Rules for successful Gov 2.0 collaboration

As government agencies dabble in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it's important that they have a clear strategy to ensure the projects' success. At the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C., Danielle Germain, director of the Collaboration Project at the National Academy of Public Administration shared a methodology she has developed that agencies can use to engage the right people and get the results or information they seek.

The most important rule for Gov 2.0, said Germain, is making sure business needs are driving the process. Agencies should take time to understand which problem they're trying to solve and how input from a larger group of people will benefit decision making. It's also important to be sure that it's a problem within the agency's purview to address, she said.

After the problem is identified, agencies should ask: Who is the community we are trying to engage? Often, those leading social-media projects incorrectly assume they should talk to policy experts or academics, she added.

"What we've found is that when you go out to the front-line stakeholders, what we call the emergent expertise, they're really the group that can help infuse new ideas...they're much more engaged in that problem," said Germain.

Once the information seekers identify what information they need and who they need to ask, they can finally choose the appropriate technology for engaging the audience. Germain explained that the technology is almost secondary to the proper preparation of a Gov 2.0 project. The challenge is not technology, but leadership and project management.

Finally, an agency should consider its value exchange. People value their time, so outreach should be clear as to how their feedback will benefiting policy. It may also be appropriate to incentivize respondents with something like a Starbucks gift card, depending on how much you're asking of a participant.

While it's true that a single person is not as smart as many people working together, agencies should also be realistic about what crowds can and cannot do.

Are crowds deep policy experts? Probably not. Do they know government terminology? Probably not. But they do know a lot about an agency's internal processes and how those affect them, said Germain.

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