Future skills needed for digital teams

Although managing websites, managing content and supporting communications will remain important for Government digital teams, it’s likely the future focus will be on the other areas. Exploiting data, engaging communities, gaining insight and digitally enabling government business will be key areas for individuals and digital teams to develop their skills, knowledge and behaviours.

 

Defining digital skills for government communicators

 

 

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Why the Queen an avid user of the web just doesn't click

Reading that the Queen "surfs the web" reminded me of a brief conversation I had with HM. A couple of years I was invited to attend the new royal website launch at Buckingham Palace where after a speech by Sir Tim Berners-Lee the Queen pressed a button and shook a few hands.

At a function a week later I had the opportunity to talk directly with the Queen about her use of the internet. I asked her about her website - cue quizzical look - and then asked her about her youtube channel, same look, and then her twitter account - very quizzical look.

What was apparent is despite what her PR people say the Queen is no avid user of the internet - no surprises there. That's certainly no crime for a lady in her 80's but the next time you read about the Queen tweeting, surfing the web, facebooking, or watching youtube realise there is about as much chance of this as her traveling on a bus. Not impossible but very unlikely.

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The journalist of the future is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one

With budgets squeezed as newspapers make record losses the pressure is on today’s journalists to be much more than a good writer.

Job adverts for multimedia journalists have a long list of requirements: as well as being able to produce a cracking news story you must be able to code HTML and JavaScript, record and edit video and audio, have experience of content management systems, Flash and Photoshop.

With such a large set of requirements how can today’s journalist be, well - a good journalist? Time is at a premium and if you are fiddling with your JavaScript and doing basic editing of a video in FinalCut Pro, there is limited time to concentrate on what’s important - the story.

You should have a broad knowledge of the technical aspects of the job but strive to become a master of just one.  Concentrate on being a good writer or become an expert at putting together video and audio packages.

You are a journalist first and foremost and not a programmer.

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The future of journalism is crowdsourced, says futurist

I’m in agreement with self-styled futurist Ross Dawson and his predictions for the future of newspapers.

I wrote a post a couple of years ago that outlined that news was moving away from being printed on dead trees and onto to e-readers, and that today’s major newspapers are going to have to distinguish themselves as islands of quality if they are to survive in a sea of a abundance.

Dawson takes the argument further claiming that by 2022 newspapers will be irrelevant and that by that time most journalism will be crowdsourced.

Here are his main points:

• By 2022 newspapers as we know them will be irrelevant. However the leading newspaper publishers of today may have transformed themselves to thrive in what will be a flourishing media industry.
• Media revenues will soar but will be unevenly distributed. We are shifting to a “media economy” dominated by content and social connection. Yet established media organisations will need to reinvent themselves to participate in that growth.
• The successors to the iPad will be our primary news interfaces. We will most commonly consume news on portable devices, of which the iPad will be recognised as the forerunner.
• Digital news readers will cost less than $10. By 2020 entry-level devices to read the news will cost less than $10 and often be given away. More sophisticated news readers will be foldable or rollable, gesture controlled and fully interactive.
• Journalism will be increasingly crowdsourced. Substantial parts of investigative journalism, writing and news production will be ‘crowdsourced’ to hordes of amateurs overseen by professionals.
• The reputation of individual journalists will drive audiences. Many journalists, most leading experts in their fields, will still be employed, with public reputation measures guiding audiences on how much to trust their work.

Looking at how the newspaper industry is developing this seems about right. My bet is it won’t be too long before Mr Murdoch tries to woo us with subsidised e-readers in exchange for taking out a subscription to his titles.

Turbulent but exciting times for journalism.

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How much longer for the bookshop?

With the new Kindle's September release imminent and rumours that its price could be cut to $99 (£64) by Christmas, the iPad selling like hot cakes and other e-readers chewing at the printed page, how much longer can the local bookshop last?

One answer: not very much longer.

In my hometown of Brighton (UK) I have seen the closure of many small independent bookshops as well as national chains such as Borders. We are now left with Waterstones , WH Smiths, a couple of cut-price stores and the bonk busters being sold in the book section of Asda.

Cheap e-readers are only going to accelerate this decline. So far in the UK they have only been a niche product, but with Amazon pushing its latest Kindle hard they are just about to explode into the main stream.

With a growing selection of titles available and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos pouring pressure on publishers to reduce the cost of their digital editions, the remaining barriers to widespread adoption of e-books are fast evaporating. And with them goes the expensive retail space of the local bookshop.

