The Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter on Transparency and Open Government is now available from the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications. This edition presents the views of 21 IT leaders of nations, states, and federal agencies, and thought leaders who are working to ensure openness in Government.

The many contributors include:

• Vivek Kundra, CIO of the United States
• John Wonderlich, Program Director, Sunlight Foundation
• Jennifer Dorn, President and CEO, National Academy of Public Administration
• Maryantonett Flumian, Ottawa University
• Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, co-authors, Millenial Makeover
• Susan Combs, Comptroller, State of Texas
• Darrell West, Vice President and Director of Governance Studies, Brookings Institution

FinancialStability.gov, the federal government's central clearinghouse for all information related to the bank bailouts, has posted a variety of information in the interest of transparency.

Included are the following:

• A chart of "local impact" – the amount of money impacting each state – which is also offered in XML format
• Bank lending surveys
• All contracts related to the Financial Stability Plan
• A sortable list of all transactions related to the Plan

Caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? It'll make you a better employee, according to a University of Melbourne study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity.

"People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration."

-Study author Brent Coker

Also interesting (but not terribly surprising) is the study's finding that about 70% of workers studied use the internet for leisure purposes while at work.

Read the article here.

Check out the coverage here.

What the paper deals with:

The draft paper ranges in scope from discussing how government employees may interact with the citizenry through Web 2.0 technologies to more technical considerations such as multichannel delivery, interoperability among agencies and how data can be shared with the public. The draft also has a collection of use-cases, including a number that involve social networking technologies.

The abstract for the paper, titled "Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web":

eGovernment refers to the use of the Web or other information technologies by governing bodies (local, state, federal, multi-national) to interact with their citizenry, between departments and divisions, and between governments themselves. Recognizing that governments throughout the World need assistance and guidance in achieving the promises of electronic government through technology and the Web, this document seeks to define and call forth, but not yet solve, the variety of issues and challenges faced by governments. The use cases, documentation, and explanation are focused on the available or needed technical standards but additionally provide context to note and describe the additional challenges and issues which exist before success can be realized.

GCN reported yesterday that GSA has finished Terms of Use Agreements with several Web 2.0 sites, allaying fears of legal repercussions and allowing federal agencies to use the services.

The General Services Administration has signed agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv that make it possible for federal agencies to use new-media tools while meeting their legal requirements, GSA officials announced today.

Under the agreement, agencies can immediately begin using new-media tools that let people post, share, and comment on videos and photos on the Web. Individual agencies must decide which tools their employees may use and how they may use them.

This potentially lifts a big hurdle in the way of agencies being able to use Web 2.0 services online. We've explored this and other issues in our Key Policy Issues and Discussion section.

Check out the coverage here.

Ohio recently announced the Ohio Redistricting Competition, in which residents are invited to submit recommendations for consideration by the Ohio General Assembly in drawing new legislative districts for the state. The project's stated goal is to "demonstrate that an open process based on objective criteria can produce fair legislative districts in Ohio."

The competition will begin on April 6, 2009, and the winners will be announced on May 11, 2009.

Check out GovTech's coverage here.

To commemorate Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last week launched a search tool that allows the public to closely examine thousands of pages of government documents the organization has obtained through litigation and FOIA requests. The documents relate to a wide range of cutting-edge technology issues and government policies that affect civil liberties and personal privacy, according to a release from the organization.

Check out Gov Tech's coverage here.

FCW recently posted a transcript of newly appointed Federal CIO Vivek Kundra's speech at the FOSE conference last week.

Of particular interest were his comments on data openness and the potential for the emerging Data.gov concept:

"Another model - and these are things you can expect to see - is the idea of a Data.gov platform. What I mean by that is we're going to be publishing government data and beginning with a default assumption that information should be available to the people, not with the default assumption that information should not be in the public domain. If you look at what happened when data has been democratized, when data has been put in the public domain, you've had an explosion of innovation."

Also notable is his statement on the need for technology to be integrated into the core of management and mission, a view we obviously espouse:

One, technology for technology's sake is useless. It needs to enable a core mission. The core mission when you look at some of the most complex systems across the federal government, we need to stop dissecting and looking at them as one - again, going back to being so special that no one else can do it. Two, we need to make sure that we're injecting innovations across the country that are happening, and three, we need to look at models that have succeeded so that we're not investing in projects or initiatives that are risky and untried in some ways but balancing that against fundamentally rethinking how the government works.

