How Blogging Facilitates Civic Engagement

Dave Ruller, the city manager of Kent, Ohio, and blogger of Kent 360, kindly agreed to share his best practices in social media for the third installment of my biweekly column at AriWriter.

By means of background, during my prior employment as the assistant chief administrative officer for Newburyport, Massachusetts, I routinely browsed the web seeking unique perspectives of mayors and city managers who not only authored blogs, but where citizens frequently commented. Dave and his blog always resulted at the top.

Civic engagement is a key tenet of social media in Government 2.0, and Dave does not disappoint with his amazing insights both on his blog and in the below email interview.

There’s a lot of content here, but I feel it is very worthwhile for you to read.

I am pleased to share Dave Ruller’s e-government strategies and tips with the world.

How can I introduce you?

I began serving as Kent’s City Manager in June 2005. I came to Kent seasoned with the lessons learned from 16 years of experience in city government: 11 in Alexandria, Virginia (population 125,000) and five in Kingsport, Tennessee (population 45,000) .

I’ve covered a lot of miles and more issues than I can recall but through it all I have managed to keep an undiminished enthusiasm for the profession of public service and I try to be a contagion for optimism wherever I go. If I ever lose that, it will be time to find a new career.

In both training and experience, I am unconventional. I believe local governments have an obligation to operate with the competitive efficiency of a business. I copy, adapt, and apply as much I can from the business world; and I continuously strive for excellence and innovation in city services. I have seen how city governments not only serve but lead through well-executed strategies that build momentum, pushing a community towards prosperity.

I am a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Hobart College and I hold a master’s degree in administration from Alfred University. I am also a graduate of the University of Virginia’s Senior Executive Institute, a joint program sponsored by the Darden Business School and the Cooper Center for Public Service.

With five years’ experience in Malcolm Baldrige Quality Assessment training, I am a featured speaker at national and international conferences on the deployment of quality practices in public sector organizations. As a result of these efforts, I also serve on the American Society for Quality’s “Community Good Works” review board.

I have been fortunate to be honored by the American Society for Public Administration, and numerous city and regional associations for leadership excellence. I am a former chapter president for the American Public Works Association and I’m a member of Rotary International.

I have two great kids and a terrific wife who tolerate a lot of after-hours meetings and middle of the night snowstorms, sewer backups, and water main breaks.

How has your blog impacted city operations?

I started the blog shortly after I was hired as city manager in 2005. The prior city manager did not blog and was not much of a computer user. The city has a web site that is managed by the City Clerk, but even that is underachieving.

Kent 360 has become an essential part of my job, as it gives me a chance to share information and insights that aren’t always evident from media coverage. Plus, I believe it helps create an atmosphere of trust as residents can see that we’re trying to be as transparent as possible, and trust is the foundation of local government.

One of the surprising benefits of the blog is the way it forces me to constantly look and talk about what we’re doing, what we need to be doing, what other cities are doing, and other ways to achieve our objectives.

My blog is like a daily dose of strategic accountability that makes me continuously reassess the alignment of what we’re working on in the short term with our long term goals. Even in preparing the stories, I am forced to constantly think about our strategic priorities and what I’m doing to effect change.

With our busy lives, it is easy to let the little things in life take precedence. The blog creates a framework that challenges me to explain how the little things contribute to bigger things; and if they d0n’t, it becomes fairly obvious once I am forced to explain it on the blog. Of course, the readers let me know when I stray too far.

Do you have a blogging policy?

We started with a minimalist approach to blog rules.

In my first post, I outlined some guidelines that I asked people to try to live up to, e.g., be constructive, not destructive; don’t personalize criticisms; etc. This has worked very well.

However, two lawsuits tested the rules. The defendants in one suit tried to leverage the blog as a way to attack the city. It got so bad that we began moderating the comments and deciding whether or not to post them on the blog. I was discouraged that we had to do that, but it became important for the integrity of the site.

Success to me is about readership, sharing information, learning, engaging the community, and expanding our capacity to help make progress occur. To those ends, I think the blog has made a real difference.

It sounds like Kent 360 is very successful.

It’s not the answer to all our problems, but the blog is an available tool for us to use, and for a certain segment of our citizens, it’s an important part of their daily lives.

From a bigger picture, blogging is an obvious way to transform the relationship citizens have with their city government. In order to contribute to progress, citizens must understand issues beyond the way the media presents them. The media is still our partner but the media isn’t in the position to facilitate conversations the way blogs can.

I perceive blogs as another step in the evolution of civic engagement. As the means of conversation changes, we (as government agents) must learn the new language and be sure we’re communicating in a way that is relevant and meaningful to our customers today.

The city is pushing into YouTube and podcasting to reach those audiences, too.

Blogs are powerful information mediums, and we’re trying to use them (and videos and more) to leverage their characteristics to advance all of our strategic goals including economic development and tourism. We’re trying to use it both as a clearinghouse for information and as a brokerage function to connect people and build local networks.

I want to add that blogs make our jobs both harder (from a time perspective) and easier (the more people understand the issues, the better the quality of community decision making). I consider blogs an emerging best practice and I want to be on the leading edge of what cities are doing. In this sense, blogging is hard work but I’m a big fan.

Any other social media forms you’re using?

I don’t frame the blog as social media, but there’s no denying the influence of social media in today’s Internet Age.

• We plan to launch a new prototype web site next year.
• I’ve played with using a wiki, but I need the courage to try.
• There’s talk about a MySpace page, but we’re not ready.
• And I mentioned our work on YouTube.

How is City Hall reacting to the blog?

Some City Council members think it’s great, some don’t read it, and others think my time could be better spent. The wide range of perspectives seem to depend on how technology-savvy the Council members are; because those that use the internet seem to enjoy reading it.

I know that they get positive feedback about it from residents, so even if Council members aren’t big fans, I think they appreciate that some residents are.

Do you use Twitter?

I have heard of Twitter, but I admit that I lack any reasons or time to use it.

Do you read other blogs?

I have bookmarked quite a few, but I’m not an avid follower of any particular sites. I’m too busy with my day job, I guess.

Any final thoughts?

If you’re going to blog, do it well. Don’t just put your toes in the water — jump in and swim! People can tell when you’re insincere or just going through the motions, so if you can’t devote the time to do it well, don’t do it all.

That being said, if you do run a blog well, I think it is worth every minute of time it costs to pull it off.

If you would like to contact Dave Ruller, he can be reached by email at RullerD@kent-ohio.org or through his blog’s contact form at Kent 360.

If you have any questions or feedback for me or Dave, or to share outstanding (or horrendous) blog links from YOUR local government leaders, please add a comment below.

Additionally, if you would like to be interviewed for a future column in this series and/or contribute a guest post on your best practices in social media, please contact me.

Kent photo credit: adaenn

Tagged as: branding, diplomacy, leadership, metrics