The Weird Uncle, Twitter, and our Government.
Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 7:42AM You know that weird uncle on your dad's side that makes the whole room feel awkward at the annual family gathering? You're not sure if you should feel sorry for him, be scared of him, mock or tolerate him. One thing is for sure, you won't let your kids near him. When Weird Uncle is in the room, a fog of social awkwardness is apparent to everyone but him.
Thats kind of how I feel about the current Alberta Government, and the execution of its Social Media strategy.
Joining Twitter is like walking into a huge party, buzzing with many different types of conversations, people from all walks of life. The difference between the physical world and the virtual world of Twitter, is that anyone can get into the party. As much as they might prefer the old-world command and control type party where you can have a bouncer screening who gets in; this is the coolest party in town and your ticket is worth the exact same as the bus driver who works the midnight shift, the hippy activist, or the cyber-journalist looking for the next scoop.
It is a faceless and fashionless world where you win the attention and respect of others by GIVING to the conversation, showing respect by ReTweeting other peoples good ideas, and above all else, not appearing to be 100% agendized. Of course, real-world celebrity and notoriety will get you some original followers and attention. Like walking into the party and the DJ turning down the music; all eyes turn to the door. We see that you have arrived, but your continued "coolness" will only last if you recognize that the party has already started, and did not just start on your arrival.
So this week was one of those fantastically awkward moments. When the weird uncle, in this case the Alberta Government, chose to leave the party instead trying to fit in. A Government account was being run by a Mr. David Sands, and originally he was there to defend the Government's Oil Sands policy. Somehow, he became a lighting rod for all government policy. The problem in my opinion was that the account was in his personal name. To complicate that, the last two weeks saw a parody account was created of Finance Minister Ted Morton.
The Morton parody account was a funny invention, and nothing new in the Twitterverse. The person behind it seemed to have used actual Morton speeches and writings, to highlight his right-wing social conservative positions. It didn't take long for the parody to be identified by even the most casual of Twitter user, but Mr. Sands seemed to try and object to the account and whoever was behind it. A mistake, and kind of like trying to punch a ghost. A waste of time and embarrassing to the people watching it. To exacerbate the debacle, the account of David Sands was also quickly parodied by someone with nearly the exact same name and background image.
Anyways, and my point for writing about this, is that all of this could have been avoided with a proper strategy by the Government to be in the conversation properly. In my opinion, the issue was the way the Government entered the fray. Instead of having a Twitter account, or several, in the name of the Government and it's departments, it was being represented by a named individual. It could have avoided the individual/personal attacks and been in the medium as exactly what it is, an organization.
The best example of how to do this, in my opinion, is the City of Edmonton account. The City account is ran by three City staffers, and we all know that we are not talking to the Mayor or City Manager. Beyond that however, the people behind the account make the effort to still get involved in the discussion and in-person events that make Twitter real. Mr. Sands may well be a very nice person, but he was never in a position to succeed, because he had to own the constant criticism of government policy, instead of simply managing the dialogue that people wanted to have with the government.
In reviewing his "tweets' below, it appears that the Alberta Government might be abandoning Twitter for a while. This is a real shame, and not as much a reflection on David Sands, as much as his managers, who really don't understand that Twitter is a place for the government to LISTEN and ASSIST it's citizens, and NOT a place to defend divisive policy.
Here is the last conversation that the Sands account had. As you can see, it's WAY too personal for the government to be having, seeming defensive, trite and frankly awkward.
