Where are the Social Media Opportunities?

As I've been working with our government clients to encourage use of social media channels for public communication, I am currently most enthusiastic about three areas of opportunity, but I would love to hear other opinions:

• Widgets that allow our clients to easily share information from others and encourage partners and other agencies to share their information (see www.cdc.gov/widgets or www.fbi.gov/widgets.htm).  The FDA Peanut recall widget saw massive uptake.
  
  
• Point sharing which allows me as a citizen/stakeholder to post valuable content seen in an email alert from my city or on a web page from the State Department to my Twitter feed or blog.  This type of sharing is easier than putting a widget on my Facebook page and allows me to really focus on sharing the content that I find most interesting.
  
  
• Blogging... this is already an established channel and is proving incredibly successful in engaging users online in ways that are already making government (and citizens) better.
  
  

Other channels (e.g., Twitter and Facebook groups) are important and useful for engaging certain groups, but have real limitations as official channels for mass communication. The actual usage of social media channels for government information / public outreach continues to trail email dramatically in the same way that users express a strong preference for email as a professional channel and social media (and in Europe and young groups in U.S., text messaging) as a personal channel.

Take USA.gov as an example.

They saw 13,628 citizens subscribe to updates by email last month with the average sitting selecting more than 15 topics of interest.  By contrast, they have 431 total fans on the USA.gov Facebook Group page that it launched early in 2008.

We pulled together some additional information on email alert interest from citizens vs. Twitter in an earlier entry and the stats are equally as compelling.

Our observations about the power of widgets, point sharing, and blogging have guided our focus for improvements of the digital communication platform we offer our government clients.  Government agencies use GovDelivery to send hundreds of thousands of emails monthly promoting blog content to email subscribers, and we released discuss this email blogging capability in 2008.  We also have an exciting information sharing project underway that you can see in prototype form at this time.  We expect production release of these new sharing capabilities in May.

Channel Surfing

Everyone likes a horse race.

A headline for an article on the popular Mashable.com blog yesterday read: Social Networking More Popular than Email. We wrote an article a few weeks back titled: Email Rules! Internet's Killer App Promotes Collaboration, Communication, and Content.The Mashable.com blog article reviews some recent Nielsen Online Research that says that the percentage of Internet users using social media has now reached 66.8% vs. 65.1% using email. We noted that Internet users in the U.S. spend over 80% of their time using email.

Our focus is on how to interpret these trends in determining how government organizations should communicate with the public. Luckily, this is not the kind of race where there needs to be a winner. What these statistics really point to is that communicators have more ways than ever to reach the public.

There are several interesting comments on the Mashable.com article including:

I wonder if you took away either social networking or email, which would have a more devastating effect on society. Popularity does not equate to importance.

Social networking is the best way to remain connected

Did Nielsen release any frequency numbers on email versus community usage? Seems like that might be a more compelling argument if people are using Facebook everyday versus their email once a week. I have my doubts though.

Social Media is not a monolithic channel that is threatening email for dominance of the world. Social media and email are actually highly complementary with each filling different roles in how we engage citizens.

In general, new channels serve needs that are not met effectively by other channels. While email has many strengths and works well for official communication, long documents, and asynchronous communication, it is very poor at connecting disparate stakeholders together on issues of common interest and also falls short as a public content archive and group discussion mechanism. For example, everyone has been part of an email discussion "group" or "List Serve"that became unwieldy. Appropriately, we are seeing all of those types of discussions migrate to blogs, wikis, Twitter, and Facebook.

All government communicators whether in government or in support organizations like us here at GovDelivery are working hard on engaging in new channels.

What is really exciting for me is to see organizations ranging from Ramsey County, Minnesota to the CDC embrace the opportunity to learn how best to use new channels. Overall, we've seen citizen interest in receiving email updates from government grow exponentially even as other channels have emerged.

The most effective government organizations are engaging in all channels. That allows you to cross-promote channels (e.g., promote your Twitter feed in your email alerts and vice-versa) and focus different messaging on different mediums. For example, I love how CDC has made one of its 300+ email subscription options "Social Media Tools" and has built a base of over 15,000 subscribers in just a couple of months.

We see many mayors, governors, and other public officials engaging in social media as well. If you are trying to build a sense of community around your local government, agency, or campaign, it only makes sense that you want more communication between your stakeholders and more ability to comment and repurpose content.

