We’ve talked about the impact of technologies with government ministers at previous FreeBalance Ministers’ Roundtables. Could ministers from FreeBalance government customer feel SMACTed (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, IoT) around next week during the upcoming roundtable?
Mobile adoption is the big SMACT in emerging economies. Mobile enables social media usage.
Mobile usage is growing exponentially, according to Cisco and Deloitte.
comScore has shown how mobile has become the preferred method of web access.
Credit Suisse has shown the significant growth in emerging economies, many of whom are FreeBalance government customers.
Good News, Bad News
Government leaders can be excused from remembering the Arab Spring – where mobile and social created rapid organization, unrest and regime change. Social and mobile does not create random regime change. As the Economist pointed out, the “failures of the Arab spring were a long time in the making.” Fragile States need to be more concerned.
Deloitte seems to think government doesn’t have much potential to generate mobile growth. That doesn’t mean government can remain socially and mobile inactive.
The mobile and social lessons for government include:
- Need for government websites to be mobile-friendly
- Need for government leaders to interact with citizens on social media to provide necessary information while responding to problems
- Need for governments to leverage the “wisdom of crowds” through mobile technology for anti-corruption and participatory governance