Here's a new guide to government 2.0, designed to offer success strategies for applying proven social networking principles within the government and military, just in time for the Open Government and Innovations taking place next week.
Social media and networking web sites, along with successful social learning communities, provide powerful examples of the principles that government and the military can apply to their social learning programs. Principle #9 is outlined below:
Principle #9 - Design Can Make a Big Difference
While in theory, this principle may seem like a no-brainer, it is important when it comes to government 2.0 to keep in mind that small design changes can make a big difference. Taking the time to understand the positioning of the community, along with how exactly people use different features, is key to the success or failure of a government 2.0 strategy. For example, a community deployment within the US military made a number of fairly minor design changes, and they were able to dramatically increase the number of views, visits, comments, blogs, bookmarks and question replies with very little growth in the total number of community members. A small change to the commenting feature resulted in a more than 350% increase in the number of comments being made within the community.