Catalyzing Congressional Collaboration

This morning a colleague of mine forwarded me Nancy Scola’s Personal Democracy Forum post Are Congressional “New Media” Clubs Missing the Point?  In short, Nancy challenges whether Congressional new media caucuses are “simply self-serving clubs dedicated to winning the YouTube-Facebook-Twitter arms race.”  (Just perfectly articulated, I think.) If so, she explains, they are missing the point and losing an opportunity.  Indeed! 

As I’ve said many times before, “Web 2.0 is not about the tools and technologies; it’s about the cultural shift that they are catalyzing.”  It sounds like the new Congressional Caucus on Blogging and New Media, and the Republican New Media Caucus that Nancy mentions in her post get this a little bit and should be commended for venturing into this area.  However, her point is well taken that there isn’t an Openness and Participation Caucus… right now it’s all about understanding and utilizing the tools and technologies.

Congress’ participation in social media mirrors the phenomenon that I’ve seen over and over again: when individuals or organizations are at the beginning of the Social Media Adoption Curve, they focus on the tools and believe that the Web 2.0 Holy Grail is mastery of these technologies.  Once they’ve reached a point of general technology proficiency and comfort, though, they realize that understanding the tools is just a stepping stone and that the path is about communicating and working differently — more collaboratively.  Where the path of collaboration takes an individual…a corporation…a government agency…Congress…is for them to create.

I’ve been noticing rumblings atop the Hill.  With some terrific early leadership (small “l”)  in the Gov 2.0 discourse  and grassroots events by early evangelists such as Rob Pierson, Congress is starting up the Curve.  Perhaps they’re starting to notice the Gov 2.0 innovation and leadership so prevalent in the Executive Branch (even despite Agencies’ bureaucratic structures).

Congress has the unique challenge of fragmentation: each Congressional office operates as a separate “small business,” for lack of a better analogy.  Each Representative and Senator has his/her own budget to allocate as he/she sees fit: more staffers, higher salaries, etc.  So, though we lump them all together as “Congress” it’s a bit like thinking of the businesses in a local town as a single entity.  The reality is that there are many, many nodes with unique constituents and key issues.  Each office is at a different point of awareness, education, participation, relationships and collaboration.

Coming up October 12 & 13  is the inaugural Congress Camp unconference.  As one of the organizers of Government 2.0 Campback in March, I, of course, am a biased proponent of unconferences as an ideal way to introduce participation and collaboration to public and private sector organizations and interest groups, by SHOWING — as opposed to telling — them what this whole Web 2.0 (for an ongoing lack of a better term) movement is all about.  It is certainly my hope that Congress Camp exposes the Hill to new, more collaborative ways of thinking about citizen engagement.

As Nancy so succinctly states at the end of her post, “An Openness Caucus would be a recognition that, from the public’s perspective, the issue isn’t new media. The issue is new politics, whether it happens through the web or telephone or carrier pigeon.”

On C-SPAN Today

This afternoon I was fortunate enough to moderate the Engaging the Public in Conversation panel at the Potomac Forum& GovCollab.org’s Gov 2.0 Leadership, Collaboration and Public Engagement Best Practices Symposium at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center in DC.

All four panelists were really outstanding in both the content of the case studies they presented and their delivery and presentating capabilities.  Here’s the schedule and line-up.

Engaging the Public in Conversation: Learn from some of the best and newest examples of how the federal government can more successfully dialogue with the public through the use of social media tools and techniques. This session addresses of one of the core commitments of the President to have a more participatory and collaborative government.
1:15	Leading in the Public Commons: Promoting the Public Good through Engagement	Jack Holt, Sr. Strategist, DoD
2:00	NARA: Virtual Community for Educators	Stephanie Greenhut, Education Technology Specialist, NARA
2:45	Break
3:00	Enabling Government Data to be a National Asset through Gov 2.0	Carolyn Brubaker, Chief Transition Officer, Microsoft
3.45	Regulations.gov Exchange	Shanita Brackett, Program Analyst, Environmental Protection Agency
4:15	Panel on Best Practices to Engage the Public in Conversation	Moderator: Maxine Teller, Consultant, MiXT Media Strategies LLC

Equally exciting was that the entire session (1:15pm – 5:00pm) was aired LIVE on C-SPAN!  I just found out yesterday that C-SPAN would be carrying the event and it didn’t really hit me until this evening when I pulled up the archived video on the C-SPAN site and saw the difference that broadcast-quality video makes.  We’re so used to watching home videos on YouTube that we sometimes forget…

I couldn ‘t figure out how to embed the video here on my blog, but you can view it here at C-SPAN’s archives.  The presentations are first and then the panel portion starts at 1:05:10 on the video.  I was relieved to be having a good hair day!