A lot of time what ends up happening is we have these processes that have been there for hundreds of years, and we're looking for technology, a solution to essentially take us back hundreds of years rather than saying: What innovations have happened and how do we fundamentally change the way the government operates?

A simple example is an explosion in Web 2.0 technologies. We need to re-engineer on the back end - not the technologies but the staff and the teams within agencies to make sure that they're better positioned to take advantage of some of these technologies and drive hard in that direction."

O'Reilly Media, Inc. (whose O'Reilly Radar we frequently cite) and TechWeb, co-producers of the annual Web 2.0 Summit and Web 2.0 Expo events, recently announced the launch of the Gov 2.0 Summit for September 9-10, 2009 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC.

This new event will bring government leaders and innovators of Web 2.0 together to explore how technology can enable transparency, participation, collaboration, and efficiency at all levels of government. The Summit will follow up with Gov 2.0 Expo in 2010.

For more information visit www.gov2summit.com.

Details from the recent press release:

"The success of the Obama campaign in using new media and participatory democracy techniques has set high expectations for the use of those same techniques in governing," said Tim O'Reilly, CEO and founder of O'Reilly Media. "Meanwhile, there is enormous talent on the consumer Internet that can be applied to the problems the government is working so hard to tackle. We can uniquely bring these two elements together, and help the leaders in Washington enable transparent, participatory, and efficient government."

"This event will be a much needed catalyst to start the conversations, create the frameworks, and highlight the successes of this new model," said Eric Faurot, Senior Vice President of TechWeb. "There is now a desire for change that crosses party and function boundaries, and an awareness of the profound changes that Web 2.0 has brought to civic life through the private sector. Gov 2.0 is the mashup of these two possibilities."

A recent ZDNet article discusses the multitude of policy and legal barriers the WhiteHouse.gov team is hitting in trying to duplicate its tech-savvy approaches from campaign season.

It cites a Washington Post story that ran earlier this week that's a worthy read as well.

Of note, particularly for us at the Collaboration Project, is a quote in the WP article about the proper place for public comment in the lawmaking process:

"A lot more questions need to be addressed: Where do you insert the public comment portion in a bill? Do you start five days before the president signs it? Or do you start the moment Congress passes it?" asked Andrew Rasiej, founder of the political-tech site Personal Democracy Forum. He served as an adviser to the Obama transition's technology, innovation and government reform group. "As of right now, the comment section is like a black hole. Of course it's not enough by the standards of the Internet as we know it today."

In response to the President's now famous "Transparency Memo", which directs government to be more transparent, participatory, and collaborative, the Sunlight Foundation has launched a platform called "OOGL" (Our Open Government List) that enables the online community to vote on different proposals that they believe should be including in the subsequent Open Government Directive.

Sunlight's description of the project:

Shortly after President Obama's inauguration, he issued a memo on transparency directing his top officials to develop plans for an Open Government Directive to promote transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Sunlight Foundation has created this page in order to add a public element to the crafting of this Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

We encourage you to submit ideas for what the Directive should address, and to vote for your favorite submissions below.

Check out OOGL here.

The Washington Post runs an article today about the White House's New Media Team and its difficulty adjusting to the decidedly old-media IT environment of the People's House:

The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government. WhiteHouse.gov, envisioned as the primary vehicle for President Obama to communicate with the online masses, has been overwhelmed by challenges that staffers did not foresee and technological problems they have yet to solve.

Obama, for example, would like to send out mass e-mail updates on presidential initiatives, but the White House does not have the technology in place to do so. The same goes for text messaging, another campaign staple.

Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out involving the collection of cellphone numbers, according to Obama aides, who acknowledge being caught off guard by the strictures of government bureaucracy.

One hurdle, though, seems cleared. For a while, the Obama team has been struggling with YouTube's use of persistent cookies – a general no-no on government websites. Today, C|Net reports that Team O is ditching YouTube altogether for a less cookie-intensive format called Akamai.

With the release of the latest weekly video address, the White House has shifted to a Flash-based video solution using Akamai's content delivery network.

The White House's decision to move away from the Google-owned video-sharing site will likely be met with praise by privacy activists and could mark the beginning of a real backlash in response to Google's insatiable thirst for detailed data on the browsing habits of Web surfers.

Ironically, the decision by the White House comes days after YouTube began to roll out new policies to better protect the privacy of visitors who view videos embedded into federal government Web sites. The move by YouTube may prove to be too little, too late.

The most interesting thing here is that, for the first time in a while, government's needs may be a real market mover in the field of third-party Web 2.0 services.