So here’s my prediction:

Apart from a few specialised outlets, independent bookshops will be completely dead within five years. All the big chains will close their high street branches in ten. The majority of libraries will be entirely e-book by 2025 - and with the way our current Government is slashing budgets probably sooner.

Like vinyl and CDs, the printed book will soon become nothing more than a quaint reminder of our past only seen on special editions of the Antiques Roadshow.

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Making twitter work for you

Probably the best description I've heard about Twitter is that its the real time search engine that you didn’t realise that you needed.

It’s a great way to discover new content and stay informed of developments in your field, connect with new people and even if they don’t follow you still learn from their tweets.

To make tweeting work for you try following these simple tips:

Add value where you can

Join a conversation if you have some information or an opinion that will expand an argument.

Tweet links to great articles you’ve discovered

I find the links tweeted by the people I follow one of the biggest pluses with Twitter as I discover articles and facts that I would never have found myself. Aim to share the material you find that will be of some value to your followers.

Tweet profound things

Hey don’t be scared by this you don’t need to turn into Socrates overnight. But tweeting an original comment, observation or fact might get republished by your followers (retweeted), and this helps to build your influence and hopefully number of followers.

Give a little of yourself

You don’t need to tell the world what you had for breakfast but it's social media and that means people like to get to know a bit about you. Saying your going to a concert, pub or taking a holiday helps your followers form an opinion about who you are. Some moderation on personal stuff is the best policy unless you think you are a celeb and feel the world needs to know your every thought and movement.

Think about the time you tweet

If most of your audience is in bed then they are not going to read your tweets. I find the best time to tweet is in the morning when people are on their way to work, or the evening when they are at home. It’s not a good idea to send out a batch of tweets in a short period of time. Try to stagger your tweeting so you are not spamming people.

Remember the golden rule - as with all efforts in social media - is to try to add value. If you succeed in doing this then your influence and reach can only grow.

And don't forget you can follow me on twitter here.

Happy tweeting.

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Information overload isn't Google's fault

Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows writes about the rise of the web and how it is drowning humanity in a sea of data and ideas. However many of the technologies that he criticises such as Google have been developed precisely to help us get some control.

Google isn't the problem - it's the beginning of the solution

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The qwerty keyboard has been with us since 1870, but why?

It takes 60 to 80 hours to learn how to touch-type at 80 words per minute, and there is an 80% failure rate, whereas you can acquire a pilots licence in 45 hours and there's an 80% success rate. Which, come to think of it, is kind of scary.

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My 5 reasons to blog

I was in the pub and having a conversation about blogging and was asked: well what’s the point; writing is work, the audience is often small and how do you have the time do it when you have a full time job and an active social life to contend with.

These are the five reasons that I gave as an answer to my cynical friend.

1. Writing it down brings clarity

I am learning stuff on a daily basis and I find that if I write a quick blog post it clarifies my thoughts and this is useful when I come to make presentations or write articles in my work.

2. Hell I have something to say

A blog is a good place to spread opinion and be heard.  It offers an opportunity to connect with others in my field and learn from each other.  If we don’t agree then let’s argue it out in the comments and everyone benefits.

3. Future career opportunities

I don’t think for a minute that I am ever going to retire having made my fortune as a blogger. But establishing a blog that has regularly postings gives me a place to point future employers.  It shows I am thinking about the issues and challenges around my area of work and trying to connect with others in my field.  All plus points when it comes to interview time.

4. The love you take is equal to the love you make

I feel that only by giving something can I legitimately expect to receive something. I need my finger on the pulse of what's happening and I think while I learn from others it is only right that I give something back so they can learn from me.

5. It’s Fun

Social media shouldn’t be a drag and I find writing a quick blog post and then looking at the stats and replying to comments far more rewarding than watching yet another episode of Big Brother.

These are the reason why I plug away and like anything the more effort you put in the more you get back.

The hardest part is making the initial decision to pull yourself off the sofa, switch off the telly and start.  Once you have done this it just gets easier and easier.

So do let me know the reasons why you blog or are thinking about it.

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Essential apps for today's mobile journalist

Thirty years ago a journalist would be equipped with not much more than a pen and notepad and would travel with a full camera crew to capture news footage. Today this capability has literally shrunk into our pockets with the potential to make any of us a reporter.

So in no particular order I have complied a list of some of my favourite iPhone apps that I believe any mobile journalist cannot live without.

