icegov2012 proceedings

with resources, peers and experts within and beyond the
organization area. Public servants can use blogs and wikis,
participated in web conferencing and developed podcasts and
videos and become more efficient in their workplace
communications thus indirect influence over quality of public
services.
Wikis
Tagging
Social
networking
Media
sharing
Social
bookmarking
Blogging
Media
manipulation
Many to many
communications
channels
Web 2.0
activities
Figure 2. Web 2.0 activities
Collaborative
editing
Recommender
systems
Conversational
arenas
Virtual
worlds
Syndication
An important shift was seen not just as the use of particular tools
or techniques, but to the fostering of digital engagement. This
involves:
o dialogue: moving from broadcast to conversation;
o not only listening but responding;
o two-way collaboration sharing information, data, discussion;
o opening spaces for peers to interact - facilitating communities;
o moving audience from awareness to action.
Web 2.0 covers a range of technologies. The most widely used are
blogs, wikis, podcasts, information tagging, prediction markets,
and social networks [3] (Figure 3).
303
Web 2.0
technologies
Wikis, commenting,
shared workspaces
Blogs, podcasts,
videocasts, peer to
peer
Prediction markets,
information
markets, polling
Tagging, social
bookmarking/
filtering,
user tracking,
ratings, RSS
Social networking,
network mapping
Figure 3. Web 2.0 technologies
Broad
collaboration
Broad
communication
Collective
estimation
Metadata creation
Social graphing
Broadly discussed in e-Administration field, web 2.0 technologies
enable communication, collaboration and content creation,
individually or together, and then publish to a workplace
community. PA 2.0 can link familiar productivity tools to intranet
publishing and search capabilities, thus public administrators can
communicate and collaborate more efficiently with greater
flexibility and access to information [11]. There are three key
characteristics of web 2.0 applicable to PA: open - accessible and
transparent; social-based on people and contacts/communications
between them and user-oriented [2].
Many initiatives have adopted web 2.0 applications in the
government context. There are relevant applications in the private
sector, which could be transferred to the government context.
According to “E-Government Survey 2012” there has been a
drastic rise of social media at the public administration [26].
Web 2.0 affects different domains of public administrators’
activities. While the debate is mostly focused on the impact in
citizen-government relations (the so-called front-office) at
present, analysis show that web 2.0 applications are also relevant
for the back office activities of public administration [19].
4. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
WORKPLACE COMMUNICATIONS
Definition (Wikipedia): Communication is the exchange of
thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals,
writing, or behavior. According to Herbert A. Simon, who is
known for his theory of administrative behavior “without
communication there can be no organization”. In the context of
internal communication, there are four tasks: categorize the types
of information necessary to be communicated to employees for
the effective functioning of the institution; identify the current
delivery methods for communicating internal information; assess
the effectiveness of the current methods, and recommend
guidelines for effective communication [10]. The PA
communications can be inter-relationship of public servants with
the citizen and “extra-organizational”, communications with
institutions [13]. There are a number of PA communications:
formal and informal; vertical and lateral; verbal and non-verbal.
They can be also viewed as occurring at intranet, extranet or
internet environment [21] (Figure 4).
Category of technology