The “unorganization” phenomenon

Over the past few weeks I have come across a number of projects and initiatives being led by “unorganizations” — groups of people who come together for a common cause, but who are independent agents and not a formal corporation, organization or association of any sort. 

The first was, of course, the recent unconference that I co-organized, Government 2.0 Camp.  It was important to me from the event’s inception to make sure that it was owned by the people.  By design, the largest sponsorship was $1,000–just 1/20th of the total funds raised–so that no single organization owned the gathering. 

But how do you do business as a non-entity?  Duke Ellington School of the Arts (DESA) required Government 2.0 Camp to sign a standard  contract for use of the venue.The contract was between DESA and Government 2.0 Camp.  I signed the contract, but felt soft of silly doing so, as Government 2.0 Camp wasn’t a formal organization. 

One interesting idea that was suggested by Nancy Faget, an attendee of Government 2.0 Camp, was selling the proceedings from Government 2.0 Camp to a book publisher.  In fact, she claims that two are already interested!  Session leaders and other attendees could author the chapters and the proceeds could fund Government 2.0 Club.  How do you fund a non-entity?  To whom would the publisher write the check? (Yes, in reality, I know we’d form a 501C3 or similar, but the philosophy of this is still a rather intersting conundrum.)

The closing session of Government 2.0 Camp was a brainstorming discussion about creating and formalizing Government 2.0 Club–the and official creator of Government 2.0 Camp.  We were lucky enough to have Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club, to guide our discussion and ideas with his experiences from creating and growing Social Media Club.  The difference, however, is that Social Media Club is owned and operated by founders Heuer and Katie Wells.  Our vision for Government 2.0 Club is the embodiment Government 2.0, itself: owned and operated of the people, for the people, by the people.  

A few days after the unconference, my co-organizer, Peter Corbettsent out an summary and wrap-up e-mail to all attendees that directed interested parties to the Government 2.0 Club website for session summaries and other unconference proceedings.  He signed his message “the unmanagement.” 

The “unorganization” phenomenon extends beyond Government 2.0 Camp and Club, however.  I have been working over the past two weeks on a proposal for a community organizing project for a local municipality that is being created, driven and funded by “concerned citizens.”  It’s quite a legitimate initiative led by a number of impressive for-profit and non-profit organizations as well as philanthropic individuals.  I frankly don’t know who will sign the contract or write the checks.  Those are details that someone or some organization will shoulder for the sake of the cause, just as I signed the venue contract for Government 2.0 Camp. 

Another example of “unorganization” made its way across my computer screen earlier this evening and prompted this blog entry: TEA Party Tax Day.  Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the politics of Tax Tea Parties, it’s interesting to note that there is no Organization behind this tremendous grassroots organization.  When you click the About or Contact buttons on the site, you are just brought back to a page that says ”Please see the Help Organize area for the most commonly asked questions and the answers” and enables you to fill out a form for more information or to organize a “tea party” in your area.  I asked a top Hill staffer for more information about this and learned that this initiative really is being run as a collective effort of like-minded tax opponents and is not “owned” by any single organization. 

The challenges of the “unorganization” also remind me a lot of what’s going on right now in the Government 2.0 movement.  Government agencies–especially the General Services Administration–are successfully working through barriers, like Terms of Service challenges, that prohibit them from signing agreements with third party social media service providers, e.g. YouTube.  Issues of indemnification and defense are two barriers cited by the Federal Web Managers’ Council in its December 23, 2008 paper Social Media and the Federal Government: Perceived and Real Barriers and Potential Solutions.  In cryptic non-legal simplification: because the government is owned by the people, it cannot be sued and thus, cannot agree to indemnifya third party.

Why are all of these “unorganizations” popping up?  Collaboration.  As I’ve written about in many previous blog posts, we are in the midst of a major cultural shift from the Broadcast Era in which large media organizations intermediated our information, to the Collaboration Era in which we can have influence that rivals the most watched Superbowl ads.  Individuals + collaboration = game changing ideas.

