If you can crowd source developing a car, what can't you crowd source?

Fiat in Brazil is currently crowd sourcing the development of an concept car for 2010, the Fiat Mio.

The concept is that the public (from anywhere in the world) can submit ideas for what they'd like to see in a car, these ideas can be voted and commented on by others and Fiat engineers will draw from these ideas when developing the concept car.

The site uses a translation tool to allow ideas to be translated into any of five languages with a click of a button, making it truly international in scope.

Already there have been thousands of ideas submitted and voted on and there's a very active discussion of the car on Twitter (largely in Spanish).

To top it off, the project is being developed under a Creative Commons license - making the ideas reusable by other car makers.

Please remember that all content will be free. Fiat believes that the information generated in this project should be shared without restrictions for use by simple users or engineers and manufacturers, and other vehicle manufacturers.

If an organisation such as a car maker, in a highly competitive and complex industry, is able to crowd source the development of a concept car, one of the most complicated machines used by man, think of the possibilities for crowd sourcing government initiatives, programs and policies.

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Follow the Gov 2.0 NSW Public Sphere today by video, audio or Twitter

If you, like me, aren't able to make it down to Parliament House in Sydney for Gov 2.0 NSW Public Sphere today, at least try to follow the Twitter stream (search on the hashtag #nswsphere), watch the video stream or listen to the audio stream for the day (details to be provided in the NSW Public Sphere site.

The more people who participate, in person or digitally, the greater the value of the event.

As a warm-up, here's a video Matthew Hodgson has put together for the NSW Public Sphere.

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How should a government department develop a social media policy? Start a blog!

In July the US Department of Defense launched a new blog, the Web 2.0 Guidance Forum, for the purpose of sourcing input from the public to be used as they develop a social media policy for the armed forces and their families.

Reported in Nextgov, Defense asks the public for help forming social media policy, the approach appears to have worked quite well. When the consultation closed on 20 August it had amassed over 260 targeted comments, including a number of ideas that had not previously been considered by Defense.

Given this approach seems to have repeatedly delivered positive outcomes, in the US, UK and even in Australia - why are we still using it so sparingly in government policy development?

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Is the social media revolution merely a fad?

Watch the video below, then I'd like your opinion.

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Integrating an online community engagement strategy

When I wrote my first online community engagement strategy for Telstra's Wireplay service in 1997, one of the factors I considered was how to 'complete the loop' - integrate inbound and outbound online channels to reach, engage and promote interaction across the widest possible audience.

In those days we used mass media, product sponsorship and events as the drivers to build audience reach and awareness and online forums, IRC chat, newsgroups and email to interact online and generate repeat traffic.

It was an effective combination - although limited by 2009 standards.

Today there are more online channels alternatives when building an integrated marketing or engagement strategy, however the principle remains the same,

• Use media (inc online) channels to drive initial traffic to the site
  
• Make the on site barriers to engagement and interaction as low as possible, provide rewards for activity and a variety of ways to engage/interact to suit different comfort and skills levels
  
• Promote return traffic through alerts and email news
• Build audience by providing reasons for visitors to refer your site to others
• Increase your reach by providing options to integrate your content into other sites

However I'm disappointed to see that many Australian organisations are struggling to get beyond the first, second or third steps above.

Sometimes their strategy was to spend their month on building and launching an online engagement site, then hope people like it enough to spread the word themselves - the build it and they will come approach.

Sometimes organisations treat the delivery of a website as the end of the project - rather than the start.

And sometimes the value of word-of-mouth promotion and an outreach strategy is not recognised - some organisations still believe that the mass media is the most powerful traffic driver.

Fortunately for those of you struggling to enlighten organisations who believe any of the above, IAS B2B has published an integrated channel strategy diagram which provides an excellent illustration of how to effectively design an online community engagement approach.

I've included an image below, and you can download the integrated online strategy diagram PDF here (103kb).

At first glance the diagram can appear a little daunting - which is possibly why Marc Keating has made an accompanying video to explain it in depth.

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