It’s Twitter-tastic… but is it engagement?

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The Premier of South Australia, Mike Rann has been actively using Twitter for the last few months and his latch on too 21st century communication methods has received mixed reviews.  Personally, I have become a real fan and follow his regular updates, keeping myself up to speed on the latest movements of our state leader.

I am someone who has an interest in politics but I have never really been what you’d call an active follower.  I had a rough idea of what the Premier did, but until now didn’t know what he actually did on a day to day basis.  Through Twitter I now have a greater understanding for the work he does, and therefore much greater respect.

The great news is that is isn’t just me that is following him.  4,293 people are currently following him.  Every friend of mine that is using Twitter is following him – this Twittering seems to have really hit the spot with my ‘late Gen-X early Gen-Y’ peers.  It’s also great that I’ve been able to send messages directly to the Premier and on three occasions have received personal messages in return.  All very impressive.

But when it comes to community engagement, or more specifically involving the community in decision making, where does all this twittering sit?  I turned to the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum to ponder.

Without a doubt, Premier Mike Rann is twittering at the Inform end of the spectrum.  He is using Twitter to “provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problems, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions”.  He has made a commitment to the public to keep them informed.  Using Twitter is a quick and easy way to get messages to the public embracing the technology that is available.

But the real question arises when you start to look along the Spectrum.  In my opinion, Premier Mike Rann’s twittering occasionally touches on the Consult level but doesn’t go any further.  That is by no means a criticism as I’m not sure Twitter necessarily lends itself to processes any further along the Spectrum.

And when I say that it ‘touches’ on the consult level, this is generally more to do with his ‘followers’ providing feedback on the statements he makes and not necessarily Premier Mike Rann putting a question out to his audience and requesting a response.

Perhaps as time goes on, the use of Twitter will become more than just an information source and maybe more of a conversation?  Or will the Premier’s audience become too big to administer and the personalised responses become less and less administratively possible?

All in all, the use of Twitter by the Premier of South Australia is a move in the right direction.  This is a significant move for bringing politics into the 21st century and as more applications become possible, who knows what sort of opportunities we will encounter to fully engage with our leader…

Twitemperature, is an online tool that tells you whether you’re hot or cold on today’s topics of concern.  It ignores meaningless points of measure like number of followers and number of people you are following, and instead focuses on what you’re actually saying, now.  It polls your last several hundred tweets to score what you’re saying against what everyone else is saying in current hot conversations on Twitter and elsewhere.  I am pleased to announce that Premier Mike Rann is “as hot as a freshly struck match!”

And on a final note, perhaps IAP2 will need to start thinking about using some more ‘technological’ example techniques when they next update their spectrum!  Let us not get left behind by these hi-tech politicians!