NMC:

To begin and for the benefit of some of us who may not be familiar with the terminology, could you give a brief explanation of Web 2.0 and Social Media.

JB:

Web 2.0 is a term that generally refers to a shift of the internet from a publishing environment to a participation platform. Web 2.0 tools are very lightweight, relatively easy to use and typically free for people to access and use.

Social media tools are things like blogs, wikis, and social networks. Examples are Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and Wikipedia. A key characteristic of social media tools is that they let people share information and media. Using “tags” (or keywords), others can discover the information and then coalesce around the ideas, the knowledge and create communities of interest.

Value is created when knowledge is shared and improved by these self-informed communities. This is the notion of “We is smarter than me”.

NMC:

You say, "Web 2.0 will change the way you work." How will it do that?

JB:

It’s about how we get work done – providing platforms in the workplace to collaborate to be as efficient and effective as we can. We have provided guidance for acceptable use and are looking at ways to work more effectively together through initiatives like GCPEDIA, the GC-wide wiki – sharing and finding people and knowledge faster and easier across regional and departmental boundaries.

The idea is to provide a common place to share widely and help like-minded experts find each other to work on things like policy consultations, projects, interdepartmental communities (like the NMC) and other communities of practice.

NMC:

How does the Government's social media initiative support Public Service Renewal? 

JB:

This initiative is very much about Public Service Renewal and it is aimed at all employees, not just new professionals. The use of social media is much more about an attitude than an age – one that is very much in demand to helping simplify a very large and complex organization like the Government of Canada.

From a recruitment point of view, young people today are very adept with these tools and see them as standard communications tools for building communities and knowledge, so this helps the Government of Canada be a brand of choice.

Retention involves both keeping new employees (by empowering them to connect with professional communities in the workplace) and retaining corporate knowledge. The invaluable knowledge that public servants with 20 or 30 years of experience to share can more easily be found through an open collaboration environment than in their email – especially when they retire from the Public Service.

NMC:

For many people, this represents quite a culture change. Do you think technology is driving the change?

JB:

I don’t think that change can occur these days without technology tools to support and enable the change, but they need to go hand in hand. Social media tools and the open culture of Web 2.0 provide the opportunity for a more inclusive collaborative culture that can help people work more effectively together and find needed information faster.

But any change, especially culture change, is not about technology. It needs champions at all levels that have a common, well communicated and persistent vision, in order to succeed.

NMC:

What impact do you think these changes might have on managers in the public service?

JB:

For managers, we need to learn where the new balance should be between providing leadership and focusing the work versus empowering people to work together through communities of interest using wikis, blogs and professional networking tools.