A recent Newsweek article advocated that federal agencies should open their raw data for public usage and "then get out of the way to let the best outside talent reimagine how it can be used online."

It's a similar to thread to what our very own Frank DiGiammarino spoke about in the Federal Times.

Read the article.

The Collaboration Project is hosting a discussion on several critical issues facing widespread government adoption of Web 2.0 tools in the new administration.

Featured for each of the below cases are background information, resources the Collaboration Project has gathered, and questions for discussion:

• Paperwork Reduction Act Compliance

• Privacy and Persistent Cookies on Federal Websites

• Section 508 (Disability Access) Compliance

• Commercial Endorsement and Advertising

• Free Third-Party Software and Federal Use of Web 2.0 Services

• Terms of Service

• Computer Security

• Use of Web 2.0 by Federal Agency Employees

Join the discussion here.

Our friend Chris Dorobek recently penned a great opinion for GovTech on the administration's promise of transparency and collaboration and the obstacles in the way.

Read the full article.

On Wednesday, Federal News Radio's Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris interviewed Lena Trudeau, Program Area Director at the National Academy, about the just-released final report on the National Dialogue on Health IT & Privacy.

Lena discussed some of the lessons learned from the project for both health IT and privacy experts and those interested in continuing to broaden government's efforts at civic engagement.

Listen to the interview.

The results of the Dialogue were then reviewed by a Panel of Fellows of the National Academy of Public Administration. We are pleased to share their final report with you; it contains not only the findings and recommendations of the Panel, but also a valuable set of lessons learned throughout the process. To view or download the full report, please head to http://www.scribd.com/doc/12345523/A-National-Dialogue-on-Health-IT.

Hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration, and sponsored by the Office of Management and Budget, General Services Administration, and Federal Chief Information Officers Council, the National Dialogue represents a critical, proactive effort by government to engage interested stakeholders and serves as a model for government organizations seeking to be more transparent, participatory and collaborative.

Ideas and discussion remain accessible at http://www.thenationaldialogue.org/healthit.

The Collaboration Project's latest paper, Enabling Collaboration: Three Priorities for the New Administration, is generating plenty of buzz across the web:

The Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller says:

The academy sees three challenges that are inhibiting a truly collaborative federal government: an outdated 20th Century approach to technology where each agency has their own rigid IT environment; an inability to relate data to information, and information to decision making; and a bureaucratic culture where strong incentives exist to protect institutions as opposed to allowing cooperation and innovation. The NAPA has issued a paper, "Enabling Collaboration: Three Priorities for the New Administration," which encourages the new administration to meet these challenges head on. They outline a collaborative model that brings citizens' ideas and priorities into the process of decision making and governing.

Gwynne Kostin says:

This is a smart and juicy paper that bears more than one post...We have a government with hundreds (or hundreds of thousands) of applications that don't talk to each other run by people who don't talk to each other. Definitely sounds like there is room for improvement.

FedBlog's Alyssa Rosenberg says:

After our big IT debate of mid-January I thought it was refreshing to see a group take a step back into that 30,000 foot zone and look not at code, not necessarily at where information should be located on a page, but to do some writing about what technology should be designed to accomplish. I think it's easy to forget about asking those forward-thinking questions when we can't find some information we want (I know I've gone round and round looking for reports, or contact information, for example). But that's different from deciding what we think federal IT should do in the future as to opposed to what we're frustrated it can't do now.

Chris Dorobek of Federal News Radio says:

(The report) is definitely worth some time...The one I particularly love is treating data as a national asset.

One of the paper's authors, Academy Vice President Frank DiGiammarino, will be appearing with Chris on Federal News Radio 1500 AM's Daily Debrief Tuesday, February 10th – don't miss it!

Federal Computer Week's Mary Mosquera dedicates a full article to the paper's call for renewed technology leadership in government:

Agencies need to change their traditional approach of owning and maintaining their own IT systems. Instead, they should acquire IT as a service. Agencies should turn their massive amounts of raw data into usable information that can be shared with others and used to support decisions. They also should change laws and policies that keep employees from using collaborative and social media tools, the report states.

Meanwhile, some pockets of agency employees use collaborative and social media tools and communication approaches, according to the report, which comes from NAPA's Collaboration Project Advisory Panel.

"Bold program and project staffers should continue to move out and experiment and embrace these tools as new ways of doing the business of government," the report states.

Read the full article.