How will the legal, organizational and philosophical challenges be resolved for and by the increasing number of “unorganizations” that are emerging in the Collaboration Era?

I talked about Government 2.0 Camp on Federal News Radio today

I was honored to be interviewed by Chris Dorobek on Federal News Radio this afternoon. Here’s the clip:

Social Media 101 Presentation

Here is the Social Media 101 presentation that I gave this morning as part of the the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media for Government Social Media 101 Pre-Conference Workshop.

Ken Fischer and I then co-led the workshop and he did a great presentation on Information for the Greatest Good. 

I am looking forward to seeing presentations from some of my colleagues and friends over the next two days.  For more conference information, check out the conference site.

A Few Valuable Social Media & Government 2.0 Resources

I just finished up at SXSX in Austin, TX. There was so much amazing content and conversation that it was truly overwhelming. A few sessions that I found particularly noteworthy were: Charlene Li’s talk about The Future of Social Media Networks (Twitter #sxswfsn) and her assertion that social networks will be like air — everywhere and all around us; the Shift Happens: Moving from Words to Pictures panel about the increasing importance data visualization (Twitter #shift); and Guy Kawasaki’s interview of Chris Anderson about Anderson’s new book Free! (Twitter #free).

Last night, in the middle of a SXSW party, I stepped into a quiet backroom at Six Lounge to participate in Adriel Hampton’s first Government 2.0 BlogTalkRadio show.  Despite having to pull myself away from the partying rooftop, it was a great deal of fun to banter with Ari Herzog, Andrea Baker, Jeffrey Levy, Steve Ressler and many others. I think that this show is going to be a great addition to the Government 2.0 discourse.  I encourage you to tune in to the Gov 2.0 show on Sundays at 2 p.m. PST/5 p.m. EST.

Finally, I was so excited to see the launch of the Government Web Content Managers’ Social Media Subcouncil’s social media presence yesterday. Follow them on Twitter at @GovSocMed, check out their wiki and find them on GovLoop.  I remember participating in the Web Content Managers’ quarterly conference call back in October (following a GovDelivery panel) when the Social Media subcouncil was first formed and announced.  I was tweeting to Jeffrey Levy, one of the Subcouncil’s co-chairs, how I was so disappointed that I could not participate on the subcouncil, as I am not a government employee.  He vowed to find ways to get members of the broader Government 2.0 community involved, and it’s wonderful to see that coming to fruition.

Rethinking community management

I’m at TransparencyCamp today. It’s phenomenal, exciting and overwhelming.  I participated in a great session this afternoon before lunch called “Drinking from the fire hose: how is a community manager to handle citizen participation in the Web 2.0 age?’  Here are some of my thoughts inspired by this session.

Social media is not about joining THE conversation, it’s about joining the conversationSSSSSS.  Today’s social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies make communications so easy and quick that there are an infinite number of conversations about an infinite number of topics going on within, outside and about any given organization.  No ONE spokesperson or team of spokespeople can handle this fire hose. 

It’s not so much about changing or even more efficiently using communication  tools as it is about changing the architecture of organizational communication.  We are used to a broadcast communication model in which organizations speak AT people.  We need to change this to a collaborative model in which the people within organizations speak WITH one another and WITH people outside the organization.

The only way to really manage this fire hose, then, is to empower everyone within an organization to participate and communicate.  If we do this right, the “community manager” role ultimately becomes obsolete because communication and public affairs becomes a decentralized.  Community relations/public affairs/customer service needs to move from being a vertical department to being a horizontal function within an organization.

In this collaborative communications model, organizations would deputize everyone to be conversationalists–a.k.a spokespeople–for the organization.  This is preferable because:

1. It enables the content experts to speak for themselves rather than having public affairs or customer service mouthpieces speaking on their behalf. 
2. It empowers people to participate in the conversation and, by doing so, catalyze innovation and new thinking

This raises a number of challenges, of course.  Here are a few:

1. Not all content experts are comfortable with or good at creating conversations, collaborating and participating in dialogue. 
2. This changes the role of public affairs/communications leaders from spokespeople to trainers–this requires a different skill set and interest set. 
3. This fragments the conversation, thereby increasing the potential for toe-stepping as there are increased areas of overlap.

Changing the community management paradigm has an equally-important counterpart.  Not only do we need to reinvent how the organization engages with its communities, but we also need to change the model and expectations of constituent involvement. 

