Web 2.0 Summit: feedback summary
- Challenges
- Strategy Suggestions
- Opportunities
- Specific Recommendations (Related to Current Web Site)
- Feedbacks from Web 2.0 Summit
- Summary of Speeches and Panel Discussions
- Raw Data
- External Links
Challenges
- Expectations gaps between what citizens want vs. what City can provide them
- Not everyone on the public is using the same level of technology
- Conflicts between policies and technologies
- There are too many applications and too many websites. It's totally cumbersome, painful, inefficient
- How will Senior Management ensure that Divisions are held accountable in a)actively participating in the web 2.0 deployment (a corporate wide project) and b) not deviating from the strategy and start doing 'their own thing'?
- BLOGS: confidence or faith in the information provided in blogs vs. that provided on official websites, such as government departments, company websites?
- How to convince people to Wiki their knowledge who may justifiably feel that their knowledge set is their value as an employee and are reluctant to share their info for fear that they will devalue their role and risk their future employment?
- Privacy or security concerns in terms of Governments using these new technologies/applications to communicate with Canadians
- Sustain technology speed with man power resources
- Get buy-in from all divisions
- Adoption of these ideas by councillors, SMT
- Consistency and practice
- Develop culture of openness
- Don't duplicate what we have in other phases : management & protocols
- Balance the informality of the medium with corporate policy
- Need to change our relationship with vendors and companies to allow them to develop web applications
- Choose pathfinder specifications that require minimal business developments
- Make sure business drivers are there
- Seamless government access at all levels
- A "common accepted protocol" for exchanging information between decentralized systems
- Cultural shift; multi-channel approach; phased-approach, and keep it simple
- Have official usage policies and guidelines for use of social media by employees
- Serious commitments from the higher body of the government such as the mayor. It is only then employees will be willing to share knowledge and be part of the web 2.0 revolution. The issue is not about technology, it is about collaboration, knowledge sharing and accountability
- Start small. Drive a pilot within the organization, within a unit. Take on a business item and actively lay out how a Wiki (or other tool) will be the space for that item. Test it out with a few eager team members. Find advocates for the technology in the organization who are willing to help the reluctant ones. Make sure the message is consistent, from management to junior staffs. And make it easy to participate (from online message board)
- Enhancing the method of engagement of citizens and fitting it into current decision making processes is a huge opportunity that will require significant re-thinking. Re-thinking the role of the elected official, our procedure by-laws (i.e. methods of notification, time meetings are held, availability of reports) etc., and re-examination of how real decisions are made. Start small. Pilot alternative approaches and methods of engagement. Examine what works and what didn’t and continue to make improvements
Social Networking Tool
- Use social networking tool for aquatic staff to find a replacement and to select a pool location staff wants to work
- New moms groups - can network while caring for their infants
- Use Facebook / MySpace as a channel for promoting citizen engagement through volunteering, e.g. Street Needs Assessments, a volunteer - implemented survey of homeless people, also Nuit Blanche is already on Facebook
- Target youth- Reduce smoking
- Amber Alerts, Smog Advisories via Twitter: Los Angeles Fire Department now enables citizens to receive information about fires and other emergencies through the social -networking technology known as Twitter. And there was an earthquake in the US, where twitter users were the ones who alerted the news media and emergency services (from online message board)
Virtual tool
- Virtual consultations - with focus groups
- Virtual management/town halls
- Virtual tour (second life) for cultural experience: an event such as Nuit Blanche to attract world-wide audiences
- A way to recruit people outside traditional core source of social service providers: attracting potential hirers
- Use it for elections to engage voters, or service levels, policy development
- Tourism: feedbacks from tourists, idea of marketing Toronto (Campaign)
- Consult with citizens/residents on projects @ neighborhood and city scale: such as Waterfront consultation
- Build online community @ the neighborhood level i.e. service development & delivery events, celebrations, etc
Councillor
- Councillor meeting: perhaps can be done by non-government? Public work -up?
- Focus on councillors: help them work with the tools and evolve ways to improve what they do
- Publish the council meeting notes with a TAGGING commentary page function to engage the citizens on the content and voting results of our councillors
- An e-mail subscription and/or RSS feed of all the comments my City Councillor makes at City Hall, in any committees, etc (this is available in the UK) (From online message board)
Internal collaboration
- Staff engagement - cross divisions, policies
- Staff engagement - business process development, re-engineering, policy implementation
- Professional development/employee engagement: facilitate learning/professional development by creating blogs for senior staff
- Better retention of corporate knowledge and expertise (NRCan wiki, for example)
Infrastructure (From online message board)
- Free Wi-Fi access across the city (or at least in hotspots). There are numerous examples of jurisdictions around the world who provide free wi-fi to their citizens
- Convergence with mobile and web2.0: provide access from blackberries to well formatted wiki topics on our internal wiki. Vision is to have managers access evergreen briefings via blackberry anywhere anytime
- Web streaming: Available for all departmental and inter-departmental meetings. This would eliminate the need for employees to travel to meetings
Calendar
- An interactive city calendar with blogs, alerts, meetings, events, communities etc
MyToronto Account
- Interactive tools, my Toronto personalized views, build Facebook tool that allows users to build their own itinerary to city events. E.g... Nuit Blanche build a list of projects you want to visit, create a woe
- Citizens build their own pages: My City
- MyCity, Mytoronto, or MyGov: offer personalized view for users, build their own interface of city services, or take step for the all government services (city, province, Federal )
Poll and Rate
- Poll our citizens - Simple interface to identify their priorities
- Rate your….. (services, communities, etc)
- Polling and creating "expert" groups able to engage as online focus groups to provide feedback on existing services before we roll out new services
- Ad hoc survey of staff reactions / thoughts on various topics
News Subscription & mobile alerts
- Subscribe for mobile alerts /updates
- An e-mail subscription and/or RSS feed of all the comments my City Councillor makes at City Hall, in any committees, etc (this is available in the UK) (From online message board)
- Provide info + solicit comments via text message
- benefits: get immediate public feedbacks
- access without computers
Social Tagging & RSS feeds
- NRCan staff pages - with tags, helps staff to connect to enterprise & resources across massive enterprise
- Project, team, dept specific RSS feeds tied into collaboration space
Info Access
- Put FRED online
- Open up city data: Google maps for resident created mash-ups - arena locations, skating schedules, etc
- Neighbourhood services/Resources, Messaging
- Internal collaboration for back end of 311
Wiki & Blog
- Develop policy papers
- Using wiki environment to develop collaboratively inter-divisional (inter-stakeholders) initiatives. Members could include both service delivers, founders, policy-makers, etc
- Benefits would be the development of initiatives that have greater buy-in, minimize overlap and greater service impacts
- Internal communications - city manager’s blog to employees, city newsletter in blog format
- Small focus group with common interests
- Share knowledge/ideas/solve problems in common service areas
- Best practices for Wikis (Internal)
(Notes: Resources from event attendees, Web 2.0 summit online message board, and twitters)
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