UPDATE: Dr. Ramon Barquin, of the business intelligence forum BeyeNETWORK says:

There have been many recommendations that have been offered to the new Administration over the last few months, but one of the most relevant and coherent was a paper published by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) under the title, Enabling Collaboration: Three Priorities for the New Administration.

...

In all, this should be a very valuable and useful document for Barack Obama and his team.

View the full article.

Big news for the federal IT community: According to nextgov as well as a host of other sources, Washington D.C.'s Chief Technology Officer, Vivek Kundra, has been named President Obama's Administrator for E-Government and Information Technology at the Office of Management and Budget.

Kundra, who has deployed advanced applications to improve the performance of public services during his nearly two years as CTO for the District, will replace Karen Evans as administrator for e-government and information technology in the Office of Management and Budget. (Indeed, we've chronicled one such project of Vivek's, the Citywide Data Warehouse, right here on the Collaboration Project.) The position effectively serves as the federal government's chief information officer. The administration could announce Kundra's appointment as soon as Thursday.

Kundra, who is well-known in D.C. and beyond for his innovative approach to deploying social media and managing IT investment.

Even before this appointment, Kundra had been involved with President Obama's transition team, advising its Technology, Innovation and Government Reform group – known affectionately as "the TIGR team" – on technology and innovation issues. Watch him in action here:

We applaud this appointment and wish Vivek the best in this exciting new role!

Read the full report.

Read the coverage here.

While Recovery.gov will rely on an "oversight board" to post updates, Stimulus Watch seeks to crowdsource the task of monitoring stimulus spending on "shovel ready" local projects that have been offered up as potential recipients of federal grants. Each recipient will get a user-edited wiki page describing the state of the project in neutral terms, while discussion pages and a voting system will let visitors weigh in on the worthiness of the endeavor—ideally self-selecting for either geographical proximity or relevant specialized knowledge.

For more information, read coverage here and check out Stimulus Watch.

Read the full article here.

Read the full article here.

The influential Power of Information task force, the group working within the UK Cabinet Office to suggest better ways of using Government Information, has published their interim report back to government in a "wiki-like" form to allow comments from the community before final publication.

The task force was charged with advising and assisting the British Government with delivering benefit to the public from new developments in digital media and the use of citizen- and state-generated information in the UK. The report addresses the following issues:

• How government can further catalyze more beneficial creation and sharing of knowledge, and mutual support, between citizens
• What more can and should be done to improve the way government and its agencies publish and share non personal information
• Are there any further notable information opportunities or shortfalls in sectors outside government that those sectors could work to rectify?

Check out Google Geospatial Technologist Ed Parsons' blog about the report here.

The parent company of our partner Delib was recently featured in the Washington Post for creating an embeddable widget called aMap that lets you make a diagram of any argument with supporting logic in an interactive mindmap.

Read the article here.

Read the article here.

Read the full article here.

Read the full article here.

Check out the Future of Privacy Forum agenda here.

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project released a new data memo titled Adults and Social Network Websites that looks at how adults use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. The study reports that the share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years – from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.

Read press coverage here.
Check out the Pew report itself here.

Read the article here.

Read the article here.

Check out coverage here and video of the launch here.

ReadWriteWeb

View the article and comments here.

View the document here.

Iampublicservice.org, a website launched in 2008 by several friends of the Collaboration Project (Andy Krzmarzick, Steve Mandzik, and Steve Ressler) is seeking to bolster the image of public servants by allowing people who work in government to share their stories. The stories will be collected on January 12, 2009, and the most inspiring ones will be compiled into a book to be released around Inauguration.

Read more about the initiative on the Washington Post.

Read the blog post here.

Read the full article here.

Issues regarding government's legal and policy obstacles to using Web 2.0 are beginning to pop up in more mainstream blogs. For example, Matthew Yglesias, a Fellow at the Center for American Progress, recently blogged about the "all rights reserved" copywright on photos on the Obama-Biden Transition Team's Flickr account.

Read the full article here.

The City of Tigard, outside Portland, OR, recently launched an enterprise-wide GIS system intended to foster collaboration across city agencies and with the public. The 24-month project has resulted in a centralized corporate geodatabase environment with a suite of desktop and Web applications integrated with the city's key business systems.

Read the full article here.

Google recently opened an office in Reston, VA, which will be home to 30 full time Google employees. The company says the new proximity to Washington, DC, shows its commitment to the federal government. Read more here.

