Lessons learnt from the use of Yoosk by government departments

Below are some of the key points we have learnt from various Yoosk exercises so far.

 The most effective uses of the Yoosk tool and associated methodologies

 We have found that Yoosk’s approach to soliciting questions directly from the public is most effective in the following scenarios:

 In support of visits

To date, we have invited questions from geographically targeted audiences in support of three visits (two domestic, one overseas) by the Foreign Secretary on www.yoosk.com/fco , the most recent of which invited questions from Arabic speakers when he visited Jordan. In each case, an invitation to ask questions has been featured in local newspapers.

In the case of the visit to Jordan, the answers were filmed and subtitled in Arabic and we think that this is an important approach to take when reaching out to people whose first language is not English (whether overseas or in the UK).

Many disadvantaged people- the groups that government most wants to engage with- are often not native speakers of English. This group finds spoken answers more difficult to comprehend than written answers, so subtitles are vital if they are not to feel excluded.

In support of a finite campaign

The recent exercise for the FCO- www.yoosklondonsummit.com showed how the platform can be successful in bringing together a range of voices and opinions on one major theme. In addition to ministers with different portfolios, we interviewed union leaders, civil society leaders and well known business people. While we didn’t achieve the diversity of views we would really have liked, the final result was a wide range of questions and interview content that brought together a refreshing and quite different take on government policy, as our compilation video shows: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/yoosk-tv-london-summit-compilation/1798526140/?icid=VIDURVNWS07

 As part of a consultation exercise

We are currently managing a project for DIUS, which involves soliciting questions for David Lammy and Lord Young, as part of the Listening to Students consultation.

Despite coverage on various Twitter and Facebook groups, we are finding that questions are slow to come in. To remedy this, we are now working with a leading online community –The Student Room- to gather questions from their members. This approach also worked well on the London Summit project, with a lot of questions coming from Net Mums users.

To generate press attention and content on a specific theme

Yoosk recently managed a public diplomacy project for the FCO and DFID in Vietnam. www.yoosk.vn/ukvn enabled Vietnamese users to put questions to leading UK ministers, experts and celebrities on different areas of UK culture every week. Each interview was published as a feature in Vietnamese newspapers, generating a great deal of focused content and press coverage over a period of two months.

The project highlighted the importance of setting up a partnership with a news organization in advance of such a project, and offering the resulting content exclusively.

 General Conclusions from Yoosk exercises so far:

 Gathering questions

• Partnerships with news sites and community sites which target a specific demographic or geographical area have worked very well.

• We’ve been less successful in getting our widget placed more widely, for two reasons: a lack of resources and the fact that the widget opens Yoosk in a new window, rather than allowing users to ask questions without leaving the host site. We are rectifying this latter problem.

• In some cases, the theme for questions and the parameters set were a little narrowly, leading to some questions being discounted and to a lower rate of participation than would normally be expected.

 Interview content

• Video content works best when it is filmed in a relatively informal setting, such as the FS’s interview on a train on the Yoosk FCO site.

• Using a variety of interviewers works well, especially when the public’s questions were put to ministers by celebrities (Theo Paphitis interviewed Lord Mandelson); by bloggers (Simon Berry interviewed Matthew Taylor of the RSA); by community leaders (Saad Qureshi interviewed Hazel Blears); by freelance young journalists (James Evans interviewed Brendan Barber) and by ordinary members of the public (Azeem Ahmed interviewed David Miliband).

• The compilation video showing different views on the G20 London Summit and the current global financial crisis.