In the case of government, citizen engagement would ultimately be a little part of everyone’s responsibility and civic life, driven not by coercion, but rather by personal interest and motivation.  To make this real and valuable we’d need to change people’s expectations from people asking questions to receive an answer, to people asking questions as a way to engage, participate and problem solve.

Government Irony

So, back in October 2008, I received a “save the date” e-mail from my alma mater, Georgetown University, about Transition 2009, a conference by The School of Continuing Studies that would be taking place soon after the inauguration of now President Barack Obama.  I selected the “learn more” option and signed up to receive e-mail updates as more information became available. 

Sure enough, a few weeks ago, I received the official conference announcement and invitation.  Transition 2009 will held at the National Press Club, February 12 & 13.  I clicked the” “register now” button which took me to the conference website.  I entered my name and other contact information and then stopped short: the cost for Transition 2009 is $895 — despite the fact that it’s sponsored by Georgetown, Politico and the Press Club (?).  Too much for me to justify to myself or to my government clients. 

So, I e-mailed the conference to find out if they were offering any unpublicized government rates.  I received a simple and polite e-mail in response:

Maxine,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the Transition 2009 Conference presented to you by Georgetown University. 

Unfortunately, we are not offering a government rate on tickets to attend the event.  However, we do hope that you will strongly consider registering for this exciting conference. 

Please visit www.guconferences.com to register.

Regards,

The Transition 2009 Conference Team

Bummer.  A conference about our government’s transition to a new administration and no special rates are being offered to encourage attendance by those whom this will affect the most, those who will be implementing the new policies, those who understand and can speak to the challenges of old and new processes –those IN the government.

This is too often the case for conference producers.  Thank goodness Government 2.0 Camp is an option…

Government 2.0 Camp is happening!

Per a conversation that started here on my blog, I am pleased to announce that I (in partnership with Mark Drapeau and Peter Corbett and in cooperation with Jeffrey Levy) have, indeed, decided to move forward and initiate a Government 2.0 Camp unconference.  It will take place in DC, March 27-28, 2009. 

This is a 100% participant-planned, not-for-profit event that will bring together the leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and to collaborate about leveraging social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more efficient and effective government-Government 2.0.

The unconference format embodies these same collaborative principles as our nation’s democracy-of the people, by the people, for the people-and thus, is the ideal structure for the topic of Government 2.0.  This event is a tremendous opportunity to practice what we preach and create something better collectively than we could individually

Your interest in social media and understanding of government 2.0 principles would be a tremendous asset to this event.  Please get involved in planning Government 2.0 Camp.

To learn more, sign up for Government 2.0 Camp, and help to plan this event, visit the event wiki.

Officially register for Government 2.0 Camp on Eventbrite

Participate in Government 2.0 Camp on Facebook

Follow Government 2.0 Camp on Twitter

 ——————————————————————-

Government 2.0 Camp is the inaugural event of Government 2.0 Club, a newly-launched national organization that creates opportunities for government, academia and industry to share ideas and solutions for leveraging social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborate, efficient and effective government. 

To participate in the ongoing discussion about Government 2.0 and to find out about future Government 2.0 events, visit Government 2.0 Club.

Join Government 2.0 Club on Facebook

Join Government 2.0 Club on GovLoop     

I look forward to working on this with you and other influential members of the Government 2.0 community.  Please pass the word onto others whom you believe should be involved. Thanks so much.

What if Obama’s Work Progress projects were digital?

“The country demands bold, persistent experimentation. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something!”

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

There have been a number of news articles over the past week, e.g. CBS News’ FDR’s New Deal Blueprint For Obama, that liken Obama’s economic recovery plan to the Work Progress Administration (WPA) founded as part of FDR’s New Deal in 1933. 

Some details and background about WPA from Chip Reid’s piece for CBS News:

The WPA lasted 8 years, from 1935 to 1943, and left a mark on America that is still visible today. It spent $11 billion dollars, employed eight and a half million people.

New roads were built – 650,000 miles of them. And new airports, including New York City’s Laguardia Airport.

But it wasn’t just about things. The public school lunch program got its start with WPA dollars.

“Attendance increased,” Taylor said. “It was something that raised the health of the country.”

FDR thought people needed places for recreation. So, the WPA repaired and enlarged the national park system, but Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, the man who headed the WPA, knew there was more to life than bricks and mortar.