Blogging Apps

In the age of the internet news can be as much about getting the story out as quickly as possible as creating finely crafted prose and blog can offer a great platform for doing this. Both WordPress and Tumblr offer fantastic apps that make it simple to bang a story out on the spot, upload and edit as required.

iMove/ReelDirector

With the release of iPhone 4 and its HD video capability Apple also created a mobile version of its successful iMove editing suite which although very basic does allow quick edits to be made to video footage directly on the phone. ReelDirectorhas been in this space for slightly longer and also has a capable app that has offers all the features of iMove plus a few more to boot.

uStream

Even low quality reel time footage can send a powerful message and the uStreamapp makes it a simple process to broadcast live through a wifi or 3g connection.

Evernote

If I am going to be away from the office for more than a day then I'll drag my MacBook but I don't carry it around everywhere. The same cannot be said about my iPhone which I literally do have everywhere I go. Evernote comes with a simple interface for quick story (or even a finished piece if needs must) attach some images and maybe a voice recording - all within the same app, which then stores the content online so it can be accessed from anywhere using any device on any platform. Neat, and essential.

AudioBoo

It’s not enough to just write the news anymore, apparently you’ve also got to talk it now and a couple of questions on AudioBoo can really help lift a boring article.. AudioBoo allows you to simply record a five minute clip which you can then upload, share or embed.

Wolfram Alpha

Facts, facts and more facts is what Wolfram is about. This computational knowledge engine draws on some 50,000 built-in algorithms and an amazing 10 trillion pieces of updated and curated data to provide expert answers to free-form questions. If you want to find out what the fourth biggest female population centre is in the world then Wolfram can provide the answer.

Twitter

Twitter is a great communications tool and is a great way to discover stories and connect and discuss with experts. It is also invaluable in getting your work discovered.

Dropbox

Need to store files and text that you can access on the move then DropBox is a great app to have. It automatically synchs your cloud data to your phone.

Skype

With Skype on your iPhone or iPod touch you can call and instant message anyone else on Skype for free. You also can call landlines and mobiles and send SMS anywhere in the world at great rates. Now works both on wifi and 3g connections.

Facebook

Facebook for iPhone makes it easy to stay connected and share information. You can view news feed groups, view events, and upload photos and videos, but you cannot view videos that have been uploaded to FB. App includes built-in web browser

Instapaper

The Instapaper app is one of the easiest ways to store web pages for later offline reading. A fantastic way to make sure you never miss out on an article even when you are in a rush

Conclusion

This is a far from exhaustive list of apps that is available to the mobile journalists and if you have any other suggestions do tell. But it does show that from London to Kabul the power of the media is literally being put into our pockets.

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Dragon dictation iPhone app review

One of the problems with the iPhone is that it is a pain to type out anything longer than a sentence therefore it is difficult to create a quick blog post while you are on the move.

Today I found an app that may go some way to solving this problem. Dragon dictation for the iPhone converts you speech into text which can then either be sent to an email, shared on twitter, sent via SMS or posted to Facebook. It claims to be 5X faster than typing on a keyboard and on an iPhone probably 10X that.

It is multilingual and currently supports U.S. English, U.K. English and German. French, Italian and Spanish support will be added later this year. If you are stuck not being able to understand word or phrase in one of these languages then get the person to speak into the app and paste the text into google translate for a dirty DIY babel fish.

The upside of the app is it is free, very easy to use and does work; the downside is it makes many mistakes, you need to speak slowly and clearly and there seems to be a word limit on how much speech it will convert to text.

Useful but not perfect – 6/10

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Why only tumble or poste when you can do both

Just been considering the merits of the mini blogging platforms Posterous and Tumblr which inhabit a space somewhere between Twitter and Wordpress. Both of these platforms aim to make it as easy as possible to share several types of rich media content and are useful for short spurts of consciousness as well as more considered posts.

The nitty gritty:

• Registration - Posterous makes it simple and easy to register, no wait... you just need to post to post@posterous.com to get started. Tumblr has a registration form, but it doesn't match for Posterous' registration-free service. Winner: Posterous
• Posting - Posterous has only one content type (no offence to Posterous). Tumblr has a lot of content types. But do you need all these diffrent content types? Simplicity is best.
• You can post by email through a simple email address, while Tumblr makes up an email address that you might forget. Winner: Posterous (email)/Tumblr (flexiblity)
• Themes - Tumblr and Posterous both have good themes but as the more established platform Tumblr has more and better quality themes. Winner Tumblr.
• Focus - Tumblr is very much like your lifestream, while Posterous acts as your email version of ping.fm.
• Comments - Posterous has built-in comments. Tumblr requires you to use Disqus as your comment system. Tumblr doesn't have built in commenting. Winner: Posterous.