I have written about how email is a key hub of social media. GovDelivery has also just launched a massive information sharing project that will make it easier for government agencies to create widgets, mash together content from different agencies, and encouraging reposting of content into social media.

So, I don't have a horse in this race.

I think that when new channels emerge they compete with old channels creating new opportunities for reaching the public and, in some cases, replacing existing channels but only where those channels were functioning poorly. Where do you think things are heading?

Email is the hub of social media

When someone follows me on Twitter, I get an email letting me know. I usually take a quick look at their profile and maybe an update or two to find out if I know the person and may want to follow them.

If someone wants to friend me on Facebook or leaves a comment on my "wall," I get an email from Facebook. I make a note to myself to respond later.

If someone signs up for a group on GovLoop, I get a note. Or, if someone makes a connection on LinkedIn, I get yet another email. If you comment on this blog entry... you guessed it, I'll get an email letting me know.

I think you get the idea.

There's no question that email is the hub of social media. Email is the No. 1 use of the Internet according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, used daily by more than 60 percent of Americans.

Many Americans use social media applications, but they can't spend all day logged into those communities. So services like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter understand that they need to use email to keep their audiences engaged in conversations. In many ways, my email inbox is the ultimate "mashup" of my entire online life across many social media applications.

I've recently interviewed Web Managers at several major federal agencies and cities to learn more about where they see the connection between email and social media in the public sector. There are some exciting ideas and some easy ways to make the email updates governments are sending to the public a key enabler and "hub" of the social media initiatives that different agencies are pursuing.

We'll be posting our specific ideas on this soon, but where do you see the opportunities?

Email Rules! Internet's Killer App Promotes Collaboration, Communication and Content

Email is the Internet's Killer App. Use it well.

To many, email communications seems like "yesterday's news." Even though we here at GovDelivery have been working with federal, state, and local government on improving email communication with the public since 1999, we still get excited about email! As our marketing director, I want to share how we're helping clients leverage email to promote blogs, support Twitter, and utilize other social media. I want to brag about what our clients are doing in the area of collaboration and Web 2.0.

When we step back and think about how we can best help government communicate with the public effectively, email rises above every other opportunity for two reasons. First, it is ubiquitous. Our clients care about reaching people and email is the number one use of the Internet by a landslide. Second, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

One stat from Jupiter suggests that citizens spend over 80% of online time using email. It has become such a part of daily life that its dominance simply doesn't make headline news.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a new report on daily Internet activity. Although the focus of the report was the growth of daily search activity by Americans, the report showed an astounding 60% of Americans use email every day. Search has grown to 49 percent, from about a third in 2002. But the author calls email "arguably the Internet's all time killer app:"

And just last month eMarketer released survey data showing the digital channels preferred by various age groups. Email is used by almost 53% of Americans to share information about a new product or service with others, second only to face to face communication and ahead of phone calls. Email is also the preferred digital channel for all purposes in every age group with the exception of young teenagers, who prefer text messaging where social communication is the priority.

So if email is the channel of choice of the majority of Americans, the question becomes "how well does your organization "do email?" If you're wondering how you're doing, read through this document that was shared at the Federal Consulting Group's Proactive Communication Roundtable earlier this year: http://tinyurl.com/govd1 .

Consider this:

Do you do a good job of offering and promoting all important topics by email? Are you offering subscribers many choices? Are you promoting your new types of content (blogs, videos, social media content) by email (http://tinyurl.com/govd13)? Are you treating your email subscription links like "add to cart" links and promoting them on your site? Are you following the lead of NASA, EPA, and others by allowing citizens to signup for emails directly on your website (http://tinyurl.com/gddirectsignup).

Newer applications like text messaging and social networks like Twitter get far more attention. But for final measure, let's compare some stats.
Washington State Department of Transportation

Twitter followers: 2,411

Email subscribers: >28,000

Mayor of Minneapolis

Twitter followers: 984

Email subscribers: 7,498 (with >43,000 subscribed to all City information)

EPA

Twitter followers: <2,000

Email subscribers: >77,000 with 5,000-7,500 new signing up monthly

To top it off, it is much easier to track results and learn about your subscriber base with email than with many Web 2.0 channels.

RSS and wireless alerts are also very powerful, but when launched side by side with email, citizens prefer email at a 10-20 to 1 ratio over these other channels.