Of the services Google will be offering ten Cabinet agencies will be a piece of hardware that provides Google search technology securely on an internal network. The story was recently covered on WAMU radio (listen here – uses Windows Media Player).

Read the full article here.

Check out the glossary here.

In a follow-up to yesterday's new item about State Department 2.0--the department has just launched a social networking site called ExchangesConnect. Managed by State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,this new Web 2.0 aims to promote international exchanges and enhance the United Staes' image abroad.

Watch a video of the session below or visit the New America Foundation.

Read the full article here.

BearingPoint recently launched GovTwit, a directory of Twitter accounts and blogs of various players in the government space, including state and local, federal, contractors, reporters, academics and more. The list is continuously updated and open to public submissions.

Visit GovTwit here.

A recent report from Forrester/Bull revealed that businesses are using open source components in all enterprises, without even asking their customers, changing significantly from a complete commercial build to a mixed orchestration of open source and commercially licensed software.

Read the full article.

Facing widespread methamphetamine production from drug store products, the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC) recently created a real-time statewide electronic logbook for all pharmacies to reduce and ultimately eliminate meth manufacturing.

Read the full article.

On November 24th the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Global Development Commons. This new site profiles successful uses of new technology in international development, and also serves as an aggregated source of the latest news on interactive development initiatives. Equally as important, Global Development Commons strives to foster increased collaboration among development practitioners by offering several social networking features including an interactive space for users to comment on featured projects and suggest other 2.0 best practices.

During the recent military conflict between Russia and Georgia, the Defense Department set up wikis to monitor the situation and to coordinate a possible response.According to Vice Admiral Nancy Brown, these Web 2.0 tools proved effective in streamlining communication efforts and significantly reducing email traffic. Brown is now convinced that DOD must embrace other social media tools such as Facebook.

Last week the public-sector research team at Deloitte posted an interesting article, Government 2.0's Inauguration, that outlined four principles embodied by Obama's campaign which can be used across government to help strengthen public service.

1. Get the Web 2.0 culture equation right
The Obama campaign successfully leveraged Web 2.0 to develop thousands of grassroots networks, but after providing the tools and direction volunteers needed, the campaign wisely got out of the way.

2. Tap into the collective IQ
When Obama began formulating his healthcare plan, he started from the premise that he and his team of advisors, weren't going to be able to come up with all the best ideas. Instead he appealed to his supporters for their ideas on how to fix the system and used those ideas in developing his proposal.

3. Outsource work to the crowds
The additional bandwidth provided by tens of thousands of "supervolunteers" allowed Obama to do what no national campaign had previously imagined possible: conduct retail politics in dozens of states-simultaneously.

4. Reboot the public square

Read the full article here.

Read the full article here.

Read the full article here..

Winners were recently announced for Apps for Democracy, a contest to develop new software applications to make the government's data more accessible and useful for the general public and the government. The contest was sponsored by the Government of the District of Columbia, iStrategyLabs, Mashable, and Black Turtle Media.

Check out the winners here.

The U.S. military has launched a video-sharing website called TroopTube intended to help connect service men and women and their families and supporters. A year and a half after restricting access to YouTube, the new site enables users to register as members of one of the branches of the armed forces, family, civilian Defense Department employees or supporters, upload personal videos, and respond to others' videos.

Read the full article on Wired here.

New York Governor David A. Paterson today announced the release of a new Web site, ReduceNYSpending.gov, that will lead the public in a discussion about how to control unsustainable growth in the size of New York's budget. The site features news updates, videos, and an interactive "Speak Out" section that enables users to submit their ideas and their very own budget proposals to the governor through a "budget calculator".

Read the full article on GovTech here

Read the full article here

Tech guru Tim O'Reilly delivered the keynote address at a recent conference of Web 2.0 industry members, telling them that that Web 2.0 will reinvent government if innovation focuses on changing the world by designing applications that will help solve food shortages, global warming or other problems, rather than on more "sophomoric" uses as as are seen on social media sites.

Read the full article here

Materials from our last public meeting with Dr. Bob Neilson on Army Knowledge Management are posted on the Content section of this page. We'll soon post meeting notes, video, and photos. Stay tuned!

National Academy Fellows Mark Abramson and Alan Balutis believe that folks in government at all levels are an excellent source of innovative ideas – a hypothesis borne out by innovative experiments such as TSA IdeaFactory.

To this end, they have used the popular social community builder Ning to launch New Ideas For Government, a site that solicits ideas from across government and enables discussion and refinement of these ideas. The site already has contributions from some well-known names in the federal and public administration communities (you'll have to visit to see who!), and is definitely a site to keep an eye on.

