Our state department could learn a thing or two from social media about information accessibility. Some already have. I have a permanent vision of Gov. Riley on a motorcycle via twitter. Artur Davis is making his bid for the governer’s seat with Twitter as a tool of communitcation. And don’t even get me started about the elected Birmingham officials on Myspace and Facebook.
But I’m not talking about access to our officials. They are supposed to be accessible to the public to give lip service. No, I’m talking about your local branch of the DMV.
Yes. Here recently I went to the Centerpoint branch to get my tag transfered from my poor old wrecked car to my bright shinny new one. I went 3 times and spent a total of 4.5 hours in line. Now, don’t get me wrong. I kept my cool. But it would have been a lot better if I could have actually found the information I needed about who should sign what, the dreaded and/or disaster, and what wreckage papers are needed.
Now, I don’t think SM is the end/all, be/all to this problem. Simply having someone go through the line every 20-30 minutes making sure people have the exact paperwork exactly how it needs to be filled about would be the best solution if the Great State of AL is going to be so damn picky. But an actual website that explains everything (and not the vaugeness that is there now) would be really appreciated. Ideally, (which means it will never happen) would be a twitter/AIM/google talk account that would be manned that people could ask specific questions. Like the dreaded and/or on the title. Grr.