In fact, I'd bet that the Obama campaign and others found that email delivered the most tangible results in their campaigns for fundraising and mobilization. They used other channels, but their most critical and reliable outreach seemed to be by email.

All of this is not to say that Twitter, Facebook, Texting, RSS, etc. do not have value. They are amazing channels that build community, allow for direct conversations, and give citizens flexibility in how they will interact with government. See how we use Twitter (www.twitter.com/govdelivery ).

However, the power of email for driving better communication with the public is unrivaled, and there are still many opportunities to use email better. I suggest you treat email like the foundation of your digital communication house and treat other channels as nice additions that you can focus on when your foundation is strong. If you focus too much on using new channels, you may fail to leverage the most powerful channel for public communication in history... plain old email.

Obama and Technology: A little thoughtful risk taking will go a long way

We've got a new President, and there are many reasons to be optimistic that positive changes are in store.

My optimism has increased over the past few months as I've met and seen commentary from the transition team working on the Administration's technology and Web strategy.

In addition to the New Media office that's just opened at the White House, which has been operating as part of the transition team, the transition team set up the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform (TIGR) Team to explore new ways of communicating with the public. Experienced administrators like Julius Genachowski (incoming FCC chairman), former FCC chief of staff Blair Levin and Washington DC CTO Vivek Kundra are advising the administration on how to leverage technology. The TIGR team developed a video that talks about their priorities: http://tinyurl.com/9tk4nj.

What is striking about the video (aside from the embrace of Cloud Computingand other concepts that have been difficult for government to grab onto in the past), is the focus on trying new things. That same focus was evident in Change.gov's embrace of new types of commenting and online voting technologies. I appreciated one link on their site that said, "have a better way of doing this, tell us!" I also noted a complaint on the site about how Change.gov had not gone through enough effort to create a single, shared, login for people visiting the site to use the various pieces of functionality. I smiled because it's that kind of thinking ("let's get this perfect rather than getting something online" ) that has stalled many innovative Web communication projects in federal government.

It is easy in technology to let the better be the enemy of the good, but it's not necessary. As long as critical data is kept secure, Web apps don't have to work perfectly when first released. The Change.gov people know what everyone else on earth has also figured out... you can make changes and improve things more effectively once you have them out and see how people use them. This is not just true in Web communication and technology, but often with public policy as well, something Obama seemed to acknowledge in asking us to be patient and expect some mistakes and false starts as he moves forward with his agenda.

Virtually every agency in federal government has some risk takers who've ignored at least a few rules and put their agency up on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook. You can see the great progress being made within agencies in social media and read about some of the barriers agencies face at www.webcontent.gov.

These same risk takers have been pushing the envelope for years, but now they have a lot more cover from above with the White House taking the lead on innovation.

At GovDelivery, we've been delivering a Software-as-a-Service (i.e., Web-hosted platform) to federal government for years. Early on, we had many clients who felt uneasy discussing our solution with their security people; they were afraid that it would be beat up because it's not behind the firewall. Years of success working with DHS, DoD, DOJ and others with no security breaches helped us gain momentum, but it took 5 years to reach the point where most federal agencies have embraced our platform. Adoption of social media technologies and new types of cloud computing will happen much faster if the administration continues to encourage the risk takers.

10 New Year's Resolutions for Web Managers

Government agencies at all levels recognize that 2009 will be a big year for digital communication.

The recent election demonstrated the power of digital communication for fundraising, network building, and organizing. At all levels of government, new appointees and elected officials are coming in to government from private sector and political environments where digital communication was a key to their success (and in many cases, to their election).

Within government, 2008 was a critical year at all levels as organizations embraced new communication tools at a rapid rate. Having previously shied away from new or "fad" approaches to communication methods like blogging, Faceboook and Twitter, hundreds of government organizations have now integrated these tools into a comprehensive communications strategy, with more coming on board everyday.

Now, if you are a government Web manager or communicator, in all likelihood, you are currently or will soon be asked to take maximum advantage of all of these opportunities with similar resources to what you've had in the past. You need a plan to improve communication at your agency/office/department, and you're wondering where to focus. As always, budgets are probably tight and everyone has an opinion.