Tumblr has a great iPhone App and better themes but for sheer ease of use Posterous is my winner.

I would recommend using both platforms and linking them together. Posterous makes it so easy to share content through email that I have linked both my Tumblr and Blogger sites so any email I send with blogger+tumblr@posterous.com pings the content to both.

Surely the more spaces you can get your content on the better and Posterous allows such easy posting that why choose when you can use both for free.

PS - Posted with an email to Posterous to my:

• Blogger site
• Posterous site
• and Tumblr site

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The future of travel publishing is the app

Travel guide publishing is the canary in the coal
mine for the printed book with sales down 38% in five years. If this rate of decline continues then the last LP or Rough Guide will be published in 7 years.

Spurred on by the recession and with people to choosing to use the internet to do their own research sales of printed travel guides can only continue to fall.

Let's face it lugging a travel guide book around with you is inconvenient.

The future of the travel guide is the app.

It has convenience combined with features impossible to do with the printed book:

• Point your phone at an interesting building and get its full history;
• automatically build an itinerary based on your preferences;
• get restaurant and hotel recommendations combined with discounts streamed to your phone for the area that you are standing;
• speak into your phone for automatic translation into the local language;
• and a whole host of social features that could make discovering new people as easy as finding new places.

Although the future of the printed travel guide book is bleak, the information that it contains is soon to liberated in a much more exciting way.

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All you need is love, says Clay

I just read Internet guru Clay Shirky’s new book Cognitive Surplus

The basic premise of the book is that we have spent too much time passively watching television rather than doing stuff.

This is now changed as the online generation turn away from TV to the internet where they hangout in social networks, comment on posts and upload videos.

They are using their spare time which 100 years ago people had very little of to do something creative. OK most of the stuff done is trivial but for every 100 cute cat videos there is one video of real worth.

The problem with the book is that although Clay paints a convincing picture that the internet is groovy and it brings the world the 60’s ideal of peace and love in bytes, this is only half the picture.

The heart warming stories like wikipedia and the online charitable giving of time and money are great, but they need to be balanced with the fact that the internet can be used for ill as well as good: the Jihad movements plotting the next terrorist outrage; the Russian hackers attacking a Balletic state; pedophiles grooming children online.

Clay radiates nothing but goodness, but beneath this goodness lies a dollop of evil.

Click and Add Value

Many people forget that one of the biggest advantages of the web to traditional publishing is its interconnectedness. The web allows for easy sets of links to be added to stories that can help build information around content.

It exasperates me when I see web journalists re-write press releases rather than linking to the original and trying to add something unique.

A journalist shouldn't be a stenographer, if they are then perhaps they are in the wrong profession.

A couple of examples of publications that do it well:

• FT.com
• Guardian.co.uk

And those that don't:

• Brighton Argus
• The Times

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Get Your Finger on the Pulse

I've been playing around with the Pulse iPhone app and I'm loving it. Very simple idea it takes 20 of your favourite rss feeds and displays them in a grid pattern with a prominent picture. It's a very similar concept to the BBC app.

It may seem gimmicky but having the pictures there makes a real difference and shows the power of imagery in grabbing attention.

If I have any criticisms they are that you can only add 20 feeds, and most annoyingly - lots of my feeds don't have pictures combined with the stories.

Get it from the app store for £1.19 for the iPhone.

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Facebook and identity

We need to develop a network that allows for the complexities of identity, Facebook hasn't & is not willing to do this.

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A quiet revolution is underway in Africa

Many of us take the Internet for granted, but what about locations that are too remote or economically impoverished to enjoy the hi-tech benefits of the developed world?

The Shadow Chancellor in the UK, George Osborne, illustrated in a recent speech that people in the developing world - even in the poorest of circumstances - do care about having access to technology.

In a visit to a remote village in Rwanda in 2007 he and 40 other Conservative Party volunteers were working on transforming a once derelict orphanage into a school.

When it was announced that they were going to fix up the buildings and improve the water supply there were cheers from the villagers, but the loudest shouts were received when it was announced that the school was to be equipped with a computer.

Osborne was at first surprised with the reaction - access to a computer is not a fundamental of life. But even villagers in the remotest part of Rwanda knew about computers and the Internet and didn’t want their children to be excluded - as they had been - from something that could help lift them out of poverty.