“The great thing that Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins recognized was that it made no sense whatsoever to take an excellent violin player and put him to work building a road,” Taylor said. “He could provide, or she could provide, entertainment to people. And enlightenment! And that’s why the WPA had an umbrella over arts projects as well as construction.”

In 1941, Woody Guthrie was paid to write songs for a month as he visited the new dams under construction along the Columbia River in Washington State.

The WPA financed 225,000 concerts, with audiences of 150 million Americans. Actors appeared in stage productions all over the country. Artists painted murals on countless public buildings, like those at LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal in New York.

The WPA financed almost a half-million pieces of art. Some are on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.

Much of what Obama is proposing–building infrastructure, roads, bridges, schools, transportation systems, green technologies, etc.–replicates FDR’s infrastructure improvements (not sure about the arts expansion…).  I’m not bringing this up to start a political discussion about whether there should be a New Deal 2 or how large a stimulus package Congress should actually agree to–that’s a completely different debate for a different set of bloggers or politicians.  My interest here is in why Obama wants to allocate these funds–75 years later–just as FDR did in 1933?

Today’s world is dramatically different, namely, we are a connected society that has all information available at our fingertips.  Expanding and improving brick and mortar infrastructure and access to traditional entertainment–though truly necessary in many parts of our nation–at the same time sounds a bit like a throwback from a previous era. 

So the question that I have for Obama is this: what are and should be today’s, 21st century, Work Progress project equivalents?  What capabilities and skill sets could Obama leverage to simultaneously strengthen morale, our economy, and our American culture for today,  just as Roosevelt attempted to do in the 30’s and into the 40’s?  What does digital work progress look like?

Social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies are enabling innovation in ways and scale never before possible.  Connected individuals and organizations are collaboratively solving problems and creating products, services and processes that are transforming our country in awe-inspiring ways.

Though improvements and construction of physical roads and bridges are certainly still critical for our country, Obama might find that investing in virtual roads, bridges, educational solutions and information transportation systems that leverage the tremendous power of social networking can have exponential return-on-investment.

U.S. Premiere Screening of Government 2.0 Film — update

So, I heard back promptly from Hugh Hartford at Banyak Films.  They are very interested in and open to having the U.S. premiere of Us Now at the Government 2.0 unconference–yay!  This will be a great addition.

Related to this, but not dependent upon this, I AM planning move forward with the Government 2.0 unconference idea.  I really appreciate all of the positive feedback that I’ve received and look forward to working with you all to create an unforgetable collaborative event.  I plan to have a wiki up by early January.

Us Now: a film about government 2.0

Last week I learned of a new documentary film entitled Us Now:  a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet.  The documentary is directed by Ivo Gormley and produced in the UK by Banyak films in association with the RSA.  Here’s a brief explanation from the Us Now site:

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?

Us Now is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet.

Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the

existing notion of hierarchy.  For the first time, it brings together

the fore-most thinkers in the field of participative governance to

describe the future of government.

All of the material generated during the project will be available to

view online and the project will culminate in an hour long documentary

to be released publicly in January 2009.

 

Here’s the preview:

 

Without having seen the film, it’s tough to comment knowledgeably about it, but I will say that the subject matter is extremely timely.  Clay Shirky’s quote, (paraphrased) “it’s not about the tools and technologies,  it’s about what they can do,” is,  of course, dead on.  Film is an accessible and universal format and may be just the right tool for engaging the not-yet-believers in the power of collaboration for cultural and governmental change.

I have reached out to the folks at Banyak films to discuss their plans for a U.S. screening.  We’ll keep you posted…

Government 2.0 BarCamp unconference

I had an idea on Thursday that’s gotten me really excited but which has been burning a hole in my head and taking up way too much of my mental energy since its inception.  So, I started to run it by a few folks to see if I’m out of my mind or if I have something here. 

For quite some time I’ve been stymied by how to harness the power of the pockets of social media thinking and activity that are in process within various functions in government agencies by tying them together into a cross-agency, cross-functional government 2.0 initiative.   It seems to me that this can’t be led by any single department within any single federal agency because it’s not really their charge.  It also can’t really be done by a private corporation like Microsoft or Google because then it’s a commercial venture with overt business development objectives.  Think tanks have their own political leanings.  Academic institutions are more about thinking and researching thank action.

So, what if we hold a Federal Government 2.0 BarCamp unconference organized by all of us: the people and organizations passionate about collaborative government?

