Got the word this morning that I’m scheduled to speak at the Government 2.0: Policy and Practice event next Monday in Australia’s national capital, Canberra. The fact that the event is being held within Parliament House makes me feel doubly appreciative.

This is the event I posted about a couple of weeks ago as Open Government Camp and Social Media.

Because I’d thought of the event till now as something of an upscale barcamp, I think I’d been feeling fairly relaxed about the idea of speaking, if I happened to be chosen out of the array of people offering to speak.

Now that I have an idea of who is expected actually to attend, I’m feeling a tad nervous (which is probably not a bad thing in terms of assisting my concentration on doing the best job I can on the day).

There are some 150 in person attendees expected and 200-400 simultaneously online. I understand there are few or no spare seats now. About a third of the registered in person attendees are from Government including agencies, staffers from several portfolios, as well as some politicians including Minister Lindsay Tanner and Senator Kate Lundy.

That I’m speaking only for 10 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions (as are most of the speakers) doesn’t of itself make me less nervous: I don’t have a lot of time to get my points across.

My topic is “Why parliamentarians and public sector managers need to participate actively in social media (briefing papers and slideshows won’t cut it)”. This is a riff on a hobbyhorse of mine, that if senior people in any organization want to be most effective in terms of how social media works, they need to get in and participate. They need to be players. It’s not enough to be able to say “Oh, yes, I’ve read about that.” What being a player might mean in practice is something I’ll be rehearsing over the next few days.

In the meantime, to help me get an up to date perspective on the topic of my presentation, I’ve posted a question on LinkedIn Answers:

Where can I find examples, lists, blog posts case studies for serving politicians and senior public sector managers as active users of social media?

There has been one, very helpful, answer so far and I will report here in due course on the responses that come in over the next few days.

I’ve also set up a CoverItLive link to help me report on the day.  I’ll be posting the stream here on the blog, closer to the time. If you would like a reminder of that, please enter your email address in the form below.

This is the RSS link for the CoverItLive stream.

Please, if you have any suggestions as to what I should try to cover, your comments will be very welcome.