While computer penetration is still low, Africans are buying mobile phones at a world record rate with take-up soaring 550% in five years. Now one third of the population in Africa owns a mobile phone.

These devices are being used in Africa to do all sorts of things never dreamt about by their creators. Transferring money via SMS between people who don’t have a bank account is now a huge business.

They are also acting as a link to get information out from rural areas and onto the Internet.

In Kenya, soon after violence erupted in 2007/8 elections, Mashada- a prominent online forum - launched an SMS hotline to help share information. Several prominent Kenyan blogs also accepted comments via SMS. Perhaps most prominently, BBC Africa’s ‘Have Your Say’ received over 3800 and published over 1300 comments after requesting updates from Kenyans.

While these innovative SMS tools are allowing more people to contribute opinions and information, none of them can yet directly reach the majority of the population, who need Internet access to see the posted messages.

Twitter is perhaps the most promising tool because of its ability to deliver messages to mobile phones. In the Kenyan elections twitter was used by journalists in trouble spots to warn people in real time to avoid these locations as well as to inform the world of what was happening.

Now, finally, Africa is getting the new high-speed Internet connections developed countries have had for years. In September 2009, a new cable linked up East Africa and this, combined with widespread mobile access, is promising to revolutionise business and communications, acting as a check on corrupt regimes by exposing malpractice and lifting areas of the continent out of poverty.

The Internet won't create success for Africa but perhaps the freedoms it brings will.

The Mob rules – Crowdsourcing MPs expense claims

There is a growing importance of a new kind of journalism, participation between trained, experienced, professional journalists and the citizen.

Trumped by the Daily Telegraph in exposing the British MPs expense scandal the Guardian is fighting back in a unique way using crowdsourcing (using the talents of the crowd) to sift through 70,000 receipts and expenses claims submitted by MPs.

The Guardian has developed an “Investigate Your MP” tool with the idea that “many hands make light work”. The best themes that emerge will be published in the newspaper, with credits for the author.

The application allows users to point out whether a claim from a set of PDF images realised by Parliament is interesting - such as a duck island - and worthy of further scrutiny.

This is very similar to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk which uses the power of crowds by enabling companies to outsource manual tasks for a small financial sum to workers at a lesser cost than hiring staff to do tasks computers struggle with.

The difference is instead of being used as a semi exploitive commercial enterprise, crowdsourcing is exposing MPs abuses and improving governance in the UK.

It’s also fun. There is a voyeur feeling in wading through pages of MPs claims and discovering how much of - our money - they have spent on their new bathrooms.

Hats off to the Daily Telegraph in breaking the scandal but it cannot be good that a single newspaper with its own bias continues to set the agenda by dripping feeding stories into the public domain.

In engaging thousands of people, passionate to get something done the Guardian is showing how citizen contributions can compliment professional journalism by uncovering stories that the political class would prefer never to see the light of day.

International Organisations in a Connected World

Today citizens increasingly expect to be able to collaborate with their governments online and no institution funded by the tax payer can ignore the need to interact and be transparent with the people it serves. Today's tech-savvy world demands tech savvy global institutions and the complex challenges faced by organisations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations (UN) and the Commonwealth will increasingly test them. To respond effectively to this new depth of challenge, these world bureaucracies must redefine how they make policies, share information and manage operations and move away from the industrial age and into the information age.

Although progress is slow international organisations have begun to leverage the power of Internet based-based tools that have been used for decidedly non-governmental and more social or consumer based activities.

Surprisingly it is the Commonwealth with its limited resources and the lower profile that has been more adept to the web2.0 challenge. By using wikis, blogs, folksonomies rating and comments on its website the Commonwealth shows itself to be more willing to open up and engage with the population of its member countries than many of its larger brothers in the international arena.

The United Nations with its membership of 192 countries, huge budget and the expectation that it will provide a lead to solving global problems is shamefully the worst performer in its use of collaborative technologies on its public website.

The UN.org is about as read only as can be, neither do they have a social network of their own or a presence on one such as the Commonwealth has on FaceBook. Although the UN Secretariat is doing a woeful job of using networking tools some of its agencies such as UNESCO UNICEF and WHO do use these them as another channel for their news. As does the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which is both on FaceBook and has developed its own networking tool.

Where the UN scores higher is with its use of YouTube. In 2008 the United Nations launched its television channel on YouTube in an effort to reach a broader and younger audience. The World Bank, World Health Organisation and OECD also have a YouTube channel.