Here are my ideas for government Web manager and communicator goals for the New Year:

1. Focus on adapting (not just copying) best practice from outside government. Adapt but don't transfer best practice from political campaigns and e-commerce. At a typical government organization, the focus is on communication not target marketing, selling, fundraising, or electing a particular candidate. Explain to the new people coming in that you are open to their ideas, but while they bring useful experience from outside government, you can help them put it to use inside government.
2. Map digital communications to your mission. If you are at a local or state government, focus on improving communication while using more cost-effective approaches (ROI is the ticket in these tough budget times). We're seeing GovDelivery clients increasingly focus on ROI in state and local government by thinking outside of the box about how processes need to be changed to leverage digital communication. If you are at a federal agency, explain how better communication will help you catch criminals (FBI), improve public health (CDC), or support more efficient regulation (SEC).
3. Prioritize communication channels. There is no need to reinvent the wheel - focus your energy on what has already been proven. When clients ask us where to focus their energy, we point out key statistics. The average citizen spends over 80% of online time using email, according to Jupiter. Our clients use the GovDelivery platform for email, wireless (text) alerts, and in some cases, to manage RSS feeds to best reach their audience. But, if they ask us where to focus first, we're going to say email because it is the most far-reaching channel. If you're optimizing search results, focus on Google as they have the most market share. If you want to post video, focus on YouTube, not a site that no one uses. This is not government picking winners. This is about government knowing where the public looks for information and going there.
4. Build your subscriber base and connect all channels. If you're using social media, promote your new media content in your emails to the public and on your website. By the same token, promote your website, digital communication channels, and subscription options wherever you have a social media presence. You will build your social media community on an ongoing basis and increase your overall website and subscriber audience (people who have provided at least their email address and registered for updates from your organization).
5. Set goals and track metrics. Include Web traffic (site visits, length of visits and sources of visitors) as well as the number of people signing up for email and/or wireless updates, the number of topics chosen by each subscriber, and, if you're using social media, the size of your communities in Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. Share your goals and engage other staff and your stakeholders to help your organization improve against its digital communication performance metrics.
6. Engage stakeholders. Post video on your websites if not already doing so and look for ways to use YouTube, provided your office/agency allows it. Post comments on blogs of interest and engage in conversations through Twitter and other tools.
7. Collaborate. Find other government organizations serving a similar audience to you and work with them to build your audience. One amazing benefit of online government communication is that governments don't generally compete with one another. We've seen cities work with counties to build their subscriber base by "cross-promoting" subscription options to residents signing up for updates. We've also seen state and federal agencies collaborate and many different federal agencies work together. You can read more about the work GovDelivery is doing in this area at http://tinyurl.com/gdcollaborate. Our collaboration tools are free for any of our clients and the results achieved to date provide a good example of what can be accomplished through collaboration with minimal effort.
8. Be a leader. Promote your Web communication efforts internally. Talk to your colleagues about how every office in your organization can leverage the tools you have in place to improve communication and, where possible, shift spending from old media (mailings, print publications, etc.) to more efficient electronic approaches. Your internal audience is as important to your long-term success as your external audience. At the state and local level, get creative in how you help elected officials become more seamless and visible to the electorate. Challenge yourself to help your elected officials embrace Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and other tools that make them more available to the public.
9. Be active. Become active in Government Web Manager. Most importantly, monitor and join www.WebContent.gov as it is the premier resources for government Web managers and brings together some incredibly passionate and talented public sector Web managers
10. See the opportunity. At all levels of government, social media, citizen engagement, transparency, and efficiency are priorities. Effective digital communication fits in with these priorities, but you have to waive the flag to make sure that new efforts build on the momentum you already have in place and that the leadership at your organization understands how more attention and investment in digital communication supports traditional and new objectives. The Obama election and the new White House agenda to press for better use of Web 2.0 will bring exciting attention to these opportunities. Strike while the iron is hot!

Please share your thoughts.

A Fresh Look at Cloud Computing in Government

Anyone reading technology blogs or trade publications in 2008 has heard of Cloud Computing as the current/next big thing.  I wrote a blog entry on cloud computing in August and sent a request out over Twitter today seeking examples of cloud computing being used in government to see if I could pull together any new, useful, information.  I referenced this article where Google touted the potential of cloud computing in government back in June to see if there were any fresh examples of government using cloud computing.  I'll get back to the examples later.

What is Cloud Computing? 

