The British tax collectors, HM Revenue & Customs, have recently launched a series of podcasts with free tax advice:

The service <http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/podcasts> , launched on 12 April 2007, makes the government department one of the first to use the medium. It said it will help to make information on various issues simple and accessible.

The podcasts last between three and four minutes, and offer advice, support and helpful hints in a conversational style.

One of the first is aimed at helping employers to file their end of year returns. It leads them through the process step by step, telling them what options are available and providing advice on other sources of information.

Another podcast, launched on the same day, discusses topical issues relating to the tax profession. It carries an interview with HMRC's director general (business) Dave Hartnett, talks about the lessons learned from last year's trials of new style inspections, and how the department is trying to work better with agents.

"Compliance interventions are rightly one of the issues most discussed by tax practitioners today," said Chris Hopson, communications and marketing director at HMRC. "The launch of podcasts is another way HMRC is endeavouring to communicate better with this vital audience."

From Kable's Government Computing, with a hat-tip to Colin of Canuckflack.

Paul Wells on goverment and social media

Paul Wells, famous both for his column in Macleans and his popular Inkless Wells blog, wrote this week about speaking "to some civil servants about new media, social media and other jargon terms for the rising use of blogs, Youtube, social networking sites and the Wiki concept of communal editing and online brainstorming." (Boy, would I ever have loved being a part of THAT conversation! If all goes according to plan, I might get my wish at the next Third Monday gathering, as the early buzz says Paul Wells himself will be the guest speaker.)

He goes on to talk about the potential of social media to facilitate the process of public consultation and citizen engagement: "One of the niftiest ideas I've heard is that a policy proposal could, itself, be wiki'd: Publish a discussion paper and then invite people — either any ordinary Canadian who wants to participate, or perhaps a password-equipped community of experts and stakeholders — to amend the document themselves, just as Wikipedia entries are amended. Post the paper, notify stakeholders, wait a month, then come back to see how it's grown."

And just so I stop short of reproducing his entire blog post verbatim, I'll exhort you to visit his post for a round-up of some government initiatives in this area.

Trends in government and socia media

There’s been lots of talk about government and social media in the blogosphere this week. For example:

Michael Geist's regular column in the Toronto Star addresses how the government should respond to the user-generated content boom that is driving social media: “Ten years later, the role of government will be to support the enormous economic and cultural potential of user-generated content, while avoiding steps that might impede its growth. It can do so by focusing on the three "C’s" - connectivity, content, and copyright.”

Via Blogging4Business, an article in The Independent criticizing UK Environment Minister David Miliband‘s blog, asserting among other things that it has cost £40,000, or approximately £1 per word.

And speaking of the UK, Ian Ketcheson provides a helpful roundup of government and social media initiatives in the UK, with lots of linky goodness. Especially interesting is this interim report of the government’s Digital Dialogues project, which is exploring the use of interactive communication technologies by the government for citizen engagement. I’m about 1/3 into the paper, and it has a lot of interesting insight. Highly recommended reading!

Politician and civil servant bloggers in Singapore

I stumbled across a blog called Rambling Librarian, a personal weblog of what appears to be a government-employed librarian in Singapore. He too is exploring the intersection of personal blogging and government blogging, including a couple of posts on blogging guidelines for employees.

From the same blog, I found a link to a blog on which Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, George Yeo, has contributed more than 30 guest posts, and I read how in a recent national address, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong committed to using new media: “We still need to get our message across. We will use the new media, multimedia, podcast, broadcast, all these things which you get in the Internet, or somebody sends to you by email, I think our ministries, our agencies have to experiment, have to try it out.”

Also from the Rambling Librarian, I found a link to a blog called WebSG.org, with a post examining trends in Singapore’s political blogosphere. From there, I found this post about the MSM ‘outing’ of a group of public servants who have been blogging in Singapore. Also from the WebSG.org post, I found a link to a government-sanctioned group blog by 12 Singaporean Members of Parliament, all born since 1965.

John Edwards' social media campaign

In announcing that his candidacy for the President of the United States, John Edwards has shown a remarkable grasp of and appreciation of the power of social media. For one thing, he announced his intention to announce his candidacy on YouTube. He’s obviously comfortable with blogging, MySpace, and Flickr.

But even moreso, as the Washington Post observed, he seems to get that social media has transformed the power structure and the way we communicate: “Smart candidates know the old command-and-control structures of politics don't work anymore. Instead, campaigns are all about building communities and speaking directly to supporters, whether through email or podcasts or what the Edwards team calls "webisodes."”

Time magazine noted: “Once he made it official, Edwards' campaign pitch got even more unorthodox. He started his short speech by saying Americans needed to "take action" in a way that almost seemed to minimize the importance of whoever might be President — now or in 2009. "We want people in this campaign to actually take action now," Edwards said, "not later, not after the election. We don't want to hope that whoever's elected the next leader of the United States of America is going to solve all our problems for us. Because that will not happen." He encouraged people to volunteer, particularly in storm-damaged areas in New Orleans.”

Social media is all about this ‘power to the people’ mentality. And so far, Edwards seems to be one of the few politicians who has gone beyond simply trying to manipulate the new tools using the old mindset. As one blogger noted, if he’s elected in 2008, Edwards is well-poised to be the first Social Media President.

A big list of government blogs

Via Ian Ketcheson, this interesting list of blogs from "Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers, Secretaries of State, and from government departments and ministries." Notably, it does NOT include politicians' blogs.

Inside the CBC

I just found this link to "Inside the CBC", the official blog of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I wish I had stumbled across it before! It's a really nice example of how an offical blog doesn't have to be officious.

In particular, check out the "about this blog" page for a description of how blogger Tod Maffin remains independent from and yet respectful toward editorial control from the mothercorp, and how they addressed the issue of official bilingualism.