The topic of the unconference would be leveraging social media tools and technologies to catalyze and implement collaboration within, across and for the federal government.  The unconference would bring together the leading thinkers from government, consulting, academia and industry to practice what we preach:

• share myriad initiatives already in process;
• collaboratively generate ways for the Obama administration to utilize and harness the power of social media as it develops its plans for the next four years;
• provide networking between the new and transitional leadership and those of us already involved and leading government 2.0 throughout the federal government.

I was thinking that January 23 and/or 24 might be a good time to do this — right after the new administration takes its positions, but right at the beginning of them settling in and setting agendas

I think that securing sponsors and drumming up participation would be fairly easy given the tremendous existing government 2.0 network and the social networking tools that we use everyday.

What do you think?

Emerging Technologies for Defense Applications conference: notes and commentary

On Monday, October 27, 2008, I attended the Emerging Technologies for Defense Applications conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Arlington, VA. 

 

I was sad to see that I was the only one at the conference expanding the conversation beyond the walls of the Ritz via Twitter.  You can see my Twitter feed by searching #etechd.  I wanted to create a summary of the conference here on my blog and tried to find a good way to do this by leveraging this Twitter feed, but no luck.  So, using old fashioned editing, here are my notes summarizing the Techipedia portion of the conference.  I hope that you find this useful.  Please comment if you have any questions. 

 

The Honorable John Young, Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics (AT&L), explained that the landscape is changing: threats are emerging that have new tools and technologies.  To outpace our adversaries and secure our nation, we need to get the information sharing, speed, and technologies that will enable us to be agile and respond rapidly.

 

He underscored the importance of collaboration in all dimensions of our business to our success in the future.  Embracing collaboration requires a shift in ideas, values, behavior, and processes.

 

DoD has three key challenges in achieving its imperative to support the warfighter:

 

1.    Internal communication: research and acquisition functions need to communicate more effectively

 

2.     Process agility: we need to shorten the time it takes to identify and procure solutions

• We need to develop a more strategic and effective budget processes

 

3.     Collaboration with external entities: government needs to tell industry what it needs; industry needs to tell the government what it is doing and can provide

• Working with smaller companies who are focused on different technologies is critical for our global success and security.
• We need to proactively identify and adopt new tools to confront emerging threats.

 

DoD Techipedia provides solutions to these three challenges by linking warfighter requirements with the best innovations that exist.  Techipedia has three components:

·        Internal wiki: rolled out October 2008

·        Defensesolutions.gov portal will enable external entities to submit solutions to DoD and enables to DoD to respond quickly: will launch January 2009

·        External wiki: will roll out Spring 2009

 

Technipedia will initially be limited to a small number of solution areas in which we’re seeking solutions, e.g. fingerprinting, DNA management, battlefield forensics

·        All solutions, from high-tech to simple, will be considered

·        All available sources of information, including non-traditional, will be used

 

Techipedia is launching with a pilot program also called the Open Business Cell (OBC).  This will be within the Rapid Reaction Technology Office where the culture is already lean and anticipatory. 

 

Though I am impressed with the clarity of AT&L’s objectives and the foray that the organization is making into social media, I am concerned that they are missing a big piece of the point of social media: to participate. 

 

 

AT&L is creating valuable destination site that is certainly Web 2.0-enabled, but to realize the success that they’re hoping for, there is really going to be a need for a) a communication plan about the existence of this destination; b) participation across the web to mine for ideas, technologies, participants. 

 

 

If you build it, they will not necessarily come.  Social media is about reaching customers, partners and enthusiasts where they may be.  The fourth component of Techipedia really should be a distributed social media strategy that monitors the blogosphere and engages appropriately to yield value for DoD and its next generation of not-necessarily-traditional partners and suppliers. 

Twitter challenges for government agencies

Today I read and commented on Silicon Valley Insider’s post “The US Government Catches The Twitter Bug, And Amazingly, Does It Well” by Eric Krangel.  In the post Eric asserts that “some of the best and most innovative new media experiments going on right now on the Internet are coming from the U.S. federal government.” I agree with him.  Some of the most innovative and insightful 2.0 thinking that I’ve encountered has come from government folks including Mark Drapeau, Chris Rasmussen and Andrea Baker.