Gartner, Inc. recently released a report that argues that social networks, booming in usage, may come to complement and possibly replace some government functions. The firm says that such phenomena as budget cuts and growing complexity of issues will force government to adopt new social technologies.

View the full article here.

The U.S. Air Force is in the process of creating an online virtual platform called MyBase, similar to Second Life, intended to let students and instructors interact through avatars in simulated training classrooms. The initiative is part of USAF's vision for learning transformation, a white paper released in February 2008 centering on appealing to the millennial generation and encouraging lifelong learning.

Read the full post from Federal Computer Week here

This Election Day, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson will be sending messages and monitoring the election using such social media platforms as Facebook and Twitter.

Read the full article here.

David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States and current president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, recently outlined ways collaborative technology could be involved in discussing ways to achieve fiscal sustainability. One of his suggestions is to engage citizens in national dialogues to solve the country's most pressing fiscal stresses.

Read the full article here.

A new report issued by FaceTime concerning the growth and impact of collaborative technologies finds that the costs associated with repairing malware attacks and corporate data leaks have risen along with employee usage of Web 2.0 in the workplace. The specific costs of these incidents are estimated at more than $125,000 per month across the private sector.

Steve Ressler, the co-founder of Young Government Leaders and creator of GovLoop (which the Collaboration Project features as a Case Study), was recently interviewed by Government Technology on the success of GovLoop and how best government can leverage collaborative tools.

Read the full article here.

The government of Roanoke County, Virginia, recently launched two initiatives to share Web 2.0 best practices for local governments: a discussion group entirely on Second Life, and MuniGov 2.0, a wiki site through Google.

Roanoke's initiatives were recently featured in an article in Government Technology.

The Defense Department http://www.defenselink.mil/ is exploring a variety of Web 2.0 tools as a means to enhance information sharing and collaboration among employees. On October 1 the agency launched a new wiki, DOD Techipedia, to provide a common information repository for agency scientists, engineers, acquisition workers and military service members. Also, Navy Chief Information Officer Rob Carey recently issued a memo encouraging the use of interactive web technology in military operations.

Log on now! http://www.thenationaldialogue.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=30905107247
Twitter: http://twitter.com/natldialogue
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/natldialogue

IT research and advisory firm Gartner has warned in a recent article on the British site Vnunet that governments need to step up their commitment to social networks in order to tap into societal resources such as volunteer groups, philanthropists and associations. If it neglects collaborative tools, the firm argues, government will have a harder time connecting services to those in need.

In a recent article in Government Executive, advisers to both presidential campaigns stated that their candidates would support streamlining the regulatory process, including supporting e-rulemaking, in a move to increase transparency and efficiency in government. The American Bar Association also recently released a report during it's Fall 2008 Administrative Law Conference recommending that the new president incorporate technology in making the rulemaking process more efficient and accessible to the public.

A paradigm shift is needed in thinking about government employees' vitual life, argues Dan Lohrmann, the Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Michigan, in a recent article in Government Technology. In this article and his book, Virtual Integrity: Faithfully Navigating the Brave New Web, Lohrmann lays out suggestions for CIOs to help employees develop good online practices, rather than solely focusing on the bad apples.

For more information, Dan Lohrmann's blog can be found here.

Cisco Systems, Inc. and Leadership, Inc. recently teamed up to launch a new site called "New Ideas for Government" that aims to solicit ideas from federal employees and those outside government on how to improve government. The site includes a broad array of topics such as acquisition, the presidential transition, bolstering recruiting and human resources, using technology to best serve the public, and many others. Users can create profiles and post, respond, and rate ideas, spurring a conversation on government's most daunting challenges.

Speaking at a recent conference about knowledge management and business intelligence hosted by the Digital Government Institute, FAA knowledge architect Giora Hader and the National Defense University's Paulette Robinson spoke of the necessity for the Federal government to embrace Web 2.0 technologies. Hader and Robinson cited the social web's capacity to recruit the next generation of public sector employees as a strong incentive to implement these tools in the work place. And they importantly noted that the demand for access to Web 2.0 tools will only increase in the future because "people are social animals and like to be able to collaborate together."

At this week's Web 2.0 Expo, IBM announced the launch of their new Center for Social Software. Although the details are still limited in regards to IBM's intention with the new center, it is likely that this resource will be utilized to assist companies in developing social networking tools on their websites.

