Lights and Bushels
Allan Holmes as a good point: if government agencies want to use new media to create buzz, they need to not hide that media on their websites, and in fact, would probably be better off not using their websites to disseminate material at all. Controlling the medium isn't really the point anymore. If putting your material on a site like YouTube is where it'll get seen, even if its quality gets mocked, and kids post chain-letter style messages in comments, then YouTube is where agency videos should go.
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Government Executive Staff Correspondent Alyssa Rosenberg takes a look at news affecting the management and operations of the massive federal bureaucracy.
Credibility be damned, what is important is reaching as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Apparently this is what the administration means by transparency these days: a sort of Pravda a la You Tube paradigm.
Paul D. Posted Friday, May 29, 2009 6:28 AMThe problem with this is that many government agencies, the US Navy, for one which contract out to the money wasting EDS which operates the boondoggle call “Navy Marine Corps Intranet”, block all access to YouTube.
John Jira Posted Friday, May 29, 2009 10:03 AMGovernment agencies that want to use social networking tools shouldn't block them from employees....SSA blocks access to a number of these sites, including YouTube.
Anonymous Posted Friday, May 29, 2009 10:08 AMOne of our folks in public affairs passed on the following information to me about why we can't do YouTube and it probably applies to other agencies:
"DOI has cleared the use of Twitter, but YouTube and several others have clauses that give them ownership of content. Some of our logos, photos, graphics and other material was done by contractors, and is only authorized for agency use, so they're trying to iron out all those intellectual property concerns before we move forward.
Anonymous 2 Posted Friday, May 29, 2009 4:27 PM