Collaborative Management Day (from 1300 kms away)

On June 9, 2011, thanks to an amazing organizing team and the Canada School of Public Service, I attended Collaborative Management Day via webcast.

My viewpoint for the day.

This was an event by public servants for public servants. The day was packed full of guest speakers talking about different ways to collaborate and many of the tools and methods that are used across departments.

To me the day was all about sharing and moving forward as a strong public service. Twitter was used by participants near and far to share thoughts, opinions and pictures about what was occurring throughout the day. This online collaboration generated over 1000 tweets using the hashtag #GOC3 over the course of the event.

It was great to see people I know on stage presenting. Like Sean Kibbee talking about internal collaborative tools (GCForums, GCPedia and GCConnex) and Blaise Hebert speaking about "Virtual Engagement". Both did an excellent job speaking about their roll and the tools that they've developed for collaboration.

One really neat moment was the debut of a YouTube video featuring Tanya Snook, Collaborative Management Day - Tanya Snook it's a video that I feel every manager in the GOC should be encouraged to view. She talked about the "small wins that allow her team to make a little progress each day." She also talked about giving staff latitude and trusting your employees, something that can sometimes be a difficult stretch for some managers especially when use of social media is a necessity of the job.

This video really made me think. I think that a lot of the time we feel as though we need to swing for the fence and hit it out of the park. But if you can consistently hit singles and the odd double you can end up with long and successful career. Hitting the odd one out of the park will likely get you some votes for the Hall of Fame!!

These types of events make me proud to be a public servant. I'm hoping that at some point I'll be able to attend a future event in person. Until then I'll keep in touch via webcast and twitter and continue to collaborate from a distance.

Kudos again to the organizing team and all of the speakers for putting together such a great event.

Deflated

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's just me but I've been feeling deflated lately.

Kids got a new hamster recently and I see him run and run on that wheel and I say, crap that's me. Spinning my wheels but not moving anywhere.

Luckily I was found myself getting air back in the tires, jumping off the wheel and moving forward during a trip to Ottawa last week. I was able to connect with some great old and new friends at an event organized by the W2P community in Ottawa. It was great to hear Nick Charney, Ryan Androsoff and Hannah McKinnon speak with passion about Gov 2.0.

(Plus on a non-work related issue we went to a great concert, Goo Goo Dolls, with a group of friends this weekend too).

It's great how something as simple as connecting with friends can give you that kick that you were needing.

Part of my New Years resolution is to try and post more often, so the 5 people that read this can look for more in a couple of weeks.

My Blog 1.0

Welcome to my first blog post. I’ve added comments to posts I’ve read and provided summaries of events I've attended the odd time, but this is the first time I’ve taken a crack at writing something on my own, so be gentle.

As hard as it is to believe, I've passed the 15 year mark with the public service. My career has taken lots of different twists and turns and I've had the opportunity to work and travel from coast to coast and meet and work with some amazing and dedicated people.

I currently work in HR with the Canada Revenue Agency in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. I deal mainly with staffing and have been heavily involved with student recruitment for a number of years. 

I'm fascinated by the explosion of social media tools and how they have become a part of our everyday life. I experience the struggles with how to best use the technology available to us everyday. I've been fortunate to have been given alot of flexibility by my boss to use and explore social media in my job. Twitter has become one of my best sources of information. By using a couple of hashtag's like #w2p and #cpsr you can find a wealth of information about what's happening across the country and have been able to connect with some amazing people.

I've been inspired by people like Nick Charney and Dave Eaves along with many, many others. If you don't follow these guys I'd encourage you to do so, check out their websites at http://www.cpsrenewal.ca/ and eaves.ca. I was lucky to be able to sit down for a few hours and chat with Nick. I left knowing that with people like Nick promoting public service renewal initiatives we are in good hands and heading in the right direction. But there is still lots of work to be done.

To move ahead we need to be innovative and continue to push for the use of these tools. Public servants in BC were recently given permission to use social media tools where appropriate. Allen Seckel, head of the BC public service, stated; "You have to make sure people understand what's confidential and what would be stupid to put on any medium...whether it's Facebook or Twitter or a fax or a phone call." Was the implementation of email this big of an issue? 

Bottom line we have to be smart about when and how, but we are all human and mistakes will happen, we just have to make sure we learn from them.

I'm pretty sure that social media and web 2.0 technologies are here to stay. We need to spread the message that this stuff isn't scary and that it is just another tool at our disposal. Strive to find ways to use them to our advantage and encourage and embrace innovation instead of finding reasons why we can't.