Although these organisations want to use YouTube to reach a younger audience the content on their sites is very corporate and unappealing to youth. The Commonwealth is the one organisation that has made an effort to use YouTube to involve youth in their channel by pioneering user generated videos at major conferences and with an innovative proposal to highlight its unique diversity by running a Commonwealth YouTube talent contest.

Blogging helps to give some personality to faceless bureaucracies and many international organisations have developed their own blogging areas. The World Bank has an informative private sector development blog site which gathers ideas about the role of private enterprise in fighting poverty. The UN Secretariat does not have an official blog but there is a site developed by the United Nations Foundation called UN Dispatch. The OECD also operates a separate blogging site called Spotlight which provides a forum for discussion.

The Commonwealth has gone a step further having recently trialed live blogging from the health ministers conference in Geneva and will do the same from the education conference in Malaysia where youth participants will also contribute. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to be held in Trinidad in November attended by the Queen and many country leaders, the Commonwealth Blog Network will offer unique personal perspectives from one of the world's largest regular summits.

At this summit the Commonwealth will also use Twitter, a free micro blogging platform that connects people in real-time and enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets which are limited to 140 characters from either a mobile phone or a computer. Twitter is about as hot as you can get on the social web and is never out of the press with celebrity endorsements from Paris Hilton, Demi Moore, Oprah and the UK's own Stephen Fry.

While the United Nations Secretariat misses an opportunity by not using twitter some of its agencies are showing UN headquarters how it's done: UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation all have twitter accounts through which they distribute their news. The OECD also has a twitter account but the Commonwealth has taken it a step further by following 10 Downing Street's lead and integrating the twitter feed into the homepage of the Commonwealth website.

Perhaps wikis offer one of the most useful platforms for international organisations to collaborate on information sharing. A wiki is a user editable website which allows its members to be able to add new content or alter existing material. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is an example of how successful wikis can become.

International organisations have begun to dabble with wikis: OECD has created wikigender to facilitate the exchange and sharing of knowledge on gender issues and the United Nations has water wiki developed so that water sector professional can find and share experience and knowledge about water related work in the international (UN) context. The Commonwealth has also recently launched a wiki called Commpedia so that all 90 Commonwealth organisations can add their own information and promote their cause on a single site.

Although a wiki offers a superb platform for collaboration it is also vital that international orgaisations open up the data they collect so that it can be used in innovate way allowing citizens to co-design in the digital age to make services better. Many governments are already doing this with the UK offering a £20,000 prize for the best mash-up that improves lives.

The World Bank has been collecting massive amounts of data, for the past 50+ years, and now possesses one of the richest repositories of information about economic development in the world. To help people use this data they have developed World Bank Open API that opens the wealth of the World Bank's global economic data to the outside world, in a standard, easily accessible way. Open API allows third parties to develop mash-ups (a combination of data from different sources) and applications with the World Bank data and easily create different kinds of interesting visualizations and insightful reports.

International organisations also need to be aware of and ready to utiilise new technologies as they are developed. An example being Google Wave which is being released later this year and is likely to be as revolutionary to collaboration as email has been to communication.

So what more could international organisations be doing in today's web2.0 world:

• Follow the example set by companies such as Dell and Starbucks in the private sector. In their online idea storms customers submit their ideas, then fellow-customers vote on them - some gain a following, others die on the vine - and the companies implement the best of them. I would love to see this platform for mutual engagement used by institutions such as the UN, IMF and the Commonwealth to make them more relevant to the people that they serve.
  
  
• Learn from the example of micro financing sites such as Kiva that empower individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe allowing them to lift themselves out of poverty.
  
  
• Make more use of wikis by studying how municipalities such as the City of Melbourne are using wiki technology for public consultation and collaboration allowing people for the first time to directly contribute their ideas to enhance and develop the city.
  
  
• And finally follow President Obama's example from the US election with his use of social networks and the creation of MyBrarrackObama.com. This platform became a powerful tool for mobilising, participation and engagement. All which international organisations need to do if they are to be effective.

The impenitence of the world’s major international organisations has been exposed once again by recent global events and the the need for reform so they represent the world of the 21st century and not that of last century is acute. If these organisations want to stay relevant to the next generation, it will be hard for them to ignore the global reach of social networks and collaborative technologies as a way to interact directly with the digital natives. And this is not just an exercise in youth outreach or PR but an engagement with the future face of the international community.