Evolution of Security is the blog of the Transportation Security Administration and the most popular Government blog I have seen, with most recent posts averaging over a 100 comments.

One of the most interesting differences between this and most Government blogs, is the effort that has been made to put a human face on the the TSA. The closest most people get to the TSA is brief conversations with faceless personnel at security checks in airports. So the TSA has made a serious attempt to show the human side of the TSA, all the contributors to the blog have their first name and a bio on the blog. It works, a large number of comments begin, hi name.

The blog has been so successful that one of the regular authors, Bob has moved from his regular job at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport to be a full time blogger at TSA headquarters.

So why has the Evolution of Security been so successful in such a short time, it was only launched in January this year. I believe it is a combination of factors, airport security affects a large number of Americans and therefore a large number of people are interested in the subject matter, a well developed and executed a social media strategy which include putting human face on the TSA and this human interaction has lead people to constantly return and regularly comment.

The lesson for anybody about to create a government blog or other social media, make it with real people and let them interact, you will have the public interacting in return.

While the original letter (which is available in full on Technosailor) from Michael Capuano a Democrat Congressman on the Franking Commission appears to be aimed at video and YouTube. Any restrictions will impact on a wide range of social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and any other social media services. A number of twitterers have started a campaign Let Our Congress Tweet, so that the current twittering Congressmen John Culberson and Tim Ryan can remain twittering and hopefully others both in the Congress and Senate will join them.

What Michael Capuano and others fail to realise is:

1. The time, cost and effort to create these services inside the House.gov space is a waste of resources, when it can be done for next to nothing, right now using external services.
2. Using existing services comes with a ready made audience, creating a new service means having to attracting an audience.

What impact will restricting social media in the US Congress and Senate have in Australia. It will probably slow the adoption of social media by our politicians. With the loss of Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett there is nobody in the Australian Parliament how understands social media enough to makeuse of it. With fewer examples of effective use of social media by politicians overseas, our politicians are unlikely to adopt social media or expect government agencies to make good use of social media.

The report itself is an old school 3.5Mb PDF, it is the contents that are more interesting. In compiling the report, the authors reviewed 618 websites, covering every single House and Senate Member, committee, and leadership websites of the United States Congress.

It is the trends that it reported that make it an interesting read, of the 618 websites:

• 25% offered RSS feeds,
• 56% offered video,
• 11% offered podcasts.

These are fairly interesting statistics given that the websites are not centrally managed, with most managed by staff of the individual Congressman or Senator. It also shows that American politicians are far more internet savy than their Australian counterparts. The web is used as a tool to communicate with their constituents, unlike Australia where with the exception of Andrew Barlett, politicians see it as a repository of media releases, policy statements and videos (both polictical and embrassing, no wonder they want to make the internet safe for children.

My next task is to have a look at the 4 sites, that have consistently earned gold stars for the last 4 reports.