As I commented on Krangel’s post, I agree with Mark Drapeau’s assessment that “although Twitter is a very conversational medium, they [government agencies] have very little interaction with other users.”  While some of the examples of government tweeting mentioned are, indeed, good data being pushed, most are very 1-way, or 1.0.

There are two other related challenges for government agencies–as well as for corporations and other organizations.  First, they are NOT a single person. Even if the agency/corporation assigns an individual to be its “face” in the 2.0 world, how can a single person “be” an enormous organization in the real-time mode of a platform like Twitter?

The second challenge is a Catch-22 of 2.0: Web 2.0 is about authenticity, transparency and participation. These attributes add up to having a single persona, blurring the line between personal self and professional self. How can that individual whose job it is to be the “face” of a given agency/corporation/organization truly be authentic and transparent if he/she is supposed to be representing that agency/corporation/organization?  And yet…. how can he/she NOT be fully authentic and transparent in representing the agency/organization in the 2.0 world where anything less than full disclosure yields skepticism and distrust, thus defeating the very purpose of participating in 2.0 in the first place?

Who is educating whom?

I spent this morning at Collaborative Expedition Workshop #76, “Strategic Leadership For Networking and Information Technology Education,” at the National Science Foundation. The topic of the workshop was envisioning greater possibilities for strategic leadership in networking and information technology education.  The premise was basically that U.S. competitiveness in information technology is declining. 

Mark Regets a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics was this morning’s presenter.  He gave a statistic-rich PowerPoint showing how science and engineering—specifically computer science—degrees and careers are declining in the U.S. while global demand for these skills, as well as international supply, are increasing. 

I kept thinking,”what’s the real goal here?”  Aren’t we really trying to understand to what extent our workforce is prepared to solve the problems and create the innovations of the future?  Education and job selection are, indeed, two proxies for expertise and knowledge, but they don’t capture a number of critical variables.

First of all, today’s students do not learn like we did.  They are Digital Natives are growing up in a non-linear, multidimensional world.  They are multitasking from the get-go.  Such simplistic, linear metrics as “selection of college major,” “graduate degree,” and “position held” cannot accurately represent their interests, experiences or careers.  Using 1.0 metrics to measure the 2.0 landscape yields inaccurate conclusions. 

Next, we need to ask whether “computer science degree” or “computer science jobs filled” are the right metrics for computer science knowledge?  A degree or job is not the goal here, the expertise and skill set are. Could it be that students are learning computer skills informally?  Perhaps they’re learning these skills through interactive gaming or perhaps they’re self-taught via online tools and resources.

Taking this one step further, maybe the increased collaboration that’s now possible enables the same levels of innovation and development without formal computer science education because people are leveraging the value of collective intelligence and training.  This “shared expertise” does not show up in the statistics for individual degrees earned.

Fourth, it’s important to concede that there has been a shift in perception from computers as a discipline to computers as tools to achieve other objectives.  We need to embrace this societal mindshift and incorporate that new realit—that it’s no longer about the tools, it’s about what the tools can DO—into our research and evaluation of a concept like “skill preparedness.”

Finally, it’s easier to create online solutions, programs and tools now than ever before.  Many of the tools that exist online today, are, themselves sandboxes for creative problem solving that people want, without requiring formal education to use them. Yesterday’s computer scientists have created tools that enable creation and development by today’s non-computer scientists.

We need to think about educational policy and programs in the context of our constantly and significantly-evolving society.  The key to successfully educating future generations is understanding, embracing and adopting a new paradigm that is centered, not on individual career paths, but on collaboration.  Lend credence to games, interactive scenario building, hands-on problem-solving, social networking and other new and emerging educational tools.  We need to teach the next generation and generations to come as they learn, where they learn and hold them up to new standards, rather than metrics that no longer make sense. 

Collaborative Government: Recapturing Our Founding Principle

I had coffee this morning with Mark Drapeau, National Defense University fellow and author of two terrific recent and impressive articles on Mashable about government 2.0.  As I was driving to my DoD office afterwards, I was thinking about the implications of government 2.0 and began to establish this concept of collaborative government. 

Now, for the first time in history, we have the opportunity to truly live the “we the people” vision of our founding fathers.  Social media’s collaborative capabilities can level the playing field for us–the people–to create, improve, and manage our country as could previously only be envisioned.

Of course, we’re really just at the beginning of this new era.  72% of Americans are online.  According to Universal McCann’s recent “Media in Mind” tracking study, 50% of Americans are using social media today.  This study shows that only 10% of Americans blog.  Although this is just one indicator of engagment and active participation in social media, it’s an important one. 

