New type of management and leadership is needed
Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 6:59 am
3. Both monitoring and intervening
Authorities can both monitor and intervene in social media. Monitoring is best done in a national network of experts and relevant services, but any actions based on risks found during monitoring are best done locally.
4. Don't focus on social media
Authorities should not be blinded by social media. Assessing the value of online phenomena and in particular how they relate to physical mobilization is complicated. Therefore, it is essential to contextualize insights from social media with local knowledge.
5. Tasks for both executives and management
Attention to the strategy regarding social media and ICT in general, should be placed high in the management list to data of the police and the public administration. They have become central strategic tasks. They should not be left only to executive communication departments and network teams.
6. Research on strategies for intervention
Government intervention in social media is largely uncharted territory. This is also a matter of principle: how far can the government go in this? Research needs to be conducted into possible strategies and tactics of intervention.
7. A clear plan
Intervention by police and public authorities in social media is pointless without a clear plan. What exactly do you want to achieve with this? Who exactly are the target groups within social media? What tactics should be used? What role should be assumed? Random tweeting can easily backfire.
8. New structure of police organization
The police organization must be organized in such a way that every police officer knows where to go with a question that concerns social media and monitoring thereof. Any problems in which social media play a role are best announced by citizens who are personally involved: for them, a local police officer or the national police telephone number is the first point of contact.
Project X Haren
Network government
The current traditional structures of government are only able to deal with these kinds of issues in the new network society by partly transforming themselves. A network government is a government that gradually organizes itself less in columns and more in chains or networks. Hierarchical parts of government, such as the police and public administration, have great difficulty with the flat structures of networks. If they have to ask their superiors for permission for every action, effective action is not possible.
These recommendations contain many things that seem logical at first glance, but which will be rather stubborn in practice. 'Transformation into network government', 'largely unexplored territory' and 'central strategic tasks' form a fundamentally different organisation of the authorities, with a subsequent new type of management and leadership.
Bats: 'We want to take up the challenge with social media now'
Mayor Bats has also come to realize the latter. Where he spoke boldly when he was appointed, 'there will be no tweeting mayor here', he spoke in a completely different tone in De Volkskrant two months ago. 'Society has changed. As a government, we were not very far ahead in the field of social media. We want to take up that challenge now.' And so it seems that it can happen that a simple birthday party leads to a radically different organization of our governments, in which accessibility, connectedness, personality and transparency are ce
Authorities can both monitor and intervene in social media. Monitoring is best done in a national network of experts and relevant services, but any actions based on risks found during monitoring are best done locally.
4. Don't focus on social media
Authorities should not be blinded by social media. Assessing the value of online phenomena and in particular how they relate to physical mobilization is complicated. Therefore, it is essential to contextualize insights from social media with local knowledge.
5. Tasks for both executives and management
Attention to the strategy regarding social media and ICT in general, should be placed high in the management list to data of the police and the public administration. They have become central strategic tasks. They should not be left only to executive communication departments and network teams.
6. Research on strategies for intervention
Government intervention in social media is largely uncharted territory. This is also a matter of principle: how far can the government go in this? Research needs to be conducted into possible strategies and tactics of intervention.
7. A clear plan
Intervention by police and public authorities in social media is pointless without a clear plan. What exactly do you want to achieve with this? Who exactly are the target groups within social media? What tactics should be used? What role should be assumed? Random tweeting can easily backfire.
8. New structure of police organization
The police organization must be organized in such a way that every police officer knows where to go with a question that concerns social media and monitoring thereof. Any problems in which social media play a role are best announced by citizens who are personally involved: for them, a local police officer or the national police telephone number is the first point of contact.
Project X Haren
Network government
The current traditional structures of government are only able to deal with these kinds of issues in the new network society by partly transforming themselves. A network government is a government that gradually organizes itself less in columns and more in chains or networks. Hierarchical parts of government, such as the police and public administration, have great difficulty with the flat structures of networks. If they have to ask their superiors for permission for every action, effective action is not possible.
These recommendations contain many things that seem logical at first glance, but which will be rather stubborn in practice. 'Transformation into network government', 'largely unexplored territory' and 'central strategic tasks' form a fundamentally different organisation of the authorities, with a subsequent new type of management and leadership.
Bats: 'We want to take up the challenge with social media now'
Mayor Bats has also come to realize the latter. Where he spoke boldly when he was appointed, 'there will be no tweeting mayor here', he spoke in a completely different tone in De Volkskrant two months ago. 'Society has changed. As a government, we were not very far ahead in the field of social media. We want to take up that challenge now.' And so it seems that it can happen that a simple birthday party leads to a radically different organization of our governments, in which accessibility, connectedness, personality and transparency are ce