Gartner recently listed Cloud Computing as one of the top 10 technologies to watch.

There is a good definition at Wikipedia.  To borrow from that definition, cloud computing is the act of accessing technology-enabled services over the Internet.  Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users.

By this broad definition, virtually all Web 2.0 applications (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) qualify as cloud computing applications as do SaaS systems like Salesforce.com.

Again, sticking to the broad definition, cloud computing is used widely in government.  Government has not yet adopted software as a service applications quite as broadly a the private sector, but there is still very broad use of software as a service particularly for inbound and outbound digital communication.  Of course, my favorite example is our company, GovDelivery. 250+ governmental organizations across 25 states and 13 of 15 federal departments send mass email and wireless notices to the public using our platform.  We used to focus on functionality and downplay the "in the cloud" nature of our system, but with all the benefits of being centrally hosted (easy collaboration between clients, better functionality, more scale, faster deployment) we now use it as a selling point.

If you want a non-GovDelivery perspective on the benefits of SaaS, here's an article offered via @appirio_kirk on Twitter today describing how DC govt. is now using Google as its corporate email client. 

As I noted in my last entry, I don't completely buy the broad definition of cloud computing.  I think that SaaS / hosted services that ask you to use an application in pre-determined "wrapping" are very powerful, but true cloud computing is about leveraging application capabilities  and storage  "in the cloud"  without using a prescribed user interface.  So, logging into Facebook wouldn't qualify as cloud computing, but using a Facebook application that automatically stored pictures on Facebook when you saved them to your home computer would qualify.

Why does one definition matter over another?

Because, particularly in government, there is broad embrace of SaaS services and platforms  such as Facebook, GovDelivery, Comcate (local government CRM), and various Google applications, but government is in only the early stages of tapping into the powerful capabilities offered by these vendors as well as by Amazon and many startups that would enable government to more rapidly deploy custom applications by tapping into storage, processing, and messaging services on an "as needed" basis.

I think I understand why.   We launched an "On-Demand Mailer" capability earlier this year.  Our beta client, the National Labor Relations Board is using this cloud-based service as its email sending engine for a custom-built application that notifies lawyers of new rulings.  NLRB is a highly-sophisticated client with some uniquely talented staff.  We have many clients like this, but you have to catch the right people at the right time when they are building applications that need this type of service.  In addition, much of the application development in government is done by integrators that have not yet embraced the power of cloud computing (and in some cases may see it as a threat to their current business model).

In other words, our "fully-wrapped" service is much easier to sell.  It's easy to understand and the benefits are clear.  Successful use of cloud computing within a custom application requires a motivated developer / architect that is actively seeking shortcuts that will allow him or her to deliver a better solution with less time and cost.  It's a paradigm shift that can't be encouraged by a vendor quite as easily.

To get you thinking of what's really possible with cloud computing, I want to point out some additional examples that came up on Twitter today.

One is this amazing public data service from Amazon that allows you to tap into Census and Human Genome project data stored on Amazon servers:  http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/   (Thanks to @Rchards).

Another example that requires a little more technical understanding to digest is GoGrid which offers storage and more advanced server infrastructure in the cloud.  HighTechDad is their technology evangelist and indicates that they do work with government today, but that governments don't always like to admit they are using the cloud (something I think is less true everyday as many governments are trying to demonstrate their ability to use technology to save money these days).  HighTechDad also maintains a blog here where he has an absolutely superb explanation of cloud computing that is better organized and better thought through than this entry (though hopefully I've brought in some extra perspective on the government angle).

If you find this useful or have your own examples of governments using cloud computing, I welcome your comments and feedback.  From a selfish GovDelivery perspective, I'm also looking for creative ways to better expose this type of service to anyone building applications within government (particularly within those government bodies that are already using our platform in it's "fully-wrapped" state). 

We had terrific attendance at our recent webinar, but we need to continue reaching out to agencies that might want to take the leap to embracing the power of the cloud when building custom applications.

Happy New Year!

Top 10 Technologies to Watch and Thoughts on "Cloud Computing" in Government

This post from Chris Dorobek at the DorobekInsider.com and Federal News Radio is an interesting look at Gartner's 10 Technologies to watch.