Back in July, we had the opportunity to present the case for collaboration to the Department of Energy's Visiting Speaker Program. The Visiting Speaker Program "draws leaders from academia, business, public and private enterprise, and other organizations with interests similar to DOE to present on topics such as organizational theory, the business model of sustainability, resilience in challenging circumstances, and issues of global importance." This great program, sponsored by DOE's Office of Health, Safety and Security, is doing a great service in connecting folks across government who are interested in getting to action and working across organizational boundaries. (Hey, that sounds like us!)

At the program, Frank DiGiammarino, along with National Academy Fellow Jonathan Breul, spoke about the emerging challenges facing government and why it's no longer good enough to work in isolation from partners and peers across government and society. Click here for a downloadable copy of the presentation or here to check out highlights from the session.

In August, the Army introduced a new Knowledge Management Principles document that highlights a new initiative to transform the organization's culture of information sharing. While the Army has traditionally treated institutional knowledge on a 'must-know' basis, this initiative strives to enhance collaborative opportunities across the enterprise.

For more information, check out the new FCW story Army retools knowledge culture.

At the end of July, Defense Department's deputy CIO, Dave Wennergren, announced that the federal Chief Information Officer Council, would create a security committee to devise strategies to provide information assurance in a Web 2.0 environment. Wennergren acknowledged that as agencies implement new collaborative technologies that allow them to share more data, the need to strengthen security safeguards has become increasingly important.

Check out the FCW article for more information.

On the Gartner Blog, Innovating Government, there was recently a thoughtful post by Mark Raskino that warned against the utilization of Web 2.0 purely for the sake of deploying new technology. Instead he argued that there are many instances where Web 1.0 is the more appropriate solution for the relevant government business challenge.

Raskino importantly notes:

Web 2.0 and the "social Internet" are very powerful technologies and ideas that governments should certainly be exploiting. However, in the headlong rush to act, all sorts of stray ideas risk being "caught up in the fishing net." The truth is that most governments have a large backlog of potential high-value projects that could work by simply exposing great information databases to businesses and private citizens the old way.

NAPA fellow Anne Laurent has launched the first in a series of Webcasts on her blog, The Agile Mind, which tell the story of how the National Defense University's Information Resources Management College bought and designed a virtual space on Second Life. This series promises to explore the challenges faced in satisfying federal procurement procedures and the hurdles overcome in getting graphic designers to design a space for a government agency, among other issues.

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released a report on the usage of social media in corporations. This new study compares corporate adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies compiled annually by Inc. Magazine. Importantly, the research shows that 39% of the Inc. 500 are now blogging, compared to only 11.6% of Fortune 500 companies.

Over at FCW.Com, there is an interesting story posted about the online Gustav Information Center. This site provides such resources to affected Gulf Coast residents as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather maps, feeds from numerous bloggers and Twitter subscribers, and a Google Map which displays critical emergency assets.

The Collaboration Project was recently featured in an E-Seminar sponsored by Federal Computer Week, entitled Government 2.0: What Collaboration Means to Agencies. The discussion featured Frank DiGiammarino and Lena Trudeau discussing:

• Emerging trends that challenge government's traditional hierarchical model

• How collaborative technologies enable leaders to overcome government's natural resistance to change and transform their organizations

• Models of how collaborative technologies work in practice, with real-world examples at the federal, state and local levels

Afterwards, Frank and Lena answered a ton of great questions from the listening audience. FCW has kindly archived the entire session, so click here to have a listen.

Over at the Wikinomics blog there is an interesting post about District of Columbia Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra and his recent inititative to release data representing more than 84,000 3D buildings for inclusion in Google Earths' Cities in 3D program. This effort is intended to allow citizens a greater role in discussions about the city's future.

A conference at Netroots Nation 2008 highlights how web 2.0 technology will be transforming politics and how our government operates.

"Transparency, Participation and Reinvention in Government" encompassed the common thread that people want to share information and add to an aggregated pool of information to build momentum and interest through social networks, YouTube, and blogs in campaigns.

In a recent editorial in BusinessWeek, Steven Cody and Sam Ford argue that the current economic challenges facing the U.S. requires government to engage more directly with citizens. For them, Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and podcasts offer a 21st century version of FDR's fireside chats where citizens can be invited into the democratic process in timely and innovative ways.

