First, the required disclaimer: I am a government employee (yes, an evil drain on the economy) and have been ever since I turned 18. I first enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, then moved on to a GS civilian career as a government firefighter. Yes, I am proud to be a government employee. No, I do not speak for all government employees, nor the government, nor President Obama, Speaker Boehner, Administrator Fugate, or Rep. Adam Smith. I have, however, spent 13 plus years in and around the government, and have seen quite the paradigm shift in their acceptance of the internet and social media.
When I first joined the Air Force in 1999, email was already drastically changing the military machine ran. The Air Force was transitioning to an email dominated communications style, and other agencies were right behind. I still remember having to go find my supervisor to ask him a question, and then walk back to work station to complete my task. Now, if something is not in an email, providing a paper trail, than it simply “did not happen.” Certainly there were push backs of massive proportions, the older generation did not like the email system, and instead opted for face-to-face or over the phone communications. These folks, though, just like the social media haters of toady, were quickly either weeded out, or converted albeit begrudgingly.
Shortly thereafter, came the onslaught of internet computer based training, it seemed that every training evolution you had to accomplish you had to complete through the Air Force Portal (or AKO in the Army or ESAMS/NKO in the Navy, so on and so forth). The computer and the internet, it appeared, where here to stay. From my first duty station I was sent over to South Korea where the internet was all the rage, and I began to truly understand the power of email. You see, at the time, I was seeing a girl back in Wyoming, and well, let’s just say that had my Yahoo™ account been hacked, there would have been some pictures leaked that would still embarrass me to this day…but I digress!
A quick Bing™, yes I am a Bing™ nerd not a Google™ guy, reveals this exhaustive list (http://listorious.com/GOVworld/u-s-federal-government) of official government agencies on Twitter, right now. Everyone from President Obama to the U.S. Embassy in Canada; and this list isn’t even that current!! I recently read an article posted by another SMEM junkie, Mr. Woods, in which 100 senior level IT professionals were polled on the usefulness of social media, and a whopping 12% said that Social Media had “no value at all.” (http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Social-Media-Skeptics-Government.html) A whole 12% folks!! I bet that there is 12% of the non-government population that feels that Social Media has no value at all, as well. The fact is, the government has quickly realized the power of social media, so much so, that the DHS and NSA routinely monitor social networking sites looking for terror related activity. If you say that you are going to blow up a plane, or something of the like, you better believe that some super computer in Maryland is going to key in on your conversation and record it for future use.
Certainly there are those who feel that the government is not open enough with their social media, but honestly, folks have been saying the government wasn’t open enough in the days of the 5 o’clock news, not this 24 hour continuous non-stop news cycle that we have become accustomed to. Have I made a compelling argument for the governments’ adaptation of social media? No of course I haven’t. Why? Perhaps there isn’t one. Perhaps it slowly evolving. But when I hear folks say that the government isn’t engaged in social media, or that they don’t care about social media, I would point them to this years Presidential campaign, in which all candidates have hired social media gurus who sit in front of a heat map watching trending Twitter topics all day. The government has adapted to social media, but like most things in the government, it has been a slow arduous process with little fan fare. The government is too large to shift on a dime, and too worried about INFOSEC, OPSEC, HUMIT, FOUA, etc., etc., to fully adapt to this new media. But, to their credit, they are trying.
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