What is 'digitally literate' when it comes to big organisations?

I read and write a bit about digital literacy here - how investment in information and technology communication (ICT) infrastructure is useless without investment in the people who are supposed to use it.

That said, I've watched the whole Zunzuneo fiasco with a bit of indignant resignation. How did they not see that coming? Was it a dearth of digital literacy within the organisation? Let me try to explain what I mean....

What happened with ZunZuneo? 

All I know is what I've read, but it appears that the USA government (or some agency thereof) funded a fake social media network for Cuban citizens, called ZunZuneo, with the aim of encouraging free speech and potentially/particularly (depending on which media you are reading) free speech that was critical of the existing Cuban government.

There is a lot of debate whether this was a covert project (with the ultimate aim of changing/challenging the current Cuban regime) or whether ZunZuneo was less ambitiously radical and more ... well, if not transparent, then simply opaque.

Nevertheless, the USA has gotten a lot of internal and external criticism when it comes to social networking and social media recently - from privacy violations to propaganda allegations to general naive screw-ups.

As to whether my country's government is more prone to social media mess-ups or just more prone to relevant criticism (some might argue the USA is no worse and in some ways better than other governments when it comes to using, abusing, and / or regulating social media), the revelations about US involvement in ZunZuneo were, in a public relations sense, a bad thing for the old US of A government.

What does it have to do with digital literacy? 

It's not enough that citizens be digitally literate and capable of understanding and using the ICT infrastructure available to them. Governments and their ilk need to be digitally literate as well.

No, I don't mean in a "wag the dog" sort of way (though De Niro knows, there's enough of that flying around. ZunZuneo is probably the least - and potentially, at least now, one of the least effective - examples of it.)

I mean in a sort of user-friendly, give the people what they need and want in an easy-to-access, easy-to-use way. Listen to the people you want to love you and, hopefully, your ideas. Take a page out of Apple, Google, or yes, even - at times - Microsoft's playbook. Invest in usability testing, invest in surveys, invest in your users (or the people you want to become your users). Make sure you give them what they want, digitally-speaking, rather than what you think they'd like.

Digital literacy is being useful.

Don't develop tools that sound good in theory, pay attention to what people are using in practice. If what you build is something users love (and citizens do love a good government service - when it is in fact a real service), then they won't care who is funding it or why it's really being funded or if it is 'sexy' (horrible, over-used marketing word.) Your beloved users will, for the most part, appreciate that the digital product or service offered is useful and easy-to-use. Congratulations, you've achieved digital literacy.

Be useful. That's easy. Why don't we do it more often? 

There is in government, as in any organisation or group, a desire to control the message, to spend money effectively constructing an idea, a message, that you, the message-maker, want to convey, and then embedding this, your Important Message, at the forefront of any product you put out, from a speech to a YouTube video to a PDF flier (printed offline or, sadly, uploaded online as well - because isn't that what all web users want? Downloadable fliers?)

And that's not a bad idea (that is, embedding your message in all you do is not a bad idea - downloadable fliers are a horrible idea), it's just not user-centric. And digital literacy is all about being user-centric. Build the product the people want and then figure out how to convey your message as a part of, around - or even after - that. Your message is (almost) never what will sell your service.

People are much more willing to listen after they've been heard. And this counts double when you are acting in the public interest. Show the relevant public you are interested in them first. Then ask them to reciprocate.

So back to ZunZuneo...

I shouldn't be so critical. After all, while I try to be part of the solution, I've not always avoided contributing to the problem. (I have, in fact, uploaded downloadable fliers.)

ZunZuneo probably sounded like a fantastic idea in some back room policy chamber where a bright-eyed bipartisan is working hard to improve the world in the way s/he thinks it needs improvement.

But where-ever it came from, I'm pretty sure ZunZuneo producers didn't first look at the Cubans as users, analysing what they wanted and needed and what service or product would be most likely to fulfil those needs in such a way as to render the message at best, a bonus, and, at worse, a nuisance (like those sponsored ads on Facebook, yes? Updates from my friends along with annoying recommended pages or games nobody cares about - but someone must or Facebook would make less money.)

How do the Cubans want to see world improvement in their day-to-day lives? That's the service they'll buy or the product they'll hang on to, even if it turns out to be funded by an organisation not entirely in agreement with the Cuban political agenda. (Yes, we all love our privacy and want companies to respect it, but how many of us still have Facebook, YouTube, Google, Yahoo....?) Give them this service or product, be useful, be digitally-literate.

Then when you slot in your message, they'll be listening. Because you already heard them.