Hidden Canadian Government Gems

I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll mention it again, certain government departments are full of great hidden online products/tools that few people know of. Those outside of government walls may find it hard to believe, but it’s true. Some departments have been told to keep a low-profile on their offering for political reasons, others don’t yet realize just how much value they could potentially bring to audiences beyond their existing niche. In other cases still, it’s the complete lack of a well thought out marketing strategy that is to blame.

This will soon change. It’s becoming harder and harder to remain invisible. Believe it or not, we are slowly moving into the early adopter phase of Government 2.0 here in Canada. A demand for increased transparency, collaboration across multiple stakeholders, and a wide variety of new channels for participation with Canadian citizens, are all bringing to light some of these existing little gems, and rapidly giving birth to new ones. We’re still a far cry away from U.S initiatives such as data.gov and apps.gov, however here are three great Canadian online products/tools that I’ve stumbled upon through my consulting:

Working in Canada Tool – A government mash-up tool that allows you to search for an occupation that you’re interested in and receive up-to-date, accurate information from a wide variety of integrated databases. It puts certain private sector fee-based tools to shame. It was initially developed for skilled immigrants looking to work in Canada. Once you try it out yourself you’ll realize that it’s useful for much more than that.

Termium Plus – An incredible translation tool initially only used by government departments internally. It’s now available to the public. Try typing in a word in English and see just how thorough it is.

GC Surplus Auction – If you think you can find great things to buy on e-Bay, take a look a this Canadian Federal Government auction website. I just found a 2003 Yamaha ATV with a starting bid of $100.

There are plenty more of course. And they will only get better, especially as they begin to transition into stand-alone mobile applications. What I’m curious about though is what you’ve come across lately? Whether you’re a public servant, consultant, or citizen, there’s bound to be an online government tool that impressed you.

Quick MARCOM 2009 Debrief

It has already been almost 3 weeks since MARCOM 2009 took place at the Pearson Convention Centre in Toronto. Surely enough, the last 3 weeks have been so busy that I never got a chance to share my experience with you. Here’s a quick summary.

What is MARCOM 2009?

Basically the only marketing conference that is dedicated solely to marketing professionals working in the public and/or non-profit sectors. It is run by a sister company of CEPSM (our organization) called CMG Canada.

Why did I attend?

Besides the fact that I was chosen to speak and thus had to attend, I really love how niche of a conference MARCOM is and how much subsequent value I always receive. Most importantly however, I love surrounding myself with people that are passionate towards their jobs. The vast majority of private sector marketing conferences are about marketing product/service “X” whereas MARCOM brings together people that use marketing to improve such initiatives as classroom literacy,  public transportation,  spousal abuse, foreign credential recognition, etc…

What did I think of the speakers?

This year the line-up of speakers was outstanding. I was able to attend the following:

Arlene Dickinson (Venture Communications/Dragon’s Den) –> How can not-for-profit and public sector marketing get the respect it deserves?

• Brilliant marketing mind
• Emphasized “strategy before tactics”, which is what I live by.

Michael Cleland (City of Mississauga) & Rupen Seonie (Environics Analytics) –> Moving beyond demographics to psychographic segmentation

• If you’re a marketer and you haven’t heard of PRISM C2 yet, get on it. It’s the most comprehensive segmentation of the Canadian population, period.
• If you have a database of your target audience (with postal codes), then you can overlay the PRISM C2 clusters and find out crucial psychographic info.

Wayne Carrigan (ThinData) & Jim Jeang (Canadian Blood Services) –> Email and social media: natural allies

• While I was skeptical at first as to what social media has to do with email, I did end up enjoying this presentation due to Wayne’s thorough knowledge of the email industry.
• Jim spoke to the “tactical” side of social media , focusing on the tools he used within CBS as opposed to more strategic elements I like to hear (i.e. determining the best ways to meet objectives and desired outcomes before jumping into tactics). That being said, it is always refreshing to hear about social media initiatives within government that have actually been implemented. I will be adding this to the Gov 2.0 Wiki for sure.
• Overall, both speakers were well prepared and placed a strong emphasis on measurement, which is always a good thing.
• Some interesting stats:
  • On average Canadians receive 130 pieces of SPAM per week
  • 2005–> mass email deployments
  • 2006–> email versions deployed to specific segments
  • 2008–> 1:1 dynamic deployment
  • Great CBS initiative: www.thankyourdonor.ca

Rahaf Harfoush (Obama New Media Team/World Economic Forum) –> Yes we did: Strategic insights from the campaign that changed history

• Rahaf gave a brilliant behind the scenes overview as to day to day life at Obama campaign headquarters and the many all-nighters that lead to such a tremendous victory.
• Be sure to check out the Barack Obama and White House websites.

Louise Clements (Facebook) –> Facing Facebook today: How to use Facebook to stay ahead of the game

• Louise has an extensive private-sector background in sales and has just been recruited by Facebook to lead the  Toronto office. She gave an excellent overview of the re-vamped Facebook social advertising platform (adverts), which to my surprise, few people even knew existed.

Brian Thwaits (Brainspeaker Inc.) –> Engage your brain!

• I highly recommend Brian’s new book, “The Big Learn” ,to anyone interested in the latest theories and studies surrounding left vs. right brain thinking. Great closing keynote!

Overall thoughts

Besides listening to speakers, I very much enjoyed presenting myself. I conducted a full-day “social media 101″ pre-conference workshop followed by a more advanced “social media research tools” presentation during the actual conference. For the latter, I paired up with Nick Charney from CPS Renewal who did a wonderful job tying everything in to a government work environment. I also had a chance to host two roundtable discussions, one on “government 3.0″ and one on “attaining senior management buy-in for social media engagement”. Both turned into rich discussions during which I learned quite a bit myself.

To sum up, I will definitely be coming back next year.

Apps for Democracy “Community Edition”

I’m heavily buried in the process of preparing my materials for the upcoming MARCOM 2009 conference, however I wanted to post this up rather than just tweet about it. Basically, Apps for Democracy , the Washington D.C crowd sourcing initiative that I often use in my presentations, has just launched a new initiative called Apps for Democracy “Community Edition”. Citizens get to submit their community improvement ideas in real-time and vote using this insights portal.

Why do I think this initiative will work? Because last time they had very little support and yet they managed to have citizens develop 47 applications in 30 days using crowd sourced government data. The estimated cost had they gone through the RFP process, would have been $2.3M, not to mention 12 years of procurement. The total cost ended up being the prize money of $50K. The ROI therefore was 4000%.

Have a look at this video if you’re confused.

Apps For Democracy Community Edition from Peter Corbett on Vimeo.