It’s one thing to have a broadband connection, it’s another to usethe Internet.  It’s one thing to set up your Facebook profile, and quite another to be proactively and regularly collaborating via a social network.  The difference that I’m poking at is between attending an event and participating in a conversation.   The former is very much of a Web 1.0 metric, the latter–harder to measure and gauge–is what social media is all about: collaboration.

As our population has grown beneath the shadow of the broadcast media era, citizens have lost involvement in and ownership of their government.  Many view The Government as a impenetrable fortress around which they must navigate.  I live in Washington, DC.  I drive past the Capitol, the White House, and the myriad marble government buildings and icons, daily.   It’s easy to develop this perception.

But this is not the spirit of America.  Our government is of the people, for the people.  The rapid evolution of social media solutions provide government agencies with opportunities to leverage the best minds across the country to solve their biggest challenges.  This is my concept of collaborative government. 

There are a number of private organizations–Understanding USA and Personal Democracy Forum, being two–leading the charge to bridge this gap for citizens by utilizing social media tools to break down the perceived fortress and encourage citizen-government interaction.  As important and in the right spirit as these organizations may be, and as accessible and interactive as they make government information and data, the interaction still occurs outside the government “fortress.”  To maintain the safety and security of our country, this must, in many cases, remain.  Therefore, only government agencies–protectors of information and data–can initiate true citizen-government collaboration.

NASA’s blog, OpenNASA.com, is a great example of one agency understanding this and trying to engage and appeal to its next generation of advocates–and prospective employees.  The Department of Defense, is working to create a social media wiki that enables a collaborative dialogue about Defense needs and applicable industry innovations. The State Department has created “virtual embassies” that enable valuable interaction with U.S. citizens and foreign nationals.

As social media tools evolve, there will be more and more ways for government agencies to initiate a collaborative government.  What if USA.gov were to add a collective ratings layer, similar to the functionality of Yelp or Digg, to enable users to help users find the most valuable and relevant information across the government?  

The possibilities for creating our collaborative government will be endless.  Our government agencies must not just advocate social media, but truly embody its collaborative spirit–the spirit upon which our country was founded.

Secretary of Innovation: a role in the next administration?

So, I was e-mailing with my former boss from IdeaScope, Bob Johnston, who has a phenomenal background in applied innovation and the creative process. He also has a lovely cottage on Martha’s Vineyard.

It turns out that Bob and I are going to both be on the Vineyard at the same time later this month and are trying to coordinate a time to see one another.  This is proving to be challenging because a) he has been called for Federal jury duty and b) he has new client in DC that he must meet with that week. 

So, I commented in an e-mail to him, “wow, sounds like you have more connections to D.C. that you’d care to have.”  He wrote back, “it’s not like I’m being vetted for Secretary of Innovation or anything.”  Now THAT is what the next administration could really use!   What a terrific concept, really: someone in charge of fostering and nurturing the future in the present. 

Although a cabinet secretary typically heads up an entire agency, I’d encourage the next administration to view this role more cross-functionally, pulling out and surfacing innovation across existing agencies.  The purpose of this secretary would be to highlight, encourage and augment innovation efforts within the government, between the government and its stakeholders, and internationally.  Just as media companies are learning that the Internet cannot successfully be treated as another business silo, so should Innovation be an integrated cross-agency functionality that evolves all functions of government, from public affairs to procurement.

Key Take-Aways from Government Web Content Managers Forum

Happily, Jeffrey Levy, Director of Communications at EPA started the call off on the right foot with mission being the necessary driver of all social media tool usage.

• Start with NEED, then figure out how social media tools can help to achieve that goal.
• Get away from destination sites — social media tools enable that

Government agencies have some unique challenges that private entities don’t have to worry about:

• Legal contract issues: can’t indemnify, can’t agree to state governance
• Gratuitous service agreement is a good solution for agencies who want to use free software
• Accessibility requirements: 508 compliance

EPA uses Twitter to auto-tweet their RSS feeds; posts GreenScenes videos on their site, but cannot yet post on YouTube

TSA’s Evolution of Security blog has been a great success because it creates of full circle of suggestions -> actions -> communication

The Collaboration Project is an independent forum of leaders committed to leveraging the interactive web and the benefits of collaborative technology to solve government’s complex problems.