Britain Appoints First Twitter Czar
Did you see this? BusinessWeek reports that U.K. government has appointed its first “director of digital engagement” to “to push its plan to move more public services online and leverage social media.”
Andrew Stott, a Cambridge graduate with a degree in mathematics and law who has been deputy CIO since September 2004, started his new job yesterday—championing digital engagement and promoting the use of web 2.0 technologies across government. One of his first tasks was to create a Twitter account for the role: @DirDigEng.
@CiscoSystems is definitely following him now.
Very progressive for any government to have this type of high-touch in their administration…clearly one person cannot scale to work with all constituents, but could Twitter be a way for all of us to get closer to our governments and elected officials? I’m following a handful of elected officials as well as government leaders in the US, such as @caseycoleman who is the CIO of the Government Services Agency (GSA). If anything, it certainly helps put a face and name to some sometimes nameless and faceless government bureaus. I applaud it. Now, if the DMV would just read this! (Actually, to give them credit here in California, they allow you to schedule appointments online and it saves MUCH time, thank you California DMV.)
Posted by John Earnhardt at 09:40AM PST
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