look & feel or capabilities, its about the USP!

• There are plenty of good interaction possibilities other than just online communities

• Its hard to combine “push” with community-building

• Third-time lucky?A simple site, offering IBSG content including whitepapers and videos etc but also blog posts from individual IBSG blogs with an RSS and hassle-free ability to comment, Tweetable, Facebook-able etc.Supplemented by one-off activities

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What Happened (3)• Growth has been very slow

• People are astonishingly reluctant to post

• It’s very hard to create group ownership

• Email really helps

• Face-to-face meetings help

• With time and continued effort it will eventually work

• A younger, more vibrant area might have helped!

Thank you.