Nice video to get you thinking…
Identifying keys to unlock collaboration and innovation – Blue Paper published by Cornerstone Global Associates
Summary
Faced with complex problems, limited resources, and an increasingly ‘small world’ many private and public sector organisations are seeking to unlock their innovative potential through collaboration. Finding the keys to unlock innovation in an organisation, however, may be easier said than done.
One key to unlocking the potential of a collaborative strategy is to approach objectives from a network perspective; this is particularly the case when developing social media strategies for large organizations. These organisations can not only benefit from, but in fact need this sort of collaboration to achieve the maximum potential of using social media.
One key finding is the value of the edge: for an organisation to be dynamic, it needs to be able to integrate a core of strong links with a large heterogeneous periphery of weaker ties. This network architecture allows the organisation to draw on thestrengths of both core and periphery to drive innovation.
New public service paradigm: Innovation through citizen-centred collaboration
Monitoring social media and networks; Identifying keys to unlock collaboration and innovation is one of three Blue Papers published recently by Cornerstone Global Associates. Collectively they provide perspectives on the New public service paradigm: Innovation through citizen-centred collaboration
These articles provide strategic advice to decision-makers and their advisers;
The main policy challenge for the UK government is not just reducing the structural deficit: it is squaring the circle between cutting costs, continuing to deliver quality services, engaging citizens in the choices that affect them, and building for recovery and renewal.
Cornerstone Global Associates has developed the rules of engagement and working tools to support collaborative leadership and teamwork, and accelerate and consolidate innovation.
Three Blue Papers™ have just been published. Combining strategy and action, they are aimed at decision-makers and their advisers, and everybody who has a stake in making more with less resource. The authors are world-leading authorities in their respective fields and draw on extensive UK and international expertise.
Please visit http://www.cstoneglobal.com/candi for further information.
The Blue Papers™ can be downloaded from http://www.cstoneglobal.com/blue_papers.html
National Security will require Smarter Networks
This image was created for a post on MountainRunner arguing National Security will require Smarter Networks.
This is an image of a network on Twitter made from the links between individuals following each other in areas approximating to Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication. (It requires Silverlight to view properly) Click an area of the image to see more detail.
What is the most common word BNP followers use to describe themselves? – you’ll never guess…
What followers of BNP say about themselves
What would #UKelection result look like if conducted on Twitter?
fig 6
This image from a previous post shows the number of users who have chosen to follow British political party accounts on Twitter. As observed in the earlier post, there as been a large increase (around 60%) in users following @libdems since the election was called.
What would happen if come Thursday parties received the support in the proportions they are followed on Twitter?
Taking the number of followers, it shows a proportionally higher support for ‘other’ parties than either current polls or in the 2005 election. However, the BBC Election Seat Calculator shows the result which might be produced by these levels of support (% as a proportion of total support):
This is a different result from the current polls – Interestingly taking a proportional approach to followers, there is an increase in the representation of ‘other’ parties. However, the ‘other’ parties and @Libdems specifically fair little better in terms of seats despite their respective increase in ‘support’. This is due to the structural quirks of the UK voting system. Even with a 3% advantage over Labour (which they do in followers) would still be over 100 seats behind.
As users on Twitter can follow more than one party, just comparing the numbers of followers gives a distorted view. The network image above shows various clusters of individuals following a number of parties. If numbers are adjusted to take account of this and the lower tendency to vote for ‘other’ parties within a first past the post system, the following result in produced:
It seems the level of support might be slightly higher / lower for Conservative and Labour respectively – perhaps due to demographics of Twitter users. There is also no control for geographic location, nor weighting on the propensity to vote.
Mind you, some pollsters have found as many as 10% of voters report making their decision / change their mind in the voting booth. Also the recent ICM Poll showing % voting intention for May 6th, was derived from 786 respondents. For its other limitations, this view came from the actions of over 61,000 people.
Identifying Meaningful Networks – Published by USC
CPD Perspectives: Mapping the Great Beyond
Announcement from CPD at University of Southern California – Apr 30, 2010
In the most recent issue of CPD Perspectives, Mapping the Great Beyond: Identifying Meaningful Networks in Public Diplomacy, Dr. Ali Fisher highlights the importance of mapping social networks for the field of public diplomacy.
In part one of Mapping the Great Beyond, Fisher discusses the value social media tools bring to PD practitioners and the new tools available to identify nodes of influence and alternative ways to engage publics. Providing clear examples of the utility of these new resources for PD, the second part of his paper illustrates the value of resource mapping and information coordination at strategic level. Fisher’s concluding section discusses the use of network mapping to evaluate public diplomacy and contends that mapping networks can create new information for public diplomacy practitioners and scholars to better implement and evaluate public diplomacy strategies.
CPD Perspectives is a periodic publication from the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and highlights scholarship intended to stimulate critical thinking about the study and practice of public diplomacy.
3 Debates Later… has anything changed?
Did four and a half hours of televised debate change anything? Numerous column inches have been taken up discussing which leader won or lost each debate.
With electoral behaviour hard to predict, but analysis of twitter gives information on how people are reacting now rather than asking how they intend to act come polling day. If users are behaving differently Twitter data from the first and final debates might show us how.
During the first debate (fig 1) it was unusual for users to mention all three leaders. If a user tweeted about more than one leader, the likelihood was that during the debate they had written tweets about Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
fig 1
fig 2
However during the third debate (fig 2), users increasingly tend to tweet about all three leaders. Continue reading →
#UKElection Week 1
Piece originally posted on The Soft Power Network 
The sacking of Stuart MacLennan for comments made on Twitter confirmed Twitter would have at least one influence on the election. A few #tags have been trending and fallen out of use already, but so far little has been won or lost – apart of course from Stuart MacLennan.
Trending topics will be important along with which messages
people choose to RT. In any form of campaigning, the message
is half the battle; the other half is finding the right people with
which to interact. As the name suggests social networking is
based on the interaction within a network. Those networks can
be represented in a series of images.
Thoughts from the first UK ‘leaders debate’
Earlier reflections on what the Twitter data told us after the first leaders debate:
The leaders are no doubt frantically preparing for the next debate, it is worth a brief moment to reflect on what the first debate might have told us:
text cloud from tweets on the leaders debate
1) Novelty factor was in full effect, leaders debate was the most popular phrase relating to the UK election on Twitter while the debates were on, followed by the respective candidate names.
2) Focusing on Tweets relating to a specific candidate, unsurprisingly their names are closely followed by their fellow candidates.
3) No great surprise so far – each party has an opportunity to encapsulate their offer in a tweetable phrase, so far not so successful.
