Look what God has wrought - the rise and rise of government blogging

Thanks for friend and NSW Government colleague  Ken Dray for pointing out this great piece from the US about the state of the official federal government blogopshere - http://www.fcw.com/print/22_13/management/152465-1.html?topic=management.

It's worth a read...some great insights from those inside government who are pioneering the use of blogs not just as yet another channel to reinforce the dismal one-way conversation that so often passes for 'communications' and 'collaboration' in government, but as a potent and incredibly useful two-way interactive platform that informs, educates, debates and occasionally, it seems, entertains.

"Government bloggers are now writing about every conceivable subject, including the Middle East peace process, federal agency management techniques and rock singers with drug problems. The era of government blogging has dawned."  One of the internal users from Health commented that she viewed blogs as the mode of communication for the future. Communicating through them will one day become as routine and frequent as an agency issuing a press release, she said. "Eventually, we'll get there."

Another reported a recent trip to Iraq, where he saw 20-year-old soldiers operating a dozen chat sessions at once while they were monitoring their functional areas.

"It's the use of this type of Web 2.0 technology by the net generation - the 18- to 30-year olds - that has motivated me to start a blog...this age group is the reality of who our new recruits are, and this is the technology they are comfortable with. It makes sense to use it."

Another noted that millions and millions of people, including poeple in government, get a lot of information from blogs. "There's no going back."

Indeed - might be something worth putting into the mix as we think through what the public sector of the 21st century is going to have to look like if we are to attract the requisite workforce to do an increasingly complex job in public management.