The actions of republican representative John Culberson from Texas have brought up a heated discussion in the House over what is and isn't allowed when communicating with the public. Culberson regularly posts information on the social networking site Twitter in order to keep his constituents informed, however other representatives have expressed displeasure with Culberson's actions:

"Official content" — like video — that is posted outside the House.gov domain should be clearly marked, should not appear alongside commercial or campaign content and should contain an exit notice for people linking out from the House.gov domain, Capuano recommended.

Read the full article here

Last month researchers at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy released a new study that recommends government administrators abandon their ambitions of developing user-friendly websites, and instead concentrate on providing raw public data in structured formats such as RSS or XML. The authors predict that if the private sector had free access to information such as regulatory decisions, Congressional votes, and campaign finance data, they would quickly overtake the feds in effectively analyzing and presenting the data. Maybe the U.S. should follow the lead of the U.K. and launch an initiative like 'Show Us A Better Way'?

The United Kingdom government has recently launched an interesting competition titled "Show us a Better Way". The UK is challenging their citizens to create data mashups out of public sector information in order to present new ways in which public information can be communicated. Better yet, the winner receives a grand prize of £20,000.

A survey recently released by Meritalk finds that Generation Y prefers to connect with government online in an interactive manner similar to the way they seek out news and other information. The poll was conducted among 2,000 people born between 1977 and 1990. Notable results from this survey include: 88 percent of respondents will obtain their news online during the next four years, 74 percent want more information on government spending and programs, and 85 percent said they want the next president to reach out to the public online at least once a month.

Microsoft has recently released a new applications platform that will help the transition towards E-Government, titled Citizen Services Platform (CSP). It's believed that this platform will make the government more efficient by streamlining the relationship between citizens and their government.

"Government agencies are looking for simpler processes, yet enhanced interactions, for the way they serve their constituents," said Gail Thomas-Flynn, general manager of State and Local Government for Microsoft. "The common framework offered through the Citizen Services Platform enables efficient collaboration and productivity to provide better service, reduce costs and improve management insight."

Read the full article here

Michael Lynch, CEO of enterprise software leader Autonomy Corporation, delivered a warning about the potential pitfalls of Web 2.0 in yesterday's Financial Times editorial, entitled Embracing the friend, taming the beast. Although collaborative technology is often (and correctly) praised for the new communication opportunities that it presents, Lynch delivers an intriguing argument that new interactive platforms are actually a double-edge sword.

According to a new survey of business and government organizations recently released by CDW Corp, more than 40 percent of IT decision makers have launched Web 2.0 technology within their own organizations. However, there is also a strong sense of caution among these leaders: 31 percent worry that Web 2.0 will be used for personal use over work, 28 percent are concerned about information security, and another 27 percent worry about employees wasting time.

To learn more about NASA's World Wind technology go to our Case Study! Or you can learn more about Sea Breeze.

Read our case study on the Peer-to-Patent program or go straight to the One Year Report!

Building upon the notion that nothing's ever perfect, intelligence and Pentagon officials, along with invited guests, recently got together to discuss how to use Intellipedia at a more advanced level. Read about the event – but read our Intellipedia case study first!

An oldie but goodie – check out a Decemeber 2007 article by National Academy President and CEO Jenna Dorn on the role of collaborative technology in revitalizing government:

Today, we at the academy are convinced that collaborative technology
has the potential to transform government in America, to tap into the expertise of people outside the hierarchy of any single
agency or department, to make government more transparent, and to open the door to a broader array of experts focused on solving a particular problem or to citizens who want to contribute to making government work better.

Read the whole thing.

Here's an interesting article about innovative uses of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology in the public health community. If intrigued, head over to the case library to check out more information about Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Frank DiGiammarino and Lena Trudeau joined Jane Norris and Tom Temin at the Federal Office Systems Exposition to discuss the doors that Web 2.0 technologies can open for the public sector.

Listen to audio highlights:

Frank talks about Collaboration and Challenges to Government

Lena drives the Focus on Government Leadership

Lena sees Government Addressing the Problem

Listen to the complete interview

Kip Hawley discusses how the IdeaFactory helped TSA's front-line officers improve their skills on the job.

The TSA Administrator discusses how IdeaFactory postings undergo minimal editing from site monitors.

Hawley says success involves both technology and leadership.

Read the National Academy's Statement for the Record on E Gov 2.0 the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs

The Public Manager

The interactive Web is forcing change across society, and the public sector is no exception. In this feature article, Frank DiGiammarino and Lena Trudeau highlight Virtual Networks, and how they bring together stakeholders and peers to meet the challenges facing government leaders.

Read the full article.