BlueAce

Vorige week lanceerde het platform BeroepsEer, een sociaal netwerk voor overheids diennaars. Een initiatief geinspireerd door het het boek BeroepsZeer van o.a. Geert Mak over de logheid van Nederlandse organisaties en de motivatie problemen die dat met zich mee brengt.

BlueAce sprak met James Burke, oprichter van Lifesized, en ontwerper van de website in opdracht van Stichting BeroepsEer. Mede in de hoop wat op te steken over het maken van een Web 2.0 site, voor een doelgroep die je wellicht niet zo snel associeert met de nieuwste generatie web applicaties. Wat volgt is het verslag van deze conversatie.

Aangezien James van engelse origine is zijn de antwoorden, bij wijze van uitzondering, in het engels.

BlueAce: Vertel eens iets meer over jezelf en het project team. Wat is BeroepsEer precies?

James Burke: My name is James Burke and I am an interaction designer. I was introduced to Thijs Jansen who runs stichting beroepseer with Alexandrien van der Burgt. Robert Gaal joined me to put the present beroepseer site together and after releasing the first beta version, i was joined by Chicho Marzin.

The new BeroepsEer site or platform is a project that is meant to draw attention to problems happening inside public and semi-public sector organizations. The purpose of the site is to give people inside public sector a voice and support them with online tools to organize their resources around issues. Right now we are experimenting with a feedback system where we have four video interviews with politicians in specific areas.

BA: Dus de doelgroep zijn diegenen die werken in de publieke en de semi-publieke sector als de zorg, het onderwijs, de politie etc.?

JB: Yes, its a social network for people working in public and semi-public services. That is an under-served group and due to the nature of politics, probably in need of social software as much as any other group.

BA: Ik kan me voorstellen dat het lastig is om mensen in het openbaar over hun organisatie te laten discussieren. Hoe hebben jullie de doelgroep zover gekregen?

JB: Through people who went to a conference organized last summer, and people that signed the BeroepsEer manifesto. We seem to be reaching people inside government and some NGO like groups around these issues.

BA: Jullie hebben evangelisten in de verschillende ministeries zeg maar?

JB: Thijs Jansen works for the think tank research department of the CDA, so we were able to have access to a number of politicians. At the same time people inside the government realized that there are issues and were willing to be interviewed and listen to feedback. Personally I see the issue in all large organizations is that bureaucracy is killing quality and enjoyment in working there. Social networks help you step outside the normal boundaries of your small hierarchy of people above and below you.

BA: Ik neem aan dat dat ook wrijving kan veroorzaken, wat voor problemen zijn jullie tegengekomen op dat vlak?

JB: None so far… it’s not really well known beyond about a 1000 people yet. Certainly privacy is an issue if you can be seen to say something that contradicts your boss or what your organization says in statements through publishing your own thoughts. We have had people ask to have comments removed from the video feedback comment list. Perhaps we were not clear enough in telling people that their words would appear online. Certainly there is an age issue. Some non-digital natives older than thirty-something might feel more anxious participating on such a platform due to feeling unfamiliar with the technology. I think this will be short-lived.

I hope we can be one of the places where public sector workers, members of the public, can report what the big issues are in their local context and that we can then create more flexibility and speed in addressing these issues. One scenario is that the platform could become compromised by being an easy way for the political class to just say they are participating with the public sector and citizens while they do nothing with the feedback.

BA: Kan je proberen dat te voorkomen via het design van je platform/website?

JB: Another scenario which i think is more positive is to build a more participative means of policy formation and implementation, as well as in the case of public sector workers. Let them identify, discuss and resolve issues. To answer your question. The platform can call the politicians to task. Politicians can lose reputation. We can see nationally as well as locally the most important issues and expectations of ambtenaren.

BA: Je hebt specifiek video gekozen als medium om mensen hun meningen te laten uiten, wat was daarvoor het argument?

JB: TV/Film is more emotive than text alone. It’s really a no-brainer. Also we wanted to appeal to a wider audience. Pretty pictures are easier to consume than a page of text.

BA: Jullie hosten de video niet zelf. Kwestie van budget of hadden jullie daarvoor andere redenen?

JB: Yes… if we had a bigger budget than sure we could host all the video ourselves. The site was a bit of a leap of faith. I knew what social media was about but i had to train Thijs and Alexandrien, which was a lot of fun. They were amazed how we worked during user testing over Skype sessions. First we had to teach everyone to use Skype.

BA: Wat zijn de reacties op de site tot nu toe?

JB: From users… I have not really had any personal contact as its a relatively new thing. My client is happy, they did not know that we would be able to create such rich ways for people to respond.

BA: En… wat wordt de volgende stap?

JB: Hmmm… let the site run a bit, after a month we will publish the results and send them to the politicians. Then we will want to see some movement from their side. So that’s as far as I can think ahead right now. Of course i want to improve the profile sections and general usability. We want to hear from our users what they want improved and from anyone with an interest in this space. Certainly we would like to host more discussions.

BA: Heb je terugblikkend nog wat tips voor het bouwen van een community voor ons?

JB: Depends what you role is in which community, in the context of BeroepsEer or in other projects?

BA: Als de ontwerper van een community website, jouw rol dus.

JB: It helps to map out the participatory goals you are intending to reach

BA: Participatory goals?

JB: There is a group in the UK that released a wonderful document on how to define issues and then select the right tools to deliver an overall outcome which can be broken down into specific outputs. As Beroepseer had no specific overriding clear cut goal, as it is a complex series of issues that form, what Thijs Jansen calls, BeroepsZeer i set out to do the basic things that social networks can deliver… give people a platform to speak out, to provide a basic ‘wisdom of crowds’ via rating posts. I also wanted to provide participants with a sense of place… which is where the Google Maps interface comes in. People can also form groups, create events and publish at different levels of privacy.

BA: Was het makkelijk om het gebruik van web 2.0 tools aan je klant te verkopen?

JB: To pitch my ideas i used examples of other web 2.0 companies and showed how these worked. Web 2.0 was irrelevant as a term, it was sold really through showing how for a small investment, they could leverage using the power of networks. The buzzwords for them were transparency, horizontal structures rather than hierarchies and showing them other tools doing similar things.

Tijs Teulings = Automatique. Bureau voor advies over, en technisch design & ontwerp van web applicaties. Voor zijn persoonlijke beslommeringen kunt u terecht op zijn weblog en zijn nieuwe web 2.0 app is uiteraard nog in stealth mode.