Learning how to work within those (power) structures, and being able to act strategically and create public value via, eg., social software, is the real challenge — otherwise we are just talking about technology.

My experience in NZ govt is that if the conversation is framed around the correct business objectives and presented as part of a well thought out comms strategy, senior management are quite open to the idea of social media — but it has to be articulated in business outcomes (and that doesn’t necessarily mean ROI, they are prepared to take risks if those risks are documented and mitigations drawn up).

The only hurdle that I see our agencies consistently stumble over is the obvious one: the technology is so easy to set up (either with or without the assistance/consent of IT) that the planning – or worse, the cultural aspects – of the programme are overlooked or poorly managed.

So, to arrive belatedly at a conclusion: I don’t see the same virtue in flatter organizations; indeed, hierarchies are important for governance and accountability. I do think that we can do a much better job of selling the benefits of new strategic approaches to an agency’s business which may, coincidentally, involve social software or other technologies. But perhaps I am just becoming one of them…

These are the things that need to be broken down in order to encourage not only social tool adoption, but better and more efficient sharing of knowledge across large organisations.

That said it’s a big ask and not likely to take place soon.

For example, it took us months to get Firefox installed on our computers – but so far we’ve been unsuccessful in getting the Web Developers Toolbar and other extensions installed because there’s no precedent for add-ons for Firefox within the Department, and apparently they are being evaluated by IT.

Some of my work I’ve had to do from home because I know there’s zero chance of me getting a PHP/MySQL development environment setup here.

Luckily for many of my requirements, the IT section and the technology is the ONLY blocker or inhibitor and there are options.

However when it comes to social networking tools, that goes higher and wider than just IT. There is concern from people about ROI, performance, distractions, communication, release of classified or controlled information, managing public relations etc.

The consequence implied would be that you need to actually change the whole culture in order to affect change to adopt social computing tools, or at least to ensure that they work effectively.

M