Find the post here

Here are the technologies listed:

• Virtualization
• Cloud computing
• Servers -- Beyond Blades
• Web-Oriented Architectures
• EnterpriseMashups
• Specialized Systems
• Social Software and Social Networking
• Unified Communications
• Business Intelligence
• Green IT

We've talked about the Web 2.0 concepts (Social Networking, Enterprise Mashups, and Web-Oriented Architectures) in this blog.

Chris points out that Cloud Computing is a challenge in government.  I think this is true, but I believe that government can find certain areas where Cloud Computing provides real benefit for minimal risk.

We have been working with a government agency on allowing them to tap into our email delivery infrastructure for messages they need to send out regarding new rulings.  Rather than force them to manage all of the data on our servers, we simply accept the email address(es) of the recipients and the message content when it is ready for distribution.  This information has to go out over the Internet anyway, and by using our email delivery infrastructure, our client has better assurance that the information will get to the inbox of the intended recipient in a timely manner.  If the email bounces, we take care of it.  If the client needs to send a lot of emails, they leverage our scale.

Cloud computing is just as powerful for government as it is for others, but we need to work hard to find the right opportunities to make it work well without risking secure data.

There is a lot of interest in this topic.  Yesterday, we had 80+ people on a webinar discussing the work we are doing in cloud computing through our On-Demand Mailer which allows any government agency to use GovDelivery as its mail sender for any important email (we used to just offer our service for mass email communication.  The interest and the fact that no one dropped off during the whole presentation or the case study by www.nlrb.gov was a good sign to me.  You can signup to get a recording of the Webinar and our presentation here if you're interested.

One of the challenges for us with Cloud Computing is figuring out how to explain it to our clients.  In our webinar, everyone kept asking us to "explain again how this is different from what we already do."  I am hopeful that as people get more used to the concept the explaining will get easier.

Government is adopting Web 2.0 tools faster than you may know

Citizens crave information, but they are also busy and difficult to reach.

Blogs, social networks, and other Web 2.0 capabilities can help you reach citizens with critical information how and where they want to obtain it.  But, are any government agencies really using these tools?  We've provided examples before, but here are some new findings.

In April, a ScienceLogic survey found that more than 65 percent of government IT workers surveyed said Web 2.0 tools are important to their operations and 20 percent were using tools like wikis, blogs and RSS feeds. More than 50 percent said they are planning on having these tools in place by next year.

In some cases, such as the Intelligence Communities' wikopedia project, Intellipedia and the Navy Department CIO blog, the Web 2.0 tools are internal communications tools.

But other applications face the public such as those at USA.gov where they use social media applications to reach the public, including blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts and microblogs.

A recent article on Read Write Web, "To 2.0 or Not 2.0? That is the Governments' Question" (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/government_20.php), provides additional examples of how the government is using social media to reach the public.

In a recent blog post by Daniel Mintz, chief information officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation, states, "The second generation of Web access will change the way government delivers services and its relationship with the American public."

While there are many examples of government embracing Web 2.0, I am now looking for more examples of how this embrace of technology is resulting in positive change and efficiency in how government interacts with the citizen.  The changes instituted following comments on the TSA blog are very positive examples.  I hope to find more and document them here over time.

One thing we do see is that content that challenges and engages the citizen (what we call, "Compelling Content") seems to be more successful in Web 2.0 which is fundamentally an environment where content faces a lot of competition for attention.

We will be discussing these issues at the Proactive Communication Roundtable at the Department of Treasury where we will talk about embracing new channels, leveraging channels that have been with us for longer (mainly email), and how different agencies use compelling content to engage users.

Why Email Starts Fights

I have the following rules for my use of email with colleagues, friends, and family:

• Avoid emails when I'm angry
• Avoid constructive feedback by email
• Avoid emails in the evening (Google has a new tool called Mail Goggles that forces people to do math problems before sending email in the evening so you don't email anyone while intoxicated)

This incredibly insightful video that should be required watching for the whole world really gets to the bottom of why email is not useful for many types of communication.

The main reason... drum roll please... email is good for facts and data, but does not carry the visual and emotional cues that are critical to human interaction and understanding.

What does this mean for government?

• For official communication (i.e., facts and data), email is unrivaled and is perfectly suited for the role.  You can see my previous entry on this.
  
• For citizen service, email is only useful up to the point where tone becomes important
• For internal collaboration and cooperation between offices and agencies, there is no substitute for in person and (as a decent substitute) phone meetings and conversations